Its Protest Season Again!

The Democratic National Convention is going on, and that means the kickoff of protest season. It starts off with a relatively tame rally at Denver for the DNC, and since most people are protesting the state of affairs of the United States today, many of those who attend are actually liberals and Democrats who are there to be heard, not to protest against those inside the convention hall.

Then undoubtedly, there are to be some libertarian supporters, and supporters of former libertarian and internet Republican superstar candidate Ron Paul in attendance at the DNC protest as well. These militant supporters see the Democrats as evil socialists, communists, Marxists, and enemies of personal liberties and freedom. Ron Paulites, as I call them, actually threw a surprise preseason protest march bash over a month ago which drew many thousands of the candidate's supporters. Paul has suspended his campaign and is putting the millions of dollars raked in from the internet to work in a longer stretched out effort, called the Campaign For Liberty, and many citizens see this effort as a way to adjust the values of what is these days called conservative, but what they call neo-conservative. Critics see Ron Paul as a libertarian masquerading as a Republican, convinced that a 3rd party has no chance of winning, and trying to invade the GOP and claim their platform for the libertarians. Regardless of who is right, he has shown the propensity to raise money on par with top-tier candidates, and to draw marchers to protest on a level with the major conventions.

And then, there are always the anarchists, the fun loving rough bunch who make things interesting by doing their best to look a bit scary, and then provoking the ridiculous riot police who stop them from going into an area not designated as a "free speech zone." Some protesters detest the anarchists, and feel that they sully the peaceful nature of the protest, putting a bad face on the movement. However, the anarchists and other more extreme protesters have been known to make some ballsy moves that have distracted the police long enough so that other protesters are free to make their way towards more visible destinations which the police would have stopped them from going.

During this DNC, there has been an incident where the police blocked a crowd of people from both sides, trapping them in a small stretch of road for hours, and using a bit of excessive force on those who resisted this entrapment. Apparently, they were trying to make their way towards the convention hall, and the police saw this as a threat for some reason. Perhaps, they have heeded several threats against Obama's life by white supremacist groups, and feared that the group would force their way into the convention hall, pandemonium would ensue, and someone could get a headshot on Obama... but wait, he wasn't there at the time, he doesn't arrive to speak until days later. More likely excuse: the police have big batons and canisters of pepper spray, and are itching for a chance to use them.

Next protest scheduled will be at the Republican National Convention. This one got really ugly in 2004, as here is a protest where practically everyone is irate with those inside the convention hall. They met in Central Park, tens and tens of thousands of people, but the gathering was broken up by police. Not a good idea, it turns out, because what resulted is all those thousands of people were now to scatter all around the city in smaller groups, completely befuddling the police as to how to keep track of what was going on. Perhaps the most shocking police footage from this affair was when the police, confused and desperate, simply started to unroll plastic fencing around huge crowds in the streets and detaining them within, aka mass arrests. These people were taken to warehouses which could be referred to as concentration camps (not Hitler gas chamber style, of course), and held without being charged or being allowed phone calls. Many of these people just happened to be walking down the street going about their routine, and were arrested simply because they were there.

An hour and a half of documentary footage of this atrocity is available at http://www.fluxrostrum.com - here is some highlight footage which gives somewhat of an idea of what all footage exists without having to sit through the whole documentary, but I do recommend seeing the whole thing, and realizing just how powerless we can be against paranoid riot police.



Equally as disturbing, however was footage of police bullying a different crowd of demonstrators participating in an event separate from the planned protest march, but occurring during the same RNC. This event was called "Critical Mass," and it was a parade of bicyclers thousands strong, similar to those common in Europe and Asia. These thousands of bicyclers were taking to the streets, claiming the space on the road as their own, and hindering traffic at each intersection they passed for the mere few minutes it took them all to go by. The point? Their chosen mode of transportation uses no gas, requires no oil from enemy foreign countries, promotes good health, never pollutes the air, and almost never causes fatal accidents, however there is no infrastructure of bicycle paths with which they can utilize this harmless mode of transportation.

This concept was lost on the police, who were more concerned with the minor automobile traffic inconvenience and began arresting them. People began to jeer at the police and question them as to why they would arrest these bikers, when there's thousand of them out there, and they weren't hurting anyone. Police got frustrated, police got violent, innocent people got brutally arrested, tased, and so on.

Here is some video of some of these goings on.



This one is from a news broadcast, and this cop blatantly picks a random biker and pushes him, causing him to wreck badly as he wheels by.



Now, if the election turns out favorably for those who protest for peace and liberty, that may be the end of the protest season. However, the last time in 2004, and incidentally in 2000 in which the protests were more of a statement of disapproval with how the election was decided by the Supreme Court, there was a post Election Day gathering for the airing of grievances, and ensuring that Bush's inauguration parade consisted of more than just his adoring fans. The one in 2000 was unknown to most in the nation, but made notable in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" in which millions of Americans realized with joy that Bush's limo had been egged on the way to the White House.

In 2004, proper measures were taken by the Bush administration to make sure there were no eggs this time. But was that what he was really afraid of? This is one protest which I attended, and I can tell you that Bush was afraid of more than just eggs. Police came from all over the nation, and they were everywhere. They stood atop buildings with rifles, helicopters circled above constantly, barricades were everywhere, and as protesters made their way to the parade route to turn their backs to Bush as his limo went by, which was the plan, they met a checkpoint manned by the military where they were searched one at a time before being allowed to proceed.

I was lucky, and was one of the first people to the checkpoint, so I got in and promptly began holding up my angry antiBush signs and walking down the sidewalk to make my presence known to the line of supporters awaiting the parade. There was a human wall of policemen between the sidewalk and the road, and a metal barrier, because I suppose they were afraid that someone would try to kill Bush through his armored limo as it rolled by, or perhaps just block the road.

Suddenly, I noticed a big increase in the number of fellow protesters, and found out that the good ol anarchists had decided that the search gates were unlawful and serving only to slow down dissenters from entering the parade route, so they did the logical thing, and all at once rushed the checkpoint barrier and broke it down, most likely getting arrested, yet making space for the rest of the protesters to flood the parade route. Thanks guys!

So at last the Bush limo came by the area I was standing near, and everyone did the peaceful stunt planned and turned their backs to the president as he drove by. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed the presidential limo, which cruised by slowly for the areas of the parade rich with Bush supporters cheering, but when the thundering boos started from a distance up the road, which was our sign that he was coming, the cowardly loser had his limo driver speed up to what seemed like about 20 miles an hour, zipping by us to avoid his own shame, or out of fear of his own people perhaps. It was rich to watch the Secret Service men that normally walk beside his limo running at full speed struggling to try to keep up.

On the way back out, the police searched people once again, and the crowd of people coming from the parade began to loiter in the area outside the checkpoint gate, and the police once again felt it necessary to tell everyone to leave the area. As they were unable to give us a reason, and were generally being jerks about it, we all just decided to sit down in the middle of the road. This was really fun, but it got intense when about forty police lined up in a formation in front of the sitting crowd to intimidate us to move. They put down their protective plastic face covers, pulled out pepper spray cannons and huge telescopic batons, an action to which the crowd responded by chanting "Take off that stupid gear, There ain't no riot here!" for about 2 minutes.

They gave us a final warning, the forty or so of them threatening about 500 people sitting in the middle of the street. So we got up, but not to leave. Everyone in the crowd began to lock elbows with the one beside them, whether or not they knew them. I was about 5 rows back, and pretty frightened about what was about to happen. This 20 row mass of elbowlocked humans stood there facing the police for a minute or so, when someone near the middle of the pack started counting down from 20. At that moment I felt the fear of everyone in the crowd, but noone waivered, and more and more people joined in the countdown.

There I stood, elbowlocked in unity between two people I didn't know, counting down and bracing myself for the pain and following incarceration. I knew we were all supposed to rush these cops and perhaps take it all the way to the checkpoint gate for renegade gate smash #2 of the day, and there was no turning back now. The countdown got down to 10, and much to our amazement and surprise, the police fell out of formation and got the heck out of there, in a single file quickly jogging.

Some of us collapsed, some jumped for joy and cheered, some cried. I along with several others was part of one of the small clusters of people who stood there frozen, remaining elbowlocked tightly with those around us and letting the moment of unity, courage, fear, excitement, and utter insanity hang there for a while.

People slowly snapped out of it, and broke off from their clusters. The person on my left released my elbow, and I glanced to my right to see a female stranger standing there also having lost her other elbowmate, but still clinching hard to my arm and staring blankly forward. I thought to myself, "If we were old style hippies, we'd sooo be about to hook up," but no. I needed to find my friend I had left behind to rush off to the parade route, and so I simply looked over towards her and said, "Wow, that was fucking crazy." She agreed, and finally released my arm, and disappeared into the crowd.

I shall never meet the people I stood with in unity that day again, or at least would never recognize them. But an experience like that just lets you know how passionate people are about freedom, peace, and justice.

Some people at this protest weren't as lucky with avoiding police brutality though. The video below is from this same protest, and when I saw it, I realized that had there been more police there to resist our little "charge" mission, we would have truly gotten messed up, because they were not messing around that day.


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