In 1968,I was living and working in Manhattan.Besides the Village Voice, there was an "underground" paper that was even farther left, called the EVO, or the EAST VILLAGE OTHER.In that paper, as well as in the VV, not to mention all kinds of pamphlets and handouts, the Yippies asked for people to volunteer for their "army of protesters",which they TRAINED,like a militia, for the '58 protest in Chicago.I wish that I had saved these newspapers,but I didn't.
Shortly before the convention, I was cutting across Central Park, on my way to visit my parents, when what should I come across, but Abbey Hoffman and Rubin, and the rest of that ilk, TRAINING a vast motley crew of " peaceful" protest wannabes, in the fine arts of throwing human waste filled plastic baggies and how to taunt police to get them to hit them, on camera.THIS WAS A PLANNED ATTACK,THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SPONTANIOUS ABOUT THE CHICAGO "RIOTS" AT THE DEM CONVENTION!
Flash forward to the late summer of 2004. Unlike '68, when the Hippies and Yippies took over Grant Park, I really doubt that Central Park is going to be allowed to be taken over by today's filthy protesters. The GOP convention is NOT adjacent to Central Park,it's to be held in Madison Square Garden and the very tiny park nearby, will NOT accommodate huge numbers of protesters. The nearby "Pocket Parks",as they are called, are even smaller.
Will the protesters disrupt N.Y.C.? They'll try to, but they'll make residents and people who work in Manhattan furious,which won't help their cause and the NYPD isn't going to give them free reign at all.
...I'm not available. *wink*