The part of the RNC that America didn't see on TV...

Darth Vader Clones Come to St. Paul
by
Russ Scheidler

Ed Note: Russ is a VetSpeak.org founder. He has represented our efforts at the VVAW 40th Anniversary gathering in Chicago, and at the IVAW Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan. Now, here he is again, at the RNC , in St.Paul, Minn. It took him a couple of weeks to regroup from this event, but it didn't diminish his perspective. We are proud to share it here as a reflection on how little has changed in America, since the VVAW historical Silent March at the RNC in Miami, 1972WH

Well, it’s been six weeks since the Republic National Convention was held here in St. Paul and I’m just now able to write about it. Veterans for Peace (VFP) and Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) also held their national conventions in a south suburb the weekend before. I attended there to help out at an info and merchandise table for the chapter from the Bay Area in California. I had not sat down for more than five minutes when I felt those old freaky vibes of PTSD dragging me down. It only helped a little to play my guitar and I suppose most of my songs sounded a bit like the blues.
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It was a very difficult scene seeing the old GI Movement guys and gals along with VVAW members that I hadn’t seen in over thirty years right next to the IVAW people. The old crew all had their VA meds for their daily aches and pains, most wore glasses now and moved a bit slower than the last time we saw each other. I think the average age was around sixty. The younger IVAW folks were much more active and prone to smile. But, I just couldn’t get happy to think that here we are again with another ill-defined war that has degenerated into a counter-insurgency fought with "smart bombs and stupid leaders" so that a few of the Uber-rich can make a ton of money.
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Just how much money and how much war has changed became very clear after reading the book “Blackwater” about the mercenary contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan. We now have more mercenaries in Iraq than we do real soldiers. They are paid many times more (billions and billions of dollars) than the real troops and they are answerable to no one! Not Iraq law and not US law. I cringe whenever I read about some soldier being court-martialed who let the moment get the best of him and shot some prisoner that may or may not have deserved it in a place where you can’t tell the good guys from the bad. Meanwhile, the “Contractors” create a free-fire zone whenever and wherever they feel like it.
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And then the Republicans came!
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Every freeway ramp between the airport and both downtowns (Minneapolis and St Paul) had cops guarding them. Downtown St Paul had become an armed camp full of riot cops. With their black helmets, kneepads, boots, heavy vests, visors, shields, riot sticks, etc. they looked like hundreds of Darth Vader clones. The block next to where I work is the old police station. At lunchtime or after work, locals had to walk through 100-200 heavily armed cops in small groups as they prepped their gear and chatted about their families and the upcoming night when most of the action was going to happen.
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As a local union officer in the Capitol area, I had been to a meeting months before with the State Patrol Major that was said to be in charge of security planning. He said they didn’t expect too much trouble because the bad guys could hardly afford a used car. He also said that not much would be happening in front of the capitol. Then he told us where they would be setting up barriers for both the inner and outer rings of security.
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It only took one glance to see they were creating an “Ambush Alley” for the demonstrators. I also realized that the Major either didn’t know what he was talking about or he was lying and I hoped it was the latter. The greens in front of the Capitol are a natural gathering place with lots of open space and multiple options of access into downtown. Most of those were blocked off with snowplows (huge trucks with very imposing and monstrous snow blades on the front). They take up most of an intersection by themselves. And, of course, most of the demonstrators are college educated. They may be poor, but they are not stupid.
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The IVAW opened things up with a powerful silent march behind Arrrendo's casket on Sunday.
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The main show began on Monday, Labor Day. The main march made it through the cops kill zone without too much trouble. However, demonstrators created actions that bracketed the downtown area at four main entrance points. About the same time, a group of neo-anarchists broke from the main march and smashed a few store windows and slashed a few tires. They chanted “These are our streets!” as they threw newspaper boxes and trashcans into the street. I knew they didn’t mean that they would be back this winter to help shovel snow or next spring to help fill potholes or would help pay the increased taxes needed to keep the streets from decaying into trash. In my heart, I felt Buenaventura Durutti turn in his grave. The Anarcho-Syndicalyst from the Spanish Civil War had from 500,000 to a million people attend his funeral in the middle of a civil war. Durutti’s anarchists were a type of trade unionists. The people on the streets of St Paul had the look of someone who hardly ever worked more than a part-time job at Starbucks.
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The cops strike back!

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It was at that point that we began to see the new tactics. There were flying squads of about twenty cops per squad on bicycles in light riot gear who got there first. Then came the small caravans of 4 or 5 mini-vans filled with about 5 to 8 fully dressed riot cops that descended on the scene. Finally, the main guard showed up and the street became a free-arrest zone. Anyone and everyone in the zone was arrested. Demonstrators, journalists and locals who just happened to be there were all swept up in a vast and uncompromising net of cops. Tear gas and pepper spray were everywhere within the zone. Concussion grenades or flash-bangs were thrown into the crowds to create confusion. It wasn’t hard to be confused with all of that happening within a few minutes and occurring over a several block area in a downtown canyon of buildings.
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And then came Thursday night when the test of wills resulted in the cops directing people to cross the Sears parking lot. They told the marchers they would be OK if they went that way. Then they swept up a huge group of people and forced them onto a bridge over the freeway. There they arrested hundreds of people. Again, they gassed and flash-banged the demonstrators, journalists and locals in a huge ambush.

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They didn’t have to arrest those people. The fight was pretty much out of them by that time. There had already been three or four skirmishes as they tried to march that evening when delegates would actually be at the Convention Center. No evening permits for marching were ever given for that night. The prevailing reason for the round up and arrest of over 800 people that was given was that they couldn’t expect the cops to take the time to distinguish journalist from demonstrator. That is not only an insult to my intelligence, it is an insult to the four-year degrees that each and every one of those cops has to have to become a police officer.

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Real soldiers on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to distinguish friend from foe even when they all look alike and real bullets are flying. However, cops in America cannot be expected to make any distinctions among the home folks when the most dangerous thing they seemed to have was a bucket of piss!
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I have seen the future, which is really still the past; and it looks like an army of Darth Vader clones whose enemy is a free press and, most of all; We the People!
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