The Right of the People to Peacably Assemble…

If you recall, the completion of that sentence goes something like, “Shall not be abridged.” Here’s some (althoug a little outdated, we’ll admit) insight from “John Adams” on the protests at the G20 Summit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uB6adIx03Q&feature=related
There is the basis of what was happening. Note that the organizations that were interviewed, the main organizations planning on showing up, were/are organizations based off Peace. Some of their biggest ideals are peace. So we can only assume that the protests would have been peaceful, that however did not stop the city of Pittsburgh from denying them the right to protest. Thus the following happened.

http://my.nowpublic.com/world/some-cry-foul-over-pittsburgh-police-g20-crowd-control-tactics

http://my.nowpublic.com/world/pittsburgh-g20-riot-police-towers-patio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeYg0qCn11U&feature=player_embedded
(this one is important)

http://my.nowpublic.com/world/chicago-indymedia-anarchists-and-police-clash-day-1-pittsburgh-g-20

So if you bothered to watch those, I hope you realized something about each one. These particular protests were peaceful. These people were just marching or in the case of the 3rd video they weren’t doing anything at all, they had nothing to do with the G20 protests. Our right to peacefully assemble was violated in Pittsburgh, and I doubt more than 100,000 people noticed. So I’m here to let y’all know. The government is abusing its power, I don’t care how you stereotype the protesters (the anarchists or the peace organizations), government can not stop them from protesting until AFTER they’ve become violent. It is our right to protest and they can not assume that we won’t be peaceful. Protesting should never have to be sanctioned, ever. Bring all the police force you want just in case, but until it becomes violent the police should never start attacking. Most of the violence caused in these protests, by the way, was caused by police firing first….