Today's resistance in Atlanta -- why no mass arrests?

[Mairead]

Anyone notice that? No mass arrests.

I think it's because Black folk know from bitter personal experience that what Frederick Douglass said was true: Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both.

They know that encroachment must be resisted in the streets, and they're ready to do it, too. And the establishment knows that the wrong false move will let the jinni out of the bottle perhaps forever.

So the establishment tiptoes and smiles instead of getting out the pepper spray and rubber bullets.

I think the rest of us could bear taking a lesson from that, eh?

[brainshrub]

1. Simple reason why there were no arrests:

Republicans are evil, not stupid.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

17. you are allowed to protest Bush, but not corporations

There are mass arrests when you protest the WTO and "free trade" deals. It's fine to protest one party or the other, or one politician or the other.

[kentuck]

2. Because the cops were more sympathetic to the people than Bush...

would be my guess??

[Disandra]

3. Yup.

Atlanta cops are known to act like human beings during protests. I know this from personal experience. During Bush's campaign stops here, I protested numerous times, and the cops were always polite and some of them even asked questions about why we protested. A couple of them even joined us when they went off-duty.

[tom_paine]

5. I would have thought that Rove understood the bad PR of turning the hoses

on African-Americans.

not that the Busheviks undoubtedly would have like to have shown these Uppity People the Bull Connors treatment.

It just that, if there's one thing Rove undertsands beside violence and murder (tastefully committed by client states, of course) and intimidation and threats, it's the power of imagery.

Perhaps you are correct about the Atlanta Cops. I wouldn't know. But I think that the Busheviks giving the Miami treatemnt to Black People, instead of just white college students and union folks, would be a PR disaster.

For some reason, just about the only Democratic Group that can even get a hearing in the media today are African-Americans (as evidenced by the Trent Lott affair).

As a result, the Busheviks can have their Jannisaries beat the shit out of as many white people as possible and Corporate TV Pravda won't show it (except as entertainment) but doing the same to African-American protesters would be covered.

And if there's one the the Busheviks dare not allow to be seen by their Imperial Subjects, it's their True Nature.

Thus, protest groups amde of African-American, IMHO is a great place to be because Uncle Karl, much as he would like to, cannot (yet) order his Imperial Polcie to turn the fire hoses on them.

Yet. The operative word here is "yet". When the Busheviks are finished shredding the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, when they have consolidated their unchecked hegemonic power (at least until another Imperial family knocks them off some 50-100 years from now) at the top.

Only then will they come after the Blacks and the Jews and the Libruls and the Intellectuals.

Only then.

[starroute]

8. It's because racism is the only thing standing between them and Naziism

It's very easy for the Republicans to say, "We can't be Nazis because we're not racists." Since the Holocaust is about the only thing the public mind remembers these days about Naziism, they even get away with it. The similarities in terms of lying, war-mongering, repression of human rights, corporate pandering, etc. can just be swept under the rug.

But if the Republicans were ever perceived as overt racists, there would be *nothing* left to distinguish them from outright fascists. And they're not yet ready to drop that final figleaf.

[tom_paine]

10. It is scary how right you are, starroute

That is the last fig leaf.

[SaddenedDem]

14. Whoa, wait....

Please take a look at the photos Catwoman posted in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1022361&mesg_id=1022361

Note the white faces. The protests were led by the black civil rights community, but they were arm in arm with white supporters. In fact, the one arrest was a white man.

[izzie]

4. OK what happened and where was I?

n/t

[Iris]

6. Unfortunately, the Republicans are happily thinking about their big

fundraiser tonight, where, it has been reported, several Georgia Democrats will publically endorse *.

[Cleita]

7. Assuming that these "Democrats" have a lot of bucks to be able to

afford a $2,000 a plate fundraiser, it would appear they have business or investments that could be boycotted. Food for thought?

[Iris]

12. Well, there were 12 or so sitting right up front last night.

[Clark4VotingRights]

9. Great quote Mairead

Thanks.

[Mairead]

11. bump

shameless

[ElsewheresDaughter]

13. African Americans may be our salvation and lead us out of darkness

thank you my Atlanta and LA friends for speaking truth to power and protesting the abomination in the oval office

[Solomon]

15. So well said and often overlooked until things are really

desperate. No one wants to pay attention to the great service african americans have done for america until the shit hits the fan.

[Logansquare]

16. I suspect the spectacle of scores of African-Americans

being shackled and put in police wagons would have been very, very bad for the Bush PR machine. Especially since many of them were members of the civil rights community in Atlanta. They can still do mass arrests of white people at protests as long as it seems like they're rounding up a bunch of "freaks." And, I in no way wish to imply that the police give black people a break when the cameras aren't rolling.

[Logansquare]

18. One more thing occured to me

while reading the other thread on the protests--the Pickering thing was in the pipeline, and Rove decided that they needed some buffering. I guess the reading to black children is getting old even to conservatives, so the MLK fiasco was cooked up at the last minute. Too bad for them that the protesters weren't interesting in staying in the First Amendment Zone. Hell, I bet they didn't even anticipate protests!

[SpiralHawk]

19. You gotta admire the "school bus screen" manuever

that was diabolically clever. Oooooo.

No doubt it will be employed liberally (if you'll excuse the expression} in the future.

OK -- gotta scoot and get back to the free-speech zone (every square inch of these United States in my book).

Come on, jo-jo -- Get Back. Get back. Get Back to where you once belonged.