Amy Goodman: How Could You

Not stop or step back when so directed by riot police?

The first four seconds of the clip fuzz the line, so to speak.

It is understood, or should be, that the police produce the safest crowd control by refusing the slightest infraction, the sparks that isolated and cooled cannot alternatively gather and pile on toward a much amplified flash point.  No chaos: no riot.

For reporters this week, when The Man tells you to stop, you stop; if move, you move as directed: compliance then becomes a cause for complaint, which may turn out more vigorous than the whining, weaving, and crying that children know when someone has gotten rough in the sandbox.

Say what may be said about FBI Cointelpro or police forces and events nationwide, time has demonstrated they will do as much for one's opposition as for one's own.  Whether the invitation to boogie comes from the Second Coming of the New Left or the Blind Side of the Righteous, spoiling for a fight with the government may rightly meet a sharp response.

For once, I'm for it.

For one thing, the actors in these events would seem to want to characterize police forces as the goon squads of their invented enemies: if you're charging an abortion clinic, the police become the avatars of the liberal state; if protesting at the Republican National Convention, then the employes of Republican jack boots--when the truth is they're just St. Paul municipal personnel dressed up to help keep St. Paul in the convention business.

Knock it off, ye young rad idiots.  Protest with what you buy, invest in, who you run for office, how you vote, and what you do around the neighborhood.

Republicans, and this is especially so at convention time, do not represent authority, even if they may on occasion be confused with your old fat daddy: they may just represent a set of ideas and policies that you may happen to find repugnant.

So be it.

Fight fire with fire: speak, write, vote.

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