Video and protests
Heather points to a video of part of the San Francisco protest on Thursday. It conveys the sense of a chaotic and frightening situation, nearly out of control; that wasn't the impression I got from either Heather's or Alan B's text accounts. (I think Alan B appears in the video, for a few seconds, from behind; at least it looks like his hat.) Might be partly because of the hand-held video and the fact that the person doing the filming was running a lot; the noise and the jumpy footage combine to make a scary feel.
I'll note as an addendum to my comments the other day about cops and firefighters and difficult situations that I certainly don't condone police beating people with riot sticks. On the other hand, police who feel threatened are going to react; I can understand, though not condone, a police officer using force to get someone out of the way in a high-tension situation. My point again is that cops are human; I would like them to show superhuman restraint as befits their greater-than-ordinary authority and power, and I think many of them do (I've seen cops stand perfectly still and look straight ahead while people are screaming insults into their faces), but I know that sometimes that restraint's going to slip. And knocking someone down with a riot stick when they run out into the street toward other officers, and doing that knocking-down in such a way that they can immediately get up and are physically okay afterward, while very far from ideal, is also very far from the brutal police fascism that some (particularly some of the people who posted comments on the page where that video is) are calling it. We've seen brutal police fascism in action: it sometimes involves tear gas, it sometimes involves beating people to death, it sometimes involves firing guns (loaded with lead bullets rather than rubber riot-control rounds) into crowds, it sometimes involves tanks in the streets. We're a long way from that, for which I'm extremely thankful.
Still doesn't excuse beating people with riot sticks, mind you. (And it sounded from Heather's and Alan's comments like there were worse attacks from the police than the one that that video page focuses on.)
All this is easy for Jed to pontificate about, of course, since I wasn't there. I have mixed feelings about these particular protests; on the one hand, I can certainly understand the no-business-as-usual attitude, the desire to bring everything to a standstill to make clear how seriously people are taking this situation; on the other hand, it does feel to me like the wrong people are being punished. The people who suffer are the ordinary citizens, not the people who are making the decisions. But then, the hope is that the decisionmakers will be forced to act by seeing the extent of the protests. Which is part of what that article about nonviolent approaches to change was about. So I dunno. Conflicted.
For some still photos of protests around the world, see Yahoo news photos.
More from Lisa Reins: clips from TV news about the American soldiers who died in the helicopter accident the other day. "President Bush, you took my only son away from me." Another thing I meant to say the other day: in talking about civilian casualties, I don't mean to be disrespectful of the military casualties. Soldiers on both sides are dying, and are going to keep dying. I tend to focus more on the civilians partly because they have less choice in the matter and partly because they're lower-profile; most Americans are going to be distressed when American lives are lost, but fewer Americans are going to be distressed when Iraqi lives are lost.
More later, but for now, instead of going out and participating in protests, I'm going to go sit in a park and read submissions.