Recrate 68?

KOA radio gink and Colorado Media Matters' favorite columnist Mike Rosen wrote Friday about would-be Democratic National Convention protesters Recreate68 and its leader (and Transform Columbus Day's token Italian), Glen Spagnuolo:

The Recreate 68 Alliance is a collection of "progressives" (that's a leftist euphemism for ultra-liberal, connoting "progress" on the road to socialism) on whose Web site you'll find a clenched fist logo and all the standard Marxist cliches attacking American capitalism, materialism, imperialism and racism. . . .

One of the protesters and organizers of Recreate 68 is Glenn Spagnuolo of Longmont. That name might be familiar. He's turned radical protesting into a career. A cheerleader for Ward Churchill, he's also a regular at anti-Columbus Day demonstrations, arrested in 2004 for blocking the parade route.

Spagnuolo complains that demonstrators at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston (he was there, too) were confined to a restricted area where they couldn't sufficiently harass delegates. Good. Let's do that in Denver, too. He also claims that the 1968 Chicago convention only turned violent after the police attacked demonstrators. Baloney. Spagnuolo is still wet behind the ears. He wasn't even born in 1968. Yes, the police may have overreacted, but those radical demonstrators were hellbent on violence and did everything they could to provoke the cops, whom they routinely called "pigs" in those days.

This was the era of the "Days of Rage," the Yippies, the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and the Weathermen. Turmoil, anarchy and riots were all part of their game plan. We've seen similar behavior at G-8 and World Trade Organization conferences in cities all over the world. Spagnuolo and his ilk are professional agitators. The last thing I want to do is give them the keys to our fair city.

Our fair city. Game plan. Wet behind the ears. Rosen gets it, but he sure gives it back in cliches. Less work that way. I hear.

Update: How the hell does one render "Recreate-68," anyway? The jerks themselves use "Re-Create 68" (including quotes) or R-68, but they're jerks. I've seen Recreate '68, Recreate 68, Re-create 68, Re-create '68, R68, and the way I've (mostly) rendered it, Recreate68! and R68! (the exclamation point adds pizzazz).

Update II: The cheerleader is George W. Bush, who made time for the activity in between dodging service in Vietnam and keeping Hitler's brain moist and chewy.

Update III: The origin of the word "pizzazz" is unknown. It's not in my 1939 Webster's at all, but it sounds like something Walter Winchell might have come up with (scroll down to "The Blessed Event Room."