NYC Weighs a Dozen Bids for GOP Protests

[Massacure]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=696&e=2&u=/ap/20040615/ap_on_el_pr/gop_convention

NEW YORK - About a dozen groups have requested permits to stage protests at the Republican National Convention, city authorities said Monday, a day before the deadline for such requests.



City officials have encouraged protest organizers to apply by Tuesday to allow enough time to consider their demands against concerns about terrorism, traffic and unauthorized protests during the four-day gathering. The convention is scheduled for Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 at Madison Square Garden in midtown Manhattan.

Anti-war groups seeking permits include United for Peace and Justice, Not In Our Name and Code Pink-Women for Peace, along with the Green Party, the National Council of Arab Americans and various civil rights and labor groups.

The Great Lawn in Central Park, Times Square, Union Square, the Brooklyn Bridge and Riverside Park are among the locations requested for events that could start as early as Aug. 22.

[Massacure]

1. kick

Doesn't anyone care?

[ncrainbowgrrl]

3. kick, soccer ball style

:kick:

[Mokito]

2. Hell yeah!

I'm just sorry I can't be there. I think this will be a protest of historic proportions.

[SOS]

4. What if they gave a party and nobody came?

Rove may have selected NYC to recreate Chicago 1968. Humphrey was leading, Nixon won. Ignore 'em. Cheer the Democratic ticket in Boston instead.
The 500,000 anti-war marchers in NYC on 2/15/03 didn't even get on the news.

[enki23]

5. it was more than 500,000

and they most certainly did make the news.

[SOS]

8. It may well have more than 500,000

but the corporate media coverage was an insult.

[Tight_rope]

6. kick

[despairing optimist]

7. The thing that worries me about this is

that the protesters may be getting set up. UPJ, NION, and other groups have been applying for permits for a year, and not one has been granted yet. The ACLU and NYCLU have the city in court, I think, and if the NYPD handles things the way it did on 2/15/03, it may provoke rioting and win the GOP sympathy votes after news managers and the punditocracy interpret the TV images selected by them. Don't let them get away with this!

People are planning to converge on the city, permits or not, which could mean police greeting crowds with bullhorns telling them about unlawful assemblies and ordering them to disperse--which of course few of them will listen to. And, of course, it's hard to disperse if the cops are blocking all the possible escape routes and penning people in. I hope the protest organizers have a counter-strategy to this possible tactic. I can just see the Reps claiming their side is law-abiding when they did everything in their power to deprive opponents of their right to form legal mass protests, and then get to gas and assault them with wild abandon at the same time they play the victim. Sounds like a Rove/DeLay dream come true.

I read an article in the NYT about different forms of protest being employed, and that's a wise idea given the obvious stalling tactics that the city and its Repub backers have engaged in regarding planned demos and rallies. Careful counter-planning will outwit these guys.