Where Protesting Went Awry
To be filed in the Fucking-A, I Must Be Getting Old Department:
{begin Seinfeld voice in your head}
What's UPPPPP with protestors? I mean, since when does questioning the status-quo require being dirty and wearing dreads?
{/end Seinfeld voice}
There's a big ol' biotech conference going on in the city this week at Moscone. Traffic is horrible this morn, so my cute driving honey can't get me all the way to my building in the financial district. I get out and walk. Reason there's all this traffic is b/c the city has blocked off the streets surrounding the conference due to protesters. Shitload of cops everywhere.
So I'm at the corner of Mission and New Montgomery and there's one splinter group of protesters, mostly on bikes, kind of lolling about. Then all of a sudden a crew of about 40 strong youngsters wearing bandannas around their faces and dirt about their everywhere else round Market onto New Montgomery running full steam at the cops at my corner. Cops start gearing up to meet them. As the confrontation is about to go down, i deftly maneuver to the opposite side of the street, securing my observer non participatoro status. Right as i am ready for the SLAM of Speeding Youth vs. Immovable Blue Line, the runners stop, right in front of their supposed nemesis. They start yelling, cops surround them like a bunch of suckers who've never read the art of war or even seen braveheart. Now the other group of protesters, the ones that've been milling about on their bicycles, start chanting, "Let them go." A lot of yelling, a little shoving, threats of arrest, and the bikers and their formerly fleet-footed counterparts keep really trying to bait the cops.
Here's my beef. What the fuck?
What the fuck does this have to do with genetic manipulation of human DNA? Turns out a lot of the protestors had signs questioning genetic modification of food when most of the conference attendees work for pharmaceutical companies and have nothing to do with agriculture. Many of these protestors appeared to just be looking for trouble, for conflict, and had real venom for the police. But unless i'm mistaken, the coppers probably don't have much to do with splicing genes. At least if the protesters were at the moscone center, attempting to confront the convention attendees, and the cops were stopping them, at that point, i may be able to understand their anger with them. But as it stands, they just seem like dumb motherfuckers.
Now there was a peaceful gathering this weekend at Union Square, i believe called Be Dirty and Stupid For Peace, or Something. It was a rebellion against capitalism and the free market economy. For NO CHARGE, you could get such amazing items as poems written on joss paper. Wow. Also present was the requisite incense wafting through the air. I like this quote from the article, which shows the journalist covering the event didn't give it that much respect (it also ties into our earlier discussion on coolness):
"A young woman scooped up the metal object [being given away at the fair] and carried it around the fair, showing it off to friends who exclaimed at its coolness."
Now i actually find it interesting and healthy to consider, as these folks say there were, the alternatives to a free market, money-driven society, which by its very nature considers profits primary, and other societal attributes, such as human rights and the environment, secondary.
However, I simply wonder if protesters perhaps might be more effective if they didn't act and dress like nutty freaks who don't even know what is making them upset. I'm talking civility and focus here.
But perhaps i'm just a curmudgeonly old bastard.
-sR
{begin Seinfeld voice in your head}
What's UPPPPP with protestors? I mean, since when does questioning the status-quo require being dirty and wearing dreads?
{/end Seinfeld voice}
There's a big ol' biotech conference going on in the city this week at Moscone. Traffic is horrible this morn, so my cute driving honey can't get me all the way to my building in the financial district. I get out and walk. Reason there's all this traffic is b/c the city has blocked off the streets surrounding the conference due to protesters. Shitload of cops everywhere.
So I'm at the corner of Mission and New Montgomery and there's one splinter group of protesters, mostly on bikes, kind of lolling about. Then all of a sudden a crew of about 40 strong youngsters wearing bandannas around their faces and dirt about their everywhere else round Market onto New Montgomery running full steam at the cops at my corner. Cops start gearing up to meet them. As the confrontation is about to go down, i deftly maneuver to the opposite side of the street, securing my observer non participatoro status. Right as i am ready for the SLAM of Speeding Youth vs. Immovable Blue Line, the runners stop, right in front of their supposed nemesis. They start yelling, cops surround them like a bunch of suckers who've never read the art of war or even seen braveheart. Now the other group of protesters, the ones that've been milling about on their bicycles, start chanting, "Let them go." A lot of yelling, a little shoving, threats of arrest, and the bikers and their formerly fleet-footed counterparts keep really trying to bait the cops.
Here's my beef. What the fuck?
What the fuck does this have to do with genetic manipulation of human DNA? Turns out a lot of the protestors had signs questioning genetic modification of food when most of the conference attendees work for pharmaceutical companies and have nothing to do with agriculture. Many of these protestors appeared to just be looking for trouble, for conflict, and had real venom for the police. But unless i'm mistaken, the coppers probably don't have much to do with splicing genes. At least if the protesters were at the moscone center, attempting to confront the convention attendees, and the cops were stopping them, at that point, i may be able to understand their anger with them. But as it stands, they just seem like dumb motherfuckers.
Now there was a peaceful gathering this weekend at Union Square, i believe called Be Dirty and Stupid For Peace, or Something. It was a rebellion against capitalism and the free market economy. For NO CHARGE, you could get such amazing items as poems written on joss paper. Wow. Also present was the requisite incense wafting through the air. I like this quote from the article, which shows the journalist covering the event didn't give it that much respect (it also ties into our earlier discussion on coolness):
"A young woman scooped up the metal object [being given away at the fair] and carried it around the fair, showing it off to friends who exclaimed at its coolness."
Now i actually find it interesting and healthy to consider, as these folks say there were, the alternatives to a free market, money-driven society, which by its very nature considers profits primary, and other societal attributes, such as human rights and the environment, secondary.
However, I simply wonder if protesters perhaps might be more effective if they didn't act and dress like nutty freaks who don't even know what is making them upset. I'm talking civility and focus here.
But perhaps i'm just a curmudgeonly old bastard.
-sR
