Protests planned for Bush inauguration

Jesse Jackson called on black voters to protest George W. Bush's inauguration.

Compiled by D.D. Halbrook

In a fiery call to action made last Wednesday, civil rights champion Jesse Jackson promised a week of nationwide protests against the disenfranchisement of black voters, and what he calls the trampling on of the 1965 Federal Voting Right Act. Starting on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and ending with the inauguration in Washington, DC on January 20, the third week in January promises to rally black voters and others who see the outcome of the 2000 election as illegitimate.

“There will be massive, nonviolent demonstrations around America, saying to America: We want the vote of every American to count,” Jackson declared.

Although vice-president Al Gore received about 330,000 more popular votes nationwide than Texas governor George W. Bush, a slim margin in Florida created the potential for a state or county-wide recount, which could cause an election flip in the Electoral College. After several weeks of legal dispute regarding the validity of voting procedures in 3 Florida counties, a razor thin Presidential victory was finally declared on Tuesday for George W. Bush by the US Supreme Court. By a vote of 5 to 4, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court used technical interpretations of the US Constitution to overrule the Florida Supreme Court’s decision several days earlier, ordering a manual recount in the disputed counties in Florida. Many of these counties have heavy concentrations of African American, Haitian American, and Hispanic voters. The high court’s decision galvanized angry contentions from black political leaders across the spectrum, that black voters, along with other democrat-oriented voters such as college students and holocaust survivors, had been consistently discriminated against on election day.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) president Kweisi Mfume was expected to speak to reporters later on Wednesday about the Supreme Court decision and to provide details on the 91-year-old group’s lawsuits. The suits are intended to show voter intimidation in which polling sites were moved without timely notice or closed early and that there was a “disproportionate” purging of votes in predominantly black precincts in several Florida counties. The NAACP, which spent an unprecedented $12 million getting out the black vote, said it was concerned people would not cast ballots in future elections because of the outcome of the 2000 race.

“We are very concerned that people will become discouraged and feel that their votes just don’t count and that’s one of the dangers we’re trying not to let happen,” said NAACP spokeswoman Jean Ross.

Gore, who made a big attempt to woo black voters during the campaign, has given up his quest for the Presidency. Jackson, who made his own bid twice for the presidency, charged that blacks, who traditionally vote Democrat, had votes “taken away” from them in the November 7 election due to a range of voter irregularities in Florida and elsewhere.

“In Third World countries, when democratically cast votes are not counted or the person who most likely lost wins in a highly questionable manner, we usually refer to that as a coup d’etat,” Jackson said Thursday.

“I saw hundreds of votes not counted from Miami-Dade,” said Ion Sancho, a Leon County election supervisor in charge of recounting ballots from Leon and Miami-Dade counties before the count was suspended on Saturday, said. “We examined 4,000 of those undervotes [ballots on which no vote for president registered] and I’m convinced we had a massive failure in the punch-card ballot system. I believe we have not had an accurate count of the vote in the state of Florida.”

Election officials in Broward County, where the canvassing board had recounted 6,000 undervotes have already scheduled a review for at least 14 organizations, including The Washington Post, that have asked to examine the punch cards.

Among those pressing to review the ballots are newspapers based in Florida and elsewhere, the NAACP, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Washington-based Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group.

Jackson’s announcement of nonviolent street mobilizations for January 20 has the Washington DC area authorities bracing for the second time this year. When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) met in DC this past April, city police mobilized for massive protests and civil disobedience, and militant “anti-establishment” tactics. Washington, DC Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey says local authorities are preparing on an even greater scale than they did earlier this year. Along with Federal agents, as many as 950 officers from surrounding Virginia and Maryland precincts will be enforcing DC’s laws for inauguration week.

Brian Becker, co-director of the New York-based International Action Center (IAC), a group coordinating some of the DC protests, told the Washington Times, “we are planning to fill the streets of Washington DC with thousands of people.”

He stressed that his organization and groups working with it do not plan to shut the inauguration down, but argues that “protest pits” used at several past demonstrations to contain protests, will likely be resisted.

“It would be very much in the interests of the police to do the right thing, and that is to allow us to stage a spirited, but legal and orderly protest close to the Inauguration route, even if it’s an ‘inconvenience’, rather than trying to marginalize us or shut us down,” said Becker.

IAC has called for mass protest against the death penalty, police state, and the “legal lynching” of Pennsylvania death row inmate and cause celebre, Mumia Abu-Jamal, during the inauguration.

“The counter-inaugural demonstration was initiated prior to the outcome of the election being known. Both Bush and Gore support the death penalty and agreed on the destruction of welfare,” the IAC said in a statement. “They both supported NAFTA, the genocidal sanctions on Iraq, the US Navy bombing of Vieques (Puerto Rico), the growing Pentagon intervention in Colombia, and Israeli repression of Palestinians.”

The call for action has been endorsed by dozens of groups and individuals, including the Reverend Al Sharpton, former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, California Prison Focus, the National Peoples’ Campaign and Pastors for Peace.

Another coalition has formed to mobilize protests and educational activities during the Inaugural festivities, under the name Justice Action Movement (JAM). A week long “Art and Revolution” convergence is planned beforehand, to create puppetry and street theater for the protest. A permitted rally and march is also being planned. A message posted on the JAM website declares, “We are protesting the inauguration of a president elected through an exclusionary political system that is more beholden to corporate interests than the people. The Justice Action Movement (JAM) is a unified multi-issue coalition advocating a political system that gives each person full representation and justice. This historic election exposes the fundamental problems of the US electoral process. We call on all people to join the global movement for political, social, and economic justice.”

Local and Federal authorities have been meeting for months about security and shared intelligence on groups that could disrupt the Inauguration, officials said. Washington, DC police had intelligence as far back as two or three months ago that anti-establishment activists were planning Inauguration Day protests, Chief Ramsey said.

Sources: International Action Center (www.iacenter.org), Justice Action Movement (www.inaugurAuction.org), Reuters, Washington Post

Congress bows to pressure, kills legalized low-power radio

Compiled by Robert Brown

Congress intends to pass an Omnibus Budget Act containing a rider which will gut the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s new Low Power FM (LPFM) service. It now appears that President Clinton will sign this bill.

According to the National Lawyers Guild Center on Democratic Communications (CDC), this is the culmination of a year-long intensive lobbying campaign by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), which has been given liberal cover by National Public Radion (NPR)’s campaign against LPFM.

This is the first time in recent history that actually stripped the FCC of its power, shifting policy-making authority to Congress.

“Because the technology is cheap and readily available LPFM will not disappear, no matter how much Congress, NPR and the NAB try to kill it,” the CDC said in a statement. “For many, LPFM remains the only means for local communities to have a voice”.

The CDC will look at possible legal challenges to Congress’ unprecedented attack on community radio. Peter Franck, a member of the CDC, speculated that this new law may be unconstitutional. “Laws passed by Congress are easier to challenge in the courts than regulations promulgated by agencies such as the FCC,” said Franck. “This is not over.”

Since 1990, the CDC has worked with pioneering microbroadcasters such as Mbanna Kantako and Stephen Dunifer, who took to the airwaves to challenge the FCC’s ban on low power community radio.

In response to growing public support, the FCC, under Chairman Bill Kennard, adopted a Low Power FM service to promote public access to the airwaves. This modest service would have created up to one-thousand new 100 watt and 10 watt community stations. In contrast, the bill being passed by congress will allow only 60 or 70 LPFM stations in the most rural and unpopulated parts of the country.

According to the LPFM activist known as Pete triDish, the new legislation “would curtail about 80% of the new low power FM licenses. Low power FM had been one of the most significant wins in the movement for media and democracy in recent years. What is left is the skeletal remains of a new radio service -- all the flesh of the service has been picked off by the congressional vultures.

“Over the coming days, new strategies will be developed for the next rounds of this fight,” he said. “There may well be a number of court actions, from various angles -- applicants who should have qualified may sue, new engineering studies will be done, etc. The ranks of unlicensed microbroadcasters will doubtless multiply over the coming months, as many who intended to go the legal route will figure out how to go on the air anyway.”

In the last year there has been continual debate within the LPFM community over the virtues and drawbacks of possible federal licenses for low power FM stations. Opinions ranged from a refusal to accept a federal license under any conditions, to well-laid plans to conform to the proposed guidelines.

The majority opinion seems to be that pirate broadcasting will continue, one way or another. Veterans of the movement point out that the object in the beginning was to broadcast, not to get a license to broadcast.

Sources: Center for Democratic Communications (www.nlgcdc.org), New York Times