“A little rebellion now and then is a good thing,” Thomas Jefferson

In the Summer of 2000, the Democrats brought their National Convention to Los Angeles and my friend Nick and I decided to meet up in the City of the Angels to test out Jefferson’s theory.
Nick was a Ralph Nader supporter that election, and I, a Bush man, found common ground in our desire to experience some civil disobedience first hand. We met up in urine-soaked Pershing Square and walked towards Staples Arena where we found a fenced parking lot officially called the “Protest Area.”
Fringe groups of rabble-rousers, malcontents, misfits, and ne’er-do-wells occupied chunks of asphalt in the parking lot trying to get some political power broker or Democratic head honcho to grease their squeaky wheel. Free Tibeters peacefully hung with both sides of the abortion debate while hackey-sacking playing, Che Guevara-t-shirt wearing hippie wannbes kept their knitted ball airborne to the drum circle’s beat.
Nick carried signs about the corporate take-over of our government, and I considered a contrarian sign that read, “Everything’s Great!” but instead stealthy blended into the crowd underneath a black baseball cap that stated, “No Beer, No Work.”
We strolled around the Protest Area, not trusting anyone over thirty (though we both were). We spotted a group of people wearing bright yellow t-shirts who were beginning to gather for their march. Without asking anyone if we could join in, we just started walking with the group. Unbeknownst to us, we had just joined the LA Bus Riders Union. The group wanted more public transportation in Los Angeles, and we were there to stick it to The Man, so, we too raised our fists in defiance and started chanting with our bus brothers, “Get on the bus, Get on the bus, Get on the bus, and ride with us!”
It was about a twenty minute march up Figueroa and down Flower back to the official protest area where Nick announced to anyone within ear range that he was going on a hunger strike. Not two seconds after he declared his hunger strike the ringing of jingle bells from a popsicle push-cart ended his strike because, after all, it was a hot August afternoon and you get pretty parched exercising your first amendment rights!
On our way back towards Pershing Square we saw some anarchists and animal rights activists break the plate glass window of a fur coat store. The policemen in riot gear chased the vandals through the streets and caught them a few blocks away. As they were being arrested another group of demonstrators who looked like Old West train robbers with bandanas covering their faces, video taped the arrests and loudly chanted, “The whole world is watching!”
We escaped the scene without being maced, beaten, or water-hosed, and returned to the peace and serenity of the suburbs, happy that our friends and family members wouldn’t have to form an organization to “Free The LA 2!”