look at what's happening in the demonstrations against the question of whether to invade iraq and you can see how demonstrations can be very driven by immediate policy needs and policy questions and i don't think it's -- indeed the complaints that i hear on radio for people critical of them is, oh, they're not coherent. these are people -- there are many people marching next to each other who do not agree on other issues. they do not just feel like they're all with their brothers and sisters. and yet they feel a common political mission on this issue. and that strikes me as still the possible forum for whether it leads to direct change of prush's policy, i would still say no. it's not likely. but it has obviously changed other people's policies. and not just our marches, but other marches as well. so i am inspiring. let me go to you.

>> any thoughts about the recent marches on the world bank that aren't necessarily government but they're political and the police -- they police the action of the police towards the protesters and how that changes the image of washington? >> um, yeah, that is a -- that is one of the things that i would argue that partly because in washington i think particularly there has been this creation of a tradition of marching on washington that much more depends on the notion that there's a large, peaceful march that when people do plan these more disruptive charges, there is almost in some ways more leeway for the washington police or is it the park police depending on the area to crack down harder. even in some cases it's not within the bounds of legal

process, i understand there's litigation still going on about the 2000 world bank protests here. but it still seems like there's a fair amount of sort of general support for that notion that that's not the right way to protest in washington. smaller groups -- i mean what i call ridge wall disobedience when you're not really intent on disrupting. where you go and you sit in front of the white house and you know if you sit there for 20 minutes, the police will come up to you and arrest you. that, i think, is perfectly within the bounds of what washington police know firmly how to handle, they negotiate with you, they figure it out. some people decide not to give their names. but the disruptive protests are clearly something that they don't want and they're willing to do a lot to stop from preemptive search warrants to declaration of the court in areas which they would not do

for other demonstrations. and in a way i do believe that's something that the washington police have more a right not to -- i'm not saying this is necessarily a positive thing, i'm saying it is an observational thing because of the tradition of a different kind of protest in the city -- that kind of a delineation is more possible here than in other cities where there isn't so firm as like this is a custom that people use all the time. so now this violates that custom. when you go to geneva or you go to an obscure city in switzerland, they also have protests, people there don't say this shouldn't happen here because there's a different way to approach this thing that is legitimate and powerful here. they can say, oh, maybe that's what you have to do to stop -- as you see them as the big guys, that's what you've got to do. it's an interesting problem for me. obviously i'm concerned when they're clearly violating our

civil liberties. but on the other hand, i'm -- i personally went through my little stage of thinking, oh, it was ever so wonderful to be as irritating as possible as a protester and have moved beyond that stage so perhaps i look at some of them and say, you know, stop being so irritating because i think, you know, i understand -- i've talked to police officers, it's irritating. you carry your 15th person to a police van, you're getting tired. and i have some is think for that, that's a real thing. yes? yes, sir? >> two questions -- one is your book tour, when you give your presentation to other parts of the country, less sophisticated parts of the country, do you get appreciation for the protests in washington. is it sympathetic, do they think it's crazy. do they think you're un-american? that's question number one. the other quay is -- you barely touched on it, but the role of

the media in this whole process, when they become more what cey or whether you have to become more dramatic to get their attention, their tendency to undercount or overcount in reaction to things? >> my sense is, you know, i'm not such a world traveler as you might like to imagine of me. but my sense is that people pretty generally have an image of a kind of march on washington that they think is just fine. they may not think it's politically relevant to them. they may not think it's inspiring, but a large assemblage of people on the mall in washington so kay. when people who were outraged by the anti-war protests were calling me up and were challenged, not by me because i'm not quite the type, but by hosts on radio shows and were

like, oh, are you saying they shouldn't march? oh, no, i'm not saying that. i'm saying they're feeding saddam hussein's support and cause by watching. on that case i think it's not -- it's not just something washitonians have come to tolerate because what choice do you have or i think it's more wide spread than that. partly because there are so many diverse group that is have marched on washington. i couldn't know it. but i think sort of a lot of people know someone that has marched on washington. they think that person is ok so it can't be all crazy. the question of the media, i think, that they are an incredibly influential part of how marches on washington have been perceived through time.

the army would not be there except for the media decided to cover it and it fits with media conventions of the time. they liked that time because of the nature of reporting and the difficulties of getting stories to have serial stories. they would carry coverage of a story over days, days days. the trial coverage of someone who had an affair accompanied the watch across washington in newspaper. it went on and on in a detail that we would never imagine in this the age in which you get one day and then you're done. ok, like, that's it. that fit. it created -- it inspired others. there was all of this reporting dr the army that started out with 200 people got 500 people to join it and was inspiring people all over the united states to join the march.

there's season -- they were seizing trains in oregon to get to washington by may 1. so an immediate yeah can help a march immensely. during the 1963 march, one of the things i noted in contrast today is how much they covered not just the march but the organizing. there was a report from what they were thinking about, the strategy. and that makes a big difference in us understanding instead of the event that is are popping up or disappearing, you don't get a sense of what are the controversies, the issue that is people are grappling with, that has tended to disappear. and i think that's partly because television has a much better tense of the medium. i mean they covered the march on washington in 1963 live. at least one network did. now, maybe cable will change the world. the million man march got live coverage because of that,

because there's enough network to cover -- not everybody can watch it and mostly you're going to end up with very, very short reports that in my mind tend to reduce marmings to how many people showed up, as if that's the only criteria for whether something is politically relevant. that, i find is too dismissive. that's the power of marching. in the back, you've been very patient. >> are you -- [inaudible] going back to vietnam -- [inaudible] early on you could get very close to very important buildings, right up to the white house steps. but in this mentality that's developed in washington, we're not allowed to get close to those buildings anymore. are you concerned that it will be pushed further and further away until the march will become irrelevant? >> i am concerned. i think there's two sides of it

to me -- one thing is that there was a real strategy on the part of both 1941 march organizers and the 1963 organizers to see the value of using the space like the mall and being somewhat separated from both congress and the white house as a way of placing yourself in an independent almost creating, you know, a third branch, you know, i know there are so many branches of government now, we don't know which term. but here we are, we're over here and we're speaking to both of you so they that they sort of moved away from the notion of getting up close, which was very important to early protesters and came back again. i mean that was clearly key to anti-war protesters and later protesters. so i think, you know, you can reimagine them and say it doesn't matter so much. and i think the tendency now for there to be more and more protests in different locations

tat same time, which is a testimony to march -- to the resources in different scales of organizers today makes it somewhat different. but it still does -- it's kind of -- it's just not -- when it's not completely believable to me, i mean i have heard all of the -- i mean, you know, i would love to go back and talk to some of the people i've talked to, the park police and the department of interior and so forth, but it just -- it's not to me a scenario that like has viability, especially when you do a special arrangement because of a protest. i mean, you know, my understanding with the code pink protest is they were not allowed in areas that are generally open to people. and which they were going to use in ways that are standard procedure and that they crack down on them because they were

a demonstration. now that seems to me wrong. they're not that different and i don't think they're going to be carry ago bomb and going to be detonating something. if they were, they would be in a different security in location. that could happen in many places. indeed t first orders right after september 11, what they focused on, they did -- they quoted that as a threat. and when they closed lafayette park and stuff like that. then they lifted it. i've got to say they thought that was reasonable. they did say, no, they seemed to come somewhat to their senses. but as they built these fences, it's amazing to me, you know, the boundaries are getting wider and wider. and this is in light of new rulings from the court. the supreme court just ruled in 2002 that the sidewalks of the capitol were a public forum.

and protected by the rights of the people to use them because tourists regularly walk on them. now this point is somewhat, you know, because of the construction right now, they aren't open to the public. but they aren't to my knowledge they weren't originally going to be closed to the public. but if they are, there is the court -- they have that space, time, place, ruling legitimacy. people need to pressure, you know, this is a serious threat. i work in a building that we now have new security provisions and, you know, it's not -- they aren't sensible because of what people did it was a particular moment and hopefully at some point people will be able to get back and say what do we really need if there's a real threat here? and i just don't see from my

perspective, i don't see it. i just got asked the other night by someone who teaches riot control and demonstrations whether or not i'd come in and talk to his class, would i come in and talk to his class and somewhat. i said, yes, sir, i would love to. i want to learn that part. i read those manuals from all the different periods of time to see what people were thinking, how do you control crowds. that was a fascinating lesson. i want to talk to them because that's part of being educated as a scholar and a citizen to understand what their thought process is on these issues so i can be more responsive but also express my opinion intelligently. so that's what i hope for. i'm afraid i have one more question. hi --

>> i would like to know -- in studying in washington, d.c., do you see the relationship in the -- [inaudible] -- very open to -- [inaudible] -- moving away and the type of demonstration that comes through washington, d.c. do you believe that it's what political scientists believe, that -- [inaudible] -- closing down that that may lead to new kinds of protests going back to the 1960's where you have distribution, unimagining the civil rights movement -- [inaudible] >> i most certainly think that when there's gross disparities

in the treatment of different types of citizens that then there's protests. that's one of the uses of washington and the continuing use of washington because it's such a potent claim for citizenship, that's one reason to use it. in terms of dramatic shifts in the political terrain, you know, i mean -- i might be speaking flassfamy, but to me in comparison to other nations, the united states has not had such dramatic changes even in the last century during which this tradition was developed. i think that the 1960's it was not so much of a closing down of a system but of a sense that

there was such a desperate need to highlight causes that people turn to radical tactics. nixon had many thoughts. i'm not saying he was -- you know, but he was not the whole political system. there was the opportunity to testify. there were movements in congress, there were still vote, there were many other things. i think it was the spirit of the time between the civil rights movement and the anti-vietnam war movement that made people after working so hard on so many issues and try sog many things and seeing things that didn't change they were like, we're going to try other things. clearly in places which have more extremely authorityive government, you have a variety of techniques in which people turn to protests. you can have everything from, you know, the mothers in argentina who turn to just the

silent witness almost as a way to highlight the disparity between their suffering and what the government was willing to do. in other places you can have violent uprising in which people tried to overthrow the state by force. in america we haven't had huge shifts. we've had subtle changes in democratic governments but to me they're not so extreme to change the whole method. what has changed is the legal environment, the acceptance of different forms of political participation over time and it led to more wider variety of protests. the supreme court ruling since the 1930's have established the notion of a public forum that before that the first amendment was not interpreted that way. that has helped change.

that's not because the supreme court saw the light, it's because people took to the streets. [applause]