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.