Brett speaking only for myself I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this proper precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.

That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts group but is focued rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the US to 3rd world dictatorships like China and others plunged tens of millions of good hard working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.

The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, an ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the US and while we are thankful no on was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights and this makes inconvenience at a ball game irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.

This is in response to some hack reporter bitching about the protests "disrupting commerce" causing a few traffic jams.

IIRC, his father was a labor lawyer, so he is well versed in the struggle

IIRC, his father was a labor lawyer, so he is well versed in the struggle

Yeah, Peter was the only owner who wouldn't play scabs during the strike. He's done a lot of good and a lot of bad.

Go on...

There was a time, and it wasn't too long ago, that Peter Angelos was a great man. In many ways—ways perhaps more important than baseball—he still is.

He was born on the last Independence Day of the Roaring Twenties and grew up during the Depression. The son of Greek immigrants and a few years too young for the Second World War, he made his way through college and then the University of Baltimore Law School. He began his career as a trial lawyer in criminal defense, where he remained for a time; in 1961, he founded the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos. Immediately his eye turned to Baltimore's labor unions; from the early 1960s through the 1980s, his firm represented Baltimore's steelworkers and longshoremen against company owners and the city itself. Then, in the 1980s, like just about every savvy activist attorney with an established private practice, he embraced the class action lawsuit.

Never forget that the reason Peter Angelos owns a baseball team in 2011 is because he helped make asbestos a household word in Maryland in the 1990s, when a series of suits on behalf of Baltimore workers were consolidated. When a Circuit Court jury ruled that manufacturers knew their product was a slow killer and had sold it to the city's manufacturing base anyway, Angelos not only became a rich man but a hero. He was the man whose firm represented unions and tradesmen, whose landmark litigation punished one of the most negligent and in many cases actively malevolent industries in the country.

Angelos didn't stop at asbestos: his firm later pursued class actions against tobacco companies, as well as pharmaceutical giants that knew their diet pills were dangerous. He was and remains a generous philanthropist, a staunch, lifelong contributor to the Democratic Party—both tremendous positives in the city of Baltimore—and by the mid-1990s, he was the owner of the Baltimore Orioles.

There's no need to unduly canonize Angelos; after all, these cases did make him wealthy. But in a country where many of the men and occasional women who own professional sports teams do so either from inheritances or their more-than-occasionally dubious careers in the world of finance, a man whose wealth has a legitimate background in social justice is something to be recognized and applauded. And when Angelos bought the team, he seemed precisely the sort of owner with the money and the interest to keep them relevant for years to come. He seemed perfect.

For a time, he was. Angelos' ownership group, himself the controlling partner, bought the Orioles from Eli Jacobs in 1993. That year, the Orioles were 17th in the league in payroll—a shade under $30 million. In 1994, 10th ($38.7 million). In 1995 they were second overall at $48.7 million, $10 million behind the New York Yankees. They would remain in second behind New York until 1998, when they outspent the New York Yankees and the rest of Major League Baseball. Their payroll? $74,170,921.

Their record? 79-83. They have not had a winning season since.

Ahh that makes sense then. The second paragraph where he goes on about jobs being shipped to China made me wonder. He's gonna hate the upcoming trade agreements with the Pacific nations and Europe.

This is in response to some hack reporter bitching about the protests "disrupting commerce" causing a few traffic jams.