Gone to the Dogs By: shep

by shep

Fantastic! Minnesota Public Radio decides to cover the political protests in Mineapolis but in their long description of low protester turnout doesn’t see fit to mention that:

” 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.”

or:

”This is Eileen Clancy . . . The house where I-Witness Video is staying in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained. One of our people who was caught outside is being detained in handcuffs in front of the house. The police say that they are waiting to get a search warrant. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms, including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me is an M-16.

We are suffering a preemptive video arrest. For those that don't know, I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of 1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras is a result of the 2004 success.

We are asking the public to contact the office of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman at 651-266-8510 to stop this house arrest, this gross intimidation by police officers, and the detention of media activists and reporters.”

There was a day when a journalist (or at least his or her editor) knew the difference between dog-bites-man - a few violent protesters at a political convention - and man-bites-dog - government surveillance and harassment of political opponents, illegal searches and seizures of private homes, arresting reporters and defense attorneys without probable cause, etc. The fact that the establishment press has decided to forgo that simple analysis when observing government conduct is, perhaps, the biggest man-bites-dog story of early 21st Century America.

Thank goodness for our ever-vigilant police state and our “liberal media” . You must be so glad to not be one of those dirty effing hippies…

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]