Muddled thoughts re: Convention protests

[otherlander]

   I thought about this while I was washing the dishes. I
wanted to go to the convention to try to act as a peacekeeper,
chant "ohm" and hand out flowers, peace cranes,
odwalla bars, etc, try to get people to communicate with each
other on a human level. I have no experience doing any such
thing, but I felt like I could, if I went. But if I actually
did, that would make me a runaway teenager, and my parents
would call the cops on me, and they would search my room for
clues to my whereabouts and find all the drawings of nudes.
And I didn't want that to happen. So that's why instead of
being there just now, I was washing dishes.

   I do wish they wouldn't call it "recreate 68".
'68 was a bunch of insane police brutality and the whole thing
ultimatley ended in a Republican victory. But it rhymes, so
yeah. I think the people going belong to three categories. 
  -FIRST, of course, are the infiltrators, the cops and
republicans deliberatley trying to start violence to discredit
the Democrats and the rest of the protesters.
  -THEN, secondly, are well-meaning people who have never been
in a riot before and genuinley want to fight fascism and hold
the Democrats accountable for not stopping the war. And they
think that fighting with the cops will help further that goal.
They've been made desperate by seeing their government
waterboard and clusterbomb innocent people, and they want to
STOP IT, but it doesn't cross their minds that acting out
violently will also endanger innocent people.
  -FINALLY, there are the non-violent protesters who will be
endangered by the actions of the people in the first two
categories. What they want to "recreate" is not the
violence, but the media attention to large-scale public
uprising against war, torture, and other government-sponsored
horrors.

   Fortunatley, I think that the members of the third group
are in the majority. I base this on my dialogues with some of
the anarchists who are either attending the protests, or are
staying home but have friends/lovers who are attending. All
the ones I've spoken to belong to the third category. None of
them are old enough to remember '68, but they all realize that
police brutality is not a joke and provoking a riot is NOT a
cool/fun thing to do. I've heard a lot of them saying things
like, "My boyfriend's over there, I hope things go
peacefully and he gets back alright." A few of them are
Obama supporters. Most of them have no party affiliation but
are reluctantly voting for him to keep McCain out of office.
   I can understand how someone could be both an Obama
supporter and a protester. It's the leadership they're
protesting, Pelosi and others who have taken impeachment off
the table and continued to fund occupation. They'll vote for
Obama, but they want to make sure that he doesn't forget that
his base is strongly to the left of him.

   That's my attempt to be rational about the whole thing. But
really, on a gut level, I just feel sick of all this. Because
I know that there are so many good, peaceful people over there
who are going to be put in harm's way by the decietful AND by
the honest but misguided. It makes me want to do one of two
things:
1. Go there myself and chant Hare Krishna (which is undoable)
or
2. Crawl into a hole and try to grow a protective shell. That
is increasingly looking like the realistic option for tonight.

[barbtries]

1. not so muddled.

well written and a fair analysis, i think.

[otherlander]

2. Aw, thanks.

Have a crane.

[Stardust]

3. Well said, otherlander. And you're a teenager? Well, then there is hope

for this country after all. I would very much like to be at the protests myself and would probably fall into Group 2 cuz I'm mad as hell and sick of making nice. It's all so easy to ponder, though, sitting safely behind my keyboard. I do admire those who are willing to take a stand, especially when the setting is such that they risk not only being harmed, but alienating the very people they're standing up for.

:hippie:

[otherlander]

4. Thanks, man. The way I see it...

you have the right to fight the power-hungry freedom-hating bastards if you want to, but not the right to provoke them into smashing the skulls of bystanders.

[Hissyspit]

5. At the convention hall tonight, I noticed that the "Freedom Cage," the official protest zone cannot

for all intents and purposes, CANNOT be seen from the Pepsi Center. I'm going to try to get some pictures there tomorrow.

You are right. They shouldn't have called it 'Recreate '68.'

Very good post.

[otherlander]

6. You're actually there?

Cool!