Posted on 03/07/2016 12:29:38 PM PST by Jack Black
A preview of the mayhem that is likely to envelop the 2016 GOP Convention in Cleveland will be seen this Friday when Trump holds a rally in Chicago. The Facebook page soliciting 'non-violent protesters' to attend the rally has over 7000 people promising to attend, and another 7000 are "interested".
The escalation of disruption and the provocation of violence has been on view over the last few weeks, in several Trump rallies. The Black Lives Matter activists have been the most visible disruptors, but there are others as well. The BLM movement was involved in fulminating full on riots (arson, looting) in several cities last summer. This is familiar territory for them.
But they are far from the only group that can be expected to protest at the GOP Convention. The usual Soros funded rent-a-mob types, SEUI members, recycled "Occupy" protesters, angry Sanders supporters and the vanguard of violence among leftists groups, the 'black block' anarchists can all be expected to turn out in force to protest the GOP convention, regardless of who the Convention is set to nominate.
The Cleveland Police are doing their best to prepare for these events as local papers have reported: Cleveland seeking to buy riot gear for Republican National Convention and Cleveland police begin special riot training. These news reports cite the number 2,000 as the number of "riot suits" being bought for the Convention.
To understand what the leftist agitators have in mind one needs to recall the 1968 Democratic convention when the Yippies, a far left group of radicals set out to create complete havoc in the streets of Chicago, to protest the failure of the Democratic Party to nominate an anti-war candidate. This event has an almost spiritual significance to the left, it is remembered as one of their greatest victories, and a high water mark for the anti-war left. This, despite the fact that it virtually assured the election of Richard Nixon in a landslide. No one ever said the Left were concerned with outcomes over feel-good theatrics.
By most accounts the disruption in Chicago was the work of no more than 1000 activists. It seems likely that today's social-media fueled left will easily be able to exceed this number, perhaps by an order of magnitude. And it seems likely that given the recent behavior of the left, both in Ferguson and at Trump events that violent mayhem is almost a certainty.
Mayor Daley, the long time mayor of Chicago was a law-and-order mayor who had a no-nonsense policy towards the protesters. Arrests were made in the days leading up to the larger protests, and those were greeted with riot-troops and tear gas. The riots were portrayed at the time as "police riots", that is the police decided to beat up the hapless hippies for no reason. In fact the opposite is true. The organizers used incredible provocations, such as throwing plastic bags of urine and feces at the police to force their hand.
It's unclear if the Cleveland police are made of stern enough stuff to prevent large scale rioting in their city. According to Wikipedia the force consists of only about 1500 officers. Even assuming they can augment this with suburban forces, it's a far cry from Chicago's 12,000 officers. Even the Ohio State Highway Patrol has only 1,500 additional officers, many of whom have little experience in riots being specialized officers who do truck inspections or motorcycle cops focused on traffic enforcement.
The mayor of Cleveland is Frank G. Jackson, a liberal Democrat whose background includes community organizing. He has worked to address minority complaints with the Cleveland police practices, and his city has been the site of several highly charged shootings of blacks. All of which may not bode well for the police having the required mind set and support to mount an aggressive defense of order in the face of violent rioters.
One wishes it were not so, but it seems inevitable that Cleveland will be the site of serious riots at this summer's GOP convention in Cleveland.
I was a police officer during the King riots and democratic convention in 1968. Mayor Daley put the hammer down on the hippies. The AHats were throwing poop out the windows of the Conrad Hilton in us below. Set fire to a police wagon in Grant Park with the police inside. Boy did we kick butt. Broke so many nite sticks that Evanston sent truck loads of ebony sticks with stainless shafts to us at Grant Park, the Palmer house and Hilton.
King riots Daley gave the order to “shoot to kill”. Then the National Guard came to help us out.
These were the days. Cleveland will do OK if the Mayor gets some balls.
Didn’t Mayor Frank Rizzo call in National Guard tanks to “handle” protestors in Philadelphia — in the ‘60s maybe? Not a bad idea.
Maybe the locals, even most of the local Democrats, don’t approve of riots, but that would not stop rioters from elsewhere being brought into the area.
Black Racists Matter will be causing trouble?
Yes, the left will be out in force. Conservatives don’t riot.
The other day somebody had a quote like
“When black people riot, neighborhoods are destroyed. When white people riot, countries are destroyed”
or similar
“It will be Cruz and Trump supporters when the GOPe scrooooooos one of them out of an earned victory.”
Actually. . .
“It will be Cruz and Trump supporters when the GOPe scrooooooos BOTH of them out of an earned victory.”
The way I’ve seen it phrased is “When people of color ‘rage’, cities burn. When white people ‘rage’, continents burn”.
Ah, yes, the yippies...
“They all got government jobs.”
I think your phraseology is better.
Thanks
Thanks, AW!!
His neighbor set up a "Ma Deuce", with tripod, on his front porch.
My buddy said "Can we hang out with you? We'll bring beer."
There was no trouble on their block.
An "accidental" warehouse explosion/fire might not be a bad thing...they would do it themselves and blame the Republicans.
It’s not hard to disrupt disruptors. Not that I would get into tactics on an open forum.
Trump should bring in a “private security firm,” ala Blackwater, to keep order, if that is even possible.
+1
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.