Um, no. Soldiers in Iraq have VASTLY more gear and protection than these guys.

I agree with Fnarf @1.

Right, unless ALL of the LEO's out on the street in the Mile High City are members of a SWAT team or Drug Squad, most of what they're wearing is simply for show and to up the intimidation factor.

After all, it's not like they're planning to run up against snipers, or IED's, or suicide-bombers, or shit - just a bunch of commie-pinko hippies.

We should definitely split hairs over whether or not quantity of gear worn by a soldier in Iraq is greater or lesser than that worn by a Denver riot cop. That is far, far more important than the actual observations Charles is making here.

Oh Slog, how you disappoint me in these dark days.

I'm especially fond of that HUGE sign that appears to say that "Homo Sex is a Threat to National Security." Seriously? National security? You mean sticking my penis in another man's ass really is the same as a crazy person flying a plane into a building? Really?! Hell, if those are the kinds of people out there protesting, then I feel a bit safer knowing the police are armed to the gills.

It's not splitting hairs, elenchos, it's pointing out that cops are not soldiers, even though Charles, and apparently you, think they are. They're riot cops, right? Because there's a credible threat of a riot, right? That's what a variety of blowhard '68 wannabes have been promising, right? If there's a riot, you want riot cops there to put it down; and having them there reduces the chance of having a riot.

That all sounds good to me. It also sounds not very soldiery to me. Democracy is going to happen in the hall, not in the midst of shitheads in the street. I think that's a good thing.

DAMN! Look at the ass in those white jeans!!

@4: If Charles' point were any good, he wouldn't have needed to turn to counterfactual hyperbole to bolster it.

Seriously, these guys are a joke. How terrified do you have to be to wear all that armor and helmets when everyone else there is dressed completely normal? You'd think the place was going to be invaded by another country or something.

But, I don't get the impression that they're there to protect or serve...

I disagree with Fnarf.

It depends on your sitrep and task. If you're in certain units on certain missions, you're well equipped.

If you're support staff in country, you're still bear meat.

But hey, bet Fnarf doesn't believe half the troops in Iraq aren't even soldiers, but mercenaries we keep off the books ... and not just Blackwater.

fnarf is right, riot gear is not combat gear, it just looks like it to the untrained eye.

Jeremy is right, that is one hot ass!!

Depends on the riot gear - most is better that they get with the drug seizure money than what we issue in Iraq, actually, SeMe. Depends on what money they "invested" from the Drug War on themselves.

But usually not as good for IEDs.

Or full suppression auto fire.

if youre in the rear or in support units than of course your gear is not going to include things like dragon skin body armor.

certainly there is always more that can be invested in body armor, and better protection for the humvees, but i think the jackets and helmets that i see on the pic are probably more comparable to the ones worn by journalists who are covering the conflict.

but i tell u what, those guys have more gear than most armies wear into combat around the world.

(maybe i should turn images on and take a boo at the gear, huh?)

(oops)

Nah, Fnarf's right in this case, that wouldn't stop a fly.

Fnarf is right.

Jesus Christ, Will, do you have ANY idea how ridiculous you look spouting off your "sitrep" and "full suppression auto fire" crap? Could you POSSIBLY get any more Gareth Keenan? No, I don't think you could.

I wonder how high Will has to roll on the D20s to be able to use his HK Mp5 in his weekend SWAT games

Right, unless ALL of the LEO's out on the street in the Mile High City are members of a SWAT team or Drug Squad, most of what they're wearing is simply for show and to up the intimidation factor.

Since the WTO riots, cities have been going way overboard not to get caught off-guard when large numbers of protesters get together. It's not so much intimidation as CYA. Most police chiefs would rather risk violent confrontations in their city than to have a riot erupt and the police look like they were unprepared to deal with it.

Rush Limbaugh must be stroking his tiny wang at the sight of the protesters. He was the one who started the whole "recreate '68" thing.

Like I care what you think, Fnarf.

So, tell me, do you get wet when you step down into the puddle from your civvy Humvee?

That all sounds good to me. It also sounds not very soldiery to me. Democracy is going to happen in the hall, not in the midst of shitheads in the street. I think that's a good thing.

I'm curious, Fnarf; Can you think of any instances in, say, the last forty years where you feel the "shitheads in the street" performed a worthwhile role in political discourse, or are they always wrong?

I'm asking this in earnest, btw.

Charles, I'm sure that as one that seems to have read Negri's "Empire" (and really credulously at that) that you think all police are an occupying military force intending to assert the state's control of biopower, yes? So, really, you're just pointing out how this occupying force differs from the normal arm of state control, no?

What would you think is an acceptable level of police presence? You already came out against traffic direction, after all.

Fnarf said

If there's a riot, you want riot cops there to put it down; and having them there reduces the chance of having a riot.

If there's a riot, I'd put even money that the cops are the ones rioting. And even if they themselves are not the rioters, their attitude does more to instigate a riot than prevent it. And regardless of who starts it, I'm not confident that their method of "putting it down" is the best response.

You're right about Will, though. "Sitrep!" That's hilarious. I used to know this one dude who talked like that. He and his buds would watch "Predator" three times a month. Sometimes four.

Anyway, I'm sorry. But so for Charles Mudede is the only one so far who seems to understand what he's seeing there. Everyone else is regurgitating the same reaction they trotted out four years ago, eight years ago.

Also! Can anyone tell me, has the Slog uploaded an interview with a stupid sounding protester yet? I don't want to miss that. The script says you're supposed to find a totally inarticulate motormouth and give him the microphone for as long as he wants. It's not really a protest until we get to laugh at the dopey demonstrator, right?

Flamingbanjo @22 -- forty years? In the US? No, absolutely not. The early years of Vietnam protest were interesting, but more than forty years ago. The '68 protests elected Nixon, full stop; worse than that, they set the terms of the discourse from then until now, by playing directly into the hands of Nixonian law-and-order types. From Mitchell to Rove, they've been playing you like fools ever since.

Part of the problem is the deep stupidity of the protesters, who typically want something called "revolution", which is always a bad idea. You'll notice that the civil rights protesters of the previous decade simply asked for JUSTICE, and did so in an unimpeachably dignified way. The secret to success is to make your opponent look worse than you do. From hippies to ACT-UPers to anti-WTO schlubs, this has never been understood by white protesters ever. EVERY example of mass white street protest looks to ordinary eyes like spoiled, petulant, drug-addled morons.

Maybe that's too bad. I don't think so; I think it's pretty accurate. But if you want to change hearts and minds you have to get off the Republican script. This forty-year-old style of protest is one of the Republicans' best weapons. Always has been.

Besides, in a democracy, why SHOULD anyone listen to a handful of boobs carrying signs? Even if you got a million people in the streets of Denver, which you will fail to do by a factor of a thousand, you'd still have less than half of the population of Colorado. I'm not a friend of mob rule. I like to elect my leaders by the ballot, not by who shouts the loudest.

I see that Will still thinks I drive a Hummer, which is almost cute. I'm sure that when he was a supply clerk in the Army they never actually let him drive the vehicles; I certainly wouldn't have.

Lol. Not a supply clerk, but yes, I drove vehicles sometimes. Not very exciting, other than the ones that rolled down the mountainsides.

As to riots, personally, I'd rather see trained personnel - there is good Army training for riots - than amateurs - like the King County cops that went nutso on Seattle more than once (none of whom had training).

It's a lot harder to stand there and take it than you think. And hard to undo a reaction once it's taken.

#25: I just wanted you to state for the record that you are, in fact, always going to take the side of the police over protesters in every possible instance. I'm really only thinking of your convenience -- it will save you the trouble of typing "shithead" "moron" or "boobs" multiple times in the future if you just take this one opportunity to write out a statement about how street protests are wrong and all who participate in them aren't as smart as you (and therefore deserve to be beaten with truncheons), which you can then post on your blog and link to it every time a story like this makes the news.

This will help prevent carpal tunnel syndrome and keep you commenting for years to come!

@27, I'm not "siding with the police".

I'm trying to win an argument -- not with you, but with America.

Look at it this way: if you were sitting with John Mitchell and Richard Nixon, trying to think of an electoral strategy in '68 and again in '72, you could not possibly have come up with a better one than the one that the hippies and the yippies and all the other bozos in the streets. The late period of anti-war protest in the 60s and 70s PROLONGED THE WAR.

The ACT-UP protests in the 80s gave Reagan all the ammunition he needed to ignore AIDS funding for years and years and years. Those WTO protests you're so proud of? Thank you for giving us President Bush.

Nowadays, the various protest movements are so scatterbrained, so predictable, so scripted, that they are worthless even on the consciousness-raising front. Here come the sea turtles, here's Free Mumia, here's Palestine, here's No War, here's whatever the hell is going today. It's not protest, it's Kabuki.

The people who do these knee-kerk protests are not thinking, and they are not advancing progressive action. They're retarding it. They always have.

@28,

No protest is "legitimate" enough for the forces of power and influence who write the history books.

How many members of the Bonus Army were killed, and when was the last time you heard about that?

Uh, yeah Fnarf. All those civil rights protesters in the 50's were clean and articulate, every one. Model Negros, I call them. My 4th grade teacher said so, didn't she? Everyone respected Martin Luther King because he didn't scare the white folks by ever saying anything revolutionary. That was key. MLK never so much as uttered the word "revolution," buy gum!

I should find that old 4th grade textbook and lend it to these raggedy dopers out there demonstrating today. They'd learn a thing or two about getting your message across without, you know, throwing the entire South over to the conservative party for generations in reaction. Wouldn't want to antagonize anyone into a drastic reaction, would we?

I had no idea I was wrong about Bill Clinton's blowjob giving us GWB in the White House. The Battle in Seattle is what won that 2000 election for the GOP? I hadn't a clue on that historical fact.

Yah! But what about that ass???

BTW, since W.I.S actually did serve in the Army (which I'm sure is more than the rest of us can say), he's earned the right to use military jargon.

Now if he throws 100 story affordable apartments out there, that's a different story.

Oh, and FNARF, you have heard of the March on Washington, right? If it weren't for protests and protesters, we'd probably still be in Vietnam.

You're usually right on the money, but you sound a lot like Archie Bunker in this thread.

...and just to clarify, in addition to the very successful 1963 civil rights march on Washington DC, there were also numerous antiwar protests that drew hundreds of thousands of protesters there, as well.

Yeah, Fnarf I get it. It seems to me that you're opposed to marches as a tactic, and the point the protesters are trying to make is secondary. (I also think there may be an element of nostalgia in your view of what successful protests ought to look like, but that's neither here nor there.)

I happen to believe that in cases where voting isn't enough or when working within the system is impossible that direct action is called for. Compare and contrast Ukraine's Orange Revolution with our country's non-reaction to the contested 2000 election which has delivered us eight years of the worst presidential administration ever. The Ukrainians got outraged, got organized, took to the streets and won. Americans got outraged, posted angry screeds on blogs, sat on their hands and lost. Then four years later when another highly questionable election was called for the same grossly incompetent leader, they did the same thing all over again.

Forgive me for thinking the Ukrainian approach might offer certain advantages.

It doesn't mean I don't sometimes wince at the giant papier-mache puppets when I see them, but I'm not quite ready to categorically cede my First Amendment right "peaceably to assemble" just because I'm too embarrassed or too lazy to exercise it. Things that aren't exercised tend to atrophy, and our rights are no different.

FNARF why do you go off the deep end like this, blaming small groups of people on the far left for the bigotry, small-mindedness, and sadistic tendencies of millions of Americans?

It wasn't Chicago 68 that elected Nixon. The world didn't hinge on internal debates within SDS.

Nixon was elected in 68 because of the assassination of RFK. Also Kissinger sabatoging the Paris Peace talks for Nixon. And, finally, because of all the white folks outside the South who preferred to vote for a segregationist (Wallace) than a pro-civil rights, pro-war Democrat like Humphrey.

The US isn't inherently liberal, just waiting for all the anarchists of the world to be shot or put on suits and ties. When you put all the riot cops on the streets you need to enforce your version of the perfect liberal image for conservative Americans, exactly what will you be left fighting for? And what, other than your good intentions, will make you any different from the Republicans?

Jeez, Charles, riot cop gear isn't any more hard-core than what Kenji wears behind the plate at Safeco.