RNC 2008: The Post-Protest Analysis Begins...Well, Not Really

Photo By John Hoff

I'd heard about an Indy Media outfit when "Kriston" handed me a green card on the "John Ireland Bridge," and several days after the protests I...

...tried to track the entity down in St. Paul, on Broadway, based on the address from Kriston's card. Video was needed, implored the card, and that was what I had...plenty of video to contribute to...whatever. Some kind of documentary, I assumed.

The address was a classic old apartment complex being run as a cooperative. I guess people who lived there had to be artists of some kind. Huh. Cool. I'd never been to this corner of St. Paul before. I'd never known it was this artsy before.

I used the intercom to contact the particular apartment which was supposedly an "independent media center." The guy who answered knew the group I was speaking of...oh, yes, they'd been here for some days during RNC 2008, but now they were gone.

I asked if they'd left forwarding info. He racked his brain and came up with a clue: some kind of indigenous school. That's where they'd gone. He sounded like he thought he was being very helpful, coming up with that.

"So they didn't leave any forwarding info with you? A phone number, maybe?"

Um, no. He didn't THINK so. He sounded hung over, stoned, or between one of those two states. As much as I love organic, spontaneous, non-hierarchical systems of activism and organization, there are times when I just want to shout GET ME YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER YOU INCOMPETENT (EXPLETIVE).

This was one of those times.

About half a block away, I noticed this remnant of the "poster offensive" which happened prior to RNC 2008.