On September 1-4 of 2008, the Republican Party is coming to Minnesota to celebrate their latest conquests in global domination and exploitation. We of the RNC Welcoming Committee want to make sure that this time the fear-mongers will be met with their own biggest fear: people mobilized, organized, and taking the future back into their own hands.
For those of you who abhor the rapid growth of racist militarized borders across stolen lands, the raids and deportations, destruction and commodification of our shared and living earth, police brutality and prison industry, fear propaganda and subjugation, exploitation and robbery of peoples worldwide, and all forms of injustice and oppression - we ask you to be prepared for 2008. This will require new alliances, strong networks, the awakening of those who’ve given up, as well as the mobilization of those who’ve never before taken action. Let’s use this opportunity to make the changes we thirst for manifest and take root before us, making the Republicans/Democrats (whatever you want to call them) obsolete.
Labor Day weekend of 2007, anarchists and anti-authoritarians from across the country gathered in the Twin Cities to develop goals and plans for the RNC 2008. This is what we’ve come up with:
What we want (the goals):
1. Build Our Capacity – A new reality will not emerge by simply stopping the 4 day spectacle of the RNC. We need folks with an alternative vision to come to the Twin Cities and turn their dreams into reality. Start something new, be creative, and come ready to build sustainable alternatives worth fighting for and defending. The new skills that we teach, learn, and put into practice here will allow us to return to our communities stronger, smarter, and more empowered.
2. Crash the Convention – We didn’t get an invitation, but we’re showing up anyway. This party will be what we make of it. We don’t want to confine our potential by imposing a single vision of what success will look like. We recognize that there will be a lot of people coming with their own agendas and carefully laid plans and want to be open to the diverse tactics that will be necessary to accomplish our many goals. Together, we can derail the purely ceremonial show of this repressive system and remake it with our own hands and according to our own visions.
How we get there (the strategy):
1. Start Strong – Throw all of our energy into the first day. We’ll kick this off right and stretch the militarized police state out so far that it can no longer contain and suppress our voices and desires.
2. Transportation Troubles – This includes blockades downtown (at key intersections), on bridges (10 bridges over the Mississippi River in the metro area), and other sporadic and strategic targets (busses, hotel and airport shuttles etc).
3. Respect, defend, and be prepared for autonomous self-sustaining alternatives – Lasting projects and spaces will be born out of our actions and will need to be protected. We also won’t knowingly bring the hammer down on existing long-term community projects. It doesn’t matter if we win the RNC battle, if the war for our lives is lost.
4. Be inclusive of local communities and respect alliances – We are all on the same side of the barricades and are trying to build lasting bonds for future mutual aid. We may not agree with each other on all of our tactics, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t venues for us to work together and build on the trust and community that already exists.
What the Welcoming Committee is doing:
1. Logistical support – We will organize legal support, housing, food, transportation, and a convergence space as well as anything else you may need to make our collective actions successful.
2. Framework coordinating – We will map out key points and layouts and gather intelligence to help you plug into the bigger picture. Let us know your needs, desires, and capacities.
3. Local outreach – We are building alliances with local groups and communities to help build our collective support. We encourage you to do the same.
4. Networking – We’re hooking y’all up with each-other so that you can work with people you might not already know, strategize, and share a glass of some good old mutual aid.
What we are calling for:
1. Get it together – Have regional consultas, organize in your communities, and form your affinity groups. We are expecting people to come with concrete plans for action that they have devised and the capacity to carry them through.
2. Lead up actions – Practice makes perfect. Use this entire year leading up to the RNC to develop and practice your own tactics and strategies that step things up a notch and build true alternatives. Resistance doesn’t start and end at ‘the next big protest’; it is a way of life.
3. Fundraising – We’re not saying to let your community projects flounder, but we’re going to need some serious cash to help arrange legal support (we’re still looking for a lawyer dumpster), a convergence space, and a thousand other logistical puzzles. Pass the hat at every regional consulta and meeting you attend, hold fundraisers, and send a chunk of it in our direction!
4. Communicate – Maintain strong security-culture values, but let us know your capacities and what you will need. If you want a single point person to communicate with, we can arrange it. What you say you can do and will need shapes the course that we take.
5. Come to the Twin Cities – Come early and come often! Take advantage of that “Minnesota Nice” and come long before the convention to help make things happen. Also, put May Day weekend (May 1st - 4th 2008) on your calendars to send a representative or two from your group to the Twin Cities for our next networking and strategizing event (more info TBA).
September 1st, 2008, we, the RNC Welcoming Committee, invite all anarchists and anti-authoritarians, all radicals and rabble-rousers, all those who are fed up with government lies and spectacles to show up ready for action and ensure that we leave no place for these expired politicians. What we create here will send the convention crashing off course into insignificance.
From the occupied territories of Minnesota,
The RNC Welcoming Committee
nornc.org
Strategy endorsed by:
ACTIVATE (Grand Rapids, MI Students for a Democratic Society - SDS)
Anarchist Black Cross Para-Legal Services (twitchon@hotmail.com)
Animas SDS (Colorado)
Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous (Milwaukee)
Asheville Rising Tide
Athens, OH SDS
Attentat Collective
Bash Back!
Brainerd Anarchists (georgewchrist@hushmail.com)
Campus Anti-war Network
Chicago Anarchist Black Cross (PO Box 1544, Chicago, IL 60690)
CrimethInc. Far East
Delaware SDS
End to Apathy
Frederick Progressive Action Coalition
HammerHard MediaWorks
Industrial Workers of the World - NYC GMB Branch
International Solidarity Movement - Chicago Chapter
Iowa Organizing Against the RNC
MKE to RNC
Milwaukee Anarchist Black Cross
Milwaukee Anti-Racist Action
NC State SDS
Northeast Anarchist Network
Northwest Indiana Anarchist Black Cross (PO Box 1511, Portage, IN 46368)
People’s Networking Convention Organizing Committee
Potomac Earth First!
Queer Action Network
Rising Tide North America
RNC Welcoming Committee
Rolling Thunder magazine
Sabot Infosquat
Shepherdstown Progressive Action Committee
Tacoma SDS - UPS Chapter
Talking Tree Infoshop
Tuscarora High SDS
UA Central NC
UA in the Bay
UCLA SDS
Unconventional Denver
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