Smafty Mac: Fighting the kakistocracy!!!

More protesters arrested, welcome to Amurikaaah.

Manhattan was spin city last night as 5,000 activists on bicycles swarmed city streets and snarled traffic during a protest of the upcoming Republican National Convention.

At least 264 riders were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct for blocking intersections near Madison Square Garden and in the East Village, police said.

The arrests marked the first real confrontation between cops and the thousands of protesters who have descended on New York ahead of the convention, which starts Monday.

"The cops said, 'Get out of here!' and I was trying to get out and I was cuffed," complained one busted bicyclist who identified himself as Keith from Brooklyn.

At first, police seemed willing to allow the protesters to have the run of the road as they zigzagged up and down Manhattan from Union Square.

But as the cyclists blocked the intersection of W. 34th St. and Seventh Ave. at the Garden, police began arresting demonstrators.

Many more were collared later at Second Ave. around E. 10th St., near St. Marks Church, which was hosting an after-party for the bicyclists.

"The cops are coming! Move out!" bicyclists screamed to each other as they made their way down Second Ave., hurling their bikes over the church fence in a desperate bid for sanctuary.

"They just all came to a stop," said Reggie Lakew, 28, a gift coordinator from Roosevelt Island, who saw the cyclists as they approached E. 10th St. "Everyone picked up their bikes over their heads and started cheering. Some sat down in the street. The cops surrounded them in a line and they were picking them off from the back and arresting them."

Some witnesses said the arrests in the Village began when someone tossed some spaghetti at a cop.

"This whole thing is about peace," said one cuffed and disgruntled biker who identified himself as Jesse from Brooklyn. "I don't have a gripe with the police. I have a gripe with the RNC, although the cops were pretty rough."

Cops slapped plastic cuffs on the protesters' wrists while other officers snapped Polaroid photos of the detainees in what appeared to be bid to head off allegations of police brutality.

Two busloads of protesters were taken from the scene to a temporary jail on the West Side Highway while a flatbed truck was piled high with their confiscated bikes.

"They're trying to set the tone for the next week," suggested Annette Wilcox, 47, as she watched the protesters being hauled off. "If you sneeze the wrong way, they're going to arrest you."

So the couple who put a banner out of their hotel window to protest are being charged with a felony, the naked people were arrested with out hesitation (not a bad idea) and now bike riders are being arrested by the NYPD.

Is this the America you want to live in?

Free speech zones, protesters being charged with felonys for pputting up a banner. Protest was the first weapon fired during our revolution, American expressed ideals and new ways of doing things, they protested and fought and bled for our country.

Now Republicans believe protesters are Unamerican and should be treated with spite, if you're Liberal you are called Anti-American or Communist by ignorant fools who don't understand that their efforts to shut you up, to keep you silent are the actions of a real Anti-American.
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