Journal perfessor multigeek's Journal: Feb 15 Followup comments 17
Just a few notes on the protests.
First, re the folks coming up from Union Square, some of them never even intended to stay with the protest, let alone march. You see, being foreign nationals they are now subject to deportation or worse if they piss off our oh-so-reasonable government. So one cluster of the Union Square folks was people on visas who came to offer support, get together, then take the subway to 53rd and walk straight to the police-designated area. Nobody I spoke to saw them again, which is not surprising since the city had shut down the subway stations near the protests.
Wich is an interesting point. New York policy is that NO MATTER WHAT subway stations are *always* kept open. Individual entrances are opened and closed all the time but this is New York fuckin' City and we run our subways twenty-four hours, seven days, every day of the year. I've stood in subway stations while billows of smoke from fires on the track filled the station so densely that you couldn't see some of the lights. I've taken trains from elevated platforms in the middle of blizzards. I took the subway twice on September 11th!
So, bottom line, here. The powers that be were twisting *way* out of normal accepted policy that day. This was a vast, planned, and comprehensive suppression of free speech at a key time in our country's history. Nothing less.
Okay, moving right along, as for what happened to other groups trying to get to the main demo I have since found out that the police blocked off a section of 23rd street (a major cross street) and maneuvered a large column of marchers from Union Square there. They then just blocked them in on both sides and left them standing there in twenty-five degree windy weather. No announcements, no way out. After about half an hour (I've heard estimates of over an hour but nobody seems to have timed it) they finally announced that anybody off the sidewalk would be arrested (having, btw, boxed the protesters in on the streets) and then let the protestors out onto a narrow strip of sidewalk, from which they were allowed to continue marching north.
One person evidently successfully "linebackered" his way through the line of cops at the beginning of the rerouting on 23rd, thereby *accellerating* the shift of the protestors into the corral. Oops. Interestingly he was not only not arrested (being, in fact, genuinely guilty of multiple counts of assaulting an officer) but was left entirely alone. To me this further reenforces that the cops were not panicked. Instead they conciously decided to be abusive when that time came.
I know of at least two groups (other then the foreign nationals) who came into the city, tried to get to the march by subway, and when the trains just passed on through, misunderstood the announcements to mean that the area was sealed off entirely. I know of at least one case where would-be protestors took then the train to where they could change to another line, went back to another station, and only when that other station on a different line proved to be shut down as well, gave up and went home. Yet more evidence that the numbers claimed are artificially small. We'll never know how many people simply never got there or were turned back.
I am now hearing of a an expected emphasis in the future on quick, small protests in many places. People in the anti-war movement now expect to have to treat the courts, the police, and the local government as enemies to be misled, outwitted, and evaded. This is entirely the fault of the municipal and national governments. It is also very bad news for all citizens. Nobody gains when protestors start to think of the infrastructure as their enemy. I'll get back to this later on.
No, I never got my posts back. The Guild evidently decided that "with over three hundred arrests to handle they couldn't spend time getting your stuff back". So be it. I consider this, if true, offensive since this is certainly not about "getting my stuff back", it's about police suppression of free speech, a subject that re Feb 15 and anti-Shrub's war protests in general, needs all the court documentation we can get.
To me this is yet more evidence that the established players of the Left are handling all of this in a pretty third-rate fashion. Mario Savio they ain't.
On a related "front" I've been getting regular administrative mailings from Not In Our Name (I was briefly talking with them about helping them out so they put me on the "internal use" listserve). I'm also getting mailings from related groups. So, from that perspective, if they are not, in fact, communist fronts, they are certainly doing a fine ol' imitation of them. When Fox proclaimed them a communist front I was sent the talking points to use to combat this and they looked awfully sophistical to me. So NION is failing my "walk like a duck" test. They act, look, and sound like a front (if I remember correctly, their parent org is the Revolutionary Communist Party). Until given real evidence otherwise, I will assume that they are one.
Of course, by now the police, mayor's office, and so on are on the record having said just what I said they would say. There was no planned police aggression, merely protestor-incited "mishaps". Sure. Evidence says otherwise.
Back to the point of government relations re protest, today is planned as a "no business as usual" protest, with people to walk out of their jobs and perhaps march. According to the radio this morning, the local schools have been told to actively oppose this. This, added to the stuff above, is deeply and dangerously unhealthy.
I remember the days when you had to assume that the cops were the enemy, that meetings were infiltrated, and in a hundred ways that law enforcement truly was out to get you. And a key part of why the sixties and seventies anti-establishment movement didn't generally get violent here or ramp up to actual warfare is that while you had to walk down the streets assuming that "the fuzz" were out to hurt you, they were the minority of contact people had with government.
Using the library or going to the welfare office was the subject of Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics and Richard Prior movies. Subways and busses were "tools of liberation" freeing people from the Demon Automobile and Big Oil. Bus stations were hangouts. And all of this added up to a mental image of the average government employee as, at worst, officious and annoying. But deep down, they were still trying to help.
When the subway system is used to suppress dissent, when the schools actively do the same, when welfare offices and libraries and post offfices and emergency rooms are perverted to act as arms of government surveillance, this has horrible and dangerous consequences.
Because if somebody truly can be expected to be opposing you, then you are a lot more likely to feel justified opposing them. This is what breeds terrorism. This is what creates true enemies of civil society. If every time you see a uniform you are reasonable to assume that that person will oppose or even attack you, that they will report you to the police if you turn to them for help and will stand in your way if the opportunity comes up then all government is the enemy.
Legitimately. In self-defense.
We are living in very dangerous times. And the biggest threat to the world is not in Iraq or North Korea. It is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Only when they are are out of office and we have purged their deeply undermining effects from the body politic will this be over.
Rustin
First, re the folks coming up from Union Square, some of them never even intended to stay with the protest, let alone march. You see, being foreign nationals they are now subject to deportation or worse if they piss off our oh-so-reasonable government. So one cluster of the Union Square folks was people on visas who came to offer support, get together, then take the subway to 53rd and walk straight to the police-designated area. Nobody I spoke to saw them again, which is not surprising since the city had shut down the subway stations near the protests.
Wich is an interesting point. New York policy is that NO MATTER WHAT subway stations are *always* kept open. Individual entrances are opened and closed all the time but this is New York fuckin' City and we run our subways twenty-four hours, seven days, every day of the year. I've stood in subway stations while billows of smoke from fires on the track filled the station so densely that you couldn't see some of the lights. I've taken trains from elevated platforms in the middle of blizzards. I took the subway twice on September 11th!
So, bottom line, here. The powers that be were twisting *way* out of normal accepted policy that day. This was a vast, planned, and comprehensive suppression of free speech at a key time in our country's history. Nothing less.
Okay, moving right along, as for what happened to other groups trying to get to the main demo I have since found out that the police blocked off a section of 23rd street (a major cross street) and maneuvered a large column of marchers from Union Square there. They then just blocked them in on both sides and left them standing there in twenty-five degree windy weather. No announcements, no way out. After about half an hour (I've heard estimates of over an hour but nobody seems to have timed it) they finally announced that anybody off the sidewalk would be arrested (having, btw, boxed the protesters in on the streets) and then let the protestors out onto a narrow strip of sidewalk, from which they were allowed to continue marching north.
One person evidently successfully "linebackered" his way through the line of cops at the beginning of the rerouting on 23rd, thereby *accellerating* the shift of the protestors into the corral. Oops. Interestingly he was not only not arrested (being, in fact, genuinely guilty of multiple counts of assaulting an officer) but was left entirely alone. To me this further reenforces that the cops were not panicked. Instead they conciously decided to be abusive when that time came.
I know of at least two groups (other then the foreign nationals) who came into the city, tried to get to the march by subway, and when the trains just passed on through, misunderstood the announcements to mean that the area was sealed off entirely. I know of at least one case where would-be protestors took then the train to where they could change to another line, went back to another station, and only when that other station on a different line proved to be shut down as well, gave up and went home. Yet more evidence that the numbers claimed are artificially small. We'll never know how many people simply never got there or were turned back.
I am now hearing of a an expected emphasis in the future on quick, small protests in many places. People in the anti-war movement now expect to have to treat the courts, the police, and the local government as enemies to be misled, outwitted, and evaded. This is entirely the fault of the municipal and national governments. It is also very bad news for all citizens. Nobody gains when protestors start to think of the infrastructure as their enemy. I'll get back to this later on.
No, I never got my posts back. The Guild evidently decided that "with over three hundred arrests to handle they couldn't spend time getting your stuff back". So be it. I consider this, if true, offensive since this is certainly not about "getting my stuff back", it's about police suppression of free speech, a subject that re Feb 15 and anti-Shrub's war protests in general, needs all the court documentation we can get.
To me this is yet more evidence that the established players of the Left are handling all of this in a pretty third-rate fashion. Mario Savio they ain't.
On a related "front" I've been getting regular administrative mailings from Not In Our Name (I was briefly talking with them about helping them out so they put me on the "internal use" listserve). I'm also getting mailings from related groups. So, from that perspective, if they are not, in fact, communist fronts, they are certainly doing a fine ol' imitation of them. When Fox proclaimed them a communist front I was sent the talking points to use to combat this and they looked awfully sophistical to me. So NION is failing my "walk like a duck" test. They act, look, and sound like a front (if I remember correctly, their parent org is the Revolutionary Communist Party). Until given real evidence otherwise, I will assume that they are one.
Of course, by now the police, mayor's office, and so on are on the record having said just what I said they would say. There was no planned police aggression, merely protestor-incited "mishaps". Sure. Evidence says otherwise.
Back to the point of government relations re protest, today is planned as a "no business as usual" protest, with people to walk out of their jobs and perhaps march. According to the radio this morning, the local schools have been told to actively oppose this. This, added to the stuff above, is deeply and dangerously unhealthy.
I remember the days when you had to assume that the cops were the enemy, that meetings were infiltrated, and in a hundred ways that law enforcement truly was out to get you. And a key part of why the sixties and seventies anti-establishment movement didn't generally get violent here or ramp up to actual warfare is that while you had to walk down the streets assuming that "the fuzz" were out to hurt you, they were the minority of contact people had with government.
Using the library or going to the welfare office was the subject of Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics and Richard Prior movies. Subways and busses were "tools of liberation" freeing people from the Demon Automobile and Big Oil. Bus stations were hangouts. And all of this added up to a mental image of the average government employee as, at worst, officious and annoying. But deep down, they were still trying to help.
When the subway system is used to suppress dissent, when the schools actively do the same, when welfare offices and libraries and post offfices and emergency rooms are perverted to act as arms of government surveillance, this has horrible and dangerous consequences.
Because if somebody truly can be expected to be opposing you, then you are a lot more likely to feel justified opposing them. This is what breeds terrorism. This is what creates true enemies of civil society. If every time you see a uniform you are reasonable to assume that that person will oppose or even attack you, that they will report you to the police if you turn to them for help and will stand in your way if the opportunity comes up then all government is the enemy.
Legitimately. In self-defense.
We are living in very dangerous times. And the biggest threat to the world is not in Iraq or North Korea. It is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Only when they are are out of office and we have purged their deeply undermining effects from the body politic will this be over.
Rustin
You say that like it's a bad thing. (Score:2)
Nevertheless, an interesting report. Keep up the good work!
Re:You say that like it's a bad thing. (Score:1)
Because "communism"'s stated goal was the violent overthrow of the entire rest of the world. It was a revolution that didn't want to make something, it just wanted to tear down. Communism started at the top, and then turned on the peasants, the nation's art, the nation's culture, and everything that made any nation that supported it worth living in and utterly destroyed it all.
Any political body that wants to support the ideals that spawned Communism has to take care of one very important step first, and that is to distance itself from the Communists who all but declared war on the US, on religion, and the entire world.
And, really, calling yourself "communist" instead of "socialist" or somesuch is aggrivating. Might as well call yourself "Nazi" for all harm the name "Communism" brings with it.
Re:You say that like it's a bad thing. (Score:2)
First of all, I'm offended at and untrusting of any group that tries to conceal their origins. Secondly, I consider communists (or, specifically, Marxists) unique in the implications of their particular ideology. Marxism is fundamentally based on the assumption that wealth is a zero sum game. That, at its core, all things of value are pre-existing products of Big Daddy (and Mommy) universe. This then justifies the belief that "ownership is theft" as well as pissing on the idea of legitimate creativity. We are just interchangable assembly line workers doing interchangable activities. Every activity is equally as valuable as every other one. Take this to its logical conclusion and the person who sits around all day is exactly as valuable and worthy of respect, emulation, and power as the person who gets up at six, works all day, and optimizes that work.
To me, this is blasphemy.To a society, it is suicide.
Sunkist Oranges, Ocean Spray, and, in fact the original routing schemes of the internet are all, technically speaking, "communist". All are admirable, each works very well. But Marxists, which, more accurately is what the RCP are, are a danger to anybody who wants a world of honest, sane people living in a rationally run (comparatively) world.
On a less theoretical level, as my grandfather used to say, to a marxist, "what's yours is mine; what's mine is mine." In other words, marxists have a reliable tendency to break the world down into "Children" (i.e. us and people we personally know) and "Adults" who are distant figures fundamentally unlike us who are only reached by tantrums and screaming. This model consistently end up including the young child's assumption that they have a "right" to anything they want badly enough and that those things just magically are made by mysterious and irrelevant processes far away. In other words, they do not consider there to be any correlation between actions and rewards. Goods are gotten by complaining. Thereby complaining (and perhaps even sabotage) are the most legitimate ways to reach a goal. Actually sitting down and fixing the problem themselves ias never even considered.
Funny how the marxist world is full of people complaining about the lack of public space, but it's the non-marxists who reclaim vacant lots and actually build the community gardens that do something about it.
I have dealt with anarchists, libertarians, union-types, TAZ-activitists, and a dozen other "alternative" ideologies and only two have my fundamental condemnation. Marxism and fascism. Any one else I can work with, those two are just wrong, all the way down.
Radicalism, almost by definition, is required for any successful movement. But people who lie about their motives and structures go in the same camp as LaRouche and Operation Rescue. If you've gotta lie to get me to work with you, then something's not right. We have too many options to need to leave game-players like that in key roles.
As for Planesdragon's point, I agree there too. It is basic and consistent doctrine among marxists that they are to infiltrate, subvert, and eventually destroy any movement they are allowed to join. After all, the dialectic demands that society be reduced to ruins to bring on the "true revolution". I find this absolutely abhorrent. Marxists make determined and sometimes breathtakingly brave allies. Just ask the French resistance. But they make terrible commanders.
And, thank *you* for the "attaboy". It is certainly appreciated. Especially from somebody who has herself written such useful stuff (even if you never did get back to our argument on France *sigh*)
Rustin
Re:You say that like it's a bad thing. (Score:2)
anyway, if it's a coalition we're building for the purpose of stoping war and the coalition is made up of concious individuals, each espousing their own politics then what we have here is OK at best (there should be more diversity among ideas and transparency). but the organizers could use the anti-war platform to recruit more people into the IAC/RCP. which i don't support. and i think the people involved don't have ideas which are personally as important as they should.
on the subject of communism, i don't want the current dictator replaced with a (theoretically) more benevolent dictator. democratic socialism with proportional representation is interesting but i'm a bit too anti-authoritarian to comply.
finally, some jeebus freak (judging by his sig) was spouting the red scare rhetoric which i hope was a troll but i fear it's sincere. i don't have the time to explain what communist theory really is beyond saying that just because stalin did it (killed his own) doesn't mean it's communism.
ok, a little more: communism is a system of economics, opposed to capitalism and has nothing to do with killing, art, culture or religion -- communist poland had writers, music, religion, very very very little crime, full employment, great schools and no homeless. they even had private enterprise, though highly taxed. but it is a system that works when the nation is not trying to conquer its neighbors and is not facing opposition by large ethno-centrist nations. the downfall of communist poland occured largely because the CIA funneled money into opposition groups through the vatican! poland now has very high unemployment, debt and lots of crime. (but more people go to church to recieve supplimental supplies. so it's all good, right?...)
Food Not Bombs (Score:2)
Know what? Every goddam time they get the job done. You need food? They got food. You got a better idea, talk to Vicki or another senior person and she'll hear you out and give it real consideration. They get needed stuff out to people who need it most. And are a great lesson in the ethics of work.
By the way, did I mention that they're vegetarian *and* seek out the homeless people most rejected by our welfare system?
And (here's the punchline) you couldn't find a more transparent organizational structure in a collection of junior high school PTAs. No bullshit, no false pretenses.
And those are the kinds of radicals we need leading things if we're to get out of this mess. They are also far more communist in the original sense then any RCP/ISO/ACP group ever to walk the face of the earth. Shared labor, shared goods, distributed in the way that best benefits everybody but with enough for all.
I've benefited from a helping of their hearty stew several times myself.
Here's to Food Not Bombs!
Rustin
Re:Food Not Bombs (Score:2)
THANKS! (i'm one of those constants, sacraficing the cleanlieness of my house and car to the cause here in LA)
But on the other hand . . . (Score:2)
As for what to do now (assuming that this insane fiasco actually results in a U.S. military victory), then what *would* you propose in The New Iraq?
As for correllations between "communism" and eastern bloc countries, well, first of all, yes, they had very low violent individual crime. State crime, including torture happened every hour of every day, but so be it.
As for the rest, it is my impression that the surviving level of much culture (especially given the constant censorship backed by the abovementioned frequent use of torture) is more a tribute to the inefficencies of the government then to anything else. Architecture alone gives a nice indicator. the stronger the grip of the communist party in that country, the worse the conditions of the buildings. For example, in Leningrad the facades of most of the old buildings were maintained and painted by government order. But an apartment building might go without central heat for a year or more.
As I said, no correlation between actions and utility.
By the way, I am a patent holder and fully intend to get more in the future. I guess that I'm doomed anyway.
Rustin
Re:But on the other hand . . . (Score:2)
As for what to do now (assuming that this insane fiasco actually results in a U.S. military victory), then what *would* you propose in The New Iraq?
democracy built first at local, then state, then national levels with international aid organizations helping locals provide essential services (food, water, energy, housing) to residents and an UN/international control of the government when necessary.
(i started to write a long explanation of what i would like but i'm feeling time pressure) that's the basic idea -- work from the bottom up (if possible, using existing local officials who are willing to work under UN guidance). and at the state and national level i would use some form of proportional representation rather than US style democracy.
i think working from the local level up makes democracy more real to people (and the people are less likely to fight it) -- they can watch as their newly elected officials (with the help of aid organizations) rebuild power, water, and sewage.
yeah, sorry i can't elaborate more at this time.
and the patent thing is nothing more than a cheezy
Re:But on the other hand . . . (Score:2)
Sounds good to me. I strongly agree that you've got to start small and build. A people who don't understand the concept of voting about where to go for lunch are *not* going to handle an election for national representatives in any coherent w
Protesting just to protest isn't speach (Score:2)
Because if somebody truly can be expected to be opposing you, then you are a lot more likely to feel justified opposing them. This is what breeds terrorism. This is what creates true enemies of civil society. If every time you see a uniform you are reasonable to assume that that person will oppose or even attack you, that they will report you to the police if you turn to them for help and will stand in your way if the opportunity comes up then all government is the enemy.
Legitimately. In self-defense.
Ok, if this were a case of people simply speaking out against the government and getting observed because if it, I'd agree completely. But it isn't.
There's been a wash of protest against a war that hasn't even started--and there's quite a lack of lucid objections to the war, that seems to be filled simply by protestors using civil disobedience to protest something completely unrelated.
Flooding major cities, DDOSing the white house, and walking out of school to mail letters (just happened today, in a suburb of Albany!) isn't political speach--it's pulling a prank under the guise of "speach."
The protestors I've seen aren't trying to stand up for the will of the nation, they aren't trying to raise money for their cause, and they're not attempting to sway the will of the nation. They're just trying to disrupt a system that they don't want to follow, and as far as I can tell are lacking the moral purpose and eloquent rhetoric that inspired the Civil Rights movement.
I think a ballot on going to war in Iraq would be nice--I mean, if we didn't just have one back in November, that is.
Re:Protesting just to protest isn't speach (Score:2)
So perhaps you think it would be more ethical to wait for people to start dying on a massive scale and *then* protest?
As for "lack of lucid objections", I'm not wasting my time on that one anymore. Plenty of people, including me in this very journal, have written pages and pages of specific, concrete objections, from budgetary to legal to ethical. Oh, and btw, what exactly should that have to do with *anything* involving free speech? Are only well-spoken protests protected under the Constitution? Tell me, who gets to decide what constitutes "lucid"?
It seems like you're basically saying "well, but I don't *like* these protestors". And how exactly does that relate to things like mounted police charging peaceful crowds or subway stops shut down to keep people from showing up at a rally?
Oh, as for comparisons to the Civil Rights Movement, speaking as somebody who grew up in the movement (and is named after the primary organizer of the March on Washington) I see plenty of moral purpose and eloquent rhetoric in the current protests. It's just not being allowed on the news. After all, Ted Turner explicitly ordered CNN not to give positive coverage to anti-war protests. He decided that it would be un-American. He, however, did not consider it important to let his viewers know that they were only going to be given one side of the story. Same for Fox.
Back during the protests of the *last* gulf war a crowd estimated at almost a hundred thousand gathered in New York City, filling Times Square and spreading for blocks around. ALL of the major networks restricted their television coverage to a little cluster of about a hundred protestors and the approx. two hundred pro-war protestors facing them.
Reality: one hundred thousand versus two hundred. Media coverage: two hundred versus one hundred. If you want to tell me that things are lacking from the current anti-war movement, "proving a negative", then perhaps you'ld better tell me your sources first.
Oh, last note: walking out on school is exactly and precisely a tactic used in the Civil Rights Movement. As were blocking traffic, massive quantities of intentionally disruptive phone calls, and dozens of other "prankish" techniques.
Rustin
Re:Protesting just to protest isn't speach (Score:1)
Ethical? No. Effective? Yes.
If your "big gun" is flooding the White House phones and shutting down NYC, and you use it BEFORE any blood is shed, then what are you going to do when the blood is being shed?
Protests of the scale you've reported are effective when they make sense--but protesting NOW doesn't many any sense at all, at least not in this scale.
Are only well-spoken protests protected under the Constitution? Tell me, who gets to decide what constitutes "lucid"?
As for the latter part, the courts and the associated juries, if and when it matters. And the standard should be "could a reasonable person in the protest's audience understand what the protest was about, and what message was being sent?"
If a so-called "protest" can only be understood by those doing it, then it's not speech any more than a random bumbling of words from my mouth are.
And how exactly does that relate to things like mounted police charging peaceful crowds or subway stops shut down to keep people from showing up at a rally?
It doesn't. Please, please, please, take them to court. You have a hundred thousand people, right? Get even one percent of them to testify, and you'll win either in the court or in the public opinion.
This, of course, falls under "I don't like you, but I'll defend your rights" mantra.
Oh, as for comparisons to the Civil Rights Movement, speaking as somebody who grew up in the movement (and is named after the primary organizer of the March on Washington) I see plenty of moral purpose and eloquent rhetoric in the current protests. It's just not being allowed on the news.
I see empty rhetoric and selfish purpose. But, that's just my opinion.
What I see that I don't like is protests that are inappropriate, carry no message, and seem to be done as much out of nostalga for the 60s & 70s as objection to the current politics of our country.
Oh, last note: walking out on school is exactly and precisely a tactic used in the Civil Rights Movement.
Schools? You mean, like the segregated schools? Or the segregated bus lines?
Civil Disobedience and boycotting segregated services were the most effective tools of the Civil Rights movement. In contrast:
As were blocking traffic, massive quantities of intentionally disruptive phone calls, and dozens of other "prankish" techniques
Don't forget the riots! Disrupting the government in ways unrelated to what you're protesting is always effective.
Of course, when I hear an elected official in Europe saying the phrase "lawful civil disobedience", I cringe. I guess holding the law as the law, and punishing violations to the law accoring to the law--and thus making civil disobedience a way to encourage changing the law, instead of "no harm" protest--is unpopular in today's day and age.
In case you're wondering, I would _rather_ that the protestors send letters and withold their taxes now--instead paying pre-Bush tax levels into an escrow fund, to be given to more important budgetary rules. And when the war does start, THEN shut down NYC and the White House.
The idea of a movement is to look like a real movement of voting citizens who can cut the establishment from power--not an organized "sport protest" that won't even sway those that agree with you to vote differently or make a donation.
Re:Protesting just to protest isn't speach(sic) (Score:2)
If your "big gun" is flooding the White House phones and shutting down NYC, and you use it BEFORE any blood is shed, then what are you going to do when the blood is being shed?
I don't think that you're quite getting this. This isn't "the big guns". Whether you like it or not, as of now this is the largest, most organized anti-war movement in the history of humankind. You want to disagree? Show me a bigger one.
If you think Feb 15 and Mar 5 were big, just keep your eyes open. We're just getting started. That's the point. This is the largest coalition of its kind *ever* and, at the very least that translates to millions of dollars in mobilizable funds, thousands of full time workers, and a vast network of assorted resources. Courtesy of Shrub and our other economic problems, people have plenty of free time these days. A lot of them are willing to devote it, and more, to this.
As for your constant claims that the protests were somehow unclear, can you show any evidence whatsoever that anybody but you is having trouble understanding the message? Seems pretty clear to me. Seems pretty clear to every public figure I've seen comment on it.
You are claiming a negative. Prove it. Or at least give me two examples of statements by government figures or the mainstream media where they back up your contention that the message is somehow unclear.
Show me a perception of "random bumbling" from anybody other then you or openly right wing figures like Frist or Shrub.
As for taking the cops to court, well, as it happens I've been on the edge of a few of those cases in my life already (do a search on Tompkins Square for details) and I can tell you that it takes a minimum of three years for cases of violence by NYC police to reach the public. This avenue is being pursued and, actually, in my very small way, I am part of that effort. I can tell you that over three hundred cases are currently being disputed just for Feb 15 just in NYC.
As for your reverent repeated references to the Civil Rights movement, no, you are wrong again. In fact, by many standards, the key turning point in the movement was the march to Selma, on unsegregated public roads where the police and courts, as they have here, tried a flurry of obstructive measures before finally using barricades and physical brute force to prevent protest.
I am deeply thankful that we don't (yet) have to deal with anything as monstrous as dogs and mass clubbings, but as for only engaging in obstruction of segregated locales, you are flat wrong.
In fact, much of the groundwork for the period you are aware of was laid during World War II, when black workers threatened to walk out en masse from materiel manufacturing plants and service jobs unless their demands were met.
Real protest on big issues is messy, destructive, expensive, and slow. No establishment yields easily on the big stuff and nobody with experience in politics expects them to. Governments, no matter *how* far in the wrong, don't ever just read of public dissent and announce the next day, "Opps, we're really sorry and we'll change our policy as of today." That is not how it works. Never has been.
Next, "riots"? Bullshit. Show me any objective numerical evidence that the entirely of the Feb 15/Mar 5 actions put together had the level of property damage or injuries of a mid-sized St. Patrick's Day parade. Quite the contrary, reports from around the world commented on how peaceful the protests were.
Of course, when I hear an elected official in Europe saying the phrase "lawful civil disobedience", I cringe. . .
Sucks to be you. Sounds like your problem to me. For the rest of us, civil disobedience is an honored and honorable means of public protest with ample antecedents as worthy and famed as the Boston Tea Party.
Frankly, it looks to me like we've finally gotten to the heart of this. Not only are you somehow not managing to find a perceivable message in a context where ten year olds are doing just fine, from your comments, it looks like you're just not comfortable with the concept of public protests in the first place. Well, that could take hundred of pages of debate and more hours then I have to spare.
Looks like time to close up this discussion to me.
Rustin
Re:Protesting just to protest isn't speach(sic) (Score:1)
The Boston Tea Party was the willful destruction of goods to protest the very law that they saw as unfair and unfit. Were they not starting a rebellion, they should have gone to jail for their actions--which, in case you're too liberal to appreciate "suffering for one's cause", would have only helped their message.
Civil Disbedience is by its very nature NOT legal. It's violating an unjust law to show how unjust it is. While a protestor can hope for leniency or jury nullification or judicial nullification of the law, they certainly shouldn't have any perception that civil disobedience isn't in any way LEGAL.
If you burn a flag and violate the fire code in doing so, you should still be cited for violating the fire code.
Frankly, it looks to me like we've finally gotten to the heart of this. Not only are you somehow not managing to find a perceivable message in a context where ten year olds are doing just fine,
Oh, no, I'm seeing the message. "We're cowards and we don't want to go to war." Or the more moral "war sucks" or even "down with the government."
from your comments, it looks like you're just not comfortable with the concept of public protests in the first place. Well, that could take hundred of pages of debate and more hours then I have to spare.
Public protests are fine. Protests that are disruptive for the sake of being disruptive, however, are not.
As far as I care, if a protest blocks a public, free road when they have an alternative--and I mean "block", not "walk down en masse", which is a fine an wondrous mobilization tactic--then they should be forced off the road.
You're the one blogging and looking for sympathy. I'm the one reading in my spare time, and noting that for every protestor like you who's a professional, there's two more who don't even know what they're protesting about.
Feb 15 Police misconduct (Score:2)
Please, please, please, take them to court. You have a hundred thousand people, right? Get even one percent of them to testify, and you'll win either in the court or in the public opinion.
Well, here is something I came across this morning.
Metro Briefing | New York: Manhattan: Police Miss Hearing On War Protest
By Robert Worth (NYT) (Compiled by Anthony Ramirez)
And so it goes. As usual, the police will ignore hearing dates, send incomplete responses to discovery motions or send nothing at all, claim that they lost records, testify falsely, and generally disgrace the law and order they claim to care about so very much.
After all, what are you gonna do, arrest them?
And that is why, at best, it takes years to document police violence and other misconduct. When you add that by their own admission they spend millions of dollars a year settling lawsuits which *always* as a matter of standard policy, require that the plantiff not ever reveal anything about the case, the police get away, quite literally with murder. And as long as they are allowed to do this (not to mention special dispensations like forty-eight hours of consultation with lawyers, fellow defendants, and the PBA before being required to submit to examination) they will never truly reform.
Oh, and Planesdragon, if you had read my post more carefully you would have noted that I repeatedly emphasized that in fact, most protestors were corralled into narrow streets or flat out kept from reaching the protest area. Part of the point of such methods is to divide and conquer, leaving far fewer witnesses to any particular incident and, in fact, fewer witnesses overall as most abuses take place at small, crowded edges of areas kept in unpredictable motion by shifting police behavior.
Rustin
Re:Media Bias (Score:1)
So what avenue would you suggest in order to obtain relatively unbiased news? Also, a place to receive not just the extremes of opinions on a subject, but inclusive of the gray area as well.
I am, admittedly, not as well informed as I would like, and would rather not have to weed through misinformation and half-truths to find out what's what. Though I have an inkling that partiality might be unavoidable
Re:Media Bias (Score:2)
*sigh*
Boy, I wish that I had a good answer for that. Actually, much of the data is out there, it's the emphases that tend to be unbelievably biased. I mostly stick to the following (I'll post links as my next JE since, now that you mention it, that is an excellent question.) New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury Chronicle, India Times, SpaceDaily (more relevant then one would think), Foreign Policy, Time&Newsweek (they cancel each other out on some biases), and, in truth, Google searches any time something catches my eye. I see the Netscape/AOL home page and have sometimes found out about something there but certainly don't use them as a source (this generally includes CNN, which I have found very disappointing).
In truth, my most serious stuff starts with finding out that something has happened whereever I happen to be and then blitzing Google searches, glancing at ten or fifteen sources and reading maybe three to five. I have not found any one place, or even ten places to be enough.
So, as for "not having to weed through misinformation and half-truths" I haven't got an answer. The good old New York Times is the least bad if you're going to only go one place, but you have *got* to read the entire article (or these days, set of articles) to get anything decent. While the Times is certainly not reliably left wing (dittohead claims to the contrary) they are reliably biased one way or the other so you've got to just make your peace with hunt-and-rebuild.
Some people swear by The Economist, but I find their articles far too short to give a useful picture.
If I'm genuinely trying to figure a story out I go to at least half of the sources above and Indymedia and "the horse's mouth" whatever that may be, and some sort of relevant government site, and Underreported.
Sorry I can't give a shorter answer but that kinda shows the nature of the beast.
Rustin