Posted on 09/08/2007 5:42:54 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Last Friday, I inadvertently found myself in the midst of the opening salvo of a battle to turn the Twin Cities upside down next year.
I was driving home at rush hour from downtown Minneapolis, when several hundred bicyclists blocked the street leading to Interstate 394.
My fellow motorists and I sat obligingly for several minutes, missing green light after green light. Finally, folks began angrily honking their horns. If two police cars hadn't moved the riders along, people might have leaped from their cars to take on the bicyclists themselves.
Later, the protest ride turned ugly. Two officers tried to arrest several riders who covered their faces with hoods while blocking motorists. They resisted, and about 30 protesters surrounded the officers, chanting "Let them go! Let them go!"
Forty-eight law enforcement personnel from six agencies responded to a police call for help, and chemical spray was used to control the crowd. Nineteen demonstrators were arrested.
Get ready, Minnesotans. The protest was "a kick-off" for a "weekend of organizing against the Republican National Convention" to be held here in September 2008, according to the RNC Welcoming Committee, a local anarchist group.
Across the country, similar groups have announced their intention to cause havoc in our cities next year.
Annette Meeks has seen these tactics before. In 2004, she was a delegate to the GOP convention in New York City.
Meeks, my former colleague at Center of the American Experiment, said that many of the protesters in New York differed markedly from their predecessors.
"It used to be peaceful ex-hippies with placards -- they're almost quaint by today's standards," she said. "In New York we saw a professional class of protesters, with an angry, violent mob mentality.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Just bring out the dogs and the fire hoses —
Let them. I can’t think of a better way to turn the tide.
This isn’t 1967. The left is using tactics from the SDS days.
The ACLU will have a platoon of lawyers there, I guarantee you.
Leave the rubber bullets back at the station house.
Whoever picked Minnesota for the Repubs needs to have his/her head examined to see if they have a brain at all. Maybe some day they will learn, and I long for that day soon. The RNC will be trashed from day one there by the local media, and I cannot figure out why they went for this place. What foolish thoughts.
Rather bring out the riot guns and the tanks.
Funny how their right to act like thugs always trumps our right to go about our daily business without having them in our face.
Protest is fine, but ONCE they start interfering with OTHER people civil rights, they should be beaten down and arrested.
Could the Republicans sue the protest organizers for infringing on our Rights? While we do recognize their Right to peaceful assembly and protest, when it turns violent is that not an infringement on the rights of Republican citizens? The key here is to sue the groups, not individual protesters. Do they have a responsibility to control their own? And when they fail to do so, are they not liable for the damages and infringements?
mindless bots.
my tv-moron, union neighbor foams at the mouth when she sees bush.
bush in iraq, she tells me one morning. i point out to her that she couldn’t find iraq on a map and knows nothing about the geo-political issues.
no matter. her all-consuming rage against bush holds the morning.
america is full of these people.
Because San Francisco was being fumigated that week? Why didn’t they come here to Fort Worth? Or maybe Biloxi to showcase the real Hurricane Katrina recovery story?
...and Nixon won in 1968. However, Johnson was a Dem (though not running), so the incumbent was technically from the other party. A law and order candidate could very well win, no pun intended.
The RNC hacks in D.C. are idiots... they want to let the media run our primary and select who is a "top-tier" candidate... Flood the country with illegals, kiss up to the leftists in the press and protect the perverts...
That’s the same last friday of each month bicycle crowd you will see in cities across the US. They call themselves Critical Mass. Very hostile pro cyclist greens. Needless to say their politcs are left. AS a cyclist I dislike their tactics, intentionall massing of bikers to shut down traffic.
Thre will be plenty of nutjobs at the convention. I worked the 2004 convention in NYC and the nuts were out every day.
Don’t forget the rubber bullets... dems works real good!
LLS
The difference... our anger is righteous... their’s is political.
LLS
Will Hillary go to prison?
That’s the Left for you. If they don’t get their way, they’ll hold their breath until they turn blue.
If the police don’t arrest these childish authoritarian wannabes, what hope is there for a semi-orderly convention?
“Because San Francisco was being fumigated that week? Why didn’t they come here to Fort Worth? Or maybe Biloxi to showcase the real Hurricane Katrina recovery story?”
I’m even more surprized that it wasn’t held in El Paso since Mel Martinez is the RNC chairman, that way he could have more of his favorite constituents attend.
Remember, Officers: Just because they call it a nightstick, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it during the day!
[With apologies to Eddie Murphy.]
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