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Original URL -  http://www.brandworkers.org/en/node/37146

by Kdog, x359209

During the first week of September 2008, Republican Party delegates gathered in St. Paul, Minnesota for the Republican National Convention (RNC) - the media spectacle and corporate sleaze-fest that completes their nominating process. An army of armor-clad riot police, National Guard, and private security with their humvees, rubber bullets, and tear gas protected them. FBI-assisted sheriff's raids at more than a half-dozen activist homes and organizing centers in Minneapolis-St. Paul sought to hinder opposition. But thousands of protestors still took to the streets to emphatically reject the Republicans' vicious policies of war, discrimination, and attacks on the working-class and poor.

Among the more important mobilizing efforts against the RNC was the Anti-Capitalist Bloc, an initiative of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) union - Twin Cities General Membership Branch. The Anti-Capitalist Bloc was conceived as an organizing front for the week of the RNC that would unite those anti-capitalist activists with an orientation toward organizing. The Anti-Capitalist Bloc issued a "Call" and adopted a set of "Solidarity Principles" that made clear our opposition to not only the Republican party but the whole system of capitalism. Ten other groups signed on including three other I.W.W branches. Approximately 1800 full-color posters with the Anti-Capitalist Bloc message were distributed over the course of the week.

But as Wobblies, we know that words are not enough, and so a series of events, actions, and contingents were organized by the Anti-Capitalist Bloc.

So I managed to get into this.

Dressed in white with nice shoes, a walmart unofficial souvenier T shirt and my IWW button Jennifer and I approached the Convention center (Not the Pepsi center where the convention is actually taking place.  Walked past a bunch of indiffent looking riot cops and tried to go to the "Union Event". I was told that I would have to get someone from inside come out a get
me, a not very likely proposistion.

So I went to the other side, smiled at the people holding pictures of the mangled fetus and asked some people at a table about attending the "faith based event"  I was asked for a ticket and said I had none but really wanted to go, so they passed me through and told me to talk to some people about late registration.