Word: mace
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...marsh, the main assault never really happens. Instead, there are sudden fence-cutting attempts: Run to the fence with wire cutters, make a few snips and then get back before the uniforms arrive with Mace and clubs. If you're sophisticated, you work in teams--someone holds a tarp against the fence to keep off the Mace, while you cut through it and the fence with bolt snippers. The police don't like the scattered skirmishes--they are caged, turning around to make sure no one is doing anything on the other side, turning their night sticks and batons over...
...least clubs are familiar; you've seen local cops with them. The police see groups massing, they fear a charge at the weakened fence, and out comes the tear gas. Tear gas isn't as personal as Mace--as a matter of fact, clouds of it drift back on the police, who struggle to find their masks. But it is effective, tearing your eyes, stinging your nose, leaving a taste of burned chemical in your mouth. And everyone is shouting, "Walk, Walk," but it's awful hard not to run because this is tear gas. Sporadic fence-cutting continues...
...peaceful march ends Saturday's action, and an inconclusive meeting ends Saturday night. After five hours, you decide to meet at nine the next morning and start from scratch. The basic split is emerging here. Some people want to keep attacking, keep cutting fences. Others don't like Mace, don't like wearing gas masks, fear that real violence may break out. "What did you come here for--to occupy or not?" one man shouts, and people around the circle really wonder...
...have to do something, you decide on another assault, this time through the woods and across a road. It's chaos and no one knows who is going where, and so everyone goes the wrong place, down a suicide alley where the police wait with two cans of Mace apiece. A little fence is cut, a few people even reach the other side, and pretty soon you're retreating backwards, trying to doctor Mace victims and to keep singing and hold hands and walk-not-run, and the police are right behind you. They have their sticks out and they...
...goes on and they move in. One of you gets picked up by a pigtail and tossed. Another, who goes limp, is clubbed until his hand is fractured and he is rolled down the hill. The glasses are ripped off one of you, and your eyes are sprayed with Mace. They kick and they shove and they are strong, and then everybody is retreating and every available water bottle is above somebody's face, and you know there is no way on God's green earth that you'll ever get near the plant. It starts to rain...