Even before the delegates get here in August, the protesters will start arriving, perhaps as many as 15,000 of them.
They’ll be homeless, unemployed, immigrants, union members, college students, people with passion.
They’ll come because they’ve lost a loved one to war or they want to make equal rights for women part of the U.S. Constitution or because they can’t stand oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They’ll come because they long to be a part of something and dread being a part of nothing.
Organizers expect two dozen groups at least, some of whom may be bent on vandalism or worse. But for people like Maria, there is a playbook of sorts that is available to them, an array of nonviolent tactics meant to draw maximum attention from the public and cause maximum frustration for the police.
Some protesters may carry giant handmade puppets, lock their forearms into PVC pipes to keep police from shackling their wrists, or climb tall wooden tripods above the fray. In the past, they’ve locked their necks to fences with bike locks and scaled buildings to drop banners.
The police have a playbook, too, and it doesn’t involve puppets. Between 3,500 and 4,000 officers are expected to patrol the event. Clashes between protesters and police have erupted at these events in the past and have involved pepper spray, Tasers, batons, even rubber bullets.
Right now, thousands of activists like Maria are meeting in small groups around the country. They are not just talking about ideology, they’re worrying over logistics — whom they trust to protest alongside, and how they’ll do it.
Many are deciding now whether they feel so passionately about gender equality or income inequality that they’re willing to risk a face full of choking pepper spray or time in federal prison.
Read more at the Tampa Bay Times.
