Below is parade organizer Andy Thayer (the white guy on the right side). Conveniently for him a smiling photo of Chairman Mao is going right past him, he’d be proud. I’ve seen Mr. Thayer on the news (that’s how I recognized him) and at least he talks about non-violent protests a lot.
A little bit of humor – “Don’t Bomb Me, Bro” is a take on the “Don’t Tase Me, Bro” internet meme. Also check out the sign linking LBJ, Nixon, Bush & Obama. In general I didn’t see any of the traditional “Bush = Hitler” type signs nor did I see any particular anti-Republican signs. These protestors were mostly against everyone and they did not like Obama or the Dems, either.
Look at this completely ridiculous sign of some sort of Iranian scientist with his child (probably an actor) saying stop the US and Israel from murdering Iranian scientists. The group pledges solidarity with Iran. There hardly is a less popular group than Iranian nuclear scientists but in the US it is his right to pledge allegiance to Iran, I guess.
As I said above I was surprised about the vitrol that the protestors had for the Democrats. This guy couldn’t make his distaste for the Democrats any clearer.
These 2 with the bandanas and the one with the Guy Fawkes mask backwards on his head are the ones that the authorities are keeping their eyes on as likely troublemakers. I would not bet against the police they are out in massive force and seem organized and with high morale.
Just like in Madison you need to tax the rich and to help unions. They are out here marching with these looney tunes it can’t be helping their cause.
If you want to hear the erudite chants here is a movie… “This is f*cked up, this is f*cking bullsh*t”
And another movie of the communists marching… note the rise of the Hammer and Sickle. Another traditional group marching to represent the 99%, apparently.
Cross posted at LITGM
I’ve read the four posts and unless I missed it there seems to be nothing about the war vets tossing their medals. Some 40 – 50 of them it appears.
“the war vets tossing their medals. Some 40-50 of them”
I wonder how many of them were real veterans. So many times in the past, the credulous news reports have been debunked, showing that the “veteran” interviewed never served and the medals they tossed had been purchased.
Pengun
This is what I wrote in post 3
Here is the start of the protestors with the 2 police trucks. The protestors were smart to put the war veterans against the war up front, there were a few of them.
I taught my medical students that almost all male county hospital patients claiming to be veterans, (usually Viet Nam), are not and are far too young to be Viet Nam vets. This is an old scam. I expect the next iteration to be Iraq or Afghanistan vets. Of course, these vets would be in the VA hospitals.
PenGun with the same ‘ol bullshit what a shock – I thought they used up that medal tossing thing in the seventies.
As I texted Carl, I heard from a reliable source that the Rockford cops are out there helping. Trust me when I say that they will have NO PROBLEM bashing in skulls of these assholes and laughing about it all the way home on I-90 if the “protesters” decide to make bad choices for themselves.
I should add that the CNN coverage of this is disgusting, but good. Disgusting in that they keep looping the little ten second snippet of the cops beating down the “protesters” and wondering why the cops are using such violence. Good in that as long as they keep looping the beatdown perhaps the “protesters” will think twice about crossing the cops/destroying private property for fear of a tune being tapped out on their cranium.
Who are these people who seem to come out of the woodwork for stuff like this? I think a study was done of the homeless claiming to be veterans andmost were either lying or dishonorably discharged – the vast majority – maybe 10% legitimate veterans?
That was a ploy during the Vietnam protests – a lot of phony veterans claiming to be legitimate.
“Who are these people who seem to come out of the woodwork for stuff like this?” This is the question I had when the “protests” were going on up here a year plus ago. Mostly in Wisco it was college kids, and others with a lot of spare time on their hands, such as people staging illegal wildcat strikes like the Madison teachers as well as “volunteers” bused in from Milwaukee and Chicago. In the Chicago case it looked like to me it was mostly young people.
@Dan – they seem to come out of the woodwork – and over issues I find perplexing. NATO summit? What’s controversial about that? And that thing in Seattle where all the stores were damaged – I don’t even remember what that was over – but it sure animated this underground group.
WI – to see all these strange people surface – and from where?
Probably places like NY, Detroit, CA…..
Seattle was the WTO summit, Bill. If you grabbed 100 people off the street and asked them what’s actually discussed at these meetings, you’d get 100 blank stares and answers of “Umm, NATO? Trade?” It’s just an excuse to rabble rouse and cause civil unrest.
Another question – where are they getting their money for living expenses, transportation, etc.? Bet there’s a decent amount of left-wing foundation money behind this, plus government “anti-poverty” program cash being siphoned off.
@Percy
1. Make that 101
2. Good Question
“Who are these people?”
There are two groups, the performers and the audience. All of these public demos should be seen as theater. Most of the discussions about them focus on the performers. But there wouldn’t be any demos without an audience, and that audience is mostly the media.
The organizers promote an event, bring in some of the performers and assist the others, and make sure the media will be there. The organizers also encourage the presence of spectators whose presence will make the demo look bigger than it is.
Then there’s local govt. Why does the City of Chicago allow a NATO “summit” or any other kind of big political event of this type to take place in downtown Chicago? Everybody knows it’s going to be a mess. You might think it would be better to hold it at a convention center in Saint Charles or whatever. I think the answer is that events like this fill the hotels, create business for restaurants outside of the meeting area, give the media a lot of content at very low cost, and provide a lot of overtime for municipal employees. Everybody else, which is most people who live and work downtown, gets inconvenienced, but there isn’t a good feedback mechanism unless voters start to hold municipal govts accountable.
@Jonathan – I think there is so much truth to that. For so many of these Left-wing groups they have a symbiotic relationship with the media. Without the media – and no publicity – they wouldn’t come.
In my town even if there are 15 demonstrating downtown they are on the front page.
I remember some eyars ago we had a rally at the state capitol for the 2nd Amendment – 7-10,000 showed up.
Not a mention of it in the local newspaper.
“I think the answer is that events like this fill the hotels, create business for restaurants outside of the meeting area, give the media a lot of content at very low cost, and provide a lot of overtime for municipal employees.”
I was thinking about this earlier – the summit and associated “protests” I imagine cost the people of the city of Chicago tens of millions of dollars in lost productivity from road closures, and people not being able to work and go about their daily lives. The problem is that the wrong type of people are being inconvenienced. Most of them will do what they can from home if they can’t make it to work, chalk up the loss, and/or work late the rest of the week or on this next holiday weekend. The people in River North have Danny Davis as their Congressional rep due to the obscene gerrymandering of that district. So why should Davis or anyone else care about the workers who actually live in River North who are inconvenienced by all of this b.s.? Same thing goes for other districts.
I would also propose that the lost business to the restaurants and hotels since nobody can move/get down to the city far outweigh the added rooms and meals for the summit.
This is a PR win for Rahm who will get face time with his old buddy the zero, and a financial windfall for the Chicago municipal workers and a few others. The vast majority of the populus gets zero out of it and in most cases is losing their asses.
In Part 3 of this coverage, Michael Kennedy noted that the restaurant attacked in Tinsley Park was in fact an Irish hangout. It may be that there were “White Supremacists” present, or it may be that the Left’s thugs consider pride in being Irish as “White Supremacism”. I do wonder about one thing. It is known that they were attacking other patrons of the restaurant too. Even if the original targets were “white supremacists”; is dining in a public place near Enemies of the Proletariat now moral justification for aggravated assault?
In any case, for those of us who are not familiar with Chicago; would it be possible for the CHICAGO BOYZ to track this attack for us? They captured 5 of the hooded and masked assailants. Are they being held? Charged? Out on bail? Released to attack again? Has there been any follow up to indicate the group of 20 originally attacked had any ties to White Supremacism? Or were they innocent of that?
Thanks,
Subotai Bahadur
Watching Obama talk on TV, it’s obvious that another big reason why they held this event in downtown Chicago was so that Obama could give a campaign speech (“press conference”) in downtown Chicago.
I’d like to know whatever follow-up is made on the Tinsley Park restaurant, too. It sets a horribly chilling precedent, that any sort of peaceful group meeting at a public restaurant can be considered fair game by thugs with baseball bats and hammers who just happen to dissapprove of them.
Our SA Tea Party frequently met in various public restaurants, either for general open meetings, or just the leadership cadre. There was no secret about the public meetings, either. That parties which disapproved of the Tea Party generally (and there were and are a fair number of those, to judge by comments on local news stories or blogs) might now be considering it perfectly OK to come roaring in with bats and hammers … is mildly disturbing.
Shades of 1968:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/21/2079642/nato-summit-protestors-plan-to.html
This morning, I was charmed when I heard local news tell me that “violence erupted” at the demonstrations, and even more charmed when I saw that same weird phrase in a Sun-Times article.
If violence just “erupts”, then no one, including any violent demonstrator, is to blame.
(Carl: Incidentally, I’d be interested in seeing your thoughts on how accurate and balanced that Sun-Times article is.)
Sgt. Mom Says on
May 21st, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Our SA Tea Party frequently met in various public restaurants, either for general open meetings, or just the leadership cadre.
Us too.
Here in Colorado, we have concealed carry “shall issue”, we are working on Constitutional Carry, and our TEA Party meetings [and to be honest our Republican County Central Committee meetings, since we have about 1/3 of the precinct chairs] reflect this. Our County Sheriff is TEA Party and sends his troops to Oathkeeper Peace Officer Training with the explicit knowledge and approval of the County Commission. And our Chief of Police is a frequent and welcome visitor at TEA Party meetings.
As Moonbat as our local Democrats are, I cannot conceive of them being dumb enough to try to play #Occupy here.
If they try ….
I cite the words of Captain John Parker on April 19, 1775.
Subotai Bahadur
Los Angeles gets tied up every time Obummer comes to town for a fund raiser. Ironically, it ties up the West Side where the idiots live anyway. You don’t see him coming to Orange County as there would be tar and feathers in good supply. I remember being infuriated when Dole came to Orange County for an event in 1996. I always considered him the Archer Daniels Midland Senator, anyway. The free way was closed for miles for him. Haven’t seen that in years.
My sister went downtown to a play last week but is laying low while the idiots are in town. Her daughter is a nurse at Rush and stays north.
The GF masks have been popularized by the V For Vendetta connection — and, yes, they were around well before the disappointing movie with a similar association since Alan Moore wrote the original V4V graphic book series in the 80s, and it derives from that, not the movie.
>>> NO to War and Austerity
No to war, this one can see — wrong, but one can at least see it.
“No to austerity”, though, is just more call for bread and circuses. Idiots.
>>> “Seattle was the WTO summit, Bill. If you grabbed 100 people off the street and asked them what’s actually discussed at these meetings, you’d get 100 blank stares…”
Yeah, I was laughing my ass off at the ultimate stupidity of the whole WTO protests.
WTO is about industrial goods and trade, which is OLE Economy — Industrial Era crap that means jack and his smelly companion these days.
WIPO is the one where any future theft is taking place — its where the DMCA was generated, and these idiots never, ever go and protest what’s going on at THOSE meetings, much less pay any attention to the sh** going down at them.