I Love My Country But Fear My Government

I Love My Country But Fear My Government
Originally uploaded by Snurri

Yesterday janradder, psycheknot, my friend Pete who is not part of the LJ cult, and I walked from my place to Harriet Island for the Take Back Labor Day Concert put on by SEIU. Normally it would be perhaps a twenty-five minute walk to the Wabasha Street Bridge, but since streets around the Excel and RNC are closed I had walked the alternate route the night before and estimated it would take us perhaps forty minutes. Which turned out to be completely wrong, because we left while the demonstration was going on, and were diverted even further around downtown.

The demonstration was peaceful as far as we saw, and I felt a little bad for going to the concert instead. There had been some violence ahead of it, apparently; while having lunch before leaving we were told that a group of self-styled anarchists had set a couple of dumpsters on fire and rammed one into an occupied police car. (There's a picture of a police SUV with a shattered window in the set, which may or may not be the same one.) The cops reacted pretty quickly to that, and there were several arrests. (There had also been one arrest in the morning when the Iraq Veterans Against the War marched on the RNC.) Along the demonstration route (which was ridiculously contained) there were hundreds of cops in full riot gear, which was frankly pretty scary. Some of them looked relaxed and bored, even sleepy, and then some of them looked ready to uncoil at the first sign of . . . anything. They routed us around St. Peter, all the way up 7th to Minnesota and away from the river to 10th before we could actually get off the route and head for the bridges. We were so delayed that we missed Billy Bragg, who played first.

Also, I had managed to pick out my Don Don t-shirt that morning, without thinking about the elephant iconography. I pictured myself being confronted by angry marchers, protesting my liberalism and screaming "I just like elephants!" Happily, despite some wary looks, no t-shirt related violence occurred.

The concert was enjoyable; a good crowd, and good sound despite not being terribly close to the stage. It was hot, though, and I am quite sunburned today. Steve Earle was good, Tom Morello was not, and local rap group Atmosphere was clearly the big draw. I liked them, too. We stayed for most of Mos Def's set and then headed out to make the long walk back.

More fun was had when the Wabasha Street Bridge which we had crossed just a few hours earlier was denied us. I cursed Tim Pawlenty and Norm Coleman, and we walked along the train tracks to the Robert Street Bridge. Then it was another hour around downtown while chartered buses filled with delegates passed us, escorted by police cars. It felt very like being in an occupied city, with cops even on the outlying corners.

There was a lot that happened that we missed while relaxing at the concert. Glenn Greenwald is again invaluable for his roundup of the events. MinnPost has a summary as well. And here's a blog account from a woman who found herself caught up in some of the violence yesterday.

It's quite bizarre to have all of this happening here, and I haven't processed it yet.
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EDIT: As others have pointed out, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was arrested yesterday. Haddayr links to a petition protesting this and other harassment of independent journalists.

Webcomics R Good

Oh John Campbell sometimes it is like you are singing my life.

Evening, With Rage

Cops In Riot Gear (Part 1)
Originally uploaded by Snurri

So I went down to the Capitol because someone had said that Rage Against the Machine was going to play there; not that I'm a fan, particularly, but I wanted to see what would happen. What happened was that the police refused to let them play because they weren't included in the original permit. That was probably a bad idea, because what happened as a result was that the band and some other activists started leading the crowd down Cedar Avenue.

(You can read about what happened here or at the photo essay.)

I followed the crowd, sometimes riding and sometimes walking my bike, and taking pictures. There were no cops in the way that I could see, but I was afraid they'd show up at any moment to block the route. There were a few police vehicles in our path down Cedar, but instead of trying to stop the crowd they preceded it across the bridge into downtown. There were plenty of folks there like me who weren't exactly doing the chants ("Resist! Resist! Raise your fucking fist!" was a popular one, as was "Stop the war on the poor!") but were taking pictures or video. Lots of journalists of all sorts; citizen, independent, and Big Media.

Just like the demonstration on Monday, there were all sorts of people in the crowd. Law students in ACLU t-shirts who had volunteered to observe arrests and make sure anyone taken into custody had representation. "Peace" volunteers in yellow vests trying to keep the crowd orderly and calm. Folks with bandanas or masks, hippies, and hardcore Rage fans. Traffic was stopped all along the route, but at first there were just police vehicles blocking the streets.

Crossing the Cedar Street Bridge was the most exciting and frightening part of the experience. The chants got very loud, and there was a feeling of power in that, but also danger. At that point I was really hoping the police wouldn't do anything stupid, because although there were a lot of people trying to keep the peace in the crowd there was also a lot of anger in the air. There were other people on the edges of the crowd who had the same worried expression that I was wearing. Others seemed to feel like it was a party.

The leaders of the march stopped in the intersection at Cedar and 11th, perhaps to let the rest of the crowd catch up. There were buses and cars stopped, stuck, waiting for the crowd to pass through. I took the opportunity to bike ahead of the crowd a little bit, in hopes of getting some better shots.

At Cedar and Exchange I saw the first squad of cops lining the route again. They were very tense. You can't see it too well in this shot but those are gas launchers. The officer in charge of this squad instructed the others to get up above, and I heard him say "We're not taking any" something "period."

If something bad had been going to happen I think it would have happened at Cedar and 7th, where the police steered the group on 7th. I don't believe any of this was planned, by either side, and there were so many cops and so many marchers, and the crowd was very loud at this point.

There were some Republican observers along the route saying stupid shit. One of them, spotting a couple of National Guard soldiers, said "Here comes the guard! Yeah!" I think he thought he was watching Black Hawk Down. Another fine specimen of humanity, walking well ahead of the protestors with his straight man, said "I wish I had my pump-action shotgun with me."

On the other hand, there were some stupid things being said by the marchers as well. I heard one guy wearing all black, including a bandana over his face, say "There are a lot of poseurs here."

We were funneled into the tiny park up the block from the Dorothy Day Center, which was also surrounded by a cage. A woman (organizer Cheri Honkala, apparently) got up on someone's shoulders, and through a megaphone, warned everyone not to make trouble. "We have people in wheelchairs here," she made the crowd repeat. "We have kids in strollers." I had also seen a woman wearing a peace flag admonishing some of the "anarchists" not to start any shit, and a brief argument between them.

One angry young fellow decided to pace the length of the fence taunting the officers. "You're all a bunch of fucking cowards! You fucking faggots!" He was, happily, ignored.

Representatives from the march went up the the checkpoint to seek entrance, mainly as a symbolic action. They were of course not admitted.

Shortly after that the crowd began to scatter, some sitting down and some walking up the fences to take pictures and shout at the Republicans, who were all safely inside by that time. I decided to head home, relieved that nothing unpleasant seemed to be happening.

However, apparently just after I left, "police discharged a series of flash-bang grenades and smoke canisters at an intersection not far from a security fence surrounding Xcel. [Tom] Walsh [St. Paul police spokesman] said the tactic was aimed at protesters trying to breach the fence." More of that story here; for a less objective report check out the account of our local Fox affiliate.

As I said, I had left by then, but this sounds like bullshit to me. The crowd was very calm and I believe that the great majority of them had taken Honkala's words seriously. It seems far more likely to me that the cops were told to clear everyone out, so they started making a lot of noise and arrests. Despite missing the excitement at the end, the entire evening was a pretty tense and frightening experience, although in retrospect it was probably fairly controlled.