Protesters for Bernie, Campaign Finance Reform, Immigrant Rights Swarm DNC Convention

Tue, 7/26/2016 - by William Fowler

PHILADELPHIA – As the first day of the Democratic National Convention got underway here Monday, around 5,000 protesters rallied at City Hall to demonstrate for progressive causes before joining tens of thousands more who marching south to Franklin D. Roosevelt Park, where Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein prepared to speak in the evening. More than 30 protesters were arrested for peacefully crossing an established police line.

The action started in the morning as Sanders supporters gathered for rallies organized by the Equality Coalition for Bernie Sanders and other pro-Sanders groups. With an open microphone set up for foot soldiers to speak to the crowd, chants of “hell no DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary!” erupted among those assembled.

“The Democratic Party does need to unify, but it needs to recognize that Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump,” said Nicole Lutkemuller, an ecologist and geographic information systems analyst who came to the DNC as a pledged delegate for Sanders from California. “Bernie has the ability to pull people to his side, while Hillary is pushing people away."

Arriving on the opposite side of City Hall from the Bernie rally was the Migrant Rights March, whose participants were fighting to demand Democrats be the “anti-Trump” on immigration.

“We’re here to demand a moratorium on deportation and a dismantling of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement system,” said Yared Portillo, a Philadelphia-based organizer for the Migrant Rights March with Juntos, an organization fighting for the rights of the Latino-immigrant community.

“Real champions don’t wait to act,” said Erika Almirón, executive director of Juntos. “A nursing mother in detention shouldn’t have to depend on the election results to know freedom in this country.”

At noon, dozens of red flag-bearing socialists gathered among the Bernie Sanders supporters, demonstrating a strong anti-capitalist and -globalization contingent as part of the 100+ Red Flags March. Also showing their colors were people from the cannabis movement, who chanted “Legalize, and save lives!” as they carried a 50-foot-long inflatable joint through the crowd.

As Sanders supporters marched down Broad Street, lining the fence to block entry to the Wells Fargo Center where party delegates were entering the convention, voting rights and campaign finance reform activists with Democracy Spring closely followed the marchers with something else up their sleeve.

In an attempt to enter the DNC and disrupt the regular course of business, the democracy activists sought the weakest link in the police line and attempted to walk through before being blocked off by police bicycles and motorbikes.

Advocating the removal of superdelegates, reforms to voting rights and new campaign finance legislation in the first 100 days of the next administration, Democracy Spring conducted a sit-in on the police line. In an attempt to cross the line peacefully, more than 30 activists were taken into police custody including the group's campaign director, Kai Newkirk, organizer Tania Maduro, and former Miss New Jersey Samira Khan.

“We’re supposed to have a government of and by the people, but the government we have is only interested in protecting the rights of big corporations and billionaires,” Maduro said prior to risking arrest. As Maduro was escorted away, she repeatedly stated that this was a nonviolent protest and requested to speak with a chief of police.

Protesters repeatedly asked policemen on the front line why their badge numbers were blocked, but as with Maduro’s questions, they were unanswered. (It was later confirmed that cops nationwide are covering their badge numbers in honor of the cops killed in recent weeks in Dallas and Baton Rouge.)

Like many of the demonstrators in Philadelphia on Monday, Democracy Spring activists were hardly keen to vote for Hillary Clinton in November. “If you have to let go of all your values to vote for someone, than you’re not living in a democracy,” Jessica Creery, a PhD student from Chicago, said.

But many are looking past this moment, and this election, with a vision toward building something grander: a movement that can endure regardless of which president and congresspeople take office in 2017.

“We are at a moment of unparalleled crisis with runaway climate change, destructive economic inequality, endless wars, racist systems of mass deportation and incarceration. These crisis are ripping away the moral fabric of our society,” Curt Ries, operations director for Democracy Spring, said.

“The common solution to accomplish rapid progress in these many issues is to create a democracy that will work for the people, and not the wealthy elite. This is not a moment, it’s a movement, and we’re going to fight until we win.”