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UPDATE:  Amy Goodman journalist and host of "Democracy Now" was arrested yesterday in an attempt to find out why her two producers were arrested.  She was released after 3 hours, but the two producers are still in custody.

Glenn Greenwald is reporting on the arrests of protesters in St. Paul.  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
And it's not simply a matter of lawful arrests of unruly people.  No protests had happened yet.  People were put under house arrest, handcuffed for being outside the house.  Then computers and journals were taken.  Lawyers were handcuffed.  What happened to the First Amendment right to "free assembly"?  Greenwald comments:

We love to proclaim how much we cherish our "freedoms" in the abstract, but we despise those who actually exercise them.

I'm reading Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" and just finished the chapter on student campus protests all over the U.S in 1970 as the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia. It was in the midst of these that the four students at Kent State in Ohio were killed by the National Guard, many of whom had enlisted to "avoid Vietnam" and resented these kids who had student deferments.  Now some of these campus protests were pretty messy with a lot of nasty language flung at cops and Guard.  Students had just burned down the small "wobbly" ROTC building at Kent State.  But most protests were "mundane and mainstream", reports Perlstein.  Students at Grinnell broke a window and took up a collection of $14.30 to get it fixed. Princeton "announced that it would shut down for several weeks before the fall elections so students could volunteer for the political candidates of their choice. In New Jersey, even a draft board went on strike."

It was in 1970 that construction workers in New York City had counter protests in which they beat up long hairs with their hard hats.  But it was also soon after that that Congress finally got the balls to start taking back their war powers.  Republican John Cooper and Democrat Frank Church put forth an amendment banning funds for ground forces in Cambodia and Laos.  Republican Mark Hatfield and Democrat George McGovern introduced an amendment that would force troops to withdraw from Vietnam by June 30, 1971 if Congress did not make an official declaration of war.  This bipartisan group of Senators urged people to come to Washington to support their cause.  And the people came.
This is what democracy was supposed to look like and did once upon a time.

But 38 years later?  Greenwald again:

The Constitution, right in the very First Amendment, protects free speech and free assembly precisely because those liberties are central to a healthy republic -- but we've decided that anyone who would actually express truly dissident views or do anything other than sit meekly and quietly in their homes are dirty trouble-makers up to no good, and it's therefore probably for the best if our Government keeps them in check, spies on them, even gets a little rough with them.
....
Just review what happened yesterday and today. Homes of college-aid protesters were raided by rifle-wielding police forces. Journalists were forcibly detained at gun point. Lawyers on the scene to represent the detainees were handcuffed. Computers, laptops, journals, diaries, and political pamphlets were seized from people's homes. And all of this occurred against U.S. citizens, without a single act of violence having taken place, and nothing more serious than traffic blockage even alleged by authorities to have been planned.

Sit quietly in your homes, Sheeple.  Behave.  Drink more Kool-Aid and relax. 

UPDATE:  Another article on this with more pictures: http://www.alternet.org/rights/97110/
If it wasn't so scary in the grand scheme of things, infiltrating "vegan" groups might be considered a laugh riot.  Dangerous vegetarians are now the reason why preemptive strikes are warranted on "all enemies domestic and foreign".

Furthermore, according to the W3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUX" minneapolis="minneapolis">Star Tribune, the raids were "aided by informants planted in protest groups." Indeed, as Glenn Greenwald reminded readers on Sunday, the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force spent months recruiting people to spy on activist groups planning to protest the RNC. On May 21, the Minneapolis City Pages ran a bizarre but chilling story titled "Moles Wanted," about the recruitment efforts by the task force -- specifically, attempts to enlist people to "attend 'vegan potlucks' throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protesters" in a mission to "investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines."

This is similar to FBI infiltration of protest groups in the 1960's and early 1970's, but that's why the FISA act had been put in place.   The FBI and police got way out of hand and the spying was a shock to the American people and they wanted it stopped.  But now, even the Democrats are going along with demolishing the last vestiges of our constitutional rights.  This is a story that should not be stuck on page 16 and forgotten about.

Greenwald is right to strongly rebuke the Democrats for not mentioning the assault on our constitution in their recent convention speeches.
    
    

 

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