Photos from the march on the RNC and Take Back Labor Day concert (Dialup warning)

[Bjorn Against]

Today I marched alongside tens of thousands of others to protest the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. Despite what you may have heard in the corporate media it was a very peaceful march, I did not witness a single arrest or major police confrontation. I know that my eyes weren't everywhere, and there were incidences in places in which my eyes did not see, but the fact is that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful despite how the media likes to focus on a few isolated incidents. It is hard to come up with an accurate count of protesters as the numbers were far too big for a single person to estimate, but I can assure you that the numbers the AP are reporting are much lower than the reality. There were people as far as the eye could see, I am not good at estimating numbers but my own eyes saw far more than the 10,000 maximum the AP told us and I did not see everyone. It was a great march that was very empowering, and I am disgusted at the way the corporate media is spinning it.

After the march the SEIU's Take Back Labor Day concert took place, and that had just as many people at it if not more. While many protesters went to the concert after the march, it was clear that the majority of the crowd were not protesters. They were mostly young people many of whom look like they had never been to a political event before, but came to this one because of the stellar lineup of music. Most of the musicians were very explicit in their political messages, make no mistake about it while this show was mainly about the music with only a few short speeches between performances, the artists clearly focused on songs which related to the issues of our day. We heard from Billy Brag, Steve Earle, Allison Moorer, my personal favorite Tom Morello, Atmosphere, Mos Def, and the Pharcyde. Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, and Tom Morello were particularly blunt in their commentary on the RNC. It seemed most of the people in the crowd went to see the hip hop acts, but they all seemed to love the folk music when they heard the messages of Bragg, Earle, and Morello. There was a lot of excitement in the crowd for everyone who performed, it was one of the best political events I have been to because I think it really attracted a lot of people who probably aren't active in politics and everyone seemed to receive the message in a really positive way.

When I first arrived at the State Capital to start the march I was reminded of why we were marching.



If you can't tell by the photo the word Democracy is made out of ice, and as the day went on the ice started to melt and crumble apart.



George Bush and John McCain showed up to perform their new single "Insane in the McCain Brain" which is set to the beat of Cyprus Hill's "Insane in the Membrane". They later donned their Hawaiian shirts so they could sing "Bomb Bomb Iran".



Preparing for the march

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This photo shows that the crowd was a very good size, but of course there is no way any single camera shot can ever come close to capturing most of the crowd.

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Billy Bragg performs



Steve Earle and Allison Moorer perform a duet of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone".



Tom Morello got the whole crowd going crazy



Thom Hartmann addresses the crowd.



Atmosphere leaves no doubt of who they are voting for in November



Mos Def performs some great socially conscious hip hop

[slipslidingaway]

1. Thank you K&R n/t

[liberalmuse]

2. Awesome! You are a true patriot.

Thank you for sharing. I'm glad you weren't getting beat up by over zealous police. We've been hearing about confrontations and other awful stuff (Amy Goodman and the DN crew getting arrested). I love the metaphor with the ice sculpture. Now that is truth in art!

[ClayZ]

3. Bravo! Patriots abound! K and R

:woohoo: :patriot: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :patriot: :woohoo:

[Tindalos]

4. Thanks for the positive update.

It's good to see the peaceful side of the protests.

[grannylib]

5. Thanks for posting; I agree, it was overall a very peaceful day

I realize there was some violence (which pisses me off, and I'm not trying to minimalize it) but the march itself, from everything I saw, was peaceful.
I posted just a bit ago on much the same, although we didn't get out to Harriet Island! Glad you did!
Here's Sarahbellum and me at Rice Park after the march :-)

[mogster]

6. Thanks! K&R! n/t

[EFerrari]

7. Great photos! There were between 100-250 arrests

including Amy and her two producers. The police were awful and they haven't heard the last of the people they abused over the weekend. I hope the rest of the week goes better.

And I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the "violence" attributed to protesters turns out to be something else. There was a concerted effort to make this year's protests look bad and scary when it was the same folks that always turn out.

[hermetic]

8. Thank you!!

:woohoo:


:yourock:

[EFerrari]

9. Kick