Ventura County Activists Join L.A. Fray

Vicki Wilson spent her first day off in two years in a sea of screaming protesters, surrounded by battle-ready police officers under a broiling summer sun.

To her right marched anarchists, clad in heavy black sweaters and knit facemasks; to her left, demonstrators shouted for the rights of the Uwa people of Colombia.

“It’s pretty wacky,” the Ventura woman said with a shrug. “But at least someone is saying something. Most people sleep through all this.”

As she spoke, a chorus rose up: “Gore profits from indigenous blood!”

Wilson, a 38-year-old Green Party member, hoisted a sign that read “Let Nader Debate.”

“I owe it to my daughter and her kids,” said Wilson, who owns a legal document service.

“What are we going to leave them?”

It was this frustration that led her to the streets of Los Angeles on Monday to protest at the Democratic National Convention going on at Staples Center.

Wilson said her activism started back on the day she took her daughter to sit on Santa’s lap.

“I thought he would give her a candy cane, but he gave her a box of prepackaged cereal,” she said. “Even Santa’s lap is not sacred.”

No one could accuse law enforcement of being passive on the first day of the convention.

Police in sunglasses, helmets and blue jumpsuits lined the protest routes with batons pointed outward, ready to repel anyone who crossed their line. As the protesters walked, police ran alongside, making sure they didn’t head for any unauthorized streets.

Helicopters roared overhead, adding their thwack-thwack-thwack to the constant symphony of sirens and shouted police commands.

Stuart Bechman of Simi Valley marched under the American Atheists banner.

“Their religion, our money, no way!” the sign said.

Bechman, in khaki shorts and hat, seemed pleased with the crowd.

“This is going great so far,” he said.

There were some glitches. During a demonstration against corporate greed, protesters began to protest each other.

An entire march stopped while one protester--whose horse-drawn wagon had stopped in front of the Wells Fargo building--assured some animal-rights activists that the horses were fine, despite the heat.

Two activists in pink pig outfits looked on with concern before moving on to protest elsewhere.

About a mile away in the heart of Pico-Union, a mostly Latino neighborhood with many Central American residents, Kevin Rudiger, 27, of Simi Valley showed reporters around the Convergence Center.

It’s Rudiger’s job to show the media what the protesters are up to and urge them to cover issues rather than conflict between police and demonstrators.

The center, an old warehouse once used for swap meets, is the protesters’ nerve center, where signs are painted, giant puppets created and messages exchanged.

“We had heard the night before that this place was going to be raided,” said Rudiger, as he walked past a crowd of anarchists lounging on the floor upstairs. “Some police think the puppets can be used as weapons. In Philadelphia, they had a special puppet-crushing machine.”

Puppets were indeed everywhere during the protests--huge, lifelike creations with green faces and various parts bobbing and weaving with the pull of a string. “We have some people here who are really puppet masters,” said Rudiger, who is studying urban planning at UCLA.

The center serves a vegetarian meal three times a day and has a clinic upstairs.

Rudiger said he got involved in politics as a Simi Valley High School student during the Gulf War. His views, he said, are not especially radical. He said a fraction of the population shouldn’t control the vast majority of the wealth, that corporations should not be able to buy influence in politics, and that citizens should enjoy universal health care.

“I don’t think many people in Simi Valley would disagree with that,” he said.