Secret Service and Police Stage Pre-emptive Attacks on Protestors

Polidoc heads into Minneapolis where we will catch up with Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate Rosa Clemente who attended the Monday protest against the Republican National Convention (RNC). While we haven't had the time to update our blog, we will do a significant wrap-up next week. Until then, here's a press release from the Green Party of United States.

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DESPITE POLICE RAIDS AND ARRESTS, MINNESOTA GREENS JOIN ANTIWAR, ANTIPOVERTY PROTESTS AT RNC

Greens have been among those targeted for harassment and intimidation by police in a wave of pre-emptive actions taken before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

On Saturday police surrounded the home of Michael Whelan, a long-time Green Party supporter, whose Arise Bookstore at one time housed the party's office. He was host to a group of independent journalists. The police broke down doors and subjected occupants to house arrest. "You figure this would be going on in South Africa, or Russia, not in St. Paul," Whelan said. "St. Paul is nice."

The previous night, police had invaded a meeting space in St. Paul rented by the anarchist RNC Welcoming Committee. They seized equipment and subjected some fifty people to handcuffing and search. Next day Monica Bicking, a leading member of the organization, was jailed along with three friends, and her home in Minneapolis was boarded up for alleged violation of city codes.

Meanwhile, the group's nonviolence consultant and trainer, Betsy Raasch-Gilman, expecting arrest, took "sanctuary" at the meetinghouse of Twin Cities Friends (Quakers). As of this morning Bicking had been released, but those arrested with her and several others remain in custody. Both Bicking and Raasch-Gilman are daughters of former Green Party candidates and present spokespeople.

According to Minnesota poet and writer Richard Broderick, who is a member of the Green Party and has also been one of its candidates, "The erosion of civil liberties and constitutionally guaranteed rights in this country makes all the eloquent calls we heard from Denver for unity and restoring the American Dream little more than hollow rhetoric."

Despite the efforts at intimidation orchestrated by federal authorities and carried out by DFL administrations in both Hennepin and Ramsey counties, Minnesota Greens have united to bring their VP candidate, Rosa Clemente, to the Twin Cities. She addressed the antiwar marchers in St. Paul today and tonight appeared with the National Truth Commission on Poverty. She will be participating in the Poor People's march from Mears Park tomorrow.

Democrats Ready to Ride the Green Wave?

Democratic leaders want to ride the Green wave into this year's election. Will the Dems shoot the curl or are they just skimboarding?

At the last convention, going green meant focusing on recycling trash and reducing waste during convention week. Now DNCC officials have paid professional greeners to guide them before and after the convention to the next baby step in going green.

"It's not about PR," assured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "It's about substance."

But amongst Green Party leaders, the co-opting of the Green brand poses a threat to the party's membership and future growth and greenwashes the urgent issues at hand.

Co-founder of the Green Party and high ranking San Francisco elected official, Ross Mirkarimi fears that liberal Democrats who have adopted green lifestyle like a cloak, will significantly impact the ability to attract new voters into the Green Party. "Ecological disaster has become so mainstream. We've become so successful at influencing the other parties on agenda, that they don't even have to credit the source." He said he feels the lament of a parent who wonders if their child will survive.

"The Democrats have the rhetoric but not the substance," retorts another co-founder, Howie Hawkins.

For Greens, shooting the Green wave would include:

• immediate overhaul of sustainability practices throughout government
• immediate withdrawal from Iraq with diplomatic solutions supsported and varying degrees of military presence in out-lying regions to support humanitarian concerns.
  
• creation of a single-payer health reform such as in Canada
• reform of the drug laws and the prison system
• targeted Reconstruction efforts
• ecological and environmental justice
• social justice and equal rights
• decentralize government and return to local control, keeping tax money closer to home
• electoral and ballot access reform

That makes the DNC skimboarders in the face of Mavericks.