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July 8 G8 protest photos
I will append my photos and description of this protest which started at 16th and Mission in San Francisco in response to the G8 meeting held in Scotland. Most of the event occurred after dark, so many of these photos had to be lightened and are very fuzzy. Video was also carried out by myself largely as a legal measure to record what happened, so this will not be included here yet, but is available to anyone who was arrested when I was near. Leave a note on indybay. Video camera are very worthwhile because I already couldn't quite piece together what happened on 23rd street after the piece of foam under the car started to smoke, and then the officer was hurt half the block down the street, because there were so many things happening at once.
I have not been able to fully think out my critique and response to this protest, so I will give some initial thoughts, and then proceed with a straightforward recounting of what happened as I experienced it from my position in the protest.
The singlehanded ending of the Kyoto agreement within hours of the London Underground Bombing on July 7th is a very negative development which could probably cost more than the already budget-busting Iraq/Afghanistan military intervention. Bush&Co are very unpopular internationally, and now have a negative approval rating in the U.S., but the stakes are such that we can't afford to lose at this time. It's not a matter of how we could improve the world, but how to keep it from getting worse. Democrats, such as Al Gore, may have had acceptable opinions regarding global warming issues, but their positions regarding poverty in the third world were highly unrealistic - they don't acknowledge the decades of interference such as our assassination of African leaders such as Patrice Lumumba, and support of Mobutu Sese Seko and the 27 year war in Angola. Progressives can't afford to lose based on their ineptness. Tonight there was some juvenile behavior which I'm glad that other progressive groups can distance themselves from.
I appreciated the flyers about an anarchist alternative that a few were handing out, but many of the initial logistics, style, presentation, and then the implementation of this march were faulty, and were not attractive to the general public. The culture and demographic of the participants was pretty narrow, with most people in the same outfit. Sorry to use an ageist putdown, but it seems like there were the signs of a lot of smart teens who were a bit out of touch or maladjusted due to having been put in a special program in elementary school - I can't think of the right adjective.
There were some good intentions, but some people were lucky the police weren't being as nasty as they have to many activists in the past, because security precautions weren't being taken. After the one violent skuffle (pics below), you all are really going to have to recognize this and not repeat this in the same way.
Initially I was asking people if we were going to head downtown and how we might approach going there, but instead the march headed off into the Mission district which is filled with lots of low power immigrants who already have to deal with a neighborhood that gets trashed by graffiti, unequal policing, and threatening people on the corners so you can't let your kids outside. After our initial loop to hopefully pick up a few people on Valencia as we briefly turned the heads of a few hipsters smoking in bars, we should have left that neighborhood. When I was in high school, there was a group called the RCP (revolutionary communist party) which liked to march through the Mission district pretending that they were a vanguard leading the poor to an uprising, and there were too many similarities that shouldn't happen again.
Next I'll describe a step by step account with photos
These are pictures of signs people had relating to the developments at the G8 meeting in Scotland
The singlehanded ending of the Kyoto agreement within hours of the London Underground Bombing on July 7th is a very negative development which could probably cost more than the already budget-busting Iraq/Afghanistan military intervention. Bush&Co are very unpopular internationally, and now have a negative approval rating in the U.S., but the stakes are such that we can't afford to lose at this time. It's not a matter of how we could improve the world, but how to keep it from getting worse. Democrats, such as Al Gore, may have had acceptable opinions regarding global warming issues, but their positions regarding poverty in the third world were highly unrealistic - they don't acknowledge the decades of interference such as our assassination of African leaders such as Patrice Lumumba, and support of Mobutu Sese Seko and the 27 year war in Angola. Progressives can't afford to lose based on their ineptness. Tonight there was some juvenile behavior which I'm glad that other progressive groups can distance themselves from.
I appreciated the flyers about an anarchist alternative that a few were handing out, but many of the initial logistics, style, presentation, and then the implementation of this march were faulty, and were not attractive to the general public. The culture and demographic of the participants was pretty narrow, with most people in the same outfit. Sorry to use an ageist putdown, but it seems like there were the signs of a lot of smart teens who were a bit out of touch or maladjusted due to having been put in a special program in elementary school - I can't think of the right adjective.
There were some good intentions, but some people were lucky the police weren't being as nasty as they have to many activists in the past, because security precautions weren't being taken. After the one violent skuffle (pics below), you all are really going to have to recognize this and not repeat this in the same way.
Initially I was asking people if we were going to head downtown and how we might approach going there, but instead the march headed off into the Mission district which is filled with lots of low power immigrants who already have to deal with a neighborhood that gets trashed by graffiti, unequal policing, and threatening people on the corners so you can't let your kids outside. After our initial loop to hopefully pick up a few people on Valencia as we briefly turned the heads of a few hipsters smoking in bars, we should have left that neighborhood. When I was in high school, there was a group called the RCP (revolutionary communist party) which liked to march through the Mission district pretending that they were a vanguard leading the poor to an uprising, and there were too many similarities that shouldn't happen again.
Next I'll describe a step by step account with photos
These are pictures of signs people had relating to the developments at the G8 meeting in Scotland
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pigs on a rampage
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Chronicle details
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