The last time riots disrupted a political convention, the Party lost

[BurtWorm]

so why are Republicans--and even Democrats--thinking riots would necessarily be a good thing for Bush? Hmm? :grr:

[coloradodem2005]

1. I agree.

I think that it would just show that there are a lot of disenfranchised people out there and there must be a reason why they would be rioting.

[Kanary]

8. Well, that would be logical thinking, and I'm afraid that's out of style

Maybe next year we can think that way, but this year it's taboo.

:)

Kanary

[DrWeird]

2. I agree...

can you imagine seeing Bush give his acceptance speech talking about how he's made America safer, while it's split screen with a bunch of jack booted storm troopers kicking the crap out of an elderly woman?

[AntiCoup2K4]

10. But which mediawhore network is going to SHOW that image?

If that had happenned in Boston, it would have been repeated more often than the Deanscream. But if it happens at the Bush coronation, it will never see airtime, unless CBC, BBC, or some other foreign network happens to film it.

[Jim Sagle]

3. Because those riots were blamed on the left. The new riots would be, too.

This is not a close call. Those who think otherwise should rethink. There are better ways to show displeasure with w's regime than direct confrontation with police:

Sickouts;
Synchronized toilet flush;
Synchronized electric appliance use;
Massive bogus pizza deliveries;
Strange mishaps in hotel and dinner reservations;
Symbolic blackout of home lights;
Massive demonstration AWAY from the convention;
And many other strategies.

Party on, Garth!

[BurtWorm]

4. Daley's image suffered more than the yippies

as I recall. It wasn't the rioters who left a bad taste in the country's mouth as much as it was Daley's strong arm tactics to suppress the dissent.

I'm not rooting for riots, believe me. I am rooting for a spontaneous eruption of people power, a la Tiananmen Square and Paris 1968. Less the violence, if possible. I think whether or not there is violence will depend a tiny bit on how much the black flaggers want it and vastly more on how much Pataki and Giuliani want it.

[Jim Sagle]

31. You recall wrongly.

[theboss]

39. Yep, it really devastated Daley

He only was more for eight more years before he died in office, and his son has only been elected to five terms since.

As for the riots, they probably helped Nixon who was promising to bring law and order to all the radicals that the Democrats had set loose on the Silent Majority. It played to his rhetoric perfectly.

[BurtWorm]

51. Think the Daley machine had anything to do with that?

Naah! ;)

[theboss]

56. Definitely.

But the riots made the machine stronger. Daley came out hated in the nation but even more beloved in Chicago. Chicagoans like a good street fight and seemed to enjoy the fact that he sent the police after the hippies who were just making a mess of the place.

[troublemaker]

5. I don't encourage violence, but let's stick to the facts

The '68 convention hurt the Democrats because the Democratic party apparatus bigwigs (Daley et al) were shown to be violent thugs, not because of the excesses of the protesters!

Humphrey was the choice of people who ordered cops who beat on kids. That did not help Humphrey. QED.

There's some amazing revisionism going on about how the Dem convention drove people to law and order candidate Nixon. That is writing history backward. Nixon in 1968 was not Nixon in 1972.

In 1968 Nixon was promising to END THE VIETNAM WAR.
In 1968 the protesters wanted to END THE VIETNAM WAR.

[BurtWorm]

6. Well said!

:toast:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Well said and right.

Saying that the demonstrations in '68 lost the election to Nixon is revisionist history. Much like the "We could have won in Vietnam if we had more troops", nonsense.

[AP]

15. A more charitable interpretation:

Pat Buchanan said that he knew the moment the riots started in Chicago in '68, it was going to help Republicans. (And they really started in Miami at the Republican Convention.)

You don't think Daley didn't realize the same thing? There must have been an immediate impulsive response among Democrats to stop the riots before they went any farther.

All was lost the minute the riots started, perhaps.

What's your explanation for protests helping Republicans in '72? Where were Daley and Humphrey in '72?

When there is rioting in the streets, moderats start to think that Republicans are right about America and that we need a crack down.

[bobbieinok]

20. I' m really sick of the revisionism too...anger was directed at Daley

and police

[Jim Sagle]

32. That's only half the story. The other half is that the protestors caused a

law-and-order backlash.

[BurtWorm]

34. Please back that up.

What does that mean, really? Backlash among whom?

[theboss]

40. White southern and suburban men

You have to remember that in 1968, the Democrats had only lost two presidential elections in 36 years - and both of those were to a universally beloved war hero who nearly ran as a Democrat. We were coming off a historic landslide in 1964. 1968 was the beginning of the two trends that still befuddle us - the gender gap and the loss of the Solid South. And the riots certainly didn't help, especially when Dick Nixon went on tv and basically told all of middle-class America not worry about those hippies and black radicals because he would teach them a lesson.

And you have to realize that 1968 made Richard Daley MORE popular in Chicago, though it did essentially end his time as a national force. But you would think if he was blamed for an ugly and embarrassing riot, the Republicans could have at least fielded an opponent in the next election.

[Jim Sagle]

46. I remember. That's all the backup I need.

[buycitgo]

38. exactly!!!!! and that's exactly what will happen

this time

I'm scared shitless that there will be large numbers of provacateurs to foment whatever nastiness occurs

this country does NOT want to see unrest of any kind, and it plays ONLY to the pugs' advantage, EXACTLY as it did in 68

[banana republican]

62. Synchronized toilet flush ROTFLMYA

[Eric J in MN]

7. We're ahead. Why give Rush LImbaugh material, to rant

and rave against "freaks" who support Kerry.

If you go, please dress nicely, and please DON'T block traffic.

[MisterP]

9. well, he'll just make crap up anyway, as usual;

if someone trips, he'll say the eevil protesters disrupted traffic and caused the death of a baby and whatnot

[BurtWorm]

11. I will be here. I will dress as usual (non freakish)

and won't block traffic. But I don't give one teeny tiny shit what Rush rants about. NOT ONE!

[displacedtexan]

13. and 1968 was a fair,above-board, Nixon election, too! NOT! (eom)

[AP]

14. In '68 and '72 when there were riots, Republicans won both elections

because middle America didn't like the rioting and voted for the law and order party because of the rioting.

Add in the fact that Nixon enouraged protesting at an event with Billy Graham (it was discovered in the Watergate hearings), and the fact that Nixon was hated in '72, and you can see how Bush might be working the same strategy.

[BurtWorm]

16. Prove that "middle America" associated the rioting itself with the Dems.

Isn't it more likely they were turned off by the symbolic failure of the Dems (Daley and Humphrey) to handle the protest reasonably? As I recall them (and I was only 9 at the time, admittedly) it was Daley who was the big heavy in 1968.

PS: the "riots" in Miami were nothing like the riots in Chicago. In fact I don't remember riots in Miami.

[AP]

17. See above. Buchanan said about '68 that they stopped trying to spin

the convention when the riots started. They just invited the press up to their hotel room and opened the curtains.

I think you'd have to be totally deluded to not appreciate that when middle america looks at Americans rioting in the street they don't start to think that it's time to vote Republican.

It should be enough to say look at the 68 and 72 election results. What more proof do you need?

Where was Daley in '72? Even without him, the same dynamic took place.

[BurtWorm]

22. I honestly don't think "riot" when I think Miami 1972.

I think vomitorium. Could just be my faulty memory. In any case, I've never heard anyone blame Nixon's win in '72 on riots. Dirty tricks, yes. Riots, no.

[AP]

28. Repubs win when people think their strong issues are the most important

issues. Law and order. National security.

Nixon was one fo the most loathed presidents. Yet he won after intense anti-war protesting. Why? Because it confirmed for people that both war and law and order were the most important issues.

[AP]

30. In My Life, Clinton talks about the rioting in Miami.

[BurtWorm]

35. I'm not doubting there was rioting. I'm only saying it had little effect

on the election. By 1972, the media had significantly marginalized the counterculture in its coverage of the conventions (compared to 1968, certainly), even as the corporate world learned to co-opt it.

[AP]

48. Except that it gave Republicans a clue that if there were bigger riots in

Chi, it could REALLY help them. Which is what happened.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Nonsense. Nixon won for a variety of reasons.

One of them being that Humphrey offered nothing but more of same in Vietnam and Nixon offered a "secret plan" to end the war.

McGovern lost because Nixon offered "Peace with honor" as opposed to McGovern's realistic plan to get out. Which is essentially what happened in the end at the cost of thousands of more lives.

To say it was because of the "riots" (it was the police doing the rioting) is, at best, naive.

[AP]

50. One of the biggest reasons: selling self as law and order president to

a public that became convinced that law and order was a very important issue after seeing the way those protesters acted.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

66. You're partly right.

But, you left out that real insurrections broke out across the country following the assasination of MLK.

Most of Nixon's "get tough on crime" rhetoric was thinly veiled racism aimed at subduing blacks..and the war protestors.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

67. The "Law & Order" BS was really racism directed at the uprisings

in cities across the country after the assination of MLK. The anti-war protests were an add on.

[digno dave]

18. I'm afraid the fanatical wing of our cause is going to f things up and

Kerry will bear the brunt of the backlash.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. I'm afraid the pablum wing of our cause is f'ing things up.

Kerry's tepid stances are offering little in the way of alternatives to shrub's way of handling Iraq and the alleged "war on terror". The "not as bad as Bush" DLC types cling to the notion that being not quite as republican as the republicans wins elections.

[nefarious]

24. Or maybe some repuke likin' instigators. . . .

Are already scripted to be planted with the demonstrators, to help nudge things into the bad or ugly categories.

We must not underestimate the Kompassionat Konservativs. Everything in their politiks happens for a reason.


Failure to prevent terrorist attacks and failure to hold timely elections are failures of democratic government.

Do your part to decisively repeal the Bush junta.

[zbdent]

21. Because the media will focus on the violent extremists that are anti-bush

and portray them as "moderate Democrats".

Kinda like the Gay Pride parades. You always see the 500lb hairy guy in a ballet tutu, kinda like the Rainbow Wig guy at football games.

[Eloriel]

33. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about

The media has succeeded in making you think that there are "violent extremists" on the left. Most of the "violent extremists" are agents provocateurs -- folks undercover (and often but not always infiltrating our organizations) who attend these things SPECIFICALLY for the purpose of causing problems at protests. They have been with us AT LEAST since the 60s; they were in Seattle, Genoa, and no doubt Miami.

Do NOT paint ANY part of the Left with this brush -- you only aid and abet those on the right who wish to discredit us, cause conditions which enable and facilitate police crackdowns during protests, and discourage exercise of our First Amendment rights.

Educate yourself. Please.

And btw, one of the BEST pieces of advice I've ever seen from a 60s era protester here at DU was that if you ever encounter ANYone in your group who suggests or pushes for illegal activity, vandalism or violence, THOSE are the people you should immediately suspect of being FBI (or nowadays other agency) infiltrators.

Note: civil disobedience is another thing entirely, is NEVER violent, but does involve being "disobedient" relative to unjust laws, or the pronouncements of the authorities. Civil disobedience done right -- that is, as MLK Jr. preached -- is virtually a spiritual practice, and the very essence of non-violence and peaceful protest. Non-violent civil disobedience brought down the British Empire in India under Gandhi. It is a VERY powerful practice.

[zbdent]

72. Geez, could you make my point any more for me?

Even if they were with us, the media would portray it as "our" average joe.

Look, the media is not a friend to the left (if it ever truly was). So, even if the guy doing the most damage to our cause via violence had his mask ripped away and revealed as Newt Gingrich, the media would somehow portray us as brainwashing him to do the nasty stuff.

We'll get all the blame for anybody who just wants a reason to cover up smashing a store window and grabbing a VCR.

[DrWeird]

25. Comparing this to the 68 riot is comparing apples to oranges.

In '68 you had democrats rioting against democrats. Maybe some people thought "i'm going to vote republican just to bust these guys head" but they were probably voting republican anyways. Furthermore, and I wasn't there so i'm just specumatating, I'd find it more likely to believe that if anybody thought anything, it's "these democrats can't get their shit straight." Most of all, I think it's just a distraction from the convention. We all know how important the convention is to the party, and if theirs a riot outside you're not going to get a boost. Not to mention it was the Democrat's year to loose anyways.

Things are a bit different now. There will be riots at the Republican's convention, which won't help their boost too much. Furthermore, most of the American people dislike Bush now. If he was still polling 90% approval I might agree that it could be a problem for us. But not now. Furthermore, unlike WTO the protestors will have a clear, obvious message. Plus the police are going to come down hard, which won't look good for Bush. The best thing is location. New York is going to come across as hating Bush, and Bush's only real strength is the false assumption that he did a good job after 9-11, this should crush that idea. Plus, a major riot and big mess is going to look bad for the incumbent. People are going to come across thinking the Republicans can't get their shit straight.

At least that's what I predict. All I'm saying is you can't compare this to 1968. Nobody knows what's going to happen.

[BurtWorm]

26. I tend to agree with you, Dr. But one thing gives me pause.

That's the spin capabilities of the RNC and the compliance or outright complicity of the media in their propaganda dissemination.

Despite that, what will be will be, and it will be unique to the situation.

[DrWeird]

27. Yeah, the media's the wild card.

But consider how bored they were with the Dem convention. It got the least coverage in years. If there's one thing the media loves more than republicans, it's ratings. And there's going to be a big juicy story just outside their hotel window.

[theboss]

42. This "Antagonize the Police" approach concerns me....

We spent eight years under Clinton being told that more police on the street is a Democratic issue and that the police are heroes. We basically were given the same lesson at the Convention. And after 9/11 the NYPD and NYFD were practically made into saints.

Now you expect the public to side with a kid with a face tattoo as he throws down with some cop who probably pulled his best friend's body out of the rubble of Ground Zero? I don't see it.

[BurtWorm]

43. What antagonize the police thing?

Seriously.

[theboss]

44. There's been a lot of talk about how the police are going to go nuts

And some weird enthusiasm for it. Maybe "antagonize" is the wrong word, but there seems to be a lot of excitment being generated over clashes with the cops.

[BurtWorm]

45. I've seen relatively little of that.

For my part, I don't want to see violence. I want to see the protestors able to express their dissent without harrassment from anyone. If Bloomberg and Kelly don't want violence, they'd be very careful not to harrass the protestors. I really believe the question of whether there will be violence will be in their hands more than ours.

[theboss]

47. I still don't know what anyone is protesting about to be honest

Apparently, justice and equality and peace are the big issues. As is ENDING RACISM AND WAR NOW BY ACTING or something. I don't know; I'm 30 and have a mortgage.

[BurtWorm]

49. We are protesting Bushism. Top to bottom. Beginning to end.

Bush is illegitimate. That's why I will be in the street protesting him. Everything flows from his illegitimacy for me.

[DrWeird]

52. Golly Gee Whiz. Theboss doesn't understand the protest.

[theboss]

55. I live in DC. I'm jaded.

As I've said numerous times, you can't swing a cat by its tail around here and not hit someone with a placard. So, I'm world's toughest grader of protests. You have to really bring something to the table to impress me. I've seen the dirty kids with their puppets too many times.

In my time on this planet, I think I've seen three impressive protests/marches:

1. The Million Man March. Wasn't a million, but was close enough. It addressed a real issue (lack of leadership in the black community) with a real solution (self-awareness/self-respect). And it intimidated mainstream White America without scaring the shit out of mainstream White America. That's always a tough line to negotiate, because when you scare the shit out of them, they vote for George Wallace.

2. The Promise Keepers March. Just an ungodly number of people. And, much like the Million Man March, I had the impression that these people were really there out of a sense of obligation. Too many protests in DC feel like Derby Days at State U. (Let's all gather in some large green space and try to get laid while someone far away mumbles through a microphone). I mean, my dad is a white suburbanite slob. You wouldn't get him on a bus to DC unless something really really really important was going on, like the Super Bowl.

3. The guy on Mass Avenue, protesting Pedophiles in the Priesthood. Dude is just relentless.

[BurtWorm]

57. You were impressed by the Promise Keepers?

:eyes:

[theboss]

59. Dude......

The buses on I-66 just didn't stop coming. People living near Fair Oaks Mall still speak of them in hushed tones.

And, like I said, it was a gazillion Middle-Aged white guys. Most of whom probably canceled golf outings to show up.

It wasn't message so much as the number and who was represented. I could get my drug-addled twenty-one year-old nephew to drive to New Mexico with one hour's notice. 100,000 college kids should show up in New York. What else are they going to do?

I couldn't get my dad out of the yard on a Saturday without an act of Congress. If I told him to drive to DC to make a commitment as a man and father, he would hit me with a rake. Yet, a lot of men did just that.

[BurtWorm]

60. Well, a gazillion certainly is a lot more than 100,000.

;)

[DrWeird]

61. Gee Golly Whiz. Theboss was impressed by the Promiskeepers.

[theboss]

63. I was......

Do I have to hand in "Re-Defeat Bush" bumper stickers now?

[LoZoccolo]

69. How old are you, Dr. Weird?

Were you even alive in 1968?

[DrWeird]

70. No. Like I said, I wasn't around.

Only speculating.

Something seriously flawed with my thesis?

Is the upcoming RNC comparable to the 1968 convention? If so, why?

[BurtWorm]

71. I don't see anything flawed with your thesis, doc.

:wtf:

[forgethell]

29. I guess that's

because the rioters were the natural allies of the President's own party. He had lost his base. this is not the case here. He may or may not have lost his base, but the right-wing is not going to be protesting in the streets.

[G_j]

36. **COULD I get your all's ATTENTION for a moment?

It's hard to believe that (unless I missed it) nobody has mentioned one very vital part of this equation.

Such as the fact that an "October Surprise" was orchestrated that sabotaged the Vietnam peace talks.



http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/111300a.html
(snippets don't cover this, so I recommend reading the article)

The Secret History of Modern U.S. Politics
By Robert Parry

According to now overwhelming evidence, the Nixon campaign dispatched Anna Chenault, an anti-communist Chinese leader, to carry messages to the South Vietnamese government of Nguyen van Thieu. The messages advised Thieu that a Nixon presidency would give him a more favorable result.

Journalist Seymour Hersh described the initiative sketchily in his biography of Henry Kissinger, The Price of Power. Hersh reported that U.S. intelligence “agencies had caught on that Chennault was the go-between between Nixon and his people and President Thieu in Saigon. … The idea was to bring things to a stop in Paris and prevent any show of progress.”

In her own autobiography, The Education of Anna, Chennault acknowledged that she was the courier. She quoted Nixon aide John Mitchell as calling her a few days before the 1968 election and telling her: “I’m speaking on behalf of Mr. Nixon. It’s very important that our Vietnamese friends understand our Republican position and I hope you made that clear to them.”

<snip>
On Nov. 2, Thieu withdrew from his tentative agreement to sit down with the Viet Cong at the Paris peace talks, destroying Johnson’s last hope for a settlement. Though Johnson and his top advisers knew of Nixon’s gambit, they kept Nixon’s secret.

<snip>
-----
This is also covered in the film "The Trials Of Henry Kissinger"
now available on DVD (this is MUST see anyway!)
----
For lots more on this Google "October Surprise" with "Kissinger" & "Hersh" -"Humphrey" -"Nixon" -"Shorr" in various combinations.
----
Lastly I just want to remind everyone that Humphrey was NOT a peace candidate.

[BurtWorm]

37. Thank you!

Another thing to remember is that George Wallace was in the race to spoil it for Humphrey and the Democrats by peeling off white working-class Southerners. The riots in Chicago did not resolve the election anymore than any of these other factors.

[G_j]

41. One thing that always irks me is the tendency of the left

to adopt self-destructive myths. We blame the "hippies" in Chicago for Nixon. We all spit on the returning soldiers. etc. etc.
It make my blood boil. BS! These are RW lies.
I am ashamed that the left can be so easily bullied and manipulated.
We definately have a problem with low self esteem.

[Carolina]

53. 2004 is a lot different from 1968

The media was different. There was no 24/7 cable junk. The news readers and writers were not devoted to making the White House occupant look good. The White House encumbent who'd won by a landslide just 4 years prior had bowed out of the race. Pearl Harbor, the only big attack on the nation, was a distant memory that occurred in remote Hawaii and affected mostly the military, during wartime (even though we were not yet part of the war). And ALL young men of a certain age where AFFECTED by the unjust Vietnam war. It was a remarkably different time, though war and social upheaval were then, as today, a big part of the picture.

It is also worthwhile to remember that despite the chaos of the Democratic Convention in 1968, the Humphrey/Nixon election was still very close. Those convention riots WERE NOT a boon to Nixon. Thus, it is hard to say what riots would cost one side or the other, but more likely, in today's world with today's media, the spin would definitely be against the anti-Bush rioters thereby hurting all of the Bush opposition including the opposition party's standard bearer.

One thing team Kerry may want to take to heart from that memorable time and race was that Nixon promised a war weary and leery nation that he had a secret plan to get the US out of Vietnam. Hmmm

[dancing kali]

54. What did rioting get us?

I can't think of one thing... besides bad press.

Nixon was elected and re-elected despite our protests.

The war ended... not because of us but because it finally sank in to the government that it was a losing proposition and that they needed to cut their losses and run.

Both Nixon and Agnew fell - quite spectacularly in full view of the nation - but not because of anything we were doing... they did it to themselves.

It wasn't the rioting that has gotten us the changes we've managed to get... it's that we continued to work for them long after the marches and demonstrations and rallies were over... quietly, one step at a time. We're still working for a lot of them.

Aggressive confrontation and destruction achieves nothing. It is likelier to sway people away from the desired response.

I am not saying that one shouldn't protest, march, demonstrate, or anything else. I just don't advocate confrontation anymore. I just think that whatever is done, should be done peacefully... it worked for Jesus, it worked for Gandhi, it works for the Dalai Lama... two of them changed the world and the other is getting there.

So there's my two cents, for what it's worth. I'm off to work.

[Stone_Spirits]

58. Chicago was determined to be a "Police Riot"

in case you didn't know. A lot of folks here don't seem to realise they are blaming the victims.

[nefarious]

64. Two other pivotal events ended Vietnam war and ousted Nixon

In my opinion,

The general population did not take much stock in the protesters, peaceniks, objectors, and rioters. But when the large, respected newspapers chose to publish excerpts from The Pentagon Papers, the general public was horrified to learn that the protesters had been right all along: basically, the political and military leaders wanted to perpetuate the Vietnam war as a support mechanism for the military-industrial-complex, and as a proving grounds for new military technology. The human costs were secondary. Daniel Ellsberg can be considered a true American hero for taking the risks to get that information out.

As far as ousting Nixon: his deviousness and failure to accept responsibility for the Watergate burglary or other works of the "plumbers", the subsequent elaborate cover-ups, and his alienation of the CIA, along with tenacious investigative reporting, made the public revile Nixon as a two-bit crook once we got to the bottom of things. The fact that there really was no "secret plan end the Vietnam conflict with honor and dignity" didn't help his cause either.

[BurtWorm]

65. I don't think anyone went to Chicago intending to riot.

I may be naive, but I really don't think so.

[LoZoccolo]

68. He'll be able to say that people against him are the kind of people...

...that would attack the police that helped people on September 11th. Even if he doesn't say it, his surrogates all over the place will.