gitmo!

-

Serves them all right. Don't mess with the MAN you smelly cretins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you, not THE CPD HAS YOU!!!!!!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!!!!!!!

( Sorry, PW's but you cretins simply can't count. Or spell for that matter. You're losing. Enjoy the news )

THE ABSOLUTE FACTS ABOUT M19 2005 CHICAGO

1) There were at best 1,000 protesters that convened on Federal Plaza, NOT 5,000 or more that you are led to believe.

2) There were a total of 5 arrests, all for disorderly conduct; NOT 8 or more as you are led to believe.

3) 99.9% of the protesters DID conduct their business peacefuly.

4) Why does the INDYMEDIA moderator keep deleting the factual information posted on this thread?

5) And the most important thing.........NO ONE GOT HURT, except for the Police horse that was punched. Go figure, where are the animal rights activists to speak up on this? This kid that was arrested PUNCHED the police horse unprovoked!-it's filmed- saw it on FOX News Chicago; ABC 7; CBS 2; CLTV. There's always at least one in the crowd.

6) I am sure INDYMEDIA will delete this post soon, but if you you view this, THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH. ALL FACTUAL INFORMATION. RESEARCH IT IF YOU LIKE, THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL COME UP WITH.

Why the fuck were the horses/dogs there in the first place???? I saw cops using horses as weapons. Give me a link to the fox news report. I'd like to see how they framed the thing.

The federal plaza was filled with protesters. It takes around 5,000 protesters to fill the plaza. But part of the plaza -- about 20% of the area, was blocked off, including around the Calder statue ... obstensibly for repairs. Protesters are calling the top mobilization at federal plaza at around 2,500 to 3,000 people. Around 1,000 total people were in motion on Dearborn -- that's where the 1K number comes from. CLTV reported 'thousands'.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but there were 1,000 AT BEST!!!!!!! Check out the footage and photos from the aerial shots, there are many floating around the web, and most were taken between 2 and 4 P.M. Then count...1,2,3,4, and so on.

Sorry, Factz, but the figure of 1000 was arbitraily issued by the CPD command staff to reporters on the scene at Oak, Michigan, and Dearborn - which the Trib and CST took as gospel. This does not make it 'factual' anymore than anyone else's crowd estimates. For example, the latest AP wire report cites "thousands" of M-19 protesters in Chicago.

The unpermitted feeder marches that were blocked at Dearborn and Oak during and after the press conference at Oak and Michigan probably never exceeded 1,100 total, - not surprising considering the degree of preemptive police intimidation, but the later rally was actually much larger, and the CIMC estimate of 2500-3000 participants is in the ballpark.

Indeed, the M-19 Coalition distributed a flyer urging those who arrived at Oak and Michigan but could not risk arrest to ignore the police sanctioned route on Clark St and make their way downtown anyway they could with stacks of anti-war leaflets to pass out on the way. And many did just that.

Other protesters who chose to remain at Dearborn and Michigan location also successfully resisted CPD efforts to force them onto Clark, and were able to march down Dearborn to the Federal Plaza rally after an hour long negotiation with the police in the street. But several groups, eager to avoid arrest, and arrive at the rally on time, capitulated to police demands, and split off to march down Clark minutes before. It was an estimate of these two parallel marches south to Federal Plaza that CPD Chief of Patrol Maurer gave to reporters on the scene, -- not the total number of participants in the day's activities.

The CPD also has a checkered history of undereporting crowd sizes, a point underscored several years ago in a federal court case in which CPD witnesses understated the maximum capacity in Federal Plaza, and were refuted by testimony from other experts - who actually measured that capacity. To be fair, crowd estimates are difficult at best, which is why the US Park police and DC's Metro PD - who previously used an aerial photos and a grid map system for estimating large crowds- now have a policy of not releasing estimates when it comes to large demonstrations in the nation's capital. A practice the CPD might emulate.

You also describe an incident today when a protester 'punched' a horse without "provocation". Eyewitness accounts report that this arrest was precipitated by a protester sustaining an injury when the horse lurched forward and stepped on the kid's foot near Federal Plaza. Said eyewitness accounts and the medical record produced by that arrestee's injury will no doubt be introduced as evidence in court.

Documentable arrests today included:

1. Andy Thayer, Chicago M-19 Organizing Coalition
2. Brad Little, veteran Quaker peace activist
3. Dan Dale, Interim pastor at Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ
4. Pat Voegel, AFSC
5. Dan Johnson,
6. Eric Lawerence
7. Michael Sladnick

The initial Indymedia report got it wrong by 1, based on eyewitness accounts. The corporate media somehow got it wrong by 2, based on inaccurate police reports. IMC will update these figures as new info becomes available. Will the Chicago Tribune?

The next time you decide to pop off about 'absolute facts" you might try doing some real research. Then again, based on the news sources you seem to depend exclusively on for info, no doubt you're still looking for WMDs in Iraq.

Re: point #2 of your post, check your own factz before being so quick to criticize others.

Being unavoidably detained, I can't speak to the other points in your post, but on point #2 you're wrong. In addition to disorderly conduct, I was also charged with resisting arrest and with allegedly violating Section 10-8-330 of the Chicago Municipal Code--the now infamous permits ordinance. Specifically, "in that 100 persons assembled at the direction of respondent which (sic) blocked ped traffic, at Oak & Michigan without unlawful permit (sic)." Court date for that is 2:30 pm, April 6th at 400 W. Superior (the other charges are being tried separately on the preceeding day at Belmont & Western).

More ominously, earlier in the day, the Gay Liberation Network feeder march was shut down by the police after they threatened us with wholesale arrest, ostensibly because we didn't have a permit. We were forcibly dispersed under immediate threat of arrest just after we started.

Carried to its logical conclusion, if the cops enforced this interpretation of the ordinance consistently, EVERY protest in Chicago would have to get the cops' permission before proceeding, no matter how large or small, no matter whether they took place on the streets or on sidewalks (ours was to have been a sidewalk march). The cops would be empowered to unilaterally ban those protests which they don't approve of.

Andy, heard you, Brad, and Dan were released. Great!. What about the other arrestees? Any updates?

factz is just mad because the protest-weiner's main hymn-singer up and got married, now chained to a radiator someplace, cutting their local membership by 15%....

any coverage of protesters dying the chicago river red? i have pictures (film) but won't be able to process/scan for a couple of days....

factz is missing the point anyway, if there were 1000 protesters, then that means there were 2000 cops - there would be more participation if there was less intimidation....

when did they secretly declare martial law and suspend the constitution?

can someone tell me the name of the veteran(he is also a union member)who spoke at federal plaza? Also the organization he belongs to? Interested in getting involved.

PWs had about 60 - and the main hymn-singer and her husband were there, duh. :P

Bill Davis of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

A shout out to the PW's. I would just like to congratulate you on finally realizing that the Cold War is over and the free advertising you give to anarchists. You guys and gals are the greatest. I hope you weren't too cold out there. Don't forget to get a job!

if the PWs are looking to advance their careers, they should enlist, i hear the educational benefits are great....

is that an ABSOLUTE 60? or a Tribune 60? or CPD?

About two dozen counterdemonstrators stood across the street from Federal Plaza to espouse their point of view - The Trib

You were once again so busy focusing on the police that you never organized a decent march. The anarchists with covered faces were leading the march! Thanks for losing the real message. some of us actually care about that part.

Hey Just Against the War

Why didn't you help organize?

Like it or not, the issues of the war and civil liberties are intertwined.

The Bush Administration remains determined to marginalize dissent - viewed as the Administration as embarrasing and undermining the US war effort - by making every effort to render such protests invisible to the broader public by increasingly restricting freedom of assembly in public spaces - from San Francisco to NY's Fifth Ave. It's happening all over the country.

In Chicago, the Daley machine, ever mindful of the flow of federal funding from a White House and Congress in the hands of pro war conservatives - is also happy to comply. Despite the fact that a majority of Chicagoans oppose a war and occupation which has cost city tax payers 2.2 billion dollars to date, inflicted over 1,500 US casualities, and tens of thousands of Iraq dead. Not to mention a long history of police hostility to public anti-war protests that date back to the Democratic Convention here in 1968.

That's why asserting what remains of our constitutional rights are so critical at this time. Use em, or lose them.

You guys have the Trib in your pocket, not us.

And 65-70 was my guess, one count a PW took was 75, another counted 60.

Although you guys divide our numbers by 5-6 and multiply your own...

65-70 PWs? Not on your best day. It might be time to call Kfir down at the fuhrerbunker in Texas for reinforcements. This operation was a flop.

All adults were released by 9 pm Saturday. There was an unconfirmed report of a juvenile arrested during the day, but we were never able to confirm that, and given that s/he is a juvenile, the police do not release names.

Hope they'll be released si!
What disorderly conduct?
As the mainstream press echoes CPD charges.
One pacifist was peacefully going into the paddy wagon. It almost looked like they were holding hands.
He was just exhibiting his first amendment rights.

The PW seems to be a well-funded group of right wing representatives, minions supplied by and buying into the anti-liberty mind-firk. These folks must hate liberty and want nothing better than to shut down anyone’s use of it.
Now it would seem natural to hate these liberty haters in return, but perhaps we should not do so, rather we should pity them. Pity the poor empty-headed puppets. Pity them for they are trapped in an abusive relationship. Their masters have lied to them, stolen their tax money, sent their friends and relatives off to die in a bid for profit and still these poor, pitiful, pusillanimous people stay on their hands and knees to lick their masters’ boots. These misguided, abused and debased lovers are sodomized intellectually and economically, and still they remain in the most grotesquely compromised position accepting that degradation. They are seemingly with out self-respect or independence and so cannot break free of their collars and chains, can not liberate themselves from their leather tethers, self condemned to a perverted and humiliating subservient existence. Only courage could sever those shackles, but that is just what they lack. For in addition to their weaknesses and shameful submissions, they are cowards.
And I can prove it.
Everyone knows that our military forces are in desperate need of recruits, they are constantly missing their recruitment quotas since we’ve gotten a good look at Bush’s belligerent foreign policy. But here are some folks, who are out in public, claiming they love war, claiming they get some sort of perverse titillation out of just thinking about it. So what is to prevent these willing cannon fodder candidates from going down to the local recruiting office? Cowardice. Sure they can talk a good fight, but in truth they are yellow, scared and unsubstantial cowards. Which, of course, makes them perfect as right wing representatives.

Braam, I couldn't have written a bigger load of horse shit if I tried. Let's see... PWs are on the side of bringing democracy to the Middle East, toppling totalitarian regimes, and letting people be economically free. You are on the side of communism and socialism, which stifle personal and economic freedom, and have left 100 million in mass graves all around the world last century. Hm....

Sorry, but only 1000-2000 folks took part in this demonstration. And they came from the city and from all over the suburbs. That's pretty pathetic. So Chicagoland has 0.025% of left-wing activists. Can somebody wake me up when the revolution takes place?

Hey Braam, thanks for finally telling me your name.

the numbers thing is silly. we can quibble endlessly about it (5000 fit in fed plaza? is that laying down stacked five high?). nobody is going to seriously argue that the numbers were close. what's important is that we had signifigantly more, and you had signifigantly less, out in the streets as compared to last year, and that is the direction in which the scales seem to be tipping.

whether we were two dozen strong (innaccurate, but still four times as strong as last year) or 60 (closer to accurate and almost ten times as strong as last year) what remains is that social justice activists find even that small a proportion (1/120, 1/250, 1/460, whereever you want to put it) threatening enough to have the police eject us from the space we held a permit for.

that must be a pretty weak hand you're holding.

75 tipping the scales against 1000? that's fat!

Still, it's a good trick how 10 of you get the same attention as 100 of us.

but could you explain the one where you claim to be moral yet completely disregard 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'?

again: with less police intimidation, we would have more participation.

To Sel, the person who asked for the identity of the veteran who spoke. Someone already responded that it was Bill Davis of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. You mentioned wanting to get involved. If so, please email me at hf52 (at) aol.com. There's lots of work we could use help with.
--Hannah Frisch, VVAW National Staff

the anarchists and radical youth were leading the march simply because that is how it worked out... these more radical groups both started at leo burnett and then began a feeder march, effectively taking the street just north of dearborn and wacker. If it was not for the persistance of the antimiltarization radical youth and the anarchists in taking dearborn ALL protesters would have been forced into bughouse square and down clark...thereby smothering the antiwar message. So think before you post "just against war"

Ask the troops........

Several dozen, tops. But you had your own coat rack. Very impressive. Maybe a Webber next time? Thanks for the laughs PW.

Protester #6 is Eric Lawrence, student, pacifist, member of an intentional Christian community on the Northside. While the anarchists were slapping the horses and shouting as people were getting corraled into the square. With all the commotion, Eric didn't know what to do so he knelt down and prayed. The police told him to move, when he didn't they arrested him.

I am portestor #7, the juvenile, and the one arrested for supposedly punching a police horse. I see that some people have noted seeing me punch the animal news broadcasts, but that is a lie. The charge was that I punched the horse's face, when in reality the horse stepped on me with its back foot (I still did not strike it), and in the resulting confusion I was arrested. I was most likely only taken out of there because I was cause trouble, as I was not allowing myself to be pushed back. It also took them over 2 hours to claim that I had punched a horse.

Listen the kid that "punched" the horse happens to be one of my best friends. Contrary to popular belief he did not punch the horse. It stepped on his foot and he didnt want it to break so he pushed the horse off of his foot and was arrested.