licentious radio

Friday, March 21, 2003
[5:15:02 PM]

Silly Willy's whining makes you wonder:

Willy Brown spent his birthday yesterday whining about protesters. He whined that most of the people arrested didn't live in San Francisco. WtF? Has he heard of commuting? On a given day, hundreds of thousands come to SF, and many tens of thousands of SF residents leave the city for work or play. Willy doesn't complain when people from San Mateo eat supper in SF, or when people commute across the bridges to their jobs in SF. It's just silly to whine about protesters whose permanent address isn't within SF city limits.

[4:31:41 PM]
On the goals of street conflict....

Yesterday, some marched to black flags and engaged in violent property destruction and -- I suppose -- violent clashes with police. Others chained themselves down, or sat down, and waited for the police to haul them away. Others simply marched -- zig-zagging through San Francisco, waving to the folks who waited for the parade to pass.

I suggest the success of marching demonstrates that violence is not a good idea.

While I wouldn't argue with symbolic gestures that lead to arrest, I'd like to articulate a point here.

Twice yesterday, a tiny group of cops -- fifty or so -- blocked my way. Surrounded by thousands of entirely peaceful protesters, all the cops could do was run away.

Note that if *we* had wanted, we could have taken them prisoner. That is, we could have absolutely restricted their movement. Say twenty cops are huddled together, and a thousand people stand or sit and refuse to move. The cops have a choice of shooting or beating non-violent demonstraters. That's a no-win proposition.

Note to cops: Don't pull that shit any more. If you keep that up, people just might get the idea.

As it happens, we don't want to take cops prisoner. We just want to march.

But think about the situation of blockading a building. If a hundred or five hundred people sit down and wait for the cops to carry them away, that's one thing. But what if there are thousands and thousands. Instead of letting cops march up to the front and arrest people, the thousands sit down and refuse to let the cops pass. It would take all day for the cops to reach the building. The answer is that they wouldn't even try -- especially if they are 'needed' elsewhere.

One of the keys is that there are only so many cops, but there is basically a constant number. So if they are done arresting one group of people, they are free to go after another group. But if cops are called away to numerous locations, they can't arrest people so fast where thousands are blockading a building.

[2:55:21 PM]
Such silliness!

"The very missiles Saddam Hussein fired at US forces in Kuwait appear to have been the same weapons he either claimed not to possess or agreed to destroy."

You think Saddam wouldn't use the missiles he didn't have time to destroy? Has the whole country gone NUTS?

The issue is why Bush couldn't wait until *after* those missiles were destroyed. Why couldn't he wait for a new moon, when our troops would be at the least risk, rather than attacking at the full moon -- highest risk? Why couldn't he wait until he persuaded Turkey to let us attack from there -- key to reducing violence and chaos in northern Iraq?

The answer's pretty clear: if Bush had waited, he might not have been able to launch the war. His rationales are all phony. His evidence is mostly lies and fraud. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but it might not last.

People will die because of Bush's rush to war. Maybe not many more. We hope not many more. But if it's *your* loved one in the casket, you won't know whether a more patient president would have saved his/her life.

[1:03:22 PM]
The war is on. This is no time to stop protesting.

Some value to continued anti-war protests:

* Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says he plans to approach the United Nations legal department and ask them to declare the war illegal

* French President Jacques Chirac says he will not accept a US-British post-war administration of Iraq, adding that the UN is the only body which can be responsible for rebuilding the country.