[mgj-discuss] DAWN BUSES to NYC for the RNC

[Matthew Kavanagh]

Buses to the RNC through DAWN:
http://www.dawndc.net/conventions/bustickets.php

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Why you should protest the Republicans in New York
From:    "DC Anti-War Network" <info at dawndc.net>
Date:    Mon, August 9, 2004 11:39 am
To:      "DC Anti-War Network" <info at dawndc.net>
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The Republicans are coming to New York City to have their national
convention, and it's important that you in the DC area are there to say no
to the Bush agenda.

On February 15, 2003, over 500,000 people came to New York and took
control of large sections of Manhattan in order to prevent a war in Iraq. 
After this demonstration, Bush dismissed the protesters, calling them a
focus group.  When that moment came, I and others thought that they had
seen nothing yet, that our protests would get bigger, larger, and harder
to ignore.  The February 15 protest was the first and only protest that
Bush ever acknowledged.  With numbers that actually came close to
approaching those who felt strongly against the war, even a pschopath like
Bush would have found it harder and harder to ignore.

People think that the Bush Administration cannot be moved.  Unfortunately,
this is not so.  A Democratic minority in the Senate has successfully
waged war on judicial nominees, has managed to pass legislation on
campaign finance reform (something Bush actually opposed) that Bush signed
out of fear of a public relations disaster.  We know how little backbone
Democrats have had, and yet those few times when they have stuck their
necks on the line, so few of them managed to do what so many of us have
never done.  They budged the Bush Administration to notice and to react
and sometimes to change their course of action.

We gave up too quickly, became discouraged too easily, and became
frightened not so much by Bush but by our inability to stop it.

The protests at the Republican National Convention give us a renewed
ability to pick up the work we left behind in February 2003.  They will be
at least as large, but they will be sustained.  In New York, more than one
big action on August 29, there are several hundreds of actions planned
throughout the week.  Some are permitted marches, some are unpermitted,
but all of them share with them the belief that justice and social change
begins with us the people and that there will be a whole world of activity
that is far more profound than the pony show inside of Madison Square
Garden.

People have told me that the best way to make your voice heard is to vote.
 Unfortunately, those people often seem to mean that it is the only way to
make your voice heard.  Of course, the argument that it is the best way to
make your voice heard is flawed.  In the District of Columbia, it is a
foregone conclusion that Kerry will win.  How will my vote matter?  How
will it matter more than organizing other people to be out in the streets
putting pressure on the Republicans and on the public at large to pay more
attention to the anti-war and social justice issues that are at the heart
of our struggle.  If you live in Maryland or Virginia, your votes might
matter more, but even then, how can you plausibly say that your lone
individual vote will matter more than being a voice in social activist
movements that are working to promote real change?  Did a vote for Abraham
Lincoln in 1860 actually do more to end slavery than the years of work of
Frederick Douglas?  I think that would be absurd.  Yet, here we all have
the chance to be active, to take to the streets, to promote the social
change that makes any political vote we might make relevant.  When we are
active, when we go out into the streets, democracy has a chance to
flourish.  What are we voting for if we aren't voting for a world where
people can speak out freely and congregate together in open spaces?

It is important that we be at the Republican National Convention to
protest a regime that stole an election in 2000, that used tragedy to wage
a criminal war in Afghanistan and Iraq, that overthrew the democratically
elected government in Haiti, that continues to work to undermine the
democratically elected government of Venezuela.  It is important that we
fight the increasing assault on civil liberties represented by the Patriot
Act, by a world of Code Orange and Code Red, by the actions at Guantanamo
Bay.  It is a government that has made numerous assaults on the
environment from attempts to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to the
slaughter of buffalo and relaxed snowmobile fuel emission standards in
Yellowstone to an assault on the Endangered Species Act itself.  It is a
government that is working on a missile defense system and has pushed for
the development of more nuclear weapons.

At the Republican National Convention, many of you will be going to the
major United for Peace and Justice protest on Sunday, August 29.  This
protest will be huge and important.  We are glad for the many of you who
plan to attend.  However, I would like to ask for as many people as
possible to come and stay the week.  We are working so very hard to
provide you free housing for your stay in New York.  On August 28, youth
are encouraged to attend the Books Not Bombs Youth Convergence, and
everyone should the Green Party peace festival in Washington Square.  On
August 30, there's the Still We Rise Coalition march.  That coalition
represents a great many homeless and AIDS advocacy groups.  It's an
important march.  On August 31, many groups will be holding various direct
action gatherings.  Some of the exciting ones that DAWN has been involved
with you can find out about tonight at 7 PM at Dupont Circle (center of
the circle).  Trust me, these actions will be incredible.  Just check out
the calendar at http://counterconvention.org/phpicalendar/month.php for
how many activities there are.  Someone recently told me it was the
Protest-a-palooza of protests.

I'd also ask you to come with other activists.  So many people I talk to
are looking for a $5 edge on tickets, to get the best deal.  Many of us,
myself included, are very poor and cannot afford to eat let alone take
time off.  However, for those of you who can make the commitment, please
come with us.  Our buses will have entertainment, open mikes, teach-in
opportunities.  You will make new friends and have new experiences like
you cannot have on a Chinatown bus to New York.  If you come with us, we
can also give you housing and all the information you need for free food. 
Many of us will have been involved with know your rights training,
affinity group training, and can prepare you for what you'll see in New
York and how to take care of each other.  Most importantly, we need you to
come out with us to help build the movement.  When we work individually,
we squash the movement.  We have to do this for each other, so that we can
be more than merely a focus group.  Please go to
http://www.dawndc.net/conventions/bustickets.php to buy or find out how
you can buy your bus ticket.

So many of you on the streets have expressed to me fear or a lacking sense
of empowerment about New York.  You don't want to be caught in pens, and
you do not think we will be able to get close to the delegates or anyone
inside Madison Square Garden.  There is a strong belief that the press
will ignore us.  I think in each case that your fears are overstated.  We
will be put into pens just as the New York police do for every event
including the St. Patrick's Day parade, but recent court rulings have
changed the practice somewhat.  The police must let people out of the pens
whenever they request it.  In the past, people were forced to stay in the
pens and were not allowed out.  Now, those pens will be ineffectual
because we will be walking on any side of the pen that we want.  Secondly,
do not assume that you will not be able to get close to the delegates. 
With tight security and only a few people, many of us were able to get
face-to-face with thousands of delegates.  Some activists managed to get
into delegate breakfasts.  In one case, a DC activist managed to get into
the Fleet Center itself to unfurl a banner.  While one might expect a
heightened security in New York, one should also expect more people and
more opportunities to remove the wall that unjustly separates
representatives of the people from the people.  As for the press, I can
say from my own experience that the mainstream press is tuned into these
protests like never before.  Reporters from the New York Times call me up,
for instance, unsolicited.  I have never done so many interviews in my
life.  All of this has happened without much press outreach.  We simply
haven't needed it.  The press has been plugged into this since spring, and
they know that this is a huge story.  When close to a million people, if
we do our part, descend on Manhattan, it's not your normal protest.  It
may even surpass Chicago 1968 in importance if we do it right.

But, that's just it...it's up to us to do it right.  We need bodies on the
ground.  We need you to join us on August 29, but we need you from August
27 - September 3.  We need you to come to New York and make this a true
festival of the people, a true convention of the body politic.  The
Republicans thought they could exploit the dead of September 11 and hold
their national convention in liberal New York.  We must make sure to let
them know that they are not welcome.  New Yorkers are ready to make sure
that we instead are welcome.  They have worked so hard to welcome us.

Now, we need the people of DC, Maryland, and Virginia to join us.  Please
join us on our buses, in our housing, and in the streets in peace and
sisterhood and brotherhood with each other.

In peace,
Jim
http://www.dawndc.net/conventions



-- 
"Your silence will not protect you."
-Audre Lorde

Matthew Kavanagh :: silenceintoaction at riseup.net
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