Press

Broadcast/Recording

Pacifica Radio / Flashpoint

August 30, 2004

     World Trade Center / Ground Zero Observance. RingOut - Ringout the Republicans with Christian Harold. Saturday August 28th, Bell Ringers surrounding the site at Ground Zero to commemorate those killed in the Tower attacks. Thousands of bells rang to commemorate the loss and to symbolize the freedoms that the Bush administration is trying to take away in the name of War on Terror.
http://www.pacifica.org/programs/flashpoints/flashpoints_040830.html

WFMU / Stochastic Hit Parade

Sunday, August 29th, 10pm - Midnight

Bethany Ryker Bethany

     Sounds of the Counter-Convention plays audio recordings from her weekend counter-convention activities. Highlights will include Pauline Oliveros' Ringout at the World Trade Center site on Saturday -- in which 3000+ bells will be played in remembrance of 9/11 to "Ring out" the Republicans. Bethany will also hunt and gather sounds in the midst of the thousands who gather together Sunday afternoon. http://www.wfmu.org/rnc/

Indymedia Center Radio

Ringout At Ground Zero

by Quinten IMC Radio / Rebecca
29 Aug 2004

     Audio of a sound event at Ground Zero in New York City, part of a campaign to prevent the Republicans from exploiting the tragedy of 9/11. Edited by Rebecca, volunteer at the RNC Indymedia space in New York. 12'02" http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/15397.php

Ring Out Collage w/photos

by Doug George

August 29, 2004

     Rise Up Radio producers Hudson and Doug went to the WTC site Sunday to hear Ring Out participants toll their bells for victims of violence all over the world. [2:53]

http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/2335.php

free103point9 Online Radio
MP3 recordings of Free103point9's coverage of the protests surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention (21.2 MB)

Pauline Oliveros Interview
by Damian Catera

http://www.screwmusicforever.com/free103/paulinefinal2.mp3

The Laura Ingraham Show

Nationally-syndicated ultra-conservative Ingraham interviewing RingOut Committee Member Charlton McIlwain. Transcription.
June 10, 2004

      "You actually have a concept: pass out bells, ring bells, ring out Bush. That's a consistent theme. I can grab ahold of that theme. It's ringing through my mind and I get that theme.

     "We're going to have Charlton back because at least he has a concept, a theme, and a point. And maybe I can get some bells of my own when I'm in Manhattan for the RNC. Charlton, maybe we'll come out and see you at NYU one of these days and maybe I can get some commuication help from your class."

 

Press Clips/Photos
(excerpts)

The Villager
September 02 - 09 , 2004

You rang? Protest of note at W.T.C. (2 of 4 photos)

Times Up! Critical Mass circled WTC as part of Observance.  Ramin Talaie Photo


Cabbie. Jennifer Weisbord Photo

     On Saturday, a protest action of a different tune occurred around the World Trade Center, where a group called Ringout ringed the World Trade Center site on all four sides and then rang over 3,000 bells for the 9/11 attack’s victims. They said they rang “as an incentive for justice and diplomacy rather than for war and the suppression of civil and human rights.”  Go to site for more pix:

http://www.thevillager.com/villager_70/yourang.html

The Village Voice / The Sound of the City
August 31st, 2004

Ring bearers. Photo by Tina Zimmer, tinazimmer.com

PAULINE OLIVEROS

Experimental composer and cast of thousands remember those lost

by Jason Gross

     Ground Zero - August 28. Led off with a "peace-a-lujah" invocation by performance artist Reverend Billy, minimalist composer Pauline Oliveros's Ringing for Healing participatory piece at the WTC site Saturday night brought out a few thousand bell chimers to mourn the 9-11 dead and moon the RNC invaders. Though much tinier than the next day's march on the Garden, the event served as an early test of how protesters and police were going to get along.

     Thankfully, law enforcement was minimal. The ringing in your ears came from town-crier handbells, ring-ting-tinglin' sleigh bells, school bells, hotel desk bells, cowbells, and fire bells sounding around the whole perimeter. Distributed instructions told participants to surround the whole Trade Center region (which they did except for a few inevitable gaps) and ring at a slow pace to honor each 9-11 victim; anti-Bush screeds were mostly limited to creative T-shirt slogans ("NYC to RNC: Drop Dead"). Though left-wing organizers RingOut, who commissioned the piece from Oliveros, handed out bells if you forgot your own, they couldn't get the crowd to chime in sync—most people rang relentlessly, save for a scheduled meditative 10-minute silence midway through.

     Similarly, a plan to face each direction for two minutes near the end was ignored as the crowd banged, clanged, and rang away in any direction it happened to face. Ninety minutes into the two-hour homage, people started dispersing. As if arranged beforehand, a rain shower started up at almost the exact moment the performance was scheduled to finish.

     Though it certainly would have made a more powerful statement if scheduled on September 11, Oliveros's piece was a moving symbolic gesture, meant to radiate healing while the RNC ding-a-lings hid in isolated bubbles in midtown.  

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0435/sotc.php

Islam Online
August 28
Artistic Protest in US: An Age-Old Battle
By Dilshad D. Ali

     Two other protests really stretched the degree of artistic passion to display a deep, meaningful objection to President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq . At the World Trade Center site on August 28, thousands gathered to “ring out the Republicans.” Thousands stood silently circling the WTC site and rung bells to represent their concern that 9/11 was not an issue to be spun. The mournful sound of bells—one for each confirmed dead that day—echoed throughout the WTC site, far better eliciting attention than any standard form of protest.
     The tragedy of September 11 is a viable election issue for Democrats and especially Republicans (as President Bush seems to build his whole campaign around his War on Terror). But lately more Americans have expressed their disapproval of it being used as a campaign tool. The “Ring out the Republicans” protest was an artful expression of that sentiment.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/ArtCulture/2004/09/article06.shtml

NewStandard
August 28, 2004

Demonstrations Heating Up in NYC as Convention Nears
by Benjamin Dangl

      Activists in New York City demonstrated for women’s health care, workers’ rights, economic justice and peace today during the third day of major protests against the Republican National Convention. …..

      As the day drew to an end, thousands gathered at "Ground Zero," the site of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers, to advocate diplomacy instead of war. The solemn event was organized by RingOut, a group that uses bells to demonstrate unity and solidarity at protests.

     Calling the event a memorial for the WTC victims and all victims of violence around the world, participants completely surrounded the site and rang bells, which echoed across the eerie space of Ground Zero. Moments of silence interspersed the two-hour event.

     In inviting people to the demonstration, RingOut wrote that they would "ring in a week of harmony and many voices expressing their visions of peace and justice in NYC and around the country."

     Martha Giardina, an organizer of the event from Georgia, told The NewStandard, "It is a nonviolent use of sound, something that everybody has access to and that anybody can participate in."

     Sydney Gillett, a nurse practitioner from Berkeley, California said she had not visited the site since the attacks. "I got a little choked up, a little emotional," she said, adding that the ringing was a creative way to express her reaction. "I don’t have to march, shout or cheer -- I can just be here and sit with my thoughts."

     Marla Zubel, a student from San Francisco, California said, "A lot of times protesters are accused of either not respecting the dead of 9/11 or just being heartless in some way, or unpatriotic; this specific tactic of ringing the bells was a good way to get a message across, almost without words.

     "This sent a message to people who are critical of protesters," she added. "People don’t want to see any more ground zeros in the world. One human life isn’t worth anymore than another, whether it is American or Iraqi, or you name it."

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=897  

Palm Beach Post

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Ground zero hotbed of hostility to GOP
By Frank Cerabino

     NEW YORK — It's another day at ground zero, the spot that is probably responsible more than anything else for bringing the Republicans here behind enemy lines for their national convention.

     It's hallowed ground that doesn't seem so hallowed on the eve of this convention.

"I wish they would let us have our convention this week, and then after it's over, we could get back to debating the issues," said Gail Chimeni, 57, a delegate from Green Bay, Wis. "It's sad."

Chimeni and her husband, Ron, visited the site of the former World Trade Center hours after flying into New York Saturday.

     "As we flew in, we saw it and said there couldn't be a more ideal place for the convention," Ron said.

     But once they were at street level, what they saw was less than ideal. New York has become a stew of political discontent, a city teeming with people who are welcoming the Republicans even less than they do the average tourist.

     Which isn't saying much.

     On Saturday, ground zero was mostly populated by women who had finished a nearby abortion rights march mingling with a group of antiwar protesters who were gathering for a synchronized ringing of bells around ground zero called "Ringout the Republicans."

     If delegates had come here to reaffirm their faith in the nation's political course, they couldn't help but be bombarded with sights and sounds that begged to differ.

     One of the buildings facing ground zero has been decorated with signs that say "Oil War" and "No More Lies" and "Dissent is Patriotic." And the atmosphere around ground zero was more of a carnival of rebellion than anything else.

     "I'm used to it," said Joe Quinn, 45, a Republican New Yorker who was walking around the ground zero site with a pocketful of Bush-Cheney stickers. "I've always been one against 12 here. It just makes me want to be subversive."

      His mission for the afternoon was trying to put the Bush-Cheney stickers on the clothing of unwitting protesters.

      "We're just surprised at how many causes there are," said Bob Nardo, 22, of New Jersey, who was watching the scene with some friends from the College Republicans at American University in Washington. "It's a grab bag of protest. I don't think they have any serious plans in mind. They just have a rebellious spirit."

      And he didn't even see Reverend Billy, a fake preacher who walked around the ground zero perimeter in a lemon-yellow jacket over his clerical collar.

      "Why has ground zero been turned into a prison?" Rev. Billy asked.

     Rev. Billy claims to be from the Church of Stop Shopping, and its central tenet is that the world would be a better place if people gathered to talk, rather than to shop.

     It's a nonpartisan position, explained the Rev. Billy's handler, Michael O'Neil, who said Billy's next event will be a mass wedding ceremony in Central Park today.

     "For some reason, somebody actually gave him the power to conduct marriages," O'Neil said.

     Rev. Billy might not have been the most unusual character at ground zero Saturday.

      Certainly, Philipe Bepasso deserves a mention. He has been there on the sidewalk playing Amazing Grace on his flute in an endless loop practically since the tragedy happened.

     And then there was Harry Roland, a demonstrative, free-lance historian who prowled the sidewalk, shouting, "History! Don't let it be a mystery!" and "Nobody pays me to do this!" ….

     And just when I thought things couldn't get crazier, 51 Mennonites from Virginia showed up, the women dressed in long, country dresses, their hair under starched white caps.

     They walked around ground zero, passing out free CDs of their choir music, then they descended as a group to the subway, getting on one car, and without notice, bursting into song.

     The subway car suddenly reverberated with a choral version of Rock of Ages.

     The New Yorkers continued to stare straight ahead, as if nothing was happening, as if the sudden performance of a Mennonite choir is something they might expect on an Uptown train.

     The Republicans won't be so lucky. They'd be happy to settle for that kind of indifference from New York — their hallowed, but unfriendly, ground.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/

2004/08/29/m1a_bino_0829.html 

Downtown Express / The Villager

August 27 - September 02, 2004

                                                                                      Villager photo by Talisman Brolin
From left, Benjamin Griveaux, Petra Hanson (a.k.a. “Bell Hypocrisy”), Christian Herold, Kendra Durand and Charli Valdez outside Café Esperanto on MacDougal St. on Tuesday, where they were going over plans for their Aug. 28 Ground Zero anti-Bush bell-ringing rally.

Protestors to ring bells and form ring around W.T.C.

By David H. Ellis

              In a dimly lit room in the back of Cafe Figaro on Bleecker St. on a recent Sunday afternoon, Christian Herold and nine other individuals were getting down to details.

              Sitting at a table with a tarnished brass bell with a worn wooden handle as the centerpiece, Herold and the other members of the group RingOut touched on everything from permits to rendezvous points to contingency plans for their bell-ringing event planned for Aug. 28, which will commemorate the victims of Sept. 11 while protesting the arrival of the Republican National Convention in New York City.

              “We’re just going to prepare the best we can,” said Herold, the founder of the group, to his fellow participants.

              With only a few days remaining before Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and Senator John McCain deliver primetime speeches to kick off the G.O.P. convention on Aug. 30, RingOut is among dozens of organizations putting the final touches on their protest activities surrounding the Republican nomination of President George W. Bush.

              Certain of a deep well of anger among New Yorkers at the Republicans’ decision to come to the city, Herold, 47, formed RingOut this spring. Combining his professional background in sound artistry, and enlisting the help of renowned avant-garde composer Pauline Oliveros, Herold organized the group’s two-hour event, which will be divided between a memorial to the victims of the World Trade Center attacks and a performance of a composition by Oliveros entitled “Ringing for Healing,” in which at least 3,000 people are expected to ring school, sleigh and cowbells.

              “Bells are beautiful and powerful and interesting,” says Herold, a Village resident, about his decision to use this medium of expression. “They are filled with different kinds of meaning and very evocative — bells are used as alarms, for tolling, for a town crier and as church bells.”

              For Joshua Spahn, a resident of Clinton and a software developer, the singularity of the event immediately attracted his attention.

              “The fact that this was not rhetoric but symbolic, really appealed to me,” said Spahn, 50, who has helped enlist members of his community garden to attend. “It’s about participation for me — I didn’t want to participate in mainstream politics, but this was a way of saying I have a voice, and why not spend my energy trying something new?”

              Herold, a New York University adjunct professor in drama, said he has a permit from the Port Authority to occupy the streets it owns surrounding the World Trade Center site.

              In keeping with the theme of ringing, organizers will amass attendees around ground zero along Vesey, Liberty, Washington, Albany, Church and West Sts. Members of the cycling advocacy group Times Up!, also plan to participate in the Saturday, Aug. 28 ceremony set to start at 5 p.m. and conclude at 7:45 p.m.

              Even though the RingOut event might not have the same media attraction as the following day’s United for Peace and Justice protest, which is expected to have 250,000 individuals in its march, other participants in the bell ringing believe that the event might lend credence to protesting, an activity which has been recently criticized for eliciting violent behavior and property destruction.

              Jed Ela, a 29-year-old artist living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, decided to participate in the RingOut event because he thought it would be less confrontational than some of the other demonstrations.

              “I don’t feel like protests especially at this kind of event should be dominated by those kinds of people, but I think it’s important for people who are everyday New Yorkers to be out there as everyday New Yorkers,” says Ela, who pinned a miniature bell to his shorts’ pocket. “It does not necessarily have an angry tone, but a commemorative rather than overtly political ring to it and that’s a way to draw people in that wouldn’t normally go to a march.”

              While RingOut is contemplating later bell ringing ceremonies in New York and encouraging a nationwide adaptation of the event, Herold believes the positive feedback and e-mails he has received about participating from across the country indicate that all signs are pointing up for the event.

              “Absolutely,” says Herold. “Because there will be so many people in town who care so passionately about peace, about justice and the election.”

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_68/protestorstoringbells.html
First published as "For whom the bells toll: Anyone but Bush, please!" The Villager.com, August 18 - 24 , 2004

http://www.thevillager.com/villager_68/forwhomthebellstoll.html

Mother Jones

August 27, 2004

Dispatch from New York: Whose Streets?

By Sarah Ferguson

              There’s a popular revolt afoot in New York City. Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s refusal, backed by a state judge to allow protesters to show their strength in numbers in New York’s most hospitable venue—Central Park— the demonstrations confronting George Bush and the Republicans are shaping up to be the biggest manifestation of popular dissent in the history of party conventions. ….

              Indeed, many say Bloomberg’s clampdown on the park has only inspired them to protest more. At least 200,000 people are expected to march through midtown Manhattan this Sunday, and perhaps tens of thousands more will be taking part in protests and events throughout the week.

              “It’s not just a snowball, it’s an avalanche,” says William Etundi, a web technician and rave promoter who helped launch CounterConvention.org to serve as an online portal to the myriad expressions -- from memorials and die-ins, to flash mobs and guerilla theater -- that folks have come up with to register their dissent.

              "We’ve injected ourselves into their sound bite," says Max Uhlenbeck, a recent college grad who helped organize a three-day conference called “Life After Capitalism” in hopes of extending the Bush critique. “The line in the media is not going to be whether Lynn Cheney did a good job introducing her husband. It’s gonna be the RNC and the battle on the streets."

              Just how that battle will come across is a matter of hot debate. Sixties veterans like Todd Gitlin and Norman Mailer, and contemporary liberals like Eric Alterman, warned of a potential reprise of Chicago in 1968, should rowdy demonstrations devolve into violent clashes with police—a scenario that some believe is exactly what Karl Rove and company intended when they chose to New York in the first place.

              More militant activists dismiss this as just more liberal hand wringing from an older generation out of touch with the energy of the streets. “I think it’s really bad analysis to compare ‘68 to what’s happening in 2004,” says Jamie Moran, a 30-year-old anarchist who helped launch RNCNotWelcome.org to provide protesters with tools for direct action. “In Chicago, people were protesting the Democratic Party because LBJ was carpet-bombing Vietnam. This time we’re protesting George Bush and the Republicans who brought us to war, and the crowds are gonna be way more huge and diverse" than the 10,000 or so hippies who marched in 1968.

"What is our alternative," says Moran. "To just sit back and watch this thing happen? As a New Yorker, I find it offensive as hell that they would come here to try and capitalize off 9-11, and there are a lot of other people who feel that way, too.” ….

              On Saturday, thousands are expected to ring Ground Zero with a choreographed dirge of bells in remembrance of the victims of 9-11. “We want to honor those who died and let freedom ring,” says Christian Herold, a 47-year-old adjunct professor who said he came up with the idea as a way to counter Republican efforts to use the 9-11 attacks as a drumbeat for the war on terror. He and his collaborators are also distributing thousands of bells for people to “ring out” the Republicans every night of the convention at 7:30 pm. …..

              All this energy being invested to protest a largely symbolic event begs the question of whether the demonstrations have become an end unto themselves. If people really want to oust Bush, would they not be better served by registering hundreds of thousands to vote against him, and then harnessing that power to force Kerry to acknowledge the progressive, grassroots flank that helped put him into office?

              "I think these protests can go either way," says Stephen Bronner, a political science professor at Rutgers University. "The Republicans will try to play it as disrespect for the president and the troops. But if there’s serious action at this convention, there’s the potential for Bush to be seen as having lost control of the American consensus."

              Whatever the risks, many New Yorkers say they’re too fed up not to vent. "The stakes are so high this time. People are trying to come up with ways to do it so it doesn’t feel like you’re just beating your head against the wall," says Joshua Spauhn. Before Bush, the 50-year-old software developer hadn’t picked up a protest sign since college. Now he’s going to organizing meetings as part of RingOut.org and sporting a black T-shirt that reads “Unauthorized Protester,” with the rejoinder on the back: “Permits, We Don’t Need No Stinking Permits.”

       Spauhn balks when asked what he hopes the masses on the streets could accomplish. "I don’t know what it will achieve; all I know is that this is what I feel called to do. I’m a liberal, not a radical. But there are certain rights that we need to defend. Our Constitution is one of them."

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2004/08/08_535.html

 

Time Out New York / This Week (image)

August 26-September 2, 2004

 

Petra Hansen A/K/A Kiku Kimonlisa, by Valentine Leung

 

Time (image)

August 23, 2004

Bells for Peace

New York Magazine (image)

August 19, 2004

Protest Barometer

Ring Out the Republicans
August 28, 5:30 p.m., World Trade Center site

      With Democrats and Republicans battling for symbolic ownership of Ground Zero, RingOut.org hopes their simple plan to ring as many as 2,500 hand-held bells at the site will resonate with the masses. New-music pioneer Pauline Oliveros will debut an original work for the observance.

Expected Crowd Size: Thousands
Rage: 6
Transcendental-like philosophy radiates hope.
Proximity: 3
Far from the GOP Zone physically if not spiritually.
Outlaw: 6
The setting ought to blunt crowd anger, or will it increase it?
Overall Rating = 5

http://newyorkmetro.com/rnc/protest.htm

 

The Village Voice
August 3rd, 2004
Ring Out the Republicans
Street Scenes by Alexis Soloski

               "We want to pay our respects and make a memorial that shows that the site belongs to all of us, rather than just to the Republicans. For them it's about terror and for us it's about love. The victims on their cell phones, in those last few minutes, they called out for love, not for revenge." ­Christian Herold, Creator
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0431/soloski.php

The New York Times
June 13, 2004

'Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Those Old Protest Tactics Have to Go'

By Randal C. Archibold

    When protesters descend on the Republican convention this summer, Christian Herold will be there with bells on. Then, he will ring them.

     Mr Herold has ordered hundreds of one-inch, gold-plated bells – the kind that could easily adorn a Christmas tree - that he plans to distribute to any takers. He will call participants in his Ring Out project to surround ground zero - as close as they can - and raise a cacophony to "ring out the Republicans" shortly before the convention opens on Aug. 30.

     The bell stands for different emotions - anger, alarm - and it's emblematic of the Liberty Bell," Mr. Herold, 47, said the other night as he and three companions readied dozens of bells to show at a meeting of protest groups....

     In apartments, over the Internet and, in the case of the Ring Out project, the back room of a WestVillage cafe, they are plotting.

     "This brings up memories of the 60's when you saw this kind of thing all the time," said Joshua Spahn, a 49-year-old software programmer who is part of the Ring Out project. "I think it's an exciting new way to energize people. It piques people's curiosity rather than hit them over the head with a political message."...

     Likewise, the organizers of the Ring Out project searched for a unifying symbol with patriotic overtones: the Liberty Bell.

     Mr. Herold, an adjunct drama professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, has bought nearly 800 of the little bells - a packet of three is 99 cents - and is aiming to corral enough supporters to deploy 50,000 bell ringers.

     The bells will be attached to ribbons and pinned to clothing, along with small cards of explanation. For more vigorous protesting, they can easily be taken off and rattled.

     Last week Mr. Herold and Mr. Spahn sat with other supporters, a lawyer and a fund-raiser for nonprofit organizations.

     Amid the jingle of the bells they discussed everything from the history of bells to their future: whether bell ringing would run afoul of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's campaign to reduce annoying noise in the city.

     Mr. Spahn wondered aloud if people would understand the intent of the bells.

     "How do we make the message real clear to people, to innocent bystanders?" he asked.

     Mr. Herold replied that such symbols tend to catch on quickly.

     "Look at the branding of the AIDS ribbons," he said.

When the discussion turned to how far removed protesters would likely be from the convention site, Mr. Spahn sounded optimistic.

     "Nice thing about a bell," he said, "is you have hundreds of people with a bell like that, even a half-mile away they will be heard."  http://www.freewebs.com/ring_out/13convention.html