The Fightback Begins
24 Jul 2004 02:42 GMT
Sling shotThe summer is heating up as the Democratic National Convention(DNC) and the Republican National Convention(RNC) approach. Activists are being harassed in New York, Boston and the Midwest, but they continue to organize.
The police are doing their best to create a climate of fear in Boston, blanketing the city with surveillance cameras, preparing to arrest 2500 people, conducting random searches of passengers on public transportation and trying to make protesters gather in a "free-speech zone." The FBI is even claiming that a "domestic extremist group" is planning to attack news trucks. But local activists refuse to be cowed.
Anti-DNC action kicks off July 23 with the Boston Social Forum andcontinues with a "unwelcoming party", direct action and the "Really Really Democratic Bazaar." | Download a PDF of Indymedia's anti-DNC paper, The Independent
Meanwhile, in New York, the NY Daily News ran anunsubstantiated front-pagestory claiming that "internet-using anarchists" are planning to cause chaos by fool bomb-sniffing dogs at Penn Station and major organizer United for Peace and Justice has been forced to hold their August 29 rally on the West Side Highway, instead of Central Park. But Still We Rise and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign are still holding large demonstrations on August 30, the day of direct action is still (tenatively) planned for August 31 and various speaks-outs and conferences are still going ahead.
How Are You Fighting Back?
Talas Jude 24.Jul.2004 05:26
The police or fbi wont be able to stop or even so much as put a dent into any of the organizing that has been going on for the DNC or RNC. They can go around and invade peoples houses all they like but they are not going to find anything.
Still the question remains how are you fighting back? Standing in a street holding a sign is not fighting back. Sure you are expressing your opinion, but what are you changing? That is not fighting. If on the otherhand people rise up and shut down these meeting in love and rage for all the fucked up shit these conventions represent, and make sure they can't go on then yes, you are fighting back.
All I'm trying to say is don't kid yourself people. The police state will be ready, so you should be too without any illusions on what needs to be done. People are dying because of the choices the people at these conventions have made. Are you just going to let them continue to kill people in your name or are you going to do something about it? Really, really do something about it?
The time to be afraid is over!
Powerful statement Talas!
King Amdo 24.Jul.2004 13:39
Many a time i've wished and tried to empower local people into just taking direct action themselves, and not to project their wishes onto a small select group of 'eco warriors' etc. The state (government) gets frightened when there are loads of ordinary local people and elders with white hair in nets and things on the road or on the 'dozer in front of them....not only does this tend to restrain their trigger finngers, but also, critically create an energy of community wide empowerment (anarchy in its true sense). This breaking free of the people from the fear power ritual racist child abuse mind/reality control is the LAST thing that this white supremists inherently abusive 'power' wants. Unfortunately for them they are fighting the incomming tide. Karma is going against them.
OM SHIVA!
King Amdo.
Protesters are the Enemy of Action and Reason and Spirtit
Che Guevara 24.Jul.2004 18:22
Are you just going to let them continue to kill people in your name or are you going to do something about it? Really, really do something about it? - Ha HA HA - If you are for a peaceful world - if you believe democracy is possible - if you think Kerry is less evil - if you think expressing your opinion or your peaceful rage are of any value - if you think most Americans are decent people - if you think you know how to debate - if you think that you know anything meaningful about the world -
Ha Ha HA - ALL Fools - you know nothing - all of your efforts help the same fascist mentality that is the source of evil - The war we fight is between the modernists and the urbanists - versus the traditonalists and the rural - all other isseues are smokescreens - EVERYTHING - Every-Little-Detail about the USA - the West and this Modern World are blasphemy, perversion and disease -
you are on the wrong side if you think you care about anything - and you don't even know where the sides are or what should be done.
Thank the power of a pure love and a righteous angry violence that none of you matter at all.
Ha HA HA
Corporate News On Denver Gestapo Raid
Pix 24.Jul.2004 20:52
Warnings precede party conventions
abbottk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5188
FBI, police visits to young people rile ACLU official
By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News
July 24, 2004
Law enforcement officers visited several Denver young people Thursday to warn them against committing violence at the Democratic and Republican national conventions.
"This is part of an ongoing FBI investigation with the Joint Terrorism Task Force," Colorado FBI spokeswoman Monique Kelson said Friday. "That's all that we can comment right now."
The Joint Terrorism Task Force includes officers from local law enforcement agencies.
Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Colorado, said young people living at two locations in Denver reported the visits to the ACLU and that similar visits have occurred elsewhere in the United States in recent days.
He said officers told the Denver young people that they were visiting "protesters and anarchists."
"It's an abuse of power, designed to intimidate these kids from exercising their constitutional right to protest government policies and associate with others who want to protest government policies," Silverstein said.
Denver police public information officers referred inquiries to the FBI on Friday night.
Sarah Bardwell, 21, said six officers arrived about 4:30 p.m. Thursday at the Denver home she shares with four other young people. Two houseguests also were there, she said.
The six officers identified themselves as four FBI agents and two Denver police officers, but declined to give their names after the young people declined to give theirs, Bardwell said.
One officer said he took the young people's refusal to give their names as "noncooperation" and said he would have to use "more intrusive efforts to get his job done," Bardwell said.
"We had really no idea what was going on," she said.
"They told us in a joking way that they were doing community outreach and getting to know the neighbors," she said.
Then the officers said they were "doing some preventative measures and investigating," she said.
She said the officers asked three questions: Are you planning to be involved in any criminal acts at the national conventions? Do you know anybody who is? Are you aware that if you assist or know anybody planning any criminal acts and do not report them, it's a crime?
"We declined to answer," Bardwell said.
She said she refused to answer on principle, not because she's hiding anything. She said she doesn't plan to attend either party's national convention.
"I would normally be completely open," Bardwell said.
Silverstein said law enforcement officers made a similar visit to another Denver home, occupied by four or five young people.
Bardwell said she and her housemates believe they were visited because they have participated in protests in the past - including one the day before against the recent shooting death of a 63-year-old disabled man by a Denver police officer who was looking for someone else and mistook a soda can the man was holding for a gun.
Other causes in which she has been active include protests against Columbus Day as a celebration of oppression of native people, work with an organization that collects food donated by grocery stores for homeless people and anti-war protests, Bardwell said.
She is an intern with the American Friends Service Committee, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1940s for its work against violence. AFSC also advocates for prisoners' rights.
"I think it was an intimidation tactic and it was designed to threaten people who are analyzing our current government and its policies and the system in the United States - an intimidation tactic that is used to crush any form of resistance or dissent or public expression of disapproval," Bardwell said.
She said the visit from law enforcement officers motivated her to learn more about her rights and to be "even more active in my community."
Protests won't be effective
pennywit 25.Jul.2004 21:43
I suggest that individuals who choose to protest at the DNC and RNC conventions re-evaluate their tactics. What do these protests accomplish? Interference with a convention? Massive headaches for law enforcement? Getting protesters' faces on TV? Reminding politicans of the opposition? Changing people's minds about the upcoming election?
pennywit@pennywit.com
http://www.pennywit.com
The answers are:
1) Yes and no. Protesters are mostly confined to so-called "free speech zones." The conventioneers probably won't see or hear demonstrators.
2) Yes. Law enforcement not only has to deal with security and the threat of terrorism, but also the conundrum of sorting out protesters from anarchists, and trying to keep individuals from getting hurt. Does law enforcement need this effective headache?
3) Yes. Faces will get on TV, if for no other reason than so newscasts can do features about protesters.
4) No. You're in a free-speech zone. Politicians can't see you. Moreover, neither President Bush nor Sen. Kerry seems inclined to give credence to protesters, who, rightly or wrongly, are seen to represent fringe elements of American political discourse.
5) Absolutely not. Most voters are set in their ways this election. Those voters who aren't set in their ways are likely to view protesters as anything from curiosities to dangers to lunatics. What voters will not say is, "gee, that gentleman standing there with the sign and shaking his fist certainly looks persuasive." Far more effective is to get inside, and change the system from within.
I am not from inside the protest movement. I have never marched on Washington. I've never waved a sign around. But I've been in the media. And most of all, I've been politically aware for many years. I know how the protests look from outside. And they don't look good.
For some time now, protesters of many stripes -- whether from Operation Rescue or from International ANSWER -- have appeared to be more interested in the protests themselves than in the reforms they espouse. I seldom see any indication that these individuals are trying to meet with their congressmen. I seldom see any indication that these protesters ask to speak with corporate CEOs or with board members. I seldom see any attempts at dialogue. Just lots of sign-waving.
Yes, protesting is your right. Waving signs around, chanting, and screaming are all part of the Constitution. But I question whether this particular free speech is effective speech.
--|PW|--
Picture
Loading 02.Aug.2004 12:42
Hello,
I'm wondering whether I can use the picture embled in the news text ?
Perhaps, someone and preferable the author could answer the question. Thank you.