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Legal challenge is in line with plans to disrupt GOP convention
By KATHERINE KERSTEN
Star Tribune
June 24, 2008
Elaborate plans are underway to encircle and "shut down" the Republican
National Convention at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center in September. The
strategies and tactics involved could come straight from a guerrilla
warfare manual.
[But in fact those that Kersten actually mentions are just non-violent
civil disobedience of the sort Gandhi and Martin Luther King advocated
and used.--DC]
Anarchist groups with ominous names -- the RNC Welcoming Committee,
Unconventional Action -- have announced a "three-tier strategy" to cut
off the Xcel Center. The steps include "blockading" streets and
freeways, "immobilizing" delegates' trans****tation and "blocking"
bridges to impede delegates' access to the center.
[The URLs for these groups are http://www.rncwelcomingcommittee.org/
and
http://unconventionalaction.org/
-- though neither of them seem nearly
as "ominous" to me as "Republican Party".--DC]
The plan also features a "swarm, seize, stay" strategy. After dividing
the city into "sectors," protesters propose to "seize space" through
both "hard technical blockades" and "softer, more mobile blockades" such
as congestion, according to anarchist websites.
[Which Kersten unhelpfully fails to cite.--DC]
Some demonstrators may chain themselves together in public
thoroughfares, while others operate in "waves" designed to "spread out
police both geographically and tactically."
Last week, St. Paul city attorneys described these threats in do***ents
filed in a federal lawsuit involving a permit for a march planned for
Sept. 1, the convention's first day. Between 50,000 and 100,000
demonstrators are expected to participate.
St. Paul officials have issued a permit that they say would allow
protesters to march "within the very shadows of the glassed front" of
the Xcel Center.
[Oh my Gawd!--DC]
But that's not enough for the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the
War, an umbrella organization of protest groups. The coalition is
demanding a route that would encircle the center. The city's proposed
route, it maintains, would impermissibly interfere with protesters'
ability to convey their message to delegates and the media, and so
violates their First Amendment rights.
The groups that have threatened to shut down the convention are not on
the front lines of the legal challenge. But the coalition and its
lawyers just happen to be demanding the route that anarchists need to
facilitate their plans.
Are the lawyers who are spearheading the coalition's suit a rag-tag
bunch of former '60s radicals? Quite the opposite. The coalition boasts
a legal armada that Exxon would envy. It includes pillars of the Twin
Cities legal community -- the Minneapolis mega-firms of Leonard, Street
and Deinard and Lindquist & Vennum -- as well as the ACLU of Minnesota
and Bruce Nestor of the radical National Lawyers Guild.
[Exxon would envy this legal armada?--DC]
Todd Noteboom of Leonard, Street and Deinard says St. Paul has provided
no evidence that radical groups' threats are serious or involve
significant numbers. "The possibility that a small number of people
might try to block a roadway or impede access to a bridge does not
justify stripping 100,000 people of their First Amendment rights," he
said on Tuesday.
The St. Paul Police Department doesn't have the luxury of such lawyerly
armchair musing. It will have to confront the encirclement tactic on the
city's streets. The city's court filings warn that consequences could
include "violent confrontations" involving demonstrators, delegates and
police.
Before the coalition's lawyers dismiss these concerns, they might want
to check out some recent high-profile political events. At the 2004 GOP
convention in New York City, for example, a massive and highly trained
police force barely managed to avert chaos. At the 1999 WTO Summit in
Seattle, a whirlwind of riots compelled the governor to call in the
National Guard, and the mayor to declare a state of emergency that
closed off the city's entire business district.
[These events notably featured police rioting and widescale violation of
civil liberties. But that does not concern Kersten a bit.--DC]
Since 2000, cities that have hosted national Republican and Democratic
party conventions have restricted protests in an effort to avoid
Seattle-style disasters. According to an affidavit filed by St. Paul
city attorneys, marches "within sight and sound of the primary
convention venue" were not allowed at 2004 conventions in Boston or New
York City "on any days of such conventions." In Boston in 2004, the only
march allowed took place on a 20-foot sidewalk on the day before the
convention, according to the city's court filings.
St. Paul is taking far fewer precautions than these other cities did. It
is also bending over backward to facilitate free speech rights, and will
set up a Public Viewing Area for protesters available between 7 a.m. and
11 p.m. and directly across from the Xcel Center.
[Wow, a "Public Viewing Area" for protesters. Why not just put them in
cages in the zoo?--DC]
In 2008, it's sadly inevitable that crazies will try to turn St. Paul
streets into a war zone.
But we don't have to facilitate such intimidation. After the crazies
move on, the establishment types who gave them comfort and cover -- and
sued to win a march route that apparently facilitates their plans -- had
better be prepared to take responsibility for what happens if they get
their way.
[The standard rightist conception of collective punishment, penalizing
individuals for actions that they had nothing to do with.--DC]
Katherine Kersten
mailto:kkersten@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
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