September 06
2004
» Posted on September 6, 2004 09:39 PM » Category:

...and an equally good story from Johann Hari at Harry's Place.


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Actually this is a question I would have liked to ask Johann directly but comments are closed for this item at Harry's:

It's about this very provocative group he describes that was bothering other demonstrators and baiting police officers. Did they genuinely refer to "the pigs" in that exact phrase? If so I have to wonder if there was some ironic, parodic, or crudely imitative element to this group's behavior. "The pigs" sounds like something a police officer would accuse a demonstrator of saying -- not like something a present-day demonstrator would actually say. That or New Yorkers are just more old-fashioned than demonstrators on the West Coast. I was a legal observer at many demonstrations in the 1990s in California, and while I heard many people chant many things, reaching many different degrees of offensiveness, the nearest I can remember to the use of this stereotyped 1960s phrase "the pigs" is a rhyme in Spanish about "La migra/policia/la misma porqueria," which I remember mainly because of its bad scansion and because of the especially archaic "porqueria" reference. My memory may be off here, but really I can't remember anyone saying "the pigs" in English at any political protest.

Stated by: Martha Bridegam on September 7, 2004 8:03 PM
Stated by: art on April 13, 2006 9:22 PM
Stated by: bundlebox on July 15, 2006 10:52 PM
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