Hippies really do smell!
In preparation for the thousands of protectors gathered at the G-8 conference, German police have pulled a page from the East German handbook on crowd control.
REDDELICH, Germany, June 5 — The protesters, thousands of them, are packed into a soggy tent city next to a potato field. They have spent months honing tactics and discussing strategy, all for a particular goal: to disrupt the summit of the world’s biggest economic powers that begins Wednesday.
To do so, they will have to get past 16,000 police officers who are backed by helicopters and armored personnel carriers, not to mention a seven-mile-long fence topped with razor wire. The odds are not lost on many of the people who have traveled here from across Europe and North America to make political points but already seem resigned to an unsatisfying result.
“The biggest concern is, will we be able to get our message out, or will we just be completely shut down by the police?” said Lisa Fithian, a 46-year-old protest organizer from Austin. “Will we have a chance to have our voices heard, or will we just be beaten, clubbed, tear-gassed and hit by water cannons?”
The German government has spared no expense — spending upward of $100 million — to safeguard this week’s summit, which brings together leaders of the industrial countries known as the Group of Eight. German authorities have taken an offensive-minded approach, using a variety of tactics that critics say conjure bad memories of the country’s totalitarian past.
For instance, police and prosecutors have surreptitiously acquired scent samples of some protest organizers to make it easier for police dogs to locate them in a crowd, authorities have acknowledged. The technique was pioneered by the Stasi, the East German secret police.
I’ll admit, the part about getting scent samples of protest organizers (I can only imagine how they did that) is a little freaky. However, the picture of a mass of unwashed, unkempt, dread-locked, old-army-jacket-wearing hippies getting washed down the street sounds rather amusing. Of course, that’s just me.
By the way, what they hell are these people protesting about anyway?
The protesters espouse a variety of causes. Some oppose globalization, capitalism or economic inequality. Others want wealthy nations to spend more money to fight AIDS, combat poverty in Africa or protect the environment.
Oh yeah, that stuff. Yeah, wouldn’t want that capitalism stuff to happen. It might make nations wealthier so they can use the money to fight AIDS or combat poverty in Africa.
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