In Other Words

New York Uprising

So New York looks to be interesting at the end of this month. 250,000 protesters are to be expected at the Republican Party’s convention. Not totally unexpected, considering that NY is a bastion of the Democratic Party. It’s the first time in 150 years that the Republicans are holding their convention in NY.

The interesting thing is that most of the protestors that are convening on the city won’t be welcome. Mayer Bloomberg, a republican, has made it exceedingly hard for protestors to voice their discontent by refusing permits for marches, restricting where people can march, etc. 50 million dollars have been spent on preparing the police for the upcoming convention and nearly 18 million of that has been spent on new riot gear. The police seems to be preparing for a war.

So are the demonstrators. Sites like ““RNC Not Welcome in New York” have formed to try and disrupt the convention as much as possible, others are talking about civil disobedience and even violent resistance. It almost sounds like preparation for a war.

It also sounds like the brilliant manipulations of the Republican Party. By causing the democrats in New York to rise up against the President in violent protest they might just be able to paint him off as a moderate Middle American man, who should be supported against this type of violence.

It seems that the reaction of the ‘ordinary American’ will largely depend on the brutality practiced by the police. If the police are caught brutally putting down the normal population the people might turn against Bush. If, on the other hand, the protestors are too violent and go too far then the people will turn against them instead.

A razor’s edge.

They will start on the 31st of August; at 11 am Eastern Time (New York) and they are calling on the rest of the world to join in. I don’t know whether we can actually do anything, but even a token gesture would help. Can we do something? Is there some way that we can stop them out here? I know its rather hard for people to assemble in Singapore in anyway, but has anybody started anything?

If the protestors in New York look to have world support then it’s just that little bit more likely that they will be seen in a good light. Which brings us just a step closer to being liberated of the unilateral peace destroying policies of Bush and his administration. 11 am over there would be evening over here, 11 pm to be exact. How can we scream ‘no!’?

Interesting fact: The New York police department has 36,000 officers and is therefore larger than most country’s armies.

posted by Symbol @ 12.8.04