the big demonstration

There was an article in The New Yorker over the weekend about how powerful police unions have become.  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/how-police-unions-fight-reform

There It's pretty long but it tells a comprehensive story


There was one more demonstration that I  took part in.  This was about fifteen years ago when we invaded Iraq.  I was against the invasion of course, but I didn't think protests had much effect, and I mainly went because a friend visiting me wanted to go.

It was pretty pleasant actually.  We paraded through downtown at night and it looked like the bystanders were on our side.  There were chants, but there was no screaming.  Nothing was thrown and nothing was broken.  And the cops, I was expecting the snarling cops of the 1968 convention but these guys were polite, nice even.  They were lining the demonstration, and if you wanted to drop in or drop out, they were all like very good Sir or Madam.


The first Black Lives Matter demonstrations came down State Street shortly after the McDonald videos were released.   There was no property damage, and surrounded by cops on bikes, they were pretty orderly.  But I just didn't like their attitude.  Instead of solemnly marching they were dancing and hopping around, well they were mostly all kids, but they were all in the cops' faces, just nasty.  Okay the march was against police brutality, but not all cops are brutal, and some of the cops who took the abuse were probably nice guys. It didn't seem like they were changing any minds.  It seems like they marched pretty regularly on weekends for a month or two and then it died down.  

And then came Minneapolis.  Sometimes you wonder why one particular thing lights a spark, and in this case I'm guessing it was the video.  McDonald was maybe the case of an itchy finger, but here was slow purposeful death going on for eight minutes.  Anyway it was huge.  A dense crowd of demonstrators covered the State Street and Wabash Avenue (where that guy got shot a week or two ago) bridges, more coming up Kinzie, and the IBM plaza was full of them.  All of them facing a thin blue line of helmets.  I was looking down from 21 floors so I couldn't see closely, but mostly the blue helmets looked relatively calm, professional I would say.  The demonstrators on the other hand were way too excited, screaming at the cops in a most unpleasant way.

But nothing was being thrown, and the lines were pretty steady and I went back in for a couple hours and returned to the balcony and there was a cop car on fire (that particular incident was the work of some yokel who drove up from Galesburg with no attachment to the cause or the demonstrators but just a guy who liked to blow things up).  The complexion had changed, stuff was being thrown.  But the cops were gaining the upper hand, they pushed the demonstrators south off the Wabash Avenue and State Street bridges and then raised them.  With the bridges up I couldn't see what was going on but I saw on tv how they were looting and burning the stores on State Street, the Potbellys, the big Walgreens, the Target all busted and looted.  And many many more, Wabash, Michigan Avenue, west down to LaSalle where they left a bridge down and they crossed and did a job on north LaSalle.

And then into the neighborhoods and then the suburbs, although most of these guys didn't appear to be demonstrators at all, just guys who were watching on tv and noticed the chaos and realized that the cops were busy and drove to the nearest strip mall.


I read about five of Beagles' links and didn't find anything that supported his case,  I'm not going to read five more.  I don't want to carry on this argument because the truth is plain and obvious and if Beagles chooses not to see it, then I have done all I can, I can do no more, and I am not going to get into another yammering situation.