The Peace-Loving, Road-Blocking, Window-Smashing Protesters at the RNC

Slate ^ | Monday, September 1, 2008 | Christopher Beam

[kristinn]

It's around noon and I'm driving to the Xcel Center in St. Paul when a group of kids pulls police tape across the intersection of 10th Street and Jackson. I ask a nearby girl to let me through. I'm not a cop, I say, and I'm not a delegate. I just want to find the parking lot. She smiles, flashes a peace sign, and turns away. Apparently people looking for parking are not the enemy.

SNIP

Now everyone's running up Sixth, away from the shrieking sirens. I hear a crash. I look to my right and see a ground-level window in Macy's shattering. Bits of glass scatter across the sidewalk. A kid wearing a black bandana across his face is walking away. He's holding a hammer. He walks up to an empty cop car and sends the hammer through the driver's window. Another guy is yanking off the license plate. Further up the street, I see someone slashing the tires of a parked Ford sedan. A giant TV camera is filming him as he does it.

Everyone starts to panic a little. "We're gonna get ****** up, man," says one guy. They all swarm into a nearby parking lot. It's full of cars, which I guess gives them cover. At the back of the lot, I see the "medics" huddling around the guy who was carrying the hammer a moment ago. His scarf is gone. Blood is streaming down his wrist and pooling on the pavement. I ask how it happened. "I'm asking you to please leave," one of them says. "Did he smash a window?" I ask. "We don't want media here," she says. "You wanted media five minutes ago," I say. "We don't want it now," she says.

[knarf]

I didn't read the article Kris, but I did watch about 1/2 hr. of the 'speeches' on TV.

Never have I listened to the English language strung together in such a non-sensical manner.

Words of oppresion and we are right and the RNC will pay and Bush and Iraq, and Iran, and Afghanistan and money for the poor and welfare and me and you and ...

My head spun.

Un-freakin' believable.

[Titan Magroyne]

Yeah...

“That looks like a d**k, only smaller.”

[Tainan]

When Retards revolt....

[kcvl]

“My name is David Goodner, and I am a 26-year-old senior at the University of Iowa majoring in international studies and human rights. My biggest influence is Amy Goodman, a nationally syndicated columnist and host of the progressive radio show Democracy Now!”

[kcvl]

David Goodner

[kittymyrib]

Joe Johns, CNN reporter, poo-pooed this as a “very small number of college kids” who “broke a few windows.” I’m sure that he would have thought it much more serious had they done anything like this in Denver.

[G.Love]

There is a college major called “human rights”?

[kcvl]

David Goodner— Cut the Military budget and reinvest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVe-u3BR3EY

[sergeantdave]

All you law ‘n order conservatives waiting for leftist cops in liberal cities to arrest their brother scum are delusional. Won’t happen. There is no law in liberal cities, only Marxism and its goals.

We’re at war. Realize it. Quit the crap of passively taking beatings. No one, law enforcement, democrats, republicans, the chief of police or the prosecuting attorney, will rescue you.

[Tzimisce]

I love it when peace activists turn violent...

[ETL]

Who We Are/Points of Unity

The RNC Welcoming Committee is an anarchist/anti-authoritarian organizing body formed to prepare for the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. The RNC-WC, composed primarily of Twin Cities-based anarchists and anti-authoritarians, will function as an informational clearinghouse and organize a spokescouncil for RNC resistance. We will coordinate logistics (food, housing, transportation), and engage in education and outreach.

Without falling prey to the centralized, hierarchical tendencies that have dominated such convergences in the past, we hope that the RNC-WC will maintain a unified, anti-authoritarian presence at the 2008 RNC. Our numbers are huge, and it’s time that our actions reflected that.

Following are our points of unity. We invite all individuals and groups committed to these ideas to participate in the Welcoming Committee.

Those who work with the RNC Welcoming Committee must agree to:

1. A rejection of Capitalism, Imperialism, and the State;

2. Resist the commodification of our shared and living Earth;

3. Organize on the principles of decentralization, autonomy, sustainability, and mutual aid;

4. Work to end all relationships of domination and subjugation, including but not limited to those rooted in patriarchy, race, class, and homophobia;

5. Oppose the police and prison-industrial complex, and maintain solidarity with all targets of state repression;

6. Directly confront systems of oppression, and respect the need for a diversity of tactics.

http://www.nornc.org/who-we-arepoints-of-unity/

[SaxxonWoods]

“This is a good write up of the protests.”

Yes, and more. It’s a great after-action report, and it exposes the foolishness of the protestors simply by detailing their words and futile actions.

[ETL]

DECLARE IT NOW! WEAR ORANGE!

The World Can’t Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime

Go online to worldcantwait.org for breaking news and info on protests in Denver during the Democratic National Convention.
(rwor.org is the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party)
http://rwor.org/

_______________________________________________

FYI: World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime is a Maoist-revolutionary movement organized by the Revolutionary Communist Party. (scroll down the list that appears (after clicking link) to find the World Can't Wait organization --rwor.org is the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party):
http://rwor.org/a/rwlink/links.htm

From David Horowitz's FrontpageMag.com /DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: World Can't Wait (WCW)

*Revolutionary communist movement that stages protests against the Bush administration

*Organizes college and high-school students

*Founded in June 2005 by Charles Clark Kissinger, a longtime leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7213

Coincidence??... Perhaps.

[kcvl]

Seasons of Discontent: A Presidential Occupation Project

Nick Kinkel, 19, Des Moines, Iowa

Mickey Davis, 16, Waukee, Iowa

Joy First, 53, Madison, Wisconsin

Jeff Leys, 43, Chicago, Illinois

Dan Pearson, 26, Chicago, Illinois

Suzanne Sheridan, 31, Chicago, Illinois

Ed Bloomer, 60, Des Moines, Iowa

Ron Durham, 26, Chicago, Illinois

Kathy Kelly, 54, Chicago, Illinois

Elton Davis, 45, Des Moines, Iowa

Renee Espeland, 46, Des Moines, Iowa

Robert Braam, 51, Manhaton, Illinois

Chrissy Kirchoefer, 30, Marseilles, Illinois

David Goodner, 26, Iowa City, Iowa

Mona Shaw, 56, Des Moines, Iowa

Chris Guant, 51, Grinnell, Iowa

Brian Terrell, 51, Maloy, Iowa

Farah Mokhtareizadeh, 24, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

[wideawake]

What would stop an anti-anarchist from dressing up all in black and wearing a black bandanna over his face and then attacking the anarchists with a baseball bat? After all, anonymity works both ways.

Given the discipline of the anarchist groups described here and the tactical skills they demonstrate, a squad of 8-12 disguised counterprotesters with a basic plan, push-to-talk phones and a rudimentary spoken code (and with a regard for the civil rights of the anarchists that equals the anarchists' regard for the the law) could inflict enough physical damage and spread enough internal panic to neutralize a group of 200 or more anarchists in about 15 minutes.

The entire strategy of these groups is to confront the police just enough to get good video on the news shows - which is simple enough.

Other than that, they do zero ground reconnaissance, they slavishly follow the lead of anyone with red tape on his back, and they are dumb enough to smash a pane of display window glass with a hand-held hammer.

Anyone who familiarizes themselves with the ground, carries a reversible jacket with red tape on one side and has a black bandanna in his pocket could have endless fun with these sheep. None of them know how to fight, few are in good enough shape to outrun a normally fit person and few of them can think their way out of a wet paper bag if they are excited or confused.

[TNCMAXQ]

GOP should play this up. I would like to hear McCain and Palin both talk about hatred and violence from the left in their speeches, but I suspect that like GWB, they will let it go. I wouldn’t if I were on that platform.

Anyway what can Gov Pawlenty do here? At least a Republican is in the governor’s office there. Sounds like they need the national guard to quell these animals from their savagery.

[sport]

Protests hell it ia anarchy. The sobs should be shot on sight.

One does not destroy personal private property as a “protest”.

[LimaLimaMikeFoxtrot]

In a sociology class at Vanderbilt, students were taught to "think like a prisoner" and were told to make a shank! Here's the assignment:

[SaxxonWoods]

“Directly confront systems of oppression, and respect the need for a diversity of tactics.”

‘However, since confrontation might mean we get our a$$es kicked, break car windows, slash some tires and run like hell.’