Rage Against The Machine Concert
Rage Against the Machine played a free concert in protest of the two-party system. The band had been considering playing a protest concert there since April of that year. In the months leading up to the convention, cable channel MTV began planning a large, free concert to take place in downtown Los Angeles as a part of its "Choose or Lose" campaign aimed at getting youth out to vote. MTV decided that popular rock group RATM would be the ideal marquee band. However, RATM's aggressive political message combined with the title of its most recent album, The Battle of Los Angeles, caused serious concerns from LA city leaders. MTV's applications for staging the concert were denied by the city and the channel eventually gave up its attempts to plan one. After MTV's attempts failed, a number of protest groups agreed to give their one hour time allotments on the stage in the Protest Zone. RATM were offered prime time slots coinciding with the marquee speaker on the opening night of the convention, then-President Bill Clinton.
Although they were at first required by the City of Los Angeles to perform in a small venue at a considerable distance, early in August a United States district court judge ruled that the City's request was too restrictive and the City subsequently allowed the protests and concert to be held at a site across from the DNC. The police response was to increase security measures, which included a 12' fence and patrolling by a minimum of 2,000 officers wearing riot gear, as well as additional horses, motorcycles, squad cars and police helicopters. A police spokesperson said they were "gravely concerned because of security reasons".
During the concert, RATM frontman Zach de la Rocha said to the crowd, "brothers and sisters, our democracy has been hijacked," and later also shouted "we have a right to oppose these motherfuckers!" After the performance, a small group of attendees congregated at the point in the protest area closest to the DNC, facing the police officers. Reports of what activity they engaged in vary, the most extreme being reports of throwing glass, concrete and water bottles filled with "noxious agents," spraying ammonia on police and slingshotting rocks and steel balls. However, milder reports also arose, one only mentioning "tossing rocks." The police soon after declared the gathering an unlawful assembly, switch off the electrical supply, interrupting performing band Ozomatli, and informed the protestors that they had 15 minutes to disperse on pain of arrest. Some of the protesters remained, however, including two young men who climbed the fence and waved black flags, who were subsequently shot in the face with pepper spray. Police then forcibly dispersed the crowd, using tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. At least six people were arrested in the incident.
The police faced severe and broad criticism for their reaction, with an American Civil Liberties Union spokesperson saying that it was "nothing less than an orchestrated police riot." Several primary witnesses reported unnecessarily violent actions and police abuses, including firing on reporters, lawyers and people obeying police commands. Protesters were trapped between police fronts and some were beaten by police while trying to obey commands. At one point, four young men were repeatedly beaten by mounted police while trapped against a wall. Police responded that their response was "outstanding" and "clearly disciplined."
Footage of the protest and ensuing violence, along with an MTV News report on the incident, was included in the Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium DVD.
Read more about this topic: 2000 Democratic National Convention Protest Activity
Famous quotes containing the words rage against, rage, machine and/or concert:
“Rage against the world, if you like, but quietly, or the Guardians will awake.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The intelligence suffers today automatically in consequence of the attack on all authority, advantage, or privilege. These things are not done away with, it is needless to say, but numerous scapegoats are made of the less politically powerful, to satisfy the egalitarian rage awakened.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“The momentary charge at Balaklava, in obedience to a blundering command, proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has, properly enough, been celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady, and for the most part successful, charge of this man, for some years, against the legions of Slavery, in obedience to an infinitely higher command, is as much more memorable than that as an intelligent and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you think that that will go unsung?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Science is unflinchingly deterministic, and it has begun to force its determinism into morals. On some shining tomorrow a psychoanalyst may be put into the box to prove that perjury is simply a compulsion neurosis, like beating time with the foot at a concert or counting the lampposts along the highway.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)