Half a million take the streets to oppose RNC

By Liz Allen

New York, New York, Sept. 1 (AGR) — The streets and sidewalks of New York have been filled with up to half a million people demonstrating against the Republican National Conventions and the Bush administration’s neo-conservative policies. Over 2,000 people have been arrested; there are reports of police violence and contaminated holding cells.

Delegates on Aug. 31 were unable to get their buses to the convention. Convention events have been disrupted and traffic was tied up throughout Manhattan. Republicans in the streets are being harassed and engaged in conversation, not only by people affiliated with the protests, but also people who happen to live and work in New York. Marches have taken place both with and without permits, and mostly with last minute negotiations with the police. Groups of police on bicycles, horses, cars, vans, or on foot have been on constant patrol. A blimp labeled Fuji Film and with NYPD written in smaller text is continuously floating around the city. At least five banner drops have taken place.

Over 1,000 arrests were made on August 31 in connection with the mass day of direct action, which took place throughout the city.

People arrested at the protests are being held at Pier 57 and on barges where they have reportedly been told to save clothing worn while being held as evidence for possible lawsuits for the chemical contamination in the previously condemned location. There have been reports of chemical burns and other health problems after staying in a specially constructed pen that protest groups have dubbed “Guantanamo on the Hudson.” The National Lawyers Guild has been working on legal support for marchers. Throughout the events legal observes wore green hats, documented rights violations, and passed out temporary tattoos with the legal hot line telephone number.

Street parties and die-ins which blocked traffic were held across NYC and often resulted in mass arrests and police violence. A spontaneous Reclaim the Streets action was reported to be held with a group of people running toward Madison Square Garden without arrests. Direct and personal confrontation of delegates, as well as other members of the upper class, has been constant. Throughout Manhattan several fires were lit, preventing delegates from taking their buses into Madison Square Garden, which is surrounded by police barricades, including a black metal fence.

Delegates were scattered by protesters and the streets and sidewalks have been crowded with pedestrians and people voicing their distaste for the Republican Party and police repression. George Bush Sr. and his wife Barbara were reportedly spotted and followed into a restaurant by a group of demonstrators who heckled them for several minutes.

A “man in black” bloc arrived at Sotheby’s auction house where Republicans delegates from Tennessee were invited to a reception where parts of the estate of the recently deceased country musician Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter were on display to be auctioned off later this fall. Demonstrators sang Johnny Cash songs, wore black, brought real and cardboard guitars, and shouted at arriving delegates from inside barricades put up by the police. Actions such as these greeted Republicans showing up to events all across the city. In many cases police seemed entertained by or in agreement with demonstrators’ actions.

The kick off to this aspect of the demonstrations was labeled “Chaos on Broadway” and began at 5pm, Aug. 29, on Broadway. The march included snake marches through the streets, a mouse bloc with people in mice costumes, and Billionaires For Bush disrupting Times Square as Republicans tried to attend Broadway plays.

Participants in a queer kiss-in were arrested around 5:30pm while demonstrating in front of the “Thoroughly Modern Millie” Broadway show, after the group marched up the street with linked arms. Earlier the group Queer Fist! held “Married to the State: A Shotgun Wedding” at 1pm on 41st St. and 5th Ave., on the steps of the main library in Manhattan. The invitation was for people to dress as their favorite oppressor “or just in fabulous wedding attire and get married to your favorite same-sex system of oppression.” The invitation also stated they were assembled in opposition of “the inclusion of gays in institutions such as marriage, the military, or a (mis)representative ‘democracy’ which only further legitimizes these systems of domination.”

Even casual passersby would stop and engage in heckling or conversing with delegates. Mohamud Eldeeb, who works in Manhattan at St. Vincent Hospital, said he was on his way to a musical before stopping to talk with a convention attendee from Illinois about prison detentions of Muslims, the high US prison population, and the issue of socialized healthcare. Eldeeb, originally from Egypt, said, “I have never met a Republican in New York, not in this day and age.”

People also held up upside-down flags, spit, yelled “go home” and “a million people marched against you assholes.” Leaving one of the plays H. Steven Hohnson, a delegate from Arizona, said he felt that children who do not have access to free breakfast because of budget cuts to education should “buy [their] own breakfast... They’ve got parents.” Johnson also said he felt like even though near a million people marched against the Republicans, “a million people will vote for him [Bush].” Some delegates physically attacked demonstrators. MSNBC, which was filming in Herald Square on 44th street, was disrupted by anti-Republican agenda demonstrators on several occasions.

Watching the interactions between Republicans, citizens, and police that filled Times Square, Louise McTurner, on vacation in New York from Australia, commented, “It’s good that people are able to express their points of views... I’m probably not a huge fan of many of his [Bush’s] policies and attitudes, particularly in relation to the war.”

While in Midtown, Daniel Westcott from Chattanooga, TN, who came to New York to participate in the protests, reported that he ran into Bob Corker, the mayor of Chattanooga, who was in town as a convention delegate, on the street corner. “It felt really good to be able to voice our concerns to him in an atmosphere where we seemed like a bit more than just unimportant constituents,” he said. Westcott said he and two other Chattanoogans spoke with Corker about their experiences with his policies, which have resulted in evictions and condemnations of buildings that were later resold to more affluent citizens. “It was hard to tell if he was just acting or if he felt scared and cornered. …It definitely seemed like he was listening, but [it] seemed like it was all news to him.”

On Aug. 30 two large marches in support of poor people were held. The “The March for Our Lives: Stop the War at Home” march was un-permitted. A rally took place at the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjold Plaza while negotiations on a route were made with the police. Prior to leaving to march, and throughout the rally, the crowd repeated “I am peaceful” and that there were deaf people and people in wheelchairs present. “It’s time that we start talking about the casualties at home,” Cheri Honkala of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union said. “We intend to hold our government responsible regardless of who wins the elections... This will become our country when we decide not to have fear make our decisions.”

The march continued with accompaniment from the “Rude Mechanical Orchestra” marching band and a pink clad anarchy flag corp. When the march was on its way toward Madison Square Garden on 29th St. in between 7th and 8th Aves., police attacked marchers, clearing the street of everyone by beating and pepper spraying them. One police officer was reportedly torn off a scooter, punched in the face, thrown to the ground, and kicked before the assailant got away.

The largest demonstration took place Aug. 29 and included up to 1 million people -- the United for Peace and Justice March called “The World Says no to the Bush Agenda.”

“I’m glad there’s thousands and thousands of people here. It took me like three hours to get from downtown up here [West 34th street and Broadway] because there’s so many people. I think it shows we still live in a democracy,” said Bob Warner, a Manhattan resident. He also said that what brought him and his partner out was the Bush administrations push for an anti-gay marriage amendment. “That’s his religion and if he wants to believe it that’s fine, but I don’t think his religion should be pushed on other people.” The march was festive with drums, costumes, signs, and many different types of people.

In front of Madison Square Garden a dragon float that was carrying a sound system was set on fire and some demonstrators threw bottles and sticks at police; 10 arrests were made in connection with the incident, and police beat demonstrators with billy clubs and ran horses and scooters through the crowd. Two people were charged with felonies and another with arson and has a bond (Bail) set at $200,000. People stood along the sidewalks and chanted “Two, four, six, eight, fuck the police state!” and booed police. Within 30 minutes the march reconvened and continued to Union Square. The march did not go directly to Central Park as was originally planned, but thousands met on the Great Lawn afterwards.

Watching the march from the sidelines, Kate Hesling, a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, said she supported the march despite being a Republican; she does not think holding the Republican National Convention in New York was “a very good decision. New York is so diverse, why would you hold a Republican convention here? It’s really weird.”

At the march Starhawk, a political activist and author, commented she felt this particular march was different, “because of the issue around the Bush and the Republican party. The whole agenda is so crucial because it’s brought together people from across the whole spectrum... I think that the only way the political agenda is going to change is if we build a very strong, powerful counter-force to the current agenda.” She said she feels that electing Bush out of office is important so that the world sees that people in the US do not agree with him. However, “If Kerry wins I think our work has just begun because we start making it clear to him that he has to be accountable to the progressives in the country, not just the elite.” Starhawk said she felt that Bush winning will give him the opportunity to “impose a higher level of fascism than he already has.”

A bell ringing ceremony was held at ground zero, where people surrounded the giant hole in the ground where the World Trade Center Towers once stood and rang bells. Len Mayer, who lives in New York and was ringing a bell, said, “The ringing in some ways is sensitive to the lives lost... This is a quiet, musical referendum on our wanting for change.” He said he supported the demonstrations across the city, “not that the administration is intellectual enough to read newspapers and know that the whole world hates them.”

The Critical Mass ride that regularly takes place in New York the last Friday of every month was held at 7pm on Aug. 27. Bicycles and other forms of non-polluting transportation took the streets of Manhattan. As many as 10,000 riders took to the streets in opposition to George W. Bush. Police distributed flyers warning that the ride was illegal to those filling Union Square Park at the event’s inception and members of the Times Up! bike collective distributed flyers with information about the ride.

“It always happens without a hitch, nobody gets arrested. Just because the RNC is in town they want to make it like it never happens, it’s bullshit.” said Mike Poindexter, a resident of New York participating in the ride. Periodically people in the ride stopped, cheering and lifting bikes over their heads. To block individual cars, riders would park in front of them and sometimes engage in dialog with drivers, ranging from heated to friendly. Police arrested people using tactics such as stretching orange plastic netting across the street to separate and divide crowds, riding lines of scooters through bikers, and tackling and beating people off of their bicycles and into custody. Throughout the route, which including a ride down through Times Square, people lined the sidewalks and cheered, chanting “Drop Bush not Bombs” and waved peace signs at the riders. “I am for the demonstration by bicycle... people are excited,” said Pablo, who was working at an Uptown hotel and watching the ride pass. In the East Village people got into the street to give riders high fives and chanted “Fuck Bush.” Onlookers said they could watch bicycles pass by in the street for as long as 45 minutes. Police arrested many cyclists in front of Saint Marks church, which throughout the week has held RNC-not-welcome related events such as an Immigrant Speak-out and a Youth Books Not Bombs convergence.

On Aug. 26 the DNC2RNC march arrived in Central Park. Participants left Boston, MA on July 30 from the Democratic National Convention and walked 258 miles, according to the group, to say “no to empire, no to the Bush administration, and no to a Kerry administration.” The march was the first un-permitted march blocking traffic in the series of demonstrations that are to take place against the RNC. Negotiations between march organizers and the NYPD secured a lane for marchers to walk from Colombus Circle in Central Park to Union Square. Prior to marchers setting off, an announcement was made that if any person saw even one riot cop, an organizer should be told because that would go against a deal between marchers and police.

The march lasted approximately 20 blocks and went down Broadway and past the neon television screens and cell phone advertisements. People lined up on the streets to watch the march go by. Some flashed peace signs, chanted along to slogans like “Drop Bush, not bombs” or shouted, “Welcome to New York,” to the marchers. Only a few shouts of “Go home” could be heard during the entirety of the march. Other chants focused on shutting down the RNC. Flyers with information about the purpose of the demonstrations were distributed to onlookers, some of whom even joined the march. A helicopter with a spotlight followed the march.

Watching from the sidewalk on Broadway, Julie Kling, in town from Chicago for a wedding, said, “I think it’s going to be chaotic... I just think they should have allowed more permits and for it to be in places where the Republicans can see.”

A march organizer cited a poll that said 62 percent of New Yorkers are in favor of non-violent civil disobedience, 10 percent are leaving town and 11 percent are planning on participating in the protests.

Walking through the giant TV screens filled with ads for cell phones and clothing, featuring skinny white people, some marchers shouted “Fuck You” and shot the bird at the MTV building. The march ended rowdily but without violent incident from police or demonstrators. Marcher Phil Snyder commented that the march received “Much more of a welcome than some of us expected.”

Bush order expands CIA power

Compiled by Shawn Gaynor

Aug. 31(AGR) — President Bush issued a new order Aug. 27 enhancing the powers of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but the White House acknowledged that new legislation still was needed to establish the kind of strong national intelligence director recommended by the independent Sept. 11 commission.

A senior White House official called the moves a strong signal that Bush wanted the existing head of the Central Intelligence Agency, as an interim measure, to take the lead in overseeing all of the country’s 15 intelligence agencies, along the lines envisioned for a future national intelligence chief.

Under Bush’s interim plans, the acting CIA director, John McLaughlin, who replaced former director George Tenet, would have the power to approve or disapprove of items in the budgets of all 15 intelligence agencies, including a vast array of programs overseen by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Pentagon controls about 80 percent of the nation’s estimated $40 billion intelligence budget.

The orders give the CIA chief the ability to transfer funds between agencies or to halt spending that is not consistent with national security priorities.

Some of the agencies that will now be under increased control of the CIA include: the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office.

The change is a blow to the Defense Department and a major boost for the embattled CIA, which has faced intense criticism in recent months for its handling of intelligence related to the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraq war. The head of the Senate intelligence committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., proposed legislation earlier this week to dismantle the agency altogether.

The moves were among four executive orders and two presidential directives issued by the White House Aug. 27to promote an intelligence overhaul, as Mr. Bush promised early this month in response to the recommendations issued by the Sept. 11 commission. Mr. McClellan said the moves “will improve our ability to find, track and stop terrorists.”

Bush’s orders also created a National Counterterrorism Center to oversee anti-terrorism efforts at home and abroad, called for devising standards “for secure and reliable forms of identification” for federal workers and contractors. All of the orders are to take effect immediately.

In a conference call with reporters, a senior White House official described Bush as having “strained the limits of his executive authority” in his effort to strengthen the powers of the current intelligence chief to the greatest extent possible under existing law.

Under the National Security Act of 1947, the director of central intelligence has always had the authority to coordinate activities of other intelligence agencies, such as the National Security Agency and National Reconnaissance Office, even though they are part of the Pentagon, but the new budgetary control handed to the CIA is unprecedented.

In many ways, the American Civil Liberties Union today said, the president’s executive order granting greater responsibilities to the director of central intelligence, or DCI, is even worse than the 9/11 Commission’s call for a national intelligence director quartered in the White House.

“One has to worry that the new executive order will put the CIA back in the business of spying on Americans,” said Charlie Mitchell, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. “The president needs to make sure that this is truly a temporary measure, as we ought not to have, even for a day, the CIA as a domestic spying force.”

Bush has nominated Rep. Porter Goss, R-FL, to take the CIA director post.

Goss, in his capacity as a congressperson, has introduced legislation to further overhaul the US spy community. The Goss bill, titled the “Directing Community Integration Act,” rejects the idea of a national intelligence director in favor of a more-powerful DCI with control over domestic intelligence gathering.

The Goss bill would go so far as to qualify the 60-year-old prohibition on any “internal security” function for the CIA, the proscription that was violated during the 1960s when the CIA’s “Operation CHAOS” infiltrated, disrupted and harassed law abiding anti-war and civil rights groups. It would bar “police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers within the United States, except as otherwise permitted by law or as directed by the President.”

Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, has criticized the White House for not having earlier embraced the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendation to establish a national intelligence chief with “real power and authority over intelligence agencies.”

Sources: ACLU, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post

By Declan Walsh

Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 30 — The Taliban claimed responsibility for a car bomb that ripped through Kabul on Aug. 29. The Afghan government said two US citizens, three Nepalese and two Afghans were killed in what was the largest attack for months in the Afghan capital.

A further 10 people, nine of them children, were killed in a separate bombing in southern Afghanistan at the weekend, marking a serious escalation in violence in the run up to October’s presidential election.

The Kabul bomb exploded in the late afternoon in front an office occupied by Dyncorp, a private firm that protects interim Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and which also works for the US government in Iraq.

The explosion, which a Taliban official said had been triggered by a remote-controlled device, shook rush-hour Kabul at about 5:40pm, shattering windows half a mile away. Smoke billowed from the building as emergency services rushed to the scene. Plain-clothes US soldiers carrying submachine guns cordoned off the area with the help of Afghan police.

At the blast site several vehicles stood destroyed in front of a gutted building. One badly charred vehicle was overturned close to a yard-deep crater in the center of the road, which appeared to mark the detonation point. A witness, Abdul Jalil, wearing a bloodstained tunic and with a bandage on his face, stumbled from the scene with the help of Afghan police officers.

He had been working in the building next door when the bomb went off, he said.

“I was sitting on a chair waiting for office hours to finish. There was an explosion, and a big fire in front of the American and British house. Then I saw some seriously injured foreigners running from their office.”

The interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, visited the scene of the explosion an hour later. At that time he said he knew that least four people had been killed and two injured.

“Terrorists are behind this action,” he said, but refused to speculate on which group was responsible, saying only: “Terrorists are terrorists. That’s their identity.”

Jalali said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan police had started investigations into the explosion. A Taliban spokesman told Reuters that the device had been detonated by remote control.

Reporters saw the badly mutilated body of a man lying in the street before Afghan police and foreign security guards pushed them back at gunpoint. Residents said a boy living in a neighboring house and a cobbler whose stall was blown away by the blast were also killed, and up to eight others wounded.

The second attack happened in Naiknam, a village in Paktia province, 80 miles south of Kabul, on Aug. 28 when a blast ripped through a religious school. The provincial governor, Haji Assadullah Wafa, said the explosion was caused by a mine laid by the Taliban, who are fighting US troops in the area.

“They don’t want Afghan children to study and participate in the future reconstruction of their country,” Wafa told the Guardian. The school had received funding from the International Rescue Committee, an American aid agency, he added.

The Taliban have vowed to disrupt Afghanistan’s forthcoming presidential election on Oct. 9, which the interim president Karzai is favored to win.

Wafa said the Taliban were still using Pakistan as a rear base, despite promises from the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, that he would stop them. “Taliban fugitives receive logistical support in Pakistan and then cross the border to plot against the security and stability of Afghanistan,” he said.

As night fell in Kabul the police carried a body wrapped in black plastic on a stretcher from the scene of the blast. US special forces used sniffer dogs and torches to search the surrounding area for possible secondary explosives.

“This was a big one,” said one gun-wielding plain-clothes soldier standing nearby.

Source: Guardian (UK)