Editorial from the Eastside Journal, page A10, 8/16/2000 :



Privileged protesters turn mean, violent

Protesters are out in force in Los Angeles this week, just as they were in Philadelphia two weeks ago. There, one of them, a 54-year-old Virginia woman, told the Associated Press: "We just don't like Republicans and what the ruling class stands for." We suspect some of that attitude is found on L.A. streets, too.

Let's assume for a moment that Americans can be divided into classes that way. What, then, do we make of a protesting class that does the following in Philadelphia and Los Angeles?

o Pulls a wire across a road, apparently to knock policement off their motorcycles, probably injuring them and possibly killing them.

o Throws rocks at police and fires steel balls from slingshots at them.

o Stops and surounds a bus, paints slogans on it and terrifies the passengers.

o Strikes passing policemen with their fists, beats one over the head with a bike and sends at least a half-dozen officers to the hospital.

o Smashes the windows and slashes the tires of police automobiles.



o Blocks streets and brings rush-hour traffic to a halt.

We're all in favor of peaceful protest, but hundreds of those demonstrating during these two national conventions are mean and violent. It's hard to escape the sense that these conventions are just an excuse for some people to cause pain and feel important.

As for the nonsense about ruling classes, it is worth noting that, according to AP, many of the protesters are white college students. These are not oppressed masses taking to the streets as the only means of getting themselves heard, but some of the most extraordinarily privileged human beings in the whole of history. And what some are doing is giving evidence that they have little respect for anything but their own delight in disregarding the rules of the civilization that afforded them their privileges.

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Contextual note : the Eastside Journal serves the affluent suburbs to the east of Seattle (Bellevue, Mercer Island, Redmond, etc). I just thought I'd pass this on so everyone here can see how Bill Gates' local paper is spinning things.

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This commentary is amazingly mindless. They can't even keep track of their own arguments and in the last paragraph, end up contradicting themselves!

the greatest weapon the media has is to either demonize or marginalize activists. i guess ignorance is bliss, or at the very least profitable.

(Bellevue, WA) Eastside Journal editors are complaining of loss of memory, inability to maintain a logical argument and general loss of IQ as a result of last month's intensive Chemtrail activity over the Puget Sound area. They are asking that any seemingly incoherent or illogical articles be disregarded.

Maybe the COPS should stop enforcing the laws, that way they wont have to deal with people throwing things at them and beating them with bicycles. If the protestors were allowed to get their message across, instead of being silenced then we wouldn't have to listen to these awful complaining posts from what must be an employee of the LAPD.

Well Eastside Journal, what do we make of a national police policy that:

*Uses tear gas and pepper spray as a first and not last resort when confronted with peaceful protesters?

*Spys on and infiltrates groups who demand democracy and not plutocracy?

*Detain dissenters on flimsy or non-existant charges and throw them in dungeons like the Roundhouse and Holmesburg whereupon they proceed to abuse them for speaking out?

*Conspires with the corporate media to black out and slant coverage to appear that the protests, when they even admit they are happening at all, are jsut the tantrums of a few white, middle-class misfits who just won't "get with program" and should just be ignored?

*Harrasses Independent media sources such as IMC with invented "bomb scares," attacks on video and still cameras and out-and-out physical assaults?

I've been to the East Side many many times and know that it is a computer industry fortess of the wealthy where Bill Gates rules as their unelected king. Microsoft was also a major contributer to the Republican National Convention and probably holds sway over the editorial policy of the Eastside Journal either directly or indirectly. In the mind of Gates and other corporate moguls, the only "real" news is news that supports their policies of monopoly and government graft.

Lets just remember that this paper caters to some of the worst yuppie scum on earth. The eastside probably has the highest concentration of SUV's anywhere on earth. It's the land of Microsoft, The land of non-washingtonians, the invaders. These people could generally give a shit about saving our salmon or forests. It's literally one of the cheasiest most plastic and fake areas I've ever visited on earth. Theres SO MANY SUV"S that you would think thats all thats available for humans to drive. Self-righteous, snobby, cheesy plastic people, replacing the dairy farms my ancestors homesteaded with thier gawdy 5-car garaged mansions and thier snotty punk kids.

I wipe my ass with the Eastside Journal. I'd wipe my ass with most of the people on the eastside if I could.

The Eastside to me represents almost everthing I disgust in life, utter pukes.

The eastside, where every single god damned vehicle is an SUV, all tailgating each other in a vicious circle to go nowhere.

Sorry, touched a nerve.

Really, vent away. It's time.

I can see that those “Self-righteous, snobby, cheesy plastic people, replacing the dairy farms [your] ancestors homesteaded” really “touched a nerve.” You seem to forget that your ancestors stole that land from the native peoples of the Pacific North West. As a half Indian, half black, lesbian, who was sexually abused as a child, and who currently lives naked in a rain forest in Belize, with no car, no computer (I am writing this on a friend’s), I am outraged by all of you people claiming to be fighting global capitalism while suckling from the teat of that very system. If you own, or lease a car, if you live in any shelter that cost more than $200 a month, and especially if you attend or plan to attend any college or university in the United States I do not want to hear another peep out of you until you renounce all (and I mean all) of your material possessions, and moved out of the United States to a third world country. In fact don’t even respond to this post unless you first withdraw your entire bank account and give it to the first homeless person on the street that you find.