How Democrats prepare for a convention:
Individuals arrested at the Democratic National Convention will be processed at an industrial warehouse with chain-link cells topped by razor wire, a facility some have compared to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Groups planning marches, concerts and other events during the Aug. 25-28 convention dub the center “Gitmo on the Platte,” for the nearby South Platte River.
…Video footage of the north Denver warehouse on Denver’s KCNC-TV showed coils of razor wire topping chain-link cells. A sign read: “Electric stun devices used here.”
Gale said each cell will be about 20-by-20 feet. He refused to say how many people could be processed there.
“It’s just ridiculous, the thing looks like a dog pound,” said Mark Cohen of the protest group Recreate-68 Alliance. “Even if you only put dogs in there, people will be complaining about it. I think you ought to have the Red Cross and Amnesty International come take a look at this thing.”
and
“The infamous “free speech zone,” set to make a comeback at Denver’s upcoming Democratic National Convention, needs to be within earshot of delegates, a coalition of civil liberties advocates backed by the ACLU said [last month]. Chain link fencing or chicken wire at the end of the parade route, about 700 feet away from the Pepsi Center under the current plan, would separate demonstrators and protesters from other convention attendees, the Rocky Mountain News reported.
“No human voice, or any other sound,” ACLU counsel said in Monday’s amended complaint, “can ever hope to reach a person at the entrance.”
The ACLU lost their case, and the “free speech zone” went ahead as planned.
How Republicans prepare for a convention:
Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. 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.
…
The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant.
Greenwald also states that ” both journalists and lawyers — in addition to protesters — have been detained and arrested even though not a single violent or criminal act has occurred.”
All in all, a nice microcosm of the difference in approach between Dems and Repubs. Only one puts a jackboot to your neck in their opening manuever… but both will keep you on your knees. And you can bet the boots come down in either case if you get uppity.
If we were in Hell, and Satan made us choose between an eternity behind Door #1, where we had to eat our own shit all the time, or Door #2, where we were continuously eviscerated and then, out of our still pulsing intestines, forced to eat our own shit… well, the choice would be obvious. But the question would remain: how did we end up in Hell in the first place?
I’d say right now most Americans are still just in the pure shit eating phase. I guess we’re just lucky that way.
Yea, there’s a reason I’m moving to another country next week for the duration of the election cycle. Jesus tapdancing Christ in jackboots, we’ve gone from 0 to fascism so gradually that only people paying attention noticed!
Nice to know that pesky little freedom to associate part of the bill of rights has been taken care of. Looks like they’ve made some dents in the whole freedom of speech part too. /snark
I’ve been thinking lately about how protests no longer work because of incidents like this. And about how we need to find another way to get the message out to large groups of like minded people. We need to find an electronic way of protesting. Most of us bloggers already have the early American spirit of pamphleting down. Now we just need a way to take the message from those that agree with us to changing the opinions of those that don’t.
At the Immigrants’ Rights march, the police commander read from a prepared statement: “We are here to assist you in exercising your first amendment rights.”
(And also to arrest and quite possibly deport you should you fail to be sufficiently docile, he did not add.)
POLICE COMMANDER: (into megaphone)We are here to assist you in exercising your first amendment rights!
(Protesters burst into spontaneous cheering and applause.)
PROTESTOR 1: (salutes)Thanks, Chief!
PROTESTOR 2: Wow, what a caring government!
YOUNG PROTESTOR: (through tears of joy)I… I wasn’t sure I would know what to do when I got here. Now I feel safe!
__________________________
Shira, just for the election cycle?
Red Queen, I hope there is a way to fix things with the internet… but it’s just a new technology. Might shake things up in a meaningful way, but then again, kind of looking right now like it might not.
The net is a tool which is only good for as long as we have the freedom to roam across this worldwide series of tubes unhindered. Alas, the infrastructure of the internet is mostly in the hands of our Big Bad Greedy Capitalist Overlords. So if the proles figure out a way to use the web in a way that really does kickstart some kind of Revolution, then the Overlords take note. And the wild-and-wooly days of the internet will be over.
Most of us bloggers already have the early American spirit of pamphleting down. Now we just need a way to take the message from those that agree with us to changing the opinions of those that don’t.
That was kind of the problem for the pamphleteers, too. What’s the message? Who is “us”? There is certainly a lot of coordination between progressive bloggers right now. Conventions all over, important action alerts galore. But as they stand right now, the closest thing to a consensus message, to a gestalt that could be called an “us”, is a shared belief that the best way to improve things is to work from within the Democratic party.
As everybody here has surely figured out by now, I don’t believe this approach will achieve much in the way of positive results. At least not while “improving things” means making rich people a little poorer. So until it dawns on the public at large that the safe methods that the ruling class allows us are doomed to failure, things can’t possibly change.
Best I think we can do right now is try to wake people up to this fact. Strength can only come with numbers. Unfortunately, this concept is alien to most people because they are skillfully counter-programmed from a young age. Double unfortunately, we may have run out of time, what with the blade of global warming and peak energy hanging over our necks.
So what can we do? Just keep on spreading the word the best we can, and try to be good to those in the real world wherever we are, and try to relax and accept those things that, injust as they are, it’s just not in our personal power to change by ourselves.