Can we call it police state yet?
By Libby
Updated below
Okay, I know that nobody loves these ANSWER folks. They're certainly not my favorite activist organization but this is over the top.
They don't say how many cops but charging 30 people who have peaceably assembled with cops on horses is so far beyond what America is supposed to stand for that I don't know how anyone call me a conspiracy theorist with a straight face when I suggest this administration is more than willing to declare martial law to preserve their power.
No matter what you think of ANSWER, they have the constitutional right as Americans to assemble. This kind of suppression of dissent is more frightening than any terrorist is to me.
Update: The WaPo has more details. They're reporting it was more than a dozen police officers and one horse.
In other words, if the cameras weren't there, they would have arrested the kid too. Has it really come to this?
Updated below
Okay, I know that nobody loves these ANSWER folks. They're certainly not my favorite activist organization but this is over the top.
Mounted police charged in to break up an outdoor press conference and demonstration against the Iraq war in Washington on Thursday, arresting three people, organizers and an AFP reporter said.
The charge caused a peaceful crowd of some 20 journalists and four or five protestors to scatter in terror, an AFP correspondent at the event in Lafayette Square said. No one appeared to have been hurt.
Last month, the movement was threatened with a fine of at least 10,000 dollars unless it removed posters in the city announcing the September 15 march.
Washington city authorities have said the posters had to come down because they were stuck on with adhesive that did not meet city regulations.
"At our demonstration today we were showing the media that the paste we use conforms to the rules," Becker said.
"One of our activists was making a speech when the police barged in and grabbed the podium. At that point, Tina Richards started to put up a poster, so they arrested her and two others."
They don't say how many cops but charging 30 people who have peaceably assembled with cops on horses is so far beyond what America is supposed to stand for that I don't know how anyone call me a conspiracy theorist with a straight face when I suggest this administration is more than willing to declare martial law to preserve their power.
No matter what you think of ANSWER, they have the constitutional right as Americans to assemble. This kind of suppression of dissent is more frightening than any terrorist is to me.
Update: The WaPo has more details. They're reporting it was more than a dozen police officers and one horse.
As news cameramen focused in on the officer, he commanded the protesters to get back, ordered them to dismantle a table and called for backup.
The officer then got into a tussle over a bucket of paste with Tina Richards, the mother of an Iraq war veteran. "Let go of this," he shouted. "If you don't, you will be arrested."
More officers arrived, including several dressed in black commando-style uniforms and one atop a horse that he maneuvered to push back the crowd. "Back up!" he shouted.
An officer placed handcuffs on Richards, of Missouri, and put her in the back of a police car. A few feet away, Kristine Klein, 13, Richards's daughter, started crying. She said that another officer had grabbed her arm and pushed her.
As Richards tried to call to her daughter from the cruiser, another officer closed the window.
When an officer went to speak to Kristine, a member of the Park Service's SWAT team advised him to stay away from her. "Don't feed into that, the cameras are rolling. Let her go," the officer said.
In other words, if the cameras weren't there, they would have arrested the kid too. Has it really come to this?
Labels: Bush Administration, police state
posted by Libby Spencer at 3:38 PM
2 Comments:
I was in Chicago for the '68 convention. I saw Dick Gregory arrested for walking down the street headed south. There were cops driving around shooting the tires of parked cars, a woman walking in the park was thrown headfirst off an overpass onto the highway by cops, a man with long hair was knocked off his bicycle in Lincoln Park by cops and he and the bike thrown into the lake. Cops were getting on city buses and dragging off almost anyone with long hair using their clubs. phalanxes of cops on three wheelers raged through Grant Park clubbing and gassing anyone they could catch and the National guard paraded down State Street on jeeps rigged out in barbed wire cages and machine guns on the hoods. Some of it aired live on national television and the whole city stank of tear gas.
A young female relative of mine who was working for the republican party as a photographer was thrown to the ground and her camera smashed outside the convention because she was taking pictures. So much for the right to assemble or petition or to free speech.
What did America do, rebel? Punish the offenders? America elected Dick Nixon.
It's Karma.
Sigh. History repeats itself. You think we would have learned something from that.
It's because the average Jake just doesn't care about any outrage as long as it's not at their door. And hey American Idol is going to pick a winner tonight...
Blogtopia was supposed to change all that. So far it's falling a little short.
Post a Comment
<< Home