A friend of mine lives in the Minneapolis area. He's a well-educated, rational thinker who takes his politics seriously. So much so, that his political beliefs lean further left than my own.
Anyway, he was at an all-day concert yesterday listening to some bands and hoping to see Rage Against the Machine later on in the afternoon.
He sent his account of what happened yesterday to a group of his friends and I'm sharing it with you here.
Note: if it is against policy to reprint what was originally written by someone else without seeking profit, please let me know and I'll ammend or delete this diary. Thank you.
Hi everyone,
I just got back from a day-long concert at the State Capitol in St. Paul during the RNC called Ripple Effect, featuring political music from Dead Prez, Michael Franti, Anti-Flag, and more.
After Anti-Flag closed their set at around 6:15 or so, there was a surprise guest set to perform: Rage Against the Machine!!! Radio stations had been announcing this in the hours before and thousands of mainly youth showed up to the Capitol to hear them.
As their roadies tuned up and they were all set to go on, however, the fascist police occupation that now rules the Twin Cities during the RNC refused to allow them to take the stage. They even cut the power to the event, though organizers had a permit for it to go until 7pm, well after Rage would have played. They claim that since Rage wasn't on the permit, somehow they had the right to prevent them from playing, which is, well, ridiculous police state nonsense.
I can honestly say this was one of the most disgusting displays of police bullshit I have seen. Preventing thousands of young people from hearing one of the world's best political bands is some serious bullshit.
The whole crowd even sang the Star Spangled Banner, highlighting the contradiction between America, the supposed "land of the free" (we drew out this line for a while), and the bullshit repression of democratic rights being carried out by the cops around here (with the help now of the National Guard).
Rage did come out and lead an a capella version of Bulls on Parade, which was interesting, and then they said, "Let's take this to the streets." So as they did at the DNC, they helped lead a march of several thousand, mainly youth, through the streets of St. Paul. It linked up with the Poor People's March that was going on. The march went for the most part without hassle although the cops did use tear gas at least once and they were out in force with their giant Robo Cop gorilla suits on.
Ryan, who had just come out of a taping of The Daily Show, claims that many ordinary people on the streets were yelling at the cops, blaming them for the violence, telling them not to attack the demonstration.
Eventually we reached the "protest cage," where people just sort of hung around. After a while, people began to disperse on their own. But the cops began to mass in huge numbers all over the city, including bringing in dumptrucks to blockade streets and protesters. We escaped literally at the last possible second before they began herding people god knows where else. Basically St. Paul is occupied territory, occupied by a massive police army. If you look like you might be a protester, it's not safe to walk around. Many of the people are the demo hung around for "too long" afterwards (remember also that many of these people were just trying to see Rage play, and then marched afterwards, new to the movement), and the cops attacked them with tear gas, etc. You can see video below.
I will say that the RNC has been full of important political lessons for the people of the Twin Cities, including the role of the police, the ends to which the government is willing to go to prevent us from effectively protesting, and the serious gap between the myth of democracy in this country and the reality.
It is clear that the U.S. government uses these big political conventions as a means to beef up the armed forces of the state, to protect corporate rule in this country in anticipation of any social movements that may be on the horizon, given the mass anger that is building up in U.S. society. The massive police presence on the streets of St. Paul is meant to cow us into fear, telling us that it's not possible to resist the police or attempt to change society, because these are the odds we're up against - thousands of muscle-bound, Robo Cop-outfitted, pig dickwads armed to the teeth with rubber bullets, tear gas, flash grenades, pepper spray, mace, tasers, batons, firehoses, guns, etc. This is the lesson the cops seek to impart into African-American and Latino communities on a daily basis via their occupations of the inner cities and terrorization of these communities.
But I'm pretty sure that's not gonna be enough to stop us, just like it wasn't enough to stop the civil rights movement in the '60s, or the labor movement in the '30s ... cuz as we've been chanting on the streets of the Twin Cities, "There ain't no power like the power of the people cuz the power of the people don't stop" (although tonight I feel more like chanting "No justice, no peace - Fuck the police!").
We are hopeful that the student strike on Thursday will be a success, but it's unclear what impact the police repression will have. See www.yawr.org/strike for more info.
Some Video footage:
http://www.twincities.com/...
http://kstp.com/...
That's all for now, I'm sure we'll have a lot more to say later.
Dan
p.s. "Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses... Some of those that hold office, are the same that burn crosses ..." - Killing in the Name Of, Rage Against the Machine