Posted on 08/23/2004 8:19:54 PM PDT by Libloather
Unconventional Protests
With the cops cracking down on dissent, will the protests get out of hand?
By MICHELLE GOLDBERG
If you're a delegate attending the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden later this month, Jamie Moran knows where you're staying. He knows where you're eating and what Broadway musical you plan on seeing. For the past nine months, Moran has been living off savings earned as an office manager at a nonprofit and working full-time to disrupt the RNC. His small anarchist collective, RNCNotWelcome.org, runs a snitch line and an e-mail account where disgruntled employees of New York hotels, the Garden and the Republican Party itself can pass on information about conventioneers. So far, the collective has received dozens of phone calls and hundreds of e-mails with inside dirt on GOP activities. It's all fed to a cadre of activists desperate to unleash four years' worth of anger at the Bush administration. By dogging the delegates wherever they go, RNC Not Welcome hopes to make the Republicans' lives hell for as long as they're in New York.
"We want to make their stay here as miserable as possible," says Moran, the son of a retired Queens cop. "I'd like to see all the Republican events -- teas, backslapping lunches -- disrupted. I'd like to see people from other states following their delegates, letting them know what they think about Republican policies. I'd like to see impromptu street parties and marches. I'd like to see corporations involved in the Iraq reconstruction get targeted - anything from occupation to property destruction."
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
The Republican National Committee has, for the first time in its 150 year history, selected New York for their Convention from August 29-September 2, 2004. In a shallow attempt at exploiting the lives lost at the World Trade Center, the RNC has pushed the Convention date to September. We have witnessed two unjust wars, at least one American life lost each day overseas, a depressed economy, the collapse of the dollar, $87 billion to boost war profiteering, the closing of our firehouses, a health-care crisis, millions of children being left behind, and now this. We say, Enough!
When the vote does not place in power those who represent the will of the people, democracy must be taken to the streets. This administration's choice of New York City, historically known for its diverse population, its welcoming of immigrants from far off lands, and its radical politics will prove to be their biggest mistake yet.
I don't know any NYC cops, but I doubt that they will stand by passively while smelly anarchists trash NYC like they did in Seattle.
I visited the site about a week ago, and they sure are whacked out. They were calling for "service workers", the people who "run the city" to call in sick, so those dastardly RNC eeevildoers couldn't get service, and calling for volunteers to sign up for working at the convention, and then to not show up, etc. Their slogan was that they didn't want the RNC to bring hate to their doorstep, or some such.
I guess Skedwards were right, there are two Americas, the sane and the INSANE!
Oh, I am sure the protestors against us will make sure they get injured in some way, even if its by tripping over their own tails....
The worse they act, the better for Bush.
Oh my, I made the mistake of clicking on the excerpt to read the rest of the article. Ms. Goldberg is also insane.
"Since 9-1-1 the Bush administration has tried to stifle protest, blah-blah..."
There is reasonable protest, and then there is intent to cause havoc. They just don't get it, do they?
I was in downtown Seattle working in my office when we were told to evacuate by a police officer during the WTO riot.
As I was looking out one door, preparing to go, I saw an anarchist "protester" sneak up behind some riot cops milling around, I guess trying to figure out what to do. The anarchist started chucking rocks at them.
This brought a hail of rubber bullets (I could hear them banging off the building I was in). Well brave "protester" boy starts running, but before he could get away he got a rubber bullet in the rear, and jumped about 3 feet in the air.
Ah, that moment made the tear gas fumes and the unpleasant trip home rather worth it.
Too bad it wasn't 00 buckshot!
Of course that didn't stop the brave Mayor from delivering free pizza (at taxpayer) expense to the mob protesting outside the jail.
Now I wouldn't mind if the NYPD responded they way the Sheriff did...remember seeing him personally running down a punk a third is age. It was great.
I don't know what the plans are for New York, but the "free speech cage" in Boston was disgusting.
It was a small group in riot gear standing at a crossroads. They generally didn't seem to have any kind of plan but standing there and watching the mob about a block away. The anarchist had come from the other direction (Belltown), so the cops had their backs to him to begin with.
You had to be blind to not see that the protesters were working up to violence and then more and more destruction, and it amazes me to this day that it took so long to do anything about it.
And then the vandals and thugs who were arrested got nothing more then a slap on the wrist.
My worry isn't that they'll protest, its that they won't protest enough. I want them to say the same things in public that they say at the DU. I want the whole country to see just how radical the American bashing Dem's really are.
"I don't know any NYC cops, but I doubt that they will stand by passively while smelly anarchists trash NYC like they did in Seattle."
The NYPD is the finest police department in the world, and they are not going to take any sh*t from these losers. Oh yeah, especially the hot-headed Irish-American ones, they're wise to that kind.
personally, i have zero sympathy for these protestors. NYC does not need this kind of stuff--these morons are tying up police officers who could be looking for terrorists.
the people of NYC probably just want to go to work and then go home, and the idiot protestors will tie up streets and make everybody's life difficult.
A Navy colleague of mine from one of the NYC burgs (Brooklyn, I think) tells me of when he was a young teen and sitting on the curb next to a "No Standing" sign when an Irish-American policeman came along and askes whst they were doing. My friend, being the smart alec teen he was said, "You see that sign? It says "No Standing", so we are sitting".
That earned them a less than gentle crack across the shins from the cop's billy club. He was still laughing about it 20 years later.
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