New York is ready for the Republican Convention.
A poll released yesterday found that an incredible 11 percent of New Yorkers planned to participate in the upcoming protests...Of course, the media is doing everything it can to maintain a civil environment (excuse the long citation, the entire article is definitely worth the read - and it should be interesting to cite during the convention as the authorities squash the freedom to dissent ... oh, and wait for those few 'revealing' news-clips on the major networks that have precious little to do with the vast majority of protesters or their causes).
The New York Times may believe, misguidedly, that it's doing its civic duty when it warns us that the anarchists are coming to town, a "shadowy group of protesters" known for "throwing rocks or threatening officers." But surely no such benign motives lie behind the appearance of a similar story in the ultraconservative, and partisan, Washington Times, which quotes an FBI counterterrorism chief to the effect that "violent anarchist groups" are "'planning to do more than protest.'"...Several of the inflammatory tabloid pieces have been posted to officer.com, a website for police officers, and activists fear that they'll influence police response. "They've been so pumped up with fear about us," says anarchist Eric Laursen, "that they may feel justified in snatching people off the streets at any excuse, caging protesters up and doing mass arrests." On Monday night Laursen gathered together Graeber, an anthropologist; author Starhawk; and half a dozen other anarchist thinkers at St. Mark's Church in the East Village for a media briefing to respond to the misinformation. Though the speakers made a good-faith effort to explain what anarchism means to them (egalitarianism, nonhierarchical social structures) and why they're protesting the RNC, the reporters asked only about property destruction. Laursen, who's a member of the A31 coalition, which is coordinating a day of direct action for next Tuesday, says various collectives have sit-ins planned, and die-ins, and even dance-ins, as well as street theater good and bad (one group will dress in flight suits and play golf; another will walk the subway cars dressed as dead Iraqis), but he says no one's planning any property destruction that he's heard of...
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