Speaker 1: Coolso media, welcome to it could happen here, a podcast
Speaker 1: about it happening here and here this week is Chicago.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans. I'm here in town with Sophie Lichterman,
Speaker 1: who will not be on MIC for this episode but
Speaker 1: will be later this week. And Garrison Davis Hello, with
Speaker 1: whom I've been out all day in the streets.
Speaker 2: We are currently recording just a few blocks away from
Speaker 2: the DNC protest, the Coalition to.
Speaker 3: March down on the Corn out in the street, So.
Speaker 2: We apologize for whatever sounds are getting picked up. Today's
Speaker 2: been very hectic. There's been protests all day that me
Speaker 2: and Robert have been at and that's mostly what we're
Speaker 2: gonna be talking about you today.
Speaker 3: So this is day one of the DNC.
Speaker 1: We actually have not yet been inside the venue, although
Speaker 1: we will be later for the speeches. Today has basically
Speaker 1: all been protests. So at the start of the day
Speaker 1: I went to the kind of temporary headquarters out of
Speaker 1: like a rental space, and I think north Shire, Cagot.
Speaker 1: Don't quote me on the exact chunk of town. I'm
Speaker 1: bad at directions, but organizations called behind enemy lines and
Speaker 1: it's a local they call themselves a militant activist group.
Speaker 1: That has been kind of controversial because they have made
Speaker 1: a couple of statements about something. So what was the
Speaker 1: rhyme nineteen sixty eight was.
Speaker 2: That the slogan they've been using is make it great,
Speaker 2: like sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Make it great, because nineteen sixty eight was a famously
Speaker 1: bloody DNC as a result of the conflict over McGovern
Speaker 1: versus Hubert Humphrey. And this is not so far very
Speaker 1: much like sixty eight because everyone's known who the candidates
Speaker 1: are going to be going into this thing, and the
Speaker 1: protest today, at least by the time we left, no
Speaker 1: serious violence. You know, I didn't want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that group because they've made some interesting
Speaker 1: statements and this is not their march today. The march
Speaker 1: today that we were at is specifically billed as the
Speaker 1: family friendly one, whereas behind enemy Lines has made a
Speaker 1: couple of statements of like, you know, collect bruises from
Speaker 1: the Chicago police. It's the new fall fashion, that sort
Speaker 1: of deal. So they're really playing up the hole. There's
Speaker 1: going to be a big conflict thing. If that happens,
Speaker 1: it'll be tomorrow because that's when their event is planned
Speaker 1: today was the event that everyone thought was going to
Speaker 1: be the largest march probably will be.
Speaker 2: It's called the March on the DNC twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's put together by a coalition of a lot of
Speaker 2: like local different organs in Chicago as well as some
Speaker 2: once from around the country.
Speaker 1: So heading into this, when organizers were asked, they said
Speaker 1: they were expecting thirty to forty thousand. I saw a
Speaker 1: video by I think a CNN guy where he was like,
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people could show up. That's not the numbers
Speaker 1: we've seen. I would say two to three thousand, maybe
Speaker 1: five the most, maybe five k kind of on the
Speaker 1: outside end. One of the organizers on the mic said
Speaker 1: that they had fifteen k there. I don't think that
Speaker 1: was fifteen thousand people. I will say there's more protesters
Speaker 1: than cops, but it is closer to parody in terms
Speaker 1: of numbers than you normally get. The Chicago police have
Speaker 1: been lining every block for several blocks around the protest
Speaker 1: lines and lines of police vans, some of them fold
Speaker 1: with riot teams, some of them clearly for potential arrestees.
Speaker 1: Every time the protests moved. They started in Union Park
Speaker 1: and moved towards what was the number.
Speaker 2: Of the park number five seven eight.
Speaker 3: Five to seven eight sounds like a fucking half life two.
Speaker 2: Which is the park that Chicago and DNC is wanting
Speaker 2: most of the protests to take place at. Protesters, at
Speaker 2: least these pig coalitions have preferred to use Union Park
Speaker 2: as it's bigger. But in this very moment, we just
Speaker 2: walked over from PARC five seven eight, where people are
Speaker 2: currently lined up in front of the fence.
Speaker 1: I would say it was a very controlled event. It's
Speaker 1: possible something's happened since we've left, or will happen later,
Speaker 1: especially people try to occupy the park, But from what
Speaker 1: happened while we were there, there was a group of
Speaker 1: a protest safety team who we're all wearing Hives vests
Speaker 1: that the entire line of march. The march itself was
Speaker 1: hmm done on two sides by lines of bike cops
Speaker 1: using their bikes to make a mobile wall. Inside the
Speaker 1: line of bike cops was a line of protest safety
Speaker 1: people in Hiva's vests who when folks tried to confront
Speaker 1: the fence, there's a fence that is essentially the same
Speaker 1: fence we had in Portland lining et side of the DNC.
Speaker 1: Some groups of people tried to confront that tried to
Speaker 1: get off of the route of march and move somewhere
Speaker 1: other than back to the park that the safety team wanted,
Speaker 1: and the safety team basically walled off the protest from
Speaker 1: doing anything but going back into the park, essentially doing
Speaker 1: like kind of what the police were doing directly next
Speaker 1: to the police, which caused some conflict and some soreness
Speaker 1: among people. But as of the time we left like
Speaker 1: nothing else had really happened.
Speaker 2: Hello, Future Gear here cutting in from the middle of
Speaker 2: the DNC where I was just suffering through the Hillary
Speaker 2: Clinton speech, and I'm here to tell you that more
Speaker 2: in fact did happen, and things actually did get a
Speaker 2: little bit more spicy. But you will hear about that
Speaker 2: a little bit later on in the episode. Anyway, back
Speaker 2: to us sitting on a random Chicago street corner. Yeah,
Speaker 2: among the five thousand people, there's a lot of like
Speaker 2: smaller groups. You know, you will have a few hundreds
Speaker 2: of people from this organization, this organization, and it's a
Speaker 2: lot of regular people who are both against the genocide
Speaker 2: in Palestine. They do not believe that either political party
Speaker 2: is going to put an effort to actually achieve that,
Speaker 2: and they, you know, put most of the blame for
Speaker 2: sending bombs to Israel on Biden and now Kamala.
Speaker 1: And I would say that's the vast majority. I did
Speaker 1: run into some people wearing like DNC Kamala shirts that
Speaker 1: my understanding was they were kind of here to get
Speaker 1: the vibe. And yeah, it was definitely a lot of
Speaker 1: hostility towards the DNC, so I guess would be not
Speaker 1: a positive reaction. There a couple of different communist organizations.
Speaker 2: Here, including five I've never heard of before.
Speaker 1: Yes, almost none of them, but RevCom was there, which
Speaker 1: is a fun one that's essentially a cult PSL.
Speaker 3: A few other PSLs.
Speaker 1: There also, kind of on the coltiest side of things,
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 3: Highlights.
Speaker 1: We did meet a lot of nice people out there,
Speaker 1: a lot of fans of the show. I was happy
Speaker 1: to see that they were not with the Popovacchi and crew.
Speaker 3: Everyone was very nice.
Speaker 1: I hope we weren't too Kurt, which is kind of
Speaker 1: exhausted and I've been talking to folks all day.
Speaker 2: I was able to geolocate enemy of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Jack Posobic. Yes, yes he was in quote unquote Camo.
Speaker 1: He was just wearing a green shirt and a kefia
Speaker 1: around his face, trying to interview people. I ran up
Speaker 1: to him and yelled his name out repeatedly until he
Speaker 1: acknowledged that he was in fact Jack Pisobic. Then I
Speaker 1: asked him about an event from twenty seventeen where he
Speaker 1: showed up at a protest undercover as an ANTIFA with
Speaker 1: a sign that said rape Milania. BuzzFeed immediately published text
Speaker 1: messages of him essentially talking to a friend about like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this would be a great idea. We need
Speaker 1: to get somebody in there with this fucked up sign.
Speaker 1: So I asked him about it. He didn't want to answer,
Speaker 1: but he eventually left. I think the only people who
Speaker 1: were willing to talk to him were communists who wanted
Speaker 1: to quote long passages of political writing at him. So
Speaker 1: I don't think it was a great content day for Jack.
Speaker 1: But we'll see. Maybe this will be what causes him
Speaker 1: to blow up. We're going to do some ads and
Speaker 1: we're going to come back and talk about some of
Speaker 1: our highlights, what we expect from the week ahead and
Speaker 1: the great city of Chicago, and we're back. Garrison are
Speaker 1: you aware because we're in Chicago. But the south side
Speaker 1: of this very city is, according to many, the baddest
Speaker 1: part of town.
Speaker 3: And if you go down there.
Speaker 1: So I'm just telling you, if you go to the
Speaker 1: south side of Chicago, you need to be aware of
Speaker 1: a man called Leroy.
Speaker 3: B I knew it, bad, bad Leroy. But he's the
Speaker 3: baddest man in the whole damn town here.
Speaker 2: I knew it.
Speaker 3: I knew it batter than old King Kong. He's meaner
Speaker 3: than a junkyard dog.
Speaker 2: I'm not looking at my fucking notes, all right, Okay, great.
Speaker 2: As Robert was checking out this office for this other
Speaker 2: group planning a protest at the Israeli Conslitch tomorrow, I
Speaker 2: got to the Union Park protest early, was able to
Speaker 2: walk around, got a whole bunch of flyers for communist
Speaker 2: magazines that I again have never heard of, And you
Speaker 2: don't need to seek them out either. They will walk
Speaker 2: up to you and put one in yours.
Speaker 1: A whole book by Caleb Mappin, who is a luite communist,
Speaker 1: which is like it's like the it's like the foil
Speaker 1: Charizard Communist, like you're really yeah, it's beautiful stuff.
Speaker 2: And then we had like three hours of speeches before
Speaker 2: people eventually left and marched to the march to the
Speaker 2: DNC fence by Park five seven eight. And although most
Speaker 2: of this is about Palestine, there also is some like
Speaker 2: intersectionality with a few other things. You know, there's a lot.
Speaker 1: Of LGBTQ stuff, a lot of trans a lot of
Speaker 1: TBTQ stuff, all them stuff.
Speaker 2: Obviously, a lot of abortion rights and stuff that is
Speaker 2: one of abortion rights that has become a recurring, recurring
Speaker 2: talking point that I think, I think I'll mention something
Speaker 2: a little bit closer to the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's one of the groups of counter protesters
Speaker 1: who has kind of shown up for these people purporting
Speaker 1: to be like dims against abortion. Basically one of their
Speaker 1: chants was essentially being anti abortion is being pro trans
Speaker 1: because trans people might get aborted, which was a fascinating
Speaker 1: argument and.
Speaker 2: An amazing chant both like abortion is able, lest abortions transphobic,
Speaker 2: abortion is racist. You know, all of all the things
Speaker 2: and what.
Speaker 1: I'll say, so you know, obviously you and I have
Speaker 1: both expressed either of us really like it when at
Speaker 1: a protest you have a group of people basically being
Speaker 1: security who wall off other people from doing stuff. What
Speaker 1: I will say the protest safety team was effective at
Speaker 1: was every time someone like the Progressives against abortion or
Speaker 1: whoever would show up, there was a one literal fascist
Speaker 1: lady who I was definitely unwell with like a cardboard
Speaker 1: sign covered in racial slurs. They would just get a
Speaker 1: team to kind of wall them off with their bodies
Speaker 1: and it kept them from becoming like media were not
Speaker 1: focused around the folks coming into disrep stuff like they
Speaker 1: were at the march yesterday. We were at a march
Speaker 1: on Sunday afternoon, where as soon as those anti abortion
Speaker 1: folks showed up, every camera turned towards them because there's
Speaker 1: this thought that like, oh maybe this is where there
Speaker 1: will be a conflict.
Speaker 2: I think walling off groups like that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I dare get effective way to do it.
Speaker 2: I do get very hesitant and a little bit on
Speaker 2: my toes whenever they start walling off people in the
Speaker 2: crowd who are actual participants, who are just doing something
Speaker 2: that people in haives vests don't like. Yes, and when
Speaker 2: you start restricting their freedom of movement, when you start
Speaker 2: walling them off and keep and pushing them towards the
Speaker 2: police away, everyone.
Speaker 3: Else looks like they were trying to push a chunk
Speaker 3: of the crowd.
Speaker 1: You can get pretty fucked up, including the person with
Speaker 1: a YPG flag that you know, I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: just inherently sympathetic towards. But yeah, trying to push them
Speaker 1: towards the police riot line. I did not like seeing that.
Speaker 2: And there was some talk about this leading up to
Speaker 2: the DNC. There was some like leaked memo I think
Speaker 2: from some PSL people and a few other orgs about
Speaker 2: plans too if there was any like quote unquote like
Speaker 2: disruptors or whatever, to circle them off, keep them away
Speaker 2: from the march, make sure they cannot rejoin the march
Speaker 2: and push them towards the police line. Yeah, and that
Speaker 2: is never great. That's never great to see.
Speaker 1: No, especially when all of your chants are like fuck
Speaker 1: the DNC, Kamala is evil. But like we need to
Speaker 1: do what the police are not doing here, Like we
Speaker 1: have to be the cops.
Speaker 2: You're preventing people from actually marching to the DNC. And
Speaker 2: for most of this march on Monday, it was the
Speaker 2: cops who were leading the march, yes, literally of the
Speaker 2: march in front of everybody. They both had all of
Speaker 2: the streets walled off.
Speaker 1: At the head it was about six to eight cops
Speaker 1: at any given time, and then a couple of dozen
Speaker 1: people with cameras, media, and then it was the actual protest.
Speaker 2: But it's essentially the whole the whole march is being
Speaker 2: is being led by police. And that's also one thing.
Speaker 3: Is ween surrounded.
Speaker 2: Whenever you're chanting like who streets are streets and all
Speaker 2: these other things, you're like, this is this is basically
Speaker 2: a cop street. This is basically a cop led protest.
Speaker 3: The cops at.
Speaker 2: Most points I was I was walking by a Chicago
Speaker 2: ped sergeant who was on his comms and he was telling,
Speaker 2: like everyone on the walkie talkie system or whatever, like
Speaker 2: there's there is quote nothing nefarious going on, there's nothing
Speaker 2: to worry about. Everything's good. And yet from their perspective,
Speaker 2: that was what most of today was like, at least
Speaker 2: until a few hours ago. When people in the actual
Speaker 2: protest are organized committee, we're sectioning off people that they
Speaker 2: didn't like.
Speaker 1: From what I have seen so far, you know, there's
Speaker 1: not much that would go viral that would be big
Speaker 1: news from this protest, certainly, not much that you would
Speaker 1: say it was embarrassing to anyone. But there's also not
Speaker 1: much that's gonna like draw any attention if you're considering
Speaker 1: that the goal of activism like this, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't see this as like being a needle moving march.
Speaker 2: And even if you have a martial tie dozen people,
Speaker 2: which is good, when it's after three hours of speeches
Speaker 2: about communism, that's not actually doing anything to put pressure
Speaker 2: on like the vit administration and the Democrats to actually
Speaker 2: do something about Palestine.
Speaker 1: There were several minutes today about getting the US out
Speaker 1: of Korea, and like that's going to be your issue.
Speaker 1: That's going to be your issue. But like if you
Speaker 1: if you're kind of making it about.
Speaker 2: Everything, it's about nothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's about nothing. It was not a lot of
Speaker 3: punch to today.
Speaker 2: A ceasefire, and Palestine is a very popular issue and important.
Speaker 2: But the more time that you're talking about and trying
Speaker 2: to recruit people for like the Revolution TM and fill
Speaker 2: up your sign up sheet and have speeches about about
Speaker 2: you know, Marxism, the Marxism, Leninism, the Immortal Science, that's
Speaker 2: not going to actually help anyone in Palestine. At this point,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how affective these protests are going to be.
Speaker 2: That's always hard to say. But if you are actually
Speaker 2: trying to apply pressure onto the Democrats onto, like the
Speaker 2: party in charge of the executive branch, I think focusing
Speaker 2: on that would would probably be be a slightly more beneficial. Hello,
Speaker 2: this is gear cutting in again from a corridor underneath
Speaker 2: the Democratic National Convention the United Center in Chicago. Sleepy
Speaker 2: Joe Biden's about hit the stage. Before he does, I
Speaker 2: need to give you a special update. So right after
Speaker 2: we recorded this little street conversation between me and Robert,
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of more things happened. So there was
Speaker 2: already some kind of inter conflict within the march. On
Speaker 2: the way to park five seven eight, people had different
Speaker 2: ideas on where they wanted the march to be like
Speaker 2: directed to whether that's just a stopping at the park
Speaker 2: or trying to break through and go further into the
Speaker 2: actual like DNC perimeter. And eventually we had a smaller
Speaker 2: group of people kind of up by the fence line
Speaker 2: that were able to breach a small secret of the
Speaker 2: fence and people started going into one of the many
Speaker 2: layered barricades at the DNC. Now, as this was happening,
Speaker 2: some of the protest marshals like organizers and stuff, tried
Speaker 2: to rally the rest of the crowd to march back
Speaker 2: to Union Park away from this breach at the DNC
Speaker 2: and others started pouring in. There was maybe about like
Speaker 2: fifty to seventy five people who actually broke through this line,
Speaker 2: and maybe like half of them were protesters, the other
Speaker 2: half were like press and media. A whole bunch of
Speaker 2: the guys that going through those barricades are people looking
Speaker 2: to take photos, and it was a lot of press.
Speaker 2: But police did pressure people out. I think they arrested
Speaker 2: maybe like three people in this whole mess. But police
Speaker 2: pushed the remaining people out of the park and closed
Speaker 2: it for safety concerns. And then those people who got
Speaker 2: pushed out and then people who were kind of already
Speaker 2: were on the move met back at Union Park where
Speaker 2: the day's protests began, and almost immediately they started setting
Speaker 2: up in campments, setting up tents, doing like logistics stuff.
Speaker 2: Now police saw this happen, did not like this very much,
Speaker 2: and they quickly moved in and gave a dispersal order.
Speaker 2: I believe two people were arrested during this kind of
Speaker 2: second kerfuffle. Police were saying like people can stay in
Speaker 2: the park as long as you're not setting up tense,
Speaker 2: as long as you're not doing like larger logistics, you know,
Speaker 2: using the sound system, all these kinds of things. And
Speaker 2: at a certain point, I think police pushed most people
Speaker 2: either onto the edges, onto the periphery orders out of
Speaker 2: the area, but a whole bunch of like swat to
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of Chicago PD just surrounded this whole
Speaker 2: area and kept a pretty tight lit on things. So
Speaker 2: I know people were planning to want to do a
Speaker 2: larger encampment tonight and Chicago p D would not let
Speaker 2: that happen. And for whatever reason, there was either wasn't
Speaker 2: enough people or there wasn't enough like logistics or dedication
Speaker 2: to really fight off the chicagopd's incursion in Union Park.
Speaker 2: So now the day is wrapping up, Joe Biden's about
Speaker 2: to head on stage, and that is the situation for
Speaker 2: the protests. The first day of the DNC back to
Speaker 2: Robert Evans is sitting on a random street corner.
Speaker 1: So you know, the highlight to me of today again,
Speaker 1: we met a lot of very nice fans and they
Speaker 1: all seem to be doing smart things, which I like seeing.
Speaker 1: There was an old man who had he had a
Speaker 1: big Palestinian flag and underneath it was a Bosnian flag.
Speaker 1: So we went up to him because I was just
Speaker 1: kind of curious. I had a feeling it had something
Speaker 1: to do with the genocide, but like you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk. And he was a survivor of Strebernitza,
Speaker 1: which was a massacre during the the Yugoslav breakup that was,
Speaker 1: I mean, just one of the worst exogenocide of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. We talked ab it because I'd been to
Speaker 1: stre Burnitza and interviewed some survivors and stuff, and he
Speaker 1: was like very moved to be here, expressed a lot
Speaker 1: of solidarity with Gaza.
Speaker 3: Essentially said like I.
Speaker 1: Lived through a genocide too, so I'm going to show
Speaker 1: up and support these people, which was very moving. Was
Speaker 1: the probably the most moving part, definitely the most moving
Speaker 1: part of the day for me.
Speaker 2: Among all these big like socialist communist newspaper organizations.
Speaker 3: People handing out books, yeah.
Speaker 2: And a lot of just people who actually really care
Speaker 2: about what's going on, and this feels like to them,
Speaker 2: like the only thing that they can do. Yes, like,
Speaker 2: especially if you're like from this area, if you're from
Speaker 2: the Midwest, you're like, what can actually do to stop
Speaker 2: what's going on here?
Speaker 1: They are all of the leaders of the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: are here, you know.
Speaker 2: And that is the majority of the thousands that are gathered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I have to say again not to
Speaker 1: just be shitting on people, but it's probably a tactical
Speaker 1: mistake to prior to the event. In the days heading
Speaker 1: up to this, some of the organizers said they were
Speaker 1: expecting thirty to forty thousand people in town for protests.
Speaker 1: And you know, the crowd we got today was a
Speaker 1: solid crowd five thousand people or so. You know, marching
Speaker 1: three to five thousand not bad. But when you've gotten
Speaker 1: people prepped for that, then the story is going to
Speaker 1: be that, like, well, less people than expected showed up,
Speaker 1: and that can be used by folks to make the
Speaker 1: case that like, well, this isn't really that popular an
Speaker 1: issue for the Democrats, Why should they care as much
Speaker 1: about it as they would if you had gotten fifty
Speaker 1: thousand people in the street.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So that was the second protest at the DNC. Technically,
Speaker 2: the first protest was yesterday. The day before mentioned that
Speaker 2: I actually started and yes, both me and Robert were there.
Speaker 2: I showed up as early as usual, and Robert showed
Speaker 2: up late as usual.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, late and hungover, don't you forget hungover?
Speaker 1: Of course I got drunk as hell on that plane.
Speaker 2: It started off with maybe like five hundred people slowly
Speaker 2: accumulated to the too, but like a thousand. This protest
Speaker 2: was called Bodies Outside Unjust Laws. It was about Palestine
Speaker 2: liberation as a part of reproductive justice and trying to
Speaker 2: tie these issues together, So trying to like rope in
Speaker 2: like a reproductive rights feminists whore here for the DNC
Speaker 2: into looking at Gaza as a part of the reproductive
Speaker 2: rights issue with like the deaths of you know, mothers,
Speaker 2: the restriction of healthcare and gaza deaths of babies, childrens.
Speaker 2: I've britt in children from families after bobbings or evacuations,
Speaker 2: all all that kind of stuff. Yeah, So initially they
Speaker 2: were all in front of the Chicago Trump Tower, which
Speaker 2: unfortunately is a pretty good looking building, at least in
Speaker 2: my opinion. There was also a few like big anti
Speaker 2: Trump scigns as there as there were today. There was
Speaker 2: there was a yeah, there was a woman with a
Speaker 2: sign that that just read Trump and JAD events are weird.
Speaker 2: But she also had Gaza stuff a like she also
Speaker 2: had like Gaza pimps.
Speaker 1: And there were also there's some people who, I you
Speaker 1: could tell her here for the DNC, but who showed
Speaker 1: up and like yelled in support, but also had like
Speaker 1: a Kamala shirt. Or there was one lady who had
Speaker 1: like fuck Trump went written on her arm and who
Speaker 1: clearly just kind of showed up in between her day
Speaker 1: to like go cheer a couple of times then move on.
Speaker 2: Just like today. You know, there was there was PSL People.
Speaker 3: Party for Socialism and Liberation, if you're curious.
Speaker 2: There was there was this one other socialist group who
Speaker 2: was really repping Jill Stein, say Jill Stein, you know,
Speaker 2: saying she's the only candidate that is against the genocide,
Speaker 2: which technically isn't true the Libertarian Party.
Speaker 3: Candidate, she's been pro several genocides and.
Speaker 2: Similar today. You know, there were some people who showed
Speaker 2: up to be like corkers, right people on bikes to
Speaker 2: help section off the march from like roads or cars,
Speaker 2: which proved to be ultimately useless because police were doing
Speaker 2: all of the core and lots of cops. Immediately when
Speaker 2: I when I was walking downtown to this protest yesterday,
Speaker 2: just the sheer number of Chicago PD was just stifling.
Speaker 1: This is very different from the rn C almost I
Speaker 1: would say ninety five percent of the law enforcement we've
Speaker 1: seen have been Chicago and Illinois cops.
Speaker 2: Yes, actual local police, as opposed to the RNC, where
Speaker 2: there's a majority like out of state police. Yes yesterday
Speaker 2: did not have tons of medics today did. That's not unsurprising.
Speaker 1: Everyone was expecting today to be the biggest day and
Speaker 1: it probably will turn.
Speaker 2: Out to be, yes But like I said, yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean even yesterday at the very first one, they still
Speaker 2: they saw one thousand people. They were really really tying
Speaker 2: as much as they could into the reproductive rights issue. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we saw, we saw pussy hats, we saw you know,
Speaker 2: all of all that kind of stuff. And one of
Speaker 2: the funniest things from yesterday and we saw some of
Speaker 2: it today too, is that with all these different communist newspapers,
Speaker 2: they were like competing, they were competing to be the
Speaker 2: ones that have like the true path to the revolution,
Speaker 2: like handing out flyers to go pamphlets and be like, no,
Speaker 2: this is we we we're the ones that haven't figured out,
Speaker 2: and you have like seven of these groups going after
Speaker 2: this saint like the same person.
Speaker 1: Yes, I felt very good when Jack wound up stumbling
Speaker 1: into one of those guys because I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he is going to bore the hell out of Jack bisobic,
Speaker 1: but he's clearly he's also like has enough talking points
Speaker 1: that they're just kind of be going to be running
Speaker 1: talking points at each other, which is good. I always
Speaker 1: get worried when some one like Jack shows up that
Speaker 1: they're going to find either some like nice, normal person
Speaker 1: who's not ready to be on camera, or you know.
Speaker 3: Somebody who's especially protests like this.
Speaker 1: She often I'm like an old guy who's an anti
Speaker 1: circumsition activist just shows up to every protest and he's
Speaker 1: like kind of harmless kook, and they get made fun
Speaker 1: of a lot. So I'm always happy to see when
Speaker 1: an asshole shows up and gets confronted by someone who
Speaker 1: is just ready to sit in there and talk for hours.
Speaker 2: And you know, similar to today, there was a small
Speaker 2: collection quote unquote like progressive anti abortion activists that showed up.
Speaker 2: They kept mostly to the side of the crowd, largely
Speaker 2: ignored them. But one thing I did like is that
Speaker 2: there was people in the crowd caring around signs about
Speaker 2: like abortion pill instructions like how to use one, where
Speaker 2: to get one, and that was that was that was
Speaker 2: very nice to see. And similar to today as well,
Speaker 2: there was a few like DNC volunteers walking through the crowd,
Speaker 2: either because they actually do agree with these issues or
Speaker 2: just because they're like just because like they're curious. Who
Speaker 2: knows what I mean. Obviously they're still you know, probably
Speaker 2: more Proherris and most people in the crowd, but they
Speaker 2: still might you know, nominally care about these issues. But
Speaker 2: yesterday they got booed, well walking through the crowd. The
Speaker 2: crowd was was was not was not happy to have them,
Speaker 2: specifically the people from behind enemy lines. We're giving out
Speaker 2: most of the booze. Referring to the protest tomorrow at
Speaker 2: the Israeli Consulate at seven pm, that's Tuesday, they said
Speaker 2: that they're gonna be the group that quote unquote brings
Speaker 2: the ruckus, and that is the vibe that they have.
Speaker 2: I think that is probably that's gonna be maybe one
Speaker 2: of the more like conflictual protests, yes that we're gonna
Speaker 2: see this week tomorrow on that's that's too out doubt.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well we will be there on Tuesday to
Speaker 2: see what goes down there. I'm about to walk into
Speaker 2: the DNC to hear Old Sleepy Joe. We're taking bets
Speaker 2: to see if he has a stroke on stage. One
Speaker 2: thing that people have been able to use a lot
Speaker 2: and that is, you know, a very real and valid
Speaker 2: issue is that just last week, the government, including you know,
Speaker 2: the Biden Harris administration as well as Congress, proved a
Speaker 2: twenty billion dollar arms deal to Israel. We know how
Speaker 2: they're using these weapons. As many meetings that Kam's going
Speaker 2: to take about, you know, in arms embargo. At least
Speaker 2: currently we are still sending over We're doing the opposite,
Speaker 2: which is what most people gathered here are concerned about.
Speaker 2: You know, it's great to see people talking about abortion
Speaker 2: and LGBTQ stuff, you know, all the other reasons that
Speaker 2: the US is doing things that are bad. But you know,
Speaker 2: when it comes to like talking to like the Democrats
Speaker 2: at the DNC right that the Democrats are pro abortion.
Speaker 2: They are, they are nominally pro these things. Pressuring on
Speaker 2: the Palestinian stuff is going to be probably the biggest
Speaker 2: thing as expected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in these next few days.
Speaker 1: So we'll see how that goes. We'll be back tomorrow
Speaker 1: and the rest of the week. From the DNC. This
Speaker 1: has been It Could Happen Here, happening to you.
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