Police Prepare for Rowdy DNC Protests
Thursday July 29, 2004 4:31 PM
By KEN MAGUIRE
Associated Press Writer
BOSTON (AP) - Protesters on bicycles snaked through the city Thursday as police braced for a surge in street demonstrations for the windup of the Democratic National Convention.
After four, largely problem-free days, police were expecting a “big day” of protests, since demonstrators typically look for the largest possible audience, said Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O‘Toole. Police tactical teams were out in force, she added, as they have been throughout the week.
Still, by Thursday morning police had reported only two arrests in the convention area, one a person who was apparently intoxicated and another a woman who drove through a security checkpoint.
About 100 protesters from a group calling itself Critical Mass set out from Copley Square on bicycles, riding through downtown Boston and the Back Bay neighborhood and presenting challenges for police trying to keep pace on their own bikes. It wasn‘t immediately clear what the group was protesting.
The Boston-area Bl(A)ck Tea Society, an ad hoc group of self-described anarchists and anti-authority activists that formed a year ago to stage protests at the convention, called for “decentralized direct action” Thursday.
The group does not advocate violence but encourages demonstrators to hold street protests regardless of whether they have secured permits from the city.
The biggest protests surrounding the convention were Sunday. About 2,000 anti-war activists and a separate group of 1,000 abortion opponents crossed paths briefly as they marched to the FleetCenter when convention delegates were arriving in town.
The next day police revoked abortion opponents‘ permit to demonstrate in front of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry‘s Beacon Hill home, a decision later upheld by a federal judge.
The local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild said it will help any protester who is arrested and needs representation. Before the convention, authorities said they were preparing for more than 2,000 arrests.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0.1282.-4364573.00.html
these guys might be the “Protesters on bicycles snaked through the city Thursday as police braced for a surge in street demonstrations for the windup of the Democratic National Convention.” mentioned in the story above, but they ain‘t protesters.
Back in the day, they would have been always noticable by their
Big
Black
Shiny
FBI
Shoes
Since Hoover is gone, looks like they‘ve moved on to other gear. The hair, guys, the hair....
surveillance
\Sur*veil"lance\, n. [F., fr. surveiller to watch over; sur over + veiller to watch, L. vigilare. See Sur-, and Vigil.] Oversight; watch; inspection; supervision.
n : close observation of a person or group (usually by the police)
antonyms for 'surveillence'- observation, body mike, bug, bugging, care, control, direction, eagle eye, examination, eye, following, inspection, lookout, peeled eye, scrutiny, spying, stakeout, superintendence, supervision, surveyance, tab, tail, tap, track, vigil, vigilance, watch, wiretap Concept: examination
photo and continuing surveillence of the surveyers courtesy of Boston Indy Media
Boston, Braced for Convention Disorder,
Makes Just Two Arrests
Makes Just Two Arrests
July 29 (Bloomberg) -- Law enforcement officials had expected to make 3,000 arrests during this week‘s Democratic National Convention in Boston. As of today -- the final day of the gathering -- the tally stood at two.
“It has been orderly,” said National Guard Colonel Joe Mercuri, a spokesman at the Joint Information Center, which was set up to act as a clearinghouse for all media calls to security officials during the convention.
From protests to traffic jams to terrorist activity, none of the potential disruptions anticipated by city officials and law enforcement agents have occurred during the four-day event, the first political convention to be held since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino. About 35,000 delegates and media representatives came to the city of 589,141, according to Menino spokesman Seth Gitell.
“All the bad news never materialized, in fact it was a great week,” said Thomas P. O‘Neill III, former Massachusetts lieutenant governor and the son of the late Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Tip O‘Neill. Should the calm continue through tonight, when Massachusetts Senator John Kerry will accept his party‘s nomination for president, Boston will come out of the event “never looking better,” said O‘Neill, now chairman of the Boston-based lobbying firm O‘Neill & Associates.
More than 24 agencies have provided security during the convention in addition to Boston‘s police, including the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Coast Guard and state police from around New England. Officials have refused to give an exact number. Security measures have included the closure of a stretch of Interstate 93, a commuter artery, and the shutdown of a rail hub at the FleetCenter, the convention site.
Protest Zone
Protesters have been channeled into pre-designated zones through the use of fences, concrete barriers and dump trucks used to block streets, Mercuri said. A fenced-off protest zone, which was criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union prior to the convention, was used by many protesters during the event.
“If we didn‘t have the security we had in place and something happened then they would say, `Well, you underestimated what was going to happen,” said Menino, a Democrat, at a press conference today. “I would rather have the security we had in place and deal with some of these issues than have a problem in the city.”
On Sunday, a man officials didn‘t identify was arrested on charges of being a disorderly person during an anti-war protest. Yesterday, police arrested 39-year-old Bernadette Horrigan of Winchendon, Massachusetts, and charged her with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a car, after she failed to stop at a police check point, State Police Sergeant Paul Letsche said.
“We don‘t know why she didn‘t stop,” Letsche said.
‘Real Peaceful ’
Police have investigated 46 “suspicious packages,” Mercuri said. Of these, 44 turned out to be nothing and the other two are still being checked out with the expectation that they won‘t be a threat.
“It‘s been real peaceful,” Mercuri said.
There have been far fewer demonstrators than expected, said Thomas Duffy, deputy division commander for the state police, without saying what was anticipated.
Mercuri said the protesters have been well behaved and have been getting along with the police officers, who have blanketed the city‘s streets to keep order during the four-day convention. Some groups lined sidewalks across from the FleetCenter and handed out leaflets to delegates and visitors going in and out of the arena‘s main security gate, while others included a pro-life group that drove around the city in vans adorned with pictures of dismembered fetuses.
Staying Away
People who commute to the city from the suburbs seem to have stayed away so the security measures that closed I-93 from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. daily and closed other roads and rail lines didn‘t spark traffic snarl-ups, said David Tuerck, executive director of Boston-based Suffolk University‘s Beacon Hill Institute and chairman and professor of economics at the school.
“The worries about traffic congestion scared people away,” Tuerck said.
Tuerck said the peace may have come at the cost of lost business. The Beacon Hill Institute, which predicted the region would lose $8.2 million in business because of the convention, is currently conducting a survey to see if that prediction came true, he said.
Menino, who has disputed Tuerck‘s study, said he anticipated economic returns for businesses would be uneven.
“There have been a thousand parties in our city, so someone had to cash in,” Menino said at a press conference in city hall today.
Thanks, Boston
To encourage area residents to come back into the city after the convention ends tonight, Menino announced a weekend promotion dubbed “Thanks, Boston” under which businesses and attractions around the city will offer discounts.
Menino said he would advise New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg*, the host of next month‘s Republican convention, to get involved in the details of the security plan and keep the public informed about what‘s going on. He said criticism that he started Boston‘s publicity campaign regarding security and other convention issues too soon when he began the effort in April isn‘t valid.
“Pay attention and be involved,” Menino said. “The thing I am proudest of is that we went out there and told the public what was happening.”
*New York Mayor Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Edward DeMarco at edemarco1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: July 29, 2004 12:47 EDT
--
to the source:
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aA_pBkGHH99A&refer=us#
Breaking News from the IMC Dispatch/Newswire:
http://boston.indymedia.org/
breaking news will appear here, courtesy of the boston indie media center
4:20pm: March is now leaving the soft zone
4:13pm: What's corporate media up to? "No reports of injuries." - Boston Globe. Sorry, no. "Two small explosions" -Channel 5. Mm, not quite. Don't believe the hype!
4pm: Soft Zone no longer on lockdown
3:53pm: Police officials are stating that the cause for the current police action was the possible presence of a Molotov cocktail. Which later turned out to be an empty bottle. But they arrested the person anyways. The police officer who instigated the violent action by attacking the protester with his baton was ushered from the area by other riot police, covering his badge number on the way out.
3:51pm: Protesters with no affiliation cut parts of fence of the "Free Speech Zone" with bolt cutters. Their cutters were confiscated but no arrested made.
3:48pm: Confirmed: One female hospitalized by police responding to protesters at the Fleet Center due to a baton blow to the head
3:11pm: Riot cops have pushed protesters back to the wall; at least 3 non-lethal weapons deployed incl. rubber bullet guns.. NOT used yet
3:03pm: Numbers varying on march.. 200 - 500 people. March at F.C. met with riot cops, shields down
2:59pm: March is at Fleet Center at Canal and Causeway, approx. 200 strong
2:31pm: March is at Fanueil Hall, at least 250 strong; approx. 50 cops present in soft riot gear
2:15pm: March is on High St., just crossing Summer St.
2:04pm: Pirates march has joined the main march, about 500 - 800 people strong, headed toward the Fleet Center. Coming up to South Station now. Several bike cops, some cycle cops
1:53pm: Pirates on Boylston between Tremont and Charles; main march through Chinatown at Stuart and Tremont
1:26pm: March on Newbury St. headed toward Glouscester; dozen cops present on bikes, cycles, cars
1:00 pm: 100-person No Blood for Oil March starts from Copley Square, heading towards the Fleet Center (site of the DNC).
Correction: Two activists who were *not* water carriers were detained. The water carriers were merely standing near-by.
12:30 pm: Water carriers released by police.
10:45 am: Party Crashers disrupted the floor of the DNC with discussion of anarchism, signs such as "why do we need a president?" "kerry is bush" no arrests.
10:30 am: Undercovers sighted on Copley Square - http://boston.indymedia.org/media/all/display/5038/index.php (above photo)
10:24 am: mini critical mass headed toward Common on Boylston, followed by bike cops
10:07 am: Critical Mass and others gathering in Copley Sq, mood jubilant...
9:58 am: Critical mass has just ridden by the Convergence Center again, welcomed by bucket drummers and howling supporters. Approxomitely 100 have stoppped at Copley Square with about a dozen bike cops on the sidelines.
9:36 Report just in, Florida Delegation disrupted by affinity group "DANC" Democrats Are Not Change - there was talk about opposing the war before they were thrown out, no arrests.
9:27 am: Banner drop in Copley Square, Giant circle-A.
9:15 am: approximate time, Critical Mass re-passes Copley followed by police.
8:30 am: Critical Mass leaves from Copley Square, trailed by large numbers of bike cops & state police on motorcycles.
12am-1am: Fruit Bat bicycle activists trailed, harrassed by police
Do you have breaking news? Call IMC Dispatch: 617-266-1697!
http://boston.indymedia.org/
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/07/29/3518649
GO TO INFOSHOP FOR UPDATES AND COMMENTS THROUGHOUT THE WEEK
GO TO INFOSHOP FOR UPDATES AND COMMENTS THROUGHOUT THE WEEK
provided courtesy of Boston Independent Media
Anti-War Activist Dragged off DNC Floor in Handcuffs
Behind veneer of unity, Democratic leadership works
to squelch anti-war sentiment
by Jim Booty
28 Jul 2004
As Teresa Heinz Kerry gave her prime-time address at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night, Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK: Women for Peace
attempted to bring an anti-war message onto the convention floor. She
unfurled a pink banner that read “End the Occupation of Iraq” a
sentiment that is shared by the majority of Americans and vast majority
of Democrats and was promptly dragged out of the Fleet Center by the
police.“The Democratic leadership is trying to stifle people’s opinions about the most important issue facing this nation: the war on Iraq. A huge majority of the delegates believe the Iraq war was a mistake, and many are convinced that the U.S. military occupation isn¹t benefiting Americans or Iraqis. But the Democratic platform doesn’t reflect that sentiment, and it’s been so difficult for people at the DNC to get that message out,” said Benjamin, who is a co-founder of CODEPINK as well as the human rights organization Global Exchange.
Inside the convention, the DNC has banned anything but “officially printed” banners and signs from the convention floor, and several anti-war delegates from the Kucinich campaign have been told to take off scarves that say ”delegate for peace.” Outside the convention, those who oppose the Democratic Party position on Iraq are relegated to a “protest pen”, which is actually a cage surrounded by fencing and barbed wire.
On Saturday, CODEPINK objected to the protest pen by having some of its activists dress as pink statues of liberty with tape over their mouths.
“We are supposed to have free speech all over the United States, not just inside a pen that looks like a Guantanamo Bay detention camp,” Benjamin said.
Printed from Boston IMC : http://boston.indymedia.org/
Groups use amusing tactics to promote serious issues
by Tony Sams
Indiana Daily Student
July 29, 2004
BOSTON -- Being a campaign manager is a tough job. Just ask Matt Rice.
"We've gone to all sorts of events," said Rice, a 28-year-old originally from Colorado. "We've gone to parties, and we were outside Fenway Park after the Red Sox game Sunday. We also went to the reception for the Clintons."
Rice has been driving his candidate all over town and walking the streets when they think they can meet more people. The reception, he said, is well-received. Not too bad for a guy whose candidate is a vegetable -- literally.
Rice is one of six volunteers working for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who have taken the animal rights advocacy organization's protest campaign to Boston this week for the Democratic National Convention. Rice is working as Chris P. Carrot's "campaign manager,"
Carrot and his running mate Colonel Corn -- both PETA volunteers wearing foam suits -- are running a campaign full of wordplay: He's a "Carrot with merit," a "Candidate with vision" who says "Non-violence starts on your breakfast plate."
"Choose compassion," Carrot yelled at people on the street.
"Eat me!" Corn added.
And, by the way, he is firmly opposed to the Atkins Diet.
From anti-abortion protests to rallies against police brutality, from those advocating a free state for Palestine to everyone that can put a felt-tip marker to a piece of paper, protesters are finding a variety of ways to express their messages as they walk all over Boston this week at the Democratic National Convention.
The majority of local protests are actually protesting the "free speech zone," designated for protesters. One such event, orchestrated by Save Our Civil Liberties early Monday morning, led a couple dozen people into the protest zone and then had them bound at the hands and hooded.
Led by a mock convention leader wearing a red Democratic National Committee T-shirt that many staff workers in the FleetCenter are wearing, and replicating images taken from the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and the Abu Graib prison in Iraq, the organizer instructed his "inmates" to get on their knees and lean toward the ground.
"This is a free speech zone where you will not be speaking!" the mock organizer yelled.
Last week a federal judge upheld the constitutionality of the free speech zones and said that while he was dismayed such a measure must be taken, he understood the security and space concerns. Some people haven't taken it so lightly.
"I'm outraged," said Beth Condon, a Massachusetts resident who visited the free-speech zone. "What all those '60s politicians did is now in vain."
"If you have the right to protest, you have the right protest!" she exclaimed, adding she couldn't believe the way the containment area for the free speech zone had been constructed.
The zone, located under an old bridge outside the FleetCenter, has walls of chain-link fencing topped off with barbed wire. A net is strung from the top of the bridge to the ground to prevent protesters from throwing things toward delegates, who must pass the free speech zone when they are dropped off by bus. Inside, protesters were taking advantage of the set-up.
"Don't go away!" Randall Terry yelled at passers-by from the free-speech zone. "We know it looks like a concentration camp, but it's just a clever disguise."
Terry, considered among many to be the icon of the anti-abortion movement, focused the majority of his rhetoric Monday to free speech, although there is certainly no shortage of people concerned with abortion.
Joanna Baker, a resident of Brookline, Mass., has taken the convention week off from work and was passing out fliers Monday for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, an abortion rights advocacy group, on Canal Street right outside the FleetCenter and adjacent to the free speech zone.
"John Kerry is for a woman's right to choose, and we want people to know it's a critical issue," Baker said.
She said she believes any future appointments to the Supreme Court are the most important issues about this election.
"(The justices a president appoints) are there for life," she said, emphasizing the importance of appointing justices who would uphold Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision which legalized abortion.
Canal Street, a dead-end road this week because of street closures for the convention and a location of many locally owned and operated eateries, was full of many chalk scrollings on the asphalt, including, "Pro-choice is pro-death" and "Where is the babies (sic) choice?"
An anti-abortion group was also driving around Boston in cargo trucks whose external paneling consisted of enlarged, graphic pictures of aborted fetuses.
Baker said she hadn't run into any anti-abortion protesters, but said she didn't think it mattered.
"I'm not here to argue," she said. "Just to support a pro-choice candidate."
Matt Rice, candidate Carrot's "campaign manager," wouldn't comment on the tactics other protesters are using, but instead emphasized the positive campaign PETA has been running.
"This convention is a party, people are out there to have fun," Rice said. "We're talking about serious issues, but we have a light-hearted and fun approach people like. We've really been getting a good response from people."
Carrot's candidacy, however, was doomed with one Bostonian.
"Look, I'd like to vote for the carrot," he said, "but I promised Captain Morgan yesterday I'd vote for him if I got a campaign T-shirt. And I got one."
-- Contact Opinion Editor Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu.
"Groups use amusing tactics to promote serious issues"
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=24015
© 2000 Indiana Daily Student
reflections on a world where the sun never sets
Abu Ghraib, you said?
July 28, 2004
I am yet to hear the words "torture," "abuse," or "Abu Ghraib" mentioned anywhere in the Democratic National Convention. Admittedly, I haven't been watching the whole thing minute by minute so I did a search of the transcripts of speeches made available on the Dems own website. None of the people below uttered any of those words. In fact, they didn't even say the word "Iraqi" at any point. Let's pretend they don't exist, okay?
Speakers at the 2004 Democratic Convention who did not mention the words "torture," "abuse," "Abu Ghraib," or "Iraqi" for that matter:
Roberta Achtenberg | David Alston | Rep. Tammy Baldwin | Marcia Bristo | President Jimmy Carter |
President Bill Clinton | Senator Hillary Clinton | Howard Dean | Rep. Rosa DeLauro | Rep. John Dingell
Shirley Franklin | Rep. Richard Gephardt | Vice-President Al Gore | Teresa Heinz Kerry | Barack Obama
Even the great liberal hope Barack Obama expressed no concern about the fate of Iraqis. I suppose when he said my brother's and my sister's keeper, he meant my American brothers and sisters only. (In fact he sounded very much like Clinton to me.) Worse, a shameful swipe came from Rep. Tammy Baldwin who said "If our leaders can promise 'health care for all' to Iraq, why can't we do the same here at home?"
I don't know what else to say but to call it shameful. We crippled the place with economic sanctions for 10 years, bombed its infrastructure, occupied it and spent their money on profits for American companies -- and they don't even have reliable potable water because that wasn't our priority as to how we spent their money! Their kids are dying of cholera and we're pretending that we have promised health care to all Iraqis, and that's done in the name of progressive values?
This false pretense, that somehow our spending of money on Iraq is what's cause decline of services in America is a great victory of imperialist ideology. It's sad to see it repeated, and even embraced, by progressives.
This country is more than rich enough to provide health care to its citizens and help reconstruct a country it has wrecked. Its leaders are doing neither, by choice. The sooner American progressives stop implying money spent on Iraqis are robbing them of anything, the sooner they will be able to actually fight for their rights by focusing on the accurate targets.
http://www.underthesamesun.org/content/2004/07/index.html#000128
Washington delegates protest convention 'free speech zone'
By REBECCA COOK
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
BOSTON -- Count on the Washington state delegates to protest the protest zone.
Led by Seattle-area residents, about a dozen delegates to the Democratic National Convention went to the protest area Wednesday to vent their outrage over the dismal, fenced-in "free speech zone" for protesters.
The media greatly outnumbered protesting delegates, and the delegates outnumbered the people actually protesting. Still, organizers called it a success.
"We wouldn't even get to hear dissent" if they hadn't entered the protest zone, said Seattle delegate Ellen Meserow. "If we're representing America, we really need to hear it."
The area, set up by Boston police, sits under elevated train tracks and is surrounded by high fences and razor wire, although people can enter and exit as they please. A net covers it on top. It sits next to an area where buses unload delegates, but most hardly see or hear the protests taking place there.
"Caging dissent is an affront to the idea of free speech," said delegate Jason Sawatzki, 28, of Seattle, straining to be heard over the loud hum of a nearby generator.
"This protest pen is not in our name," said delegate Sylvia Olveda, 27, of Bellevue, Wash. "These people are peaceful. I'm not afraid of these people - they don't need razor wire."
Wednesday afternoon, the area was occupied only by a cluster of Christian evangelists and a couple of individual protesters.
The stage had plastered to it a rain-soaked page from the Bible: Luke 23:24, "Then Jesus said Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." On the side of the podium, someone scribbled "Flee the pen" in chalk.
"I just think having the free speech zone is so incredibly hypocritical," said Ricky Vertolli, 18, of New Jersey, who wore a black hood to protest the Iraq war and prisoner abuse. "Trapped in a pen under a bridge, who are we protesting to?"
But Orlando Jones, 32, of Boston, said he was perfectly comfortable in the zone. Holding a cardboard sign that read, "Child Support Services Descriminates Against Fathers," Jones complained that courts had required him to pay his ex-wife too much money to support their three children.
"This is great. They provide us with a stage AND a microphone," Jones said. "I feel safe in here."
Most demonstrators avoid the designated protest area altogether, preferring to join permitted marches or take their chances on the streets.
Far from the protest zone - across town at the Sheraton hotel to be exact - a half-dozen protesters burst into a meeting of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus, toting a banner that read, "Is this what democracy looks like?"
Security officers forced them from the room, and Democratic delegates in the hall quickly drowned them by chanting "Vote for Kerry!" They were questioned by police and then kicked out of the hotel.
Standing outside on the sidewalk, protester Matt Kavanagh said he was only trying to confront delegates about the similarities between President Bush and presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry.
Trying to confine dissent to the protest pen, Kavanagh said, reinforced his belief that the convention is full of hypocrisy.
"Democrats are supposed to be friends of civil liberties, (yet they are) putting protesters into a literal cage," Kavanagh said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer/ap.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20CVN%20Protest%20Pen
perhaps these are the "protestors" snaking thorugh the city....
photos courtesy Boston Indy Media
Police Brace For Worst Protest Day
Groups Calling For 'Decentralized Direct Action'
POSTED: 8:17 AM EDT
July 29, 2004
BOSTON -- Police are expecting the worst from protesters Thursday, the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention.
So far, protests have been peaceful and arrests few.
But Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole said that demonstrators typically look for the biggest audience. That will be Thursday, when John Kerry accepts his party's nomination for president, capping the convention.
Already, the Boston-area Black Tea Society, an ad hoc group of anarchists and anti-authority activists formed last year to oppose the DNC, has called for what it calls quote "decentralized direct action."
The group does not advocate violence, but encourages demonstrators to hold street protests regardless of whether they have secured permits from the city.
O'Toole said the same number of officers will be on duty Thursday as have been on all week.
© The Associated Press
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/3591202/detail.html
AlterNet
Free Speech Through Fences
By Margaret Doris
Boston Phoenix
July 29, 2004
Ladies and gentlemen, please remove your shoes for inspection." The command booms out over the thousands of people queued up on Causeway Street, waiting to enter the FleetCenter for the first session of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please be prepared to present your dental records."
Vermin Supreme, long-time political-protest gadfly, pauses for a moment, then brings the bullhorn back to his lips.
"Please be prepared for a full-body-cavity rectal search. Remember, it is in the name of national security, and is part of your Patriot Act."
"Oh my God!" squeals a pleasingly pump young woman in a lavender pantsuit, as dawn – finally – breaks over Marblehead. "And I'm ready to take off my shoes!"
It was the intent of the convention organizers to keep Vermin, with his ratty fake-ocelot fur hood and natty red, white, and blue-sequined vest, firmly caged. And the cage they constructed for that purpose is a fine one, indeed. Cement barriers, eight-foot-tall chain-link fencing, hardware cloth, heavy black monkey netting, and razor wire are all contrived to keep demonstrators "from throwing things" at conventioneers, according to one published report. Delegates leaving the buses and walking into the FleetCenter can hear, but only dimly see, the shadowy figures inside the Cage.
However, convention planners failed to take a few things into account. The exit from the protest-zone Cage opens on to Canal Street, where access is not restricted. And instead of arriving at the FleetCenter on shuttle buses that would have whisked them by the back of the Cage to the main entrance of the FleetCenter, thousands of convention delegates and guests decide to take their own transportation and walk up Causeway Street. The Causeway Street entrance to the FleetCenter was designed as a secondary entrance, and only one person can enter at a time. The line backs up for blocks. So on Monday night, the protesters seize the opportunity to engage the delegates directly and head out the back gate of their Cage for Causeway Street. (Indeed, shortly after seven, the Cage is largely empty, occupied primarily by tourists having their pictures taken with the Is this what democracy looks like? signs pinned to the wire.)
At first, the protesters wait until the attendees pass through the gate and into their own enclosure – not too different from the first layer of the Cage – to engage them. A man on the other side of the enclosure wears a press pass identifying him as Robert Gurley, of Indyradio in Santa Cruz. He yells at those entering the FleetCenter: "Quit posing and stand up for something. Stand up!" Sometimes a protester can be defined simply as someone who has an opinion and no convention credential. "This is how we get to talk to you," he says, his fingers wrapped through the mesh.
Robert O'Brien, a Dean alternate from Maine who is attending his third convention, stops and talks with Gurley. Afterward he explains, "I just feel that these are people who are passionate. They're behind a fence." But their sense of disproportion concerns O'Brien. "What I am worried about is we're talking about fixing the kitchen when the freaking roof's on fire. We've got to make sure that George Bush doesn't have the chance to appoint three Supreme Court justices."
As time passes, and the few cops on hand do nothing, the protesters grow bolder, come closer. They jam the intersection of Canal and Causeway, spilling for several blocks down Causeway.
Most heckles are generic, although a Free DC protester with a tricorn hat and roller blades targets Washington, DC, mayor Tony Williams for special abuse. Two women dance as they hand out Planned Parenthood's STAND UP FOR CHOICE stickers. The supporters of Lyndon LaRouche, now specializing in streetside a cappella music, sing the Freedom Riders' anthem "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody (Turn Me Round)." Several movement veterans burst into laughter. "Not bad, not bad at all," says one as he holds up his credential for inspection.
An agitated young Kerry supporter walks up and down, armed with a campaign sign and a lot of frustration. "The hard left continues to be hostile to me," he complains. "Think about it. The people on the far left do not understand that if we do not unite together it will be a hard fight." A Free DC supporter bangs a drum in his ear. Chain-smoking National Lawyers Guild observers in fluorescent-green T-shirts watch quietly. Another young man, demonstrating there is an imperceptible line between half drunk and half-wit, keeps screaming "V-Tek for president! He beat A-Rod!" "Enough already," snaps the cop, in one of the evening's few displays of official temper.
Finally, a few minutes after nine, police reinforcements show up with barricades. It's growing dark, and some of convention-goers still in the creeping line are growing a bit nervous. A cop asks Vermin to step back behind the barricade. Vermin, in a routine he and the cop know well, asks what happens if he doesn't. The cop cheerfully explains that he will have to call a wagon and have him arrested. That's okay by Vermin; he just wants to make sure the cop is playing by the rules. He steps behind the barricade, and shortly thereafter decides to call it a night.
Professor Don Mitchell of Syracuse University's Maxwell School calls the growing trend of creating demonstration zones at political events the "ghettoization" of protest. Indeed, where once protesters were rigidly segregated only at major events and where not too many years before that, they were barely segregated at all, the confinement of protesters has now become commonplace. It is now routine at Bush-administration political events for police and Secret Service agents to create special protest areas, typically located beyond viewing distance from the actual event. The policy applies only to protesters with dissenting views. Recently, the ACLU sued the Secret Service over allegations that anti-Bush protesters were removed from locations where the president would be speaking while Bush supporters were allowed to remain. That case was dismissed after the Secret Service, which never admitted to the segregation policy in the first place, said it would not differentiate in the future.
During convention week, however, it's hard to avoid the impression that free speech is breaking out all over. Despite Democratic organizers' best-laid plans, these protesters managed to get closer to convention attendees than had any protester in recent memory. Indeed, during Teresa Heinz Kerry's speech at the FleetCenter Tuesday night, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, a women's peace group whose members are easily identified by the fact that they wear bright-pink slips with the slogan PINK SLIP BUSH stamped on them, wangled a press pass to get onto the convention floor. She held aloft a US OUT OF IRAQ sign, but was immediately surrounded by delegates from Colorado who tried to hide the anti-war slogan from view. As she was jostled by Democrats from the Rocky Mountain State, a Dennis Kucinich delegate from Alaska came to her rescue ("We're supposed to be better than the Republicans," he explained) before she was whisked out of the convention hall (shouting "US out of Iraq" as she went) by convention security officers and Secret Service agents.
For the most part, nothing was thrown, and nobody got hurt – even if a few delegates did take off their shoes. Meanwhile, members of the Young Republican Executive Committee dress up in rubber sandals and stomp around Faneuil Hall. Falun Gong has taken over Copley Square. And just across from Boston Common, Libertarian Ian Scott, 26, of Mission Hill, wears a hand-lettered sandwich board that says CONSERVATIVES ORGANIZED TO CRUSH KERRY.
"I just wanted a good reason to walk around with a sign that said 'cock,'" he explains cheerfully. Scott is part of the Free State Project, which is trying to get 20,000 people to move to New Hampshire and take over elected politics. Why New Hampshire? "We had a vote, and the second-place winner was Wyoming."
"Essentially, in layman's terms, we're going up there and vote each other into office," Scott says. "It's not essentially a takeover per se," he adds reassuringly.
Inside the convention hall, interested delegates can view a pictorial history of their nominee's commitment to civil disobedience. When the Vietnam Veterans Against the War marched on Washington, in April 1971, Richard Nixon locked them out of Arlington Cemetery. So they took their "military incursion into the country of Congress" to the Capitol, occupied the steps of the Supreme Court, and camped on the Washington Mall. When the Nixon administration tried to evict them, the federal court ruled they could stay on the Mall, exercising their right to free speech, as long as they stayed awake. The vets voted, and John Kerry announced their decision to ignore the order and sleep. The DC police declined to arrest the dozing vets.
Under the Patriot Act, of course, Nixon would have no need to seek court intervention, and the DC police would not have to commit an act of civil disobedience. Today, the vets could be simply rounded up and incarcerated indefinitely. It is, after all, a Time of War.
The feel of protest and the spirit of rebellion infuse DNC-related events, even when there's, well, no protest to be found. At Howard Dean's and the Campaign for America's "Take Back America" conference, the fire marshal has locked things down. No one is allowed to go in; outside, an overflow crowd sits on the grass, as scheduled speakers come out on the patio to reprise their talks for the crowd. They are hoping to catch a glimpse of Michael Moore, but the filmmaker's security team isn't sure they want to let him out in the open air. Too easy to target.
Meanwhile, in the lobby, the air is confident. "We're going to win the election, and we're going to push John Kerry," to make good on his health-care promises, says Congressman Jim McDermott, the Shelby Foote of Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. As he waits for a wink from the fire marshal, which will allow him upstairs, the congressman is optimistic about the Democrats' chances of recapturing the Senate, and maybe even the House. "The House is on a knife edge," he says. "Some of these races are going to be won by 100 votes." The Republicans do not have a clue, he says, because they do not poll the right people. "They poll perfect voters, and these kids are not perfect voters. Kids don't vote in three out of the last four elections." However, it is these kids – those engaging in protest at the DNC, those who backed Dean, and those who worship Moore – who will provide the 100-vote margins in 2004.
Over at the Hip-Hop Summit at Roxbury Community College, Leonard C. Alkins, president of the Boston chapter of the NAACP, is thinking about those kids and strategizing for the future. Hundreds of people have turned out for this event, and each one has been asked to fill out a voter-registration card. If they are too young to vote, their names are entered into a database for future follow-up. Inside the Reggie Lewis Track and Field House, Boston election commissioner Michael Chinetti demonstrates the new optical-scanning voting machines, and shows how they create a paper trail. "Anyone who is partisan in any fashion, we are asking them to step back," says Alkins. "This is for our young people, so they think they are not being used."
Outside the summit, a PETA carrot prances, and the LaRouche volunteers, tired of being under the gaze of Nation of Islam security, break for a pizza. Across the street, Mike Yossarian – "I've heard all the jokes" – has set up shop for Volunteers for Nader. Along with Fraeda Scholz and a woman who calls herself simply Emmia, he awaits the return of Nader ballot petitions, for which they are paid per signature. They have been traveling the country in a Honda Accord station wagon for months now. For these former Kucinich supporters, war is the number-one issue. Backing Kerry simply isn't an option, says Scholz. "Why do I have to compromise everything I believe in and he doesn't have to compromise anything?"
There has been a lot of talk during this convention about free speech and civil rights. But in a world where delegates readily take off their shoes for Vermin Supreme, and attendees at a John Edwards party at the Rack happily hand over their IDs for scanning through a "visitor management system" with recorded name, date of birth, and gender checked against the invite database, it seems that many people have adjusted too easily to the creeping loss of civil liberties. And it's much harder to regain liberties lost than it is to hold hard to them in the first place.
Over at St. Paul's Cathedral, at a forum on the Patriot Act, Dennis Kucinich is calling John Kerry the "kind of politician that remembers where America came from."
"We didn't flee an empire to become an empire," Kucinich says. "We have to continue to challenge the status quo.
"We have to rage against the dying of the light," Kucinich cries, and the house roars.
But perhaps there is an English major or two in the audience who aches to put that line in context. It is not a warrior's call. Rather, inspired by what he witnessed at his father's deathbed, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote those lines about surrender to the inevitable. "Old age should burn and rave at close of day," Thomas wrote, and one hopes Kucinich's use of the line is not prescient: "Though wise men at their end know dark is right,/Because their words had forked no lightning they/Do not go gentle into that good night."
© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/19395/
Boston: Anarchist Ambulance Corps at the Ready
"Free Speech Zone" looks dangerous to some
by Mark Baard
July 26th, 2004 12:00 PM
The police plan for protesters at the Democratic National Convention, which starts today in Boston, is to pen them into a 28,000-square-foot corral beneath two elevated subway tracks, surrounded on all sides by two rows of concrete Jersey barriers and by six-foot-high chain-link fencing. A black mesh, said by police to be water repellant, covers the fence. Nets run up to the subway tracks, to prevent protesters from hurling debris over the fences. Razor wire curls along the tracks. The pen has only two exits, one of which appears to be no wider than an office doorway.
Cops say the pen can hold 4,000 people.Inside the "Free Speech Zone," protesters are invisible and all but inaudible to delegates arriving in the parking lot nearby. Abandoning a plan to boycott the cage, some protesters say they will now turn it into a dramatic re-creation of Abu Ghraib, the prison where U.S. soldiers tortured Iraqis. Others are calling it Camp X-Ray, after after America's holding facility in Guantanamo Bay for prisoners in the war on terror.
Some anarchists still intend to protest outside the
cage, risking arrest and the use of force by Boston police and the
Secret Service, not to mention the National Guard troops that have
poured into the city. For cops in situations like these, the tools of
choice have become so-called A BALM medic treats a wounded protester in Miami
nonlethal, or less lethal, weapons, from tear gas and pepper spray to last year. (photo: Danfung Dennis) rubber bullets and stun guns.
So far, the Dems have shown only their contempt for the plight of their detractors. "People had the opportunity long ago to speak to their delegates," said a press aide for the convention committee. "There are plenty of other ways to make your voice heard other than protesting."
Now debate and its consequences are left to the cops, the protesters, and the BALM volunteers. "They have anything you'd ever need, from Band-Aids to eye flushes," said Tania Vamont, a member of the Boston Anarchist Black Cross.
BALM medics, in addition to wearing the red cross on their clothing, also wear a badge depicting the squad's logo: a snake coiled around a raised fist, set against a red "star of resistance."
"It's absolutely reassuring," said Vamont, "to see them in a crowded situation."
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0430/baard.php
© Village Voice
re published at http://www.duckdaotsu.org/anarchist-medics.html
The Boston Globe
Protesters reach wary acceptance of police role
By Jenna Russell,
Globe Staff |
July 29, 2004
When animal rights activists dressed as farm animals at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles four years ago, the police patrolling their protests barely cracked a smile.
But in Boston, officers chuckled appreciatively at one protester, dressed like a 7-foot carrot.
"Hands down, [the Boston police] are the most good-natured of any of the five conventions I've attended as an activist," said Bruce Friedrich of People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals, the "campaign manager" for president candidate Chris P. Carrot. "Police directing traffic are giving us a thumbs-up, police guarding places where we're standing are being sweethearts . . . This is the first time the police, to a person, have gotten the joke."
After several days of peaceful demonstrations, protest leaders and police -- once bracing for conflict -- have begun cautiously acknowledging one another's good points. Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole, who expects the largest protests today, said most demonstrations up to now have been orderly, in part because police and protesters have shared information about plans and procedures.
Other protesters, some of whom spent months preparing for confrontations with police, gave them mixed reviews. Several complained about the noise from police helicopters; at a festival on Boston Common yesterday, the sound sometimes drowned out bands onstage. Protesters responded by lying on the ground to spell out an obscenity.
But other protest leaders praised police. At a demonstration against prison abuse yesterday in Copley Square, tensions rose when two prowar demonstrators showed up. Police "helped defuse the situation, not escalate it," said United for Justice with Peace spokeswoman Jennifer Horan.
Gael Murphy of Code Pink, a women's peace group, said police have been mostly respectful. "Some have said 'I'm with you,' or 'What can we say? It's a job.' Some are willing to explain their perspective."
Boston police Sergeant Bill Fogerty, stationed at the FleetCenter, has seen all manner of protests and has been asked his opinions on world issues. "It's been a very interesting couple of days," he said.
Steve Kurkjian and Anand Vaishnav of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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