Report back: Occupy NATO & the G8
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William Peery
May 27, 2012, 4:54:01 PM5/27/12
to burlington_d...@googlegroups.com, William Peery
View my new video.
Occupy Burlington activists go to Chicago to Occupy NATO & the G8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfZQu_oN9Mg&feature=youtu.be
Occupy Burlington activists go to Chicago to Occupy NATO & the G8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfZQu_oN9Mg&feature=youtu.be
The civil liberties fight: UNAC first put in an application for a permit to march and rally in July of 2011. Five months later the organizers were informed that there would be no protests during the summits. But as a huge outcry developed, and after press conferences and protests organized by CANG8, Occupy Chicago and many unions, at last the organizers were granted a permit.
During this period the Emanuel administration also proposed, and got passed, new restrictive ordnances governing protests. These were also protested by CANG8, Occupy and the unions.
The march on sunday was lead by the Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who, at the end of the march, conducted a powerful and historic ceremony in which they threw their military medals in the direction of the NATO summit meeting where more wars in the interest of the 1% were being planned. There was also a moving reconciliation ceremony with some of the war victims being represented by members of Afghans for Peace.
The march on sunday was lead by the Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who, at the end of the march, conducted a powerful and historic ceremony in which they threw their military medals in the direction of the NATO summit meeting where more wars in the interest of the 1% were being planned. There was also a moving reconciliation ceremony with some of the war victims being represented by members of Afghans for Peace.
Click here for the Democracy Now report of the medal ceremony: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/21/no_nato_no_war_us_veterans.
At the end of the ceremony, as organizers urged people to start leaving the area, long lines of police in riot gear started moving towards the stage, preventing many from leaving. Police pushed with their clubs into the crowd as people fell against the metal barricades erected to contain the demonstrators. Soon the police were swinging their clubs at protesters in full view of the TV cameras and reporters; many people were hurt, some seriously. These were not lone-individual, out of control cops; this was clearly a planned attack. Perhaps it was needed by the city to justify the tremendous costs of the security apparatus used by the Emanuel administration, including months of pre-summit scare tactics and violence baiting protestors. But it was not the demonstrators who were violent, it was the police. It is not peace activists who are violent, it is NATO.
At the end of the ceremony, as organizers urged people to start leaving the area, long lines of police in riot gear started moving towards the stage, preventing many from leaving. Police pushed with their clubs into the crowd as people fell against the metal barricades erected to contain the demonstrators. Soon the police were swinging their clubs at protesters in full view of the TV cameras and reporters; many people were hurt, some seriously. These were not lone-individual, out of control cops; this was clearly a planned attack. Perhaps it was needed by the city to justify the tremendous costs of the security apparatus used by the Emanuel administration, including months of pre-summit scare tactics and violence baiting protestors. But it was not the demonstrators who were violent, it was the police. It is not peace activists who are violent, it is NATO.
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