Mick Hartley

That Democratic National Convention protest maybe isn't quite the seismic event we'd been promised. Michael Powell at The Atlantic – The pro-Palestinian “Crashing the Party” event was to the protests of Chicago 1968 what a scouting squad is to an army.

On top of the stairs of Chicago’s elevated Green Line yesterday, I had a fine view of the 13-acre Union Park. I squinted, looking for the promised cauldron of Democratic National Convention protesters, the tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian “Crashing the Party” masses ready to rumble at what was billed by the Democratic Socialists of America on social media as the “event of the season.”

I spotted a clump of protesters around a soundstage. I saw a line snaking toward the porta-potties, and, under distant oak trees, I could see four dozen cops chatting with one another, bicycles at their side. I saw great piles of protest signs upbraiding genocide joe Biden waiting to be picked up by as-yet-unseen protesters. I saw a lot of empty green space….