Nobody walks in LA
Martha Bridegam
of policemen. Though the policemen also have bicycles and motorcycles
and horses and cars and vans and buses and helicopters.
Got back from Los Angeles yesterday after four days in protest marches
that were conducted under continual massive threat from batons and
"nonlethal" crowd-control weapons. Fairly often it seemed likely we
could all be blamed and attacked for our own or somebody else's
conjectural disobedience to police orders. The police did in fact attack
groups of demonstrators several times, though I didn't personally see
the worst episodes. Monday night sounds like it was the worst, though
news is still coming in about police beatings in a subway station late
last night. For further details I'd suggest averaging the LA Times
accounts with those from the Independent Media Center website.
I'm OK, but several other legal observers have rubber-bullet bruises or
baton welts. Demonstrators and reporters also have injuries -- I
wouldn't want to guess how many, or how serious. A very young, clean-cut
observer was arrested on a ridiculous felony conspiracy charge. A
sixtyish ACLU lawyer has a rubber-bullet bruise in the exact center of
her forehead. Etc.
One kind of rubber bullet looks like a marble, another like a
marshmallow. I think it's the rubber marbles that make round bruises as
much as three inches across, with a round red mark at the center. The
impact is reportedly painful.
As Joel concluded from watching the news at home, they treated us like a
force of nature -- like a flood or a plague of locusts. Protesters
marched -- or rather, were marched -- for miles down asphalt streets in
90-degree weather, entirely surrounded by rows of blue uniforms. There
were multiple standoffs where we all stood and baked at intersections
inside boxes of double and triple police "skirmish lines". Officers gave
contradictory instructions, or just stopped -- and menaced -- groups of
marchers until they figured out where to escort us next. Sometimes
during these waits, the police support operation would hand out bottles
of cold water, to police officers only. We drank whatever water we had
brought with us and waited. Meanwhile the organizers, fully aware *we*
would get hurt in case of misunderstanding, negotiated very carefully
which way the police would allow us to proceed.
Almost the way Joel and I negotiated with the robber who broke into our
apartment and threatened to shoot us last spring. In bed, covers over
our faces, with our hands sticking out the top per instructions. "All
right, sir, if you'll go around to the head of the bed, you'll find my
pants on the floor. My wallet is in in the back right pocket..."
Yes, the number of injuries and arrests could have been worse. There was
considerable damage, however, to the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I
don't want to call what happened a "chilling effect." There was too much
heat of all kinds for that.
Last night my stomach unexpectedly made me turn off Al Gore's acceptance
speech. So every word he said could have been marvelous for all I know.
But he said it from behind a blue wall that has been treating citizens
of a purported democracy like molecules in a toxic fluid.
Bertolt Brecht didn't like LA either:
"On thinking about Hell, I gather
My brother Shelley found it was a place
Much like the city of London. I
Who live in Los Angeles and not in London
Find, on thinking about Hell, that it must be
Still more like Los Angeles."
As quoted by Mike Davis, who is absolutely right about that place.
/MAB
selen...@my-deja.com
jo...@sirius.com wrote:
> But he said it from behind a blue wall that has been treating citizens
> of a purported democracy like molecules in a toxic fluid.
>
> Bertolt Brecht didn't like LA either:
>
> "On thinking about Hell, I gather
> My brother Shelley found it was a place
> Much like the city of London. I
> Who live in Los Angeles and not in London
> Find, on thinking about Hell, that it must be
> Still more like Los Angeles."
>
> As quoted by Mike Davis, who is absolutely right about that place.
Bravo Martha! A beautifully written post--and thank you from the bottom
of my heart for trying to preserve the last shreds of freedom of speech
and the right to assemble for all those who are shut out of our<sarcasm>
two</sarcasm> party system. I couldn't make myself watch Gore either,
but I heard that he said that his administration would be "for the
people and not for the powerful." Needless to say, I'm voting for Nader.
>
> /MAB
>
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Tom Deveson
>
>Bravo Martha! A beautifully written post--and thank you from the bottom
>of my heart for trying to preserve the last shreds of freedom of speech
>and the right to assemble for all those who are shut out of our<sarcasm>
>two</sarcasm> party system.
I hope it's OK for a UK voter to echo that. Your writing is eloquent
with brave and proper anger, and I hope it gets read by more than just
us here.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Martha Bridegam
Tom Deveson wrote:
Yr kind but all I did was walk around developing a sunburn & an attitude
problem. The brave folks were the organizers who kept the peace, the
surprisingly small number of civil disobedience arrestees, and the legal
observers who got those round bruises Monday night but who kept monitoring
demos for the whole rest of the convention without complaining. Also the
gutsy Critical Mass bicycle riders, who brought a welcome breath of freedom
back to the streets on Tuesday night at the price of 71 arrests.
Forgot to say I did get to see the Westin Bonaventure Hotel -- the one
Frederic Jameson can't stand -- but only from the outside. At least part of
the time it was guarded on two sides by a lot of riot cops and several
horses. Guess the designers knew what they were doing, making the place so
self-contained & nicely detached from the outside world. Same for Frank
Gehry's walled Loyola Law School complex -- it's so well enclosed, so much a
world apart, that I could stand in a quiet, safe courtyard Monday evening &
not see or hear that a block away my friends were being sprayed with rubber
bullets.
/MAB
Paul Sebastianelli
Tom Deveson wrote in message ...
>In article <8nlvi2$ki3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, selen...@my-deja.com writes
>>
>>Bravo Martha! A beautifully written post--and thank you from the bottom
>>of my heart for trying to preserve the last shreds of freedom of speech
>>and the right to assemble for all those who are shut out of our<sarcasm>
>>two</sarcasm> party system.
>
>I hope it's OK for a UK voter to echo that. Your writing is eloquent
>with brave and proper anger, and I hope it gets read by more than just
>us here.
echoed also by a canadian voter.
paul.