Police block off streets to protesting veterans
[excerpt] MARKET AND SPEER -- A large number of police and sheriff's officers in riot gear have blocked off Market and Speer streets in a continuing and seemingly escalating confrontation with Iraq war vets who have been protesting all day.
Negotiations between officers and vets have not made progress. Veterans are frustrated that officers will not allow them to sit in the street, deeming it an escalation of the protest.
The vets continue to try to get a letter read by Barack Obama or one of his aides.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/27/police-block-streets-p...
Tense veterans march ends peacefully
[excerpt] A standoff between Iraq war veterans and police ended after representatives of Barack Obama's campaign finally emerged from the Pepsi Center to hear the group's grievances.
The veterans were arrayed in formation and in uniform, marching slowly toward a line of police, who had warned them they could be pepper sprayed and arrested. They were being watched by a crowd estimated by police at more than 5,000, many of whom had marched with the veterans from the Denver Coliseum.
As the vets got within a few yards of the police, the cavalry arrived in the form of two white-shirted Obama staffers who asked a representative of the veterans to be escorted inside the security zone.
After a brief conversation, a veteran's representative said they had been promised a meeting with Obama's liason for veteran's affairs. A cheer went up, the veterans did an about face, and the Democrats appear to have avoided providing John McCain with some very unflattering video footage of veteran's being pepper-sprayed hogtied and handcuffed outside their convention.
http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_10319568
Articles by:
John Ingold and George Watson
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 08/27/2008 08:17:18 PM MDT
Paul Anthony, Rocky Mountain News
Originally published 07:37 p.m., August 27, 2008
Updated 07:37 p.m., August 27, 2008
|
Denver Anarchist Black Cross to file Denver area FOIA Request
1 hour 31 min ago
strongwindsahead
|
|
Nov. 20-22 Mass Mobilization to Close the SOA
22 hours 35 min ago
Anonymous
|
|
The Shortwave Report 11/06/09 Listen Globally
1 day 19 hours ago
Anonymous
|
|
War Criminals and their agent control 344 Members of Congress.
2 days 10 hours ago
Anonymous
|
|
Zhibin Gu: Chinese multinationals vs global financial crisis: finance, trade, politics and management
3 days 12 hours ago
Anonymous
|
|
Reject Corporate Options for Health Care
3 days 14 hours ago
Anonymous
|
|
Venezuela: The error of being Lusbi Portillo
4 days 5 hours ago
Anonymous
|
|
FERNANDO LUGO SE ALINEA CON ALVARO URIBE
4 days 10 hours ago
Anonymous
|
|
A Science of Intuition
4 days 17 hours ago
Anonymous
|
|
CUBANUESTRA.FERNANDO LUGO, DEL FASCISMO AL CHONGUISMO
5 days 9 hours ago
Anonymous
|
Comments
Not to be...
August 27, 2008 by Anonymous, 1 year 10 weeks ago
Comment id: 603
cynical, but does that really provide the connotation that it seems to do? It's fine for activists that work, pay taxes, and push this country forward to be pepper-sprayed; but to do so to a vet is unacceptable? What about all the Vietnam vets that they allowed to become homeless and treated like dirt, do they really care about these people or are they trying to avoid the bad press that's suggested?
This just proves it, everyone is so pent up with nationalist fervor that the working person is now (as ever) worth less than the soldier, though they fill the same role of cogs. I applaud the vets who marched, and am damn proud of them; as much as I'm damn proud of everyone else in the streets of Denver. Solidarity means tearing down these conceptions of hierarchy, so that we don't have to see veterans coming back from/protesting unjust wars, and being used as political fodder by the same people who put them there. When we begin to fight as equals (as it seems is happening in Denver) and support one another is when we'll win.
Post new comment