Two observations about St. Paul during the RNC

[janradder]

Observation #1
It is incredibly eerie to walk through downtown.

With hundreds of cops dressed in full riot gear (armor, helmets, three foot batons and ample numbers of plastic-tie handcuffs), huge welded chain-link fences cordoning off the area around the Xcel Energy Center (complete with checkpoints and armed sentries who allow bus traffic in and out through the enormous gates), and large dump trucks being used to blockade roads and bridges, walking through St. Paul feels a little like being in Escape from New York.  All it really needs is a crazed Donald Pleasence standing atop a barbed wire fence mowing down his former captors with a machine gun while shouting obscenities to complete the scene (that and a cheesy John Carpenter soundtrack).  What was especially unnerving was to see the nervous look on quite a few of the younger cops' faces (the look that, in the words of snurri  said, "Oh my god, I'm gonna die -- I better start beating people.").    It's also rather difficult to navigate the streets as nearly all of them are blocked off and even the ones that aren't will be just moments before or after you've walked through.  I understand that all this is done in the name of keeping everyone safe but I, for one, have a hard time feeling safe surrounded by what looks like either a war zone or a police state or both.



Observation #2
Congratulations, anarchists -- you turned the message behind a peaceful protest into a story about you smashing shit up.  Good job!

A -- An estimated 10,000 people marched peacefully from the state capitol down to the convention and back, protesting the war in Iraq.  B -- 284 "protesters" were arrested for smashing the windows of a store, a bank, and police cars, throwing bricks through bus windows, strewing garbage and debris in the street to blockade traffic and attempting to form human barricades to do the same.  Which story got more press?  If you guessed A, you'd be wrong.

So a small group of idiots managed to make sure that the message of 10,000 played second fiddle to theirs.  Now, if you're going to tell me that's the fault of the media, stop.  You (the anarchists) know just as well as I do that that's what the media does.  Of course people breaking stuff and trying to start a riot is going to get more ink and more air time than people marching peaceably in the streets, holding signs and chanting.  You know that and I know that and to pretend otherwise is just making excuses for yourself.  Sure, it's fun to run wild in the street, but tell me, how is what you did any different from the college kids who riot after their team wins a national title?  Because I really don't see a difference.  You may have a point to all this, but what is it?  And how are your methods getting it across?  How does slamming a dumpster into the side of an occupied squad car show you want the war to end?  How does smashing the windows of a Macy's tell people you want a change in government?  How does assaulting Republican delegates (including an 80 year old man who had to be treated for injuries) help convince people that what the Republicans are doing is wrong?  How does throwing a brick through a bus window and injuring the blue collar driver let people know you care about unions and living wages?  How does throwing bent nails, newspaper kiosks and garbage cans in the street show that you care about the environment?  Because to me, your actions make you no better than the people you're "protesting" against.  As many have said,  the ends don't justify the means, but what exactly are your ends?  To prevent the Republican delegates from attending their convention and thus suppressing their right to free speech because your rights are more important or valid than theirs?  Maybe you do have a valid point to all this but I certainly don't see it.  All I see is a bunch of self-righteous thugs using political action as an excuse to break the law.

Bonus Observation
Because I was in St. Paul to see the concert put on by SEIU

Tom Morello, the self-described "Night Watchman" and "On-Man Revolution," though he can play a serviceable guitar, can't play the harmonica, can't sing, and writes lyrics that a ninth grader ranting in his basement and using newspaper headlines as his inspiration would be embarrassed by.  Note to the Night Watchman:  name-checking a lot of political buzzwords and third world countries and then throwing in some badly pronounced Spanish does not equal good songwriting.

Comments

[vee-ecks.livejournal.com]

I hate Rage Against the Machine, generally. They all seem like the kind of poli-sci-major lefty dickhead guys I'm well familiar with from growing up in the PNW, and they sound just like a zillion other angry white boy bands from the mid-nineties I can't stand, either.

If I were a big marcher, and organizer of marches, personally, I'd make it as clear as possible to the world that I and my associates and our works had nothing to do with kerchiefed harassers utterly, all year 'round.

I wouldn't break bread with them, I wouldn't let them come to planning meetings, I absolutely would not sign anything with them or appear in a promo video with them or anything like it. Anybody who expressed sympathy with them couldn''t have any kind of public or planning role. When the cops showed up at their houses prior to the march because they promised to shut the whole city down, I wouldn't take their side. Let them swim in the cesspool they've created, all by themselves.

I'd try to make a practice during marches of not letting people in masks blend into crowds after taunting or attacking the police, so the pepper spray or rubber bullets hit you and maybe makes you want to throw shit, too. I'd actually train people to resist kids in black hoods and handkerchiefs and throw them back out into the path of the cops they just provoked, so they aren't dragging peaceful folks into the fray, which is exactly what they want.

I dunno. Some of that. All of that. All I know is what it looks like to everybody else is that the marchers are explicitly and otherwise sympathetic with the window-breakers, and help them out every time they get in trouble for their bullshit. To some extent, in my experience, this is actually true. In the larger sense, it isn't: most of the thousands of people who show up for protest rallies like this don't know they're going to be sharing the streets with assholes trying to get them killed so it'll show up on TV and everybody can see how fascist the US is, for realz.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I just don't know how possible that is for such a large march. Part of the point is to pull people in who haven't been a part of the planning. In this case, a large number of the marchers were families, kids, older former hippies, etc. In most instances, the anarchists weren't even marching with the group but were, instead, off on their own, quite a distance from the others. In at least one instance, two or three black garbed individuals ran from a police altercation, stripped their outer clothes off, and then joined in with the other demonstration. Also , most of the people arrested were arrested after the march was over. They just happened to be sharing the same day with the larger protest and stole the press. Like I said before, the press around here has said that the marchers and the anarchists were two distinct groups.

[vee-ecks.livejournal.com]

I don't know how possible it is, either, especially the resistance-on-the-ground bits. The year-round stuff, though? I'm not talking about any of this from no experience, BTW - I used to be a little anarchist kid who did shit like gluing locks on businesses in advance of protests and whatnot, like twenty years ago.

The people who take the lead planning and public face roles in these kinds of marches tend to be a lot more sympathetic toward the "direct action" people than most of those they've got marching. This happens. It shouldn't. This bullshit myth about the sixties and how Yippies ran out and levitated the Pentagon and blew shit up in Chicago and whatnot, and then the Vietnam war ended because of that, that needs to fucking go away. None of that ever did anything beyond getting Nixon elected, maybe.

Nobody should feel guilty or bad because they're "just protesting" and somebody else is taking "radical action." Really? *That's* revolutionary action? Jesus, maybe these idiots should take their cues from some leftists who had a *real* revolutionary sixties - hell, even the French did more, on that count, never mind the Vietnamese. Channeling Abbie Hoffman is like following the philosophy of Mickey Mouse or something.

However it works, the dipshits who like to break Starbucks windows should not be tolerated by legitimate protesters, and this intolerance should be very public. Otherwise, again, it just keeps looking like the protesters think the window-smashers are kewl.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with your points on the myth of the sixties generation (and though I was never one, I did have friends who were NYC anarchists when I was in college). You're right about the leaders of protests distancing themselves -- it would be nice to hear them speaking out about it but probably don't because, as you surmise, they, at least in part, support it.

[vee-ecks.livejournal.com]

Some people support it, some people feel conflicted and like they're "not doing enough" and so don't speak up against it, and the entire topic is mostly just avoided.

We had a Very American Sixties.