Protest RNC 2008

It's very important to understand that all movements for social change will be at very least monitored by the powers that be, and will very often be infiltrated. We must study cases like this that come to light carefully, to better understand the workings of counterinsurgency, and to think carefully about implications for how movements and organizations should be built to protect the movement and individuals involved from being harassed, disrupted and even destroyed.

The following document from Freedom Road Socialist Organization takes on some important questions raised about revolutionary strategy and tactics that were brought up around the Republican National Convention protests in September. Specifically it engages the question of why developing more militant protest tactics is correct and important, and calls out the Trotskyist group Socialist Alternative for their criticisms of the anarchists and others who engaged in more militant protest tactics at the RNC.

www.frso.org/about/statements/2008/frso-lessons-from-rnc.htm

Lessons From the RNC:
Mass Mobilization and Militant Actions Advance the Struggle

by Freedom Road Socialist Organization

The Republican National Convention brought many of the biggest war-makers to Minnesota. The people's movements from across the U.S. responded by organizing four days of demonstrations against the RNC. Freedom Road Socialist Organization prioritized organizing against the RNC and helped build multiple days of protest including the mass anti-war march of 30-35,000 people on September 1st and the “No Peace for the Warmakers” militant march turned civil disobedience on September 4th.

We saw the RNC as a chance to unite the anti war movement under the slogan “U.S. out of Iraq Now” and to build a broad united front against the Republican agenda. By any standard the powerful protests that rocked St. Paul were a blow against the rulers of this county.

For progressive and revolutionary organizations the RNC served as a sort of test. Many, from a variety of political trends - ranging from Marxist-Leninists to anarchists - passed this test with banners raised and flying colors. They stepped up to the plate, organizing a historic response to the Republican agenda of war, racism, and reaction.

However Socialist Alternative, a Trotskyist organization which is based in Washington state and the Twin Cities, took a different approach to the RNC. Their approach did not prioritize building for a large national demonstration or for militant action. In their summation of the RNC in their newspaper, entitled, Protests and Police Repression Mark the Republican National Convention - Thousands Take to the Streets Against War and the Right Wing Agenda they claim to have made the most of historic events which they in fact did little or nothing to contribute to. They also focus their summation on attacking the anarchist oriented RNC Welcoming Committee for their blockade strategy and on criticizing militant action in general.

We in FRSO generally don’t spend a lot of time criticizing other organizations but sometimes it has to be done - the RNC was a very important event for our movement locally and nationally, so there is a need to respond to Socialist Alternative’s criticisms of militant action at the RNC.

Are the Masses Ready for Militancy?

Leading up to the RNC our analysis was that the anti-war movement needed more militant actions in addition to legal demonstrations to further develop the anti-war movement.

On September 4th, over 2,000 people came to the Anti-War Committee's No Peace for the War -Makers demonstration and over 1000 took to the streets to march to the Xcel Center despite the refusal of a militarized police force to allow them to go more than a block from the state capitol. 396 people were arrested for "illegal assembly" after marching and holding the streets for more than three hours in defiance of the huge and intimidating riot police presence and their repeated orders to disperse. Every local TV station that covered John McCain's acceptance speech at the RNC also covered the anti-war movement's counter message outside the Xcel Center. The majority of protesters at the demonstration were young people many of whom had not been to protests before.

All in all, the September 4 march was a powerful experience that was invigorating and motivating. This demonstration has inspired both the local and national anti-war movement, and has led to even more people being willing to consider doing civil disobedience and direct action against the war in Iraq. We see this as a success and a real accomplishment.

However, Socialist Alternative's assessment was the opposite. They argued against militant action on the ground and actively discouraged people from participating in the demonstration on September 4th. In fact they echoed the city government and waged a mini campaign to create a climate of fear about the protest.

In their summation article, they claimed that people are not yet ready for mass militant action, stating "While there are thousands of activists, particularly among the youth, who understand the illegitimacy of the RNC – and of the entire capitalist system for that matter – socialists must argue against moods of impatience. We will not be able to successfully take on and defeat the capitalist system and its state forces until the majority of the working class supports this effort, and is organized to carry it forward. For anti-capitalist activists today, our main task is not to substitute ourselves for the lack of sufficient forces, nor is it to try and artificially “spark” wider layers into action."

Socialist Alternative's approach is that we should wait until a critical mass of people is ready to stand up before taking any action outside the highly constricted bounds of legally permitted protests. This approach is mechanical, creating an artificial separation on the spectrum of protest tactics. It is a rightist error. There is in fact a dialectical relationship between legal and advanced tactics as the movements grow. Many people are ready to take direct action now and their actions can inspire others. This is not a call for adventurist actions – it is a recognition that increasing the level of militancy of the movement is a good thing. It gives people more advanced experience in confronting the powers that be, it can raise the political costs of the ruling class’s wars, and has the potential to inspire broader layers of people to move forward.

It is simply not logical to argue that people will somehow be ready to take more militant actions at some undetermined point in the future if they have never taken them, led them, or seen others use militant tactics.

Socialist Alternative wrongly thinks that demonstrations like September 4th alienate the working class, but in reality a new generation of activists and older activists who have not been active since the wars in Central America were inspired by this demonstration. Broad numbers of people who saw it on the news sympathized with the protesters and were shocked at the riot police’s use of teargas and mass arrests. Socialist Alternative fails to recognize that a future militant mass movement will grow out of today’s relatively smaller actions where we gain experience confronting the enemy. Besides, 818 people being arrested over four days at the RNC is not a small, isolated group of people.

Instead of helping to broadly build the overall RNC protest movement, Socialist Alternative choose to put most of their efforts into organizing a student walkout demonstration of about 200 people on September 4. This small action began before the Anti-War Committee demonstration. While it was supposed to originally end at the AWC demonstration, Socialist Alternative instead changed their plans and decided to march to a peace picnic on the other side of St. Paul so that their supporters would not have the opportunity to participate in or to be exposed to militant action. Although Socialist Alternative claims that they support revolution, they apparently want nothing to do with anyone taking any political action outside of the laws established by the very two-party system they claim to oppose. We think Socialist Alternative made a mistake in disassociating from the No Peace for the Warmakers march on Day 4 of the RNC and instead leading a smaller, much less significant march at a different time of the day.

Criticizing the RNC Welcoming Committee While the State Attacks Them

Though most of the end of Socialist Alternative’s summation article discusses the negatives of militant action in general, they have very specific criticisms of the RNC Welcoming Committee (WC). Although they claim to support the members of the Welcoming Committee who are up on terrorism charges and possibly face more than seven years in jail, they use their website and newspaper to denounce their work and to further the criticisms against the Welcoming Committee in one of their darkest hours.

Socialist Alternatives article says, "While Socialist Alternative completely opposes the police repression against them, we do not agree with the politics and methods used by the Welcoming Committee. Rather than focusing on bringing fresh layers of workers and youth into political action, virtually all the mobilizing material produced by the Welcoming Committee was aimed at a very narrow layer of already convinced anarchists and anti-capitalists. They put forward the perspective that this narrow activist layer was a sufficient social base to organize mass blockades to shut down the RNC. However, the blockades tactic appears to have attracted relatively small numbers and caused only minor disruptions for RNC delegates."

Unfortunately, Socialist Alternative 's decision to air their grievances with the Welcoming Committee's strategy only serves the interests of the government who every day attempts to isolate the RNC 8 from the community support they so vitally need to defeat the incredibly serious and outrageous charges against them. We think Socialist Alternative’s attempt to portray the WC as isolated at the moment they most deeply need support is unprincipled and shows that Socialist Alternative does not understand true solidarity. While FRSO did not choose to use the blockade strategy that the Welcoming Committee did, we believe like Mao said, “it’s right to rebel against reactionaries.” We think that militant action is positive and creates more space for a broader resistance movement to develop out of the current protest movements. We support not only the RNC 8 but their use of the blockade strategy and their mobilization of militant activists from around the country to come to the RNC.

Socialist Alternative makes it seem like there’s something wrong with the WC having decided to specifically mobilize anarchists to come to the Twin Cities to disrupt the RNC. There is a substantial scene of young anarchists around the country – the WC did a good thing by focusing that scene’s energy on disrupting the biggest warmakers on the planet.

The RNC Welcoming Committee was an important part of the broad movement that was built against the RNC. We believe that the events on September 1-4 as a whole will move the movement forward politically and that this is because of - not despite - the militant actions organized by groups like the RNC Welcoming Committee and the Anti-War Committee.

Trotskyism = Idealism

Socialist Alternative’s errors are rooted in a wrong ideological and political line. Trotskyism, unlike Marxism-Leninism, supports an idealist (as opposed to materialist) view of revolution and the world. Socialist Alternative does not correctly analyze the events surrounding the RNC because they are not looking at the situation with an eye to what is possible and where we can realistically go. Rather than concretely analyzing the objective and subjective conditions and the balance of forces to figure out what to do, they rely on unchanging formulas to respond to any situation that comes up, like in this case saying that no one should do any unpermitted protest activities until the majority of workers support that. But how will we ever build support among workers for a more militant movement if nobody ever starts to take more militant actions that will become a social question that is debated and struggled about?

Marxism isn’t about repeating pat formulaic approaches. Marxists need to learn the art and science of analyzing concrete conditions in their particularity and figuring out how to move things forward from there step-by-step. This applies in the day-to-day struggle right now. And it will be vital in making a revolution in the U.S.

Trotskyists of the Socialist Alternative type try to substitute reality for their “good ideas,” and if reality does not conform to their good ideas, then they get mad at reality and retreat off to “peace picnics.”

They want perfect revolutions, revolutions that are led by folks that happen to think like them, to fall from the sky. They think they can wait until that perfect moment to suddenly flip a magic switch and encourage their supporters to rebel when they have not built the capacity to do so over time in the mass struggle. No revolution has been built through that manner. It’s no surprise that no Trotskyist group has led a revolution anywhere on the planet in Trotskyism’s nearly 100 years of existence. Revolutions are built through struggle and in taking the movement forward step-by-step -- not just talking the talk for a long time and then suddenly jumping to the revolution.

Socialist Alternative’s idealist conception of revolution even causes them to refuse to support or defend any force fighting for national liberation internationally or any revolution actually happening in the world. FRSO sees it as our internationalist duty to support all forces fighting against U.S. imperialism. This includes the heroic fighters landing real blows against U.S. imperialism’s plans for domination around the world, such as the Iraqi resistance, the Palestinian resistance (including the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine), and the Colombian rebels, such as the FARC-EP).

This approach is the opposite of Socialist Alternative, which often denounces the socialist countries and movements that are fighting for national liberation and socialism.

As revolutionaries in the U.S. we see it as important to support and to study and learn from those whose struggles against U.S. imperialism are more advanced than the struggle here. FRSO also supports the countries that have actually made socialist revolutions such as Cuba, Vietnam, China and Democratic Korea. We also support countries and movements that are moving in the direction of socialism such as in Venezuela and Nepal. We see any nail in the coffin of imperialism as being a struggle we can unite with and learn from.

Marxist-Leninists in the U.S. have a responsibility to support revolutionary movements around the world, while we do the work step-by-step to build a movement for revolutionary change here in the U.S. We can not afford to adopt the silly and sectarian approach of Socialist Alternative. We need to stand in solidarity with all who are fighting imperialism, be it at home or abroad. “Criticizing” anarchists who are facing prison for making contributions to the people struggle is not the right thing to do. Standing on the side and criticizing the building of a more militant movement is not the right thing to do either.

The September 1-4 protests in St. Paul, MN against the Republican National Convention were met with serious police-state type repression in the streets. This is well documented by tons of video available on YouTube and elsewhere (including some on this site). Tons of riot police, preemtive raids on activist spaces and homes, tear gas, concussion grenades, pepperspray, mass arrests, etc.

Another form of repression against RNC protest organizers was through over a year of surveillance of activists as well the use of paid informants and infiltrators. Left wing activists often wonder about whether and to what degree our organizations are monitored and/or infiltrated by the state.

The affidavits that Ramsey County Sheriff Fletcher used to get a warrant for the preemptive raids the weekend before the RNC start to shine light on the tactics used by the state (Ramsey County and the FBI) to surveil and infiltrate groups planning protests against the RNC. These documents were the first detailed public acknowledgment that they had in fact infiltrated the anarchist / anti-authoritarian organization called the RNC Welcoming Committee. The affidavits are based on allegations made by two paid informants and one infiltrator who infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee.

The affidavits and supposed evidence seized during the pre-RNC raids form the basis for the charges of "Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism" brought against 8 members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, who are now known as the RNC 8. There is a website for information on the case of the RNC 8 at RNC8.org. Check it regularly for info and background on the case, as well as to find out how you can support them. Their case has broader implications for all protest movements (see National Lawyers Guild statement below for more analysis on this).

You can see PDFs of the affidavits here and here. (more documents available here). It's important for progressive activists to study and understand the methods and tactics that the state intelligence apparatus(es) use against protest and resistance movements. These documents give a glimpse of how they operate. Hopefully more of the state's methods will be exposed as time goes on, so we can learn from it.

The Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild put out this statement about the case of the RNC 8:

About the RNC 8:
Ramsey County Charges RNC 8 Under State Patriot Act, Alleges Acts of Terrorism

http://www.nlgminnesota.org/node/66

In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee (“RNCWC “) with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism. Monica Bicking (DOB: 6/23/85), Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins (DOB: 9/19/84), Erik Oseland (DOB: 4/11/1987), Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald, and Max Spector, face up to 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty.

Affidavits released by law enforcement which were filed in support of the search warrants used in raids over the weekend, and used to support probable cause for the arrest warrants, are based on paid, confidential informants who infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence.”

These charges are an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism. This both trivializes real violence and attempts to place the stated political views of the Defendants on trial,” said Bruce Nestor, President of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. “The charges represent an abuse of the criminal justice system and seek to intimidate any person organizing large scale public demonstrations potentially involving civil disobedience, he said.”

The criminal complaints filed by the Ramsey County Attorney do not allege that any of the Defendants personally have engaged in any act of violence or damage to property. The complaints list all of alleged violations of law during the last few days of the RNC — other than violations of human rights carried out by law enforcement — and seeks to hold the 8 defendants responsible for acts committed by other individuals. None of the defendants have any prior criminal history involving acts of violence. Searches conducted in connection with the raids failed to turn up any physical evidence to support the allegations of organized attacks on law enforcement. Although claiming probable cause to believe that gunpowder, acids, and assembled incendiary devices would be found, no such items were seized by police. As a result, police sought to claim that the seizure of common household items such as glass bottles, charcoal lighter, nails, a rusty machete, and two hatchets, supported the allegations of the confidential informants. “Police found what they claim was a single plastic shield, a rusty machete, and two hatchets used in Minnesota to split wood. This doesn’t amount to evidence of an organized insurrection, particularly when over 3,500 police are present in the Twin Cities, armed with assault rifles, concussion grenades, chemical weapons and full riot gear,” said Nestor. In addition, the National Lawyers Guild has previously pointed out how law enforcement has fabricated evidence such as the claims that urine was seized which demonstrators intended to throw at police.

The last time such charges were brought under Minnesota law was in 1918, when Matt Moilen and others organizing labor unions for the International Workers of the World on the Iron Range were charged with “criminal syndicalism.” The convictions, based on allegations that workers had advocated or taught acts of violence, including acts only damaging to property, were upheld by the Minnesota Supreme Court. In the light of history, these convictions are widely seen as unjust and a product of political trials. The National Lawyers Guild condemns the charges filed in this case against the above 8 defendants and urges the Ramsey County Attorney to drop all charges of conspiracy in this matter.

Here are some powerful videos of the protests at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN on September 1-4, 2008, and insane riot police response.

Day 4 "No Peace for the Warmakers" protest

Day 4 "No Peace for the Warmakers" protest - part 1

Day 4 "No Peace for the Warmakers" protest - part 2

CNN coverage of repeated police pepper spraying of peaceful protester

Fox 9 coverage of Day 4 protest

Democracy Now coverage of Day 4 protest and mass arrest

There’s a lot to say about the RNC protests overall, the massive police repression against protesters, the targeting and arrest of many journalists, and the various protest actions on each of the specific days. Today I’m just trying to catch up on rest a bit and gather my thoughts. In the meantime, I’ve gathered below links to a bunch of the coverage of the very significant protest on the evening of Day 4 of the RNC.

The Day 4 protest, organized by the Anti-War Committee (www.antiwarcommittee.org) had the theme “No Peace for the Warmakers” and was built as a more militant protest, openly defying the city’s refusal to grant a permit to march to the XCel Center at the same time that McCain would be nominated as the official Republican candidate (the rally at 4 pm was permitted, and there was a permit to march, they just demanded that it end by 5 pm, long before McCain would speak after 9 pm).

Despite hundreds of arrests on the protests in the first three days of the RNC, not to mention the raids on the Convergence Space and various activists’ homes in the days leading up to the RNC, and a media barrage of terms like “riots”, “terrorism”, etc., two thousand people still came out on day 4 to a protest to march to the Xcel Center to oppose McCain and the war. By the end of the night, 396 people had been arrested, nearly doubling the total number of arrests during all the RNC protests to a total of 818. The protest succeeded in staying in the streets, even without a permit, until the time that McCain was speaking in the Xcel Center.

In my opinion, the two protests that bookended the RNC were the two most significant. The day 1 march on the RNC to stop the war, which brought together 30,000 people in the largest anti-war march in the country all year, was powerful and highly significant. Unfortunately the media mostly missed the boat on the importance of day one’s mass display of opposition to the war and the Republican agenda. That march was well organized, powerful, and without incident in delivering a powerful anti-war message. All that despite the massive presence of fully decked-out riot cops lining the march at various points, the degrading “fence” or cage that the march had to pass through when we went by the Xcel Center, and the raids and arrests on activist spaces and houses in the previous days.

The Day 4 “No Peace for the Warmakers” march provided the other bookend to the RNC protests. It brought together a couple thousand spirited protesters with a clear anti-war message. It was also bold, militant and disciplined in the face of massive police provocations, even during the ‘permitted’ rally at 4:00. As McCain was getting ready to speak and formally accept the nomination for the presidency, scenes from the demonstration outside including teargassing and mass arrests of peaceful protesters, alternated with the McCain PR on at least some channels (in the Twin Cities Fox 9 showed a few minutes straight of largely sympathetic coverage of the protest right before McCain’s speech started). Although thousands of riot police prevented the protest from reaching the Xcel Center, the demonstration succeeded in piercing the Republican PR show and showing militant opposition to the war and the Republican agenda.

There were many other important protests and actions throughout the 4 days of the RNC. And there’s is a lot more to write and think and struggle about, such as the outrageous police state atmosphere created during the RNC, the alarming repression against the Welcoming Committee folks who are now facing post-Patriot Act ‘terrorism’ charges, the cops’ not allowing Rage Against the Machine to play a free concert on Day 2, the March for Our Lives, and much more. But I think the two marches that bookended the RNC were the most important, for giving a strong mass beginning and a strong militant end to the anti-RNC efforts.

Here are links to some video and press coverage of the Day 4 protest.

This YouTube video gives a good feel for the Day 4 march:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORXpILUmoL8

And this Fox 9 coverage is shocking, but surprisingly positive toward the protest and accurate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jICnZn0DS6Y

Here is MPR’s video coverage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfVCI_ZBXbY

And here is a long collection of media links about the Day 4 march:

KSTP.com - Nearly 400 arrested during protesters’ final push
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S567227.shtml?cat=1

Star Tribune - Antiwar march ends in tense standoff, 396 arrests (includes photo gallery)
http://www.startribune.com/politics/nation…iD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

Minnesota Public Radio - Final day protests end in an estimated 300 arrests
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/w…al_protest_rnc/

Fox 9 - Nearly 400 Protesters Arrested on Final Day of RNC
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/myfox/pages…TY&pageId=1.1.1

WCCO.com Police surround crowd on bridge, arrest hundreds
http://wcco.com/local/RNC.antiwar.march.2.809887.html

Kare11 http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=523952

bunch of videos

Remember the first “arrests” at the capitol…..might have been staged? You be the judge….. http://www.kare11.com/video/player.aspx?aid=81866
http://www.kare11.com/video/player.aspx?aid=81879

KSTP.com - Nearly 400 arrested during protesters’ final push (includes video)
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S567227.shtml?cat=1

Kare 11 - 2 St. Paul freeway ramps still closed after RNC (includes various videos)
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.as…=523952&catid=2

ABCnews - Police Clash with Demonstrators, Make Arrests at RNC
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/20…e-arrest-a.html

Chicago Tribune - Police arrest anti-war protesters trying to march to GOP convention site in St. Paul, Minn.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politic…0,6001129.story

AP - Antiwar protest planned for last day of RNC

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hksHDv1…0uxZ0AD92VPJ0O0

AP - Police block anti-war march to GOP convention
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hksHDv1…0uxZ0AD9308KBG0

WCCO- Raw video footage of the last of the protesters being back up on bridge. Michelle Gross being filmed documenting this
http://wcco.com/local/RNC.antiwar.march.2.809887.html

WCCO — Camera person being detained
http://wcco.com/local/RNC.antiwar.march.2.809887.html

Boston.com - Pre-emptive strike, then more arrests
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politi…ptive_stri.html

Reuters - 250 protesters arrested before McCain speech
http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/i…439430820080905

Pioneer Press - Police chief: some planned to ‘riot’ Thursday night
http://www.twincities.com/ci_10390118

MN Independent - Scenes from a protest: On RNC’s last night, a march to nowhere
http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/7747/s…arch-to-nowhere

MN Independent - ‘If you are on this bridge you are under arrest’
http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/7691/i…re-under-arrest

MN Independent - Liveblog: RNC march turns ugly as police use teargas, detain journalists
http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/7564/r…ts-march-begins

MN Independent - Minneapolis council members call for investigation of RNC policing
http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/7749/m…n-of-rnc-police

MN Daily - Final RNC protest ends with arrests
http://mndaily.com/2008/09/05/final-rnc-protest-ends-arrests