Cheney in SF? Demonstrations?

Dick Cheney will be speaking at the Commonwealth Club early Wednesday morning, August 7, 2002. A great opportunity to protest/flyer his war mongering policies... The press and police outnumbered us when general Myers spoke.

Please come demonstrate your opposition to Cheney, 7:45 am registration, program begins at 8:45 am; the administration, 950 Mason Street, San Francisco. Oppose the "War of Terrorism" against democracy, freedom, the world...!

http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/08/139305.php

Protest Vice President Dick Cheney's Appearance in SF!

Wednesday, August 7 2002, San Francisco
Fairmont Hotel 950 Mason Street (at California Street) San Francisco

Please dress up as your favorite corporate criminal - bring props - any appropriate corporate criminal attire to hound the VEEP and let him know that his warmongering and promotion of corporate rule are not welcomed in San Francisco!

The war-mongering, right-wing corporate criminal Dick Cheney will be speaking to San Francisco's Commonwealth Club about "economic and national security issues." The New York Times (August 2, 2002) features a front-page article on the suspicious business dealings of the Halliburton Corporation during Cheney's tenure as chief executive. As Bush, Cheney & Co. try to draw attention away from their own corporate misdeeds, the threat of a new war against the Iraqi people grows. Join initial sponsors International Action Center, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee-SF, Global Exchange, and others in protesting Cheney to demand: No New War Against Iraq; Stop the Corporate Crime Wave; End US Aid to Israel; Save the Environment from Profiteering; No More Racist Scapegoating.

If you want to enter the Fairmont, please be aware of this security advisories: Please do not bring large purses, bags, backpacks, packages or briefcases, which will slow down security checks. All guests will be subject to search. Please bring photo ID. Once doors close, no one may enter or leave the Grand Ballroom. Advance registration and prepayment required by noon on August 6. No walkups allowed. Registration will be through Ticketweb and there will be a surcharge.(Prices: Preferred seating: $45, General seating: $30).

Contact: International Action Center, 415-821-6545 or Registration: Ticketweb, 866-468-3399,
http://www.ticketweb.com/user/?region=sfbay&query=schedule&attract=85071

Join the SF Mime Troupe, IAC, Global Exchange, SF Green Party and many others... 

When? Wednesday, Aug. 7th , 8:00 am
Where? Fairmont Hotel, California & Mason, San Francisco
Why? Because he?s a corporate crook, cooking the books while CEO of Halliburton. Because he wants to drag us into a war with Iraq. Because he and his energy buddies, through deregulation, bilked California of billions.

The Mime Troupe's Dick Cheney II, aka El Holmes, will be holding a people's press conference so come with your questions about Cheney's misdeeds!

If you're into dressing up, come as a journalist, or perhaps a Friend of Cheney, ie your favorite corporate criminal. Or you can be part of an angry mob calling for Cheney's arrest with signs like Wanted: Dick Cheney The Corporate Crook.

Let's make our point and have some fun at the some time!

For information or suggestions of other ideas, contact Global Exchange,

The Commonwealth Club urged its members to arrive at 7:15 AM to register (the actual program begins at 8:45 A.M). The Fairmont Hotel is at the top of a hill at 950 Mason Street. It's very tricky to get to by car because of all the one way streets. Only a handful of us were protesting General Myers there last week (who deserved a massive protest)... Cheney deserves a GIGANTIC protest, he's calling the shots on US policy (Dubya when asked what he thought about the Taliban in 2000, thought that it was a "rock band..."- he's obviously not the brains behind the aggressive foreign policy...)

Everyone welcome to protest in whatever style you choose! Let us show the diversity, depth, breadth of the opposition to the current regime and it's blatantly pro-military/take over the world/kill freedom philosophy.

I could also use a hand with my big banner-

REAL TERRORISTS-
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld
Guilty of 9-11, You ask-
Why? Oil, Drugs, Power...
How? http://www.tenc.net

and passing out flyers on the complicity of the Administration/CIA with the September 11th attacks. If we don't expose the big lie- That "The War on Terrorism" is a "War of Terrorism" on the people of the U.S. and the people of the world... the transnational facsist forces will push forward with their takeover of the entire planet unhindered...

It would be great to have at least one drum . . . or anything else to make noise with.

Is there a way to protest in such a way that those being protested actually feel some heat? I don't know if anemic chanting in front of police lines is really all that effective. It seems like we "the progressives" have become tired caricatures of ourselves.

I mean it is great to get out there and network and all that - but should it really be called a protest when it doesn't bother anybody except the cops (who have to endure the off-key chanting?)

I think political protestors could be more productive if they actually achieved some political goal. I am very disappointed at the the turn out at todays rally. It is starting to make me think I am wasting my life....

[IRONY ALARM: WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!]

"It is starting to make me think I am wasting my life.... "

You are! Do something productive. Join a political party. Nominate candidates. Work the system!

Or just keep showing up at so called activist protests with your cardboard sign and school girl chants. Look around you when you get there. Those idiots are wasting their lives too! Well, at least you're not *completely* alone.

I remember a time when there was a solid radical contingent that would come out and dare to step off the sidewalk and dare to disrupt that city. Cause that is what it is all about, taking the cops for a walk and causing as much of a disruption to the mechanism of daily life as is possible, when Dick heads of state dare to come to San Francisco. I know in my heart that what has decimated the bayarea political scene is completely economic. As in most of the people that have been able to stay here are priviledged or have a stake in the system (own a house or have a 30k+job), but still people seem to be outraged at that state, but when it comes to expressing it, they don't want to offend or fuck anything up. Whether it be organizing or fucking about outside of politically correct leftest circles or really pushing buttons at demostrations or standing up to the cops in any real way. But I understand that the IAC and Global Exchange and all the other NGOs have to remain responisible and not fuck the police and all that., but maybe only when true radikals (those who oppose the state and all it's forms) - decide to take leadership or move to define local resistance - maybe then we might actually see a jump in the number and quality of protestors at events. A slogan exhausted, should never be repeated. nuff said

$30K a year = $15/hour, including 2 weeks unpaid holiday a year.

Stakeholder, my ass. You obviously ain't from San Francisco.

Can someone tell me if I am remembering something correctly? I could swear I read in at least one major paper that Cheney's visit was going to be in the afternoon. Even if the word "afternoon" was not mentioned I know "early morning" was not.

This guy is a hider. A coward. It surprises me not at all that he picked a time when too many people would either be asleep or at work and arranged for it not to be publicised, and/or for it to be mispublicised. We need to be on top of this stuff in the future. We need to confirm the "when" because these people do NOT want to deal with their constituents, whether out of cowardice, or shame, or strategy. Or all three.

We have to do a bit of detective work, I guess. But it's really got to be done. Rights are like muscles: if we don't get out and exercise them, they will gradually - and yet very quickly - disappear, and what ends up replacing them will be at best incredibly difficult and at worst completely impossible to get rid of. (Spoken like a true fat woman who didn't exercise enough in her youth...)

Now, the other thing. About chanting. I have related this story dozens of times in various places online but it seems to be appropriate here.

When I was in the Berkeley anti-apartheid sit-ins back in the mid-eighties (I'm using my best granny voice here) I remember the night when things turned around and started getting powerful and noticed...the pivotal event that caused the thing to pick up momentum, as far as I could tell. I was directly nvolved, and it was completely spontaneous. (I don't know if this sort of thing would work in a non-spontaneous context, but it might. Who knows...)

I had been living at Barrington Hall at the time, the old second-generation-hippie co-op house that was once a hotbed of activism and drugs and sex and just plain fun (oh my!) and was with about four or five friends of mine from that building during the sit-in. It was the night we were all camped out in front of California Hall. We had been out on Sproul Plaza for days and a lot of us were pretty sick of shouting "Hey Hey Ho Ho! Apartheid has got to go!" and suchlike.

We saw the newsmedia people arriving, approaching the police barricades, and we knew it was time to look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. They were, I believe, deliberately arriving at such a time as to catch us in a state which was exactly the opposite of that.

But then something strange happened. I got some religion. Sort of. More specifically, I got Zen.

I was standing next to a fellow Barringtonian who had been one of my suitemates during freshman year. He was into Buddhism and Eastern spirituality a lot. It got into my head that maybe instead of chanting, right before the cameras started to roll, I would start making the "ooommmmmmmmmmmmm" sound. I told my friend about this, and he told two other people in our subgroup. So when it started there were maybe four, five of us making an OM sound, from deep in our chests, vibrating our bodies.

You know how human herd behaviour works. Get four or five people in a crowd doing something and soon the geometric increase effect sets in. By the time the cameras were on the crowd of people in front of California Hall, nearly EVERYONE was OMming instead of chanting. Unconsciously, we had also started to sway a bit, back and forth, sort of like groups of people singing a song will do sometimes.

Now here's the irony of the thing. My friend and I had done this as merely an alternative to the tiresome (and tiring) chanting, and intended it to be a spiritual thing, a sort of sonic peace symbol, if you will. But later on, when someone at Barrington showed us tapes of the news program, I was astounded by what it actually sounded and looked like.

What you saw was a reporter standing in front of a group of people with flattened facial affect, swaying back and forth, making a sound like a hornet's nest broken open with a hammer. You could hear a crescendo rising as more and more protestors followed suit and did what everyone else was doing.

The reporter was visibly unnerved, as were some of the cops surrounding the sit-in...though it was the sort of unnervedness that comes only to those who aren't exactly sure why they're unnerved. It was, of course, because something completely unexpected was occurring.

Spontaneous, completely unplanned and not at all what we were trying to do --and yet, it seemed to be the day that gave the whole thing the shot in the arm it needed. Details of the outcome are hazy in my mind - I wasn't exactly living a straight-edge life back then - but I do seem to recall that in the end, the University did divest itself of its South African business connections, which was what the whole thing had been all about.

I don't know if this would have the same effect if it were deliberately attempted. Perhaps it wouldn't work at all - or maybe just the opposite would happen, and a little forethought and planning would make for the effect to be louder and more pronounced. The effect: the look and sound of a large group of people who are in a unified state of calm yet deep-seated unrest. We looked like people who wanted something to change and who would not countenance the response of being ignored, or placated with some palliative act merely intended to shut them up. We did not look dangerous so much as potent and potential.

Now, of course, the necessary protests are not about something happening in a faraway place which we respond to in moral indignation. It's now about our own country and the ones leading it, and what they're doing RIGHT HERE IN AMERICA as well as the rest of the world. I offer my memory of this occurrence that was nearly 20 years ago as just one idea of something different and unexpected that can be done, and the result it had. I'm sure we can think of many others - and implement them.

(Apologies for length of post - we old folks do tend to go on and on sometimes when nattering about our youthful adventures...)

what do you mean, that most people in san franciscio bay area make more than 30k, or that no one can live in the bay for less than that, or that most jobs pay that much or more than that much? Or that is way more than most of the people you know make?
Vested in the system is different than being a shareholder, vested in the system mainly means that although it totallly sucks, some of the perks ain't so bad, and yeah I don't want ot eat out of dumpsters, although I sometimes do when I got the time. It might just be a matter of class, like saying we are upset by these corporate crooks instead of saying everyone corporate is a crook and we are upset because the world is being looted and destroyed everyday. But what are you gonna do?

Know why nobody got up? Because punks are drunks and hippies are stoners and they ALL slept in.

In response to the person who wrote, "I think political protestors could be more productive if they actually achieved some political goal."

I think the first step is to define your goal. Then try to get others to accept that as a common goal.

As things are, individuals and groups go out with different agendas and end up muddying the sum total. (But mud's fine, too. We need something to so sling at each other, after all. [Shrug].)

I had fun this morning. My goal was to jump around and yell. In the process, I got to see a few friends, too. One of them said, "Protests are the cocktail parties of the oppressed." Heh.

You're only "wasting your life" if you decide you are. Kicks, fun, shits-and-giggles do NOT qualify as waste, in my humble estimation. (FUN is a great attractive force AND a the best way to build a movement towards LIBERATION, methinks.)

So cheers. Pass the caviar (I mean hummus)...

We all have to have different strategies for ultimate long term success.

One part of our success will be protesting - although they're still small, they'll grow as BushLaden fumbles more and more - particularly because the bombing of Iraq is not immenent according to Scott Ritter (see http://www.commondreams.org today) and our economy is going to tank with that, one way or another. And when American's have to deal with a bad economy, they get off their asses and vote people out, like BushDaddy.

But it's true that we *must* follow the political trails and get more involved with pressuring Congress, etc. The nice thing I've noticed at all these demos is that some organizations - like CA Peace Action - are really getting their act together and focusing some excellent action on legislators in CA. Also, Nader is continuing to go up in popularity and his website - http://www.citizenworks.org - is getting spread around like crazy. He's got some of the best tools I've seen for entering the political area and organizing. Importantly, the fact that it focuses on corporate crime is important right now, since most Americans only care about their own wallet and so they want to react. Okay, I'm just feeling those cynical feelings after several demos of scardy-cat Americans looking on like we're aliens . . .

One women at the demo today screamed at a guy with a 'Stop War in Iraq' sign and myself for an entire block about how those Arabs were taking away women's rights and so needed to be bombed. We tried to reason with her but she was pretty much hysterical. I mean, the left may have some nut-cases, but hey, so does the *right*! Only they're dressed like corporate workers! When I see that stuff I really worry about the 'dark matter' in the US - those millions who think bombing will solve everything so they can go on with their shopping.

But push on, keep coming back to the demos to network, meet new friends, bask in the feeling of it, get notified of new actions, and see the Mime Troupe, etc.

I would have *loved* to have done some cd, but no one else seemed interested and my group was too busy to show up for this, incredibly. No doubt the Chron would have loved to have smeared any attempt at that anyway. They'd run a headline like "Belligerent Protestors Stage Failed Attempt . . . ." whatever.

The Examiner has been pretty good despite the right-wing columns. I think that being under the radar is a good place for them, and for us. They even let the Greens run opinion pieces in there. Check them out when you get the chance.

As someone I spoke to at the protest said - and this is one reason I love protests, is that I meet and talk to so many people I would never meet otherwise - how it took years for the Vietnam protests quite awhile to reach the point we're already at. Naturally, we have the internet now. And although it's sad that we have a country full of 'dark matter,' only a few of us can make a big difference when we have the courage and incentive, as the hecklers showed today.