Continue to Fight All Governement!
The Republicans will hold their party’s National Convention in New York City from August 28 to September 4, 2004. There have already begun mass preparations by many groups in opposition to the RNC. These groups are calling out the Republicans’ effort to further exploit the grief of the residents of NYC by planning the Convention a week before the three year anniversary of 9/11. It is not to early too start planning for the 2004 RNC protests right after we return from the November FTAA protests in Miami.
Mayor Bloomburg is excited to host the RNC in NYC, expecting the event to draw 50,000 visitors and generate about $150 million in economic activity. His decisions are clearly not in the interest of the city’s residents, but in the commercial profits being brought in from tourism. With NYC unemployment up from 4.9% in May, 2003 to 6.3% in October, 21% of NYC families living beneath the poverty line, and 70% of NYC eighth grade students below grade level reading skills due to inequitable funding between urban and suburban schools, Bloomburg should be handling the current economic crisis on his hands rather than co-chairing the NYC Host Committee’s Finance Committee. Other co-chairs include such corporate hotshots as John P. Costas of UBS Warburg, Henry A. McKinnel of Pfizer, Henry M. Paulson Jr. of Goldman Sachs, David Rockefeller, Jerry I. Speyer, a developer, Jonathen M. Tisch of Loews, and Stanford I. Will of Citigroup. Former Mayor, Rudolph Guliani, is the Committee’s Chairman. This Committee has donated $60 million to the $91 million 2004 RNC budget. Such an elite group of CEO’s and special interest lobbyists can only guarantee the type of corporate sympathy the Republicans represent and the influence they desire over NYC policies.
United for Peace and Justice, one of the main organizations planning demonstrations for the event, says that the Republicans are using the tragedy of 9/11 to further push right-wing reforms, such as slashing funding to healthcare and education. UFPJ calls for a mass global march on Thursday, September, 2, the official day of the nomination of Bush as the Republican presidential candidate. CounterConvention.org is a website organized to create an early dialogue to “increase the effectiveness of our demonstrations.” Their website has logistical information and lists of organizations demonstrating against the RNC. RNC Not Welcome is another group gearing up for the RNC by encouraging a diversity of tactics, fundraising with film screenings of Whispered Media’s We Interrupt This Empire at ABC No Rio and Walker Stage in NYC, hosting a civil liberties and immigrant detention panel discussion, and having a Reclaim the Streets in Brooklyn this past September. The SOA Watch, an organization that protests annually at the School of Americas in Fort Benning, GA, is calling for people of conscience to join the events that are being planned. They propose non-violent direct action to call attention to the double standard between the “War on Terrorism” and the terrorist tactics taught at the SOA supported by the Bush Administration . Food Not Bombs! in Richmond, VA is calling for in international FNB World Gathering 2004 in conjunction with the RNC protests to mobilize against the regressive right-wing reforms and discuss food-sharing and direct action.
There are a host of resources on counterconvention.org and rncnotwelcome.org from how to bring a corporation to its knees, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA style, to how to form a black bloc. Affinity groups can organize to blockade the site of the RNC, Madison Square Garden, and take back other key sites swarming with Disney-endorsed tourism, such as Times Square, and the shopping mall, SoHo. Get your pirate radio transmitters up and running to keep media free and really inform the NYC resident’s what is happening. Take over the offices of the Convention’s sponsors, such as Pfizer and Loews. Some groups are responding with counter-discussion to RNC Not Welcome’s encouragement of diversity of tactics, a dialogue that should be kept open and healthy, considering methods that would not to alienate the work of Community Based Organizations. Other agendas that should be discussed when working with your group are race, gender, and class issues and organizing, and your groups needs, such as transportation, housing, and organizing space, and possibly, jail solidarity.
We can no longer stand back and allow the government to provide taxpayer money for the occupation, not just in Iraq, but in urban areas such as NYC, where protest has been deemed terrorism and the police have taken over the streets during the recent past anti-war, anti-Bush demonstrations. While the blatant atrocities executed by the Bush Administration brought many people into the streets to demonstrate, as anarchists, we need to outline our goals in ending all domination perpetuated by government, not just against the Republicans. Even if we succeed in bringing down the Bush Regime, US imperialism will still continue if the government holds power. Bush is not the only problem. he is simply the puppet with the corporate agenda’s hand up his ass. He just made many people finally realize the full and dangerous potential of government backed by profit-driven interests. The Republicans did out in the open what the government has been doing covertly since its inception, waging war against people who stand up to capitalist domination. Organize now against the 2004 RNC! Continue to build broad movements against all government!