12 September 1999

Labor Day Weekend with Bob Greenberg aka Agent Pecan of the Biotic Baking Brigade

black helicopters flew overhead
mists drifted down
the community members developed rashes

once
a reporter from a major minneapolis paper was at the community
when
a plane dispersed mists
the reporter developed a rash

the paper didn't run the story

above sacred Mendota lands
among bur oaks
where the poet wrote the song of hiawatha
a marked statue of that poet stands
amid the rubble of a bulldozed orchard

the freeway will cut five minutes off driving time between downtown minneapolis and the airport

the community members reinforced the walls of the condemned houses with concrete and rebar to
stop the bulldozers
the community members secured themselves in the basements
affixed by the wrist to structures of rebar and concrete
they lay face down

one was secured inside a tripod structure
such that if
the police knocked over the structure
he would be hung

another was dressed as santa claus
he had secured his arm inside a chimney filled with cement
the police emptied tear gas into those unventilated basements

the police came in and sat on the protesters
the police rubbed pepper spray on the community members' faces
until
the community members released themselves into custody

an officer remarked
he had no idea
how many
cans of pepper spray were emptied

the press were held at bay

a professional photographer was there
(who had worked for national geographic)
his camera was knocked to the ground and its film removed

a cameraperson got some footage of a bloodied santa
being escorted to jail
that footage alone made the minneapolis press

this was december 20
1998

bob greenberg says:
pacifism is a pathology of the left