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