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By David Drucker

Daily Bruin Contributor

The final 50 Democratic National Convention protesters were released from jail Aug. 21, ending one of the most anticipated weeks of civil unrest in recent Los Angeles history.

Though the DNC was contentious on each side of the police-barricade, both political protesters and city officials have claimed a victory of sorts.

“Mass protests are usually not the vehicle for change, it’s usually the organizing before and after,” Brian Rudiger, UCLA Class of 2000 and a member of Direct Action Network said.

DAN was a co-plaintiff in the American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that forced the L.A. Police Department to redraw its security plans and include a designated protest zone directly across the street from Staple Center.

Rudiger said that a slightly empty protest pit during the majority of the DNC did not indicate failure.

“Are you bringing people into the movement? Are you politicizing them? In this context we accomplished our goal,” he said.

L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan’s Press Secretary Peter Hidalgo also claimed success. He brushed aside reports that the convention was an undue hassle for local businesses and a net economic loss for the city.

Hidalgo fully expects the final tally to show that the city’s economy received a $132 million infusion because of the DNC.

“The numbers aren’t in yet, but we feel they will support this estimate,” Hidalgo said. “As far as the Mayor’s concerned, the convention was a huge success for the city,” Hidalgo added.

This post-DNC analysis comes just a little under a week after Vice President Al Gore’s nomination pledge to fight for the “people” against a myriad of “powerful forces.”

But like the protesters who converged on L.A. to voice their vision of the future, Gore has also left, ceding the streets back to the people who live there.

Ironically, it’s these people who, in some cases, felt the most ignored, despite the presence of so many who claimed to be fighting on their behalf.

Among the disappointed, homeless activist Ted Hayes had his city-approved march and candlelight vigil, planned for the last day of the DNC, cancelled because the LAPD feared the anarchist “Black Block” would compromise the group’s safety,

“We are the disadvantaged, and these people do not speak for us; we speak for ourselves,” said Hayes, who lives a few blocks from Staples Center in Dome Village, a homeless shelter he co-founded and oversees.

“These protesters assume that law enforcement, or property owners, or wealthy people, are always wrong when there’s a conflict, and that’s not true,” Hayes added.

“They also assume that the so-called oppressed people are always right, and that’s not true either.”

But Rudiger said that protest organizers did consider the effect their actions would have on the localities in which they were taking place.

“There was a serious awareness of how our actions were going to affect the communities in which they were taking place,” he said. “ I appreciate Ted’s (Hayes) comments, and think there has to be an awareness among organizers to be grounded in the areas in which their protests occur.”

And despite the media attention granted the anarchists, Deputy L.A. City Attorney Howard Gluck, UCLA ’75, found the cadre of demonstrators he negotiated with – none of whom accounted for the infamous “Black Block” – to be earnest and forthright in their convictions to their causes, albeit lawbreakers.

“They wanted to explain why they were protesting, and were extraordinarily considerate, respectful and articulate,” Gluck said. “These were nonviolent protesters, and I feel that they wouldn’t have allowed violence against the police.”