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Thread: RNC protests disappointing

  1. #1

    RNC protests disappointing

    Tampa announces "Free Speech Zone" for RNC
    http://cltampa.com/dailyloaf/archive...c#.UEBea5bud8E

    RNC protesters haven't lived up to expected numbers
    http://www2.tbo.com/news/politics/20...orm-ar-477951/

    TAMPA --

    Two dozen police officers lined the side of East Whiting Street one day this week to keep a watchful eye on about the same number of Ron Paul supporters making their way to the designated protest area.

    Suddenly, the sound of a glass bottle shattering echoed through the area.

    One of the protesters had accidentally dropped a cold drink. A couple of the demonstrators stooped down to pick up the debris so they wouldn't litter the city's streets.

    ...

    The city of Tampa had steeled itself for the arrival of as many as 15,000 protesters marching through the streets. Giant fences were put up to protect government buildings and businesses. About $50 million – paid for with a federal grant – was spent on security, mostly for extra law enforcement officers.

    After three days, however, only a few hundred to, at most, a couple thousand protesters have appeared, scattered around the downtown area. An estimate of a couple hundred dollars property damage to the city so far would be "on the high end," Mayor Bob Buckhorn said.

    After hundreds of arrests in St. Paul during the 2008 RNC, just three protesters have been arrested heading into the Tampa event's third day. That includes a protester toting a machete Sunday, one who wouldn't remove a bandana over his face Monday and one accused of battery following a fight over a piece of cardboard at a protest camp on Tuesday, police said.

    Day One of the 2012 RNC: March on the RNC, 8/27/12: photos
    http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/201...9/18720513.php

    First Amendment Violations to Watch for at the RNC and DNC
    http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech...ch-rnc-and-dnc

    We know that photographers have been having problems all over the country with police harassment, and that demonstrators’ free speech rights have also been under assault. But with the Democratic and Republican political conventions coming up, we have all too much reason to expect that free speech rights will be swallowed up in the vortex of those events, which have become constitutional black holes in recent years.

    Chris Hansen, our senior First Amendment attorney, has been litigating First Amendment cases for many years, including landmark cases such as Reno v. ACLU, and a number involving the free speech rights of protesters. I asked him to give me an overview of the situation, and he said that we’ve been seeing three big problems that come up increasingly at all these kinds of events:
    1) “Free Speech Zones.” People wishing to express themselves are being sent to distant locations—euphemistically called “Free Speech Zones”—so they are inaccessible to the audience at the event. (There is one legitimate Free Speech Zone we don’t have a problem with, it’s called the United States of America.)
    2) Arrests. People are simply being swept up and arrested, essentially for no reason at all, in order to clear the streets. Cities figure that they can just deal with the ensuing litigation later. They don’t much care that they don’t have grounds to arrest people, they just sweep the streets.
    3) Surveillance. Unjustified surveillance is common, both prior to and during the event. Recent stories suggest that there is a lot more infiltration of protest organizers taking place than we had realized at first. But then there’s also the surveillance that takes place at the event, where often everything is filmed. Even worse are the new restrictions on what you can carry into the demonstrations, which give the police the authority to search you as you go in.

    These rights violations are happening repeatedly, despite lawsuits that are filed and won after the event is over. Chris tells me, “the cities view it as a cost of doing business.”

    Consciously and intentionally violating the law and Constitution is apparently viewed as a legitimate tactic by the same police and officials who are supposed to be enforcing the law.

    Specter of protests outside Tampa's Republican National Convention stirs concern
    http://www.tampabay.com/news/politic...cle1205835.ece

    TAMPA — For an idea of how rowdy the protests at next year's Republican National Convention could get, consider this:

    A pro-Israel advocacy group from Miami Beach is asking Tampa police to establish not one "free speech" zone for protesters, but two — one for its members, the other for its enemies.

    RNC Relegates Ron Paul To ‘Freedom of Speech Zone’ For Upcoming Tampa Convention
    http://libertycrier.com/politics/rnc...pa-convention/

    First a few facts…

    1.) Mitt Romney cannot win the Presidency without the votes of Ron Paul supporters, and everyone knows it.
    2.) The GOP establishment hates Ron Paul, and everyone knows it.
    3.) If Ron Paul is not included at the RNC he could throw a counter convention that would likely have more attendees than the GOP convention itself.

    Now the GOP is faced with the arduous task of giving something to Ron Paul without actually giving him anything, in hopes of fooling Ron Paul supporters into thinking they have a place within the GOP establishment.

    It won’t work.

    After years of GOP abuses against their candidate, Ron Paul supporters already know the apple is poisoned.

    Case in point: The RNC is offering Ron Paul a location for his own rally one day before the actual convention. This is NOT a speaking role, nor any kind of role, at the convention itself. This is NOT an offer to influence the party platform, nor an opportunity to influence the debate. Rather, this is an offer to put Ron Paul and his supporters into a ‘Freedom of speech zone‘, a place where you’re allowed to protest and speak out, and that also happens to be at a location where no one can hear you. If this offer was genuinely intended to appease Ron Paul supporters it just goes to show how little the GOP establishment understands their growing counterinsurgency. Ron Paul supporters hate ‘Freedom of speech zones’.

    More from the Republican National Convention in Tampa - the pen where free speech is locked up - ):
    http://www.facebook.com/OccupyBoston...15037068523265



    -t
    Last edited by tangent4ronpaul; 08-31-2012 at 01:14 AM.



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  3. #2
    The GOP. . . So irrelevant, no one even bothers to protest it.
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    This is getting silly.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    It started silly.
    T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men

    "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." - Plato

    We Are Running Out of Time - Mini Me

    Quote Originally Posted by Philhelm
    I part ways with "libertarianism" when it transitions from ideology grounded in logic into self-defeating autism for the sake of ideological purity.

  4. #3

  5. #4
    Protesters blame hurricane threat, police presence for muted protests during GOP convention
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...00b_story.html

    TAMPA, Fla. — The three dozen chanting anti-GOP protesters hit a lull of silence as they marched through a low-income neighborhood in west Tampa. “What are you guys doing? Taking a nap?” shouted one protester to his cohorts, exhorting them to yell. Another shouted, “You guys are reeeeaaal quiet now!”

    Quiet is the right word for protests at the Republican National Convention in Tampa this week. They have been unexpectedly muted and even the protesters know it. Thousands of demonstrators had been expected but only hundreds arrived, mostly Green Party supporters, Occupy Wall Street activists, anarchists and union stalwarts.



    Only two arrests have been linked to protests so far — one man for carrying a machete, the other for wearing a bandanna in violation of a city ordinance. That’s compared to several hundred in St. Paul, Minn., four years ago. Her streets have been so tranquil that Police Chief Jane Castor canceled news conferences because there was no trouble to report.

    Activists blame the threat of Hurricane Isaac, the overwhelming police presence, undercover law enforcement infiltration of their ranks and even the ghost-town nature of downtown during the convention week. Some activists worry they have no momentum built for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., next week, and then the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street next month.

    “Unless you have the numbers out on the street, you really can’t change anything,” said Nick Sabatella, 25, an Occupy Wall Street activist from New Jersey.

    The protesters were behind the eight ball even before the convention started. The threat of Hurricane Isaac stopped at least 16 busloads of activists from coming to town because bus operators didn’t want their equipment and drivers headed into possible danger. Downpours on Monday put a damper on a kickoff march that drew only several hundred protesters, not the 5,000 marchers that had been anticipated. And rain continued off and on throughout the week.

    “Nobody came down because of this weather,” said Jeff Smith, a 38-year-old construction worker from New York, who is part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

    Smith also faulted the protest leaders and the tight security.

    “They don’t seem to be too organized down here,” he said. “Probably because there are cops on every corner.”

    Groups of officers are stationed on almost every corner of downtown. They are riding around in packs on bicycles and are using helicopters for surveillance.

    While many activists praised the police for their restraint and politeness, they said the number of officers on the streets was overkill.

    “I’m really sad that every four years there is more of a militarization of the police at these conventions,” said Cheri Honkala, the Green Party’s vice presidential candidate. “It’s a waste of taxpayers’ dollars and it really scares me that someday there will be nobody left marching.”

    The police presence isn’t just in uniform.

    In “Romneyville,” a tent village of protesters about a mile from the convention, the residents are well aware that undercover officers have infiltrated their ranks and that they tend to be among the more aggressive “activists.”

    “You know how if you go into Macy’s around the holidays and somebody tries to shoplift something, and you then realize there are actually no shoppers, that they’re all undercover police officers? That’s the case here,” Honkala said.

    Without hard confirmation, they have let their suspected undercover officers stay.

    “You can’t get rid of people if you can’t prove it on the spot,” Honkala said.

    Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said at a news conference Thursday that he had expected few arrests as the convention wraps up Thursday night.

    “We have trained so hard and so long for this,” Buckhorn said. “When this is said and done, this will be the benchmark that every city should strive for.”

    Castor said her strategy was to approach the protesters, ask what their goals are and then help them reach them. Often, protesters simply wanted to pose in an intersection for the media. She let them if they didn’t intend violence. Officers even took leftover food to Romneyville.

    “Everyone was to be treated with dignity and respect,” Castor said.

    The nature of downtown also made it harder for protesters to be heard. Few people live there and many businesses told their workers to stay away during the convention, leaving the streets nearly empty.

    “We could protest until we’re blue in the face but there weren’t people normally around to see that,” said Darrell Prince, a 35-year-old political fundraiser from New York who is part of Occupy Wall Street. “Whether it was intelligent design or they were just fortunate, it worked out for the RNC.”

    On Thursday, 16 protesters, watched by 35 officers, marched from Romneyville to Domino’s Pizza to protest corporate-owned businesses. Despite the low numbers, protesters eked out some victories.

    As Paul Ryan was in the midst of a speech accepting the vice presidential nomination on the convention floor, he was disrupted by a pink banner and a yelling protester from the feminist group Code Pink. She was escorted out as some in the crowd shouted “U-S-A, U-S-A.”

    Many Romneyville residents are relocating their impromptu community to Charlotte and the Democratic convention. They are hoping for bigger crowds and more energy, drawing on Occupy activists from cities along the Eastern seaboard.

    “Who knows?” Sabattella said. “Maybe it can still happen.”



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