Moon
11-29-2014, 10:19 AM
There's a good deal to be said for having an event plan everyone agrees to and helps keep running smoothly. There's also some benefit in using common sense.
A few years ago I was at an event where the demonstrators were supposed to block one side of the road, forcing traffic to squeeze through on the other side. The monitors weren't asking people to stay on one side of the road, with the result that I saw drivers simply driving (slowly, so far) right into the middle of the crowd. I asked the nearest monitor to help me get people onto one side, and he said, "Oh, I think it'll be OK." I asked another monitor, and she said, "Huh!" I asked a third, and he turned his back squarely to me and walked away. Fortunately, this third monitor happened to be within earshot of a CHP officer, who beckoned another officer, went with him to the problem area and sorted everything out before anyone got hurt. How is it that the organization that beat Assata Shakur nearly to death is more concerned for our safety than our own monitors? When I wrote an organizer about it, he accused me of trying to order them around.
Yesterday I was at a demonstration about fair treatment of labor, and the organizers refused to let me use the mike for 60 seconds to ask people to buy chocolate only if its package shows the blue and green Fair Trade logo, rather than take part in the kidnapping, very severe abuse, several years' enslavement and then abandonment of young children.
A few years ago I was at an event where the demonstrators were supposed to block one side of the road, forcing traffic to squeeze through on the other side. The monitors weren't asking people to stay on one side of the road, with the result that I saw drivers simply driving (slowly, so far) right into the middle of the crowd. I asked the nearest monitor to help me get people onto one side, and he said, "Oh, I think it'll be OK." I asked another monitor, and she said, "Huh!" I asked a third, and he turned his back squarely to me and walked away. Fortunately, this third monitor happened to be within earshot of a CHP officer, who beckoned another officer, went with him to the problem area and sorted everything out before anyone got hurt. How is it that the organization that beat Assata Shakur nearly to death is more concerned for our safety than our own monitors? When I wrote an organizer about it, he accused me of trying to order them around.
Yesterday I was at a demonstration about fair treatment of labor, and the organizers refused to let me use the mike for 60 seconds to ask people to buy chocolate only if its package shows the blue and green Fair Trade logo, rather than take part in the kidnapping, very severe abuse, several years' enslavement and then abandonment of young children.