RNC Protest: Shooting ourselves in the foot

There's a really comprehensive article in Salon today about all of the forces coming to bear on New York in advance of the Republican National Convention later this month and how they envision events unfolding. On one side you have the RNC planners and delegates and the police and Secret Service protecting them, and on the other you have what appear to be a very well-organized and increasingly militant anti-RNC (and, while we're at it, anti- pretty much whatever you can imagine) protest groups.

"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."

There's a showdown coming to Manhattan. Backed by the most intense security the city has ever seen, the Republicans are about to turn the blue-state bastion of New York City into the backdrop for George Bush's coronation. The RNC chose New York because it was the site of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which to Bush's opponents and even some ordinary New Yorkers seems a brazen provocation.

On one side are 36,000 cops -- a force that City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. calls "perhaps the world's tenth-largest standing army." On the other side are at least 250,000 protesters expected to converge on the city from all across the United States and Canada -- a demonstration six times larger than the legendary anti-globlization protests that rocked Seattle in 1999.

The article has a quite lengthy profile and interviews key players on both sides. One thing is made abundantly clear: there will be angry protests, not everybody will be playing by the rules, and there will be inevitable clashes and almost certainly violence.

As a disclaimer, for a while earlier this year I was seriously comtemplating organizing a delegation of us Expats Against Bush to go to New York to participate in the protests. I still support that idea in principle, but everything I've heard seems to indicate that things look to turn quite ugly there - and possibly counter-productive to our ultimate goal of kicking Bush out of power.

Assuming the protests turn into violent clashes and that becomes the story of the Convention later this month, then what is achieved?

The protesters are not going to convince the delegates to the Convention to change their minds and abandon the Republican Party.

Even though many New Yorkers view the selection of New York so close to the 9/11 anniversary as political exploitation, massive disruption to their daily lives and violence in the streets will not bring any new people there into the fold.

Most importantly, televised pictures of radical activists in violent confrontation with the police, screaming into megaphones and frothing at the mouth, may actually alienate the mainstream swing voters that the Kerry campaign is so desperate to woo.

The Salon article addresses this:

"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."

I have to admit that there's something to this argument. I don't remember hearing more than token coverage of anti-Democrat protests in Boston - but here we have talk of following delegates around, harassing them and making "their stay here as miserable as possible." How is Joe Undecided going to react to that sort of tactic? Is he going to sympathize more with the protesters? Or with the delegates?

You may remember when we were organizing the anti-Bush protests here in London in November last year, I made a concerted effort to downplay radicalism in our group, operating on the principle that our target audience would be middle class Americans watching on television back home, who by and large are more likely to identify with a soft-spoken and moderate protester than with a "usual suspect" protester. And in fact that protest by and large was quite moderate, with many first-time demonstrators (myself included). Of course, after the protests a couple of people in Trafalgar Square burned some American flags, and guess what got on television? The flags, of course, and the negative reaction to those scenes from our friends in Americans was both sad and predictable, and totally blown out of proportion to the true message of the protest.

The same thing could easily happen in New York. For all the good intentions, at the end of the day the media will pick the pictures that sell, and if there are 9 peaceful protests and 1 complete riot, it's easy to predict what will be shown on the evening news.

Has this been Karl Rove's plan all along?

Ideologically I am behind the protesters in New York (with some caveats) - but I can't help wondering if it will end up doing more harm than good.

Comments

[Luke]

Here's a New Yorker's perspective (from http://www.salon.com/opinion/letters/2004/08/12/veterans_democracy/index.html):

As a native New Yorker born with a plastic spoon in his mouth, I'm getting tired of every person with a cause coming to my hometown to protest instead of doing it in their own hometowns. Don't the protesters know that all the corporate stuffed shirts are off on vacation for the month of August? I would appreciate it if the protesters would go to Martha's Vineyard and express their political views to the people who can actually make changes, not schmoes like me who are just trying to get to get to and from work each day.

The antiwar protests last year were fine on the weekends, but went nowhere on the weekdays, because the average working person does not care about the rights of others, they care about making their rent and food money. I doubt anyone with adult responsibilities will jump in and start protesting arm in arm with a bunch of college kids and homeless folks.

After having close friends killed on 9/11 by crazy people from another country wanting to make a statement against the U.S., getting stuck in subways by crazy Republicans who want to make their statement about our country, and on top of this, having crazy protesters from other states come to New York to make their own statement about our country, I am sick and tired of my hometown being a canvas for fanatics of all stripes. Please, please leave us alone!

-- John Feerick

[karly]

in response... if you do not wish for fanatics to visit your hometown I suggest you move. New York is, after all, the center of the universe. I love your fantastic city-- most New Yorkers made me feel extremely welcome.

MANY PEOPLE IN THE USA FORGOTTEN WHAT WE RIPRESENT TO THE WORLD, LOTS OF THINGS HAD BEEN SAID ABOUT MR. BUSH AND THE WAY HE HAS HANDLE THE NATION AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM. NOW
IF AL GORE WAS THE PRESIDENT WOULD HE HANDLE THINGS DIFFERENT? WOULD HE GO AFTER TERRORISTS WITH A VENGANCE, OR WOULD HE WAITED TO SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPENED NEXT AND THEN REACT? WHAT HIS REACTION BE, WOULD SADDAM STILL BE IN POWER AND THE US STILL BE IN NEED TO SEND TROOPS TO THE MIDDLE EAST TO REFRAIN HIM FROM ATTACKING HIS NIEGHBORS AND CONTINUE TO ABUSE HUMAN RIGHTS ANY TIME HE DISREGARD THE UNITED NATIONS MANDATES AND TREATHEN ITS NEIGHBORS OVER AND OVER? WHAT WOULD A LIBERAL(DEMOCRAT)PRESIDENT ACTIONS BE? ONLY A NARROW MAINDED PERSON WOULD FAILED TO REALIZE THA SADDAM,GADDAFI,THE TALIBAN AND OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN LEADERS WERE AND ARE A BIGGER TREATH TO OUR SOCIETY AND WAY OF LIFE THAN A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK. THE IMAGE OF LIBERALISM(IN EVERY FORM)THAT OUR NATION PROJECTS TO THESE PARTICULAR LEADERS AND REGION IS VERY NEGATIVE. THERE IS A LOT INDIVIDUALS OUT THERE THAT DO NOT LIKE THE UNITED STATES BECAUSE OF OUR SOCIETY IS DIFERRENT THAN THEIR'S. WE HAVE TO MAKE OUR MAINDS EITHER WE ARE WEAK AND NAIVE OR STRONG AND RISPECTED! LEAVE THE NEW YORKERS ALONE LET THEM HEAL THEIR SORROW! THEY HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE MISTAKE OF ELECTING AN OUTSIDER WITH POLITICAL ANBITIONS, TO BE A SENATOR FOR THEIR STATE TO THE US CONGRESS. I LIVED IN NEW YORK FOR MANY YEARS, I FEEL THEIR PAIN! JOBS WERE LEAVING THE US UNDER THE CLINTON'S ADMINISTRATION, DON'T BLAME THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION ONLY! LETS THINK WITH OUR MINDS CLEAR, OUT OF POLITICAL PARTIES AND MAKE THE MUST APPROPIATED CHOICE. MAY THE LORD BLESS THIS NATION THAT HAS DONE SO MANY GOOD THINGS FOR SO MANY PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD!

Now that is the kind of post I really enjoy. Not only is it authentic nonsensical rambling, it is chock full of exciting and new spellings of words as well as interesting twists on grammar. I especially enjoy the all caps approach, so it has the effect of being written in a kind of hysterical lather.

Thanks and come again!

[Chrish]

Forget the all caps, the spelling, the grammar
holier than thou {no name} do you have the capacity to catch the person's idea's, their point
or are you just another intellectual elitist Liberal?

You've got to be kidding. Can you actually extract a "point" out of that robotic Fox News mumbo jumbo? If so, I'll gladly address it. And please, the "intellectual elite" baiting crap has no place here.

[Chrish]

Sure it does {no name}. You point out the grammatical and spelling errors while completely ignoring the person's ideas. Then you turn around
and try to claim it's just a bunch of "Fox News
mumbo jumbo", as if that has any relevance to what
the person said.

I repeat my question, "are you just another intellectual elitist Liberal?"??

Are you just another intellectual weakling who would rather call names than make a valid point?

Please, enlighten us as to exactly what that person's point was (in your opinion) and I will be happy to address it.