Fightng Dirty

[Jackpine Radical]

Some years ago, in the days leading up to the Iraq war, I was standing with a bunch of other demonstrators with peace signs. We were not far from the county Republican Party HQ, and a bunch of them came out with signs protesting our protest. There happened to be someone across the street taking pics (maybe a local journalist). I walked over to one of the counter-protestors and thanked her for coming out. I told her we were mostly doing the demonstration to get pictures for national news, and her people were making our group look much larger. Of course, I told her, we would be photoshopping antiwar messages onto their pro-war signs before we released the photos. Shortly thereafter they all decided to leave.

[grannie4peace]

1. naughty, naughty

[lpbk2713]

2. It's just as well you P/S'd messages on their signs.

Their spelling would have needed to be corrected anyway.



:rofl: :rofl:

[gratuitous]

3. That's just good old creative non-violent resistance

I was on a CPT delegation to southern Mexico a few years ago, and being hassled by the constabulary was a common occurrence, whether it was local police, the equivalent of the county sheriff, state police or FBI folks, the forces of officialdom took a great deal of interest in the Northern Gringos who were helping out and advocating for local displaced persons. The countermeasure there was whenever the "observers" came out to menace us with their presence, one of the CPTers would whip out a digital camera and start snapping their pictures. They usually skedaddled within moments.

My conclusion is that thugs don't like publicity and they really don't like photographic evidence of their thuggery.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. The usual technique for dealing with cameras at demonstrations in the north

is for the cops to break both the cameras and photographers.

[gratuitous]

5. Well, this was about eight years ago

And since then, indeed, the establishment forces have determined that it's better to deal with a destruction of property complaint than it is to deal with anything that might be recorded. Fellow near here got in BIG trouble for filming the cops taking his friend into custody. Police confiscated his camera and arrested him for "interfering" with a police officer. After it was pointed out that filming someone hardly "interfered" with their activities, the police dropped the charge and gave back the guy's camera. Without the memory card.

We're really going to be dealing with a lot of hangover from the Bush years, which I guess is only fitting when an out-of-control drunk authoritarian seizes power in a country. One good thing, I guess, is that it's cured me of snickering to myself over banana republic antics; I have a great deal more sympathy for people oppressed by authoritarian regimes.

[EFerrari]

6. Wow. You're smart!

:rofl: