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NYC: Our beloved Critical Mass ride is under attack!
[Also Posted to critical-mass]
http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/di...3215/index.php An important message from TIME'S UP! to our community. What: New York City Critical Mass When: Friday, August 27th, 7pm Whe Union Square North Our beloved Critical Mass Ride is under attack! Take a look at this scan of a letter from the NYPD: http://www.times-up.org/images/nypd-to-ta-re-cm.jpg All threats, intimidation tactics and harassment, however, will not keep us from going forward with this amazing community ritual! We have worked hard to build this dynamic community and to advocate for the rights of those that use alternative modes of transportation! We have worked hard to reclaim our rights to public space in our city of New York! Tell all your friends. Bring family, neighbors, lovers and strangers. Bring noisemakers, musical instruments, face-paint, flowers, and your energy and joy. Bring things to juggle and to share and also your conviction that we have a right to converge and ride throughout this glorious city. Bring video cameras. * We will not be intimidated! * We will not be threatened and harassed! * This is our city! This is our community! Let's make this the biggest, loudest, most joyful Critical Mass ever! We are not afraid! We are powerful and energized! We live and visit here because New York is a place we love! We will not let them create a culture of fear and intimidation! *** LET'S ROLL! *** |
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"TIME'S UP! (via Jym Dyer)" wrote in message ... [Also Posted to critical-mass] http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/di...3215/index.php An important message from TIME'S UP! to our community. What: New York City Critical Mass When: Friday, August 27th, 7pm Whe Union Square North Our beloved Critical Mass Ride is under attack! Take a look at this scan of a letter from the NYPD: http://www.times-up.org/images/nypd-to-ta-re-cm.jpg All threats, intimidation tactics and harassment, however, will not keep us from going forward with this amazing community ritual! We have worked hard to build this dynamic community and to advocate for the rights of those that use alternative modes of transportation! We have worked hard to reclaim our rights to public space in our city of New York! Tell all your friends. Bring family, neighbors, lovers and strangers. Bring noisemakers, musical instruments, face-paint, Jym, we know you're a clown even without the face-paint... flowers, and your energy and joy. Bring things to juggle and to share and also your conviction that we have a right to converge and ride throughout this glorious city. Bring video cameras. * We will not be intimidated! * We will not be threatened and harassed! * This is our city! This is our community! Let's make this the biggest, loudest, most joyful Critical Mass ever! We are not afraid! We are powerful and energized! We live and visit here because New York is a place we love! We will not let them create a culture of fear and intimidation! *** LET'S ROLL! *** |
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http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/dis...3268/index.php
[Currently featured at toplevel http://nyc.indymedia.org/ site, but that's not a persistent URL.] Below is a press release that was sent by TIME'S UP! to numerous media contacts. =------------8-------------Cut-Here-------------8------------= FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx August 25, 2004 (xxx) xxx-xxxx Thousands of Cyclists to Reclaim New York City Streets in Historic Pre-RNC Critical Mass Ride Police threaten riders with arrest (see bottom of this release) At 7pm this Friday August 27 New York cyclists and skaters will gather at the north side of Union Square to take part in the time honored ritual of Critical Mass, a community bike ride. While Critical Mass has been present in Manhattan only since 1998, it began in San Francisco in 1992 and quickly spread across the world and now takes place monthly in over three hundred cities around the world. Typically the NYPD maintains a minimal presence at Critical Mass events with a hands-off approach to the monthly ride. When there is a police presence at Critical Mass, police scooter escorts in fact assist Critical Mass riders in ``corking'' traffic by stopping cars from side streets that have a green light - helping riders run red lights. However, since this month’s Critical Mass promises to be one of the largest seen in New York City due to it being the Friday before the Republican National Convention and is seen by many as a kick-off event to a week of protest, the NYPD has taken a circuitous route to dealing with Critical Mass. Since the ride is an organic event with no leaders and no central organization, the NYPD addressed a letter to Transportation Alternatives encouraging them to inform their members that this month’s ride will see a different approach from the police. The NYPD is saying that Critical Mass creates dangerous conditions to both citizens and riders by its significant impediment to traffic. Riders are ``Obstructing Governmental Administration''. Now riders will apparently risk arrest for not abiding by the very laws the police have helped them violate in the past. Critical Mass itself is not an illegal event, as bike riding is legal but since the ride can number up to 1500, and is expected to top that number on Friday, it has always been in the best interest of all involved to allow the ride to cork traffic so that is passes as quickly as possible. Isolated clumps of bike riders throughout the city would create chaos, while allowing the entire group to stay together and pass quickly creates only minor inconveniences for automobile traffic. Participants in Critical Mass look forward to each month’s ride as a reclamation of public space and a defiant celebration of an alternative more positive version of urban living. This month’s ride has long been viewed as a tone-setter for the week of protest against the Republican National Convention and the timing of this letter is clearly indicative of an attempt to create a climate of fear around anti-RNC protests. As many activists are expected to be present at Friday’s Critical Mass, it is clearly a chance for the NYPD to make mass arrests and present themselves as being in charge. By identifying Critical Mass participants as lawbreakers, and appealing directly to Transportation Alternatives as a ``wonderful organization'' with ``lawful desires'', the NYPD clearly means to manufacture a dichotomy between ``good'' and ``bad'' protestors: those who will surrender their Constitutional rights in the face of police intimidation and those who will not. (Also see: ``peaceful protestor'' buttons.) The best way for them to send this message is by criminalizing Critical Mass and arresting its participants before the week of anti-RNC protests even begin. =30= A scan of the NYPD's letter can be obtained he http://www.times-up.org/images/nypd-to-ta-re-cm.jpg =------------8-------------Cut-Here-------------8------------= |
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"Stan de SD" wrote in message hlink.net...
"TIME'S UP! (via Jym Dyer)" wrote in message ... .... Our beloved Critical Mass Ride is under attack! Take a look at this scan of a letter from the NYPD: http://www.times-up.org/images/nypd-to-ta-re-cm.jpg Its not cool to flagrantly break traffic laws and do things like ride in circles in the middle of intersections. Doing so works against the whole concept of asserting rights for bicycles. It creates anger in motorists, further propagates the common urban notion that a bicyle is a renegade and unpredicatable vehicle, and gives police a valid reason to write tickets, make arrests and "restore order". Why can't critical mass rides simply be a large number of cyclists travelling together through the city and exercising their rights without breaking traffic laws? It seems to me that the letter from the police is _not_ an "attack" as the subject line calls it. It is reasonable and even friendly plea from the police to just NOT break traffic laws. If some people feel the need to act like clowns and aggressively/systematically violate the traffic rules that allow all vehicles to get along, they fully deserve to be cited and possibily even arrested. |
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"TIME'S UP! (via Jym Dyer)" wrote in message ... [Also Posted to critical-mass] http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/di...3215/index.php An important message from TIME'S UP! to our community. What: New York City Critical Mass When: Friday, August 27th, 7pm Whe Union Square North Our beloved Critical Mass Ride is under attack! Take a look at this scan of a letter from the NYPD: http://www.times-up.org/images/nypd-to-ta-re-cm.jpg If the riders in this are routinely breaking the law, then I agree with the letter. If instead, the riders are obeying the current traffic laws, then this letter has no merit. Which is it? Pete |
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