Protesters aim to make Big Apple miserable for GOP Delegates

By Bob Dart
WASHINGTON BUREAU

Thursday, August 26, 2004

WASHINGTON -- Hoping to turn the Big Apple rotten for Republicans, protesters are plotting enough mischief to ensure that delegates won't be wearing \"I ™ N.Y.\" shirts home from their party's political convention next week.

Groups such as RNC Not Welcome, Counter Convention, Shut It Down NYC and No RNC Clearinghouse are using the Internet to create headaches for the 5,000 or so delegates and alternates coming to New York for the Republican National Convention.

Broadway casts are being urged to call in sick on the night that state delegations are scheduled to go to the theater.

\"Shadow protesters\" are being recruited to disguise themselves as clean-cut volunteers and infiltrate convention hotels and events. Penetrating the convention \"bubble,\" these \"phantom volunteers\" will seek to provide wrong directions to delegates or cause havoc by not showing up for their duties at key times.

Armed with the times and locations of scores of GOP events, street theater groups plan to disrupt convention-connected affairs all over Manhattan.

One protest Web site even provided instructions (and a recipe for chocolate tofu meringue pie) for getting into an event and \"pieing\" delegates. \"Choose a worthy target. Any pompous evil-doer will do for a glouping. Shave, put on a suit (without necktie), wear an American flag pin, and keep your hair short. You'll be able to go anywhere!\"

\"We want to make their stay here as miserable as possible,\" anarchist Jamie Moran, the son of a retired Queens police officer, told Rolling Stone magazine.

Even liberal comedian Al Franken, stealing an idea from the movie \"Network,\" hopes to raise a ruckus during the convention. In the 1976 classic film, the character Howard Beale asks his television audience to get up and go to their open windows and yell, \"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!\"

On Wednesday, Franken urged New Yorkers to stick their heads out of their windows on Sept. 2, when President Bush formally accepts his party's nomination, and yell, \"Fuggedaboutdit!\"

\"This is a form of protest that is very nondisruptive,\" Franken said at the Manhattan office of Air America radio network, where he hosts a talk show.

Franken said he expected the shouts to last less than five minutes. Out of \"respect for the office of the presidency,\" he asked that participants quiet down once Bush begins speaking so \"people can hear him give a bad speech.\"

Republican planners had hoped that holding their convention in New York shortly before the third anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that wounded the city would highlight what they view as one of President Bush's finest hours. But anti-Bush animosity runs high in a city where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by a 5-1 margin.

And frustrated dissidents are turning to mischief and \"direct actions\" after traditional protest parades and demonstrations were successfully kept away from recent political events such as the G-8 Summit on Sea Island, Ga., and the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

\"When Bush went to London in November, 300,000 people marched in protest of his visit. That is the largest protest ever held on a weekday in the U.K.,\" said Angela Coppola of No RNC Clearinghouse. \"The first lady said she didn't see a single protester while she was in Britain.

\"This is a president who admits to not reading newspapers. He is allowed to live in an artificial America where everyone agrees with him,\" she explained. \"This is the reason we are targeting delegates. The Bush administration feels it should not have to see dissent. All of America is a free-speech zone.\"

So organizers are preparing to spread mayhem wherever delegates venture, especially away from the heavily secured convention site.

\"If we are diffused throughout the city, we will have a much better advantage. After all, the real target is not Madison Square Garden, the stage of the spectacle, but the various events where deals are made, where the lobbyists wine, dine, and bribe Bush & Co.,\" the group RNC Not Welcome told potential protesters.

Internet sites have provided the names and addresses of hotels where state delegations will be staying, plus the times and addresses of convention-related events.

The leftist Indy Media has posted an Internet list of names, hometown street addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of Republican delegates in addition to the hotels where they will be staying \"during their invasion of New York City.\"

The Indy Media objectives: To \"supply anti-RNC groups with data on the delegates to use in whatever way they see fit.\"

And to \"facilitate making local connections. Many of these same delegates are involved in politics and business on a town or county level.\"

To gather inside information on the GOP conventioneers and their activities, the protesters are wooing disgruntled employees of hotels, sympathizers on Broadway and at convention party venues, and anti-Republican activists in home states.

\"Any source of contributed info will remain anonymous, of course,\" said Indy Media in seeking data on delegates.

Of course, these plans have not been welcomed by delegates and others who surf the Internet.

\"I am a delegate,\" one e-mailer responded. \"The first one of you slimebags that tries anything on me will meet the business end of my Glock. I will be packing it in New York.\"

\"Why interfere with delegates?,\" asked another e-mailer. \"The conventions are the nuts and bolts of our political system. Are you willing to destroy democracy to 'save it'?\"

The short answer may be \"yes.\"

\"We view the Republican Party as one of the most important organizations of the ruling class, selling and intellectualizing this system to all thanks in part to a compliant corporate media system,\" said Indy Media in an online commentary. \"But do not misinterpret us. We do not view the Democratic Party as an opposition party but rather as another side of the same coin.\"

Among the anarchists, there is no overall organization or plan for the convention protests, said Moran of RNC Not Welcome.

\"We are not ringleaders of protests nor are we telling people to go to specific delegate hotels,\" he explained in an e-mail. \"We have published information knowing that people want it but we are not running a protest dispatch service.\"

fantomas:
Isn't the basic idea of anarchy that there is no plan?

I'm just waiting to see if the media, who are in the pocket of the GOP, call the RNC spectacle what it really is:  a total fake, phoney, Potemkin Village farce (since they're not going to let their diehard, wacko right-wing nuts speak in prime time, unlike the Democrats).

Some of the marches and protests look interesting, though.  I'm still debating whether I'm going to attend some of them.

bobby78751:
Why don't I go ahead and be the first one to start the thread of evil.  Hey, it was going to be either me or Raze, anyway.  

The recent limelight on the homosexual agenda has Donnie stirred. \"The gloves are off,\" he says. \"And if there’s going to be a war, there’s going to be a war. But it will be a war with a purpose.\" He is very concerned that the Christian community is not outraged at the recent homosexual high school in New York. \"This is not a privately funded school. It is a public school funded by taxpayers' money. Why isn’t anyone else speaking out?\" he asks. Donnie believes that it actually puts the children more at risk than if they were attending a regular high school. \"Everyone knows that everyone at the high school is homosexual. That makes for an easy target.\"

His main purpose, though, is to help sexually confused children. \"How do they know that they are homosexual?\" asks Donnie. \"If you ask them and go back far enough, it’s usually a pinpoint place.\" For the ones that want help, Donnie is there for them. There are young boys who weep at the altar. \"They want help,\" says Donnie. \"That’s what I’m there to do.\" The gay community is saying that Donnie is a threat and that he is trying to convert young children or control their minds. \"I’m not in the mood to play with those who are trying to kill our children. Someone has to be the voice for them, and the children are only hearing one voice right now,\" he says.
 

William1865:
 The Democrats let their diehard, wacko right-wing nuts speak in prime-time? Must have missed that...

billsf:
11:10 PM - Hilary Clinton Piñata

copman:
 Sure sorry I'm missing this event! A very crafty/brilliant woman who for someone reason the sight and /or sound of her is like nails on the chalkboard to me. eek!

PhillyFan:
 No this would never happen, when you hit one of these candy should come out, not a big pile of shit...sheesh.

I'm confused by the line up of prominent republicans who espouse views just like mine. Pataki and Bloomberg along with Giuliani and McCain have all been given prominent TV-FaceTime to present the GOP as the party that \"I\" see. Not as envisioned by those wacky loonies who are trying to hi-jack my party.

ung:
I say let the freakazoid newcomer holy rollers get their own Christian Ultimate Truth Party and leave my GOP alone.

August 27, 2004

Dear Friends,

First, in the tempests-in-teacups department:

The Cash family has NOT approved the usage of the name or likeness of Johnny Cash for the purposes of the Republican Party, or any political agenda or event.
Sotheby's, who is auctioning the estate of Johnny and June Cash on September 14th, 15th and 16th, is not affiliated with any political organization and has no political agenda.

The Republican Party and/or convention cannot and has not co-opted the name or likeness of Johnny Cash for their purposes.

What HAS happened is that Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, an old family friend of Dad and June, has asked to have a private party at Sotheby's for some members of the Tennessee delegation. Sotheby's rents out space for parties to many, many diverse groups, and this was approved by both Sotheby's and the estate lawyers for my father, based on the personal relationship between our family and the Senator, NOT as a show of support for the Republican agenda.

What was a little more murky was a second party, unrelated to the Senator, and whose intent was somewhat confusing, which seemed to play rather fast and loose with the image of my Dad on their invitations and and party plan. As soon as we found out about this, it was stopped. With a resounding thud.

There is no need to 'defend' my Dad against the Republicans, or against anyone, for that matter, as some over-zealous types would have you believe. You can rest assured that if anyone needs to 'defend' my Dad against improper usage of his name or image, that we, the family and the estate lawyers, are on the case, usually long before the rest of the world finds out about it. It is our honor and our duty to protect the legacy of my father, and we all take this very seriously, and we are empowered to the nth degree to do so.

So, please, rest easy. If you feel the need to protest something, allow me to give you directions to Madison Square Garden.

Rosanne Cash

ung:
I am very often told that because of my pro-gay, pro-choice and other leanings, I am not a \"real republican\". I'm told by others including some on this board that I don't meet the requirements to be GOP.  

NFLJockGuy:
The GOP has contacted \"suitable\" black people in the New York area (on a PAID basis) to come to the convention and stand in the crowd with the attending delegates!!!!

ung:
It's interesting to me the presentation and feature speakers at this Nat'l Convention.

I am very often told that because of my pro-gay, pro-choice and other leanings, I am not a \"real republican\". I'm told by others including some on this board that I don't meet the requirements to be GOP.

So then...  I'm confused by the line up of prominent republicans who espouse views just like mine. Pataki and Bloomberg along with Giuliani and McCain have all been given prominent TV-FaceTime to present the GOP as the party that \"I\" see. Not as envisioned by those wacky loonies who are trying to hi-jack my party.

Where is Dick Armey? Where is The ex-terminex man? where is Ann Coulter? Where is The Supreme Court Justice who placed the 10 Commandments in the lobby of the court house in the middle of the night?

where is the pep rally for the marriage amendment?

jqueer:
  If you're not a real republican, you probably shouldn't be voting for their candidates. I can certainly understand why the Democratic party is not a viable option for disenfranchised Republicans.... If you don't like where you're party's headed, stop voting for them....

Munson Man:
Wow!!  Rudy Giuliani set MSG on fire tonight.  He absolutely hammered John Kerry on his repeated flip-flops. and drew blood several times  The speech was terrific and really highlighted the core problem with Kerry for a lot of us.

ung:
Have you never read a single post of mine in the P&R section?

TomFord:
Ron Silver is on right now.  He's not a very effective speaker (which is surprising for an actor).

Adam:
But that's the nature of the Conventions this year. Both are striving to be moderates to appeal to that small segment of the electorate still up for grabs. My Democrats kept mum in prime time on such topics as abortion, gun control, poverty & the homeless opting to tout its military strength. The Republicans will keep the socailly hard right in check during prime time in favor of the more moderate faces of the party--even if those don't have the President's ear.

~Adam

RazorbackTX:
What a classy group they have there:

GOP Purple Hearts

fantomas:
But one NY Republican--RINOs--I would vote for is Mike Bloomberg.  I wonder if he has a drag alter-ego.