I was running late and missed the shitshow – got a call from Daniel about 115pm who said the whole thing had been broken up and not to come, but I decided to go down there anyway and got there a little after 130pm. Dressed in drag and with a sign reading “DEFEND FREE SPEECH / LOVE OVER HATE”, I went on my bike and passed the counter-protesters coming down Market Street between Civic Center and Van Ness – maybe a couple hundred of them, including a line of people with basically big riot shields. Nobody bothered me or accosted me despite my sign – probably assuming I was on their side even though I passed right through their midst with my sign, headed the opposite direction. The UN Plaza area was pretty much deserted when I got there aside from the usual people hanging around, but the stage was still set up. I saw broken glass from where people had thrown bottles, as Daniel reported. I spoke with him again and suggested people might come back now that the opposition had left,but he said after what happened, nobody wanted to. He told my about Philip Anderson, the main organizer, getting punched in the face and having a tooth knocked out. I had my megaphone and decided to get up on the stage and talk about that a bit, and a few other people who were coming late to the rally came over and we started talking. Got one of them to film me there making a statement about what had happened. Nobody else on either side showed up though, so after a while we went to lunch. On the way home afterward we stopped outside the Twitter HQ and I chalked an anti-censorship message on the sidewalk.The front entrance was completely boarded up, and someone told me it had just been done that day, not for Covid in general. In fact several people came by trying to get into the building while we were there and were unable to do so. So on some level, Twitter did get the message and was a bit inconvenienced if nothing else. I think the counter-protesters really hurt their own cause – most of the media reports I’ve seen reflect the fact that the rally participants present, maybe 15 or so, were seriously outnumbered, and that they were the ones who were attacked by people on the other side who initiated the violence. It is unfortunate that this will probably further tarnish the image of Black Lives Matter, whose basic cause is important and just, because the counter-protesters are being associated with them as well as with Antifa. Assaulting a black man for no reason except you disagree with what you think he stands for and knocking out his tooth doesn’t exactly reflect respect or concern for the physical safety of African-Americans.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
From: “Francoise Fielding mdm2548@yahoo.com [lpsf-activists]”
Posted by: Starchild sfdreamer@earthlink.net
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