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In the opening days of September 2008 people from all over the country came together in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to protest the agenda of the Republican National Convention. And in response, police cracked down, hard. And even before the events had begun police responded to mere calls for protest through strong-arm tactics reminiscent of a police state, including infiltration and spying by state agents against protest organizations and preemptive raids with guns drawn against private protest centers. During the event police responded with the indiscriminate arrest of hundreds of protesters, and even journalists recording the event where arrested. Decked out in full military garb masses of police indiscriminately assaulted numerous protesters with batons, pepper spray and other weapons, that though listed under the term 'less then lethal' nevertheless inflict great pain and suffering, and have been
implicated in serious medical complications and even death. Fortunately no one was killed in the Twin Cities, but the use of tactics befitting a police
state should be a cause of grave concern for all people of good conscience.

In response we at the Worker Solidarity Alliance (WSA) call upon all
poor and working people everywhere to reach out in support of the 284
protesters that have been jailed by the cops.

Please make a donation to help cover the legal fees of our jailed
comrades, and to cover any medical fees that may arise among
protesters due to the brutal tactics utilized by police on behalf of
the Republican Party. One place you can donate is the web site of the
Coldsnap Legal Collective: http://coldsnaplegal.wordpress.com/

Although the Workers Solidarity Alliance extends unconditional
solidarity and support to the victims of state repression during the
RNC, we also call for a critical evaluation of the approach taken by
anti-authoritarians and anarchists. The repression of RNC activism
demonstrates that new organizing models will be needed if
anticapitalists are to mount a genuine challenge to the power of
capital and the state. Specifically, we must avoid playing into the
hands of the state by using rhetoric, rituals, and tactics that
isolate us from the majority of the world's population that suffers
under capitalism. We call for a resistance based not exclusively on
the advanced tactics of a jail-ready minority, but the
solidarity and militancy of a revolutionary social bloc, organized in
workplaces and neighborhoods, fighting for self-determination. As the
raids on activists spaces have already shown, anything less is
political suicide.

The reasons people protested were varied, as was the political
background of the protesters. Some of the protesters came seeking to
end the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, some economic justice,
others out of criticism of the current Republican administration in
Washington. Some protesters came to voice their dissent and in support
of Obama. Some came to protest the havoc that the endless pursuit for
capitalist profits has wrecked upon the environment. And yet others
still came to protest the political rule of the U.S. government,
whether under the leadership of Republicans or Democrats, or other
would be contenders for the throne.

The 'Red & Black Anti-Capitalist' contingent came to protest the war,
for economic justice, for a healthy environment, and against white
supremacy, nationalism, sexism and homophobia --- and to promote the
idea that simply changing office holders does not do away with
capitalism and the political state. This contingent called for a new
world, a world without bosses, states and bureaucrats.

The Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA) seeks the self-empowerment of
ordinary poor and working class people through democratic
self-management of their workplaces and their communities without
mediation by elite's from above. Those of the 'Red & Black
Anti-Capitalist' contingent, and their supporters in the WSA and
elsewhere, are sick and tired of living in a society that is dominated
by the special interests of wealthy men and the political system that
these elites have set in motion to protect their interests at the
expense of the genuine interests, the aspirations and collective well
being of the vast majority of the population, the working class. As
supporters of the 'Red & Black Anti-Capitalist' contingent we of the
WSA denounce both the Republican and Democratic parties, as we
understand that the true motivating cause of all political parties, in
every part of the globe, is that of keeping a small elite entrenched
firmly in political and economic power over, and to the detriment, of
the working class across the earth.

The WSA also denounces the Patriot Act, under which the state has
charged eight (RNC 8) prominent protest organizers with 'Conspiracy to
Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism,' this despite the fact that the RNC
8 were arrested days prior to the beginning of both the convention and
the actual protests and had not carried out any actual protest actions
whatsoever. The provisions of the Patriot Act grants the state power
to charge people with 'conspiracy' for simply planning a nonviolent
protest, and in turn to saddle them with a felony for making calls for
dissent to state policy. Thus the true purpose of the Patriot Act is
to criminalize exercises of the right to free speech, peaceful
assembly and protest. In light of the true intentions of the Patriot
Act the WSA calls for the working class to get together in solidarity
to put pressure upon the state to rescind and abolish the Patriot Act.

Yet despite all of the terror and mayhem unleashed by the police the
fact that ordinary people maintained their presence, their solidarity
and their dissent against the unjust policies of the political elite
for the duration of the convention is in the last analysis a
demonstration of the courage of the working class. The protesters that
made up the 'Red & Black Anti-Capitalist' contingent, and others as
well, have a positive vision of a better society. A society in which
ordinary folks come together in brotherly solidarity to create a new
system based upon the moral value of 'Mutual aid' and free from the
rule of a lying, scheming and predatory elite. For a society in which
'freedom and liberty for all' are not mere sentiments regulated to
paper, or simply buzz words to throw about by self-interested
politicians looking for your votes, but are instead the overwhelming
living reality of society, and not just in the United States but
throughout the entire earth.

Workers Solidarity Alliance
339 Lafayette Street - Room 202
New York, NY 10012 USA

www.workersolidarity.org