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MINNEAPOLIS -- Police arrested protesters near the St. Paul convention site this afternoon and blocked off pedestrian and car traffic into the city center for at least an hour.
While the remains of a peaceful protest parade swirled around one closed road after another, growing increasingly frustrated that they weren't able to get back to their houses and cars, one officer told me that "anarchists" a few blocks away had been causing trouble -- throwing bricks and breaking people's property.
Another reporter confirmed there had been a violent demonstration comprised primarily of young, shirtless men with bandanas over their faces. The reporter had observed a neatly stacked pile of bricks and some broken glass.
By the time I was able to show my press badge to get past the line of armed guards, two protesters were face down on the street with their hands tied behind their back, and another two were sitting against a brick wall. About a dozen police officers, some in riot gear, waited with them until an ambulance arrived. Up and down the streets -- virtually deserted except for media -- groups of other uniformed officers, presumably on stand-by, waited to learn what was next.
The arrests and intense police response, reported as including bikes and horses, seemed yet another upset to the Republican convention. In addition to the impending hurricane on the Gulf Coast, the disrupted schedule of speakers, and the potential imbroglio of Palin's pregnant daughter, the trouble downtown does not add any good news for the Republicans. Judging by the muttering of the hundreds of people who were unable to get downtown this afternoon, it doesn't endear them to the locals either.
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And pre-convention, there were raids on houses where no criminal activity was going on, people were accosted just walking quietly; cameras and computers have been seized. They are out to stop anyone from recording the abuses that apparently the police were planning against the protesters themselves. They have trampled on basic civil rights: including evicting peaceful activists camped out in the park and calling them "terrorists" and shutting down the Rage Against the Machine concert, which had a permit, by claiming it would start a riot. (By that logic they should also pre-empt sporting events.)
Police are not wearing their badges. They have been repeatedly violent in arresting non-violent protesters. There are photos online of a 17-year old boy who was beaten up by 5 police officers. They've turned tear gus, rubber pellets, pepper spray, concussion grenades and smoke bombs on crowds.
when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them;
when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist.
Only, instead of demanding that those social customs should be maintained through the authority of a few, it demands it from ceaseless action of all."
PETER KROPOTKIN, "Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal"
Now If some kids want to throw some rocks at the cops after a few beers; great. But they not anarchist. Wearing a t-shirt with inverted pentagram and listening to old Rage Against the Machine mp3s does not make one an anarchist. Maybe someday....
The problem has always been to have enough astuteness to decide which is which and which is when....
On the use of the misplaced and inflammatory description: "anarchists" . . .
When today's "respected journalists" are deemed as "qualified" by repeatedly trying to separate themselves from the other neophytes by hyper-cramming in the most absurd, sensationalistic tripe, in order to even hope to be "noticed" by the decision makers seeking to fill the "24 hour news cycle vacuum" (created by the advent of a glut-ridden cable-news competition (for advertising dollars), simply in the hope of making the leap from also-ran to that of multi-million dollar "celebrity", we, in true corporatist fashion, fall deeper into incredulity, as opposed to truth.
Now If some kids want to throw some rocks at the cops after a few beers; great. But they not anarchist. Wearing a t-shirt with inverted pentagram and listening to old Rage Against the Machine mp3s does not make one an anarchist. Maybe someday....
The only people I saw covered up in the march itself were the group of anarchists, but most of them were elsewhere during the march.
Don't mistake the peaceful people from the radicals.
Tear gas.
I'm not part of them, but was about a block away from one incident, walking back to my DT apartment, and got struck by it downwind. Harsh stuff.
No, the anarchists don't want to be known--Duh, and esp. not in an age or pre-emptive police raids.
NO NIXON, NO BUSH NO MCCAIN!!!
Have A Great Day
Now they get it. Thanks St. Paul.
My experiences in the 70’s are that, when belonging to an Anti-Nuke Group, we PROTESTED at Nuclear "Energy" sites that either were being built or were existing & spewed TOXIC radioactive wastes, radioactive "rods" stored on it’s property and/or were KNOWN for sloppy handling of it’s problems.
We, having the FREEDOM to protest had some hard-core facts available.
We learned, as part of our Protest Training, that we NEEDED to stay within our "Affinity Groups" BECAUSE it was common knowledge that the FBI & Other Homeland Spy Efforts sent THEIR Special Agents or RECRUITED Special Operators - to become involved in our events for the sole purpose of causing VIOLENCE.
We practiced how to conduct ourselves should an UNFAMILIAR person(s) try to become part of our Group. That’s how RESPONSIBLE our Movement was and I’m so glad we were. "VIOLENCE" broke out even w/our very good efforts NOT to let that happen. The violence did NOT come from our Affinity Groups, etc.
In the 1970’s, THAT was a very scary phenomenon. This is the phenomenon of OUR USA Government trying to disrupt our RIGHT to hold PEACEFUL demonstrations and to give our Movement a tarnished name.
That’s approximately 30 years of OUR Government refining their tactics. OUR Government MAY HAVE become even MORE sophisticated in the 3Plus decades since.
We citizens MUST become INVOLVED in OUR issues. Read, research, become ACTIVE in protecting our RIGHTS!