The crusty punkazation of the movement. Metal chain link pens, 15 feet high, with double gates and razor wire decorate the greasy slimy dark insides of an industrial pier building, bringing to mind reminiscent images of Guantanamo bay. this is not a military prison, but an old pier building on the hudson river converted into a holding compound for anti-RNC protestors. About Three hundred bicyclists got to experience first hand what thousands would have to go through in the week of the republican convention when around 9pm Friday night Critical Mass, a monthly peaceful bicycle ride, was broken apart trapped in blocks and mass-arrested. Your devoted indymedia journalists and legal observers were not spared, neither were bicyclist who just happened to be at the scene going home or back from work minding their own business. One law student from Germany who was walking his bicycle home from school by St. marks church was not amused by the irony of his unlawful arrest, neither was a clean cut businessman in the same predicament or the bike delivery guy or the petty cab driver, all caught in the police arrest frenzy and never given a chance to leave or talk to a supervisor. In fact for anywhere from 12 to 18 hours arrestees would be held at the greasy pier compound without access to a phone call, a lawyer, or medical attention, waiting for the officers to go through their belongings and fill out their paperwork. The Critical Mass ride has been happening every last Friday of the month in New York for years now, without any police intervention, in fact the police usually escorts the ride around town, but one need not wonder why this critical mass was an exception. The RNC coming to town changes all the rules, and that is true for every New Yorker, every tourist and every police officer in the City, the whole city seems to have been put on hold for the week when the republicans scheduled their invasion. We very quickly realized the mass-arrests were a type of warning for those who were contemplating direct action for the week of the convention. The Critical Mass ride happens in NYC every month, and though non of the riders agreed with the Republican agenda, not everyone there was necessarily planning on protesting the convention. But in the greater scheme of things, the police needed to have the first shot in this confrontation and as time passed it also became obvious that the we provided a perfect chance for them to break in the complicated processing system put into place for the week of the convention. They didn’t bother with orange jumpsuits or black covers over the head, groups of around 50 people were free to walk around a 20 by 30 ft cages where they would spend the night crowding the 3 available benches as they struggle not to touch the greasy floor, which obviously proved impossible. Once succumbing to fatigue and merely sitting on the greasy floor, sooner or later frustrated hand gestures would spread the black diesel through the hands up to the face and onward. By the time we got transferred to the downtown jail even the cleanest cut ones of us were all covered in black oil. Later, as weird skin rashes and medical conditions appear, we would learn about asbestos and other serious toxins in the oil and the air. The floor of the pier that used to be a car impound facility is laced with years of break fluid and transmission fluid which the police never bothered to clean up. Infact after the story about a the imminent class action lawsuit broke out, the police department came out with a press release that stated no prisoner was held at the pier for more than 8 hours and no health hazards present in the building. Not even the processing officers and lieutenants in the downtown jail who were constantly mocking our crusty punk looks and smells, were aware it had anything to do with the conditions at the pier. It was the making of their own system that facilitated this elaborate makeup job, which would make us, and many protestors sure to follow, fit much better into the anarchist crusty punk image the media has been pumping into the public's minds in recent weeks. The message is that the only people who protest the bush agenda are dirty smelly punks and havoc plotting anarchists, Americans would need to make the choice between Bush, and chaos. Everything about this temporary processing system seems to fit perfectly into the PR campaign puzzle. Crusty punks and people of color are used to these kind of blind profiling practices and deionization, where the process in itself is the punishment, and by the time you get to claim your innocence you have already been stripped of your rights. The degrading mental and physical treatment we received for a bogus violation charge was carefully designed to intimidate us if possible, and radicalize those of us who have grown to expect this kind of treatment to begin with. There are two common prevailing logics from this kind of blind targeting. First, you swear to make sure you would never allow yourself to get caught in the net again, and second, you wish you were really breaking some laws to have deserved this treatment, Officers were talking about 1000 'bodies' being the arrest expectancy for that night, and probably every night from then on, which for us meant it would take a very long time to process us all. The whole purpose of the pier compound was to deal with this kind of numbers of arrested protestors that would target the RNC. But even though official arrest numbers on Friday mounted to only 300-350 people, the police was in no hurry to process us for the ridiculous 'disorderly conduct' violation most of us were charged with. We later found out through the National Lawyers Guild that the a city ordinance required processing of minor violations within 24hours during the convention, the court was to be working around the clock, and yet at 9pm Saturday night, only 60 people were processed and released. As more and more protestors got picked up later in the week, the processing period extended towards 48 hours, and eventually, the court fined the city $1000 for every protester held beyond the limit, around 500 total cases. Needless to say, the arresting officer, his immediate supervisors, the processing officers at the pier and in the downtown jail, and for that matter anybody but the top brass of the department, have no say in the matter. In fact those who bothered to reply to our pleas, were rather displeased with the imposed system, at a time when their union contract is on the negotiating table, the only thing to keep their mind off working around the clock with no sleep, stuck in the slimy heat of the city and of the pier compound, is talk about their double and triple overtime pay. They didn’t necessarily agree with the commands they were given, and though they all enjoyed the usual power trip of caging these notorious 'anarchists' they have been warned about, many admitted this would not happen under normal circumstances. The convention puts the NYC police department under the command of the secret service, which is the first step to understanding how this machine works. The facility was designed with the help of the most notorious cop in the country, chief Timoney, who's career started in New York City during the Tompkins Square Riots of the late eighties. After rising quickly through the ranks, Timoney became police chief in Philadelphia in time for the republican convention of 2000, where he won the gold medal for suppressing dissent by preemptively arresting hundreds of protestors in a puppet making warehouse and slamming them with conspiracy charges that never stuck in court. From there Timoney moved to Miami where in November 2003 he orchestrated a sham operation supervising the security of the FTAA summit arresting hundreds and producing no convictions. Though rumors emerged that he would be coming back to oversee this republican convention in his home base, he has merely acted as a consultant, giving frequent interviews to the press about the issues of security at the convention. New York City, even in the post 911 era, is predominately anti war and therefore anti republican, Many New Yorkers chose to avoid the week altogether knowing their city will be taken over by the Republican PR machine, to exploit their tragedy for a political campaign targeted mainly at voters outside their city or their state. But many simply cant afford to escape, mainly thanks to the republican economic policies. Some refuse to let their home be trampled by the elephant riding conquerors, and were ready and willing to put up a fight for their streets. So there we were, hundreds of peaceful bicyclists in our newly acquired crusty punked makeup and almost as many men in uniform, we were all tired, sweaty and smelly. Neither of us wanted to be there and yet neither could really do anything about it, we both knew we were being used as pawns in this game while in the convention hall, in city hall and on the Wallstreet trading floor, people in expensive suits were getting all the attention and calling the shots. Unlike the prisoners in Guantanamo, after almost 24 hours we got to see a lawyer, make a phonecall and eventually we were released to make way for the next mass of protestors arrested on Sunday. As we went home, on every street corner and every subway station, the visible police state was checking out our crusty punk anarchist looks, and contemplating our possible plots of disorderly conduct. Around the city the national guard was rolling in tanks. Overhead army carrier Schnook helicopters were cruising the city skyline. when we marched under the slogan 'bring the war home', I think we all had something else in mind. We must have been taken seriously by some giddy republican warmongers.