LA

sorabji.com: What have you done?: LA
By Isolde on Thursday, August 17, 2000 - 11:36 am:

    Well, Anti and I just got back from LA. Crazy stuff. Another friend got on National TV a bunch of times. I think we ended up in a few shots, and we were all over the local news.
    There were so many fucking riot cops down there! It was insane. I keep looking around, wondering where all the policemen went. I waved at all the windows of the apartments nearby when I was protesting/marching, hoping Patrick would see us. I don't think he did. But we were in the middle of the Bloc yesterday in the march that ended up taking the street in front of Staples for about 30 minutes. It was awesome. A delegate got so pissed at us for blocking him that he actually hit me. I'm thinking of preserving the shirt.
    More later. I need to take a shower and wash all this LA goo off me. How can you people stand it?

By patrick on Thursday, August 17, 2000 - 12:47 pm:

    we actually take the goo and make a lunchtime delicacy of it.....sprinkled over california rolls....yum yum


    Isolde, i don't live downtown, if you were at the rampart protest, you were pretty close to me, a couple of miles. Im in sliverlake.........i saw some tape of the cops getting rough with protestors yesterday, fucking bullshit, they hide behind their "permits" and idiotic legalities........ you can be arrested for having stick (say attached to your sign) that is over a certain size...........the ACLU has already filed suit against their actions at the Rage concert Monday, which was iditoic. It seems the "official protest area" that the police set up is so confined that its difficult to get in and out of and they gavce them 20 minutes to disperse, thousands of people, they had to squeeze through a small oepning to leave, when they didn't it got ugly.....

    i understand some protestors got their hands on some entrance badges, I hpe they can get in and cause throuble inside,

    again i didnt really have a cause, but i would have loved to march through downtown with my pot and wooden spoon, or better yet my snare drum, making a bunch of noise

By Isolde on Thursday, August 17, 2000 - 01:42 pm:

    We did, actually. One between us, one of us went in. It was just security clearance for the first perimeter, so it wasn't much...a couple others got in, mostly using press passes. You could get one if you applied in advance.
    Yeah. We almost got sprayed at Staples yesterday. Really, really close because we were with the bloc.

By moonit on Thursday, August 17, 2000 - 03:45 pm:

    that made the news here. policemen dragging away people. signs.

    bet our news never makes your tv screens.

By Isolde on Thursday, August 17, 2000 - 05:47 pm:

    Well, the point of protesting the convention is that it is big news--we are trying to make a statement to the nation about what's going on, what we see as wrong. A convention like this is a good place to do it, because we get media exposure and the delegates see us. A lot of them seemed really afraid of us yesterday--I told them that all we were going to do was prevent them getting into the convention until the police backed off and allowed our medics/protestors through (which they did, eventually, realizing that it was bad press for delegates, including senators and such, not to get in).
    Policemen dragging away people. The focus of yesterday's protests was anti-police brutality, so it made sense that the police threatened us with naightsticks and tear gas unless we moved at the end of our march.
    If it makes you feel any better, no one thinks the news up here is important enough to make national news either. I had to drive 10 hours just to be part of national news.

By Antithesis on Friday, August 18, 2000 - 03:19 pm:

    Okay, then. the point is to make a statement about what we see as wrong... what, exactly, do you see as wrong that you went there to protest? I understand what the targets were in Seattle and Washington... it seems like people just showed up in L.A. to be seen.

    There are no "certain inalienable rights." Jefferson was blowing sunshine up our skirts.