yeah, your lips to god's ear.

Step one, infiltrate non violent protest groups.

Step two, attend protests with non violent protest group.

Step three, become violent.

Step four arrest everyone in group, and let infiltrator slink out the back.

Been done before. I expect much the same is happening now. We know some of the police claims are bogus. Its just hard for some people to not trust the police. Me for instance. Thank goodness this is being video taped by dang near everyone so the truth can come out. At least until they outlaw recording police officers doing "thier jobs"....

Anyway, I wouldn't mind addressing the extent to which I agree or disagree with you on this issue, but as you know, I'm no longer here.

Or is he?

The cops don't need you and man they expect the same. If the cops believe they have lost control of the situation, people will be injured, people will die. We can talk about how "wrong" all this is afterwards.

-- susan sunflower

Just like torture eh Susan? It's all so desperate. We have to do the wrong thing now.. the violent thing if we have to and we can figure it all out later, right? Or like the Iraq "war." We have to go get him now! He is a clear and present danger! Well we have been talking about how wrong all that was too haven't we?

You really need to get a clue. Cops are not present at these events to protect the average citizenry. Go read up on the post Rodney King verdict riots. Read up on how interested the cops were in protecting the average citizens then. Find out where they decided to draw their line and what and who they were really protecting.

No, the police are not at these events in the form and fashion that they are in order to protect people. They are there to protect property and moneyed interests. They are there to flex the state's muscle. And perhaps most insidiously they are there to justify their own existence. Their very presence is a cause and instigator of tension, anger and potential violence. Not everyone is as unfailingly obedient as you. Not everyone takes kindly to being told where they can stand or walk or talk or what they can say or how they can say it.

That's just fine with the cops of course. After all how can they get more authoritarian money for their departments if they are not really needed? A certain amount of skull cracking is necessary in order to justify those nice new shiny assault rifles and pieces of riot gear. So, they create these crazy anti-American laws like "obstruction" where they are the sole arbiters of what that means. They create these ever more stringent "laws" and rules so that a journalist camera-woman can now be labeled a threat because she was in a certain area and she was filming them.... obstructionist!

You starting to get the picture?

to be an American if this police state is what we represent.

Thank you, Glenn, Amy Goodman, Matt Stoltz, and all the true journalists risking themselves to report this truly disturbing repression.

Keep sounding the alarm!

Hey glenn, I was wondering if you were outraged at another example of the dismantling of our constitution.

The democrats released Sarah Palins SSN.

Can we trust them to treat us any better?

http://www.redstate.com/diaries/redstate/2008/sep/02/breaking-democrats-release-sarah-palins-soc/

cops are there because it is their job ... they don't set the rules of engagement ... they don't chose the "threat level" ... in special circumstances, they don't even get to opt out. They are also cogs in the wheel, pawns in the game ... and some even get to live in the communities they police.

yes, it's "above their paygrade" ... and, again, yes, the folks above them are more interested protecting the local Macys (employer, tax payer) and the rest of the monied status quo.

The cop on the street has little to no control ... he or she wants to do a "good job" and go home sooner rather than later.

Oh, and much of our civilian population is on the side of that status quo maintaining... even folks who aren't rich... they believe all those scare tactics (and they aren't impressed by folks telling them what sheep they are).

Yeah, it feels great to demonize the cops ...

I am, quite seriously, very concerned about vigilantism... Those militia types didn't "eat shit and die" 10 years ago... They are prepared. Are you?

If domestic security deteriorates, we'll move beyond soccer moms with concealed weapons in the glove compartment... actually we already have, see Blackwater and all the other independent security companies.

It's already here. Read Thomas Frank's latest ... and weep

(good except at Common Dreams a few weeks back)

Let's hope not. Didn't the bosom buddies quit UT in somewhat of a huff, primarily because Glenn wasn't sufficiently toeing the "Democrats and Obama are the savior" party line? That's what I recall anyway. While Timberman is, in my estimation, much more of a true "bleeding heart liberal" than the authoritarian centrist LWM and he probably doesn't completely agree with some LWM's most recent idiocy, they are still two old coots in cahoot pushing the party line. Which is probably why Timberman didn't want to post his thoughts on this particular issue and would rather do a private email exchange. Even he realizes that LWM is making a fool out of himself and driving people away from the Democrats.

There is no frame that justifies it so quit trying.

Really, I think we can all agree that in order to judge this situation, we need much more information. What happened before? Why did the police feel the need to clear that area? had there been any protester illegality (property damage, object throwing, etc.) before? -- Elephantman

No we can't and don't agree. You judged the situation before you even saw the video and now you are trying to cover your idiocy. The only people that might agree with you are people like LWM and Shooter and the rest of the authoritarian trash.

She wasn't doing anything but filming. Nothing. It doesn't matter what anyone else did around her. She did nothing. She was bullrushed, knocked to the ground, bloodied, dragged, cuffed and taken away against her will. In other words she was assaulted and kidnapped. Period.

What do we normally do with predators who assault and kidnap people?

-- adnoto

This is why much of America hates the left. You've seen two videos, neither of which depict the main acts in question: (A) the activities that led to the police moving to clear the area where Salazar was, and (B) the activity that Amy Goodman undertook to attempt to "free" her two producers.

An yet, even without that information, and having heard nothing from the police (they don't have blogs, and they don't routinely post their videos on YouTube) you have concluded that the police are "predators who assault and kidnap people."

You say "she wasn't doing anything but filming." You know, you might be right. But that doesn't give her the privilege to disobey a police order to clear the area. Sorry, but if you were "just filming" at a crime scene or a fire scene or a riot or in the path of an emergency vehicle or in about a thousand other circumstances, I'd expect that the police would have the legal right to clear the area and to arrest persons who resisted the orders. Did that escape your attention? I get the impression that what is happennig in the Twin Cities is a kind of game, to see how much disruption can be caused, just because those damn Republicans are so hateful. And of course that is the good fight. Once again, Republican policy is somehow criminalized, in order to justify, in this case, civil disobedience.