By Camille T. Taiara

We arrived at our host's Queens apartment at 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 29 – feet blistered, legs tired, everything sweaty from the good 12 hours we spent darting from one demonstration against the Republican National Convention to another. But our spirits were high.

During the Aug. 29 main march, organized by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), perhaps half a million people hit the Manhattan pavement for an event attesting to the broad spectrum of opposition. There were infants and seventysomethings, Kerry supporters and anarchists, satirical pranksters like Billionaires for Bush and everyday workers. A Bay Area group of 40 or 50 mostly working-class activists of color went by the name Siafu, borrowed from vicious African ants capable, through their high degree of organization, of bringing down an elephant, the symbol of the Republican Party. Young Koreans United held a spirited drum session and traditional performance called guk pool yi in front of the convention site at Madison Square Garden, as demonstrators filed by with signs reading, "Ground Zero is not a photo op" and "George W. Bush: Al-Qaeda recruiter of the year."

It took six hours for the last of the marchers to make their way along the two-mile route from Union Square to Madison Square Garden and back.

Of course, this was only the start of the vast number of actions making up the week of anti-RNC demonstrations.

As the convention opened Aug. 30, a broad coalition of community groups working on economic justice embarked on another march to Madison Square Garden. The Aug. 31 schedule included a protest focusing on the thousands of immigrants detained by the U.S. government since Sept. 11, 2001, a "shut-up-athon" targeting Bill O'Reilly and Fox News, and an action by the Man in Black Bloc in front of Sotheby's, where Tennessee delegates were treated to a Johnny Cash tribute.

And if a theme has emerged from the protests, it's one of a refreshing degree of tolerance for political and tactical diversity within the movement – a by-product of the lack of any centralized leadership. Aside from a relatively minor incident in which a few protesters set fire to a papier-mâché dragon, there weren't any militant activities during Sunday's march by the so-called Black Bloc or anyone else, and UFPJ refused to scapegoat any particular protesters.

There's still some cause for disappointment. An unprecedented number of police are on hand for the convention, and the New York Police Department managed to arrest approximately 200 demonstrators on Sunday, charging nine people allegedly involved in the dragon burning with felony assault. Two days earlier the cops arrested 264 of the 5,000 bicyclists who participated in New York's largest Critical Mass ever. Four others face charges for hanging a banner off the side of the Plaza Hotel on Aug. 26.

The National Lawyers Guild says city officials have denied attorneys access to clients, delayed the processing of those arrested for minor infractions, and held others without charges for up to 20 hours. Plus, the Justice Department recently subpoenaed the New York City Indymedia Center's Internet provider for records related to the center's posting of RNC delegate names, as part of an investigation by the Secret Service.

Still, it could have been a lot worse on the streets. As of Monday morning the NYPD hadn't yet resorted to pepper spray or rubber bullets.

We don't know how long this air of tolerance will persist.

But we know that in the few moments it takes the Republicans to saunter from their luxury shuttle buses to the convention doors and theater entryways, they will hear our voices and see our faces. For a few days, we will breach the comfortable distance their wealth normally buys them and we will no longer be invisible.

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