America Rising by Tom Paine Read Free Book Online

they would have discovered the demonstration coincided with the final day of a week-long convention of the Financial Services Association, this year held at an opulent resort on what Palm Beach’s wealthy denizens call “the Island.”
     
    The Collective’s application asked for permission to run a sound system and amplifiers for acoustic guitars, to pass out fliers and bottled water. In the field inquiring about where the demonstration might be promoted or advertised, someone had scribbled “Internet.” That was all. Inexplicably scheduled for a mid-week afternoon, the city estimated it would draw seventy-five, a hundred people max, and detailed a couple of cops to occasionally cruise by. Then they promptly forgot all about it.
     
    The first inkling authorities had that perhaps they had miscalculated was a series of morning traffic reports on local radio and TV stations indicating an unusually heavy flow on I-95, backing up at all West Palm Beach off-ramps. In the month since the permit application was filed a couple of the city’s younger staffers mentioned to their superiors that word of the demonstration was all over the ‘Net—”gone viral,” was the phrase they used—but their concerns were waved away.
     
    Then the calls started coming in. Blocked intersections, fender benders, double and triple parking. Cops on morning commute patrol were quickly marooned in an ocean of stalled vehicles. The city’s entire downtown was in gridlock. People abandoned their cars in the street, got out and began hoofing the blocks, half-mile, mile and more to the demonstration site. In a town where the only acceptable form of walking is taking a few steps to your car, the streets and sidewalks of West Palm Beach resembled Manhattan at the peak of rush hour. Police dispatch and local emergency phone lines were overwhelmed.
     
    “Traffic’s backed up on 95 at all West Palm exits.”
     
    “I’ve been sitting here half an hour and haven’t moved an inch.”
     
    “There are cars and people
everywhere!”
     
    “Sidewalks are jammed; people are running through the street.”
     
    “We need some uniforms out here. Now! And tell them to walk; there’s nothing moving in any direction for as far as I can see.”
     
    “The entire city is shut down.”
     
    “Where are all these people heading?”
     
    “What the fuck is going
on
here?!”
     
    The growing throng converged on West Palm’s Waterfront Park, a pleasant grassy expanse with a small pavilion facing the Intracoastal, within sight of Flagler Memorial Bridge. The organizers watched first with pride, then awe, then terror as a seemingly endless sea of bodies overwhelmed the park and pavilion and then filled surrounding streets and sidewalks. This was not the handful of fringe players The Collective had been expecting but a crowd that was solidly middle class, blue and white collar, with little sympathy for masked anarchists and professional protestors. The dozen or so members of The Collective wanted nothing to do with this new kind of demonstrator; they ducked their heads and fled, leaving their equipment and water and fliers behind.
     
    As time dragged on without direction or encouragement, the crowd’s euphoria in its numbers, its shared purpose began to wane. The day grew hotter. Tempers grew shorter. Nerves frayed. The inevitable jostling and trodding feet and sharp elbows became an irritant, then an affront. One man pushed another, a woman snapped at her mate, a bored teenager tried to steal cigarettes from a shop. The immense crowd’s patience and good will was rapidly draining away.
     
    Police sirens wailed. The mood grew edgier. Rumors spread like ripples on a pond. Police were massing on the Palm Beach side of the Intracoastal and would begin to sweep the area. Blocks would be cordoned off and everyone in them would be arrested. Helicopters would drop tear gas and flash-bang grenades. The National Guard was on its way.
     
    The crowd’s mood was