BY DARYL KHAN
Staff Writer

August 2, 2004, 6:41 PM EDT

Bickering between the city and protesters over rally points and metal pens has dominated the discussion of the coming wave of anti-RNC protests. But there have been other protests planned that are well beyond the reach of permits, designated routes, schedules and spokesmen.

A group of anarchists working as a loose collective has been organizing a freewheeling day of civil disobedience and guerilla street tactics to disrupt the convention. The anarchist organizers said they need to use direct action -- not staid, staged protests -- to spread their message.

"It's more immediate, it's more visceral, it has a direct impact on the people," said Jaime Moran, 30, an anarchist active with the organization RNCnotwelcome.org

Anarchists embrace direct action -- protests intended to disrupt authority -- as opposed to traditional forms of political activity like petitions and voting. For them, going to a march sanctioned by police would be the equivalent of voting for John Kerry -- not good enough.

"I think that for an awful lot of people who are angry about what's going on there's something very disempowering about going to a big march," said Eric Laursen, 44. "Picking up a sign, marching down a city street surrounded by a phalanx of cops, sitting in a cage where you're not allowed to interact with people in the streets, and then going to a rally in some far flung corner like the West Side Highway -- it makes you feel like you have no impact."

United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of anti-war groups, recently agreed to NYPD terms for their massive rally after extended, and often contentious, negotiations.

Asked about how they plan to combat unplanned disruptions, police officials would say only that they will enforce the law at the convention.

Anarchists from 20 different states have met in apartments, coffee shops, Internet cafes, an art loft in Brooklyn and at St. Mark's Church in the East Village. Some anarchists have speculated that the 2004 Republican National Convention has inspired the largest meeting of modern anarchists in one place.

"It's like a conference for us," Flanigan said. "It has given us all a chance to exchange ideas, talk about tactics."

The anarchists say they want to capitalize on the visibility of the convention to articulate their political principles, which they feel are often obscured by unfair caricatures.

"The word \[anarchy\] has a black eye," said Moran, a soft-spoken web designer. "In popular culture it's represented as mischief and mayhem and blowing things up."

But what they're actully planning are a wide range of protests -- from street carnivals to sit-ins and barricades of RNC sponsors and companies tied to war. A group called the A31 Coalition is billing Aug. 31 as a day dedicated to direct action.

The events range from the whimsical, dressing up in stereotypical stuffy outfits of khakis and button- down shirts and taking to the streets, to the serious, attempting to blockade Madison Square Garden and prevent Republican delegates from entering the convention and siphoning off the massive anti-RNC march and flooding in to Central Park.

"This is one mobilization where we could draw people who aren't activists but are really angry about what's going on and get them out in the streets," Moran said.

An anarchist group's pamphlet promises that anarchists will, "occupy the areas around buildings of war profiteers and the corporations that have hijacked our air, water, land, pensions and voice."

"You have to put your body on the machinery," said Laursen, who joined other students who took over a Columbia campus building in the 1980s. "You have to go there yourself and say you are going to stop this form going on. This opens up a whole new agenda of things you can start doing."

The philosophy of anarchy is tightly wed to direct action as a means of political expression. Anarchy is a philosophy deeply rooted in a political tradition dating back to the ancient Greeks. The word itself is from Greek, meaning, "lack of a ruler."

At its heart anarchy is a political philosophy that rejects coercion and contends government is bad because people know what is better for them then anyone else.

"They are after bigger fish, systemic fish," said Jason Flores-Williams, who was arrested at a "Die-in" protest outside Rockefeller Center in May. "To them it doesn't matter if Kerry wins. It's just band-aiding things. The real change they will say is this country needs a revolution. There's a big gulf between people who say that and actually doing it."

Anarchists said they think the pitched resentment against President Bush coupled with the activism at the convention could mark the beginning of a powerful, new grassroots force in politics.

"What I hope happens," said Laursen, "is that decades from now people will look back and say this is where protest politics really turned in to a movement to create a really different type of society." Moran agreed.

"The reality is that a lot of good social change is a product of direct action," Moran said. "It's hard to see how the actions of a 25-year old could do that. But I think 20 to 30 years from now it will be perceived quite differently."