My first year in the City, the whole Rodney King thing happened. My roommate and I watched the riot going down in LA from our living room and then staged a little mini-riot in our apartment. During Bush Sr.'s address to the nation, we threw anything that could be thrown at the TV in anger at the sheer unbelievability of it all. As we watched the news, we saw that there was a protest (riot) going down in our City by the Bay. Which made sense because, you know, if something happens to the African-American community in LA, there should be rioting up here too. Because we were young and jaded, we thought "how cool, there's a riot going on" and we walked down to Market Street to catch the goings-on. Total here we are now, entertain us.

When we got there we saw the usual assortment of protestors- the freaks, the punks, the professional protestors, the hippies- standing around, face to face with cops in riot gear, shouting nasty things at the cops. An occasional window was smashed and various things that weren't quite fastened onto the ground were picked up and thrown. As we walked past a small alley, we saw two cops, trapped in a store opening, surrounded by protestors. The Cops were standing there, in riot gear, deflecting thrown beer bottles with their batons and riot shields. You could see the fear in the cop's eyes as the crowd closed in on them.

What I saw was not a protest. It was not a statement. It was held mainly by a bunch of white upper-middle class kids whom, in the mighty words of Butthead "had never been to Compton and were not down with any homies. There was an anger there I felt and heard, an anger directed really at nothing in particular. It wasn't the SF cops involved in Rodney King, it wasn't a SF jury that let the cops go. Nor the storeowners whose windows got smashed or all the people who got caught in the wake. It was just a bunch of people, angry with daddy or what have you, using what was going on as an excuse to smash things up. It was nothing but a mob, drunk on their own self-righteousness and giddy at the thought of being able to do whatever they could.

As San Francisco seems to be ground zero of the anti-war protests, I think back to that moment a lot. Protesting war is fine. Protesting war is good. But a lot of what has been going on reminds me of that moment- more of a mob scene than a peaceful protest. People have all the right in the world to protest but the moment they lose their right is when they trample on other people's rights. That's what this country is all about, isn't it? The claim that it's alright to do that stuff because "there just accessories" or that they have no right to complain because people in Baghdad are going through worse is nothing but sheer arrogance. They make think that, but does the guy stuck in traffic for an hour, late for work think that?

A friend wanted to know where I stood and chided me for not taking a stand. He's been in the streets, not doing the obnoxious stuff, but just in the streets and attending the marches. He's right in a way. When things come down, people gotta declare themselves on one side or another. But what if you're not on either side? What if you both sides are wrong?

…I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in
'cause I need it now