NEW YORK CITY  "That was the largest protest I've seen in this city," said the man, as he refueled in a deli. "I'd say there were at least 400,000 people. The line of people went on for miles. It was a lot bigger than anyone expected."

The man was not a protester or an organizer, who are sometimes accused of inflating demonstration numbers. He was a police officer, conversing without riot gear with supposedly "enemy" protesters participating in by far the largest demonstration at a national party convention in U.S. history.

That was just one more example of how this historic protest defied expectations and myths.

Even First Stepford Wife Laura Bush awoke from her coma long enough to denounce protesters as "anarchists" planning to disrupt the Grand Oil Party convention.

In the end, we had to come. We had to show the Republicans and the world that we weren't going to be intimidated by their threats, by their lies, by their smug cynicism. We had to stand up for real liberty and justice for all, not the fake, only-for-the-wealthy kind supported by most Republicans. We sensed, though could not fully know, the risks that came with walking into this valley of darkness, into an army of 10,000 baton-clad police, some holding machine guns, as government snipers targeted us from buildings and helicopters and Republican infiltrators planned dirty, provocative deeds during the sweltering heat that caused tempers to shorten even more.

I didn't make up my mind to confront those risks and participate in the Aug. 29 NYC march until Aug. 28. I was driving my four-year-old son and nearly two-year-old daughter into Washington, D.C., to visit the White House, a park and a Hoop-it-up basketball tournament. Somewhere among the Washington Monument and other magnificent public structures, I realized I had to answer this call. Our country was founded on protest, on people taking risks against leaders they thought were unjust and unfit to lead.

I knew about the West Virginia man recently fired from his job for simply shouting out some questions during a Bush rally. I didn't want to lose my job over this, but I also didn't want to lose something more priceless. I didn't want my kids someday down the road to look back at these dark years and ask me what I did to try to make the situation better, and have to admit that I chose to let fear win and remain on the sidelines during the largest demonstration in our country's history at a national party convention. I didn't want to have to admit that when I had the chance, I passed on my best opportunity to make a statement against the criminal Bush administration.

At Lafayette Park across the street from the White House, I took some photos of my kids in front of the house, holding a bumper sticker that read, "Clinton lied about sex. Bush lies about everything." My son helped confirm my decision by staging an impromptu demonstration, innocently mooning Bush and others in that house as he urinated on those grounds. He did this as my head was turned, speaking to Concepcion, an activist who had stood up to Bush and other presidents with an anti-nuclear vigil in that park since 1981. I half-heartedly told my son not to do that again, secretly noting that Bush pissed on the Constitution and mooned people's rights every day. So while he didn't realize it, my son's action was fitting, if not socially appropriate. If he could make such a statement right in full view of White House police, how could I not get on the bus?

So like at least 500,000 of my fellow Americans, I chose to stand up. I chose to take the heat and confront the risks.

Like Mary, a D.C. grandmother who made the nine-hour, round-trip bus ride organized by the D.C. Anti-War Network with me and scores of others, said, "All the threats against us about not participating made me want to participate that much more."

I got on the bus, aided by a cousin, Mike, a building contractor, radio station owner and activist who had participated in more protests than me, dating to the Vietnam War era. There, I met other veteran activists like Mary and Kevin, a nuclear waste specialist who carried one of many thought-provoking, clever signs we would see that day. Kevin's sign asked, "Is it fascism yet?" Then, it gave the dictionary's definition of fascism. On the other side, the sign featured photos of Bush and read, "The emperor has no clothes."

After riding the bus, the Staten Island ferry and the subway, we emerged on 7th Avenue, unprepared for the literally more than a mile of people who came here from as far away as California, marching, holding signs, chanting, "Four more months!" There were rows of flag-draped coffins signifying the Iraqi war dead and picturesque floats, including a large pink elephant. There was a shirtless boxer in red-white-and-blue trunks taking shots at a punching bag containing Bush's face.

There were families with kids, including a Virginia Republican who rode the bus with us and her teen-age children. There were mothers carrying young babies and pushing them in carriages. There were young people with nose earrings and grandparents with nose hair. There were people dressed up and people dressed down. One wore a nice, sweat-soaked shirt and tie as he donned a Cheney mask and danced to a jazzy drumbeat.

There were people of all races and backgrounds, joined with a purpose, a controlled rage, to show Bush the door. This was the face of America, not the phony dog-and-pony show going on inside Madison Square Garden. This was not a protest dominated by anarchists and hippies, despite what Republicans like Laura Bush said.

Many signs were more-than-creative. Billionaires for Bush, a satirical group whose female members wore cocktail dresses and silk gloves and male members donned tuxes and top hats, waved signs saying, "4 More Wars," "It's a Class War - and We're Winning" and "Swift Yacht Veterans for Bush." Others asked, "How do you ask a soldier to be the last person to die for a lie?", "If you think voting doesn't matter, then why did Republicans try so hard to prevent black Americans from voting?" and "What would Jesus bomb?" Others stated, "Drop Bush, Not Bombs" and "Keep America safe. Use duct tape."

A huge sign on a building proclaimed, "Save America. Defeat Bush."

Among such theatrics, I barely noticed the hundreds of police officers in riot gear lining the sidewalks and SWAT vans. The loud helicopters and Fuji Film spy blimp that flew overhead were hard to ignore, and I caught myself glancing up at skyscrapers, searching for snipers. But all I saw there were people enjoying the procession like a festive parade.

At Madison Square Garden, where the machine gun-holding officers stood, we arrived just after someone burned a large dragon puppet and saw the fire engines. Several posts to Indymedia.org, which put the demonstration's numbers at more than 500,000 people, said the fire could have been set by provocateurs.

One witness who watched from the second story of a pizza restaurant as the incident occurred wrote, "We saw what looked like more than 20 people dressed in black, with masked faces and carrying black and red umbrellas. They were an unusually large group for how a Black Bloc usually works. We noticed the group huddling together, and one of them rushed over to the dragon and threw something in that obviously lit the thing. It went ablaze very quickly, it had to have been a gasoline fire. Even the glass window of the pizza place was getting hot.

"The cops didn't seem to do what they otherwise do to ensure that protestors don't get out of hand.' There were no arrests, or even serious chases or attempts to catch these people as far as we observed. And the most interesting part is that this happened right next to Madison Square Garden, right in front of the big ass Fox News sign, right in the center of all the corporate news videocameras. I don't believe those young kids' that we call anarchists would willfully set fire on a [Don't Just Vote'] float carried by fellow protesters. 2 words: PROVOCATEUR and COINTELPRO."

Another wrote, "For the record, the ones arrested were not the ones who set the puppet on fire, but they had been standing nearby when it happened. As my friend explained, no one there knew them and suspected they were undercover officers with some kind of color-coded wrist band police use to identify their own so they won't arrest them."

Still another who knew the people who built the dragon said it wasn't done by those creators, but the act "was likely a planned action, on the part of activists who felt little obligation to solicit the consent of the people around them, despite the seriousness of the act." Another added that an undercover officer could have done it and that "we can't jump to conclusions that it was genuine protesters who did it."

Anyways, we were allowed to proceed, although many people stopped in front of the convention site to listen to colorful drummers and chant "Liar! Liar!" and "Go home!" Instead of making a u-turn to Union Square, some protesters found Republican delegates hiding in Broadway theaters and restaurants and chanted sayings like, "Republican scum, your time has come." Some blocked hotel entrances.

Others defied Republican Mayor Bloomberg's order not to rally in Central Park because they might damage the grass, of all the weak excuses. As Mike said, the real reason Bloomberg and other Republicans didn't want us to rally in Central Park was they didn't want anyone to get an accurate crowd count and know just how many people were there. Just like Bush & Co. doesn't want anyone to count how many people are dying in Iraq. "It's tougher to gain an accurate crowd count when you're in a long march, as opposed to being in one place at a rally," Mike noted.

While an initial Fox News report said only 5,000 people protested and CNN would only put the numbers at "tens of thousands," The New York Times quoted a police official who agreed with organizer United for Peace and Justice that the crowd was close to 500,000. That's far larger than the previous largest protest at a national party convention, when a mere 12,000 people demonstrated against the Republicans in 2000 in Philadelphia, according to the Boston Globe. Reports on the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago put those protests' numbers at around 10,000.

There were a few counter protesters, some of whom amused themselves by calling fellow Americans "pinko communists." Republican officials accused Democratic Party activists with organizing the protests, but the Washington Post noted "there was no real sign of a Democratic Party hand at play. Democratic strategists, in fact, have talked of holding their breath, lest the protests dissolve into violence or the Republicans turn them into caricatures of the left."

United for Peace and Justice and other organizing groups deserve a lot of credit for pulling this demonstration off. And the many Americans who ignored the dire warnings and answered this call to action also deserve kudos. For everyone who chose to show up, there were probably 100 others who wanted to be here.

We reminded America and the world that standing up to injustice, to lies, to corruption, to greed, is always the right thing to do.