According to an article published in today's New York Post, the NYPD is now trying to tie protests against the Republican National Convention (RNC) to the radicalism of the late 1960s and early 1970s, claiming that members of the Weather Underground are "orchestrating operations" for the RNC protests. The source quoted in the article, identified only as "the source," states that the NYPD is concerned that a number of former members of the Weather Underground were released from prison recently and are now in New York City planning for the RNC.

According to the article, the Weather Underground are "very bad people" who are "trained in kidnapping techniques, bombmaking, and building improvised munitions." The article claims that the Weather Underground was an "anarchist organization" that splintered from Students for a Democratic Society in June of 1969, which not surprisingly, is an incorrect description of the group. The Weather Underground was a group inspired by Leninism and Maoism and believed that the political struggle in the United States had evolved to the point where it was necessary to use symbolic bombing of military and corporate targets in order to confront what they characterized as the international and domestic imperialism of the United States government. While the Weather Underground had limited success in materially affecting the United States government or inspiring a generalized uprising among disaffected workers and students in the United States, it was able to pull off a string of symbolic bombings of corporate targets including the US Capitol and the Pentagon.

While it is incorrect to classify the Weather Underground as an anarchist group, it serves an important function in building a sense of fear and hysteria surrounding the RNC protests that will provide the pretext for the suppression of dissent. Regrettably, it is to be expected from the corporate media which has decided to be complicit in the NYPD fear campaign, one example of which was a July 11 story in The Daily News citing anarchist terror plots as a way of justifying repression.

Previous Media Mouse RNC Updates:

• Bring your earplugs to NYC
• FBI and NYPD Engaging in Widespread Surveillance and Intimidation of Protestors
• Mayor Bloomberg calls freedom of speech a "privilege"
• NY City Offers Retail Discounts to "Peaceful Protesters"
• 258-Mile March from DNC en Route to the RNC
• "The People" Get Ready to Take on Democrat and Republican Conventions