I think that with some exceptions -- ramming protesters with a van being one -- the police were kinda controlled. As far as I know they backed down from teargas, for example. I watched some of the livestreams and saw some stuff where police where trying to back protesters up who really had no place to go, for an example of the mistakes. Some people got trampled in that one. Other than that, there was an incident where police were hitting protesters with a barricade, but the same protesters had just been using it as a weapon against them, so..... you can't whine that people are criminalizing peaceful protest unless you are peaceful is my thought.
As for what they were protesting, I gather it's something like NATO=war=money not being spent on American problems, is my understanding. I think that it's a bit facile as an argument when the agenda is ending the war we've got, but hey. My position is, essentially, that they are allowed to protest not having enough cream pies for the clowns if that's what they want to do. That said, I am really really skeptical of the alleged terrorism charges and suspect they are going to go away now that the protests are over. As in oops, we overlooked a couple of things, our bad. I also think that when you detain livestreamers at gunpoint you're creating a lot of unintended consequences. *I* am sure as hell more paranoid now. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:351029 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
