Time to pack the cop repellant!

[Bosh]

Yes, its that time of year again. When the golden heat of indian summer makes its last stand again the tightening grip of autumn, when leaves start making make-over plans, and the International Monetary Fund has its fall meeting in DC.
Things should be interesting this time around, I expect things to be a bit more generally chaotic than the last big anti-IMF demo in April 2000 (although probably not close to Seattle) what with the couple-hundred person conga-line through rush hour traffic (the Anti-Capitalist Convergence's snake march) on friday morning and the quarantine action on saturday (were people will try to keep the delegates from leaving which should work better than last time when people tried to keep them from entering since pretty much all the delegates except the lazy French got up really early and beat the protestors).
And best of all, we're having a 30ish person wesleyan samba band which is the coolest thing since vinegar-soaked bandanas, especially considering the melodious strains I'll be producing with my wok

Shouldn't run into too much trouble with my good friends at the DC police department since I'm a good little student but I just might be able to smell the sweet fragrance of tear gas for the first time....

[Asher]

I hope you have fun accomplishing absolutely nothing but wasting taxpayers money.

Go get 'em!

[chequita guevara]

Remember when the whole country used to be a free speech zone? (A man was arrested for carrying a sign that said this while standing outside the "free speech zone" at the Portland anti-Bush demos. Bush supporters were not forced to stand in the "free spech zone."

[Ming]

Back when I was a liberal hippie... the cops usually treated us pretty well when we protested. But then again, I never threw bottles at them

[monkspider]

God bless you Boshko, my only protest experience has been a rather impromptu (and somewhat pathetic to be honest) anti-war demonstation at my college campus. And I partipated at a rather large-scale protest of our abortion clinics here in Wichita. That was quite an interesting experience. Last I checked my friend and I were on a website featuring pictures of "problematic" people for the hardcore pro-lifers.

[Bosh]

I hope you have fun accomplishing absolutely nothing but wasting taxpayers money.

Hey, how often did the IMF get mentioned at all in newspapers before April 16th, 2000?

the cops usually treated us pretty well when we protested

Yeah, its often best to get an understanding sorted out with the police ahead of time. They're often relatively understanding and take their time arresting you if you don't cause that much trouble. This is a lot harder to do with the DC cops though....

Last I checked my friend and I were on a website featuring pictures of "problematic" people for the hardcore pro-lifers.

Those people are especially fun when they show up for protests. We had some really insane nazis a while ago with signs about the jewish threat to our precious foreskins.

[chequita guevara]

Cops generally treat you pretty good as long as you do what they say. The whole point of civil disobedience, however, is to disobey the police. This tends to make them less than happy with you.

Old comrade I knew from Chicago was a Brown Panther back in the day (Chicano version of Black Panthers). He was standing in the street during an impromptu demo when some cops told him to get on the sidewalk. He said, "What're you gonna do, arrest me, Pig?" They said, "No," threw the cuffs on him, tossed him in the police car, drove a few blocks away to an alley, and beat the crap out of him.

Lesson to chegitz, do not make the happy Chicago PD unhappy.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Boshko
Hey, how often did the IMF get mentioned at all in newspapers before April 16th, 2000?

You mean before everyone got the idea that people who opposed the IMF were anarchist hooligans who liked to trash property for ****s and giggles?

Edit: Not public property -- brainfart. I also edited a questionable word -- the singular version of the word is censored but not plural. Go Mark.

[Ming]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Lesson to chegitz, do not make the happy Chicago PD unhappy.

As a life long Chicagoian... I second that

You NEVER want to piss off a Chicago Cop.

[Bosh]

people who opposed the IMF were anarchist hooligans who liked to trash public property for ****s and giggles?

That's people who oppose the WTO I think the extent of property destruction at the anti-IMF demo was a chain-link fence and a few news paper vending boxes got moved a bit...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Boshko
That's people who oppose the WTO I think the extent of property destruction at the anti-IMF demo was a chain-link fence and a few news paper vending boxes got moved a bit...

Ah, so to answer your question then the protests didn't raise the profile much, as I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Asher
You mean before everyone got the idea that people who opposed the IMF were anarchist hooligans who liked to trash property for ****s and giggles?

A classic example of the big lie in action. Despite the fact that the massive majority of the protest was non-violent, the presence of half a dozen hooligans gave corporate apologists an excuse to tar the entire movement. Despite the fact that the police almost always initated violence, it is the protestors who are considered violent.

[Asher]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
A classic example of the big lie in action. Despite the fact that the massive majority of the protest was non-violent, the presence of half a dozen hooligans gave corporate apologists an excuse to tar the entire movement. Despite the fact that the police almost always initated violence, it is the protestors who are considered violent.

That was my entire point. I thought he was making a point about how stuff like that raises the public visibility of those causes, but all it does is tarnish the reputations of the people who support thoses causes.

[chequita guevara]

That may be true, but globalization and the WTO etc weren't even being discussed before the anti-WTO protests. While they still have a long way to go in order to stop the theft of democracy, human rights, and globalize justice (insert lefty rhetoric here), they did make a major issue of it. The movement took it's biggest hit not because they were wrongly tarred and feathered but because some right-wing loonies decided that it would be a good idea to fly some planes into the symbols of globalization.

[Asher]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
That may be true, but globalization and the WTO etc weren't even being discussed before the anti-WTO protests.

They still aren't. Honest.

The WTO riots made news because it looked like a bunch of morons wrecking things for fun, people didn't care about their "cause" or spark debates about it at all. You had the odd media newsbrief of these protestors complaining about how the WTO kill people, but the vast majority of people looked at it as an excuse to protest and destroy stuff. Yes, I know the vast majority of protestors didn't do that, but that's not what it looks like in media coverage.