Live from NYC--Correspondence #2 from Joey : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

What Up Cleveland,

This is Joey from the RCYB and NION youth. I have been in NYC for what feels like months, but really I have only been here for like a week and a
half. We have been really crazy running around the city and getting post cards out about the RNC, calling for more than a million to protest the RNC.

It is just crazy. We are having a big poster day on Sunday August 8th, where we are going to get about 100-200 people together and cover the city, every business who wants a poster, every wall space that can be covered gets covered. Everyone in the city on Monday morning Aug 9th will know that people in this city are opposed to the war.

One of the biggest problems in the city is the “fear factor” People around the city are being told by these really reactionary newspapers everyday that the RNC protests are going to be scary. So we are really making it a campaign to fight that fear, and say that people should be afraid of what is going to happen if we don’t stand up and protest NOW, if we don’t say
no NOW, if we don’t get into the streets and say clearly, without any question we are opposed to Bush and all he represents, and we want another course of history.

It is just very exhausting, we spend all day going onto the subway, speaking in all the parks, taking out a banner and walking all over the city calling out this war, and telling people to be in the streets to
say no to the war, no to the police state, no to the round ups and detentions.

We are all just running on fumes. But it is a blast, and people are awesome and SOO dedicated. I mean our office is filled with people who have put their lives on the line to stand up in resistance and it is incredible.

Me and three other people just got back the other day from protesting at the DNC in Boston. You probably did not hear a lot about the protests, they were quite small. Only about 2,000 people, at most, were at the
largest protest, but there was NION had a good sized contingent of people who came down from NYC. While that was really disappointing there was two
good things I felt that came out of the protests. There was people all over Boston who were politicized and talking about this, and seeing the protesters and cheering. Some were confused, but all of Boston was
aware that people were protesting Kerry because he was not opposed to the war.

But the best thing was the number of people who wanted to speak out against the war. I mean there was bull shit revisionists, and phony communists, and leeches all over the protest sucking the empowerment
out of the people, taking an opportunity to talk about the green party (I met the presidential candidate of the Green Party who walked into a convergence space and stirred up all this attention and took it away
from all our message, we were against the war on the world. But amidst all that there was all these Kerry supporters who wanted to say they were against
the war and did not feel like they had an outlet.

The best moment in the protest was when we went to a KERRY RALLY that was live on MSNBC and pulled out a banner about needing to be in NYC to protest Bush and ALL HE REPRESENTS. We screamed about Kerry’s stance, and invited people to pass out cards with us. A bunch of anarchists came over
and helped out past flyers. Then these cops came over and made us move,after some yelling about how they were killing people in Iraq for freedom
of speech to be smashed here in the belly of the beast. We read off the pledge of resistance as we passed out flyers, and all these people can over to us to watch out back, all these people came to listen to what we were saying, and media came over to us as well. All these people, Kerry supporters were totally down with out challenge to come and actually
speak out against the war, and not just go vote, but really try and CHANGE THE COURSE of history. People were inspired about this call, some people
stood in front of us and cried! It was really good to tell people there is actually a place to come out and say that they are against the war!

I want to encourage people to send suggestions of things to do, street theatre, poetry, shows to go outside and protest, media to get on. Ideas
on how to further challenge people, and idea that people in Cleveland are doing to get the word out. Especially about how they are challenging the
fear and intimidation that is floating around. For example someone in our office has an idea for Monday the 9th to be a NO FEAR day, where people
challenge themselves to do something that they were previously afraid to do. Like if they were afraid to wear a button against the war before, then they should do that today, if they were afraid to give a speech on a
street corner they should do that, if they were afraid to go to the RNC they should buy a ticket today. So send their idea to me or whoever, and get the word out, the people of the world NEED US.

One last thing, and what really keeps me going 24 hours a day, with little sleep, moving all around the city every other night into new housing, walking literally or what seems like all over the city. It is something
Chairman Avakian says youth should be running into the streets to protest during the day and wrangling with theory and a vision of what kind of better world we are fighting for in the end. And we are really taking
that up. The days are hot, the subway is hotter, the parks are even hotter, and beyond that yelling in the street is taking its toll on my body, but it is Chairman Avakian’s vision of a better world, and what a million people in the street could mean to the movement to that better world keeps me going,

Live from NYC, in resistance, Joey

Cleveland Indy Media Center