Posted on 06/15/2004 3:46:04 PM PDT by ssaftler
NEW YORK - Passing up road trips, beach vacations and barbecues, thousands of anti-Bush demonstrators are heading to summer school to learn how to stage successful sit-ins and what to do if pepper spray burns their eyes. Welcome to Convention Protesting 101.
Before the GOP convention begins Aug. 30, veteran activists will train protesters in street tactics, legal issues, public relations and first aid. Their aim: creating a force of demonstrators to carry out safe and organized protests.
"When you're protesting in New York City," said John Sellers, the director of a California-based group that trains activists, "you're definitely in the big leagues."
As city officials weigh which protest groups will get permits for official events, activists are quietly learning how to block doorways or street intersections and when to use passive body language — such as sitting down — to disarm police officers trying to make an arrest.
Trainers say they aren't urging protesters to break the law. But arrests are inevitable, and protesters are also offering legal training.
"The Republicans would love to have images coming out of New York City that make them look like the reasonable ones, like they're about responsibility and law and order and creating a safe society, and that the left was unreasonable and violent," Sellers said. "If we don't recognize that, then we're not being very strategic."
The instruction includes skills for responding to rogue protesters intent on causing lawlessness. Veterans expect thousands of untrained demonstrators to swarm city streets.
Sellers' group, the Ruckus Society, founded in 1995, will hold at least one weekend training camp this summer. Using many of the same principles, local activists are already gathering in churches, homes and public places throughout the city to teach classes, which will increase in frequency as the four-day convention approaches.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
This might well backfire on the rowdies.
California activists, meet New York City cops. This should be a great show!
~snip~
Veterans expect thousands of untrained demonstrators to swarm city streets.
Just what is it these trained and untrained protesters (I laugh just typing about this absurd delineation) wish to achieve?
Trained or not, they will not emerge appearing to be the reasonable ones.
One would think that would be self-evident. But then, one must be reasonable in order to discern...
Important FYI PING
Oughtta be a HOOt...MUD
I would like some video contrasting these maggots and the terrific Pubbie protestors in FL during the 2000 recounts...of course, most work was done on weekends and after 5p.m. (gotta work, dontcha know), but the Pubbie demonstrators should provide fodder for sociology classes for the next 20 years. Well-spoken, well-dressed, well-behaved, pleasant, and responsible people actually created a HUGE impression and the media avoided them because they were so impressive. I especially like the man that shoved in the door and made the Dems cry.
Thanks for the ping - all the training in the world won't make these idiots look reasonable!!!
After the G8 summit (which only drew 35 protestors) we still have "protestors" in jail because they refuse to give their names. In Jax, they serve baloney sandwiches to inmates...I wonder what they get in NYC?
Don't ask. Don't tell.
I think baby seal fillets and condor eggs should be announced on the menu for all protestors during the convention, especially as it was one of CA's senators that made condor egg destruction a felony while voting against a ban on partial birth abortion...
You scream, "Thank you, you rat-bastard. Can I have another"?
With golf size hail stones.
i'm just curious as to why people believe they need to 'apply' to Papa Govt for a 'permit' to protest something?
for the record this is just a general question, not a blindly partisan 'D vs R' thing.
Funded by Teresa Heinz-funded Tides Foundation:
While groups such as these and dozens of others organized and/or financed by the Tides Foundation and Center are relatively recent in their origin and transient in their nature, many are more established and pervasive in their influence. The Ruckus Society, which received over $200,000 in Tides money between 1999 and 2002, was begun in 1995 to train activists in violent protest against biotechnology, globalization and the World Bank. It incited property destruction in the Seattle riots of 1999 and Washington, D.C., the following year. However, Ruckus director John Sellers didn't see the wanton destruction of property as being violent at all. He told Mother Jones magazine, " I make a distinction between violence and destruction of property. Violence to me is against living things. But inanimate objects? I think you can be destructive, you can use vandalism strategically. It may be violence under the law but I just don't think it's violence." full story, Pgh Trib-Review.
The more obnoxious they are, the more disruptive they are, the more ugly they are, the more hateful they are....
the more votes for the GOP. Bring it on, dumbasses.
You are so polite it makes me lightheaded while I bite my tongue.
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