[kj] fascism at the World Series

[GregSlawson at aol.com]

     A half-dozen p members and friends went to Fenway Park (World Series) to 
leaflet against the pigs for murdering by shooting a college student in the 
eye with pepper spray bullets and killing her after Wed. night's Red Sox 
pennant win. There was a demo called by an ad-hoc coalition of groups calling for an 
"angry protest" against police brutality. Aside from a couple of friends (one 
who worked with us in the late 60s and one we met at the DNC the summer 
project who is interested in us) it was only a couple dozen anarchist types and a 
few Sparts. They stood around on this lawn completely isolated and out of view 
from the thousands of fans going to the game. After about an hour they marched 
on the side of the street where there were few people, and then had a vigil 
outside Fenway Park where the student had been killed. An activist returning 
from the vigil said that most of the baseball crowd was indifferent.
     Not wanting to waste time waiting, the p members went to the subway stop 
to try to hand out our 1000 very well-written anti-police brutality leaflets. 
The subway cops let us leaflet on the sidwalk outside the subway (although 
when we tried to leaflet down the street closer to the ballpark, the Boston cops 
in riot gear started to gather around us). The response we got was far from 
encouraging. Most people would not take the leaflet, even though crowds were 
passing us by. A few nodded in agreement, and one guy said the cops would "kill 
me if I took it". Several people were hostile, saying everything from "go back 
to Russia", "get your head out of your ass", "the police are protecting us" 
to  "why don't you go break some more windows" (actually no windows were broken 
during the celebration--only a bank sign and a car that was burned) and "she 
desrved it" (the student who was killed) and laughter at our sign that said 
"Police Serve the Ruling Class not the Working Class". Two people gave back the 
leaflet in disgust after looking briefly at the contents. These baseball games 
seem to attrack a scary bunch of ultra-right wingers. I know all kinds of 
immigrants that are following and getting excited about the Sox, but the people 
I've seen going to the games this week (tonight and on the subway last week) 
just seem to be angry and fascist. These fans could not even criticize the cops 
for killing a white college student who happened to be standing in a crowd 
that was celebrating outside Fenway Park. Interestingly, they just showed on two 
news channels tonight another youth who got shot with pepper spray bullets 13 
times. He walked up to the cops with his arms raised to ask for help and was 
shot with the pellets, and has a huge bloody scab on his face and large yellow 
welts all over his stomache. Maybe the fans will say he deserved it too, just 
for the crime of sitting on a steel girder along an outside wall of a 
ballpark. It seems like white people worship the cops, unless they've had bad personal 
experiences with them. We've got a LONG way to go in winning these people.
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