Get on with the show

This latest chapter in the United for Peace and Justice/ Central Park/ Bloomberg saga makes me insane. Could it make the protest movement look any worse to say, paraphrasing Leslie Cagan, UPJ's national coordinator, "many people, including representatives from other groups, vowed not to attend the rally if it were held at the highway." Are we protesting because it's easy? Because it's on a nice stretch of green? There's certainly an argument to be made that the city is trying to "marginalize dissent" (though I wouldn't be the one to make it), but that shouldn't turn dissenters away, it should make them louder. Any wanna-be protester that wouldn't protest because they don't like the West Side highway has their priorities totally out of order.
I think it's much more likely that UPJ got the sense that people would bail out of the march before it snakes around to the highway. Folks would march up 7th to MSG, and then leave. It is, after all, inconvenient and "sun baked." Undoubtedly there would be more people gathering in the Park. But again, better to do what we can with what we have than to do nothing at all.
The most likely outcome of all this, that they don't get Central Park and don't use the West Side Highway (if the ultimatums are to be believed. And worse than an ultimatum is one that's not honored), suggests UPJ doesn't need or want the extra space, but they don't want to look like they don't need or want it so they get in a pissing match with the city as a way out.
But all the hoopla just takes attention away from the meaning of the march and makes its organizers look like amateurs. The city may be the real assholes in this situation (after all, what is the big deal about the Park?) but that's not how it’s playing. Now it's playing like the organizers made a deal and are backing out of it because they miscalculated their own support.
I don't think they did; this march could be in the middle of the Hudson River and there'd be close to a million people there protesting Dubya. It's time to end the route debate and turn out the crowds.