Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I keep hearing people say things like, "If you lived in China you wouldn't even know these things are happening!"
SO?
Are the citizens of Minneapolis rallying to march on the police station, level it, and reestablish the rule of law? That's what's called for here.
Instead what's going to happen is that a few yippies on Salon will bitch a lot and things will go on as they were. Except that I may end up on some watch list for pointing out that the police should not be used as the private army of one political party.
Sounds like those anti-war, anti-gun, 1st, 2nd, 5th, 10th Ammendment-loving troublemakers had it coming.
That'll learn 'em all to choose to live near Minneapolis. especially when it's been advertised for four years the GOPers were heading to town.
Based on this report, it sounds like the Liberty Cops were just doin' their jobs.
is that everyone wasn't rounded up, taken away, and shot, or put in concentration camps.
Other than that, yes, police-state tactics. I hope those kids sue the shit out of the police, and the state, and collect some nice money, and a few people lose their jobs. That'd help.
As a resident of Minnesota, I have watched with revulsion—and as a teacher, been directly affected in the college classroom—as "nice guy" Tim Pawlenty swept into office on a tax-hating agenda that disgraces our state's longstanding, liberal tradition of social legislation. Then he starts posing for the cameras. Then he send in the storm troops. My god. This is deeply terrifying.
Think about this. In the United Stated, the press and the even some courts are piping up regularly against the past eight years' accumulating police statism. Does that mean that we're safe from rightist takeovers like those that have devastated other countries over the past century? Hell, no. As long as the ACLU, Salon.com, MoveOn.org, and even fitful Supreme Court rulings can maintain the appearance that democratic and Constitutional protections still function, GOP governments will let them make harmless noises until the strategic moment arrives to arrest them. By then Dick Cheney will be Attorney General.
If municipal and state police in Minnesota can terrorize and arrest "hippies," search their houses without plausible cause (never mind that they somehow obtained a warrant, that's another story, probably a story of judicial abuse), and steal their belongings, what do you imagine will protect, say, Glenn Greenwald two years or twenty years from now? Choose from...
1. His higher public profile
2. The law
3. Nothing
And what about each reader here? What about each citizen whom the government wants to keep away from the Fox newsbite cameras? What will save you? Choose from...
3. Nothing
Why several prominent left-wing news outlets have been giving such prominent coverage of the "Recreate 68" disruption campaign for the Democratic Convention...
But almost no coverage of the Republican convention? There is no "Recreate 68" for the Republican convention, is there?
No Minneapolis area activists have been prominently featured on Democracy Now, have they?
Let's take a look at the recent history of convention coverage at Democracy Now - there is a certain bias here:
* April 21, 2008: Recreate ’68: Democrats to Face Protests in Denver at Democratic National Convention
* June 18, 2008: Ralph Nader on Barack Obama: ‘It is Quite Clear He is a Corporate Candidate from A to Z’
* June 18, 2008: Denver Police Stock up on Pepper Spray Guns Ahead of DNC
* June 30, 2008: ACLU Sues Denver for Security Equipment Details Ahead of DNC
* August 01, 2008: Colorado “Fusion Center” to Step Up Intelligence Gathering During DNC; US Northern Command to Play Role
* August 25, 2008: Massive Security Operation Mobilized for DNC,
* August 25, 2008: Antiwar Activists Take to the Streets to “Defend Denver”
Okay, so that is Amy Goodman and Democracy Now's coverage of the Democratic National Convention in the leadup to the vote. There is almost zero coverage of the RNC (see below).
Let's note here that in 1968, the party that had been in power for the past eight years, and which had been in charge of the Vietnam "military action", was the Democratic Party. Today, it is the Republican Party that has led the modern version of Vietnam, and so any "Recreate 68 campaign" should have targeted the Republican Party, right?
Not a topic of discussion on Democracy Now. You can see Amy's promotional piece for Recreate 68 here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/21/recreate_68_democrats_to_face_protests
Here's how you find out about news bias. Go to Google and type in:
site:www.democracynow.org/2008 minneapolis rnc
(26 hits)
and then:
site:www.democracynow.org/2008 denver dnc
(606 hits)
Try it. Read the headlines. Apparently, there is no "fusion center" set up to target activists at the RNC - just those at the DNC. Iraq Veterans Against the War will not be at the Republican convention, or at least that's what you'd infer from Amy Goodman's coverage.
Now, I know everyone loves Amy Goodman, but you might want to ask her where her $4 million dollar a year budget comes from. It comes from secretive non-profit foundations, and Amy Goodman doesn't have to report them because DN! is a non-profit foundation itself.
However, if you look at the history of "independent news outlets" in the U.S., you see people like George Seldes scrambling for cash. You didn't see giant private foundations funding the independent press during the Vietnam War - but you did see the FBI set up around a dozen fake "underground press outlets" during that time, according to the Congressional investigations of the 1970s.
The RNC is due to start MONDAY - but it hasn't been a major topic of interest or discussion among the prominent non-profit foundation-funded left-wing outlets... instead, we see Nader-boosting and yellow journalism that is clearly targeting the Democratic Party...
And, like the rest of the U.S. media, Amy Goodman has dropped the anthrax story - although she did run a bunch of poorly supported accusations by WSJ reporter Ron Susskind about some mysterious CIA-forged letter that no one has ever seen (or ever will, apparently), instead.
Someone want to tell me why that is? Maybe some of these left-wing heroes are really serving an entirely different agenda.
It's not like similar things haven't happened before, back when Cheney and Rumsfeld were working around the clock... in the Nixon Administration.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
