News » July 6, 2004

Protesting Too Little?

Homeland Security wants to cage dissent at this summer’s political conventions

By Dave Lindorff

Recent U.S. protests against the Bush administration, war and globalization may have been disappointingly small, but don’t write off the movement. Activists are planning big things for the two conventions this summer—especially the marches, demonstrations and actions slated for the Republican convention August 30-September 2 in New York.

“Of course it’s still early. We have more than two months of organizing left,” says Leslie Cagan, veteran organizer and national coordinator with United for Peace and Justice (UPJ), one of the major organizers of Republican National Convention protests. “But I think the August 29 march and demonstration will be one of the biggest protest events we’ve seen in New York.”

“People are really focused on opposing the Bush agenda,” she says. Current plans call for everything from a mock war crimes tribunal to a mass flashing of underwear sporting anti-Bush slogans.

Organizers want to step off from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, go past the Madison Square Garden convention site and end up at the Great Lawn. The New York City Parks Department has indicated it is unwilling to issue UPJ a permit for Central Park’s Great Lawn, however, long a venue for large rallies. The department claims that after spending $20 million on renovations it doesn’t want the lawn damaged by a “large crowd,” defined as more than 80,000 people. As a result, the NYPD, which handles march permits and gave convention protesters a June 15 permit application deadline, has been unwilling to discuss routes because there is no permit for a rally at the march’s proposed end.

“We assume the federal government is behind the permit problems,” Cagan says. “After all, the Department of Homeland Security has declared both the Democratic and Republican conventions to be ‘national security events.’ ”

Protest organizers, activists and police departments in several cities have revealed that, throughout the Bush administration, Secret Service and White House advance teams secretly instructed local police to keep protests at bay—even caged—during presidential events.

The Republican National Committee, during negotiations to bring the 2000 Republican convention to Philadelphia, got city officials to allow them to pre-book a master permit for all available assembly locations, forcing protesters to use a remote, sunken “protest pit.” The deal was a fiasco, leading to a number of non-permitted marches and rallies, conflicts with police and widespread arrests, nearly all of which were later thrown out by the courts.

At the recent G-8 summit, the Bush administration, with support from Georgia’s Republican Governor Sonny Perdue, used draconian methods first tried in Miami last year to dissuade protesters. These included having the area declared a national emergency site, sending in heavily armed National Guard troops in Humvees to patrol streets, granting additional powers to local police and witholding protest permits until the last minute.

Cagan says the August 29 demonstration against the Bush administration and the war in Iraq will go on, regardless of what New York officials do. Other groups planning actions during the course of the convention are similarly resolute.

“We’re going to march and demonstrate, and we’re not going to be intimidated,” says Dustin Langley, a Navy veteran and volunteer at the New York City International Action Center, part of the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition that is planning several events for that week. “Bush and the RNC can’t come to and exploit the 9/11 tragedy and then tell us we can’t protest in our own city.”

Organizers predict large numbers of demonstrators in Boston, where the Democrats are meeting, and New York because protest organizations are cooperating to an unusual degree. “We’re all working together,” says Cagan. “It’s quite pleasant really—maybe a sign of a new maturity” in the movement.

Boston A.N.S.W.E.R. organizer Peter Cook agrees. “We’ve all been trying to find ways to work together despite our differences,” he says. “The best way to fight back is to have a strong, unified antiwar movement.”

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• Reader Comments

  Protesting too little?
  Damn right it is!
  Screw protests! They are a waste of time and energy that could be used in REAL opposition efforts. Nobody bothers doing any real work for “opposing the Bush agenda.” All that gets accomplished is a big picnic with a bunch of badly hand painted signs that no one can even read. It’s a pep rally with no game. Protests don’t effect political action. They just make the protesters feel better about themselves.
  “Mister President! We have a serious situation! A bunch of idiots are out in the August sun with effigies of you painted on their underwear! They’ve succeeded in memorizing a slogan, and they’re CHANTING it!”
  “We may as well admit defeat, Dick. HOW can we possibly execute our diabolical schemes now? It’s been nice working with you.”

  Dick Gregory had this point figured out forty years ago. He asked an audience if they wanted to make some changes. He told them not to be going out marching in the streets “singing them old tunes.”
  You want to make a difference? All you got to do is organize.
  He gave an example.
  (I’m paraphrasing because my vinyl is back home.)
  You want to get the right to vote at 18? You can do that. All you got to do is organize. You get all the people you can to organize a boycott. You write the meat packing industries, and you tell them you represent the young people of America who want the right to vote at 18, and until the meat companies go to congress and lobby, and you get the right to vote at 18, you’re going to stop eating meat for five days out of the week.
  What do you think would happen? Stop eating meat for five days out of the week? What do you think these ol cattle rustlers in Texas would do? They’d blow the doors off of Congress “C’mere, boy, we wanna talk to you!”

  It’s just an example. Use your imagination. Who has the power? Who can you make work for you?

  Here’s an idea. Soda. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. Pepsi can build a space shuttle? They can do it thanks to you and your support through all of those ubiquitous vending machines and convenience store shelves of cans and bottles of stuff your body doesn’t even need. Tell Pepsi and Coca Cola that it’s time for them to speak for you, and until they lobby on your behalf, you’ll be drinking anything BUT Cocoa Cola and Pepsi products. If you’re organized, it will show up on their bottom line. And that will make them listen.

  You’ll need a list of demands, though. “oppose the Bush agenda” is a good start, but it’s nowhere near ready to come out of the oven. Personally I’d suggest an environmental angle, because that’s me. I think that while we are fighting all these other battles, the most serious threat to us all is quietly gathering around us in the form of global warming, poisoned air and water and disrupted ecosystems. I’d tell ‘em to take a bold stance on global warming, mercury emissions, pesticide addiction, renewable energy sources, that kind of thing. That’s just me.

  One thing’s for sure. Protesting won’t do a damn bit of good, except maybe satisfy the egos of the protesters. While you’re rehearsing your little politico follies or painting your underwear, electronic voting machines are being installed to take you out of the equation altogether. Then you can burn to a crisp in the August sun and sing “We Shall Overcome” until you’re blue in the face. The tanks and the toxins and the tax cuts for the rich will be rolling along smoothly.

  Posted by mrandmrsjohnqsmith on Jul 7, 2004 at 4:27 PM

  This last person is defiantly right.  I agree that hand painted signs are worthless.  Chanting against these politicians is worthless and not to mention laughed at by the other people who could possibly be convinced. Walking around in underwear to make a point about governmental issues.  What’s the connection? 
  However, there is a point to public gatherings.  Meeting people who are for or against the same issues you are.  Also getting more information that main stream media is never going to give you. 
  Imagine if the million people who don’t have health care or pay out there ass in heath care decided they weren’t going to work until they got affordable or free health care.  How long would that strike last?

  Posted by Jonny on Jul 7, 2004 at 8:50 PM

  Although I’d love to see massive anti-Bush demonstrations during the Republican convention, I can’t help but agree with everything that Mr. and Mrs. John Q Smith said.

  Protest demonstrations are a waste of time. They merely attract a fringe of left-wing dysfunctionals whose antics either frighten or alienate the very people whose support we need.
  Worse, none of these weirdos vote, or if they do, they throw their vote away on people who couldn’t get elected as the county dog catcher.

  Sorry, Greenies, and Naderites, this message is specifically directed to you. Have you ever figured out why conservative Republicans are working so hard to help Nader out? Do you honestly believe, like Ralph Nader or the Greens do, that you are drawing votes away from Bush and the Republicans? If so, you’re either too deluded or to naive to govern effectively.

  Instead of the idiotic free-for-alls, so dear to the hearts of so many leftist radicals, I’d rather the Democrats and their progressive allies stage pro-Kerry,  pro-Democratic and pro-democratic rallies throughout the country accompanied by massive voter registration campaigns. In this election, protests have meaning only if they translate into anti-Bush, anti-Republican, pro-democratic votes.

  P.S. The pro-democratic is NOT a typographicalerror. Are you familiar with the ideas of Porter Goss, Bush’s nominee as the new director of the CIA or of the new Superintelligence agence designed to supersede the CIA? Goss has proposed that the CIA, with the consent of the president, have powers to arrest American citizens whom the CIA and the president deem a threat to American security. Does that register in your minds? This election is not a contest between so-called red states or blue states, Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives (or whether liberals want to call themselves progressives or leftists or Greens.)It is an election to save American democracy from those who would turn the CIA into the KGB. Maybe Porter Goss and his desire to suspend habeas corpus in the name of national security isn’t an issue yet - but believe me, it should be.

  Posted by William Joseph Miller on Aug 20, 2004 at 3:43 PM

  i completly dissagree wit all of you guys if we are given our 1st amendment, which is freedom of speech then why not take advantage of that..POWER TO THE PROTESTORS ATLEAST THEY R TRYING TO MAKE A DIFFRENCEN SOMEWAY SOMEHOW…ATLEAST THEY SHOW COURAGE AND NOT JUST SETTLE FOR ANYTHING THAT COMES THERE WAY…THEY LET THE NATION KNOW THAT THEY WILL FIGHT UNTIL THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT… WE CAN ORGANIZE AS MUCH AS WE CAN..BUT WHILE WE DO THAT ..IT WILL WAIST OUR TIME…BECAUSE IN THE PROCESS OF THAT THE CHANGES WILL BEGIN TO HAPPEN..AND IF YOU GUYS HAVE GR8 IDEAS WHY DONT YOU GUYS GO OUT AND BE LEADERS OF THESE ASSOCIATIONS AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE INSTEAD OF INSULTING THOSE WHO ATLEAST TRY TO DO SOMTHING FOR THEMSELVES AND THERE COUNTRY.

  Posted by angie on Aug 29, 2004 at 4:24 AM

  well i agree with angie alot because its tru that they are making there voices be heard and they are trying to make a diffrence in this world. i also beleive that us people do need to speek louder and if we have and idea speek it out to the world not keep it to are slefs that way we can make a diffrense in this world

  Posted by lucy on Aug 29, 2004 at 4:35 AM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

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