Let's smash things for peace!

[gridlore]

So, we had a big march in SF today, somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 showing up to hear a rally at Justin Herman Plaza, march up Market to the Civic Center, and hear another rally.

This scored exactly 3 minutes on the news.

A group of about 700 broke off and marched to Union Square, where they began vandalizing stores, setting fires, and throwing rocks at the police. Tear gas was used, as well as the SFPD's mounted unit. This was at 5 minutes and counting when I switched off the set in disgust.

To a man, these idiots appeared to be young. Early twenties, late teens. All these wannabe Che's were screaming at the riot cops, making the entire peace movement look like scary revolutionaries.

Great job guys! Being being total idiots, you complete destroyed the efforts of a few hundred thousand people!

Comments

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Enh. That element is always going to be there, in any protest. They were there in the 60s marches, and so on back through the history of labor organizing, etc... heck, what do you call the Boston Tea Party?

If you want to blame someone, blame the media (and the politicians, et al) who focus on the riot rather than the protest, because that makes juicier copy. Imagine a news-spot along the lines of "Other than a few opportunistic acts of vandalism by younger members of the group, the protest was concluded without incident." Hard to conceive of, isn't it?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I was very pleased by how friendly and peaceful the Sydney march was (not least because we had my ten-year-old stepson with us). The organisers reminded people early on that "the police and marshals are here for your safety," and that's how it stayed.

In the end the police asked for the march to be rerouted, and turned away fifty thousand latecomers, but both of those were for genuine safety reasons. The streets were already full, there just wasn't room to take more people or to follow the original route.

I have been meaning to post this for days...

[zyxwvut.livejournal.com]

...But I was actually discussing this subject while in the march. Beth's friend
TimB came up with a pretty cogent argument against it, which gelled what I've
felt in my gut for a while: They feel that they have to resort to these tactics
to get attention; but then it devolves into a situation of, "*MY* violence is
okay, but yours is not." (which, of course, is bullsheeeeet).

This are why "protestors" gets mismapped to, and treated as, "rioters" by so
many of the public at large.

OTOH, they really only represented (at most) half of one percent of the people
at the march.

Have also recently discussed Fred Phelps (after reading about him in *THIS* journal,
FWIW) with a co-worker, who talks about how, at the Pride Parade, the Phelps-minions
(there being 8 or so of them) get oodles of press, whereas the couple-hundred-to-a-
thousand religious Queer Supporters *in* the parade get a second or two, *if* they're
lucky. :-P~

Z

P.S.: See also, potentially, http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=feyandstrange&itemid=97089 (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=feyandstrange&itemid=97089)