[Mercat]

I disagree. The battle in 1968 was between Humphrey and McGovern. Nixon won in part because the primary divided the Democrats so thoroughly. There's no parallel here. There was no "McGovern" challenge to Bush.

[Braak]

Gentlemen, as much as this a great academic discussion, the wife and I will be voulenteering at the Convention and to be honest, I am nervous for her. I can take care of myself, but any suggestions?

[reformedliberal]

Actually, IIRC, the riots were to protest the defeat of the *Peace Plank* to the DNC platform.

The ideological reason given to the warm bodies was to provoke a *police riot* which would *wake up America* to the fascist police state that supposedly existed.

Back then, even most Donks were conservative and they applauded the LEO for taking on the protesters. This was Chicago and the then-mayor, Papa Daley wasn't going to have any such thing in his town unless he wanted it to happen. The hard hats were out there w/the cops thumping heads.

Afterward, as people came back home (I was in Milwaukee, then), word went out on the left that the consequences were a severe beating at the hands of the cops and the hard hats and most protesters just faded back into the woodwork, moved to the country as part of the *back to the land* movement or became very nonpolitical. The violent ones went into the Weather Underground.

There were some attempts in other cities to provoke *police riots*, too. Trashing became a Madison, WI group activity, Sterling Hall was bombed. It all turned off the majority of America.

Back then, this sort of riot was not something people had seen much of in America. Today, too many of us have seen too much of this sort of behavior. I expect the citizen response to be even more against the rioters now than it was then.

I also expect that there are many, many FBI and NYPD and SF infiltrators inside the protests. I fully expect the LEO to have good plans in force to deal with all of this. These jerks are way too full of themselves and their plans are all over the net.

[StACase]

I disagree. The battle in 1968 was between Humphrey and McGovern. Nixon won in part because the primary divided the Democrats so thoroughly. There's no parallel here. There was no "McGovern" challenge to Bush.

You're right about that, Johnson didn't run in '68, but they're still going to riot, and Kerry's going to win.