August 29 March and Rally- The Motherboards Marches

ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
http://www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545
To subscribe, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email
============================================
Sunday, August 29: The World Says No to the Bush Agenda!
March and Rally, New York City
* Assemble at 10:00AM
* March steps off at noon

The time and location of our August 29 "World Says No to the Bush Agenda" protest are now set. A
map of our assembly area, march route, and rally site is available online at:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=2503

We will assemble at 10:00AM between 14th Street and 23rd Street, stretching from Sixth to Eighth
Avenues. The march will kick off at noon from 23rd Street and head up Seventh Avenue past Madison
Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention. The march will then turn west on
34th Street and head over to West Street, also known as the West Side Highway. We will proceed south
on West Street to the rally site, which will stretch north from Chambers Street.

More information and resources will be available on our website in the days and weeks to come;
check back often at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/rnc

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AUGUST 29, THE WORLD SAYS NO TO THE BUSH AGENDA!
March and Rally at the Republican National Convention, New York City
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Tell me where u kids are meeting an at what time (if I don't have to do the pick up my kid run I will defo be there)

I would have a great time marching with an
M-boards contingent and nominate Mrs. Plop for Bandleader.

Could get interesting....

ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
http://www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545
To subscribe, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email
============================================
IMPORTANT NEW DEVELOPMENTS REGARDING AUG. 29
An Open Letter to Our Supporters

Dear friend of UFPJ:

United for Peace and Justice has been fighting for months to have our Constitutional rights respected. We have been in a contentious process with the Mayor and Police Department of New York City regarding the location of our march and rally against the Bush agenda on August 29th, the eve of the Republican National Convention. We are writing to update you on these negotiations and to make sure you know about a number of important developments.

Almost three weeks ago, United for Peace and Justice made the difficult decision to accept the West Side Highway rally site for our August 29 protest, which was imposed on us by Republican NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Police Department. We had already reached an agreement with the City regarding our protest march, which will assemble at 14th Street and Seventh Avenue and march up the avenue in front of Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention.

We were compelled to go along with the West Side Highway, a rally site we did not like, in order to move forward with our organizing work and build the largest and broadest possible protest against the Bush agenda. But we also made it clear – to the City, the media, and our supporters – that there were numerous issues regarding the West Side Highway location that needed to be resolved to make this site workable for a rally. These include the use of police barricades to pen in protesters, which we emphatically oppose, and access to free drinking water and shuttle buses, which are essential given the highway's lack of shade and remote location.

Our plan to hold a safe and legal march past Madison Square Garden remains firmly in place. But we are increasingly concerned about the viability of a rally on the West Side Highway, because of the following developments:

1) We have had two recent meetings with the Police Department, in which they did not make any concessions or commitments on any of the unresolved issues we have put on the table. Neither they nor anyone from the Mayor's office has given us any indication that they are willing to work with us to meet our needs.

2) We have heard from a number of medical professionals that there are serious potential public health risks associated with holding our rally on the West Side Highway, away from shade, stores, and public transit.

3) After consulting with a number of sound and stage companies, we have learned that it will be extremely difficult and potentially impossible to provide a quality sound system for the entire rally area, which would stretch for several miles, and that the cost of sound and jumbotrons will be in the range of $300,000, which is more than double what it would cost us to hold a rally in Central Park.

4) We have gotten feedback from a number of groups and individuals – particularly seniors, people with disabilities, and people with young children – that they cannot attend the rally if it is held on the West Side Highway, because of health and safety concerns. Many of our other supporters have said they will not attend a rally there, because the inhospitable location amounts to an attack on our right to free assembly.

In addition, since we announced our decision, some important new information has appeared in the mainstream media. Quinnipiac University released a public opinion poll showing that 75% of New Yorkers support our right to rally in Central Park. Meanwhile, a horticulturalist who worked on the renovation of the Great Lawn revealed to The New York Times that it was engineered specifically to withstand large crowds, undercutting the City's claim that our rally would irreparably damage the grass.

The question is, where do we go from here?

We will be holding a press conference tomorrow, August 10, to announce our next steps. Our goal for August 29 remains what it has always been: to bring the largest and most representative number of people possible out into the streets in opposition to the Bush agenda. We are committed to having a safe, legal, and peaceful protest, accessible to all..

We appreciate the broad support we have received throughout this challenging process. We have been up against an administration and a police department that are openly hostile to our First Amendment rights. On August 29, as massive numbers of people march in front of the site of the Republican Convention, we will send a strong, clear message: We reject the Bush administration's agenda of war, greed, hate and lies, and we are standing up to the ominous suppression of dissent in this country.

We know you stand with us in this effort, and we are counting on you to continue building to make August 29 a huge success, overcoming the barriers that have been put in our way by Bush, Bloomberg, and the NYPD.

In solidarity,

United for Peace and Justice

Thanks for calling our attention to this development Empress. I just found further developments on this at of all places, Bloomberg online (The news agency the Mayor had founded):

Anti-War Group Again Seeks Permit for NYC Park Rally (Update2)

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- An anti-war group planning a 250,000- person protest on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York said it won't rally on Manhattan's West Side Highway, as agreed to last month with the city, and will file instead for a new permit to gather at Central Park.

United for Peace and Justice had accepted the highway site after officials led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg refused the group a permit for use of the park for the rally on Aug. 29, saying such a large gathering could damage the grass and create security concerns. The group reversed itself after doctors said the highway wasn't safe for senior citizens or children, technical advisers said the sound quality would be poor and affiliated organizations said they wouldn't attend.

``Under no circumstances will we go to the West Side highway,'' said Leslie Cagan, the group's national coordinator, at a press briefing at United for Peace and Justice's midtown Manhattan headquarters. ``Exiling a rally to a remote sun-baked highway makes a mockery of the right to assemble.''

The planned demonstration would be the largest of more than a dozen for which groups have obtained permits to coincide with the four-day convention at which President George W. Bush will receive his party's nomination for a second term. United for Peace and Justice said it still will hold an Aug. 29 march past Madison Square Garden, the convention's site, for which it obtained approval along with the highway rally.

``We can never put the rights of grass before the rights of New Yorkers,'' said City Councilman Bill Perkins, a Democrat from East Harlem, who joined Cagan at the briefing along with representatives from other anti-war and protest groups including Not in Our Name and Veterans for Peace.

Cagan said she had 1,000 volunteers prepared to re-seed the Great Lawn should any damage occur.

`Nowhere'

When it accepted the city's alternate site for their rally, Cagan said the group wanted city officials to supply drinking water, sanitary facilities and free transportation to and from the event, and demanded that police not use metal barriers to set up pens. She said the group had ``gotten nowhere'' after two meetings with police.

Paul Browne, the city's deputy commissioner for public information, said United for Peace and Justice still has its permits for the march on Seventh Avenue and the highway rally, ``and we're prepared to continue with that. If they announce a demonstration and don't use it, that's their problem.'' Robert Lawson, a spokesman for the mayor, deferred questions relating to the planned rally to the police department.

`Appalled'

Cagan said many people, including representatives from other groups, vowed not to attend the rally if it were held at the highway, which played into the group's change of heart. The site would have stretched more than 2.9 miles from Chambers Street in lower Manhattan, where a sound stage was to have been set up, north to 34th Street. The permit for the march allows the group to proceed north on Seventh Avenue from 23rd Street to the site of the convention at 34th Street.

``People are appalled at the fact that the city is being so difficult regarding the Central Park issue,'' said AiMara Linn, the media coordinator for Not in Our Name. ``We simply cannot accept no as an answer -- this is not about logistics, this is an issue of are we going to allow dissent to be marginalized.''

Should the city again reject the new permit application for a rally in Central Park, Cagan wouldn't say whether United for peace and Justice would file suit to overturn the decision.

``We would rather not use our time and energy and the taxpayers' money to go through the court process,'' Cagan said. ``I have no idea if it could be settled in court or not.''

It's Official!

Dear UFPJ supporter:

WE ARE MARCHING! On August 29, United for Peace and Justice will hold a massive, impassioned, peaceful, and legal march past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican Convention, to protest the Bush Administration's deceit and destruction.

But we will NOT be rallying afterwards on the West Side Highway. As we announced in a press conference today, exiling us to a remote stretch of sun-baked highway makes a mockery of our right to assembly: The deal is off.

Our medics have told us that the West Side Highway isn't a safe place for seniors, children, and people with disabilities to rally. Our sound engineers have told us that it's not possible to set up a quality sound system there. Many of our members have told us that they simply will not go to such an awful and marginal location. And our common sense has told us that this deal was a set-up by a Republican mayor openly hostile to free speech.

Central Park is the only sensible place for us to rally. We filed a new permit application today with the NYC Parks Department to rally in Central Park on August 29, using the Great Lawn, North Meadow, and East Meadow. We will keep you informed of the City's response.

Our march plans remain unchanged: We will assemble beginning at 10:00AM at Seventh Avenue and 14th Street, and step off at noon for our legal and peaceful march past Madison Square Garden.

You've supported us politically through this difficult struggle against the effort to repress our protest, and now we need your financial support, too. This long fight for our right to assemble has been very costly, and we need to raise more than $75,000 by the end of this week to move forward with our organizing efforts.

Every dollar you donate today is a statement of support for our right to hold this crucial protest against the Bush Agenda. Please dig deep into your pockets and make the most generous donation you can – we can't allow Bush, Bloomberg, and the Republicans to stifle our cry for peace and justice!

You can donate in several ways:
* Using a credit card online at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/donate
* By calling in a credit card donation to 212-868-5545
* By mailing a check or money order to UFPJ, P.O. Box 607, Times Square Station, NY NY 10108

The war in Iraq worsens every day, the U.S. economy is battered, and our civil liberties are under
assault, while the Bush Administration shamelessly tries to frighten the population into silence. We say NO to the war, NO to the lies, NO to the greed and the hate, and NO to the attack on our basic rights.

With less than three weeks remaining before August 29, we all need to kick into the highest possible gear to make this protest a success. Now's the time to finalize your plans to come to New York City for this crucial and historic day. Urge your friends, your family, your co-workers, and everyone you know to stand up against the Bush Agenda by marching with us on August 29.

Keep checking our website for new resources and information, and we'll see you in the streets!

In solidarity,
United for Peace and Justice

============================================
AUGUST 29, THE WORLD SAYS NO TO THE BUSH AGENDA!
Massive Protest at the Republican National Convention, New York City
* Assemble at 10:00AM, Seventh Avenue @ 14th Street
* March steps off at noon

I'll be there!

Me tooo I wouldn't miss being a part of that for nothing.

Really informative article in Salon.com recently which includes a great update on this demo and what will happen now that the march is going to the Park, probably without a permit.

quote:

---

New York lockdown
Cops plan zero tolerance for violent protests at the GOP Convention. Militant groups plan to disrupt the city like never before. Welcome, delegates!

By Michelle Goldberg

Aug. 11, 2004 | If you're a delegate attending the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden later this month, Jamie Moran knows where you're staying. He knows where you're eating and what Broadway musical you plan on seeing. For the past nine months, Moran has been living off savings earned as an office manager at a nonprofit and working full-time to disrupt the RNC.

His small anarchist collective, RNCNotWelcome.org, runs a snitch line and an e-mail account where disgruntled employees of New York hotels, the Garden and the Republican Party itself can pass on information about conventioneers. So far, the collective has received dozens of phone calls and hundreds of e-mails with inside dirt on GOP activities. Recently, a woman with a polished, middle-aged sounding voice left a message saying, "For some God-unknown reason I'm on the Republican mailing list, and they sent me what they call a list of their inner-circle events." The events hadn't been publicized elsewhere, she said, and she wanted to fax the list to Moran.

Moran feeds information like this to a cadre of activists desperate to unleash four years' worth of anger at the Bush administration. By dogging the delegates wherever they go, RNC Not Welcome hopes to make the Republicans' lives hell for as long as they're in New York.

"We want to make their stay here as miserable as possible," says Moran, who has sandy hair, a snub nose and a goatee. The son of a retired Queens cop, he's 30 but looks younger. "I'd like to see all the Republican events -- teas, backslapping lunches -- disrupted. I'd like to see people from other states following their delegates, letting them know what they think about Republican policies. I'd like to see impromptu street parties and marches. I'd like to see corporations involved in the Iraq reconstruction get targeted -- anything from occupation to property destruction."

There's a showdown coming to Manhattan. Backed by the most intense security the city has ever seen, the Republicans are about to turn the blue-state bastion of New York City into the backdrop for George Bush's coronation. The RNC chose New York because it was the site of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which to Bush's opponents and even some ordinary New Yorkers seems a brazen provocation.

On one side are 36,000 cops -- a force that City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. calls "perhaps the world's tenth-largest standing army." On the other side are at least 250,000 protesters expected to converge on the city from all across the United States and Canada -- a demonstration six times larger than the legendary anti-globalization protests that rocked Seattle in 1999.

They're facing off at a time when police are increasingly adopting military tactics in response to protest, and protesters are responding likewise, conducting their own reconnaissance on Republican plans and plotting actions designed to hit where the cops are weakest. The police have infiltrated the protesters, but the protesters have infiltrated the convention; according to anti-RNC organizers, they have at least two moles working undercover with volunteers the city has recruited to help makes things run smoothly at Madison Square Garden.

Plans to oppose the convention are multiplying, suffusing activists with a giddy, growing tension. Marches and rallies, legal and illegal, are being planned for every day that the Republicans are in New York. There will be street theater, including a Roman-style vomitorium in the East Village a few days before the convention starts, meant to signify Republican gluttony. Cheri Honkala, an organizer from Philadelphia, is mobilizing homeless people, public housing tenants and others for a big, illegal "poor peoples' march" on Aug. 30. Activists are holding weekend workshops where direct-action novices practice street blocking, and DIY medics learn to treat victims of pepper spray and police violence.

No one knows where it's all going -- whether it will look like Chicago '68 or Seattle '99 or something altogether new. But activists see the coming conflict as history-making.

---

It goes on for several pages, then talks about August 29 specifically. I urge you to visit Salon.com and look at the quick ad so you can read the whole thing at

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/11/rnc_protest/index_np.html

or here's just that part..

quote:

---

Few blame this on United for Peace and Justice, a group headed by veteran organizer Leslie Cagan, a squat woman with short silver hair who helped bring more than half a million people to Central Park in 1982 for a record-setting disarmament rally. Cagan is a radical, but she's also a professional, the kind of person who knows her way around the permitting process and is willing to work with police and city officials. Over the past year, though, the NYPD has done much to undermine her and UFPJ.

United for Peace and Justice is planning another huge march on Aug. 29, the day before the convention begins. Cagan wanted to have the protest culminate at Central Park's Great Lawn, but the Parks Department refused to allow it on the grounds that attendees might destroy the lawn's newly planted grass. UFPJ offered to put up a bond to pay for potential damages, but the city hasn't relented. At one point, a city official suggested that UFPJ hold the rally in Queens instead. "The Parks Department slammed the door in our face," she says.

In June, Cagan told a City Hall hearing that the NYPD was "creating the potential for chaos" by refusing to let demonstrators use the park. Bill Perkins, the Cty Council's deputy majority leader, had convened the hearing to investigate the city's response to convention protest plans. He was worried, he said, that "overzealous antiterrorism policing is creating an unnecessary burden on New Yorkers' rights to assemble." The city's refusal to let protesters use the Great Lawn left him angry and incredulous. "I am very concerned," he said at the hearing, "that we have such high regard for the rights of grass."

So far, the rights of grass have prevailed. On July 21, UFPJ reluctantly accepted the city's offer to allow a rally on the West Side Highway, far from shops and foot traffic. UFPJ was told that it had no other choice -- the city wouldn't negotiate. "This was not a happy decision to make," says UFPJ spokesman Bill Dobbs. "It reflects the bullying of Republican Mayor Bloomberg."

Among other problems, the West Side Highway site lacks shade and access to places to buy drinking water. Because the site is so long and narrow, the rally would have stretched along dozens of city blocks, making projecting sound a challenge.

UFPJ's compromise enraged many activists. Posters on anarchist sites like Indymedia.org condemned the group and promised to rally in Central Park regardless. "Who asked UFP&J to play hall monitor?" an activist from Philadelphia wrote.

"I'm almost glad the City has decided to deny us a permit for Central Park and that UFPJ caved," wrote another. "Now, we will take the Park in defiance of both the capitalist bosses and the self-appointed leaders of the 'movement.'"

The reaction was so negative, in fact, that Tuesday UFPJ abandoned its agreement with the city and announced that it will continue to fight for the use of the park. "Part of organizing is listening to what people are saying," says Dobbs. "We are indeed marching by Madison Square Garden, and we are not, not going to that dreadful West Side Highway."

UFPJ has reapplied for a permit to use the park but it seems unlikely that the city will grant it. If denied, Dobbs says his group might sue. And after that? "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Some are urging UFPJ to schedule the rally in the park without waiting for a permit. "Note to UFPJ," said one Indymedia poster. "If you abandon West Side Highway, and declare your intention to rally in Central Park with or without a permit, you will regain much of your credibility with the rank and file."

Right now, though, UFPJ isn't going that far, though Dobbs acknowledges that many people will try to take the park regardless. "The mayor has set up this volatility," he says.

Such volatility is good news for people like Flores-Williams, who are eager to see widespread confrontations with police. "There comes a time when you have to have an appropriate response," he says. "If nothing happens and it's a gentle response, that's going to be used as a sign of complicity and acceptance of the Republicans' presence here."

Flores-Williams seems like he's been waiting for this moment all his life. He was an expat in Prague in the early '90s, and after that a writer of polymorphously perverse, William Vollmann-style fiction in San Francisco. Now he talks as if he's standing on the precipice of a new era. "I like what happened in Seattle. But the real vision I have is what happened in Paris in 1968," he says, referring to the student uprising and general strike that convulsed the city. "In my opinion, chaos serves to energize the human spirit. I've seen it. I lived in Eastern Europe when the walls were coming down. It was a beautiful period when art flourished. It was like the blinders came off."

Yes, the cops will be out in force. "But there will be so many protests," he says, snapping his fingers. "Here 5,000, here 500. Popping off in all these different places. The cops will be stretched thin. Tempers will rise. All hell will break loose. That's what everybody wants -- they just won't admit it."

That's not entirely true. Plenty of Bush opponents worry about what this grand carnival of rejection, while cathartic for some, will actually mean. There was nothing liberating, after all, about the welts and bruises protesters sustained in Miami last fall. "Stark brutality can paralyze people with fear," says Moran. "Miami hangs like a black cloud."

So does the Chicago Democratic National Convention of 1968, where Mayor Richard Daley took a hard line against demonstrations and the cops clashed with protesters on the streets around the convention center. Few doubt that the police, if provoked enough, will respond with equal force this year.

This terrifies Bush opponents, who worry that violence on the streets of New York will help the Republicans by making them look like Middle American moderates besieged by nutty radicals. They note that the Chicago '68 debacle helped cement Richard Nixon's reputation as the law-and-order candidate.

"The wilder and more disreputable the demonstrators look, the better for the Republicans," says Paul Berman, a former student organizer and author of "A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968. "At the height of the antiwar movement, Nixon specifically directed his motorcade to go through the middle of an antiwar riot in California in order to have people throw rocks at him or shout obscenities so that the TV would pose the question that night to the American public: 'Whom do you prefer, President Nixon, or a dope-smoking hippie communist rock thrower?' And the country had no doubt. This was just genius on his part. If Bush ends up winning the election, it will be because of this kind of tactic."

Thirty-five years ago, Berman's generation was notorious for its scornful dismissal of older, cautious liberals. Today, Moran sounds like their rightful descendant, insisting that Berman's lesson doesn't apply. Rather than being alienated by upheavals in Manhattan's streets, he believes ordinary people will join in.

"I've heard some old-timers say, 'If you people riot it will hand Bush the presidency,'" he says. "I think that's just lazy thinking. Any situation where we are joined by regular New Yorkers in the streets is a positive thing."

Besides, it's too late to hold back the protests now. "The last four years definitely created a lot of rage in people," Moran says. "People may decide to unleash that rage on war profiteers. Our collective isn't going to condemn that. It's not our objective."

What is their objective? The Republicans should leave New York, he says. "It was a really bad mistake to come here."

---

Chi Chi that link was not working, this is it...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/11/rnc_protest/index_np.html

and more excitement from the FBI...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/politics/campaign/16fbi.html?th

"In the last few weeks, beginning before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their friends and family members, about possible violence at the two conventions. In addition, three young men in Missouri said they were trailed by federal agents for several days and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury last month, forcing them to cancel their trip to Boston to take part in a protest there that same day.

"Interrogations have generally covered the same three questions, according to some of those questioned and their lawyers: were demonstrators planning violence or other disruptions, did they know anyone who was, and did they realize it was a crime to withhold such information."

Anyhow... GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!!!

But of course, the logical extreme to the Little Bush regime's wanton ploy to polarize the country is what we will see here during the convention, a de-facto civil war.

Our meeting spot and time:

Please be at 14th Street, North Side of street, between 4th Avenue and Union Square East at 11:45 AM

We'll be assembling right upstairs from the subway near escalator (in front of Food Emporium) - there is a roof there in case of inclement weather/scalding sun, and cold beverages right inside to take on the march.

The stop is Union Square and the exit 14th Street/4th Avenue I believe.

- QUOTATION OF THE DAY -

"Unfortunately, we can't stop an anarchist from getting a button."
- MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, on a program to distribute buttons to "peaceful
political activists" during the Republican National Convention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/18/nyregion/18buttons.html?th

This button will give protesters discounts around town...

THIS JUST IN -

NYCLU & CCR Sue City to Secure Central Park Permit for UFPJ Demonstration
August 18, 2004

The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights today announced they have filed a lawsuit on behalf of United for Peace and Justice to secure a permit for a protest rally in Central Park on August 29th. The suit follows months of protracted negotiations and an unacceptable solution for a rally to accommodate an estimated 250,000 protesters on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

http://www.rncprotestrights.org/

I am so happy that the Hooker's Ball benefits NY CIVIL LIBERTIES/PROTECTING PROTEST. This really needed to be done.

That's great news Chi Chi. I'm very much looking forward to the march. Meanwhile, Bloomie has come up with a money-saving scheme for all of us cash-strapped demonstrators! Discounts at select restaurants and Broadway shows for protesters who leave bricks and bats at home.

From today's NYT:

Just Keep It Peaceful, Protesters; New York Is Offering Discounts
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Published: August 18, 2004

Thinking about smashing windows or overturning cars during the Republican National Convention? Think again: that will cost you a discounted buffalo chicken salad from Applebee's or a cheaper ticket to see "Tony n' Tina's Wedding."

In a transparently mercantile bid to keep protesters from disrupting the Republican National Convention later this month, the Bloomberg administration will offer "peaceful political activists" discounts at select hotels, museums, stores and restaurants around town during convention week, which begins Aug. 29.

Law-abiding protesters will be given buttons that bear a fetching rendition of the Statue of Liberty holding a sign that reads, "peaceful political activists." Protesters can present the buttons at places like the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Sex, the Pokémon Center store and such restaurants as Miss Mamie's Spoonbread Too and Applebee's to save some cash during their stay.

If only the Romanovs had thought of this.

"It's no fun to protest on an empty stomach," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday, when he announced the program at NYC & Company, the city's tourism office, which will distribute the buttons to all comers to its Midtown office.

Protesters can also get the buttons from groups that have a legal permit to rally. But Mr. Bloomberg conceded yesterday that not everyone who wore a button would be strictly vetted for his or her peacefulness. "Unfortunately, we can't stop an anarchist from getting a button," he said, though he doubted any of them would want to wear one.

The discount program comes at a time when Mr. Bloomberg is under increasing pressure from the largest protest group, United for Peace and Justice, which is demanding the right to protest in Central Park, a request the city has repeatedly rejected. As a result, the city faces the prospect that the largest rally, planned the Sunday before the convention, will be an illegal gathering.

A spokesman for the group, Bill Dobbs, dismissed the discount program yesterday as a publicity stunt.

The city contends that it wants to give as warm a welcome to protesters as to delegates. "Most times, people try to keep protesters from coming," the mayor said, "and they certainly don't go out of their way to accommodate them."

In offering the discounts, the city also has its economy in mind. Officials want to make sure that hotels and restaurants are as fully booked as possible during the convention week; many have reported that reservations are slow for that week.

The discount program for protesters is modeled on one for delegates to the convention, and there are some notable differences. Protesters are offered $5 off admission to the Museum of Sex, while delegates are not. But delegates get $3 off the space show at the American Museum of Natural History, a discount not offered to protesters. The Republicans get "Rent," the people who oppose them get "Tony n' Tina's Wedding."

Bloomberg administration officials say the list of offerings for protesters may grow. An up-to-date list appears on nycvisit.com; visitors to the site can click on "Welcome peaceful political activists." There, the discontented but hungry can also find information about the city's history and tour guides for the "politically minded visitor."

Mr. Bloomberg also said that the police officers and firemen who had been holding loud demonstrations at his public appearances in the past few weeks would qualify.

Yesterday, outside the mayor's news conference, Joe Miccio, a firefighter who came to hector the mayor, fingered the button presented to him by a reporter with some confusion. "We are peaceful political activists," he said, puzzling over the notion of discounted hamburgers and office supplies (at Kroll's Office Products, free magic marker included). "We'll take a look at it."

The city says it expects at least 200,000 people - both out-of-towners and aggrieved New Yorkers - to protest around the city between now and the end of the convention on Sept. 2. And, as Mr. Bloomberg pointed out, they will need to eat.

With the convention a week and a half away, there are already some who may not qualify for the discounts. Yesterday, four members of Code Pink, a women's protest group, were arrested for trying to dangle a 40-foot-long banner from their ninth-floor window at the Sheraton Hotel across from Mr. Bloomberg's news conference, the police said.

Jodie Evans, a co-founder of the group, identified the women as Andrea Buffa and Colleen Galbraith of San Francisco, Claire Varoney of Los Angeles and Danielle Feris of New York City. The charges against the women are pending, the police said yesterday afternoon.

Gary Ferdman, the executive director of Sensible Priorities, a business consortium, said yesterday that he came up with the idea for the discount program when the city decided it needed to reach out to protesters. "I'm afraid this Central Park thing is really going to blow up," he said after the news conference, perhaps speaking more bluntly than city officials about the motivations for the program.

In announcing the program, Mr. Bloomberg was joined yesterday by former Mayors Edward I. Koch and David N. Dinkins. While Mr. Dinkins said that he might have handled the request to protest in Central Park "differently," Mr. Koch said he agreed with the Bloomberg administration's plan to keep the largest protest off the Great Lawn. That decision has angered many New Yorkers, particularly those who have ambivalent feelings about the convention, which Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly said will be an economic boon for the city.

Among more veteran protesters, the city's offer had a certain appeal. "Since we're both guests, New York City should treat us equally," said Aron Kay, who is also known locally as the Mad Yippie Pie Thrower. Mr. Kay is the organizer of a protest planned for outside Mayor Bloomberg's townhouse on the Upper East Side on Aug 22.

"Maybe we would like to eat in a restaurant or catch a play," he mused. Before or after haranguing the mayor? "I would say after," he said.

I thought that article was very funny Michael. On the one hand you have to hand it to Bloomberg for coming up with these things, on the other hand, it's like something from a Kurt Vonnegut novel.

The Mayor Puff Puff Bloomberg as a disease. Like a germ he will exploit any viable host. How fucking cynical. He won't let people protest on his lawn but he will sell them a discount burger. He must think protesters are like children. Only a disconnected billionaire could be so out of touch. The more America elects 'successful businessmen' to office the more we will be governed by political idiots. I'd like to shove a discount purple-hot brick up his asshole.

How grateful I am that our mayor is providing discount coupons to "local" restaurants like Applebee's.

Mr. Bloomberg has also recently called the right to protest a "privilege" that can be taken away at any time. Perhaps he, like his party confreres, should reread the Constitution.

Any news on the lawsuit the ACLU is bringing against the city, in re the Central Park rally point?

The latest on the lawsuit:

From http://www.rncprotestrights.org/

quote:

---

Judge Refuses to Dismiss Lawsuit to Allow Peaceful Protest in Central Park

August 19, 2004. Judge Jacqueline Silberman of the State Supreme Court of New York denied the City's request late yesterday to dismiss the lawsuit brought by United for Peace and Justice. UFPJ is seeking a permit for a rally in Central Park on August 29th, on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

Judge Silberman has now directed the City to produce papers showing why it is in opposition to the request by UFPJ. Those papers must be submitted prior to a hearing scheduled in Judge Silberman's court room Tuesday, August 24th at 9:30am in Room 228 at 60 Center Street.

The New York Civil Liberties Union joins with the Center for Constitutional Rights in representing UFPJ in this lawsuit.

---

I met Donna Lieberman (NYCLU director and a RULER) when I went to the "protecting protest" storefront Wednesday night, and she urged people to call, email or fax the mayor in support of using the park.

Here is a handy link to do it online..

http://ga1.org/campaign/centralpark

++++

I took one of the workshops at the storefront which covers protesters rights, what to expect if you are arrested, immigration issues, etc. I will be posting a summary here as it relates to our delegation. But if you are planning any demo or action that might get you arrested, I highly recommend the class - there is one tomorrow and a final one Wednesday night, and info is on the
rncprotestrights site listed above.

Thanks so much for posting this Chi Chi. My employer and I are leaving work early on Wed nite to catch that last class. She had gone to the office too and brought back all kinds of great lit. It's going to be a great march and I hope a great rally. I hope to see you there and other motherpeople too.

Just read this on the Well in the NY conf-

VERY UNSETTLING..

quote:

---

OK, so this is a story my brother David just told me, and this seems as good a topic as any for it. friend of his, lives in an apt (I forget
where, but somewhere where conceivably Repub delegates will be in the area) has a sign in his window to the effect of DEFEAT BUSH. Has had it
there for months. This week, coincidentally, he took the sign down to clean his windows and had not out it back up yet, which makes it extra
weird that he got a little visit from a couple FBI agents who said they had heard he had an offensive sign in his window and he better not put it back up dur ng the convention, as it might "incite riot" or some such bullshit.

The guy laughed in their faces, said he will take them out to dinner on the money he wins from a lawsuit if they persist in telling him what he can and can not hang in his window.

The agents left.

This is disturbing on so many levels, not the least of which apparently someone in the neighborhood "turned him in" for having a sign in his window.

---

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/campaign/25threat.html?th

Vast Force Is Deployed for Security at Convention

"The New York Police Department and the largest armada of land, air and maritime forces ever assembled to provide security at a national political gathering are being deployed in New York for the Republican convention... They said yesterday that they were planning an intentionally huge response to intelligence that Al Qaeda hoped to carry out an attack to disrupt this year's elections.

"The country's terror alert level, which was raised early this month, will remain at orange status, or high alert, throughout the Republican National Convention and probably well beyond, according to several senior intelligence officials. They said they were increasingly concerned about an attack, even though there was no specific intelligence indicating a strike during the convention, which begins Monday.

"Have we collected intelligence that there is going to be a hit in the financial district during the Republican National Convention?" said Pasquale J. D'Amuro, the assistant director in charge of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "No. But intelligence we have collected indicates that Al Qaeda still desires to attack both domestically and abroad. They want to kill Americans."

With the alert level ratcheted up, even in the absence of a specific threat, thousands of Republicans arriving in New York are likely to be subjected to a new round of potentially confusing public warnings about the risk of attack alongside soothing official exhortations to enjoy the party, which will take place inside a security envelope surrounding Madison Square Garden.

"Attacking Madison Square Garden would be like pulling a bank job at Fort Knox," a senior counterterrorism official said, referring to the security measures being put into place this week. "It will be the hardest target in the world."
..... The backbone of security is being provided by the 37,000-member New York Police Department, which has a budget larger than all but 19 of the world's standing armies. To prevent an attack, the department will flood the streets with officers and employ high and low technology, from seven surveillance helicopters to plainclothes detectives traveling the subways and eyeballing other riders.

Up to 10,000 officers, many reassigned from narcotics and other duties, will be part of an enormous show of force around Madison Square Garden. That display will include special heavily armed "Hercules" antiterror squads, snipers and phalanxes of officers set up around the arena to search buses and trucks before they enter the area. In addition to the helicopters, several of which can feed close-up video surveillance images to mobile command centers on the ground, 26 launches will patrol waterways, and officers will use 181 bomb-sniffing dogs, many of them borrowed from other law enforcement agencies.

"We can cover all the bases with 37,000 police officers," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said yesterday. "As big as the R.N.C. deployment is, we have a reserve on top of that. New York would be a poor choice for the malicious-minded to try anything, especially now."

Mr. Kelly has said that virtually the entire department will be mobilized next week...

Not counting the costs incurred by federal agencies, security in New York is estimated at about $60 million, out of a convention budget of about $166 million, as concerns have broadened to cover not only the week of the convention, but also the weeks before and after it. Police are girding for protests, including a planned march on Sunday, which organizers have predicted will attract as many as 250,000 people, and more spontaneous demonstrations."

And a handy map:

http://www.rncprotestrights.org/map.html

After subtracting the costs to the city from the expected income the convention is supposed to bring in, it is estimated to cost NYC taxpayers over 44 million dollars to host the people who hate us.

AUGUST 29 - NEW YORK NIGHTCLUB VETERANS FOR TRUTH
MARCH WITH US (PROTEST IS GLAMOROUS)

Well, it has begun - as streets close up, protests rev up as tomorrow's massive August 29 UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE march approaches. Here are the final details on our Nightlife Delegation - NEW YORK NIGHTCLUB VETERANS FOR TRUTH.
Please forward this to others who might be interested.

WHERE TO MEET

We will assemble at 11:45 AM at 14th Street and Fourth Avenue, North Side, right upstairs from the subway and in front of the Zeckendorf Towers Food Emporium. We will leave at noon sharp and make our way to the nearest feed-in point to the march, which is now 15th Street and 5th Avenue.

MARCH ROUTE

We will march up Seventh Avenue past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention. From there, we will turn east on 34th Street, march to Fifth Avenue, then march down Fifth Avenue to 23rd Street and then march down Broadway. The final destination for our march will be Union Square.

WHAT TO BRING/WEAR

We want to make a strong presence from nightclub folk known, and will have a large sign expressing who we are - NEW YORK NIGHTCLUB VETERANS FOR TRUTH. We invite you to represent your club, scene or performance persona - nightclub Tshirts, signs (no wooden sticks, please) and themed costumes are encouraged. Whatever your clublife orientation - make it colorful, make it clubby and KEEP THE SHOES COMFORTABLE.

Bring a bottle of water, and wear sunscreen or a hat - its gonna be scorching. Cellphones are handy if you lose the group, and if you're planning on any civil disobedience after the march, remember your ID. As a group we are walking the whole legal, permitted route with no other plans, so those with immigration issues ought to be okay. Please note that the city's ancient laws against wearing masks in public may be enforced that day, so masque at your own risk!

FINALLY

We are sorry to get these instructions to you so late, but the final parade route and feeder march details were just released to us yesterday. If there is any breaking news between now and the morning, please check THE MOTHERBOARDS (www.motherboardsnyc.com) top page for any updates before you leave the house - we wont be emailing again. Email eventnews@jackiefactory.com by 9 PM tonight with any questions, and we'll see you at 11:45 Sunday morning.

Chi Chi Valenti
The Jackie Factory NYC

AUGUST 29 PROTEST INFO AT
www.unitedforpeace.org

NIGHTLIFE DELEGATION INFO AT
www.motherboardsnyc.com

Good luck to all and let's have a smashing good time.

PROTEST IS GLAMOUROUS!

We just got back and I am happy, high and hot! Thanks to all in our beautiful little contingent - the adorable unknown glamourpuss in the platform boots and goth tutu, Jessica Rabbit, getting paparazied with her SHOWGIRLS AGAINST BUSH signage, legendary legend JOHN KELLY and our 400,000 new friends - The Bird people, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, the GrannY Bloc et al.

If you are going to be here this week, get out in the streets and make some noise - its better than a spa treatment!

Beautiful it was...
Photo by James Faithful

The Glorious Empress

The bird people

And right before our eyes, the anarchist's dragon bursts into flames...

A view of the march-- over 400,000!

I'm so glad I went through with it. A piece of history. The largest march I've ever seen in my life.

My friend John and I stood for nearly an hour at 14th Street & Seventh Ave along with legions of others -- the march wasn't moving. Finally by manuevering along the sidewalk up to 16th Street we realized the marchers were being held up by an extremely large contingent of people carrying fake coffins with American flags draped over them. They were joining the march at 16th Street, and police were halting everyone else so they could get onto Seventh Avenue. Once we passed them, the rest of the march proceeded well.

There was so much solidarity and people of all ages. It was really a beautiful feeling. And the chorus of booos when we passed Madison Square ..... yikes. I wouldn't be surprised if the final tally of marchers topped half a million. It was huge. It was major. It was New York spirit!

This was my favorite sign:

Fairly good reportage in today's Times about the march:

NY Times

BRAVO to all that marched!!!!

My two highlights of the day:

1. Literally bumping into Rev. Jesse Jackson.

2. Despite that I thought it only happened in cartoons, I slipped on a bananna peel.

I liked the march. It was gruelling. I had an electronic megaphone with a recording of a chant, "BUSH IS THE ANTICHRIST", plus clips of the poet Laurie Carlos singing "We're living in the jungles of America," the poet Sapphire saying, "Now let's do the Wild Thing!", and Holly Hughes saying, " I think spending a little time walking through the portals of homosexuality will give you a feeling for the big picture." (followed by the chant again). This was all looped to repeat endlessly. I wasn't there to exactly have fun. The people around me in the street seemed to get very serious under the spell from this.

The energy in front of the Garden was a peak of human anger I have never experienced anywhere in my life. Maybe we are evolving a little bit in a positive way, since aside from the torched dragon, which I was happy to see, there was negligible conflict. I am very proud to have been among the half million who overwhelmed.

We need one of these marches everyday.

I'm so happy to hear from all that marched. Trygve, who is my friend and employer, and I marched with the Code Pink ladies. I think that we had to have been with the cutest contingent. Most of us wore pink. Many wore pink Statue of Liberty crowns and pink togas and some wore pink slips and many of us carried signs in the shape of pink lingerie slips that said "Pink Slip Bush." There was a Chorus line of girls in red, white and blue scanty dance costumes with big USA rockets strapped on like long dildoes. They had a slew of Bush Regime parady song and dances. They were pretty good. THere was a younger group of dancers that also all in pink did choreographed song and dances that were anti bush, which were more new school. There were pink gals of all ages marchin, and they gave me and Trygve a warm welcome and handed each of us "Pink SLip Bush" Signs and stacks of "Women say: Give Bush a Pink Slip!" stickers that we handed out to people standing watching the march.

The Anti March Bush people kind of got under my skin with their moronic signs like "Kerry's foreign policy: Ask France." I should have asked them why if they were so Gung Ho for the Chimp, why they weren't over in Iraq. I didn't want to have any exchanges with them though. Many of them looked like they were waiting for anyone to engage them. They all looked pretty miserable though, especially compared to the joyous and beautiful marchers.

I also aggree that the intensity at that Madison Square Garden was really high. Everyone put so much emotion into their chants there. There were many things written in chalk in the street. I hated the FOX Network News "AMerica's Newsroom: We Report the News. You Decide" sign so massive. I wished it were splattered in red paint. SO Orwellian. THeir local FOx News is also New Yorks "chosen" news program don't you know. If they say it, it's true. Fair and balanced.

Oh How I digress, but while I'm at it is there anyone going to the Fox News Shut-upathon tomorrow at 4:00. It's at 1211 Avenue of the Americas (6st Ave.) between 47 and 48th. There should be a big turn out and everyone is going to give Bill O'Reiley a taste of his own "SHUT UP" in front of the Fox News Network Headquarters. Code Pink will be there as well as many others (WHen they say "Code ORange, we say Code Pink!")

I'm also planning on going to the Pro CHoice Rally at Union Square at 5:00 until 7, Tueday evening.

There are so many protests, ralleys, readings, marches, performances, art-pieces going on that are Anti Bush right now, it's like a Festival. Don't let the Republicans presence poison your psyches. Join in with the protests. Like Chi CHi said, "It's better than a Spa treatment." or something like that. It's so true.

Chris Hedges was amazing to listen to at the ALl SOuls Church Saturday evening, and I urge everyone to see what the Quakers are doing with "Eyes Wide OPen." It's an extremely moving piece involving army boots for evey soldier killed in Iraq, with their name tags, age and state tied to each, and a lot of civilian shoes, including tiny little child shoes for the dead Iraqis. I've volunteered to be a moderator for it while its in Union Square all day on Wednesday (but I'm doing a 2 hour shift) then it moves back to 55 Washington Square South on Thursday (where it will be Tueday) and it will be at 55 Washgington Sqaure until Monday September 6. I sobbed when I saw it. I asked if any Republican Delegates had visited it and thtey said no. They are the ones who need to see it. They are such insulated, disconnected, wierd people. That's why they believe such crazy lies.