By: RS Janes

RS Janes — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:15:45 +0000

Great post, Jane. I was in Lincoln Park and Grant Park during the 1968 ‘police riot’ in Chicago. Most of the people who wanted violence against the cops (except for Fred Hampton and his ‘Off the Pigs’ speech), didn’t look like hippies or Yippies to me and my friends. I’ve been told it was later confirmed there were agent provocateurs from both the Chicago Police Dept. and the GOP trying to turn the protest into a riot. (The first night in Lincoln Park, the cops didn’t need an excuse — they were beating people trying to leave the park by the 11:pm curfew, along with members of the press, and chased them, including myself and my friends, all to way to Old Town, several blocks away.)

In the 2008 protests against the RNC convention in St. Paul, MN, it’s been confirmed there were police infiltrators in the various peace groups trying to foment violence. And now it seems to be the OWS as well. It’s incredible that the 1 Percent and the politicians they control are so terrified of Americans exercising their Constitutional right to assemble and protest that they’d stoop this low to discredit protest marchers.

But let’s review: after 1968, we eventually got out of Vietnam and ended the draft; in 2008, the GOP lost big time; and, now, the majority of Americans are siding with the OWS movement and, as the police violence increases, so does the size of OWS. It just shows the 1 percent are so devoid of imagination they keep resorting to the same tactics that haven’t worked in at least 43 years. That’s good news for those of us who want to defeat this out-of-control monster without violence.

Comments on: Black Bloc — or Black Water?

By: RS Janes