Welcome to the police state. No question the republic is over. The constitution has been lost and we are in for another more 4 years of McCain. Fascism is here to stay and anyone that doubts the reality check is crazy. The sad part is the none of you folks get it. They have stopped you at the gate. Every move you make will be met with violent supression.

Reply to McKathiki:

I really appreciated your thoughtful response.
On other posts I have laid out some of my ideas for a unified Progressive Party and I wish more of our justifiably outraged progressive posters would also lay out their ideas for positive change going forward along with their critiques of the situation as it is.

I look at these things from two perspectives: What America needs to do and what the community of nations needs to do--whether or not America goes along with it or continues to insist on an already botched empire vs. a commonwealth of nations. I'll just deal with some of the domestic American aspects here.

The Democratic Party is rotten at the top but has some good small "d" Democrats at lower echelons of the Party. This coming election, I believe, is their absolute last chance to show they can still practice good governance as a ruling majority. If they gain solid voting control of both Houses and the White House, then the situation is theirs to make good on or screw up. Within 3 months of an Obama win we will know which way they went.

At that point, progressives face some key problems:
(1) The critically urgent need to rapidly assemble one unified Progressive Party out of all the many progressive organizations. This will require a national progressive leadership summit.
(2) Agreement upon 3 to 5 core platform planks with which they can simultaneously campaign and educate the public. They need to build an over-arching narrative that is adaptable to new green ideas and technologies and, by its very force of common sense and readily accessible fact, overwhelms inferior ideologies now wrecking the country and the planet.
(3) A national progressive task force appointed by the leadership to tackle the specific task of figuring out how to (A) use non-violent tactics that compel more attention from the "mainstream media" to our ideas, and (B) gain access to mass media platforms like combined low power FM and website streams, satellite radio and other new communications technology platforms.
(4) Such a movement needs--as major selling point--a publicly accessible, online "green living" knowledge base featuring outstanding progressives who have gained expertise in creating ways to live in environmentally sustainable ways from which most of the masses can choose some aspects to emulate. I'm talking every aspect of green living from architecture to semi-grid or off-grid energy systems, gardening (rural to urban), creative & thrifty crafts and happier, healthier, more independent and less voraciously materialistic family living. And these green experts should contribute essays, videos, etc., SHOWING others the HOW TO aspects of this for free--subsidized by online donations to the Party (and ads from green companies whose products are featured) until enough of us can get elected to write legislation to create large government subsidies both for the educational and wide-scale public implementation aspects of this. You've probably seen PBS This Old House. Think "This Old Planet" with realistic start-to-finish projects for green living demonstrated by the experts--with interspersed discussions of Party platform proposals to support the broad implementation of these ideas with serious government subsidies.
(5) A unified Progressive Party should disseminate free to all its members information with bullet points and clear sources regarding the numerous studies (some well over ten years old) that resoundingly prove the economic benefits of transitioning to a green economy in terms of rebuilding the middle class. All serious progressives should thoroughly familiarize themselves with these studies and be ready to answer any Republican or Democratic back-sliders who continue to insist on the prevailing yet failing national and global fossil energy paradigm.
(6) Reform of the court system at all levels in the U.S. Appointing better judges, reforming and systematizing the divergent State methods for appointing vs. electing judges.
(7) Repeal of the 90's Rehnquist Supreme Court decision that equates money with free speech for the purposes of political campaigns.
(8) The need for new corporate reform legislation that denies corporations the same rights as living, flesh and blood citizens and restores them to their pre-1880s legal status as legal compacts issued licenses that are subject to periodic local governmental review (now the multinationals would need State and/or national reviews as well) regarding their social conduct and their license to conduct business.

This would be a start on the domestic end of things. This is the kind of hard work and organization progressives need to already be strategizing and there is PUH-LENTY of work to do. I think a lot of people would be living much happier and more fulfilling lives being part of such a movement. This is a movement that entire families could participate in together--whereas the current dominant Parties are only truly participated in by corporate lobbyists and hack politicians, and the economic and political system they represent is every man, woman and child for themselves and screw the environment and the future.

I appreciate the historical framework on anarchism in the posted response to me. As a philosophy major in college from 1972 - 1976, I was a member of the American Friends Service Committee a few years and SDS (a tiny disfunctional chapter) for a very short while - I participated in peaceful protests and community activism alongside Vietnam Vets Against the War, the Brown Berets, AFSC, and others. I well remember the anarchists and nihilists on the fringe and how disruptive they could be to meetings and marches. Protests at the campus I attended in Texas were greeted with armed police on rooftops and canine patrols before we even got started so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity for anarchic, violent or chaotic action. I agree with you that it is a slim possibility that federal or local agitators are operating at the Twin Cities' scene - I only tried to state that it would not surprise me if they were.

I also agree with you that young people have not been educated as to the possibilities and power of non-violent movements. AFSC was working on viable, effection peace education way back then but you don't see it taught over 30 years later. You may be right about teacher's unions and school systems. But the biggest abdicators of responsibility in teaching our children well have been the members of my generation, baby boomer parents. Not only were many boomers caught up in their "own thing", putting our babies in day care, in front of the TV or the computer and leaving education of our precious children up to others - we also bugged out on running our country & fouled up the planet just for good measure. It does not amaze me that children who have been raised haphazardly are lost as they reach adulthood and, facing the future we have given them, cannot find any direction.

So what do we do now? That is the question of the century... Some of us still scrape for a living paycheck to paycheck (alas, like me) but those of us who became successful and have reached a comfortable retirement need to get going and bring HOPE back to life again - stand shoulder to shoulder with the kids and us working stiffs to take our country back through peaceful, lawful action. It might be starry eyed, pie-in-the-sky dreamin' but dreams ignite change and change is forged by action.

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

To McKathiki,

Self-identified anarchist groups have a long history of using anti-property violence on their own. They hardly need any federal agitators planted in their organizations, although it's a very slim possibility. The anarchists have used violence to muddy up peaceful protest events going back--in recent history--to the Seattle anti-WTO protests. Their stupidity is that they provide an emotional smokescreen for police to attack everyone in the street--protester or not, peaceful or not.

Ignorance about the history of the tactics and successes of the non-violent civil rights protests and peaceful Vietnam era anti-war protests (back in the days when the fear of the Draft put significant numbers of people in the street) is common to many of the younger generation. This is not primarily their fault. Their elders allowed these generations to be raised up in ignorance. 30 years of far Left liberal teacher's unions and far Right Christian fundamentalist school board members have combined to gut anything deemed "too controversial" from history and social studies texts in the public school systems. But controversy is the full flavor of history. If these kids knew more about the successes of non-violent protest leaders like Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr., then I think they would be less eager to use violent tactics.

I also think most self-identified anarchists--like most so-called Libertarians I run into these daze--are looooong on social fantasies and fairy tales that are childishly ego-centric, utterly lack a broader social conscience and are devoid of nuts and bolts policy frameworks or a coherent concept of a functional national government that can survive in the post-industrial era. Now, if climate change reduces us to the lifestyles of communally devout and frugal Amish and Mennonite farmers, then the Libertarians might stand a chance, but the anarchists are just children recklessly rioting to the pipes of Pan and can never mold any kind of society that isn't more violent than the one they previously attacked.

I appreciate this article and the insight of most of the comments. This site stands in marked contract to a local St. Paul paper's site (reached through BuzzFlash for a report on the preemptive strikes and "violent" protestors). I was astonished and appalled by the vicious, venomous and violent comments -presumably from citizens of the Twin Cities. It is hard to believe that these are people who think they are patriots. I, for one, find it highly credible that the masked anarchists on the fringe of legal, peaceful protests were planted by the feds - this administration has been staging its own reality here and overseas; manufacturing hollow reasons for wars, intervention and "aid"; callously abusing our military and cynically using mercenaries; scaring American citizens with doomsday visions and terrorizing foreign visitors and immigrants - - well, it's just not that hard to believe the RNC is just another stage for their tactics of fear.

UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

AMENDMENT l

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances.

Here's the upcoming event they won't touch--afraid of the publicity!
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=xC0HauJ5-eQ

For those who want to assist the arrested--

show your support and solidarity by calling the jail at 651.266.9350 and demand that people are given proper medical attention, are given access to their medication, and are not separated from the larger group! Also, demand that arrestees' charges are dropped and that they are released immediately!

You can also call the Ramsey County Sheriff's office at 651.487.5149 or the St. Paul Mayor's office at 651.266.8510.

Which military adventure was it in which a missile just happened to hit a hotel in which foreign journalists were staying? Baghdad? Belgrade? Other?
And was it the reporter Julieta Sgrena whose bodyguard saved her life by taking a sniper's bullet from the forces of freedom after she was released by her captors?

Odd how there's such a predictable pattern to all these tragic coincidences.

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

Twelvepax, in his related post, insultingly characterized the Democracy Now article about Amy Goodman's arrest as "Bullshit," and a "drawing of the wedge between local cop vs. shill spokesperson for the 'left'." Sounds like a personally offended cop, former cop, or present FBI man drawing his own personal wedge to pit cops against [insert offensive adjective here] spokespersons for the Left. He doesn't get the fact that it's not just about local cops but the people who run their organizations, indoctrinate them and give them their orders. It's also about federal police agencies using local cops as politicized local foot soldiers and the people who run THEIR organizations, indoctrinate them and give them their orders. He also doesn't get that if the cops treated Bill O'Reilly, Katie Couric or Wolf Blitzer they way they did Amy Goodman he'd be in the position of characterizing wedges drawn between local cops and spokespersons for the corporatist "mainstream"--or acknowledging his own bias. And that's the whole point: Those latter McJournalists don't ask hard questions of authority and never will. That's most of what Amy Goodman does and what truly independent journalism is about.

This twelvepax character and his professional-sounding references to police and hiring "off-duty police to secure US" smells like an FBI "shill" to me. He sure was early and eager to pounce on these stories about the raids and on indy journalist Goodman in particular. No doubt a lot of people cozy with police and militaristic mentalities would like to see her silenced along with independent journalism in general.

Twelvepax's ramblings about liberals bringing together "ordinary people, local city councils, local law enforcement, even lower-level FBI [?!], retired generals, veterans, and progressive populists of all stripes to the same page" sounds a little military and police centric to me. Citizens' political movements are not obligated--as twelvepax seems to imply--to bring the police and military (active or retired) into their organizations or movements, or to "hire off-duty cops to secure US." The police are supposed to be here to serve the public, not the other way around. Our duty as citizens is to uphold and defend the Constitution for the benefit of each other--not to placate armed authority for armed authority's sake.

Maybe this is all Twelvepax's unstated "meme" about how difficult it is for local and federal cops and militarists to really fit in with and make real friends with the ordinary activists whose groups they secretly infiltrate...

Protest is largely a waste of time anyway, and I question these Amy Goodmans and others that someone is pawning off to the "left". Leaders? Bullshit -- getting yourself arrested, the martyr-complex, head-banging, bringing the "left" to a bad place. Is there a SINGLE pro-war politician whose position will be swayed by any amount of marching, arrests, sign-waving, etc?

Come on -- time for real leadership. We need national summits, teach-ins, ecumenical and non-religious events perhaps in the vein of the Chautauqua, we need to show why we are PRO-peace, not merely anti-war. Why we are lawful and would actually HIRE off-duty cops to provide US with security, rather than get ourselves sprayed like juvenile delinquents, why we don't NEED restraint, why we behave better than the rabble inside the convention center.

We have secession, Article V, citizen's arrest, citizen's journalism and many other legal means at our disposal. Getting yourself martyred is a cult thing. Or a psyops thing. Or a shill meme. Head-banging isn't a sign of leadership.

remember they spent 50 million dollars on security, i hope that got a lot of names for their money (our money) b/c they made it crystal clear 1st amendment rights are sketchy in the USA...

excerpts from

What to Expect from the Conventions : An Analysis of the Strategic Opportunities and Challenges Presented by the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

posted at
http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/recentfeatures/whattoexpect.php

"Electoral politics dominates the imaginations of people in the United States to an unparalleled degree. Whenever the question of social change arises, one is always pointed to the ballot box: if you don’t vote, you can’t complain, which is to say, vote and shut up. One might argue that there is no more strategic target for direct action than the conventions, which represent the total hegemony of the two-party system. Even opposition to the excesses of capitalism can still be re-absorbed into electoral politics—one of the major issues at the WTO protests was that the WTO could supersede the “democratic process” of participating nations.

Only a direct attack on the electoral spectacle itself could reframe the terms of public discussion to foreground more effective approaches to self-determination. Powerful actions at the conventions could set a new tone for the coming years, setting a precedent for people using their own strength and energizing smaller-scale direct action organizing throughout the US.[3]"

---------

it means a lot of consciousness was raised amongst the participants (their families, supporters and friends) over 250 people were arrested (who have one hell of a good reason -violation of 1st amendment rights to assemble and speak), to continue the struggle - their courage is felt across the country - the tactics and discussions they used/employed can be mimicked in our communities.

---------

"Aside from the predictable criticisms, there are more substantive drawbacks to choosing the conventions as the site for a grudge match with hierarchical power. Successful mass actions can only be outgrowths from already thriving relationships and social currents; they offer the opportunity to measure our capacities, but it is unrealistic to expect them to produce powerful movements out of thin air. In this regard, it’s not promising that these mobilizations come after years without much direct action organizing, when few anarchists have had the opportunity to develop their skills or networks. A summer of direct action training camps cannot make up for this; highly publicized calls for buildup actions might have done the trick, but the conventions are only a couple months away as of this writing."

----------

--hence the crack downs. the organizers are on to something - their tactics work. the government knows this. the preemptive raids targeted logistical, legal support, journalists - and in a sense the people they targeted were national figures in this underground culture...

(remember the essay was written before this week)

-----------

"In the Twin Cities, on the other hand, anarchists are involved explicitly in every level of the organizing in a way we haven’t seen since the successful FTAA protests in Quebec of April 2001. The RNC Welcoming Committee, an explicitly anti-authoritarian organizing group, has for well over a year already, and has established relationships of mutual respect and collaboration with broader antiwar organizations throughout the region—an achievement that has eluded other anarchist organizers for years. We may not be blessed with an organizing group as creative and diligent as the Welcoming Committee any time soon—all the more reason for anarchists to take advantage of their groundwork.

The surge in anarchist traveling culture that coincided with the publication of Evasion is long past; nowadays most anarchists can only be away from their communities for limited periods of time, so they have to choose carefully which national events to attend. Most will probably choose the RNC over the DNC, deeming Denver a tragic but unavoidable missed opportunity."

__________

so who did they target? the successful organizers, the rnc welcoming committee (logistics), the successful cop watch people - i witness video(a nyc group that monitors police during protests) and of course lest we forget - the artists,

http://www.glassbeadcollective.org/info.htm
http://www.glassbeadcollective.org/projects/projection/index.htm

"About Glass Bead Collective,

Glass bead Collective (GBC), based in New York City, brings together individuals from diverse academic and professional backgrounds including video art, film, theater, architecture, photography, music, mathematics, fine arts and philosophy to create works which re-contextualize culture and the world in which we find ourselves today. GBC was founded in 2002 with a multimedia theatrical performance of Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit.

We have since produced various live art events and films experimenting with a multi-disciplinary approach to contemporary issues (mixing visual and literary narratives in real time) as well as created live visuals for groups such as Billionaires for Bush, The War Resisters, Brooklyn Media Lab, GRACE (Global Resource Action Center for the Environment) at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival among others. We have recently created a piece for the WORD_and_WORK section of Volume No. 9 of ART.ES, a Spanish art magazine published in Madrid."

---------------------

the follow up, in your face, your favorite person -amy goodman- is going to jail because of defending her reporters who were beaten by the police is just icing on the cake, liberals don't try to go and save your heretical marxian/bakunin friends... they're screwed... turn around, away from the sidewalk... now...

but she didn't, and one big positive from all of this drama, is that america's premiere progressive news team - editors and spokesperson- saw what we couldn't see on the outside, what only a few hundred experienced inside the jail. thank you democracy now, thank you amy, sharif and nicole.....

...peace...

I've heard of race riots, soccer riots and anarchist riots but not too many vegan riots...

If they were really concerned about riots they would infiltrate sports bars before any big champsionship game. Must be some politics involved here and not a pure interest in fighting crime.

It is astonishing to me that anyone is surprised at these tactics, given the track record of this administration vis-a-vis law and constitutional rights. The absence of demonstrations since the run up to the invasion of Iraq simply encourages these folks to push the envelope. The tragic absence of an opposition party leaves the door wide open to encroaching fascism.

"I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Thomas Jefferson

I believe we are become fat, lazy and stupid, sorry to say. That is a condition which bodes ill for the continuation of our democracy.

"People are mostly afraid of reason. They should be afraid of stupidity. If only they knew what was really fearful." JW Goethe

We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin

I suspect the Republicans didn't want a Protest at the Convention because they don't want the Protesters to Remind Voters what a Lousy Job the Republicans have done the last (8) years!! GO PROTESTERS!!

VOTE OBAMA!

Teri

I frankly am not too sure how big a deal this really is yet. We really don't have clear facts and early reports are usually exaggerated.

But if half of it is true I'd have to agree with a poster above, you'd have to be pretty stupid to bully Amy and her staff if you knew who they were. Or to make a big deal out of nothing and give them the platform you were denying them.

I tend to err on the side of caution and believe they are just stupid.

&YYY&
Being a community minded vegetarian is probably partly genetically determined, and so is being a fascist Vampire State thug who makes legislation that says the state can arrest anybody they do not like by marking their forehead with a label of protester or lefties, and have them imprisoned indefinitely without trial. Since the VS constitution is now just a piece of paper, there is nothing left of human rights in the VS.

Correction:
Elizabeth Glidden is a Minneapolis City Council member, not Saint Paul City Council member.

I guess all these raids and arrests fall under the executive order against thought crime.

We must thank Big Brother for the double plus good police state.

Are we safe yet?

This paints a black picture of the right to assembly and free speech. The American People apparently mean NOTHING to the Republican's.

The Republicans support the Fascist Oligarchy that is currently obviously in power. They are all in favor of overt repression, suppression, arrests and all that goes with the abuse of power to intimidate the people.

Unfortunately, the Democrats also support the Oligarchy and its repressive means. However, they expect to inherit this criminal government, to use for their own ends and that is why you cannot get a legislator to discuss the return of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, intact and functioning, to the Halls of Government. Both parties are run by the same small bunch of wealthy, powerful, behind the scenes string-pullers.

If the Republicrats win, we'll probably see overt fascism, crack downs, mass arrests, show trials, etc., to keep the people in line.

If the Democans win, we'll probably see a continuation of "fascist lite," at least for a while.

Don't expect to ever see that "God-damned piece of paper" known as the Constitution and Bill of Rights, once used as the rule and guide of our conduct, protected and defended by the oath breakers who swear to do so at the beginning of each session of the legi$lature, and by the pre$ident every four years.

Since when are vegan groups necessarily "leftist organizations?" This lack of precesion gives the right further grist to smear anything oppositional (or even rational) as "leftist." Not that I oppose leftist. In the US political context, I am very much a leftist. But leftist does not mean anything different than the status quo -- although I would personally prefer that all activists were, indeed, actually leftists. :-]

I am appalled, but I guess not surprised, that none of this was reported in the media. I "happened" to see the protests on a local Spanish-language station news report as I was looking to see if there was any coverage of the convention last night. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but it was clear it was from Minneapolis.

JaneM

Why aren't our political leaders out there protesting the Gestapo like tactics of the Federal, State and local law enforcement goons? We can't do this alone.

Pity Abe Ribicoff isn't with us any more. And I'll bet that Paul Wellstone would have had a mouthfull to say.

rosie2731

Bruce Nestor said the timing of the arrests was intended to stop protest activity, "to make people fearful of the protests, but also to discourage people from protesting," he told Amy Goodman.

No wonder they "targeted" Amy for arrest!