The arresting of NATO protesters begun with a Chicago Police
Department (CPD) raid in Bridgeport (a neighborhood on the South Side of
Chicago) of an apartment that supposedly had protesters making Molotov
cocktails to use during this weekend’s protests of NATO. Some were quickly released and gave media
interviews saying that all they were doing was making beer and that the items
confiscated by the CPD were beer making equipment. Sometime later a person by the name of Darrin
Annussek was released and gave this statement “They did not speak to us for 18 hours. They did not let us know what
was happening they did not know what was happening next” At some other
point of the interview he had also said that they were handcuffed to a bench
and shackled by their feet and he said it with so much emotion that I thought
he was about to cry. Now I do not want
to sound insensitive but it will come off a bit insensitive…What the hell are
you complaining about!?!
OK, OK let me think about this, you mean to tell me that you
came to Chicago to protest NATO and given the history of not only the Chicago
police but also how authorities around the WORLD respond to NATO protest and
you still have the emotion to cry about being handcuffed to a bench?!
See I’m not entirely convinced about the protest not because
I do not believe in what people are protesting but because we ALL knew that
certain people would come along and provoke confrontations with the
police. Not only that but the lack of
control and leadership to address these groups that really don’t have a message
but just want to scream and yell and believe they are sending a message. We knew that people would cause
confrontations and that the media would focus on that so whatever message that
the positive protesters wanted to send has been lost. But let us talk about the whole protest
itself…what was the overall message? I
understand it to be, and correct me if I’m wrong, to end NATO, right? If that is the message why do we think that a
protest like this would actually accomplish this? I see a lot of young people in the crowd
dressing as the protesters did in the 1970’s and I’m wondering why. Why would you dress like an activist from
that time period? Do you not know that
the war in Vietnam is COMPLETELY different from what we are dealing with here? Back
then people were being drafted into the military and it was to fight communism
from spreading and NATO was built, basically, to hold off the Soviet Union from
getting any bigger. What war are we
fighting? It has nothing to do with NATO
it is the actual fault of OURS that we have been living such a comfortable life
all these years and have ignored what OUR government have been doing in other
countries. YES it is OUR fault…don’t
roll your eyes research the history.
In Afghanistan the Soviet Union was battling to take over
the country and the US Gov. started to supply the rebels with weapons among
other things. Before that Iran and Iraq
were at war in the early 1980’s and the US Gov. had their hand it that as
well. Pres. Regan accepted money from
the King of Saudi Arabia to fight revolutionaries in Central America because
Regan told the King of Saudi that communism was spreading in Latin America and
the King hated communism so he gave the US Gov. money to fight them. ALL of this going on while people in America
were busy being fashionable, getting high, focused on making money, and oppressing
the poor of this country. You cannot
attack NATO because America was asleep for decades that caused the ripple effect
of Sept. 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I’m not defending the US Gov. nor am I defending NATO but I
am a firm believer in addressing issues at their root cause and guess what
people we are that root cause. Isn’t it great
to go to Walmart and buy a T-shirt for like $3?
Well if you look into where that T-shirt is made and the wages the
worker was paid you will quickly realize that you have helped oppress someone
far and near just so that you can have a cheap T-shirt to wear to today’s
protest because you didn’t want to ruin the one you paid $15 for.
NATO does what it does because we elect the people we do
into office and we have not set up a system, yet, to address a public official
that gets off target with why we elected them.
So again why are you protesting?
What is the message? “oh hey yea
so I wanted to be one of the people that elected the first Black president but
now I realize that I should have advocated for something or someone different
so yea my BAD on that so can you like stop making me look like an ass for
electing you? Thanks!” Because that is what I am hearing so far especially from
FB “friends” and not to say they are asses for voting but it’s like we have
gone around this block before why do we keep ending up in the same place!? OK so we may have not elected a Black
president before but we did put ALL of our eggs in his basket to only want to
call him a war monger a few years later.
PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE! We cannot keep doing the same play
from the same old play book! Protest
worked in the Middle East against their government mostly because they haven’t
done that before and well the honest truth, do you think the US government didn’t
have their hands in that pot as well?
Back in 1996 I worked with a group of organizers and one of them was
named Gabe and he and I got into an argument one day because he didn’t believe
me when I told him that the FBI gets sent overseas to investigate crimes committed
against US interest, citizens, and do other type of investigations. Gabe loved to feel like he was the center of
the organizing world and with a beer in his hand and that stupid smirk he said “It’s
the FEDERAL bureau not the CIA!” And as I started to explain it to him he
shouted me down and disregarded me as someone that wasn’t in the know. Today, if you’re informed about these things,
you know that the FBI does travel overseas for investigations as well as other
agencies that you may not know about.
The point of that little story is that when you look into a play book,
that by the way the other guys know it by heart as well, you tend to forget how
to think independently in a situation and find yourself on TV crying about your
first experience of having been handcuffed.
I shared with my Nephew, Felix, the other day that action,
the type that “they” haven’t seen before, could be the most effect tool against
groups like NATO. We have had a lot of
time to organize and I am saddened that “peace organizers” didn’t think about
creating Peace to show NATO how it can be done WITHOUT conflict. Here was the idea, IF organizers in Chicago
really had their wits about them they would have realized that Chicago has been
dealing with street violence that hasn’t been seen in many years and made an
example of how to create Peace among those groups. Wouldn’t it have been an impressive show to
hold a city wide Peace summit of ALL street organizations somewhere in Chicago
and SHOW, not only the city, but WORLD leaders HOW a group of people can create
Peace without ONE single SHOT being fired!
WOW wouldn’t that have been amazing!? Oh yea I forgot that
would have meant that Community based Organizations, organizers, clergy, and “activist”
would have had to put their prejudice aside about these “fucking gangbangers”
to have made such a move…yea I said it!
You cannot complain and march against NATO for what they do
when you do it right here at home and NO you cannot say that this is different
because it is not! If you cannot realize
that street organizations and drug dealers are all humans as well then you got
your head somewhere other than your shoulders.
Poverty in other countries has the same problems as the people in
poverty here and in those countries they have their rebels and we have ours but
you don’t see them in that way only because you have refused to acknowledge
them.
So what will you do different now?
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
