Oh Great. That’s Just Great.

Wednesday, July 30

11:10 a.m.

We leave England exactly one week from today.  I am sad to go but looking forward to getting home.  I was looking around on-line to see what pleasantries await me in Minnesota – the State Fair, the sweet old local egg man, the Fringe Festival – when I ran across this little doozy from The Apocalyptic Kiwi.  Oh.  Great.  What I actually have to look forward to are ANARCHISTS AND RAY GUNS.

!!!

     Excerpt of original article from The Raw Story … ”Apart from the traditional pepper spray and rubber bullets employed by police for controlling large protests, Denver, Colorado and St. Paul, Minnesota officials may be spending large sums on weapons CNN calls ’science fiction like’.

     Weapons such as the sonic ray gun, which emits a head-splitting frequency and deafens large groups of people. Also rumored for the conventions is the goo gun — which shoots a gel that can coat and wrap people whole, or stop a moving vehicle in its path — and a microwave pulse emitter — a radio frequency device that makes one’s skin feel it is on fire, previously deployed in the streets of Baghdad, Iraq.”              the rest  

It’s not as if I’m surprised by this kind of government action.  I lived in D.C. for three years.  I was there (protesting) for the second Bush inauguration.  The whole day was a cold and scary mess.  There may have been protesters somewhere else taking it too far, but that’s not what I saw.  I saw the military keeping anyone young and not in fur from viewing distance of the supposedly free parade route.  I saw D.C. citizens unable to attend the inauguration or walk on many of their own city blocks, and I ran across police in riot gear waiting on the side streets.  I saw a man in riot gear push a peaceful woman who had tripped off the crowded sidewalk and landed on the street (people weren’t allowed on the street in some places).  I thought when I moved to Minnesota cooler heads would prevail.  I guess not.

I get that non-bullet weapons could be a good / useful thing in war.  But last time I checked downtown St. Paul was not a war zone and isn’t there’s this thing about free speech?

 

Meanwhile, the Anarchists are getting organized. 

I also recall an Anarchist march in D.C.  I still have a text on my phone my from my friend Lynn.  “Where are you?  There’s a RIOT outside of HEAVEN!!”  I don’t remember there being any injuries, but I think there was property damage.  Hey guess what marching youth – that building you just spray-painted?  It didn’t belong to The Man.  The Man doesn’t live in Adams Morgan.  And Yay For You for throwing rocks through police car windows.  Thanks out-of-town angry ass-hole.  You’re just what D.C. needs.  We need you to vandalize police cars cuz we don’t have enough tension between the populace and the police already.  Thanks!  Great.  Good job fighting The Man.

You see why I find the British knife crime hysteria so hilarious.

Admittedly, I enjoyed this little video and I look forward to whatever antics the Anarchists are going to pull at the Republican National Convention.  I’m just glad I get to drive home to the suburbs and park my car safely in the garage.