Monday, May 14, 2012

The NATO Summit

Day 1-

Monday 5/14/12

8:30 AM

Protesters converged on the Prudential Building this morning, with a few dozen making it past security and up the escalator towards the campaign office of Barack Obama. They were organized by the Catholic Worker Movement, presumably a sect of the Workers' Movement of Catholicism (splitters!) Their message is "a week without Capitalism" and they passed out Danish in front of the building. The point being,...here have a breakfast roll with us, we're protesting global capitalism.

After a brief statement was made by the tall one who calls himself Reg, the protesters in the lobby filed out in an orderly fashion, however Reg and a few of his friends who had made it up to a 2nd floor balcony were taken away in what they call a squadrol, or in 1960s parlance, a Paddy Wagon.

The sidewalk people cheered Reg and his comrades, and broke into "This Little Light of Mine" accompanied by a guy on a a slightly out of tune Yamaha acoustic guitar, followed by a march east on Randolph where they paused in front of the Randolph Inn where the people from the Daley Center go for drinks after work and observed a moment of silence for Reg and his fellow balcony friends. After that, they proceeded east on Randolph towards the CTA Blue Line, where they discussed plans for the afternoon, and where to get more Danish.

"We welcomed them to NATO," said an unnamed Chicago police lieutenant. "It was a very calm situation, and nobody even raised their voices except for Reg, and that's understandable since he was reading the prepared statement. We weren't forced to pepper spray anybody, and nobody got their fucking head cracked open with this riot baton because they didn't give us any lip."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Schmutz-

I see it's a love fest back there now. Caught RaEm on my XM radio feed of the Sox game last night, talking with Farmio and DJ. It was a coronation. Take care my friend...

- - Robert

Michael said...

Life returns to normal at Cannery Row Robert. Have a good holiday weekend my friend.