[multi]

it appears that the Poor People's march was broken up too around 8th Street south of MSG, but in a much more dramatic way. When they were coming up to one of the intersections on 8th Avenue, he saw a big black guy wearing an unusual motorcycle helmet, dressed in a white shirt, camouflage pants and Timberlake boots on a huge motorcycle. As they entered the intersection, he saw the biker turn his motorbike directly at him, and drove straight at them all. "It just missed me by inches, but it knocked down a women and hurt her leg, and knocked down another guy. We all grabbed the guy and got him off his bike, and some people were really pissed off, kicking and hitting him. The cops ran up and grabbed him and we all got arrested."

But his story is not over. "I called my friend on the telephone, and he said that CNN was showing a clip of rioting protesters that was about two seconds long. It shows people kicking the biker in the head. But the report coming out with video clip is completely different than what really happened. He says his friend is telling him that the news media is telling the everyone that the crowd attacked a POLICE OFFICER! "They even lie and say he was on a police motor scooter, not a huge Kawasaki something. That was a big, scary bike." It's not a pretty tail, but he says it's all true, and dozens and dozens of people witnessed what happened. However, with all the witnesses to the contrary in jail, and anyone with a camera in jail, and all camera seized, the entire thing is hushed up and spun just the way the authorities wanted it. Again, our news media is little more than a mouthpiece for the government party line. Orwell truly is rolling in his grave. After meeting hundreds of people in jail, throughout my entire stay in jail, meeting dozens and dozens of people, I have never met anyone yet that has admitted to rioting or fighting with the police, or looked like they even wanted to. Everyone understood that ALL of the protests were to be non-violent, and that fighting with police officers is just plain stupid. Now that I am home, I researched this incident on the web. Sure enough, all of the news about the NYPD plain-clothes police officer William Sample only talk about how protesters attacked him. However, I did find one website that mostly confirms every detail of Jody's sequence of events:

http://www.citybeat.com/2004-09-01/news4.shtml

Amazingly, this is the only outbreak of violence I can find from the entire week of protests, in which around1800 people were jailed. Compare that to the chaos of the Chicago 1968 riots that had far fewer arrests, and far more violence attributed to protesters. The truth is, the protests of A31 were incredibly peaceful and cooperative, and far more people were arrested than needed.

So now, all the patterns come together, and it is all quite clear what is going on.

* The city refuses to grant protesters "Parade Permits" to march and demonstrate Monday and Tuesday during the Republican Convention, including Central Park which is far away and a safe place. This is obviously done to suppress the demonstrations and keep them out of the media spotlight as much as possible.

* The police are ordered by their political masters to use tactics to divide and breakup the protesters before they can get very far (especially on Tuesday) to diminish their numbers and impact for media coverage. This obviously includes events such as the break up of the War Resistors League march near the World Trade Center, and blockades around Union Square to break up those protests.

* When police do take protesters into custody, they are given outrageously long jail times before arraignment, unable to talk to a lawyer or the press during this time, giving the authorities the chance to shape and mold the news stories as they see fit for the press the next day.

* The police not only arrest any and all protesters they can find, but anyone around with a camera that may have proof to contradict official statements by the government.

* And best, or worst, of all the Republicans manage a media coup! On Monday, August 30, 2004, Day 1 of the Republican National Convention, they choreograph a brilliant scene in which an African American plain-clothes police officer is sent directly into a crowd of demonstrators to provoke a riot, in which, as I said, 90% of the protesters are white. The propaganda machine of the Republican Party makes certain that a two-second video-clip showing "white" protesters beat and kick a "black" police officer is splashed on CNN and the other TV networks. The tactics of divide and rule are no where more evident that here, because the Republicans know that they must divide their opposition if they can have any chance of winning elections, and they are masters at the art!

After seeing that the Hudson River pier detainee area is called RNC(something), it's quite obvious to everyone I meet that we are all political prisoners in our own country.

from:
Death and Life in New York
Three Days in the City for an RNC Protester
(a very long but good read)