Seriously? What is this nonsense?
Has anyone been charged with anything? Is the media just ignoring this completely? Why have the authorities not had any press conferences to explain what kind of evidence they have to warrant this bullshit? What is going on?
Notorious P.A.T.
Sure. Why shouldn’t they? If this happened in Russia or China, it would be worth condemning. But since it’s right here in America, those people must be hooligans who did something wrong.
Stuck in the Fun House (nj)
They were probably told to stfu or get a one way ticket for a vacation to GITMO. All expenses paid of course. And they’d also have to discuss DFH things, and that’s just so 60’s
LiberalTarian
Now, if St. Paul were pregnant, we’d know all about it. ;)
Marshall
They tried to bury it over the Labor Day weekend – all the reporters are at the Cape. (And, anyone arrested probably couldn’t get out before Tuesday, even Wednesday.)
Dave Trowbridge
What is going on is that the reality of the police state we live in is being unveiled–and no one is paying attention. The authorities can do this whenever they like, and by the time anything is done (which won’t be much, given the “good faith” presumption in favor of law enforcement that pervades the justice system and much of public opinion), the effect desired has been attained: suppression of any kind of effective, visible dissent.
We can scream all we like on-line–that’s not threatening to the system. But direct action, even non-violent, will not be tolerated. It’s not good for Empire and other dead things.
Dave_Violence
Good one, LiberalTarian.
Who knows? If we’re lucky, we’ll never hear about the real reason.
Incertus
I’ve seen a couple of small stories on news websites–one link on MSNBC.com that I can recall–but that’s it. And the tone is fairly deferential to law enforcement, as you might expect. People have been blogging about it–Glenzilla is the big dog leading the pack–but it hasn’t broken through the media filter. Gustav and Palin haven’t helped, but I don’t have any confidence that it would have made a difference even if all there were to report on were shark attacks.
Jeff
Just talked to my Libertarian father. “more, faster, please” is his libertarian response to this. “Round ’em up!!”.
rmp
OK, being from Minnesota, this is kind of important to us. It’s St. Paul, not Minneapolis.
jimBOB
Just another day in The Land Of The Free.™ The modern GOP is pretty much straight authoritarian in outlook, and is being backed up by a corporate-owned media that wouldn’t know know journalistic ethics if they tripped over them. So you won’t see any of this nasty stuff on the teevee, where anyone might hear about it.
If there’s a McCain victory this fall then you can kiss goodbye any notion of the U.S. as a constitutional republic. We’re already on the ragged edge of fascism.
Wini
Gah. I can’t figure out from the buttons above how to link “correctly”.. so I’ll just say that at twincities dot com there are some pictures and a recently written/updated article.
LiberalTarian
Youtube has the most information from people who were there and affected. There isn’t a lot of video, but it beats the ABC, NBC, PBS, NPR, CBS, etc. reporting–which is absent completely or the usual misinformation BS.
Nothing to see here sheeple, move along …
Dave_Violence
I just located this story. It contains this quote,
Sounds to me like they stopped something really bad from happening. Just like was done in Denver: you don’t need a pound, do you?
Methinks there’s some people out there who simply look upon violence, mayhem, etc. as an end unto itself. This isn’t about a police state (that we certainly do not have in the US), it’s about strange goings-on and people who aren’t interested in our democratic process. I am changing my name from Dave_Violence to something else; it’s not right to laugh (irony or not) in times of war.
MeDrewNotYou
Jeeze! Don’t you guys realize that the DFHs are obviously doing something wrong? Our government wouldn’t waste their time on protesters unless what they were threatening was wayyyyyy worse than what, say bin Laden is threatening.
They’re doing it for our own good, so just shut up traitors.
gbear
A lot of the cops are fucking up. A lot of the anarchist are fucking up. There are a lot of people not fucking up. I wish the fuckups would disappear from my city. fuck.
Steve Earle is playing right now across the river from the convention. You can watch it here.
Dave_No_Longer_Laughing
what do you think of this new name?
Genine
This is some seriously screwed up shit. When the DNC was here in Denver, it was all over the news about the police presence and the warehouses they set up to detain people. People were outraged and there were discussions and it was in the news for days.
But people being rustled out of their homes at gun-point, plants being placed in “vegan” left-leaning groups, raids and arrests and there hadn’t even been any protests, and all kinds of crap like that- not a peep.
That damn liberal media.
gbear
I mostly wish Bob Fletcher would go away. He’s the Sarah Palin pick of crowd control.
Notorious P.A.T.
Wow, I’m so shocked! ! !
Wini
@gbear – completely agree, although I’m across the river. Also, thanks for the link.
Stoic
Sorry, John. Welcome to the police state that is now the United States. (Pssssss, don’t complain too much or the FBI will open a file on you.)
Marshall
One bunch of people who you can be sure are paying attention is the Prime Minister’s Office in Russia. They already claim that the recent Georgian war was cooked up to ensure McCain’s election. You can bet this will come up in response to any US criticism the next time, say, a demonstration is blocked in Moscow,
Martin
The only two things I’ve heard people being charged for are ‘code violations’ on the vehicle/residence being raided and ‘conspiracy to incite a riot’. I once paid $50 over a code violation. I was spared SWAT and FBI, but I’ll be careful to double check the height of the fence that I’m rebuilding now.
The problem here is that it seems that the groups being targeted are peaceful (but vocal) protest groups and not the anarchist groups that have attended these events and stirred up trouble. Granted, if they did raid anarchist groups, I’m not sure we’d hear of it reported even through the blogs, but there’s been a fairly longstanding effort by the GOP to blame the liberal groups for the actions of the anarchist groups. So much so that there are now teams dedicated to recording the violence in order to document that it’s not the liberal groups involved.
There’s a little bit of clearer reporting going on now about the distinction than in previous years. One of the CNN reporters before made it pretty clear that it was anarchists and not liberals, but I think we all know that such distinctions count for nothing. The freepers/Coulter/Rush/O’Reilly crowd will still call for rounding up anyone with an ACLU card.
Notorious P.A.T.
Huh. I didn’t know it was against the law to be an anarchist.
Huh. I didn’t know we were now arresting people because they are “going to” commit crimes.
Equal Opportunity Cynic
Wow, I’m so shocked! ! !
I, too, was shocked that Jeff elected to eschew the scare quotes around libertarian. Twice!
You won’t find many self-identified authoritarian libertarians, for the reason that there’s already a major party that serves the needs of those who are pro-liberty on economic issues and pro-fascism on everything else.
gbear
That’s our Bob.
Equal Opportunity Cynic
Huh. I didn’t know we were now arresting people because they are “going to” commit crimes.
Sorta like we invade harmless countries because they’re “going to” become very scary and threaten us at some indeterminate point in the future….
Harrie
Glen Greenwald at Salon has been following this for a couple of days.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Gerald Curl
Precogs are very good at seeing future property destruction.
Rook
While the national media is giving no play to the heavy handed tactics of the local police in conjunction with the FBI, the local media has been making hay with the stories all weekend. And it has not been lightly covered.
There are good stories about raids without arrests, and that only one raid out of 5 resulted in any actual plans, with materials, for rioting.
And don’t be mistaken, I am not okay with the heavy handed tactics. I think the domestic spying is truly outrageous. However, I also see that there were plans for riots, and there has been some civil disobedience that is uncalled for and, again, has been covered by the local media.
If McCain had any thoughts of winning Minnesota, he can kiss it goodbye now. The actions of the police will not go over well with most Minnesotans.
In the end, the FBI and police are inflaming the already tense situation by treating many innocent protesters as outlaws. If any riot gets out of hand, it will be because of the police state tactics.
Jeff
I didn’t put scare quotes around “libertarian” because that would be redundant. “Libertarians” are, and have been for years, simply statist authoritarians who likes theys money.
ThymeZone
Doesn’t Other Steve live there? Where is he with his onscene report?
Wait, is that TOS in the back of that paddy wagon?
Scott H
Christ, are we back to “anarchists?” All things old are new, again.
Clearly, people have no more idea what an “anarchist” is than they do a “libertarian” or a “fascist.”
One house full of people with leaflets is going to make for a hell of a riot. Oh, it was 35 people with an intention to go do crimes. woo-hoo!
jake
Look, they have to lock up the DFHs or they’ll cause embarrassment when the visiting GOPers ask them for drugs and/or sex.
gbear
well here’s one story of what’s going on here in St. Paul. Fuck these guys.
MN Independent has been covering a lot of the pre-emptive busts and has people downtown watching the action.
SGEW
As a long time political protester, (who Mr. Cole probably made fun of (tangentially) as a D.F.H. during the 2004 R.N.C.: not that I hold it against him, of course . . . ), this is very very very unsurprising. After all, why do you think those Lawyers’ Guild folk (member since ’07) where there in the first place?
Hell, this is old (green) hat by now in Bush’s America. After having machine guns pointed at me, being wiretapped (real quote from me at the time “Wow, look, guys! The transcripts the A.C.L.U. got have me in them! I’m a celebrity! . . . Hey, I don’t feel so good, all of a sudden.”), being followed by F.B.I., D.H.S., and other unnamed agents, and being called a “terrorist” in a court of law by a state prosecutor (because of a “conspiracy to commit a riot,” by the way – those protest banners sure are riotous!), there’s not much that’ll surprise me at this point.
Glad to see other people realizing it. Maybe this time the authoritarians tipped their hands and overplayed the whole “dissent is unpatriotic” thing? Maybe Americans will realize what kind of monster has been created?
. . .
Yeah, right. Watch: some 17 year old douche bag self-described “anarchist” (read a fucking book, kid!) will throw a brick at a cop, and everyone will just say “See! Those anti-Americans deserved the arrests!”
Sigh.
Gus
He gave up MN when he didn’t pick Pawlenty as his VP candidate. Even w/Pawlenty he had little chance, but now he has none.
w vincentz
I can’t wait until a US diplomat (see Sec of State Rice) lectures another country about their stance on “human rights”.
Sure, we have a Constitution, but, heck “It’s just a piece of paper”.
Sasha
Who cares about the government using excessive force to crack down on protesters? That doesn’t sell news.
There’s a pregnant teenager we could be talking about!
cain
Just think what would happen if she decided to visit Aruba?! And then had gone missing??! OH SHIT! They’ll forget about the entire presidential election!
cain
dbrown
This is what a police state does – like repubics want: take away our rights, allow police to have unchecked power, be sure only the elite are protected, all else are subject to arrest; and finally, make everyone afraid so they do not question that soon, they will be the victim of the police state. All this adds up to Bushwhack NAZI or Shadow on the Land (Great show – if any one has a copy, you could make bank on e-bay (but let me know first!!!.))
Incertus
I think they’ve gone and stepped in it now–and I’m sorry if this has already been mentioned in another thread. They’ve arrested a journalist now, and according to Glenn, they’re not even sorry they’ve done it.
SGEW
Whoops. Looks like some asshat dropped a bag of cement (sand? unknown as of now) on an RNC bus from an overpass. Someone else broke a police cruiser’s window with a brick.
Shitheads.
We don’t need lawyers there, man. We need some GOD DAMNED NON-VIOLENCE TRAINERS!
These motherfucking “anarchist” anti-capitalist kids need some fucking adult supervision. One god damned testosterone-filled radical with a head full of fail goes out and gets his violent rocks off, and now Amy fucking Goodman’s under arrest.
So there you go: mission accomplished, dickweeds. Thanks for making every peaceful protester look like a bomb-throwing meth addict in the eyes of America.
John Rohan
I’m kind of wondering why you put the label “Republican crime syndicate” on this story, since there is no evidence that the RNC ordered these arrests. Not even the ever odious Greenwald suggested that in the article. The raids may not be legal, but I would wait until all the facts are in before spazzing out. Greenwald takes the protestor’s statements at face value; I am a little more skeptical. In any case, if the raids were unconstitutional, they can seek legal remedy later.
Incidentally, I am even more skeptical whenever the National Lawyers Guild is involved in anything. They were founded by Stalinists who were so steadfast in their beliefs they refused to grant legal defense to Trotskyists (no, I’m not joking). Today they are represented by blatant terrorist sympathizers like Lynne Stewart.
And as SGEW just pointed out, there is a lot of very violent protests going on right now, including bags of cement off overpasses into traffic. So maybe some of these raids were the right thing to do…
Some links:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/09/rnc-anti-war-le.html
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/09/bus-attack-in-st-paul-anarchists-attack.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cvn_convention_protests;_ylt=AiAA.PgfOpL3C_Nk.uDfTNGs0NUE
MNPundit
Reason #155 why young lefties think 60s style protests are useless at best, or counterproductive and self-destructive political suicide at worst.
Limniade
I live about 10 minutes north of downtown, and drove through it today in a misguided attempt to get some lunch at Cosetta’s (an Italian cafe about a block from the Xcel Center).
Things I saw:
1. A ton of cops, most standing around looking relaxed/too hot. Some in riot gear. Some directing traffic.
2. A lot of traffic, probably consisting of people just like me, thinking, “Hey, why don’t we go here? Oh shit, I forgot about the damn convention. How do I get out?”
3. A bunch of people standing on a corner, holding signs that said things like “Don’t Pray For America” and “Fags Should Die”. Could this be Fred Phelps? I didn’t get a good look at them.
4. Very few people on the street, certainly compared to a regular day. Of course, today is Labor Day so a lot of people aren’t at work. Still, I guess I expected to see far more protesters and conventioneers than I did.
5. The lawn of the capital had a few people gathered, a bunch of Port-o-potties, and an inflatable liberty bell. A couple dozen people were meandering around and sitting under shade trees.
That was it. If people were looking for a scene, they certainly didn’t find it in St. Paul today.
Jill Howell
They arrested Amy Goodman and two producers from Democracy Now!
SGEW
According to Glenn, Amy’s been released, though we’re still waiting on word about the producers (one of whom had his nose “bloodied”).
Also, cross posting:
Watch and weep:
Woman holding out flower to riot police.
She is swiftly pepper sprayed.
Ah, America!
bootlegger
“Civil disobedience” is not a crime and thats all any of these people were doing when they were raided. Actually, they were doing less than this when 5-0 rolled in, they were eating dinner and watching a movie.
Whoever does a crime should be arrested and prosecuted. “Preventive raids”, however, are not just bad crime control policy but is an anathema to everything America stands for.
Preventive Raids? Preventive War? Hmmmmmm.
SGEW
More updates (if anyone’s still checking this thread) from the unstoppable Glenzilla:
The AP and Donna Brazile are involved. Maybe this will have consequences?
SGEW
And a twitter report from BoingBoing (of all places):
Shit, meet fan?
SGEW
And a final update (we need a new thread!):
Amy’s out, and gives an interview to SFGate (via the always reliable Glenzilla): link (under “Update VII”: couldn’t find a more direct link).
Apparently, the two producers have also been released.
Nancy Irving
Are these the same feds who characterized the gun-toting white supremacists who threatened to shoot Obama at the Democratic convention as not a serious threat?
w vincentz
Follow up on the Amy Goodman story is over at Alternet.com.
Be sure to read the comments.
The audacity of the Mayor of St Paul showing up on “Morning Joe” to justify these gestapo actions and label “press” shows that the terrorists we have long feared, the ones that will take away your freedoms, are alive and well, wearing riot protections gear in STt Paul.
Also note that this isn’t being picked up in the MSM.
It’s all about fawning over Maverick Sarah.
ImJohnGalt
That’s pretty fucked up right there.
The monument of civil rights is being destroyed one brick at a time.