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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/conventions/27680814.html?page=2&c=y
In a sign of what may be to come, St. Paul police made two RNC-related arrests at an encampment set up by anti-poverty protesters on Harriet Island on Thursday night. About 60 officers -- half from the mobile field force -- closed in on the encampment, which protesters had dubbed "Bushville."
Sounds like Hooverville... not something they want on the news, a bunch of poor people protesting Bush right as the economy is tanking.
Asked whether the show of strength was justified, Chief John Harrington said Friday, "Oh, absolutely." At one point, he said, police counted about 40 protesters in the park. Then, he said, word came that more people might join the protesters' cause.
Lord forbid that poor people should be allowed to come out in the street and protest Bush policies - but wait, they were on an island. Not exactly getting in anyone's way, were they?
Just a bad image.
Get on over to Harriet Island and get us some footage, Glenn! That's what they're paying you for - so get on it.
You're doing a great job! Just keep it up!
I was referring, in part, to another poster who asked how the American people could tolerate the fascist Bush regime and why weren't they out marching in the streets. My response is below. I was thinking of all the people who elected Bush twice and who really don't understand what this government is or what it's capable of. The ones who still think some students from Hamburg did 9/11 and that Bruce Ivins sent the anthrax letters or that Saddam Hussein did or that Iraq was invaded because of 9/11 or that Afghanistan was. They've responded to my posts often enough with ignorance and venom because they really don't want to know the truth. Most of them don't know what happened in 1968 or if they ever did they've forgotten or they thought those 'dirty hippies' got exactly what they deserved. These people don't understand that Bush and Cheney in just eight short years have turned America into a police state and they certainly don't understand the dangers it poses to them, personally.A good example is the Australian twenty something who flew to America to meet up with an American girl he'd met online. For no reason whatsoever he was targeted at the airport, questioned, handcuffed and deported. He's now banned from entering America. I want you to understand: this man had done nothing. He had committed no crime. He was not armed. He was no danger to anyone and yet the police had the power to arrest him and deport him and to ban him from entering America again. There are plenty of people posting on salon, not to progress debate but to air their prejudices and muddy the waters who would refuse to believe this story. I realize that telling those people the truth may be a waste of time but if you don't have an attachment to the truth and believe things can get better then you're caught up in the politics of despair. I wasn't trying to be a smarty pants. I see what's happening in America as a virus that can spread to the whole of western democracy. Some astute commentators would say it's already begun and judging by all the Americans who responded on the internet to the Australian man's story saying similar things had happened to them, change is not only needed it's urgent.
remember remember the 5th of November
Why aren't they out marching in the streets? Well, I don't know if you recall the protests in 1968 (something else Condi failed to mention in her rambling, incoherent speech about Russian invasions)where the police beat protestors to a pulp?
Or the anti-Vietnam rally where the police savagely beat the guy who wrote 'Born on the Fourth of July'- a Vietnam vet. He was in a wheelchair and the police only showed some shame when they stripped him at the police station and saw he was wearing a catheter because what happened to him in Vietnam meant he had no bladder control as well as no ability to walk or to defend himself in any way. A bit like a Guantanamo detainee. America will move up a notch as a police state if McCain gets into the White House. Your country is in grave danger- and not from the people they've got locked up in Guantanamo. You called it what it is -fascism.
Friday, August 22, 2008 02:06 PM
the cops (and FBI and homeland security etc.) have their job, their mission and part of that job is to not only protect the public, but also to protect the fine folks at Food not Bombs...
I am NOT saying that these raids were or were not "justified" and, yes, in these times generally, and wrt security for elected officials and political conventions and what any unstopped incident would mean to one's VERY PERSONAL CAREER, be it judge or sheriff or cop, there likely has never been an easier time to get that "get-out-of-jail-free" that-guy-signed-off-on-this-raid warrant.
If there were stinky jurisdictional tresspasses and transgressions... man .... what dorks... what idiots... what Rambos! Too stupid to live.
I am not assuming that everyone targeted and arrested is with this group. I am saying that anyone stupid enough to be affiliated with the RNC Welcoming Committee should expect this kind of treatment - not deserve - expect. The RNCWC is clearly not just planning a nonviolent human blockade. They intend to create chaos and disrupt the ability for this convention to be held. The state is not going to tolerate that.
Yes, these home invasions are repulsive. Absolutely unacceptable. No advocacy group or other protester should be detained or arrested for any reason other than intentional violence.
The police actions are understandable only if the group targeted is this RNC Welcoming Committee in the context of what they advertise are their goals on their website. That is only understandable in that they advertise a plan that obviously will entail violence. Anyone affiliated with that group should expect in a post-9/11 environment an excessively robust police response as a matter of fact that this is just the way our government now functions.
It is extremely dissappointing and unacceptable that the lives of nonviolent protesters are affected by the outlandish efforts of a bunch of fake revolutionaries like the RNCWC and the now to be expected excessively robust response of the police state.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
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Salon headlines in your mailbox
