Protesters at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, July 25, 2016, in Philadelphia. (photo: AP)
Inside
the 'Democracy Spring' Protests at the DNC
By Gregory Krieg, CNN
26 July 16
The
revolution will not be improvised.
More
than 50 protesters were detained by police on Monday following a tightly
choreographed demonstration at an access point to the Wells Fargo Center in
Philadelphia, where the Democratic National Convention has been consumed by a
series of roiling plot twists and turns.
Police
did not make any formal arrests, saying those taken into custody were only
issued citations for disorderly conduct, as activists from Democracy Spring
first attempted to block a convention entrance on Broad Street with a planned
sit-in, then in a very orderly process began climbing over barricades toward
the arena and into the arms of waiting officers.
At one
point in the early evening, delegates and attendees, many in formal attire,
came within feet of sweat-soaked protesters being led away from the scene in
plastic restraints. Organizers posted feet from the scene kept track of
potential arrests using a private
WhatsApp messaging forum.
Hours
earlier, the group gathered a little less than a mile north in Marconi Plaza,
where protesters willing to risk arrest were asked to fill out paperwork and
speakers rallied the crowd of about 150 people to with chants of "This is
what democracy looks like" and "I believe that we will win." One
protest leader reminded the crowd to follow instructions from organizers in
blue armbands, called "tactical leads," as they arrived at the
protest site.
#DemocracySpring sitting
in -- said they'll try to enter arena perimeter if not arrested... one delegate
turned back
A
little before 4 p.m. ET, as temperatures neared 100 degrees and the heat index
soared higher, they began their march toward the convention hub, blaring a
slate of demands that includes the immediate abolition of the superdelegate
system and a series of campaign finance reforms. The group's director, Kai
Newkirk, had said on Sunday that the "unity commission" agreed on
Saturday by the Clinton and Sanders camps fell short of their demands.
"We
welcome this concession -- as well as Debbie Wasserman Schultz's decision to
step down as party chair -- but it is not enough to justify relenting in the
struggle to win fundamental democracy reform both within and outside the
party," Newkirk said in an email to CNN.
On the
eve of the convention, Democracy Spring took the unique step of gathering
protesters at a church a block north of Philadelphia's city hall for what
amounted to a seminar in nonviolent civil disobedience.
More
than 100 activists sat in the pews of the Arch Street United Methodist Church
for training that included mock arrests and de-escalation role-playing. Lead
trainer Kim Huynh asked her pupils to pull each other aside and discuss why
they had come here and what they hoped to accomplish.
Their
plans included ending closed primaries, banning nuclear weapons, getting big
money out of politics -- and seeing Rosario Dawson. (She has protested with the
group before, but was not involved on Monday.)
"The
training that Democracy Spring is providing is completely integral to the
process of keeping things nonviolent," organizer Andrew Barbato told CNN
on Sunday.
"We
had a huge sit-in in D.C. where over 1,500 people were arrested, and I was one
of them, and it was completely peaceful," he said. "This is a
different situation because things in the country right now are heated. But
that's why we have to come together to acknowledge there is a history of
nonviolent civil disobedience in this country and throughout the world."
Practice
last night, protest today #DemocracySpring
Lina
Blount, one of the three women to run the workshop, said she wanted protesters
to face arrest or detention with a feeling of purpose and power. She and her
colleagues spent much of the evening discussing with protesters how to manage
anxiety, stay physically comfortable ("Lean on each other to save your backs")
and what to expect in the event they were jailed (Toilets? Don't bet on it).
"That's
a lot of what nonviolent direct action is," she said, "Convincing
people that their actions have power -- and that's not what our system trains
us to believe. And so in these types of training we really try to get the group
thinking themselves, reflecting back on the exercise themselves as much as we
can. So as trainers we want to created exercises that help that emerge."
A
tumultuous 24 hours for the Democratic Party, which saw its chairwoman resign
after emails leaked showing DNC staffers seeming to discuss tactics for
undermining Bernie Sanders' campaign, has emboldened the dozens of protest
groups who had already made their way into the city for four days of marches,
rallies and demonstrations downtown and on the heavily securitized streets
outside the convention.
Jocelyn
Macurdy Keatts, a writer and activist, said she was attracted to Democracy
Spring by its "very coherent" set of demands.
"There
seems to be legislative leverage here," she told CNN before the training
began inside the church. "The Democrats are already moving further to the
left to accommodate Bernie supporters."
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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