To counteract such provocation, Passacantando suggests having monitors patrol the protests with handheld video cameras, which they'd use to record the faces of demonstrators who get violent, hopefully intimidating them into line.

He says he's spoken to United for Peace and Justice, New York's largest antiwar organizing group, about the idea and said they seemed interested. But UFPJ, which is sponsoring a huge march the day before the convention, isn't eager to alienate radicals. In fact, a memo is circulating among various anti-RNC factions, including UFPJ and RNC Not Welcome, in which the groups promise not to criticize each other's tactics.

This dismays Passacantando. "To on the one hand say we are nonviolent and wouldn't harm people or property and then on the other hand say, 'I won't comment on the tactics of others,' I don't think that works," he says.

It's not that Passacantando doesn't understand how angry people are. He's been doing battle with this administration since it came to power. "Post 9/11, we boarded a ship full of illegally logged mahogany coming in from Brazil to the port of Miami, and the Ashcroft Justice Department tried to destroy Greenpeace," he says. "We ultimately beat the Bush administration in the federal District Court, thus preserving everyone's right to engage in peaceful dissent, at least until Ashcroft's next volley."

But rage has to be used strategically, he argues, or it amounts to little more than a tantrum. "We have to take our own discontent about the horrors this administration is foisting on our world and we have to find a way to productively channel that anger into something that speaks to a larger audience, as opposed to just engaging in personal therapy," he says. "When you're doing something in front of the cameras, for the cameras, you have to take into account how will this be perceived."

Such thinking makes sense only to those who are worried about alienating American voters. Liberals are, but many anti-RNC activists defiantly are not. Ironically, despite being motivated by a ferocious hatred of George Bush, some of those planning direct-action protests against the convention have grown so disillusioned with electoral politics that they barely seem to care whether he's defeated in November.

Getting Bush out of the White House "is an aesthetic thing -- I won't have to look at him anymore," says the A31 Coalition's David Graeber, explaining his mild preference for Kerry. A 43-year-old anthropology instructor at Yale, Graeber, who lives in Chelsea, says, "Maybe I'll vote for Kerry, maybe I won't."

With the outcome of the election a source of relative indifference to him, he's less interested in communicating with people in swing states than with people abroad. "I want to send a message to someone in Iraq, in China, in Afghanistan," that there are people in America who oppose Bush's foreign policy, he says.

Many liberals find such sentiments so irrational as to make discussion impossible. "I don't know: How do you convince the potential rioters that they're buying Christmas presents for Karl Rove?" Gitlin says.

No one's come up with any good answers. Instead, a few liberal organizers are hoping to create alternatives that could channel some of the city's anti-Bush energy away from confrontation. Chief among them is Glaser, an urbane, eloquent man who seems to adore New York and despise George Bush with equal fervor.

Since Glaser sees the problem of protest violence as a semiotic one, he's tried to find a design solution. To that end, he's working on a project called Light Up the Sky, which he calls a "manifestation that clearly says we are opposed to Bush's principles and policies. It's a powerful and peaceful response to what the Bush administration has done."

He's made fliers and a Web site describing the idea. "On Aug. 30, from dusk to dawn, all citizens who wish to end the Bush presidency can use light as our metaphor," it says. "We can gather informally all over the city with candles, flashlights and plastic wands to silently express our sorrow over all the innocent deaths the war has caused. We can gather in groups or march in silence. No confrontation and, above all, no violence. Violence will only convince the undecided electorate to vote for Bush. Not a word needs to be spoken. The entire world will understand our message. Those of us who live here in rooms with windows on the street can keep our lights on through the night. Imagine, it's 2 or 3 in the morning and our city is ablaze with a silent and overwhelming rebuke ... Light transforms darkness."

He envisions something far more expansive than a candlelight vigil. "This city is full of invention," he says, and he hopes people will use some of it to make light sculptures, light suits, all kinds of incandescent constructions. Thus illuminated, he images New Yorkers coming together all over the city, in its parks and avenues and promenades.

Light Up the Sky, he knows, is not going to dissuade those determined to wreak havoc. "There's always a factor of people who need violence. They need to overthrow their father. It gets them into the center of attention," he says. But much of the confrontation between police and protesters is built into the current situation. "People can't go to Central Park. They're marginalized at the edge of the city. It's getting to be a mess," he says. "It's pre-scripted. What you have to do is abort the script." Otherwise, he fears, the consequences could be even more calamitous than they were in 1968. "The revolution will not come," he says, wryly dismissing the grandiose hopes of some anarchists. "What they might do is ensure the election of Bush. I don't think the country can survive another four years of Bush. It's been horrible so far. It's taken us far away from my vision of America."

At 75, Glaser fears he'll never see that vision of America again. "I would hate to die," he says, "with Bush in power."

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