National Conventions and Protesting

[FrankZappa]

The DNC is coming to the Queen City, Denver, for the first time in one hundred years. Been lotsa talk about it and everything related - both good and bad.

Last Sunday (6/22) The Denver Post ran a front page article, New generation plans dissent that I found for some reason peaked my interests in the whole dealio much more than the convention and the same-ol-same-ol politicians and political mumbo jumbo does. Hell, I've never even paid hardly any attention to any of the conventions before, but when they are held close to home... something makes it different.

The DP story: http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_9654625

There's also a few good comments at the end of it. Also lists of some of the groups.

I wonder if the protests do more harm than good. Are they even effective any more?

Not that I plan on going and joining some group and protesting, but I feel more connected to the protestors than the people that'll be put into offices. Maybe it's a desire to yell and scream at the politicos about your frustrations, (of course it would be best topped by chucking some old tomatos and/or eggs at them - but I doubt that could happen - it's the lobbyist that need the tar and feathers after all).

Any protest stories around here?

Anybody planning on going to either the DNC or the RNC and protesting?

Do you think the politicians even listen to/monitor what the protesting groups are stating? Do they even care?

[mrw]

Protesting is a complete waste of time. To accomplish anything requires buying politicians.

[summit]

[Buster Highmen]

Any protest stories around here?

Heh.....

[Tippster]

Where's that Chicken Suit thread?

[PNWbrit]

Any protest stories around here?

I threw things at the rozzers during the Poll Tax riots in London 1990.

[snowful]

Protesting is a complete waste of time...

Not true.

[nick > jesus]

the group "recreate '68" is huge, but i dont even know what exactly they are protesting

[snowful]

the group "recreate '68" is huge, but i dont even know what exactly they are protesting

Does it matter?

[FrankZappa]

Here's one of the comments from the article

I don't believe the protesters understand how counterproductive protests, marches and rallies have become.

Whether it is Operation Rescue protesting at abortion clinics; Westboro Baptist Church protesting at street corners and funerals; Re-create '68 protesting at the convention or war protesters waving their signs at Civic Center the modern protest hinders the cause more than it promotes it.

Left or Right; Up or Down; Pro or Anti; protest marches accomplish three things.
1) Alienation of the undecided
2) Galvanization of the opposition
3) Making the participants feel good.

They actually do not advance the cause and probably hinder it.

Yes, they have the right to march and rally and be heard. Yes the entire country is a Free Speech zone. My question is why do they bother when all they do is alienate everyone who is not hardcore.

I can see this persons point, but I'm not sure whether it's true or not.

------

also, honorable mention for a laugh I'll give to this one

So many organizations and acronyms!
There are so many organizations and acronyms with these people! I mean, DNC, SDS, etc., etc., yet the ones that apply to this bunch are conspicuously missing from the article: LSD, STD, and FBI.

[lemon boy]

Protests don't really work anymore for a variety of reasons IMVHO, cheifly:

1. Most of the time they're arguing between neutral grey 4 and neutral gray 4
2. Most people are fat happy sheep not dissatisfied with the basic status quo
3. Most protesters have accepted the boxes they've been put in to limit their impact.
4. Most protests simply don't generate enough people.

mooo

[grrrr]

I dunno. I went to the Three mile Island protest in 1979. I got to listen to Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Peter, Paul and Mary and Graham Nash. Then we met some really cool flower girls and smoked pot on the capital steps.

What more do you need to accomplish than that?

[Cliff Huckable]

Anyone against protest doesn't deserve to be American.

One of the only things I dislike about the USA (aside from the current government) is the huge number of people I meet who tell me they're not going to vote becaause "the big corporations run this country/one vote doesn't mean anything/it's rigged/etc". I'm sure those same people think protesting is a waste of time.

Look at the history of the USA. Now take all the protest and dissent out of American history and would you have? A British colony.

The people of the USA need to grow a pair, again.
Early 1970's size, if any of you can still manage it.
Over the last few years it has sickened the rest of the world to watch you all sit back and do nothing while your government totally ruins your country. If you're not going to help your country for you and your countrymen, do it to impress a French/Thai/Japanese/Kenyan/Danish chick, OK?

[Art Shirk]

[FrankZappa]

I threw things at the rozzers during the Poll Tax riots in London 1990.

New word for the day = rozzer. Had to look that brit slang up. Thanks.

Crazy vid. Musta been somethin to be part of. Did that much protest shit goin down change the outcome of (I guess it was some kind of tax issue...?) whatever it was?

[PNWbrit]

New word for the day = rozzer. Had to look that brit slang up. Thanks.

Crazy vid. Musta been somethin to be part of. Did that much protest shit goin down change the outcome of (I guess it was some kind of tax issue...?) whatever it was?

It was huge. The riots and widespread refusal to pay the Poll Tax were a large part of Thatchers fall from power later that year.

From wikipedia - I'm too lazy to write it up myself.

"The Community Charge was a poll tax to fund local government in the United Kingdom, instituted in 1989 by the government of Margaret Thatcher. It replaced the rates (tax) that were based on the notional rental value of a house. The abolition of rates was in the manifesto of Thatcher's Conservative Party in the 1979 general election, and the replacement was proposed in the Green Paper of 1986, Paying for Local Government. It was a fixed tax per adult resident, but there was a reduction for poor people. Each person was to pay for the services provided in their community. This proposal was contained in the Conservative Manifesto for the 1987 General Election. The new tax replaced the rates in Scotland from the start of the 1989/90 financial year and in England and Wales from the start of the 1990/91 financial year.

The system was unpopular. It seemed to shift the tax burden from rich to poor, as it was based on the number of people living in a house rather than its estimated price. Many tax rates set by local councils proved to be much higher than earlier predictions, leading to resentment even among people who had supported it. The tax in different boroughs differed dramatically because local taxes paid by businesses varied and grants by central government to local authorities sometimes varied capriciously.

There were mass protests, called by the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation to which the vast majority of local Anti Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) were affiliated. In Scotland the APTUs called for mass non-payment and these calls rapidly gathered widespread support which spread to England and Wales, even though non-payment meant that people could be prosecuted. In some areas, 30% of former ratepayers defaulted. While owner-occupiers were easy to tax, those who regularly changed accommodation were almost impossible to pursue if they chose not to pay. The cost of collecting the tax rose steeply while the returns from it fell. Enforcement measures became increasingly draconian, and unrest grew and culminated in a number of Poll Tax Riots. The most serious was in a protest at Trafalgar Square, London, on March 31, 1990, of more than 200,000 protesters. A Labour MP, Terry Fields, was jailed for 60 days for refusing to pay his poll tax.

This unrest was instrumental in toppling Margaret Thatcher in 1990. Her replacement, John Major, replaced the Community Charge with the Council Tax system, effective from 1993-94. That tax was very similar to the rating system that preceded the Poll Tax. The main differences were that it was levied on capital value rather than notional rental value of a property, and that it had a 25% discount for single-occupancy dwellings"

During the afternoon and evening it got really very scary. Burning cars, heads being beaten by batons, cavalry charges into the crowd. By way of reference - I was in downtown Seattle during the WTO protests - that never got anywhere close to as violent or frightening as that day in London.

There were a few good civil disobedience punch ups around the same time outside the South African Embassy, which also happens to be in Trafalgar square.

Good times.

[Mott the Hoople]

Anyone against protest doesn't deserve to be American.

One of the only things I dislike about the USA (aside from the current government) is the huge number of people I meet who tell me they're not going to vote becaause "the big corporations run this country/one vote doesn't mean anything/it's rigged/etc". I'm sure those same people think protesting is a waste of time.

Look at the history of the USA. Now take all the protest and dissent out of American history and would you have? A British colony.

The people of the USA need to grow a pair, again.
Early 1970's size, if any of you can still manage it.
Over the last few years it has sickened the rest of the world to watch you all sit back and do nothing while your government totally ruins your country. If you're not going to help your country for you and your countrymen, do it to impress a French/Thai/Japanese/Kenyan/Danish chick, OK?

Who the fuck are you? Fix your own country before you start worrying about somewhere else. Everybody's so sick of the U.S. they're still beating down the doors to get in. By the way...stay home.

[gretch6364]

I know one thing...I won't be doing any protesting at the DNC...I am getting the hell out of the city when that shit is going down. It is going to suck so bad....they are saying we might not be able to get to work or worse, we may get stuck at work (which I think is BS)...what sucks though is I am flying in and out of Denver during those weeks...which is going to suck as well...oh well...I guess the city and business owners will make a few bucks from it so that is good.

[Aussie_ripper]

Show again due to impressiveness.

[BmillsSkier]

The DNC is coming to the Queen City, Denver,

The Queen City is Cincinnati, not Denver. Just sayin'...

Anyone against protest doesn't deserve to be American.

I've learned that you can say "says the Canadian" after every one of your posts. It works quite well.

Secondly, I thought I had your age pegged, but I'm finding I keep revising it lower and lower. Your internet age is now officially 11.

[encore]

OMG, I can't get to work!

[FrankZappa]

Well, I guess the "zone" planning did what they wanted.

How fucked up is that?

Protest zone a lonely place
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 08/26/2008 12:20:45 AM MDT


Liz Hourican of Arizona checks her bullhorn Monday at the public-demon-stration zone set up outside the Pepsi Center. ( Sean Hiller, Special to The Denver Post )

When delegates finally filed into the Pepsi Center on Monday, the public-demonstration zone was empty — save for one, lone protester.

Lynne Gravel, the daughter of former Democratic presidential candidate and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, stood under a tree for some shade.

"If the purpose is freedom of speech, this is not the place to do it," Gravel said.

Protest groups spent months fighting for their right to be heard. But when a federal judge ruled that the protest zone in a parking lot was close enough, they chose not to appeal.

So, with little shade, no water and only a wooden stage, protesters decided to go somewhere else, she said. "The delegates can't see this," Gravel said. "They don't even know this is here."

http://www.denverpost.com/dncsafety/ci_10302507
More protest stuff from Denver DNC

But I must say, still, the protesters are the most exciting part so far... we, and the politicians that should hear them, just havn't been allowed to hear what they are saying - or did I miss this part during un-prime-time? I'd like to see coverage & interviews & speaches from the protestors during the "inbetween" time instead of the boring, tear-jerker fillers that are as bad as the ones in the Olympics. Thanks media.

'cept for a blurb or two about the "anarchists" and maybe one or two other groups.


PS- I hope all you guys down there that couldn't get to work are having a good time. I saw on the news last nite that now all of a sudden a bunch of the folks that said they'd stay away decided DT was rockin and headed on down.

[mitch buchannon]

DowntownDenver really isn't that fucked. There's more dipshits than usual, but nothing remarkably different so far.

[pappag]

DowntownDenver really isn't that fucked. There's more dipshits than usual, but nothing remarkably different so far.

Bullshit.

Took 50 minutes to go from 15th and Wynkoop to Colfax and Broadway on the 10 yesterday after work (and I purposely left early).

[summit]

Listening to the scanners there have only been a few minor clashes, not the apocalypse they are prepared for. Apparently they were harassing the Westboro Baptists (Phelps Phelchers) yesterday hehehe.