NATO Michigan Avenue protests

 

I had to leave the National Nurses United Rally to get on a conference call with folks from the Truman Project and the German Marshall Fund about how the Chicago NATO summit is when we finally get to figure out whether the war in Afghanistan was a success or not… and what exactly a "success" is. (One interesting point by the GMF's Mark Jacobson: part of the rationale for having NATO in Chicago, instead of D.C. or some Euro capital, was to have it specifically not in a national capital or anything like it to emphasize that it's not just capital cities talking to each other. It's flyover country too. More on that later.)

So that's what's happening, and a subset of the protesters followed me—I mean, not intentionally—from Daley Plaza to Boul Mich, leading the march to Trib Tower. In about the time it took me to finish the interview and get back downstairs, they'd headed towards LaSalle Street and the CBOT (home of Occupy Chicago), and according to lots of folks on Twitter (where I follow the marches while photo-editing), they're off to the Horse in Grant Park. According to one Occupy participant, events are moving from the Occupy "convergence space" to the Horse.

One thing about these protesters: they get around. The Michigan march caused a bit of a traffic jam, but the tourists didn't seem terribly inconvenienced. Off to Grant Park, I think.