Salon: New York lockdown

[kskiska]

Cops plan zero tolerance for violent protests at the GOP Convention. Militant groups plan to disrupt the city like never before. Welcome, delegates!

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. Recently, a woman with a polished, middle-aged sounding voice left a message saying, "For some God-unknown reason I'm on the Republican mailing list, and they sent me what they call a list of their inner-circle events." The events hadn't been publicized elsewhere, she said, and she wanted to fax the list to Moran.

Moran feeds information like this 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, who has sandy hair, a snub nose and a goatee. The son of a retired Queens cop, he's 30 but looks younger. "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."

more…
http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/11/rnc_protest/index.html

[thebigidea]

1. yeah, because "property destruction" makes for great press

nice work, guy. I wonder if some of those super sekrit tips aren't coming direct from Karl Rove.

Moron.

[fizzana]

2. One part of me is concerned while the other side says "Bring It On"

From the article.

"The wilder and more disreputable the demonstrators look, the better for the Republicans," says Paul Berman, a former student organizer and author of "A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968. "At the height of the antiwar movement, Nixon specifically directed his motorcade to go through the middle of an antiwar riot in California in order to have people throw rocks at him or shout obscenities so that the TV would pose the question that night to the American public: 'Whom do you prefer, President Nixon, or a dope-smoking hippie communist rock thrower?' And the country had no doubt. This was just genius on his part. If Bush ends up winning the election, it will be because of this kind of tactic."

Thirty-five years ago, Berman's generation was notorious for its scornful dismissal of older, cautious liberals. Today, Moran sounds like their rightful descendant, insisting that Berman's lesson doesn't apply. Rather than being alienated by upheavals in Manhattan's streets, he believes ordinary people will join in.

"I've heard some old-timers say, 'If you people riot it will hand Bush the presidency,'" he says. "I think that's just lazy thinking. Any situation where we are joined by regular New Yorkers in the streets is a positive thing."

The Anarchist in me would love to see a shitstorm of chaos descend on New York but the older more reasonable side of me says that every action anyone on the left takes must be dedicated to seeing Bush defeated in November.

I fear that chaos and anarchy in New York played across the TV screens in America cold cause those cautiously voting for Kerry to scurry back to Bush as a model of 'law and order'.

It seems that Bloomberg and the NYPD are actually hoping for something like this judging by their blanket refusal to accommodate all but the most minimal of protests.

[JSJ]

3. i say bring it the fuck on, already- make it 'days of rage' 2

And let the fascists suffer the same consequences the Democrats in '68 suffered for looking disarrayed and fascist in their responses. The fascists are the true anarchists anyway, what with their utter contempt for the law and whatnot.