By Courtney Dentch
The man goes by the nom de guerre of Alan Greenspend, a persona he developed as a member of the Billionaires for Bush, a political satire group that plans to hit the streets of Manhattans as millions protest at the Republican National Convention later this month.GOP members, including President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, descend on Madison Square Garden and the rest of the city Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 to formally announce nominations for the presidential election and to determine the party's platforms.While the Billionaires for Bush are planning, among other events, a croquet game to thank the Bloomberg administration for refusing to allow protesters to take over the Great Lawn in Central Park, other Queens residents and groups will also be out in force the make their voices heard.The Queens chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America was organizing a protest against the slated closure of a Manhattan veterans hospital. The southeast Queens-based Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council was planning to join Hollis native Russell Simmons and other prominent hip-hop stars in seeking reform of the state's Rockefeller drug laws. And Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (D-Flushing), who is also president of the New York City Central Labor Council, was set to lead union workers in blasting Bush's labor policies. The Billionaires for Bush have planned a week of events for the convention, starting with the Central Park croquet game and a million billionaire march on Aug. 29, Greenspend said. The group uses heavy satire and sarcasm to protest Bush administration policies, such as taxes they say target the middle-class but not the rich, the Iraq war and more.”We coat everything in a nice sugary layer,” Greenspend said. “If people hang around long enough, they get the point.”Later in the week, the billionaires plan to join a protest action called the line. Thousands of people will stand in a symbolic unemployment line, but the billionaires will be “on hand to taunt the whiners and tell them to go get a job,” Greenspend said.”It's fun for people to reinvent themselves with a new name and a persona,” he said. “Activism shouldn't be painful hard work. It should be work but it should be fun.”Veterans from all wars are invited to join the Vietnam Veterans of America, who will be blasting the expected closure of the New York Campus of the New York Harbor Health Care System, a hospital on 23rd Street, said Pat Toro, president of the Queens chapter of VVA. Specifically the veterans are concerned their voices were not heard before the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs decided to close the hospital.”For us to even think of closing that hospital is absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “If they want to do something with the empty space, there they should make it a nursing home for old soldiers. We could always use more of those.”The protest will be a repeat performance of veterans who marched at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last month, Toro said. The Vietnam Veterans of America does not endorse candidates and is not protesting the president or the war on Iraq, he said.”The bottom line is that the overall interest and safety of veterans is not being considered here,” Toro said.Randy Fisher, executive vice president of the Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council, was organizing people to stand alongside Russell Simmons and his Hip-Hop Summit Action Network Aug. 30, Fisher said. The group will be protesting a slate of issues, including the mandatory minimum prison sentences imposed by the Rockefeller drug laws, the Iraq war and lack of education funding, Fisher said.”We want to have a peaceful rally,” he said. “We understand the cops have a job to do and the cops understand we have our views.”McLaughlin and other union leaders were scheduled to lead a “real Labor Day parade” Sept. 1 outside the Republican National Convention headquarters, according to a release from the Labor Council. Bush's policies have weakened rights to join unions and increased the number of outsourced jobs, the release said.”George Bush is the working person's worst nightmare,” McLauglin said in a statement. “He has failed to protect or promote the interests of working people.”Large groups hoping to hold protests on the Great Lawn of Central Park or immediately outside Madison Square Garden were denied permits by the New York Police Department. Protesters will be allowed to walk past the Garden on their way to the West Side Highway, the NYPD's approved protest site.But the Queens groups said they were able to secure the permits they wanted, since most of those protests were planned for areas just outside the RNC site.Fisher and others are hoping civil disobedience, arrests and fights are kept to a minimum because the negative attention would only serve to thwart the protest efforts.”You're going to get one or two people with high energy levels doing things,” Fisher said of potential problems. “But if your cause gets undermined because 'yo, there was a riot,' then the whole organization is mad at you.”Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
