{"id":2102,"date":"2008-02-11T07:00:49","date_gmt":"2008-02-11T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2102"},"modified":"2008-02-11T12:08:22","modified_gmt":"2008-02-11T17:08:22","slug":"erabout-those-thugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2102","title":{"rendered":"Er…About Those Thugs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Along with my friends at True North<\/em>, I’ve spent a good chunk of the last year getting primed to deal with the hordes of “anarchist” thugs – generally upper-middle-class college kids or twenty-somethings – who plan on coming to Saint Paul this fall to cause mischief.<\/p>\n

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This blog has spent lots of time and effort documenting their statements of intent, and their actions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While I support everyone<\/em>‘s right to free speech, and am perfectly willing to ascribe 90% of the things the Anarcho-fops are saying to “post-adolescent drama-addiction”, there are <\/em>enough of them out there who do <\/em>intend to cause serious trouble – vandalism, rioting, assault and mayhem – that I plan on doing what I can to protect my city<\/em> from their depredations.<\/p>\n

And when I’ve mentioned this in mixed-politics forums – like the “E-Democracy” Saint Paul discussion group – the resopnse, almost to a person has been an ignorant “riiiiiiight” at best, and a denial-clogged “the Republicans are just as likely to get violent” at worst.<\/p>\n

One of the people who’s given us plenty of both was Grace Kelly of the local leftyblog MNBlue. Kelly, a 9\/11 “truther”, is shocked, shocked<\/em>, to notice that some of her fellow protesters are up to planning no good<\/a>!<\/p>\n

While nearly every peacemaker group has focused on elections, one small group, Protest RNC 2008<\/a> has been focussed on protesting the Republican National Convention(RNC), which is normally a good activity except this time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Which is a sentence that makes perfect sense except for this time)<\/p>\n

I wrote of the importance of nonviolence and peace pledge previously. Now all groups who are participating with this group are being asked to commit to a unity pledge<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s be clear, here (since Grace Kelly doesn’t state it very clearly); it’s the “Protest RNC group” that’s proposing the pledge below. Kelly herself proposed a pledge <\/a>– one of those “unicorn in every garage” pledges, all full of high expectations and dreamy assumptions that are the peacenik’s only useful tangible intellectual product – and is somewhat upset that the other guys’ pledge is getting more traction among the anarkids.<\/p>\n

And – this kills me – she’s surprised <\/em>that the anarkids want to pledge people to… (Kelly’s responses are in parentheses below; mine will be in square brackets):<\/p>\n

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