Cnn showing lots of footage of riots at G8 lots of blood

[rodeodance]

[rodeodance]

1. cars overturned. several protesters arrested

[rodeodance]

2. I tuned in late, Don't know what started it. Lots of police

[enough already]

26. I wish like hell it would happen here

Something needs to be done to wake people up.

[SoonerPride]

3. I've wondered if Americans will ever be upset enough to riot

I've wondered if Americans will ever be upset enough to riot, but we seem to be stupefied with American Idle and Lost, how apropos.

[rodeodance]

4. remember Seattle?

[SoonerPride]

5. Yeah

But somehow I'm expecting every city from coast to coast to finally explode with angry upset people. And it just goes on and on. When will the citiznery say 'enough is enough?'

[Lost4words]

6. Welcome to DU SoonerPride!

I hope its Sooner rather than later! :hi:
8643

[SoonerPride]

29. Hello!

And thanks for the welcome!

[jwirr]

10. I was volunteering at my church the other day and I think there is

a different kind if protesting going on. Most of us were over 60 and we were talking about lifestyle changes. It was very enlightening to me that this mostly middle class group were all thinking along the same lines. We talked about mass transit, local food growth, sustainability and a number of other concepts that are new to this group. I think the quiet revolution is doing a lot. However when it comes to issues of G8 policy I think it takes the old kind of demonstration to get anything done because we are talking about change in distant areas of the world. This church is actively involved in other countries with people to people help also.

[Grandrose]

7. One word: Draft

:think:

[MonkeyFunk]

8. You WANT a riot?

How sick.

[MUAD_DIB]

13. What's sick is sitting on one's hands while waiting

for others to do what we should have done long ago.

If there is no return to normalcy (end of the GOPlague) what then would you propose?


Sooner or later...

[MonkeyFunk]

15. Umm... not rioting, for starters

People - innocent people - get hurt and killed in riots.

The notion that a riot is desirable is just... well... sick.

[MUAD_DIB]

16. Innocent people are getting hurt and killed now.

Innocent people are getting hurt and killed now.
*US Troops Deaths: 3,400 plus.

Iraqi deaths: Hundreds of thousands.

Katrina Victims.



How many more will be sacrificed for * before he leaves...willingly or no?

[MonkeyFunk]

17. so rioting is the answer?

Kill some more people? Bullshit.

[SoonerPride]

18. That's not what I said.... or meant to imply.

What I'm amazed at is the utter apathy - generally - across this country at the whole cabal of criminals, thugs, and charlatans running this country. Secret wire taps elicit a yawn. Torture elicits applause. Day after day we learn more about the utter and brazen criminal atcitvity of Bush & Cheney et al. but no one, really, seems to care.

A few people get on a message board and vent. They might sign a petition or donate some money, but then they're off to the mall or out to dinner downtown with friends, who can drink Clicquot yellow label and speak in hushed, semi-alarmed tones about what has happened to our country.

The will to really fight to save this country appears non-existant.

And fighting is what it is gonna take.

We're too far down the road of the unitary executive, packed courts, corporate lobby merry-go-round of serve in Congress or the Executive branch then cash in with a golden parachute provided by corporate America. Congress is feeble and unwilling or unable to effect real change.

So, while I may not think riots solve anything or are particularly useful, they are at least indicative of a foul mood, an upset populace, a streak of firebrand rebellion to the status quo.

We ain't got that and we most likely have sat idly by and watched our country be subsumed by our new totalitarian masters.

Oh, what's on NBC tonight?

[MonkeyFunk]

19. So support

protests, direct action, activism, not rioting.

[SoonerPride]

20. I do

But we're a drop in the bucket against the tide of corporate money writing our legislation, buying up power and influence of both parties.

I'm incredibly disheartened about the political reality in this country.

Neither party is able to deliver substantive reform or change.

[MonkeyFunk]

21. Then go start a riot...

let me know how that works out for you.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

23. Why are you taking that tone?

He explained his side adequately. We're all DUers here. There's no need to take this accusatory tone against him. Do you really think things will change for the better because the corporations switch allegiance to the D rather than the R? Citizens need to do whatever is possible to reassert themselves. No, I don't believe in "rioting." But I do believe that political change involves more than just venting.

For instance, I'm trying to unite my fellow students so that we don't have to put up with the parasitic system that takes us for all we're worth and then hands out unpaid internships like they're doing us a favor. Signing petitions and voting for corporate candidates who put a smiley "liberal" face on the same globalization policies will NOT change things for the better.

[LBJDemocrat]

24. You're absolutely right

Sitting on your ass and venting isn't going to change jack shit.

[primative1]

32. Not to be the spoilsport but .....

I cant think of a single instance where "peaceful protest" has ever led to any change, let alone major changes.
Typicaly the protests need to be accompanied by an "edge" to be effective in gaining the attentions of the powers that be.

[BestCenter]

35. Obviously you've never heard of Gandhi-

Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez- need I go on?

[SoonerPride]

28. I'd direct your attention to this

This puts Americans in a real quandary. Somebody once said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” It was Jack Kennedy. I think he meant it as a warning for the reactionary right of his time ... Today, it reads like an entirely apt warning for us here at home...



What choices remain for Americans today? They have an administration which they despise, enacting policies they loathe. So they did what the good citizens of a democracy are supposed to do, they went out in large numbers and voted in a new government. We should make no mistake about what the landslide election of 2006 meant. Democrats had no agenda to put forth and were not chosen for the purpose of advancing any such non-agenda. They had one qualification going into last November’s contest, and it was the one which got them elected: They were the non-Republicans, the non-regressives. Their singular mandate was to curb the excesses of the insane kleptocracy which, by all manner of nefarious techniques, had seized control of the American democracy and was taking every step imaginable to destroy it.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/01/1588

[MUAD_DIB]

22. That's your definition. Good for you.

I know its a hypothetical, but what if * decided to stay in power?

What if an election is stolen?


What would you do? Would you sit on your hands?

[SoonerPride]

25. What if an election is stolen? If? Hello McFly! WAKE UP!

2000 WAS stolen. Blatantly and on national TV. Brought to you by tide and the insurance pimped by the lizard.

2004 was also stolen, as the panel in NY discusses (Dems should have veto-proof majority if not for Republican voter fraud) AND the vote caging scandal is revealing.

Face it folks, we are being toyed with by a totalitarian regime. However, unlike the Nazis, these dips are incompetent. We can at least be thankful for that. There is still the chance of taking back this country.

[MUAD_DIB]

30. Okay. You're new here so I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Reread the posting string and follow action from there. My point was that it would be better to stand up than to sit on one's hands.


Thanks, and welcome to DU.

[enough already]

27. Sometimes it is the only answer

Nothing else is working

[MUAD_DIB]

31. ^^^Gets it^^^

[Telly Savalas]

33. Point out some specific examples of policy that will be changed

due to the riots at the G8 conference.

[rodeodance]

34. Rioting only downgrades any good that might be accomplished. Yet I do

not know the full story of how it started.

[terisan]

9. Too many Aware Americans are sitting in front of TV watching the Politcal Propaganda Shows

and thinking that Activism consists of discussing how biased they are. We have met the enemy and they are us.

Getting wrapped up in watching Bill O'Reilly, Hannity, and such seems to have a pacifying effect on potential activists.

[splat]

11. Yeah, like delegating your anger to surrogates... n/t

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

12. 100% right

This is the truth. This sort of virtual politics-world has sucked up our will to change this country. Sites like DU can channel our will for real-world change, it's true. But right now, there seems to be a general passive nature of lay politics. Just sit back and wonder if Al Gore will run while the world sets itself ablaze and while our fellow citizens (of this country and of the world) struggle harder and harder to live a decent life.

[LBJDemocrat]

14. EXACTLY!

:toast:

You know what's up.