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

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

[Clint Williams]

"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.

sergeantdave is quite correct, for all that he diminishes the issue. "Passively taking beatings?" Passively taking the totalitarian laws being passed all around you is the current appeasement.

Sheeple get what they deserve. They may be the last to be eaten, but eaten they will be -- as dessert.

[The Great RJ]

Obviously these people do not have jobs, so where do they get the money to travel all over the world? Who is paying them?

[Clint Williams]

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

Real cute, but the latter two prevail over and nullify the former two. Sieg heil, tovarisch komrad!

[arasina]

Possible Future Serial Killer

[Clint Williams]

You have to be kidding me. An effective “shank” can be made in ten minutes or less from nothing more than a prison-issue plastic toothbrush, utilizing the concrete you inevitably find in walls, ceilings and floors in prison. (So I am told.)

[kcvl]

David Goodner
Midwest Regional Coordinator
Campus Antiwar Network
david-goodner (at) uiowa.edu
319-335-0151

The bloody and unjust U.S. occupations continue, while the majority opposes them. Veterans speak out against the war and the media is silent. It’s time to get together and organize a strong student antiwar movement!

Hundreds of students from campuses across the Midwest will be convening to share their organizing experiences. Together, through workshops and plenaries, we’ll try to address some of the issues facing the antiwar movement today, educating ourselves, as well as combining efforts to create long and short-term strategies to end the war.

speakers Karen Kubby, Emma Goldman Clinic, and Frank Cordaro, Des Moines Catholic Worker

Vincent Emanuele from Iraq Veterans Against the War
MCs - Alicia Rosignol (DePaul) and Kerry George (UIAC)

Marty Webster - National Coordinator of VVAW

George Martin, lifetime peace activist

******

http://tinyurl.com/6y5pts

Racism Against Arab and Muslims, by Shams Ghoneim
coordinator for the Iowa chapter of Muslim Public Affairs

Shams Ghoneim is a University of Iowa alumnus and a recent retiree.

Shams Ghoneim and Moving Towards a Glorious Islam

http://tinyurl.com/68u33c

[TimberGhost]

not the whole story. vandalism all over the city. the protesting was week. but their are leftist everywhere.

my wife was coming home from work, and she saw the whole thing. the cops were just standing around. they didnt do anything at all to stop it, it was just a week protest and never really got off the ground.

its those anarchist groups that really did anything. mostly the “peacefull protesters” just stood around with thier signs. small groups of anarchist destroyed property(cop cars, smashed a few windows out, tipped over trash cans and dumpsters and vanalised).

i saw one train in particular that had: “no nrc” spray painted on it.

But the cops really didnt do anything about the rioters that did damage, they just sat around even when their own police car was busted up right in front of them. the cops are all liberals in the twin cities and didn’t seem like they were bothered by the protest to much.

had this thing been a bigger protest i think the cops would have just let it go. there wasn’t a whole lot of damage because the protest was weak.

damn liberals are running around like the criminals they are. the city is infested with those rats. thank God i live in the ‘burbs!

[TimberGhost]

the leftist cops in minnesota did nothing! you are correct. my wife saw it first hand on her way home from work this afternoon!

[LimaLimaMikeFoxtrot]

It's true. That assignment was left behind at my mechanic's garage by a student who had been asking for materials she could use. I took it with my mechanic's permission.

That's what is passing for education in sociology classes at Vanderbilt.

Just sayin'.

[ETL]

There is a college major called “human rights”?

Weird, how the commie left goes on and on about such things as "human rights", when there hasn't been a communist regime throughout history that didn't brutally oppress their people.

[oblomov]

I believe that we are quickly coming to the point that this sort of counter-action is our only recourse.

The state is nearly useless in protecting law-abiding people from these criminals. It’s too busy doing things that the state has no business doing.

[wideawake]

Without actual nationwide military conscription, the protest movement was doomed to fail.

Its initial size - which though larger than now, was considerably smaller than in the 1960s and 1970s - was predicated solely on the assumption that a draft was inevitable.

When Michael Moore went on his standing-room only tour of college campuses promoting Fahrenheit 9/11, he emphasized in every speech a claim that if Kerry were not elected, President Bush would move to impose a draft within weeks of his second inauguration.

After seven years of screaming that a draft was just around the corner, the protest movement now has very few casual believers.

[G.Love]

What sort of career does a person with a degree in human rights pursue?

If someone walked into my place of business with a resume highlighting his human rights degree, he would be laughed out of the building.

[whipitgood]

Wideawake, I love the way you think!

[randomhero97]

Yeah, don’t forget all the so called males look like they are a 135lbs soaking wet.

[mojo114]

Protesters who hide their face should be immediately arrested. This was very frightening for CT and AL delegates arriving on a bus to the Convention Hall.
There must be justice regarding these thugs. Authorities must stop this kind of threat on innocent people immediately.
Our Country can stop the violence in Iraq but we stand back controlling the violence here, I think not!

[wideawake]

Thank you.

I was just thinking about this today, and I realized that one of the basic assumptions of the anarchist/Black Bloc movement is an anonymous solidarity.

They assume that they will just show up in a town they may have never been in before, and will hook up with hundreds of people they've never met and that the whole group will magically think as one and act as one without having to do much prep or much vetting.

Now look at our window-smasher. Now that he has wounded himself and requires serious medical attention, the likelihood of him ever taking "direct action" again is small.

Think of it psychologically: he was elated and euphoric about his feelings of power and camaraderie and anonymity one second, and then a few minutes later he was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood and likely fearing for his life.

In his gut, from now on, he will feel deep aversion to repeating his experience.

Now imagine a scenario in which people who feel elated about protesting and are reveling in their anonymity and camaraderie and power - and then one or more people in their little group turn on them.

Push them around, strongarm them for a dubious loan or donation, rip them off, taunt them for lack of sufficient radical commitment, claim to have photographed them breaking the law, ask them what they are willing to do to not get turned in, tell them that a trusted cell leader or organizer said they were an easy mark, etc.

All of a sudden those positive feelings of elation will be gone. They will no longer feel powerful, because people they thought were brothers-in-arms were ready to prey on them. They will no longer feel camaraderie when their comrades are mocking them or intimidating them or shaking them down. They will no longer feel the safety of anonymity because they know now that people in their own group may be watching them.

Their really cool protest trip turned into a major downer, something they don't even want to think about.

If the larger organization realizes they are being disrupted, they have two options - either really vet their operatives minutely and thereby diminish their effective numbers, or reduce the operational preknowledge of their members even more, and thereby dilute the effectiveness of the operations even more.

And it would be fundamentally asymmetrical: conservative protestors do not come to violate the law and do not protest in disguise.

More importantly, conservatives do not draw their sense of self-worth from the act of protest. For conservatives, it is an expression of opinion - not a way of validating otherwise empty lives.

Just some thoughts.

[Figment]

How in the hell are they allowing people into this area with weapons such as hammers? I’d be willing to bet a person legally carrying a gun wouldn’t have a chance of getting close

[Figment]

good idea. too late to implement though, for me at least

[PureSolace]

As if they heard him, the police break into a trot. The protesters start running, too. The mob seems to be growing—now it's a mix of protesters, gawkers, photographers, and reporters. I hear a helicopter overhead. I can't help thinking of Grand Theft Auto IV—when you hear the copter, you know you're doing well.

:)