...I've never once heard of modern day American anarchists getting "violent". The NW is a hotbed of anarchist thought and action. Sometimes these folks find property destruction to be a healthy outlet for personal expression, but anarchists by nature are typically a pacifist bunch. Anarchists have been scapegoated for decades, and many were unjustly jailed/lynched/executed on trumped up charges (Haymarket, Centralia massacre etc.) What I've noticed is that it's the cops that usually resort to violence at protests, not the other way around.

In every political protest I've been in that has turned violent, the violence starts when the cops start smacking people in the head for no good reason. The crowds simply reacts to repression. The crowd situations I have been in where it was the crowds' fault all involved sports or concert crowds that were wasted on dope and alcohol.

Long time ago. The democrats of today are the ones who were outside of the convention in 68.

Lots of left wing terrorists in this country..start with the Earth First crowd,
and other enviro wack jobs like that. The violent wing of the animal rights
crowd that like to attack labs.

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Animal rights ? That is a left/right issue?

I'll bet a militiaman and raise you two abortion clinic arsonists.

God -- I remember that vividly. My brother got the crap beat out of him.

It was the best thing that ever happened to the Democratic party. It exposed the thugs who took over the party (after they killed JFK,IMO) for who they really were and drove the racists out into the Republican ranks. Sorry so many people got hurt to make these things happen. The police simply rioted. They lost control of themselves, and they did wonders for the civil liberities movement. Short term losses, long term gains for the left.

I'll bet a militiaman and raise you two abortion clinic arsonists.

And I'll raise you a bombed lab at Michigan State, houses burned in So. Cal. Medical research Lab in raided in the SF Bay area. Vandalism against logging companies.

Yep lots of left wing terrorists in this country KV, whether you admit it or not it's there.

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I'm sick of .sig files

Actually my point was there are plenty of nuts on both sides - that's why they call them the "fringe". Far right wing nuts, although less common lately thanks to Clinton cleaning them all out, are just as if not more violent than those on the left, in fact here in Texas, they barbecue their own kids when the FBI is outside the door.

Oh boy, now that is really news!! You really have to come up with something new Kirk, this stuff is getting kind of old. For starter's, where in my post did I state my support for the president and "unleash an orgy of violence"? I am not surprised by any response in this thread,,, they all seem to fit right into their respective slots. Now I am going to go and have a wonderful day and hopefully take a ride in the SL with the top down, hope you do the same and will check in tonight.

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

Kirk,
How dare you have the effrontery to point out the obvious inconsistencies in PJG56's argument. Sounds like you've picked yourself up a new fan. Keep on championing the left.
LSK

Protesters Are Anti-G.O.P., but Democrats Don't Claim Them
By DIANE CARDWELL

Published: August 29, 2004

For weeks now, Republican Party leaders have signaled that they plan to blame Democrats for any mayhem stemming from protests during the convention in Manhattan, with the G.O.P.'s chairman, Ed Gillespie, saying there is a thin line between labor, environmental and antiwar protesters and the Democratic Party hierarchy.

Many groups planning demonstrations do have a close affinity to the Democratic Party. But as protest organizers scrambled through their last week of preparations, two major themes emerged: the leadership of the protest effort is deeply fractured, and the many groups flooding New York's streets are poorly coordinated and under no central control.

Members of the largest antiwar coalition, for instance, could not agree on how to settle arrangements for its demonstration, set for today, and many other groups are practically tripping over one another with competing news conferences, attention-grabbing events and overlapping political messages.

On Wednesday, for example, as the War Resisters League was downtown announcing plans to march from ground zero this week for a "die-in" at Madison Square Garden, Al Franken, the comedian and radio host, was in Midtown, amusing reporters with his "shout-out" project.

At the same time, a protest billboard counting the dollars spent on the Iraq war lighted up in Times Square, sandwiched between a Sean John clothing advertisement and a Baby Phat billboard showing Kimora Lee Simmons wearing nothing but sneakers and bling.

Even though most protests are aimed squarely at the Bush administration, there is little evidence that Democratic Party officials are at the helm. Indeed, Democratic leaders have been worrying that angry images of demonstrators shouting, clashing with the police or damaging property will be used to tar their party, as historians say occurred after the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when violent antiwar protests were seen as hurting the party's cause. As a result, party officials say, a focus of the spin operation they set up last week about 10 blocks from the convention site at Madison Square Garden will be to counter Republican efforts to link them to protest mishaps or violence.

"We have no connection to any of the protesters," the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, said on Thursday in announcing the party's war room. "I have implored everyone to make sure that the Republicans have a peaceful convention."

But the Republicans see it differently, even warning delegates that Democratic protesters will try to make it hard for them to get around the city. "Many of those organizing the protests were involved in the Democratic National Convention and are strong John Kerry allies," said Ray Sullivan, a former press aide to George W. Bush who is working with the communications team for the convention. "We expect their message to be very similar to the message coming out of Boston."

Mr. Sullivan said he would not speculate on the political ramifications of potential disorder, but he added, "The people behind many of the protests and many of these groups are seasoned Democratic operatives and allies and should be able to put on their events in peaceful and safe ways."

Nevertheless, while few people say they expect a repeat of the mayhem of 1968, the events of the past week suggest that there will be disruptive demonstrations. Already, the protesters, some naked, some on bikes, have been snarling traffic - and signs, banners and fliers are cropping up throughout the city. On Friday night, in the first major clash between demonstrators and the police, more than 250 people were arrested for biking through the city in an anti-Bush protest. And today, law enforcement officials are girding for protesters expected to descend on Central Park, many of them in defiance of bans on political rallies on the Great Lawn.

But Democrats say that the people who are likely to cause trouble are not the party faithful.

"I think the public knows that the people who get really agitated and at times violent are kind of out of the mainstream and aren't really operating in the context of a political debate," said John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and is president of the Center for American Progress, a research institute. "Since the party can't really control these protests and these people, I think the only thing you can do is disassociate yourself from the tactics and try to keep the public focused on the big picture," he added.

The protest landscape, ranging from established groups like Planned Parenthood and the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to anarchists bent on undoing the country's corporate structure, is disparate and fragmented. And some groups have found themselves in the uneasy position of trying to balance a desire for inclusiveness and lack of hierarchy with the need to assert enough control to avoid chaos. Law enforcement officials, while emphasizing that the vast majority of protesters are peaceful, say that organizers have no way of controlling how many or which people show up at their events and what their motives may be.

Some groups have tailored their methods to minimize the chances for a political boomerang. Mr. Franken's "shout-out,'' in which he is encouraging people to throw open their windows and engage in a loud spurt of collective anti-Bush venting as President Bush takes the stage on Thursday, is one example. "It won't tax the public safety structure," he said. "We think that this provides a way for people who really want to do something to do it in a way that can't be used by the Republicans to say, 'Look at these unruly Democrats.' "

United for Peace and Justice, whose long-anticipated march is scheduled to begin at noon today, has been working furiously to make sure protesters deliver a strong antiwar message that cannot be distorted. Part of the message, said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, is not simply that so many people are opposed to the war in Iraq but that they come from all walks of life. As a result, the demonstrators will march behind the coalition's leaders in thematic groups, beginning with a combination of veterans, military families and relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We are doing everything we can to be clear about what our plans are and to set a tone," Ms. Cagan said. "The notion that just because we are speaking out it will lead to conflict is an assumption that doesn't have to be made. But also the notion that should there be a conflict, that a party would use that to their own political advantage, is inappropriate."

But some protesters interested in making their own statements, whether antigovernment, anticorporate, antipoverty or pro-civil liberties, are unconcerned with whether they will undermine the Democrats.

"If we don't get out there and protest the way we want to and as forcefully as we can, then we lose our rights and it doesn't matter who's president," said Eric Laursen, who is organizing a day of civil disobedience on Tuesday with a group called the A31 Action Coalition.

Referring to how protesters could be portrayed in the news media, he said: "You don't even have to be doing anything violent. All you have to be doing is looking like a bunch of angry people behind metal barricades and people think, 'Well, the cops have to deal with that.' If you follow it out to its logical conclusion, the only thing you can do is stay home."

Of course, it is possible that whatever happens in the streets will not make a tremendous difference in what happens in voting booths in November.

"I don't think there will be a lot of movement on the basis of protests," said Kieran Mahoney, a Republican political consultant. Unless something particularly unusual happens, he added, "it seems like the people who are voting for Bush love him and the people who are voting for Kerry really hate him, and there's not a lot of people who hate George Bush who are going to suddenly not hate him based on the protesters."

You start off by saying right wing protesters are terrorist, how many incidents of violence were reported in Boston? Then somehow you try to say that an abortion clinic bomber has something to do with the protesters in NYC and Boston while there hasn't been an abortion clinic bombing in years.

Your methods are really starting to shine.

As I have said repeatedly, in the post that started this thread the poster claims violence will happen because "they are democrats". I am merely pointing out that for every nut on the left, there is a corresponding nut on the right, along with how ironic that Democrats are portrayed as violent when the Republican Party is currently responsible for the greatest amount of violence against innocent men, women and children on this planet as they rent out our armed forces to some artificial government in Iraq. The proposition he makes is BS.