ATSNN:RNC It's 1968 All Over Again by SO, page 1

. Originally posted by Skeptic Overlord The Republican Convention: It's 1968 All Over Again

By SO himself-

Here we are, you and I, in a moment where we can clearly say history is repeating. And important history at that. We have come to a critical tipping point where many wish to deny and forget rumors of atrocities thirty-six years ago, bury the rumors of atrocities today, and contain the outspoken angry few to a controlled peep.

In 2004, thirty-six years from now, what will history say of this coming week? Which way will we tip?

Firstly, I tried to post to this piece and like every time I try to post to an ATSNN story I get booted- so I'll post here.

SO wails about the arrests in NY City or does he sound a warning call? I can't decipher.

SO relates the 1968 political arrests and goes on to state:

This is 1968, again. Thirty-six years ago, an angry populace felt compelled to make their voices known over what they believed to be an unjust military action by the U.S. Government

I refute what SO posted.
History (to me) has two parents. One at the time of its birth and the other later, at the re-retelling. Both are wrong.

I will address both-
1968 was a time of middle-class turmoil. Young men didn't want to have to make the hard decision of accepting death or being maimed versus draft dodging. This was real and ran very deep. All had parents brought up in the WW II mentality of �doing the right thing.�(especially when your country called)

Dean Blobaum history
They called it "Czechago." Nowhere else during that decade was dissension so dramatically opposed as on the streets of Chicago
during the turbulent Democratic National Convention in August 1968. The barbed wire-laced jeeps in Grant Park evoked images of Russian tanks in the streets of Prague.

*see Prague Spring, below
All too often at our current point in history, when government oppression rears its ugly head, we tend to leap back to Nazi Germany. We forget there have been many, many other wrongs governments have perpetrated against their citizenry.

�Prague Spring� was much more ominous in the late '60s than some distant �Beer Hall Putsch� from the movies or old war stories that seemed to never end. Prague was now! It was what happens when a government is pushed past its toleration limit. Prague was IN OUR FACE!

The 1968 Democratic convention occurred as the Prague Spring ended. As a matter of historical record the atrocities in Chicago happened within days- from August 21 (Prague massacre) until August 31- 10 short days 308 died while 1,144 American soldiers died in some place still marked as French Indo-China on most maps of the time.

Prague, the capital of then Czechoslovakia, was the center piece of economic and cultural reforms- freedom! From January 1968 until August the Czechs and Slovaks had tried Socialism with a Human Face (wikipedia). Near the end of August hell descended into Czechoslovakia and springtime ended, the devil also visited Chicago, USA.

Chicago '68 was more than just another in a series of antiwar protests, and it was more than just a riot�no matter, whose riot. Chicago '68 was a focal point of the decade. On the streets and in the parks of Chicago the social conflicts of the Sixties were on display.
Heads were cracked, tear gas billowed, police lines advanced through demonstrators�and television cameras captured some of the graphic scenes. The eyes of the nation focused on Chicago and we decided who we were, what side we were on, and what we would fight for. Chicago changed minds, Chicago changed politics, Chicago changed the Left, Chicago changed the media, Chicago changed those who were here and those who watched from far away, and Chicago changed Chicago. During the process Prague was forgotten.

Without getting sidetracked into Kent State(*see below) and a plethora of other unique American activities I will stay with Chicago-'68 vs. NYC-'04 and RNC '72 vs. NYC '04.

DNC68/RNC04
There is one obvious difference that is minor, but there was one that was major:
1)Chicago was the Democrats, New York is the Republicans
Nice thing about this (to me) is that now both parties have been shown to be able to unabashedly violate the Constitutional Rights of the citizenry for political expediency.
Both parties infiltrated protest organizations, both probably create at least some of the riotous actions. I have no doubt that near-term history will expose some activities from the FBI and other government agencies that expose them as instigators just as in 1968 when it was the CIA and FBI.
Chicago occurred months after TET, long after the American public had been told that North Viet Nam was defeated. New York is similar. Many months (more than a year actually) after ��victory�� the war drags on.

2)Chicago had no incumbent running for president!
This is THE important distinction.

So the difference unhinges any political tie-in. The two events have one set of players, the presidential hopefuls, so dissimilar as to beg for another example.

What about the similarities in RNC72 and RNC04?

1972 is more likely to be relevant except Kerry has done a better job than McGovern did at this time of the election cycle.
A Republican, a very hard-nosed right-wing Republican sits in office amid uncounted scandal Both have vice-presidential running mates that are mired in controversy (Agnew- Cheney),

Again, why 1972 is more relevant:

1972�s election outcome was decided early on in the Democratic primary. The Democrats were trying to oust a sitting president who although not very popular, was an effective president. What made their task even harder was that the Democrats lost their front runner candidate, Edmond Muskie, early because the media portrayed him as an emotionally unstable person because he appeared to be �crying� while he was denouncing a news paper editorial that attacked his wife. The incident left the Democrat party without a candidate capable of unsetting the President.

Replace Muskie with Dean!

�� The press constantly criticized the Democratic candidate for everything from his stand on the issues to his strategy. President Nixon's campaign was portrayed as an efficient and superior model of how to run a successful campaign.

Replace Nixon with Bush.

Now let's compare 1972 to 2004.
Not many active war deaths, turmoil control management by the government because of a sitting president. The Attorney General now whereas then (1972) it was the Director of the F.B.I. silently and unseen manages protest events. Some, but not a lot of arrests and most of those by local authorities � the re-birth of plausible-deniability.

A �siege-mentality� exisits.
In 1972 because of all the instability and the looming Watergate scandal . Although Watergate was not big in the news by convention day (occuring in June) the likelihood of it becoming big news a few months later during the November election loomed large.
2004 because of WTC and Bush/Cheney dealings that can easily become big news by election day.

1972-Violence was in fact taking place months before the convention was scheduled to arrive, inspired both by an FBI directed right-wing terror network and Nixon's own White House Plumbers.

In late 1971 and early 1972 activists organizing protests at the upcoming Republican convention became the target of death threats, tear-gas attacks, vandalism and firebombings. On the night of January 6, 1972, Godfrey and fellow SAO member George "Mickey" Hoover cruised past the home of one of the activists in the Ocean Beach section of the city. Hoover fired two shots from a stolen 9-millimeter pistol into the house, seriously wounding a young woman named Paula Tharp. The next day Godfrey gave the weapon to his FBI control agent Steve Christiansen who hid it under his couch for the next six months.
Meanwhile the Republicans were getting nervous about the local intelligence they were receiving. On February 18, 1972, the day Nixon left for his historic trip to China, Godfrey published a poster of Nixon reading, "Wanted for Treason" accusing the President and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of conspiring with the Red Chinese to betray the United States. The SAO distributed the poster in 15 cities (the FBI reimbursed Godfrey for the printing costs).
Meanwhile White House plumber G. Gordon Liddy was simultaneously developing his own plans involving the kidnapping of anti-war leaders in San Diego.
The FBI directed Agent Christiensen not to answer grand jury questions relating to the Paula Tharp shooting and the gun he'd hidden, then pensioned him off to Utah. Godfrey, who they shielded from any criminal charges, was given a job as a California arson investigator. Eighteen years later he was arrested for planting and then disarming pipe-bombs in the small rural town where he worked (and where he'd just broken up with his girlfriend). This time he was sentenced to 90 days psychiatric observation.
. . . talk-show host G. Gordon Liddy told San Diego magazine, that as far as targeting anti-war activists, "I would have grabbed them doped 'em up, taken them to Mexico and then released them none the worse for wear after the convention was over." Or perhaps, as he's suggested on his radio show in regards to ATF agents, he would have encouraged the SAO to, "shoot for the head."

Is it fair to ask if the forgotten lesson of '72, of attempting to manipulate the paramilitary-right to advance your own political agenda, hasn't again created something of a Frankenstein monster for the GOP?

Page of 1972 Republican protest photos by Global Justice These are similar to what I perceive will occur in NYC.

Let's add one more thing to the mix- the type of protester!
1972= middle class, mostly college educated, lots of environmentalist types, Sammy Davis Jr. (popular, black, singer)hugged Nixon. Schwarzneger will hug Bush and the blance of the mix is similar.
A growing number of under and unemployed.
Discharged veterans without job guarantees and a government that refused to enforce the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act (1940) and similar federal and state legislation guarantees for jobs to returning veterans.

see below

has been this generations wake up call

Many more similarities.

Miami proved civil rights mean nothing to a determined government- over 1,100 arrested and many placed in detention camps.
Seattle showed nothing has really changed.

As to the overall purpose of ATS, is there a conspiracy here? What will NYC '04 show us?

Is this a long running N W O scheme or a Zionist plot?
Is this something different, totally American to its core?
Will the protests result in deaths and looting, rampage and disgrace?

Only time and pulling back the carpet to display the hidden secrets will-
. . . . - = DENY IGNORANCE=-
- - - -

*Kent State
1970
Apr 30 President Nixon announces the invasion of Cambodia, triggering massive protests on many of the nation's campuses.
May 2 Ohio National Guardsmen are sent to Kent State after the University's Army R.O.T.C. building is burned down.
May 3 Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes personally appears on campus and promises to use "every force possible" to maintain order. Rhodes denounces the protesters as worse than brownshirts and vows to keep the Guard in Kent "until we get rid of them."
May 4 Four students are killed and nine others are wounded when a contingent of Guardsmen suddenly opens fire during a noontime demonstration.
July 23 Key portions of a secret Justice Department memo are disclosed by the Akron Beacon Journal. The memorandum describes the shootings as unnecessary and urges the Portage County Prosecutor to file criminal charges against six Guardsmen.
July 31 Attorney General John Mitchell says that both students and Guardsmen apparently violated federal laws and hints that a federal grand jury may be convened "if Ohio authorities do not act."
1973
April 3 Assistant Attorney General J. Stanley Pottinger announces that the Justice Department will officially conduct a new inquiry. Senator Birch Bayh follows Pottinger's announcement by releasing a letter he received from one of the Guard's company commanders. On the basis of that letter Bayh charges that armed FBI informant Terry Norman may have been "the fatal catalyst" for the tragedy.