what chicago learned from '68

[KharmaTrain]

7. I Expected This...

I also watched various streams as well as the extensive local television coverage (Channel 9's reporters were attrocious...all but hoping for a confrontation) as well as speaking with several friends who were there as protesters, media types and just plain residents. Mo...I'm proud of how things went over the weekend and how the CPD have learned a lot not only from 1968 but from dealing with the Occupy Chicago demonstrations last fall. For the most part marchers could and did march wherever they wanted around the downtown area and in neighborhoods that had nothing to do with NATO. I still don't understand what the march in Lincoln Park was about other than it was close to the best bars around to party at. Anywho...police and organizers did work together to make the demonstrations peaceful. The rally at Cermak & Michigan went without any interuption...it wasn't until not only police but march organizers asked the group to disperse that things got bad. The protesters knew they couldn't head east on Cermak and the few fools who tried were the ones who ran up against the billy clubs...and it looked like some were spoiling. Be them "black bloc" (Channel 9 kept refering to them) or just plain morons who wanted to create the videos the corporate media (and local media) for that matter were looking for.

This isn't a popular opinion here, but these days I feel I can't climb into the Occupy groupthink that occurs in this place...however the CPD did not react anywhere near how they did in 1968 or the Days of Rage riots in '70...I was around for both. Also, sadly, the numbers of protesters at the NATO summit were nowhere near the numbers that were here in '68. While I support the demonstrators and and sympathetic to many of the causes they're protesting about, the truth is this wasn't some wild "hippie" riot the corporate media would love to portray nor the police riot either.

While I also cite disagreements with Rahm...his handling of this situation isn't one of them. This diverts attention away from the messages those marching yesterday want America and the world to hear.

Cheers...