Every time we dare to question, or worse yet, criticize any of the groups, committees, or collectives planning and organizing protests and demonstrations at the 2008 RNC Convention here in St. Paul, lots and lots of angry activistas yell at us, like we’re the enemy or something. So, with eye- and hearing-protection firmly in place, we beg answers to a question we’ve touched on here before - namely, why demonstrators and activists seem to think they need almost two years to plan their protests.
As seen here, local activists planned to demand timely approval of their protest permit applications, which the City has already said won’t, and can’t, be approved earlier than six months ahead of the event. The press release promised in the above links has yet to make it’s way online, and we have no idea what the results of this little media stunt were, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess what the city is going to say.
From our perspective, it’s hard to understand this grandstanding. Are area activists really so disorganized that they need to plan their marches and protests over a year in advance? They already know when and where the event they’re protesting is, after all; isn’t six months long enough to deal with the little details? instead of organizing and coordinating activist groups, unions, and, dear Gods, the SDS against the City of Saint Paul, wouldn’t they be better off organizing among themselves and ensure nobody submits overlapping or conflicting permit applications, like for two marches down the same street at the same time, only in opposite directions? Are they rather so unbelievably anal-retentive that they somehow desire to (try to) spend over a year choreographing every demonstrator, every march and protest into one nonstop circus of righteous anger and frustration? Probably not. Or are they so childish that they have to throw big public hissy-fits when things don’t go their way? I think you can guess what our view is…
It’s not like St. Paul has declined to let them demonstrate, or denied their permit applications outright. The City has basically told them to come back later, six months from the convention, when the City will: A, be legally able to approve the permits, and B, have a clue about what’s going to be happening at the convention.
It’s a lose-lose situation for the city at this point; they can comply with the law, hold off on issuing permits, and piss of the activist fringe, or they can approve permit applications only to be forced to revoke them somewhere down the line when planning for the convention turns out to conflict with issued permits… thereby pissing off the activist fringe.
In our view, the demonstrators would be far better off acting like adults and trying to work with St. Paul, rather than try to pick a fight with them. It’s unlikely to happen, but, hey, we can dream happy fantasies as well as any starry-eyed anarchist…
4 responses so far ↓
brad // Apr 24, 2007 at 9:06 am
I think you’re being both unfair and very naive in characterizing protesters in this way for having already started organizing to protest the RNC in 2008.
I mean, are the city of St Paul, Ramsey County, and the RNC also childish, anal-retentive and disorganized for having already started planning two years ahead of time? Why shouldn’t they also wait until six months before?
Have you ever been involved with organizing a national protest? It takes time to pull it together and to pull it off and make it as big and powerful as possible. That’s one reason for starting early.
And, more to the point, as stated before, THE CITY, COUNTY, AND RNC HAVE ALREADY STARTED AND ARE ALREADY MAKING PLANS for the convention - very detailed plans that are already in motion.
If protesters don’t demand space now for our protests, we will be written out of the picture entirely, forced off into a “protest pen” (aka “free speech zone”) far away from the actual convention and the media.
The Repubs and Dems have these conventions orchestrated down to a science now. With the spectre of 1968 hanging over their heads, they have worked to increasingly push protests as far away as possible from the actual conventions, creating a “free speech zone” far away from the actual convention and enclosed with barbed wire and guarded by lots of cops. They make mass arrests (away from the cameras) if any protest oriented activity threatens to break through their bubble world they’ve created and actually get in the news. This is the fact of the conventions in 1996, 2000, and 2004. Protest organizers in Boston in 2004 had to fight for months for the right to protest directly outside the DNC - and they didn’t win the right to legally protest outside the convention until just days before the convention itself. If it wasn’t for the months of legal struggle to win that right, they likely would not have won. And in New York in 2004, protesters planned and organized for the RNC for at least a year beforehand. And it paid off - the result was one of the largest protests in recent memory as well as many smaller more radical actions. It took a long time to plan it all, and it was worth it.
The Ramsey County sherriff is already requesting funding to be able to arrest up to 3,000 protesters. They’re preparing for us. How can we not start preparing now too?
someone // Apr 24, 2007 at 11:04 am
Part of my argument, if you go back and read it, is that the city hasn’t yet organized anything to a meaningful extent - certainly not to the extent that giving the okay to a protest permit would indicate. They - and the county - are still at the “asking for money” stage, rather than the “spending money” stage where things get done.
If you apply for a permit for a march, you still need to provide a specific route or location, and time, am I right? Like, from Smith and West 7th east to 7th and Kellogg, then south on Kellogg to Wabasha? Between 2:30 and 4:00 on the 3rd? Now, what happens if the city says “sure, you can march there and then, fine with us, have at it,” and eight months from now the Secret Service - the final authority on security matters - says Kellogg is going to be blocked off behind the security cordon and only “authorized parties” will be allowed down it? You’re screwed. And then the name-calling, threats, and finger-pointing starts, and most likely you all march anyway, and without a permit, several hundred people demanding an end to some gross injustice somewhere find themselves in Maplewood, singing protest songs at bemused suburban yuppies from behind chain-link fences…
Too, I’m not ignorant of the breadth and depth of planning required for an event of this nature. I simply don’t think , and don’t see why, any of the specific details can’t be planned just as well six months out as they can sixteen months out. Somewhat obviously, you’re going to protest, people are going to show up to protest, and you’re going to do so over the course of a given week. That’s fine. Clean the basement and attic, so your friends have somewhere to crash; reserve the rental van; start stockpiling cardboard tubes and stuff for signs, and thinking of witty things to write on them. Do you really need to be able to say “Meet at 5th and Wall at 1pm on the 2nd for a ‘Free Leonard Peltier’ march” a year in advance? If you can’t manage to “organize” a given protest action for a specific time in a couple months, maybe you should take up a different line of work.
Yeah, yeah, organizing activists is like herding cats, and I’ve no doubt the local organizers are going to be just as ridiculously all-encompassing as those for previous conventions, but you all (obviously) know this already, and knew it when St. Paul was announced as the choice for the 2008 convention.
Too, I really think all the hyperbole about “fighting” the city is counter-productive, and needlessly cynical; it’s kind of petty to not even give St. Paul a chance to live up to their promises before attacking them. They’ve given everyone a timetable for submitting protest permits - one small aspect of the planning activists are, or should be, doing - and rather than being happy with it, or at least fatalistic and accepting of the whole deal, the area activists are acting like spoiled children who’ve never heard the word “no” before, and - like they do so often - completely overexaggerating the importance and significance of what they want.
People are having fun bandying around the number 3,000, and pointing fingers at Fletcher and the RCSO. But Fletcher is just going off information given him by the SPPD, and the SPPD - I expect - is just following orders from a federal agency. The FBI and Secret Service aren’t talking to the media much, but perhaps the media just needs to try harder to get information out of them. We might just find that there’s a perfectly good reason to make plans around such a large number - or we might discover that, sometimes, three thousand doesn’t really mean “three thousand.”
someone // Apr 24, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Something I forgot to add when I was on lunch - St. Paul says they won’t/can’t issue permits more than six months ahead of the convention, and you say that’s not acceptable, for reasons I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree about. But, tell me this - what do you figure the last possible date you can still plan activities effectively at, once approved, is? Nine months out? Twelve months out?
I think you’d all have a lot better luck if, instead of stamping your feet and crying “want
candypermits now,” you politely asked the city to accomodate your special planning requirements by accepting permit applications in, say, January. Or whenever.noface // May 12, 2007 at 1:02 am
this is our city. we take to the streets when we deem necessary. with or without permits, the Northend Affinity Coalition will be there.
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