US: It was the elderly pair in straw hats who summed up the peaceful defiance of anti-Bush protesters in New York yesterday, writes Conor O'Clery in New York.
Strolling side by side across the Great Lawn in Central Park to protest a ban on a mass rally there, their message was clear. Written on one hat were the words, "George Bush", and on the other, "Go Back to Texas".
Over 250,000 protesters who were banned from the park instead followed a route from W 14th Street past the convention site at Madison Square Garden, and back downtown to Union Square. The massive crowds and the police operation to control the noisy, colourful but largely peaceful march brought the centre of Manhattan to a standstill for most of yesterday afternoon.
Lines of police on horses and motor cycles and helicopters overhead monitored the march which drew Vietnam veterans, union members, ethnic groups, women's organisations, students, professors, actors and anarchists.
One Hispanic man held up a large picture of a marine sergeant and shouted "I pay with my son's life for Bush's lies".
There were some tense moments during the demonstration, which came on the eve of the National Republican Convention which is being held for the first time in New York, especially when a small fire of burning papers on 5th Avenue brought fire engines screaming from three directions.
But Judith Leblanc of the umbrella group, United for Peace and Justice said the relatively small number of arrests testified to the way people came to protest peacefully. Led by filmmaker Michael Moore in red baseball cap and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, the marchers shouted "Go home" as they passed the convention centre where 5,000 Republican delegates will nominate President Bush as their presidential candidate for the next four years.
For several hours Seventh Avenue and the return route on Fifth Avenue were filled with a mass of people bearing placards with messages ranging from "Drop Bush, not Bombs" to "There's a village in Texas that is missing its idiot".
Some wore buttons with slogans such as "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam" or t-shirts stating: "Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution." Among the marchers Irish actor George Heslin, wearing an Ireland t-shirt, said he felt compelled to take part because of the erosion of civil liberties in the four years of the Bush administration.
As a group of Vietnam veterans in wheelchairs and wearing camouflage jackets passed by, one said this was his first anti-war demonstration since the Nixon era in the early 1970s.
An arts administrator, Margie Lempert of Brooklyn said she had come with friends because "I believe very, very vehemetly in the separation of church and state and Bush's vocal support for religion is overwhelming. This is not a theocracy." New York-born Sadia Yunus, one of two young Muslim women in headscarves chanting "Bush lies, people die" said she did not believe President Bush when he said he supported all religions as "he supports injustices against Muslims."
Many marchers from Codepink: Women for Peace, carried banners calling for Mr Bush to get a pink slip, as an unemployment notice is called in the US.
A crowd clustered around when police asked them to remover a 10-foot high pink lingerie slip from the side of Fifth Avenue at 23rd Street.
Organiser Jodie Evans from Los Angeles successfully got them to leave by pointing out that the police and not the exhibit was causing the fuss.
The noisiest group on the march were several dozen Koreans protesting against the Bush administration's failure to support the South Korean "Sunshine policy" towards unity with North Korea.
Sheltering at the side of Fifth Avenue from the hot sun, Maryann Downing said she represented Catholics opposed to the Bush and the war from St Francis Xavier Parish in New York.
Several arrests were made at the corner of 34th St and 5th Avenue when some young people tried to push past police towards Central Park 30 blocks north but they were easily contained.
Deputy Inspector John Codiglia said the demonstration was much more fluid and therefore less tense than the antiwar protest on February 15th 2002. That demonstration was hemmed in by police who were criticised for heavy-handed tactics.
"It's wonderful for me as a professional to see democracy at work whether I agree or not. It's one thing to yell at TV it's another thing to come out and walk. It's a good thing." Stewards at the march successfully urged people to disperse when they reached Union Square.
Many made their way to Central Park to have a protest picnic on the Great Lawn with dozens of semi-naked sun bathers. A number lined up to form a giant, "NO" on the grass. Police did not interfere.
Several more demonstrations are planned during the convention.