It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that the self-described peaceful protesters of Re-create 68 don’t seem so peaceful anymore.
Frankly, we had hoped for better from them.
After losing their bid for coveted Civic Center park space in a lottery process Thursday, one of the group’s lead organizers vowed to gather there anyway on the night before the Democratic National Convention and wreak havoc in the process.
The group spent a year making nice with city officials and asking to be dealt with in a civil fashion. Then they treated the entire process with a disturbing lack of respect.
It’s a shame that the group has come to embody the hypocrisy it has so vitriolically attacked.
People affiliated with Re-create 68 packed a city-sponsored lottery for park space with entries under various names, hoping to guarantee that they’d be the only ones to use Civic Center on the Sunday before the convention.
The permit instead went to the convention host committee in a blind drawing. The committee had submitted only one application for that date. It was a karmic kick in the pants, and Re-create 68 organizers didn’t handle it like grownups.
Glenn Spagnuolo, a lead organizer for the group, said protesters, which he predicts will number 50,000, will gather at the central Denver park anyway.
He said there would have to be massive security at the park and the Pepsi Center, where the convention is taking place. That sounds like a threat.
It’s not as if Re-create 68 was shut out in the drawing, held by city officials trying their best to ensure park space would be fairly doled out.
People affiliated with Re-create 68 won permits for Civic Center for two days during the convention. They got permits for eight of the 12 parks in the lottery, including several consecutive days at Skyline Park.
Other interests got Civic Center permits that week, including those who want to put on a prayer service, and an artist who wants to display giant photographs of people in Iran.
Somehow, the Re-create 68 organizers think their right to express themselves is somehow more important than that of others, and that’s just wrong.
They are planning to ask the host committee to share space at the park that day. It’s strange that they’re at once asking for an accommodation and threatening to overrun the park.
Re-create 68 has spent considerable time trying to dissuade people that the group is not trying to recreate the bloody violence of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Yet Spagnuolo offered this up when the lottery was finished: “They’re creating a very dangerous situation. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
No, Mr. Spagnuolo, you should be ashamed of yourself and the dangerous situation you are creating by refusing to accept that others were awarded access to that park. Their voices are important, too.
