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10,000 people in San Francisco prevent Arnold Schwarzenegger from attending his own fundraiser

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 6 April 2005
22 comments

Edito Demos-Actions Elections-Elected USA

by Tim Tagaris

(Note: This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in America since the civil rights movement! 10,000 people in SF tonight prevented $chwarzenegger from attending his own fundraiser for the $pecial election. Cops joined in to protect the protesters outside the Governor’s fundraiser. Follow the liveblog of these astounding events)

This is one thing I love about California, and San Francisco in particular, they don’t play around. Bob Brigham is on-the-ground right now, phoning in updates from a large scale protest against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The event: Arnold’s $1,000 to $100,000 a plate fundraiser. Bob referenced it in a post earlier today, here are the updates.

It looks like Govenator’s re-election will not be as smooth as many anticipate:

Bob says that there are easily 3000 people there right now, and they are all over the place. He counted at least 10 telvision news trucks, 30 photographers, and 2 helicopters constantly circling overhead. He said he couldn’t tell what the plane flying above had on it’s banner, because it was directly overhead (that made me laugh). He told me that this is nothing short of a rock concert atmosphere.

Bob just called me back to let me know that there is a group forming to the side that is going to attempt to block the Governor from even entering the event. Firefighters are all over the place with signs that read, "Not my neighborhood firehouse," and are holding professional looking signs with burning buildings demanding that local firehouses be kept open. Other signs read: "Money for schools not corporate interests"

Bob’s quote to me was: "It looks like the tipping point. There is blood in the water. The race is going to be extremely competitive."

The two Democrats vying to compete for the Governor’s mansion in California are State Treasuruer Phil Angelides — (campaign website) and Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

He also mentioned that Assemblyman Mark Leno was rushing down from Calfifornia to speak at the event.

More on everything (updates) in the extended entry—cause Bob keeps calling.

UPDATE: Bob just called back and put his phone in the air to let me hear the chant, "RECALL ARNOLD."

He says that every single off-duty emergency personnel is there to protest George Bush and Arnold. The police are now breaking out more barricades. Bob claims that there are more off-duty police officers on the people’s side of the barricades than Arnolds.

"They are taking over the street now. The street is shut down. There are about 50 people on the middle of the street, they just took it over." "There are smoke-bombs going off." He is laughing/coughing. "I am right in the middle of all of this, this is amazing."

There are green smoke bombs going off—green and gray smoke going off all throughout the crowd.

"We have the street" — "We have taken the street." "The cops have no interest in restoring control. The police are laughing." Bob has no idea how Arnold will even get inside his fundraiser.

The limos that were approaching the hotel, the motorcade, has been surrounded by protestors. Traffic is shut-down. The situation is completely out of control. The dirt-bike cops are leaving. It is all shut down he says.

More later...

UPDATE 3:

The police just tried just arrest somebody, and the crowd started chanting "shame on you," — the cops let him go. And now that same guy is leading the march to re-take the street, and Bob is right next to him wearing his BlogPAC hat.

They had the guy cuffed, uncuffed him, and now he is leading the charge the re-take the street.

Bob just put him on the phone for me to interview him. His quotes:

"If I felt any better I would be the cupcake, like the sprinkles. Its about taking back the power."

He just told me that when the cops cuffed him, he told them he was out fighting for their rights as well. Then they patted him on the back, uncuffed him, and said, "let’s get this thing going," and sent him on his way.

He said he is not worried about getting arrrested — not for this cause this cause. He would pay a fine go home, feeling good, and he would hang that citation on the wall.

Five reporters were waiting to interview him while he was on the phone with me.

COPS ARE GETTING OUT OF CONTROL. IT IS GETTING VIOLENT, Bob says. They are shoving people all over the place.

More soon...
UPDATE:

Backup called for: The California Highway Patrol is there.

The banner on that airplane I referenced above was paid for by Calif. Nurses Association and it said, "Arnold, Calfornia is not for sale."

Arnold is going to enter the building on the opposite side of the building that the protesters shut down the street. The police are now marching down the street in lock-step.

The violence has worn down. Bob said that the cops ruthlessly arrested one guy and hauled him into the hotel. The crowd is swelling, Bob puts the number at 10,000 for crowd size. More and more people keep on coming.

Again, the police do not have on full riot gear, just helmets so far with the huge nightsticks. But the violence has calmed. But, Bob can only comment on one of the sides of the building, but there are people on all sides.

UPDATE:

The motorcade is now forming to come down Nob Hill. Sixty motorcycles (police) are escorting Arnold’s motorcade down the street.

UPDATE:

"Arnold’s San Francisco priveleges have been revoked; he can never come back again." - Bob Brigham

He also wanted me to let you know that there is a protest going on at the GAP right now that one of his friends is organizing (Cory Black is leading the boycott). People are protesting the chain because of the owner’s contribution (Don Fisher) to Arnold’s re-election campaign.

Four streets are now blocked. And the crowd continues to grow. No word on the motorcade, as it is coming down the street on the opposite side of the building.

Bob Brigham just talked to rising star Mark Leno and he asked Californians to sign a petition to stop Arnold at:

Petition at California for Democracy.

"Using the Internet there is going to be a grassroot uprising in California." — Assemblyman Mark Leno

UPDATE:

"It is amazing how many nurses are here in their scrubs. They just gave me a bottle of water to quench my thirst after the smoke from the smoke bombs." — Bob Brigham

Street Closings:

California Street
Pine Street
Grant Street (Chinatown)
Stockton Street

UPDATE

"The sun has set. The streetlights are on. The crowd has laid siege to the building, controlling all entrances, and all streets. The streets belong to the people." — Bob Brigham

The crowd is chanting that Arnold is chicken. The crowd is now chatning "na na nana hey hey hey good bye" (I can hear that). The professionalism of the organizing is "pure west coast."

The nurses have a staging area at St. Mary’s park — a half block away. The firefighters provided the flatbead truck that serves as a stage with sound equipment to amplify music and speeches.

More signs:

Stop the budget cuts — save social security
Public Health - Not Corporate Wealth
Don’t Target Our Children (held by an 8 year old over her head)
Hands off workers pension
Workers are not a special interest

UPDATE:

People were pounding on the Governor’s car, while it was speeding out of the garage. Bob said the car peeled out, and you can literally smell the burnt rubber from where he is standing. He fled with his tail between his legs.

The motorcade is following the Governor’s car down the street. It’s over.

The people won.

http://www.swingstateproject.com/20...

Forum posts

  • He’s just an ex steroid macho, bigoted assho;e who has managed in his head, because of an inflated ego, to blur the line between reality and his shitty movies.

    Mind you First Blood wasn’t too bad.

    • Reality check from America to the peoples republic of California: WHO CARES???! The surfer state has always been a cultural wasteland and now it is well on its way to becoming a third world socialist dictatorship........soon enough the world will become bored with celluloid violence , car chases and porn sex between plastic surgerized mutants, at which point Calipornia will have nothing of value to export except its shitty wines. Good riddance.......

    • This is exciting.

      People are moving.

      Califormia!!!!!!

      Yeah!! Yeah!!! Yeah!!!!!

    • What a sour response! How on Earth can you describe California as a third world socialist state?! What ’reality’ are you living in to urge anyone to get a check! At last someone somewhere is putting up a fight against these right wing assholes. Pity you sound like one really...

    • Don’t you recognize a redneck from Alabamie when you read one of their posts?

    • And the "right wing assholes" are finally offering some resistance to you left wing murderers and slavemasters.

    • To the "right wing asshole" who’s proud of it: DAMNNNNNN!! What was your Rapture Index reading today? Why don’t you and ’Pills’ Limbaugh show the world just how cozy all you ’Asshole Buddies’ really are?

    • First Blood was a Slyvester Stallone movie you idiot!

    • First Blood was Stallone ;-)

  • This story is a more or less complete fabrication. I was at the protest; it was much smaller than this story asserts, and entirely peaceful. The part about blocking the Governor’s entrance is based on a grain of truth: He wasn’t able to get into his originally planned entrance, so he went in another way, but he went in. There was no violence, no clubbing, and no clash between protest and police. There were absolutely NO smoke bombs.

    I’m slowly blogging the event — with pictures, so you can make up your own mind — over the course of the day, at Marching Orders. The top story on the site will have an index of the coverage.

    • I’m happy to hear this story is BS. Political violence is never something to be proud of. This "story" is a rant. "there is a group forming to the side that is going to attempt to block the Governor from even entering the event . . . people are beating on the governor’s car . . ." If this is true, are these rioters Brownshirts, or what? They think that physically preventing political speech is acceptable? They should be ashamed of themselves.

    • Quoting...."..They think that physically preventing political speech is acceptable? They should be ashamed of themselves."

      Whereas invading Iraq, killing over 100,000 civilians and replacing one megalomaniac with another is fine.

      Stealing the oil, supporting the illegal state of isrel.

      ¿Double standards, or jewish propoganda?

    • Your cheap anti-Semitism makes it impossible to take you seriously. Only pathetic weaklings believe that there is a secret Jewish conspiracy behind everything they don’t like. Wake up.

    • Anti semetism, come on now. Most isrealis are russian immigrants driven by the horrors of ww2, which leads one to ask... where did the germans get the money to re-arm... did theodor hertschel and rothschild figure that the only way to get jew power into the m.e. was to frighten the lives of the european khasari jews?

      Why did the americans never bomb i.g farben, the biggest chemical plant in the world? (And then go on to employ many of the scientists there.)
      If these are just stupid fantasies, why are you even bothering to refute them, eh, mein gute
      freund.

      Not so much a conspiracy, just the facts.

    • Yeah the Republipukes are always horrified when the people try to take back their government. You won’t hear anything on the fake "news" reports about this as plastic news now does not include any dissent of our "leaders" it has been banned since the people tried to take back their government during the Vietnam war, and their efforts worked the war ended, so the plastic news stations and the Fascist government put a stop to that. The propaganda minister has now ordered that any protests or public dissent must either be ignored or minimised to make it look like a few hippies that have taken too much acid.

    • Every leftist nation was and is built on the repression of free political speech. You can look it up.

    • this for clearing the air on this story.

    • What these posters who would stiffle the people’s right to protest never want to talk about is the fact that people who want to protest for peace or other political issues contrary to the right wing agenda are only given permits far from the events they are protesting and there is always massive police/security gestapo surrounding them behind fences and the mainstream media has agreed not to film or air them. This is the new America under Bush. In one short presidency freedom of the press has become extinct.

    • "Every leftist nation was and is built on the repression of free political speech. You can look it up."

      What’s the matter with you people? You use the word "leftist" as though it were some monster lurking under the bed. I’m afraid I can’t look it up because it isn’t true. What is true, perhaps, is that every totalitarian regime - left or right - is built upon repression. Neither is acceptable but there have been many "leftist" governments democratically elected who have in no way interfered with free speech and would find the idea reprehensible. The problems we (and I include you) currently face is the rapid growth of a dangerous, violent and self serving right wing ideology based entirely upon greed and fear. This fear is currently being exploited to create greater threats to our liberty than we have faced for 60 years. The fact that the same folk at the top created the fear in the first place seems not to have occured to anyone. You don’t even live in a democracy any more.... What happened in Florida (2000) and Ohio (2005)..... It may have been many things, but democracy it wasn’t.

  • As a European I never understood why Californian dumped an honest men like Governor Gray and elected this Hollywood steroid creature. I hope the kick this guy out of office soon, and the damage he has already done to the social infrastructure will be corrected.

    • I once had the misfortune of working for Don Fisher and Doris his vile wife, owners of the GAP, Doris is undoubtedly one of the most snobbish and cold individuals I have ever encountered. I would not buy anything from those people if I had no other place to buy clothing, these people are really terrible and if you met them you would never shop in their stores.

  • All right SF!! Make the terminator uncomfortable. Looks like the stress is getting to him. California leads the way per usual. Let’s hope this energy spreads and we shake the whole country up. These arrogant leaders aren’t smart enough to treat anyone well, so why would anyone fight for them?