Finally, some video from the protest

Finally, the promised video from today’s protest. Or I should say protests, plural, since there were splinter groups breaking away from the main group.

The splinter groups were causing trouble:

...About 200 people from a group called Funk the War noisily staged its own separate march. Wearing black clothes, bandanas and gas masks, some of their members smashed windows of cars and stores. They tipped over newspaper boxes, pulled a big trash bin into the street, bent the rear view mirrors on a bus and flipped heavy stone garbage bins on the sidewalks.

One man who seemed to be the leader of the group carried a yellow flag with the motto "Don't Tread on Me." The group chanted "Whose streets? Our streets!"

Meanwhile, a group of about 100 anarchists pushed a dumpster filled with trash and threw garbage in the streets and at cars. They also took down orange detour road signs. In hot pursuit were teams of riot officers carrying batons, rifles and guns that could be used to shoot tear gas.

The day's march was organized by a group called the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, whose leaders said they hoped for a peaceful, family-friendly march. But police were on high alert after months of preparations by a self-described anarchist group called the RNC Welcoming Committee, which wasn't among the organizers of the march.

I didn’t see any of that. Here’s what I did see.

First, this must have been one of the splinter groups. Notice the guy in black who takes the bullhorn second. He dances around like he’s gotta go potty (clip is 1:56 long):



You gotta love the way they stand on a public street, yelling into a bullhorn about how their voices aren’t being heard.

On to the main protest. I shot about 18 minutes of video, so I’ve split it up into several small bits.

This one's 22 seconds:



Sounds like they’re saying “Peace! No!” Doesn’t it?

Some nice chant-work in this clip (44 seconds):



I can’t tell if they’re actually segueing from “get up, get down…” to “hey hey, ho ho…” or if it’s two different groups chanting two different things, and the audio just happened to catch that way.

Whichever, y’know, hey hey, ho ho, we have GOT to come up with some more original material soon.

Next clip: the Class War!



I’ve always wondered: exactly how do you wage Class War? I’m betting by going home and playing World of Warcraft.

Oh, but did you notice the sign at the end?



Look! A capitalist! Speak the Truth, brother! How’d you get that sign in there, anyway?

Final clip, 19 seconds. I’m not sure if I’m capturing the size of this protest. I shot nearly 18 minutes of video, and I was walking upstream pretty frequently while doing so.



You can see the state capitol in the background, and maybe you can see that there were still people up there. Police estimated the crowd at up to 10,000 so, while I still found a thing or two to make fun of, it was a pretty successful protest. I’m sure the troops are on the transport planes back here as we speak.