NYC: Our beloved Critical Mass ride is under attack!

  • Thread starter TIME'S UP! (via Jym Dyer)
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TIME'S UP! (via Jym Dyer)

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[Also Posted to critical-mass]

http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/103215/index.php

An important message from TIME'S UP! to our community.

What: New York City Critical Mass
When: Friday, August 27th, 7pm
Where: 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! ***
 
"TIME'S UP! (via Jym Dyer)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> [Also Posted to critical-mass]
>
> http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/103215/index.php
>
> An important message from TIME'S UP! to our community.
>
> What: New York City Critical Mass
> When: Friday, August 27th, 7pm
> Where: 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! ***
 
http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/103268/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 (***) ***-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 here:
http://www.times-up.org/images/nypd-to-ta-re-cm.jpg

=------------>8-------------Cut-Here------------->8------------=
 
"Stan de SD" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "TIME'S UP! (via Jym Dyer)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
....
> > 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.
 
"TIME'S UP! (via Jym Dyer)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> [Also Posted to critical-mass]
>
> http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/103215/index.php
>
> An important message from TIME'S UP! to our community.
>
> What: New York City Critical Mass
> When: Friday, August 27th, 7pm
> Where: 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
 
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>[Also Posted to critical-mass]
>http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/103215/index.php
>An important message from TIME'S UP! to our community.
>What: New York City Critical Mass
>When: Friday, August 27th, 7pm
>Where: 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

Where is the attack? All I see is a request that you obey the law.

>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!

Please continue to do so, but obey the law while you are at it.
Otherwise you are portraying cyclists as a bunch of law breakers.

---------------
Alex
 
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...


>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.

What is being re-calimed? It's not like you cant' ride your
bikes on the very same streets at other times of the month.

>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.

The letter sounds more like a nice way to ask that you not cause
trouble because there are not enough cops to babysit the RNC and
CM.
------------
Alex
 
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