G-20 Protestors Get Violent

G-20 Protestors Get Violent

The usual Anarcho-communists showed up to violently protest capitalism and the G-20 global summit in Pittsburgh, and you can see some media hypocrisy in the coverage. [Aside:They call themselves “Anarchists” because nobody calls themselves communist or Marxist in this century without getting laughed at.]

The protests did grow violent with Black Bloc’ers and the like rolling dumpsters into the police lines and smashing windows. Here you can see the AP coverage, where you don’t see the violence or get a mention of it:

At Russia Today, a state funded media outlet from Russia, they do post some scenes from the demonstrations and you can see that the police had this well under control. If you compare to the US media coverage of the tea party protests you might scratch your head, but on the other hand most people in the US could give a crap about the G-20, or the marginal protesters that usually show up at their meetings.

The citizenry is however highly interested in the Health Care town halls, so anything beyond milling people at those demonstrations was bound to get reported. The other difference: I don’t think anyone showed up at the G-20 protests toting semi-auto rifles and handguns. One last note: There were also “Don’t Tread on Me” Flags and Guy Fawkes masks at these protests, which makes me wonder if some Paul bots showed up for these as well since they have the same anti-government sentiments that the anarchists do.

Russia Today’s Coverage:

Detailed accounting of the property destruction at Reuters.

Update: There’s another important difference between the G-20 Protests and the Tea Parties that fabled lizard Kilgore Trout points out:

The right wing blogs are crowing over the violent g20 protests today and calling out the lefties. The big difference of course is that lefty networks and pundits didn’t promote these protests. Democrat politicians are not endorsing them or speaking to the crowds. These are fringe leftists and are pretty marginalized from the mainstream.

Update 2: For those who might think I’m out of line speculating on Paleocon Ron Paul’s supporters being there, here’ s Paleocon Pat giving WTO protestors and Tom Hayden a reach-around at the 2000 WTO protests. The paleotards will do anything to destabilize existing parties so they can come to the rescue in the chaos with their traditional, tribal, “third way against the New World Order” isolationist crowd:

In the struggle to subordinate market choices to “social solidarity,” the left is understandably worried that the current anti-trade standard bearer is Pat Buchanan, a man whose social values are tribalist and traditional. In their discussion of news coverage of the protests, the leftist media critics at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting zapped CNN and others for paying too much attention to Buchanan: “Though right-wing nationalists appeared to make up–at most–an infinitesimal fraction of the actual protesters in Seattle’s streets, the media seemed to anoint Buchanan as a major leader of the anti-WTO movement.” In one important sense, Buchanan is just that. He is the only prominent presidential candidate advocating the anti-trade agenda of the protesters, the only agenda they share. It’s not surprising, therefore, that Beltway-oriented shows like Inside Politics interviewed him rather than, say, Walden Bello or Tom Hayden.