Among the protest puppeteers

Editor's note: Contributing writer Roger Abramson is in Philadelphia
as part of WND's team covering the Republican National Convention.

By Roger Abramson

© 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.

PHILADELPHIA -- They call it "puppet street theater," and a dilapidated,
semi-abandoned warehouse on the corner of 41st and Haverford in West
Philadelphia is where the puppets are made.

Or it was at least, until Tuesday afternoon at 4:30, when the
Philadelphia Police, including members of the SWAT team, surrounded the
building on the ground and in the air with a search warrant to look for
protest materials.

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The police claim to have found many such materials, which went beyond
simple protest puppets, props and signs, including materials for the
so-called "Sleeping Dragon" -- a device that looks like giant novelty
finger-cuffs. Made of an 18-inch length of vinyl pipe, a metal bolt,
and wrapped in duct tape, along with a chain that joins protesters'
hands together, the "Dragon" is very difficult for police to break
apart. It therefore comes in very handy for protesters who want to
block traffic on busy thoroughfares with "people
Chains."

"They were just in there making the puppets. They heard a knock at the
door, opened it, and there were the cops waiting to come in. You could
hear helicopters everywhere," said a woman calling herself Shanta Sena
in an interview with WorldNetDaily.

Sena, who would say only that she was "in town for the convention," was
not among the 75 people inside the warehouse who were eventually
arrested and held at a facility in the center of town at 8th and Race
Streets. She had the good fortune of driving up only as the raid began
and was not inside.

Many of the "puppets" are perhaps best described as "reverse
marionettes." They can be as much as 20 feet tall and are operated by
poles from the ground. They appear at many "Mumia" rallies here; a
ghoulishly dressed "Lady Justice," with "money" on one scale and
"racism" on the other, is one of the most commonly seen.

Some of the protesters themselves dress up in costumes of many sorts;
variations on clowns are particularly popular. The puppeteers claim to
be interested in theatre only.

Yet the protests escalated beyond simple theatre, resulting in almost
300 arrests. Vandalism was particularly prominent. The Philadelphia
Inquirer reported that in the "Love Park" "several hundred protesters"
began a romp at around 5:25 p.m. Tuesday, tearing down red, white and
blue bunting from buildings and burning it in the street. They then
spray-painted public buses, set dumpsters on fire and tossed rocks
through the windshield of a passing limousine.

Other major thoroughfares, including Broad Street, a north-south road
that runs alongside the convention site, were blocked by protesters,
which resulted in a number of scuffles. Even Police Commissioner John
F. Timoney was forced to get involved, suffering mild injuries.

Sena and others connected with the "puppet theatre" would not claim any
affiliation with the more violent protesters, but neither would they
disparage them.

"Look at what the police are doing. They're afraid of puppets!" yelled
one puppeteer yesterday as the city's sanitation and building inspection
department joined the police in cleaning out the building. "Who can
blame people for getting mad at them?"

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Renard Thompson, another individual connected with the theatre, was
particularly distraught as he watched scraps of wood and other
puppet-making materials being shoved into the back of a faded yellow
sanitation truck.

"They're grinding the puppets! They're grinding them," Thompson yelled.

Indeed they were. The truck had been backed into the warehouse, and its
"grinder" -- which operates like a giant garbage disposal -- was running
nonstop, with sanitation workers shoving whole and partially constructed
puppets into the grinder, much like a wood-chipping machine. Over 30
protesters watched the destruction gloomily.

Nevertheless, puppet sawdust may be the least of the protesters'
worries. Their real problem may be that no one can figure out what, if
anything, they are protesting.

Even the editors of the left-leaning "Philadelphia Daily News," which
calls itself "The People Paper," are scratching their heads.

"Who are these people?" began Wednesday's editorial. "But more to the
point: What is this about?"

Calling the protesters the "Mumia Industrial Complex," the Daily News
chides them for having no real message, unless it was "no
self-actualization without incarceration." The Daily News went on to
note that even the troubled Christian Coalition, which was holding its
rally in the downtown Marriott just as the protests were getting
under way, looked organized and ready to promote its message in the
coming election season.

Given the ridiculously aimless nature of the protests, the Daily News
concludes, with no small measure of dissatisfaction, that "it will be
the [Christian Coalition] that decides what democracy will look like."

Regardless, sources in the neighborhood near the puppet factory indicate
that yet another puppet factory exists within a mile or two of the
original one, and that there will be much more to come. The sources
would not elaborate, however.

In the meantime, back at the puppet factory on 41st and Haverford,
another female protester began berating a policeman who had been called
in to assist with crowd control.

"You're a thief!" she yelled, over and over again.

"How can I be a thief?" the officer asked her when she was finally out
of breath.

"Because you're stealing everything. You're stealing the puppets.
You're stealing private property!"

"Oh, well, ma'am, if that's it, then don't worry," the cop said, and
smiled at her with his arms crossed. "There's nothing in there I want
anyway. The sanitation department's destroyed it all."

Roger Abramson is a regular contributor to WorldNetDaily.