Comments on: RNC Gallery: Pictures and words from MnIndy reporters on the streets of St. Paul

By: fats terminal

fats terminal — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:43:03 +0000

An addendum.

Apologies for getting so snippy. I'm really more interested in media perceptions than protest tactics, and as such I submit that aggressive tactics--direct actions--whatever you call it play right into the cops hands by allowing them to control the narrative. Nothing makes them happier than having the anarcho-kids splinter off. Bob Fletcher (and Harrington and Dolan) gets to justify an even bigger budget on "riot control" toys for the next protest, because he can say to his Ramsey County Board: "see I'm not just keeping Rosedale safe, I'm fightin' off anarchy.'' And the cops strutting around in their kevlar get all jacked up like high school football players during homecoming, knowing that a complicit media will not only look the other way while they bust heads, the mental lightweights on 'CCO will gin up with rationalizations for them.

You can either have a self-disciplined on-message protest/march that may have a chance of garnering neutral media attention. Or you can embrace a diversity of tactics knowing that media will focus on only the direct action stuff and portray it as an apocalyptic assault on society. But if you opt for the latter, don't piss and moan about "liberals" creating bad PR.

By: fats terminal

fats terminal — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:16:42 +0000

So you would have us believe that if only the “liberals” would stop dissing the more, shall we say, aggressive tactics of certain participants at the WTO and MayDay 2000 protests (remember them?) and at yesterday's march, that the traditional media–whose very existence depends on the promotion of a conservative corporate/consumerist status quo mentality–would not have framed the narrative of their coverage (i.e. protesters as hooligans mindlessly destroying property) in exactly the same way?

The mind boggles.

By: Victory!

Victory! — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:47:34 +0000

Don't be fooled into the “good” protesters vs “bad” protesters nonsense. After the WTO protests it was the liberals' lack of respect for a diversity of tactics that marred the coverage, NOT a few people making an exclamation point of their reason for protesting.
Friendly fire and back stabbing gets you no where but a lonely corner. Don't play into their trap. The chant goes: the People UNITED will never be defeated and don't you forget it.

By: fats terminal

fats terminal — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:34:26 +0000

Frank,

Notice that I mentioned the “informants/provacateurs in their midst”. However, the idea that every one of the 100-200 people who splintered off from the main march were undercover agents is preposterous. Some of them simply are “anarcho-chuckleheads” for lack of a better term (anarcho here being a adjective, not a proper noun) not much different in mentality than football hooligans in the UK. And no, I don't think many, if any of them are Chomsky acolytes. He's a little too cautious and mainstream for them.

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:08:54 +0000

They weren't Anarchists, Anarchists don't condone violence, it's just a way to organize a society, that's all. Noam Chomsky never advocates vandalism.

They were probably undercover FBI or cops trying to make the left look bad. You saw this during the Vietnam protests, where Cuban strong arm men would infiltrate protests and beat up protesters or wave North Vietnamese flags. All orchestrated by Nixon.

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:05:41 +0000

Watching, yea, to hell with the first Amendment, right? “Right–RIGHT to protest for grievences.” Don't you get that. The police are thugs just like the ones in Nazi Germany or Russia.

By: fats terminal

fats terminal — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:04:37 +0000

Ironic, or maybe just disheartening, that the Minnesota Independent choses the mostly the same "emblematic" images from yesterday's protest as the KARE bears, PiPress wingers, and the rest of the traditional media: some anarcho-chuckleheads (and the informants/provacateurs in their midst) tussling with over-testosteroned robo-cops. With both groups getting exactly what they wanted. "Fascism, man" vs. justification of homeland security pork in the form of all that shiny new kevlar.

Yeah, I know a bunch of rusty-volvo-driving, stroller-pushing South Minneapolitans carrying some mildly clever signs and chanting a few stale slogans isn't exactly man bites dog. But reinforcing the traditional media narrative that protests are now just hooliganism means that the 80-something gentleman from Forest Lake I met yesterday in the march (who, except for the Obama buttion on his polo shirt, looked like he just stepped away from the retirement home bingo hour) sure as hell isn't going to show up for the next one.

By: watching

watching — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:21:33 +0000

Get a clue steve – the cops were there to make sure the morons that get the limelight are kept in line while they BREAK THE LAW. It is sad the few hundred overshadow the thousands of great causes that were being protested. Many of the important voices and legitimate marches will forever be silenced by these morons.

By: Yawn

Yawn — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:49:05 +0000

5,000 peace marchers marched. A couple hundred middle class kids with nothing better to do ran around, burned trash cans, broke some windows and got themselves spanked. Protest concluded and first amendment rights remained intact.

Now on to the business of nominating the next President of the US.