If you want to identify funds for bonding purposes, etc., just ask donors to use a particular amount in the "cents."

For example, .29 or .08 or .77 or something like that.

So you think the Israelis have a right to be in Gaza, enforcing the "law"? And have the right to treat the Palestinians or Gazans as eneny combatants?

Sure, if you think so. I must have missed something.

omooex:

I think your attempt to distinguish what the Israeli Occupation Army does to Palestinians from what is going on in St. Paul, about 20-25 miles from where I live, falls flat. I think there aee are parallels which you choose to ignore perhaps because you are unaware of geography. What has happened in St. Paul is that a large number of people, outraged because of what has been done in their name by their goverbnment for the last eight years, sought to exercise their right of free speech and free assembly to demonstrate their contempt and disagreement with that government and those of their fellow citizens who still for some obtuse reasons, abide by the decisions of that government.

The self-same citizens who abided and supported that government and its blatantly illegal, unconstitutional and criminal decisions for the past eight years, have made an arrangement or comntract with the governments of St. Paul, Minneapolis, surrounding areas of Minnesota (where I live) to attack and supporess the demonstrations of free speech and arrest and harass those involved in that effort.

There is no evidence I have heard of that there is any efforts to "overthrow the government" or take any violent actions. The people, really young people and children who have gathered in Minnesota, are not a conspiracy of cocaine dealers or thugs but people, who, like those strikers years ago who assembled in public to protest the unfair working conditions and wages of their employers. Is that a crime?

No, what we have in Minnesota is a concerted effort to suppress and destroy the freedoms which we supposedly celebrate as being our heritage under the US Constitution. The police, FBI and other agencies of "law enforcement" are engaged as we discuss this in an effort to undermine the US Constitution by preventing people from exercising their God given, "inalienable rights". This is fascism. Do you have a better word for it?

Again, when was the last time there was a protest in the U.S. where the protest participants hurt anyone?

Why is it that the police felt they needed to preemptively arrest people - to protect the citizens of Minneapolis from what?

And which book would you suggest, that I should acheive the same level of understanding you have acheived, Not that that's possible, but I can try.

Force is their only mandate. I don't get mad because they violated our civil rights. We don't have any there.

Sorry Oomex for misreading your post. I didn't realise you had a sort of Zen type-a thing going with the Occupation. That's way beyond my pay grade. Carry on, I'm just getting over-excited.

When was the last time there was a protest in the U.S. where participants "were armed, with the intent of causing harm to civilians?" It seems to me that this myth of the "violent protest" has been trotted out so often that even you, at some level, seem to be buying it. Has anyone - other than protesters I mean - actually been hurt in a protest lately? (That's a real question, BTW.)

For what it's worth, I couldn't agree with you more that the time of the public protest has come and gone. It's preaching to the choir and turning off everybody else, counterproductive as hell, and dangerous to the participants besides.

-- Paul Daniel Ash

You may be right about armed rioters. I think armed rioters these days ought to be charged with attempted suicide, not so much with rioting.

Seriously, isn't it mostly just a matter of protecting private property, and also maintenance of order for emergency vehicles, personnel and public transport? That kind of thing?

If I were a shop-owner in St. Paul, or the general manager at the Macy's that had an objct thrown through the window, I'd go after anybody I saw destroying my property. I'd probably be calling 911 on the way. But I'd sure as hell go after whoever I saw actively engaged in breaking anything. And if I had thought about it far enough ahead of time, it would probably be with a loaded shotgun.

But of course there are people like the woman in the video that Glenn Geenwald linked. She appered to me to be pushing her flower into the faces of the police at close range, and standing in their way as they attempted to pass. No one struck her or pushed her down. To move her away, an officer sprayed her with pepper spray from what appeared to be about five feet away. And so... what? She was not some little old lady on her way to church. She was a protester, pressing herself into the formation of police. The flower ruse was just that. It would be as if I walked up to Glenn Greenwald in a restaurant, got in his face and pressed a flower into his chest, saying, "Here, Glenn, this is just a flower that the Republicans wanted you to have." And when asked to move away, I just got into his face even more.

Well, let me just say it again, for the record: You two are a couple of dinks, really.

Apparently that's what you have to do, Elephantman. I guess that handle means you're a Republican? I wonder if others on this list can even conceive of having people from the other party as friends, or can conceive of having a debate on the merits, instead of reactionary, paranoid and accusing rants?

And what's up with you Greenwald? I mean, aren't you supposed to be some kind of new, Internet Age sort of reporter? You know what Greenwald, I know people you've gotten stoned with in NYC. Anyway, why would you bum out on some dope from St. Paul posting a description of what he saw and some pictures? Damn, even CNN welcomes that with their stupid iReports. Oops - I bet Kitt's found me out again, that I actually work for the MSM! Oh Fiddlesticks and Fishfur! Unmasked yet again!

Kitt's a dope,

ThePlate