Anti-War DNC Protestors Get Their Permits for Demos; Expect 50,000 or More

Aug. 18—Leaders of the coalition, march on the DNC 2024, declared victory on Aug. 16 in their seven-month battle to obtain city permits for marches, rallies, teach-ins, film screenings, and other activities to protest the pro-war policies of the Democratic Party, whose convention begins tomorrow in Chicago. According to reports by CBS and other media, which covered the legal victory for the demonstrators, the anti-war protests will start on August 19 at noon at Union Park in Chicago and continue until August 22 at 5 p.m, are expected to attract upwards of 50,000 people, reminding people of the large and some times violent protests against the Vietnam War, that greeted the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968.

In a letter signed by Chicago Department of Transportation Assistant Commissioner Bryan Gallardo dated Aug. 14, the city originally would only grant a park permit but restricted all other requests. Leaders of the protest movement submitted a nine page motion to U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood on August 15. Judge Wood expressed her view of the need to defend all First Amendment rights and gave the two sides until noon the following day to come to an agreement. The judge added that any details not fully agreed upon would be decided by the judge. In the end attorneys for the city knew that they were going to lose the legal fight so the city granted nearly all of the requests of the protesters including a stage, sound system, and portable toilets. By the morning of Aug. 16 the coalition declared victory and withdrew its motion for an injunction and the court hearing was canceled.

Since Chicago does not always faithfully defend free speech, a group of 65 Chicago area lawyers have sent a letter to the city warning of the legal consequences of violating the First Amendment and saying that this group of lawyers will be monitoring the city’s activities, according to WBBM radio.

In January the Chicago City Council voted for a ceasefire in Gaza with Mayor Brandon Johnson casting the vote to break the tie. One protest leader said that everyone in town will know the exact moment the nasty bitch Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Sleepy Joe Biden anointed to replace him after party elders force him to give his reelection bid, starts to speak at the convention because that is the moment that the protesters will be the loudest.

While the leadership of the coalition wants the protest to be peaceful, there is every reason to believe that the police state mechanisms of what is called the Biden Administration would like nothing better than to provoke a violent confrontation, to try to frame the election in that context, and have it conducted under the equivalent of martial law. Chichao Metropolitan Police and federal authorities, under the direction of the FBI and Secret Service, have announced that they intend to place a "ring of steel" around the convention, to assure that protestors never get close to disrupting it. Sources say that such reports are intended to give cover for various agents provocateur who will be seeded among the crowd to provoke a confrontation. 

"They have tried to brand all antiwar protestors as either terrorists or antisemites, or both," said a source familiar with FBI operations. "They now have a chance to create images in the mass and social media which will prove their point, and justify further repression. The demonstrators need to be smart about what is happening. They should not claim that they have everything under control. They should say in advance, that if things get violent and out of hand, this is a police riot, and that the FBI and various counter-terror units in the police should be investigated for complicity. They should do that, but they probably won't because they will have some silly people and worse tell them this sounds too conspiratorial, and too paranoid. But it is just the reality: We live in a police state, where people who should merely serve to protect us, instead operate in a conspiracy to undermine our freedom."