In MN, Massive Police Raids On Suspected Protestors 961
X0563511 alerts us to events in Minneapolis and St. Paul in advance of the Republican convention (which has been put on hold because of Hurricane Gustav). Local police backed by the FBI raided a number of homes and public buildings and confiscated computers and other material. From Salon.com: "Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than 'fire code violations,' and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying. Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning — one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided." Here is local reporting from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "Aided by informants planted in protest groups, authorities raided at least six buildings across St. Paul and Minneapolis to stop an 'anarchist' plan to disrupt this week's Republican National Convention. From Friday night through Saturday afternoon, officers surrounded houses, broke down doors, handcuffed scores of people and confiscated suspected tools of civil disobedience ... A St. Paul City Council member described it as excessive, while activists, many of whom were detained and then released without charges, called it intimidation designed to quash free speech."
Oblig. (Score:5, Insightful)
FUCK THE POLICE!
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Informative)
If only it were the police; it looks like the FBI may be involved as well http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/index.html [salon.com]
For the sake of the country, the people responsible for these raids must be fired (and very possibly sent to prison) for this. This is utterly unacceptable.
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Insightful)
For the sake of the country, the people responsible for these raids must be fired (and very possibly sent to prison) for this
If you think that will actually happen, can I have some of what you are smoking?
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
Don't give him any, he's a mole!
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oblig. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's especially bad when you realize that this story is just more Republican bashing. Why? Because this is Standard Operating Procedure for police.
Boston police arrest dozens before annual festival [boston.com] - in an effort to prevent disorder before some local festival, the Boston police arrested dozens of suspected trouble makers for the explicit purpose of keeping them in jail for the duration of the festival.
Needless to say, the same type of thing happened before the DNC [tampabay.com], too.
So this is just more Republican bashing, in that the only reason it's news isn't that it happens, because it's routine, it's because it's happening for a Republican event.
Note I'm not saying that it's OK because Democrats do it too - I'm saying that this type of thing happens all the time and almost no one bothers reporting it. It's wrong, no matter who does it, Republican or Democrat.
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Insightful)
Denver police went to a house that had been rented by the protest group Unconventional Denver as a convergence center, and despite seeing no illegal activity, two protesters were arrested, with one reportedly slammed on his head during the arrest.
Sorry no comparison.
Re:Oblig. (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? They are involved in all of it, not just at the RNC. They messed with people at the DNC, too, documented here [infoshop.org], and here [recreate68.com], and here [indybay.org].
The point being that they do this everywhere (with the FBI and other armed bureaucracies involved). So it's the same thing they always do. They aren't doing anything "special" for the RNC.
Re:Oblig. (Score:4, Insightful)
I really hate to break it to you but yes the state or your nation is generally bound to the competence or incompetence of your current administration. When crap like this occurs and they say nothing, then they are complicit. Of course not to throw all the blame upon the republican administration, although as the 'Administration' it is largely their responsibility but a share would also have to go to the US congress and Senate for failure to investigate these and similar abuses of justice.
The catch with it all in the US system, is most of the egregious behaviour falls to the State Governor to ensure the principles of law and justice are adhered to within the state excluding of course the political involvement of the FBI which is of course a federal abuse.
Of course your post has a clear political bias which manages to equate questionable arrests at public venues when people are attempting to express the political opinions, to pre-emptive raids in suburban neighbourhoods, complete with the blatant theft of computers and personal property (when the warrant is so clearly bull shit it is theft) added, to that the extreme danger of no knock, guns drawn warrants with trigger happy law enforcement with emphasis on force, represents to those communities and especially the victims of those raids (in this case they were definitely the victims and the police where clearly displaying criminal behaviour).
So if Republican administrations says nothing about it and gives it the tacit approval, then, yes, they are quite content for the authorities to stomp all over the people's rights. By the same token if the Democrats say nothing or fail to initiate an investigation of these abusive in the proper venue, then they can be painted with the same brush and, to bring it all home, if the typical US citizens fails to do something about it, then you can bloody well expect at lot worse to happen, good luck.
Re:MN governor (Score:5, Insightful)
Your making a mountain out of a mole hill just because coincidence supports your opposition.
I know it is easy and fun to do but your ignoring a lot of things like this isn't the first time something like this has happened. It has happened under Bush, Clinton, and the three presidents before him. It was increased after Reagan was shot and this type of activity was seen as a real threat. When a cop car was torched in California, they became a lot more proactive then reactive. Taking ancillary information and attempting to pursue a point of grand conspiracy is often what makes conspiracy nuts look like the NUT case that lends their name.
The bottom line is that cops-officials were able to infiltrate these groups and after learning of intended wrong doing, they waited until they started putting plans together and swooped in. It doesn't really matter who the part in power it or who the governor is at this point. Someone's right to protest does not include the ability to disrupt an event or cause physical damage to anyone or their property. "or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." does not infer damaging someone's property or attempting to take their free speech away. Something I have never understood is when people claim the speech is such a protected point that they have the right to stop others from using it. The constitution clearly says that no rights inferred or protected by the constitution shall be used to deny others of their rights of the same. But somehow, these groups manage to think their right to free speech means they have a right to stop someone else from their speech and when they are stopped in their tracks, they have people like you buffaloed into thinking some grievous infringement has occurred. It's simply amazing.
Re:Oblig. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Instead of blaming the Republicans, these widespread police state tactics should be blamed on whatever fuckwit party is currently running the oountry.
Republican bashing??? It's ILLEGAL!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
What the hell is wrong with you?
Re:Republican bashing??? It's ILLEGAL!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're a dumbass. The OP clearly said he thought it was wrong regardless of who was doing it.
He was merely pointing out that somebody is pushing an agenda. The story submitter could have just as easily linked to *both* stories about illegal arrests before both conventions. Instead, they linked to the single story and spun it as "look what Republicans are doing."
Re:Republican bashing??? It's ILLEGAL!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who RTFA would see the author's observation that "...Denver was the site of several quite ugly incidents where law enforcement acted on behalf of Democratic Party officials and the corporate elite that funded the Convention to keep the media and protesters from doing anything remotely off-script. But the massive and plainly excessive preemptive police raids in Minnesota are of a different order altogether."
So if the submitter had an agenda to conceal that abuses happened in Denver, he did a crappy job of it.
However, the Denver abuses seem to have been mostly garden-variety police thuggery; these Minnesota raids involved the FBI [salon.com] and included months-long espionage and infiltration. One of the groups specifically targeted is "I-Witness Video", a group that did a great job capturing exposing thuggery and perjury by police during the 2004 Republican convention.
I have some news for you. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention the attitude of the FBI. The FBI, after all, has demonstrably adopted the attitude of the governing administration over the last 8 years. It is to be expected that if the FBI overreact, it will be in regard to the Republican convention, not the Democratic. Thus, bias is built into the system by the very people who complain about the "offenses".
Second, if you really, honestly, wonder why Republicans have been bashed so much lately, maybe you should consider the fact that a great many (a majority, in fact) of the American people are PISSED OFF at the Republican Party over the outrageous botch job they have made of our government over that same 8 years.
Do not misunderstand me! I am NOT a Democrat! But any person who pretends to possess some objectivity about the matter MUST admit that the Republicans have gone a very long way to make a hash out of what used to honestly be a perfectly decent democratic republic form of government. They have botched literally everything: foreign policy; domestic social policy; privacy; "the war on terrorism" (what a joke); "the war on drugs" -- an even bigger joke; fiscal policy; education; the economy; taxes; and the personal freedoms of the citizens of this country. Not ONE of those areas is better off today than it was when Bush took office. Not one. And during most of those 8 years they were IN CONTROL over not only the white house but Congress as well.
THERE IS NO EXCUSE. There is nobody to blame. The Republicans have f*cked things up so badly that I despair of things returning to normal within my lifetime.
Once again: I am not a Democrat, and I do NOT trust Democrats to fix everything. But that has NO bearing on whether the Republicans messed things up. They did. Badly, and big time.
The argument that things have been worse at other times in our history won't wash. All of those things were BETTER, 8 years ago. Period. And the Republicans literally have nobody to blame.
So before you go accusing people of discriminating or acting preferentially against Republicans, you should ask yourself: "Do they have legitimate REASONS for doing what they do?"
You might find, if you are honest with yourself, that the answer is "yes".
Re:I have some news for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
One more time: MOST of these last 8 years, the Republicans were in charge of both the White House and Congress. Trying to say that the Democrats are to blame "too" just doesn't hold water. THEY had the controls; it does not do any good to try to blame someone else.
And despite "rebate" checks, if you are an average American your taxes went UP during this Republican administration, not down.
"Pesonal citizen freedoms have not changed." ??? How do you try to justify this outrageous claim??? I am not the one smoking crack here, dude. It's easy enough to say (as you do more than once) that someone else does not have a clue, but you are supplying no clues of your own. In fact I really don't think it is me who is demonstrating lack of clues here. Please come back and chime in some day, AFTER you have done your research.
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Informative)
For the record, when I submitted this I hadn't gone more than a few paragraphs into the articles, and hadn't realized it was for a Republican event. This wasn't submitted for any sort of bashing, more of an "oh my god people need to know about this" submission.
Nothing is wrong with protesting an event. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem comes in where protesters make a disruption at the event (usually during the middle of a speech). This seems to be an effort to stop that kind of activity.
Where is there any evidence anything illegal was planned? Or is this going to be an "oops, we made a mistake" after the convention is over?
Falcon
Re:Nothing is wrong with protesting an event. (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA: [startribune.com]
I'm not saying it's right to raid their houses and arrest them just for having it, but I'm having a hard time coming up with legal ways to protest using buckets of urine and equipment for disabling buses.
Weird....there are TWO FA's.. (Score:5, Informative)
I was going to accuse you of inaccurate quoting, but now I find (while writing my comment) that there are TWO articles: the one you link to and the one the summary links to, which I checked first. In the article I read first I found this:
Quote
The alleged urine[...] was actually three buckets, two of which contained dirty water used to flush toilets while conserving water. The third was seized from an illegal apartment occupied by someone not connected to the RNC protests. There was no bathroom in the illegal apartment and urine was collected in a bucket.
End quote
I haven't seen anything about coltraps or equipment for disabling buses in that one either. All I found was that
Quote
[The sheriff] displayed a number of the confiscated items: a gun, throwing knives, a bow and arrows, flammable liquids, paint, slingshots, rocks and buckets of urine.
End Quote
I have not enough time to read all of the article you link to (gotta go to work :-( ), but I find this interesting...
To be clear: I quoted from the linked article.
The weird thing is that the article you link to is on first sight
Re:Weird....there are TWO FA's.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gun - Legal (and quite normal) if you have the papers
Knife - Legal (in a private residence)
Bow and arrows - Legal
Flammable liquids - Legal
Paint - Legal
Slingshots - Legal
Rocks - legal
Buckets of Urine - Legal (odd, but Legal)
So they had this stuff in a private residence, all of it legal, and ....
Re:Nothing is wrong with protesting an event. (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA [startribune.com]:
Deputies seized a variety of items that they believed were tools of civil disobedience: a gas mask, bolt cutters, axes, slingshots, homemade "caltrops" for disabling buses, even buckets of urine.
From another article by the same newspaper, the Star-Tribune [startribune.com]:
"The alleged urine, Nestor maintained, was actually three buckets, two of which contained dirty water used to flush toilets while conserving water. The third was seized from an illegal apartment occupied by someone not connected to the RNC protests. There was no bathroom in the illegal apartment and urine was collected in a bucket, Nestor said."
As for the rest you list, when were they made illegal?
I'm not saying it's right to raid their houses and arrest them just for having it, but I'm having a hard time coming up with legal ways to protest using buckets of urine and equipment for disabling buses.
One bucket of urine in an illegally occupied apartment, the occupant of which had nothing to do with the protest group. And again, when was the other stuff made illegal?
Falcon
Re:Nothing is wrong with protesting an event. (Score:4, Interesting)
Molotov cocktails are even more common than most of the other items on the list.
I have all the ingredients in the back seat of my car right now. A few empty glass bottles (used to contain iced coffee), two pints of motor oil (gee, why would anyone carry *that* in their car?), and a couple of old T-shirts that have been sitting in the back seat for a month or two because I never get around to bringing them back inside when I'm home.
According to the videos that have been posted, the search warrants included such things as "cloth, flammable liquids, glass bottles" and "metal, plastic, or cardboard boxes."
The hard part would be to find a house in America that doesn't have all of those in it.
Re:Oblig. (Score:4, Insightful)
These people were sick fucks. Their "tools of civil disobedience" were buckets of urine, flammable liquids, knives, etc. If you have any sympathy for them you are a sick fuck too.
So can we assume that you yourself are not allowed to possess flammable liquids, knives, or urine?
If you were allowed to light a BBQ that uses charcoal (not one of those yuppie gas grills), you'd know that it's mostly done with a flammable liquid.
They had duct tape, too! Auto tires! Chicken wire! A slingshot! Maps! All seized by the vigilant Fearless Fosdicks. Sheer criminal masterminds, obviously. (Good thing it wasn't my house, because I've got all of those things and firearms, too!)
Re:Rock bottom (Score:4, Interesting)
Your comment made me laugh, it really did. Go look at the civil liberties raped over and over by both sides during the American Civil War or during the First World War in the US, then compare/contrast to the current "erosion" of civil liberties.
What has gone on for the last eight years is nothing compared to what happened in the past. How many languages have been outlawed in the last 8 years? None, go back to the teens, the government did the equivalent of making Spanish outlawed when the German language was all but criminalized.
In 1918, these 'anarchists' would be getting deportation hearings right now, even if US citizens or born here.
Re:Rock bottom (Score:5, Funny)
Well they DID ban French fries for a while.
Re:Rock bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, so what you're saying is that because it's not as bad as a century ago, it's OK? There was also a point where not actively following the state's religion would get you killed. That doesn't make today's religious hysteria acceptable, even if it's not as bad relatively speaking (though it seems we're headed back in that direction).
Please get out of the country now, for everyone's sake.
Re:Rock bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm talking about the political and legal history of the United States since 1860. Compared to the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War, the crackdown on civil rights has been tame, compared to the dangerous faced with new asymmetrical weapons and tactics.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because what happened before was worse doesn't make this ok.
Falcon
civil war (Score:5, Interesting)
The US civil war had concentration camps (both sides equally and wretchedly, little to no rations meaning starvation, no clothes or shelter winter or summer,just whatever uniforms they were caught in that soon turned to rags, and that's it, disease was rampant, etc) and a lot of generic genocide involved with it, especially the rape of the south, Sherman burned everything, farms, cities, he didn't care, total war as he went, he burned and hung. And both sides used what weapons they had extensively. The only reason they didn't use poison gas is it wasn't invented yet. The weaponry though was still horrific, and medical care started out with no pain killers and went downhill from there. Causalities, direct battle deaths or later on from injuries and disease, was around 600,000 for a combined around 4.5 million soldiers. For comparison, WW1 - 115,000 US deaths, WW2 400,000.
The US civil war was a *big deal* not to be discounted as some little popgun war.
It's more complex (Score:5, Informative)
The horrible number of casualties were the result of
A) First and foremost, failure to adapt fast enough to new weaponry and tactics. E.g., took an awfully long time to sink in that a rifled gun shoots accurately to IIRC 300m, while against muskets it was reasonably safe to march to 100m and stand tall. (Oh, you could get hit by musket fire too, but, as an officer in the age of muskets put it, only if it was aimed at someone else;) There were years of horrible massacres, where thousands of soldiers were marched in formation to 100m, and then they shot essentially point blank at each other, standing tall and taking the volley.
B) Incompetent charges that ignored the officers' advice and marched some soldiers to slaughter. E.g., Picket's Charge.
C) Essentially, the first attempt in history at having a broad front war. Previously war had been historically a set-piece affair, where two armies would meet, fight, and that was it. E.g., when the Gauls invaded Rome, or Rome smacked Carthage, or whatever other historical war, don't think that they had a front across Italy. It was basically the army of one side vs the army of the other in _one_ point, and that decided the fate of the war. They might leave a detachment behind to besiege some city or whatever, but there was no coordinated effort by multiple armies. The American Civil War was arguably the first where that was even attempted, and it resulted in hideous casualties as essentially there were more battles all over the place and more generals trying to win some glory by breaking the opposite line in some God-forsaken place.
D) Railroads. Unlike previous times in history, it was now trivial to keep reinforcing and resupplying a lot of army. Where previously you'd admit defeat or fortify and wait for reinforcements for a year (see Hannibal), here it became a case where it was possible to throw more soldiers at anything. And they did. With the logical results.
E) Lack of modern medical care. Wars had always been a crappy affair in that aspect. The Minnie ball caused horrible wounds, and there were no antibiotics or even anesthetics.
Additionally:
1. Focusing on _US_ casualties in WW1 and WW2 is rather misleading. The USA took only a minor part in the trench battles of WW1, for example. The finance and industry of the USA played a bigger role in both world wars, than the actual soldiers in the trenches.
For the countries which actually held the line in those wars, the casualties were a lot more horrible. The USSR in WW2, for example, lost ten _million_ soldier and some thirteen _million_ civillians in WW2. Let that sink in a bit, next time the "we won WW2" willy-waving contest comes by. China lost some 4 million soldiers and 16 million civillians, and their contribution to the attrition and over-extending lines of the Japanese should not be overlooked in the Pacific War. On the Axis side, Germany lost 5.5 million soldiers, and almost two million civilians. You don't think you were that good that you fought Germany single-handedly and caused 10 times more casualties than you took, do you? But at any rate, that's what WW2 was really like, for those in the middle of it. There's an estimated 72 million people who died in that war.
In WW1, the Brits took almost 60,000 casualites just in the first day of the Battle of Somme. Almost half of what you took in the whole war. And while I'm too lazy to look up numbers, France almost depleted their manpower to the point where they were out of conscripts for many years after the war. There's a reason for the pacifism and (in the USA isolationism) after the war. Humanity had never seen such carnage before, and was thoroughly shocked.
So writing only the USA casualties for both wars is IMHO highly misleading.
2. Again, the fact that something has happened before, doesn't excuse the present.
The general history of humanity started from ritualized mass-murder and slavery, and we had a long way to gradually become more... civilized. And I don't mean just having TV and Sla
Re:Rock bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
And compared to Joe Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer was a piker at murder. Your point?
I'll also note that WWI and WWII were actual declared wars. We are not in a state of war with any nation at the moment.
More people die from drowning every year than were killed on 9/11; to claim that we face a terrorist danger necessitating that we abandon our civil liberties is ridiculous.
Re:Rock bottom (Score:4, Insightful)
Your comment made me laugh, it really did. Go look at the civil liberties raped over and over by both sides during the American Civil War or during the First World War in the US, then compare/contrast to the current "erosion" of civil liberties.
You're a tool in every sense of the word. It's 'enablers' like you that try to justify every wrongful action. Who cares if it was worse a century ago, who cares if Mexico is worse. The only reason we're better NOW is because we iterated towards a better society.
How exactly is defending this going to make the world a better place? Indifference is the enemy of progress and you're worse. You're a piece of garbage weighted around the ankle of positive change.
Ba'athist Party in Iraq (Score:5, Informative)
The Ba'athist parties are about all thats left of that classical Socialist-Fascism
And guess who supported Saddam and the Ba'athists in Iraq in the 1980s? Republican presidents Reason and Bush Sr. Guess who was on Bush's staff or is now on Jr's staff who helped Saddam? Here are some photos of Rumsfeld and Saddam together [google.com]. They're shaking hand like old pals. At first Secretary of State Cheney also supported Saddam during Bush Sr's term in office. Support for Saddam only ended after he invaded Kuwait who, Saddam had accused of and was later verified, was slant drilling [wikipedia.org] into Iraq to pump Iraqi oil as if it was Kuwaiti oil. Before his invasion of Kuwait Saddam could do no wrong no matter how many people he used chemical weapons against.
Falcon
Re:Rock bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
So aircraft flying into some of the tallest buildings on Earth, and one flying to the largest office building on Earth and leaving 3,000 dead is an "idea"?
No, that isn't a war. That's a CRIME. Like a bank robbery or somebody going off to kill everybody in the local school or church or post office. Like, for that matter, Timothy McVeigh and his buddies. Oh, make no mistake, it was a horrific crime. One even more effective that the Japanese subway gas attacks. I assure you that I take no pleasure in being in the World Trade Center Health Registry, like all the tens of thousands of us who still don't know how much damage those attacks did to us.
But it was not an act of war. Especially since even if we want to blame the Taliban, most of the world's governments, including our own, were loudly proclaiming that they weren't the legitimate government of Afghanistan even before 9/11.
Re:Rock bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
Women still don't get equal pay for equal work
and from the other side, men still pay 25% more on average for medical, life, and auto insurance, and are treated in the media like emotionless "things" to be leeched from and divested in divorces of half their assets as a business.
The sexism cuts both ways.
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Insightful)
this is scarier because of your reaction. if there had been any physical altercation, we'd be hearing about police brutality and terrorism, and we'd be hearing it a lot. but because people (like yourself) are willing to let it get swept under the rug when it's "dirty hippies" getting their voices silenced, the fascists will just continue to erode your rights. not oppression indeed...
Re:Oblig. (Score:4, Insightful)
First off people that pull of the gloves or at least threaten to should always be delt with in a manner that involves a punch in the teeth. That is what these groups do, and they got what they asked for.
Where's your proof any of the protesters threatened anyone with violence?
So what we had here was a bunch of people planning on making an ass of themselves by engaging in criminal/border line criminal behavior
Where's your evidence?
I grow weary of children who cry about how "bad" it's getting when they don't even know how bad it really was before they even came along.
I lived through the '60s and '70s, through COINTELPRO [wikipedia.org], and through Wstergate [wikipedia.org]. Did you or were you too young, not born yet?
Falcon
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the best part of the Greenwald story:
Once Gustav gets here, I'm sure all of this will blow over.
Re:Oblig. (Score:4, Informative)
This is utterly unacceptable.
I agree and I've written to Obama/Biden headquarters (again) to let them know that we citizens are expecting them to give us back the Bill of Rights. Writing here http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/contact/ [barackobama.com] to express our concerns should be more effective than all of us bemoaning the situation on /.
If anyone knows of a site where the GOP candidates are also asking for comments (and having someone read them), please post it also.
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Interesting)
Tonight, I was coming home from a sign painting party for the Campaign for Liberty, here in the Twin Cities. I stopped at Walgreens and saw a police car in the parking lot. It said, "Federal Protective Services" "POLICE" "Department of Homeland Security". I had never heard of this organization before now. There is an article on them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Protective_Service [wikipedia.org]
What I find chilling is the words "Federal" and "POLICE" put together. And this was not any typical FBI-style black unmarked job. It was a police car in every way. Lights and all.
Yes. In eight short years, we have been transitioned into a police state. Mind you, there have been many attempts over the last several decades to in one way or another federalize the local police. These efforts have been resisted by grass roots organizations. Through the Patriot Act, this has now been accomplished. All local police are now arms of the Federal government. And we have bona-fide Federal Police running around.
It Will Only Get Worse. And it does not matter one whit who wins in November. Either candidate will work to extend and consolidate federal power, and further restrict liberty.
Re:Buckets of urine (Score:5, Funny)
unless someone has a better (serious) explanation for the buckets of urine.
Maybe they didn't pay their sewer bill.
Re:Buckets of urine (Score:5, Informative)
unless someone has a better (serious) explanation for the buckets of urine.
Maybe they didn't pay their sewer bill.
There was no toilet in the apartment where the only bucket of urine was found. The other buckets were filled with dirty water, to flush the toilets that were in the building. But they, whoever they is, will turn off water. I live in Minneapolis in an apartment and so far this year we have gotten 3 notices the water will be turned off if the bill is not paid.
Falcon
Re:Buckets of urine (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a house full of people waiting to protest and the toilet backs up, where else are you gonna go?
Also possessing buckets of urine, slingshots, bows 'n arrows, and guns is perfectly legal (or was the gun illegally registered, or otherwise illegal?) Certainly there are plenty of illegal things you can do with all of the above items, but unless there is actual evidence that crimes were to be committed with the items, simply having them isn't a crime.
So at this point it looks like we just have to wait and see what evidence comes to light, including a reasonable explanation of why there were informants in the groups to begin with.
Re:Buckets of urine (Score:5, Informative)
Here's your "better explanation." Not that it will change your thinking in the least.
Also, since when was ownership of a firearm evidence that someone intends to perpetrate a crime? The NRA would like to have a word with you.
Re:Buckets of urine (Score:5, Informative)
The Star-Tribune SUCKS. Can't trust them. I've lived in Twin Cities.
My sources (in MN) say that that most the buckets were gray water and a few were because there was no bathroom (the place was over crowded.) Not to mention there is no crime for pissing in a bucket.
In addition, the Star Trib spends time on the anarchist group when most the raids were OTHER groups that were not anarchist and the paper didn't explain that and left it for the reader to mis-characterize all the other people involved in the raids when most of them were peaceful people gathering on private property.
They were NOT civil to reporters in all situations. Plus in some cases the people they held were the people asserting their constitutional rights. (there no warrants in most cases.)
Plus if you have been following, there were reports of the FBI trying to get students to be informants for them... One student spoke out about it months ago; one wonders what kind of characters volunteer for it-- and how trustworthy they are if they hate these protesters to begin with and that is why the agreed to be a voluntary government spy.
here is another link
http://www.twincities.com/ci_10346122?source=most_viewed [twincities.com]
also (Score:5, Insightful)
And the sheriff's office, and the FBI, and DHS, and ICE, and the mainstream media, and us...
Yep, us too. Every US citizen bears some responsibility. We should demand media coverage of these obvious civil rights violations, these people aren't violent anarchists, they are citizens protesting the government. We should demand a police force that upholds the law instead of subverting it. We should elect the leaders who will do the most to protect our civil rights.
We've been tolerating this kind of behavior since 9/11 out of fear. It's time to admit to ourselves that we overreacted to the events of 9/11 and allowed our government to trash our civil rights in the name of protecting us.
We let fascists take our country from us in the name of making a 'war on terror.'
Vote. Email or write your local, state and federal representatives. Email local and national news. Protest.
Re:also (Score:5, Insightful)
Get a tiny bit of perspective - things have been like this before the Conventions since the '68 DNC Riots. Or did you not notice the guy who was arrested in Denver for checking into a hotel just before the DNC with a couple rifles? No reason to believe he was doing anything wrong, other than having a rifle near a Democrat, but that's the way it goes.
Admittedly, the Secret Service types have to be especially sensitive to the possibility of someone trying to do in Obama. I don't think it'll happen, but that opinion changes from day to day....
Re:also (Score:4, Insightful)
while I agree the country would have it's fair share of racists, there would be other reasons to be proud to fly a confederate flag, when the southern states economy was being sacrificed for the northerns piece of mind, they chose to secede. Basically a 'fuck you for not looking after us too', which is similar to what USA did to the english some time earlier,
lesson learned, try to secede, win and your considered heroes by the population, lose and you'll be cast the villain forever, the victor writes the history.
Re:also (Score:5, Insightful)
My reference material is all at home, or I could provide citations here -- but prior to later (early-1900s) revisionism of its teaching in American textbooks (and certainly in its immediate aftermath), the Civil War was well understood to have had the issue of slavery at its heart.
Re:also (Score:5, Insightful)
informants (Score:4, Informative)
There was an informant inside this organization that told authorities what was planned.
Here's a link about your informants: "Moles wanted" [citypages.com]. Informants only get paid if an arrest is made. Let's see, I'm a mole and I know if the info I give doesn't lead to an arrest do I tell the truth or do I lie?
Falcon
Re:also (Score:5, Insightful)
What? First, the RNC isn't "the government." Second, yes they are anarchists. From their website [nornc.org]:
They intend to block the bridges into and out of the city. The blockades are going to be categorized as "red zones" (prepared for "self-defense"), "yellow zones" (peaceful but assertive), and "green zones" (aiming to avoid risk of arrest.) I don't see how holding public property by force is at all non-violent.
I agree however, people should protest. They should protest these hooligans who don't believe in the core basis of the USoA: that ideas will not be propagated by violence. Differing opinions will be discussed and if your opinion isn't the most popular you don't get to enact your ideas. Perpetrating acts of violence, intimidation and seizing property for long term use (a goal described on their website) aren't something any civilized country should be getting behind.
Re:also (Score:5, Interesting)
let me point out that "non violent" doesn't mean you do everything you're told, that's called "complicity" or at best "complacency". Having 50k people arrive at a location and sit down and refuse to leave may not be convenient, and might even put some people at risk (say, you were in the middle of hte crowd and had a heart attack), but that is not "violence".
"violence" involves destruction, pain, intimidation and real risk of bodily injury. *some* anarchists are into that sort of thing. But "Anarchist" covers a wide variety of people, just like "republican" does. Some "Republicans" don't think it's ok to kill anyone arab just because some arabs hate us. Some think we should "turn the middle east into a parking lot".
it's not fair to judge all republicans by the violent assholes within any more than it is to judge all anarchists by the same measure.
I also don't think that seizing property that is not being put to use when there are people who need shelter in the streets is so radical that "no civilized country" should get behind it.
further, I wouldn't demonize anyone who looks at the current state of our country and thinks that maybe we're getting close to the point where words alone is not sufficient response to the ongoing mismanagement, misinterpretation and appropriation of our government to anyone with suitable ambition and a large enough checkbook.
I'm not at that point myself, but I can't say that it would be impossible to get there in my lifetime and sometimes I do wonder if I'm just playing the game laid before me by "the house", and the house always wins.. witness RealID and the basic conception among most people that you "can't challenge the federal government", constitutional or not.
Re:also (Score:5, Insightful)
What?!? I must have completely misunderstood the modern US history of the last 8 years or so. I had no idea that the CORE BASIS of the USA was that ideas wouldn't be propagated by violence. Speaking as someone living outside the USA, your foreign policy hasn't led me to believe that either.
Come to think of it, maybe the violent rebels of 1776 should have rembered it too.
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Insightful)
No joke. When did South Central police tactics become apros po for college kids and uppity hippies pushing 60? Easy must be having a laugh right now.
Something important to remember here is that the some of the groups being raided are the same ones who, in 2006, helped overturn over 400 bogus arrests where video directly conradicted sworn police testimony.
It's the cameras, and the citizen journalists, and the people on the Internet who the police are afraid of. I don't presume to judge every John Law out there but this is really bad what they are doing in MN.
Of course the networks pay it no heed :)
M
This is not how you stop riots... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, indeed. The "anarchist" morons from all over the country came to Seattle looking for a riot , the the equally brain-dead cops gave them a reason.
"Anarchists" and Repugnitans, a match made in heaven.
Re:This is not how you stop riots... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When was the last time that caused a riot? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bottles are broken every single day.
I see a different broken window at local businesses at least once a month.
Those events do not cause riots.
They are "minor". They are resolved by arresting / fining the idiot(s) who did it.
I am also in Seattle.
Re:This is not how you stop riots... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whelan says his roommate, Erin Stalmaker, went out to talk to talk to the police. She asked the officers why they were there. The officers asked why people were running away from them. Erin reportedly told the officers that their drawn automatic weapons probably had something to do with it. She was detained after asking to see a warrant.
http://firedoglake.com/2008/08/30/inside-an-rnc-raid/ [firedoglake.com]
If this is true (being arrested after asking to see a warrant; no warrant being produced), this is insane. Heads must roll for this; our country absolutely depends on it.
Re:This is not how you stop riots... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your country is lost. Might as well vote for McCain. No need to drag it out. Only thing gonna save you is retaking the Reality Studio. But that takes guts and you folks have been sittin' on your butts too long watchin' Judge Judy and American Idol and the great hypnosis machine where black is white and freedom is slavery and we spread democracy by murdering elected leaders.
Re:This is not how you stop riots... (Score:5, Insightful)
In a sane society, wouldn't the warrant be required before actually bashing down doors? Oh wait, I forgot that isn't necessary anymore. Obviously the new FBI powers aren't intended to only be used to protect us from terrorists, but from those damn protesters too.
textbook example (Score:4, Interesting)
At least this gives us a textbook example for the good old "nothing to hide" misconception.
You can bet that a lot of illegal wiretaping was involved here to find the ringleaders, exactly like during the anit-vietnam protests. Also, note how they went straight for the computers: welcome to the world of "little brother"!
"- I've got nothing to hide!"
"- Then you agree with everything the government thinks. Oh, and the Church of Scientology, too."
(alternate: "- Then you don't have a political life")
Re:This is not how you stop riots... (Score:5, Interesting)
... this is how you START them. This coming from someone from Seattle who lived on Capitol Hill during the WTO riots and had police overreact and create a situation when none existed.
Exactly. You may have heard about similar unrest at the APEC summit in Vancouver in 1997, where I was living at the time. The overreaction to protests by police is a distraction tactic.
In Vancouver when Prime Minister Cretien first visited after APEC, again there were protests that turned violent. The police formed a "bike line" about 150' from the entrance to the hotel where Cretien was, meaning police with bicycles stood about 25' apart and ordered everyone not to pass them. Since it was not even remotely intimidating everyone marched right past them. But having done so, they can then be arrested and charged with disobeying a legal police order.
So they had uninhibited access to the hotel front doors, which were recessed from the sidewalk and therefore private property. Once they were on private property, asked to leave, and they did not, they were then trespassing as well. As luck would have it, there just happened to be a legion of police with full riot gear in the hotel lobby to engage the protesters with batons and pepper spray.
Either they were giving out gourmet donuts, or it was a deliberate tactic to entrap the protesters into committing crimes. They report to the press that the protesters had access to areas within vocal range of the Prime Minister, but forced their way through the "barricade" with the intent of engaging the Prime Minister violently, so reciprocal violence was justified.
In the end, the violence upstages the protest, and nothing gets done about the human rights violations they were trying to bring to the public's attention. It's been a popular tactic in North America since the 1960's. Now it appears they're taking preemptive actions to make sure the protesters are going to put on a good show. Makes sense, given the level of apathy these days.
I advise anyone involved in a protest to enlist the aid of people trained in conflict resolution (i.e. bar security staff) to quell any troublemakers among the protesters, and have a lawyer on site to act as a liaison with the police. You're probably going to need one eventually, and you know you'll have to deal with the police. Who deals with the police without a lawyer? Criminals, idiots, or both.
Re:This is not how you stop riots... (Score:4, Insightful)
The police knew the protesters were predisposed to ignore warnings and proceed where there were not adequate physical barricades to obstruct them.
Yes, so what? Is that supposed to be an excuse: "the police knew we like to break the law, so they should've just let us do it"?
Look up the legal term "due diligence". The police did not exercise due diligence in preventing the protesters from committing crimes, nor warned them of the consequences.
The police aren't obligated to prevent crime -- well, IANAC, so maybe they are up there, but I doubt it. They certainly don't owe it to potential criminals to stop them from getting themselves in trouble, though.
As for the consequences... what exactly did the protesters think was going to happen when they ignored a warning from police, walked through a barricade, and trespassed on hotel property after being asked to leave? Perhaps they thought they could just shout "king me!" and the PM would have to accept their demands?
That is the very nature of entrapment, no different than manipulating the motivations of a lonely man into hiring a prostitute.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Entrapment is about convincing people to commit a crime they otherwise wouldn't have committed.
It's very different from manipulating someone into hiring a prostitute. No one was manipulated into crossing that barrier or staying on hotel property; in fact, they were told not to do it. That's about as far away from entrapment as you can get.
In Soviet Russia. (Score:5, Insightful)
In Soviet Russia, you didn't have the right to peaceful assembly or to travel without showing your papers.
I wish there was a joke I could make here.
Re:In Soviet Russia. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, you COULD travel inside the USSR without showing papers. Train and airplane tickets were anonymous and you did not need to show ID to board a train or an airplane.
Re:In Soviet Russia. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it was more complicated. You could stay for about 3 months without needing any permits. In fact a lot of students used to travel during summer to all parts of the USSR without any problems.
However, you needed a stay permit (it was called 'propiska') to permanently move to another city. Getting this permit was a quite different story.
PS: I'm not saying that USSR was a very nice place overall. But there were good parts which I miss...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes.. that's what "suppression" means.
Re:In Soviet Russia. (Score:4, Insightful)
Anarchists? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Anarchists? (Score:5, Funny)
Ferdinand was a classmate of John McCain, you insensitive clod!
Not suprising (Score:3, Insightful)
seeing as all the same senior politicians in the WH today are the very same ones that where there in Nixons goverment, they just slinked into the background in the 60's hoping you would forget their names and misdeeds
and it worked ! except they are back with more vigor
torture, wiretaps, harrasing political groups, removing civil liberties, wiretapping
the list is endless and so it seems the Americans patience as they dont want to do a damm thing about it
a single clip could sort out a lot of troubles in this world
Unconventional weaponry (Score:3, Funny)
Personally I'm surprised that, upon finding "buckets of urine" that the police decided to take it with them.
Re:Unconventional weaponry (Score:5, Interesting)
They took along *anything* and *everything* that might be related to possible riots. When they raided a home that wasn't actually the correct home, they still detained people for over and hour while they obtained the correct warrant. When I read that I posted that I was concerned that when I arrived at home that I too would find cops on my doorstep [twitter.com] because after all, that was the point of all of this horseshit.
When you finally hear from the other side you learn that the "buckets of urine" was actually gray water used to flush the toilet [blogspot.com] (my father developed a tank system in the 1980s that used shower/tub water to flush the toilet which saved us so much money that the water company came out 3 or 4 different times to replace the meter because they thought it was defective).
I have been ashamed to be an American for a long ass time but between the Ramsey County Sheriff's response to this event, the confiscation of camera equipment in the name of Homeland Security for the RNC [twincities.com], and using Blackwater mercenaries in New Orleans in preparation for Gustav [wired.com] I am not quite sure I am actually living in the United States of America anymore.
I am disgusted to be a Minnesota and United States resident. This is fucking shameful and horrifying. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of free speech violation. This is a stupid political rally, not a fucking war on our soil. Personally I'd love to join the protests but I seriously fear for my freedom and my life. I am not against the RNC but I am definitely against the manner in which protesting is being handled.
FUCK YOU AMERICA.
For live footage of raids and other First Amendment violations, check out The UpTake [qik.com] on Qik.com.
sad day (Score:5, Insightful)
Stuff like this really makes me sad. Just 20 or 30 years ago, demonstrations could get out of hand, but I think that is part of free speech. Now, any speech off script by either party is squashed as if it was soviet russia. Maybe mrs mccain should rethink the trip to georgia she just took. Maybe instead of taking democracy around the world, we could start by re-invigorating freedom here at home. I'm afraid to predict the next 20 or 30 years. I'm sure it will include many cameras, microphones, drone planes and fear.
No protesters at the DNC? (Score:4, Interesting)
Could the fact that we didn't see such an article about last weeks DNC be because there wasn't anybody bothering to protest? HBO's Real Time had footage from the "Free Speech Zone" in Denver which had more kids on bikes than protesters.
Re:No protesters at the DNC? (Score:5, Insightful)
Repeat of the NY Republican Convention (Score:5, Informative)
This happened in NY City in 2004 [usatoday.com] during the Republican Convention although the police waited until the convention had started. My brother was one of the thousands swept up in the sweeps the police did to clear protesters from the street. His lawsuit is still pending, most likely he will wind up with a nice settlement, but the goal was to get these "troublemakers" off the street and that was accomplished. The same marching orders are likely in effect for the Republican Convention this year, and by the time the lawsuits are settled in four years the next election will be on the horizon. Kind of depressing that the police can get away with this bs.
And you guys want to bring democracy to others? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean I don't want to barge ahead. We only read the accounts of one side, but if it is even remotly true the US of A is far from being a free country. Why would the police even want to intimidate people that way? Only if there was a political reason. Semi-random police brutality is one thing, but the report looks like those were fairly large scale orchestrated moves by the police to influence politics. When the police stops working as law enforcment and starts working for a political party how far is that from a banana republic?
And then the W guy comes up and talks about spreading democracy in the middle east? How about spreading it in Minneapolis?
Re:And you guys want to bring democracy to others? (Score:5, Insightful)
And then the W guy comes up and talks about spreading democracy in the middle east? How about spreading it in Minneapolis?
I want to quote something directly from one of Greenwald's updates to the piece here, which directly addresses this point:
During the Olympics just weeks ago, there was endless hand-wringing over the efforts by the Chinese Government to squelch dissent and incarcerate protesters. On August 21, The Washington Post fretted:
Six Americans detained by police this week could be held for 10 days, according to Chinese authorities, who appear to be intensifying their efforts to shut down any public demonstrations during the final days of the Olympic Games. . . . Chinese Olympic officials announced last month that Beijing would set up zones where people could protest during the Games, as long as they had received permission. None of the 77 applications submitted was approved, however, and several other would-be protesters were stopped from even applying.
On August 2, The Post gravely warned:
Behind the gray walls and barbed wire of the prison here, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo. Their indefinite detainment, relatives and neighbors said, is the price they are paying for stirring up trouble as China prepares to host the Beijing Games. Trouble, the Communist Party has made clear, will not be permitted.
Would The Washington Post ever use such dark and accusatory tones to describe what the U.S. Government does? Of course it wouldn't. Yet how is our own Government's behavior in Minnesota any different than what the Chinese did to its protesters during the Olympics (other than the fact that we actually have a Constitution that prohibits such behavior)? And where are all the self-righteous Freedom Crusaders in our nation's establishment organs who were so flamboyantly criticizing the actions of a Government on the other side of the globe as our own Government engages in the same tyrannical, protest-squelching conduct with exactly the same motives?
COINTELPRO 2.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
So peaceful!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So peaceful!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll find those and other items in many houses. A quick glance through my apartment revealed the following suspicious substances and items:
Very sharp knives longer than 5 inches (I cook)
Precursors for biological weapons (I cook with very hot spices, good enough for pepper spray)
Nerve toxins (I smoke and drink coffee)
Percursors for explosives (aspirin)
Precursors for drugs (acetone)
Information and tools to invade computer systems (I work in IT security)
Dispensers for aerosols (my deodorant bottle)
Highly aggressive chemicals (toilet cleaner)
Camoflage kit (shoe polish)
Rubber gloves (I hate to touch my toilet without, especially with the cleaner involved)
Equipment to create an electronic bomb timer (welding gun and a few ATMegas)
Hydrogen peroxide (I wear contact lenses)
Drug containers (plastic bags and tin foil)
Equipment to create pamphlets and other propaganda material (I have a printer for my computer)
Equipment to remotely detonate an exposive device (I fly RC planes)
Heavy metals (lead, to balance out the planes)
Need I go on?
You will find a similar collection of "highly suspicious and potentially dangerous" items and "equipment" in many homes. There mere existance doesn't prove anything.
The other side? (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, hearing just one side of a story almost always leaves out important facts.
Before we go apeshit, shouldn't we maybe get the government's / police's side of the story?
I'm not saying that nothing bad happened here, just that until we know (or at least give an opportunity to be voiced) both sides of the story, we're really flying blind.
My weird similar experience in NYC in 2002 (Score:5, Interesting)
In February 2002, the World Economic Forum was held in New York City, and I planned to (and did) protest it. The alter-globalization movement had been protesting these things for years. New York newspaper headlines screamed that "anarchists" had better not come to NYC and cause trouble with the WTC still smoking and all of the claptrap. What made it even more nonsensical is it hadn't been planned for an NYC meeting, Giuliani had convinced them to move the meeting to NYC after 9/11/01, despite knowing the WEF always brought out massive demonstrations since evil types like Bill Gates always hobnobbed at such events. So working to bring a demonstration magnet to NYC after 9/11, and then decrying that there demonstrators would bother New Yorkers still grieving from 9/11 sounded a little hollow.
Anyhow, a friend of mine suggested we go to a building in New York called ABC No Rio. They are a "progressive community space" type of place they have art shows there, live bands, a progressive/zine library, a feed the poor group Food Not Bombs and that type of thing. Anyhow we went in and they were organizing a demonstration. I should point out I had never been there and my friend had rarely been there, we were just nearby and at the spur of the moment he wanted to see if a friend of his was there.
I should also point out that of all the progressive demonstrations in the US in the past twenty years, I can't recall an instance of physical violence against someone. There may have been one or more cases, but I can't think of any. A handful of way-out folks smashed windows in Seattle, burned down some new unoccupied houses in a new housing development somewhere out west and the like, and in the case of the latter a massive federal investigation sent some of those people to jail. So one has to question the need for a massive federal "monitoring" of progressive groups is needed for. Especially considering the history of these things - Nixon had a bunch of burglars break into the Democratic Party election headquarters, the FBI used these extraordinary powers granted to it to interfere in the political sphere - stating as a goal the need to stop a "black messiah" from arising, which including bugging Martin Luther King Jr. and leaking tapes they made of him to the press, particularly extra-marital affairs. When Warsaw Pact secret police did such things in their countries, it was decried as tyranny here - when our secret police work to dismantle organization of African-American and progressive people (as the FBI did, Google COINTELPRO), it is soon forgotten and you hear the need for the PATRIOT Act and the like giving power to the same people who abused it for political purposes before.
Anyhow me and my friend leave ABC No Rio. We hail a taxi and go about half a mile to Greenwich Village. My friend wants to go to a bar he went to a few months before, but can't find it. Anyhow, he realizes we are headed in the exact opposite direction than we should be, so we both do a 180 degree turn and start walking the way we had been coming. A man in his late 40s who looks very out of place for Greenwich Village on a Friday night was about 10 meters behind us. He sees us loop around and then has a look in his eye for a second, and then he also spins around and walks the other way. All things considered, especially his facial reaction when we both did a sudden 180 and began walking towards him, I know as sure as the sky is blue that he was following us, and that he was following us because we had gone into ABC No Rio. ACLU lawsuits and that type of thing after the WEF protests, and after the Republican National Convention talked about the extent of the surveillance, and fortified in my mind what I already instinctively knew was true. What scared me was the extent of the surveillance. I would dislike, but would not be as alarmed by them monitoring who went in and out of that building (where nothing was even happening! Except for planning a legal political demonstration that even the AFL-CIO was protesting in). But to follow two guys across New York City, through cab rides, on foot, who had very little to do with even organizing the demonstration much less doing anything violent during it, spooked me.
Re:My weird similar experience in NYC in 2002 (Score:5, Interesting)
I just have to sit there while people plot to destroy my city to make their political points and then once they have destroyed the city I can do what to them.
Conspiracy to commit a crime is in many cases a crime. When you have proof of that, you can arrest people. Until that point, they're just citizens.
It is the people like me, the ones you call enablers, who will have to pay the price for picking up all the garbage and repairing all the damages so the city can function again.
Your notion is that the financial costs of cleaning up after a protest are so high that it justifies preemptively arresting a wide variety of people who haven't committed crimes and most of whom won't?
By that logic, we should certainly arrest the VFW, as their memorial parade makes more of a mess than any three protests I've seen.
Fear the Dye! (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked with a group of kids when I was in my teens one Summer. --You know, games and sports and arts & crafts and such. This one day, we made tie-dyed shirts.
Well the shirt I made turned out pretty good and I wore it for the whole afternoon and kind of forgot it was on me. Then after the kids all went off back home, me and a few of the other 'leaders' decided to head out for a movie and burgers and stuff. At the end of the evening, we all split off and I was on my way back home alone.
My opinion of humanity then began to plummet.
Taking public transit, I was getting all these freaked out looks. Everybody was acting as though they were scared of me. --I was used to being totally ignored, but people were really, really nervous. It was baffling. It happened not just with the occupants of one bus, but on another and on a train as well. I didn't work out it was the tie-dye shirt they were all reacting to until this one Stephen Colbert clone actually measured me up and down with an expression of abject, "Small-guy-on-his-first-day-in-prison" and then made a comment about the Grateful Dead being really cool in some kind of weird effort to. . , not get hurt by me? It was utterly unreal. I couldn't believe just how limited a set of lives people must lead in order to react in such a manner. As just a teen-ager, (back when I wasn't aware of politics in the slightest,) even I had worked out that hippies were the last form of political life you needed to back slowly away from.
I filed the incident away under, "Fear and Ignorance" for later reference and have dusted it off for you today.
-FL
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:5, Interesting)
Were they planning on doing something illegal? I doubt it.
In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house. One of the individuals renting the house, an 18-year-old woman, was extremely shaken as she and others described how the officers were deliberately making intimidating statements such as "Do you have Terminator ready?" as they lay on the floor in handcuffs.
I don't call this freedom.
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:5, Informative)
From: http://www.nornc.org/ [nornc.org]
This isn't a peaceful assembly if you ask me:
"How we get there (the strategy):
1. Start Strong - Throw all of our energy into the first day. We'll kick this off right and stretch the militarized police state out so far that it can no longer contain and suppress our voices and desires.
2. Transportation Troubles - This includes blockades downtown (at key intersections), on bridges (10 bridges over the Mississippi River in the metro area), and other sporadic and strategic targets (busses, hotel and airport shuttles etc)."
This is the group that the Star article describes as having been arrested.
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:5, Insightful)
Transportation Troubles - This includes blockades downtown (at key intersections), on bridges (10 bridges over the Mississippi River in the metro area), and other sporadic and strategic targets (busses, hotel and airport shuttles etc)."
Nothing like annoying thousands of people who are late getting to work to convince them that your cause is just.....
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Transportation Troubles...
Sounds like a Critical Mass rally.
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:5, Informative)
Note the quote from the police - Police said despite the massive traffic disruption on the motorway, the man had the right to protest peacefully.
Bob
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:5, Insightful)
The police have a higher standard to hold to because they're the professionals. If they can't follow the law then they have no business enforcing it.
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:5, Insightful)
TOUGH SHIT.
Re:Disruption != peaceably assembling (Score:5, Informative)
But consider this : in order for Those In Power to keep their power, they have to do a number of things;
1) Subvert the Constitution - because it gets in the way of their plans.
2) Create an atmosphere of Fear - this is accomplished in a number of ways;
a) Create more criminals - this is done by adding lots of laws.
b) Engineer situations where you can create enough world tension that eventually you can say you
are in a permanent state of "war".
3) Dumb the people down - again, this can be accomplished in a number of ways;
a) Culturally - dumb down the Press, TV
b) Educationally - dumb down the system.
What you have seen is the use of point 2)(a) in that basically They Can Get You For Anything if you do something
to disrupt their plans.
Welcome, America, to your Police State.
Re:Selective Citations? (Score:4, Insightful)
And pretty please explain to me why it's illegal to have pvc pipes, chicken wire and duct tape.
Re:RTFA you twats (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I dunno where you pee when your plumbing is shot, but my neighbor got really pissed last time I used his door, so please enlighten me what would be a more suitable receptacle for my waste than a bucket.
Aside of that, what are "these kind of rally groups"? What gives you the goddamn right to assume I'm going to be protesting violently just because someone else has in the past? If I did, ok. It is under some circumstances allright to assume that I may protest violently again if I did in the past. To issue the recommendation back at you, RTFM. Nobody ever had any problem with those college kids whose houses were raided. So what visionary powers give you the idea that they would be?
Oh. Right. "these kinds of rally groups" are always like that. Ain't stereotyping fun? It saves the thinking.
IF they get violent, arrest them. Until then, I cannot see any good reason to use the force that was used.