my demonstration history

Back in the day I was in a few demonstrations, not that many.  I was more of the school of shooting off my mouth in a bar.  My thinking at the time was more along the line of the civil rights demonstrations in the south where the demonstrators were brutally beaten for all the nation to see and as a result public opinion was swayed and their cause was bolstered.

I could never logically connect how the cops busting our heads had anything to do with proving the war was wrong and thus ending it, but you know you have to do something.

So I was shocked when I saw on the news a demonstration, I think it was in Michigan, where suddenly a fusillade of bottles and rocks showered the police from the demonstrators.  This was not how it was supposed to work.  I did not approve.  A few months later I was in Berkeley at this big demonstration, and again to my dismay the fusillade was launched.  Again I disapproved.  I left with the friend I had come with.

As we consumed beer after beer we were also consumed by what exactly was going on with the demonstration and eventually we had to venture out and see.  It was all over, tear gas, some destruction, cops all over.  Two of whom espied the two of us walking back and popped us into the back of a paddy wagon.

We were in the city jail over the weekend with a bunch of the other round ups.  Most of them were just people like us, passers by who wondered why we were rounded up.  I remember one guy though who had been tossing Molotov cocktails.  He was sorely disappointed that when he tossed them the flame just dribbled down to the sidewalk.  There had been an article in the Berkeley Barb just a week previous that advised mixing soap powder with the gasoline so that the gunk would stick, but apparently he had not read that issue.  Well live and learn.

What happened was that there had been a tall guy with a mustache tossing fire bombs, and my friend was a tall guy with a mustache.  Of course there were a lot of tall guys with mustaches in Berkeley and actually the cops had arrested pretty much any such guy they came across.  They soon dropped charges against me but my friend had to go to trial and only escaped doing time through a hung jury.

In the early seventies there was a group of macho guys in the bar where I worked.  They were not politically involved but they were against the war, and didn't mind too much getting into a fight.  Now that I think of it they were mostly all Vietnam vets going to school on the GI bill.  I wasn't in their group but I was pretty good friends with them.  I don't remember offhand but something happened in the war that caused a wave of demonstrations across the nation,

They took to the streets, blocked traffic, did some looting, some vandalism.  I was out there too, out of solidarity and all.  I thought the demonstrations were just and I felt I had a duty to lend my body to the mass.  I was still not quite on board with the looting and vandalizing, but blocking traffic, that didn't sound so bad, it was merely an inconvenience to the drivers and maybe they could spend their time stuck in traffic by meditating on the war and they would realize that it was wrong.  Some kind of crap like that.

So anyway that was the experience I brought with me to the Black Lives Matter marches two months ago.  I will take it from there after the weekend.


States that shut down early or late and/or opened up early or late, it doesn't seem to matter. 

This is not true and nothing in that link backs it up.  The facts about lockdowns are right there in any map or graph and if Beagles chooses to ignore them there is nothing further I can do about it.  I have taken a vow not to yammer with Beagles and I shall not break it.