UNWELCOMING THE REPUBLICANS
“It’s surprising that the Republicans are coming to Philadelphia, really surprising. They obviously aren’t aware of how organized people in this city are–and how angry,” says
Rebecca Ewing
of
Philadelphia ACT UP
. Organizers predict they’ll fill the streets with militant protests–some sanctioned, some not–that recall not just Seattle but Chicago in 1968. “We started this with the slogan, ‘Make History in Philadelphia.’ I no longer think that’s hyperbole,” says the
Pennsylvania Consumer Action Network
‘s
Michael Morrill
, organizer for the biggest planned event, the July 30
Unity
march. Long before last fall’s demonstrations against the World Trade Organization put protest back on the map, Philly ACT UP and the
Kensington Welfare Rights Union
(KWRU) pioneered the in-the-face-of-power activism that rocked Seattle. Philly ACT UP trained Seattle protesters; KWRU’s
Cheri Honkala
was arrested entering a WTO meeting with a citizen’s arrest warrant charging G7 trade ministers with economic crimes against humanity. Seattle authorities tried to slap Honkala with a nationwide gag order, but she beat the rap on free-speech grounds. That hasn’t stopped Philadelphia authorities from attempting to gag Honkala in her hometown. Denied a city permit for their
March for Economic Rights
on July 31, the convention’s opening day, KWRU will take to Philadelphia’s Broad Street anyway. “If the police try to stop us, George W. Bush and his compassionate conservatives will open their convention by throwing poor and homeless people in jail,” says Honkala. Marchers from as far away as Idaho and Florida will pitch a tent camp dubbed “Bushville.” But the bulk of the crowd is expected to hail from Philadelphia, with a big contingent from Philly ACT UP, an AIDS activist group that has stretched to address issues ranging from healthcare reform to global trade. “We won’t let them rest easy,” says Ewing.
PLENTY OF PROTESTS
Delegates arriving July 29 will be greeted by the
Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care
march, a protest organized by healthcare professionals under the banner for our patients, not for profit…. On that same day,
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Silent March
, the grassroots gun-control group, will lay out 30,000 pairs of shoes on the Liberty Bell Pavilion and Independence Mall. “The shoes represent the number of people killed each year in America by firearms,” explains co-founder
Ellen Freudenheim
.
Handgun Control
‘s July 30
Slam the NRA
concert at Philadelphia’s Trocadero will feature
Blessid Union of Souls
,
The Samples
,
Melissa Ferrick
and organizer
Leslie Nuchow
…. The July 30 Unity march will include activists from the
AFL-CIO
,
NAACP
,
NOW
, the
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
and “
Corpazilla
,” an eighty-foot float featuring mud wrestlers decked out as Bush and Gore…. The satirical
Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)
hit the streets July 30 for a
Million Billionaire March
to complain that “inequality is not growing fast enough.”… Noting GOP support for capital punishment, groups like the
Campaign to End the Death Penalty
and the
Pennsylvania Abolitionists
promise July 30 protests to “crash the executioners’ ball.”… The
Philadelphia Direct Action Group
and the
Ruckus Society
plan street protests August 2-3, with highrises sporting anticorporate banners, blockades at delegate hotels and other acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Don’t look for issue dialogues at the stage-managed convention. But at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center, Arizona Senator
John McCain
and Connecticut Congressman
Chris Shays
will talk campaign finance reform, and New Mexico Governor
Gary Johnson
and California Congressman
Tom Campbell
will discuss failed drug policies. The renegade Republicans join the
Rev. Jesse Jackson
, Ben & Jerry’s co-founder
Ben Cohen
and others for a four-day
Shadow Convention
organized by
United for a Fair Economy
,
Common Cause
,
Public Campaign
, the
Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation
,
Call to Renewal
, the
National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support
and author
Arianna Huffington
. “Even Republicans realize you don’t go to the Bush coronation to talk about issues,” says UFE’s
Chuck Collins
.
PAUL ROBESON’S ECHO
Philadelphia hasn’t hosted a high-profile party convention since 1948. At the Progressive Party gathering that year, former Vice President Henry Wallace launched a crusade to revive the New Deal and prevent the cold war. Retired farm activist
Merle Hansen
, a Wallace campaigner that year, says
Paul Robeson
‘s “presence just took over everything.” Robeson brought 3,240 Progressive delegates to their feet with songs and an oration unlikely to be echoed from this year’s GOP podium. “What a mockery. Our high standard of living for a minority in the richest country on earth! Absentee ownership still rules supreme,” the actor declared. “One percent of the population still owns as much wealth as one-third of the ill-housed, ill-fed, ill-clothed whom [Franklin] Roosevelt so feelingly described.” Were he still alive, Robeson would deliver the same message today, says Hansen. As it is, visitors can catch a fine Robeson exhibition at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.
