...with a little help from our friends. Photo by Spencer Platt / Getty Images.
But not alone: Yes, GOP, ‘We built it’
The Republican Convention’s theme implies -- wrongly -- that entrepreneurs don’t rely on public help.
By Marilyn Katz / The Rag Blog / September 4, 2012
[As the Democrats kick off their convention in Charlotte, Marilyn Katz addresses a major theme of last week's Republican gathering in Tampa.]
Campaign rhetoric is to be expected, but let's not let it cloud our minds. The partnership of American business and government has been a good one, in which personal ingenuity is allowed full realization by public investment in education, roads, bridges, research, and technology.
Listening to the RNC rhetoric, I thought: I could be the poster child for the “We Built It” theme. Without inherited wealth, without financial banking, I founded a small business in 1984 on my wits alone that I have run continuously and successfully for the past 28 years.
The Republicans appear to think so, too, as they call me at least once a month asking for money and spouting some screed about Obama's secret Muslim plot.
However, like Chris Christie's, my momma always told me to face the truth, and the truth is that I -- like everyone else in this country -- am not the sole author of my accomplishments.
My business depends on my reading, writing, and thinking skills, all of which I gained in public schools -- schools fought for by our forefathers and mothers to ensure an informed electorate that could counter the sway and privilege of inherited wealth. It's true that my parents paid for my education at private colleges, but my brother was -- and I could have been -- educated at one of the many public state and land universities that, for most of the 20th century, ensured that America was one of the most educated nations in the world.
My initial and current employees were also educated not at my expense, but by the public. Most attended public schools throughout their educational lives, from kindergarten through college, and many relied on publicly financed loans to afford further higher education.
I set up shop relying on the publicly-financed and -constructed U.S. mail system and telephone grid to communicate with clients. And when my business was revolutionized by computers and then by the Internet, it was the government investment in military and intelligence research to which I owed my gratitude. My business benefits from the public roads and bridges on which I drive. I rely on the publicly financed Federal Aviation Administration to ensure that the planes on which I fly, fly safely. I have never taken any of this for granted.
When I was in college, it was often implied that inhabitants of the “third world” (i.e. Latin America, the Middle East, Africa) lacked the drive of Europeans or Americans. I've lived in Latin America and visited many other regions of the Global South, and in none did I witness innovation and social mobility being stymied by a lack of creativity or drive; rather economies and people were impeded by the lack of infrastructure and education.
It is the public infrastructure that supports entrepreneurship, that supports social mobility, that drew our forefathers here from foreign lands (and yes, that is true of all of us except Native Americans), and that continues to draw the most entrepreneurial folks -- documented or undocumented -- from across the world today.
Ann and Mitt Romney's grandparents, too, started businesses and hired workers they didn't have to educate and used roads they didn't have to build. Chris Christie's mom too rode buses financed by the public to ensure worker transportation to and from businesses, that themselves benefited from the public transit and the roads.
Campaign rhetoric is to be expected, but let's not let it cloud our minds. The partnership of American business and government has been a good one, in which personal ingenuity is allowed full realization by public investment in education, roads, bridges, research, and technology. Our tax dollars for education, for health care, for infrastructure, are not charity or extortion; they are the foundation of our collective wealth.
Yes, “We Built It.” But the “we” in this case is not just we entrepreneurs, but the "We" who together constitute these United States.
[An anti-war and civil rights organizer during the Vietnam War, Marilyn Katz helped organize security during the August 1968 protests at the Democratic National Convention. Katz has founded and led groups like the Chicago Women’s Union, Reproductive Rights National Network, and Chicago Women Organized for Reproductive Choice in the 1960s and 1970s, and Chicagoans Against War in Iraq in 2002. The founder and president of Chicago-based MK Communications, Katz can be contacted at mkatz@mkcpr.com. This article was also published at In These Times. Read more articles by Marilyn Katz on The Rag Blog.]
Riot cops at 2008 Republic National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Photo by Pan African News.
'I fear those individuals, identified only after they explode, who project their anxieties, anger and insecurities by becoming officers of the law and marauding under the protection of a badge.'
By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / January 8, 2009
Brandon Darby represents more, much more, than just a disordered wannabe spy, snitch, or informant. Darby was attracted to the magnet that America's local police, sheriff's offices and even federal agents still purposefully drag around the edges of peaceful protest. A crude "intelligence" effort that tramples constitutional directives and generally attracts the disaffected, unreliable and duplicitous. That riot police, expensively outfitted in custom made gear designed more for confrontation than personal protection, can become a mob themselves always frightens me. Too many of those in the riot helmets have the "Kent State" gene which overrides sound police training and leads them to trample civil rights and inflict physical damage on innocent people. I greatly appreciate being able to dial 911 and have police respond to help and protect me. This is not an indictment of professional, dedicated law enforcement. This brief observation is about the tattered edges of law enforcement and the dated, worthless practices that some enforcement officers still employ.
I fear those individuals, identified only after they explode, who project their anxieties, anger and insecurities by becoming officers of the law and marauding under the protection of a badge. These types seem to band together under a code of silence within their ranks among police and sheriff's forces, as well as on the federal agencies across America. And this rogue element shares a similar mentality with Brandon Darby. They share a sick drive to assert themselves toward a narrow and mean expression of their fantasies and delusions. They have no allegiance to truth, fairness or humanity.
I can't address the pathology of these individuals, because I am a writer, not a mental health professional. But the regular news reports and videos of brutal beatings of subdued, handcuffed people by uniformed officers is disturbing enough to indicate a real ongoing problem. Darby has, without landing a punch or kneeing a groin, vicariously satisfied his sickness, and the pushers providing his fix, the drug of importance he needs, are those Agents who are as indiscriminate in their judgment as the fringe "informants" they seem to select.
This is of small solace to those who are arrested and jailed with barely a nod to Miranda, and who are then forced to prove they have done nothing wrong except exercise their rights to assemble and voice protests. This could be called the "Darby-Hoover" symbiosis. Flawed and medieval, it ultimately forces those arrested to obtain legal counsel to disprove what a potentially mentally unbalanced "informant" fed to eagerly waiting agents. George Bush and his administration have provided more than tacit approval to the trampling of human and civil rights at home and abroad and this has further emboldened law enforcement excesses. As our new administration and legislators attack serious fiscal and energy problems in the coming term, let's hope overall American law enforcement also undergoes a badly needed house cleaning.
Other Rag Blog posts related to FBI informant Brandon Darby of Austin:
The RNC 8: Left to right: Eryn Trimmer, Nathanael Secor, Luce Guillen-Givins, Monica Bicking, Garrett Fitzgerald, Rob Czernik, Erik Oseland, and Max Specktor.
Eight RNC Protesters Accused of 'Furthering Terrorism' Thanks To Statute By Matt Snyders / November 11, 2008
Officials say the RNC 8 plotted to sabotage Xcel, kidnap delegates
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL - Eryn Trimmer sits in a Loring Park coffee shop and peers out the window to the street below. Dressed in a casual charcoal-colored sweater, with wispy blond hair, the gangly 23-year-old handyman resembles your typical coffeehouse regular. You'd hardly suspect he's an accused terrorist.
The Saturday before the Republican National Convention, Trimmer was sleeping upstairs in his two-story home in Minneapolis's Powderhorn neighborhood when he was awakened by a clatter. Within seconds, armed officers burst through his bedroom, guns drawn, and arrested Trimmer, his live-in girlfriend Monica Bicking, and their roommate Garrett Fitzgerald.
Five more RNC protesters would be rounded up during that weekend in advance of the RNC. Dubbed the "RNC 8," the defendants-seven of whom were members of anarchist group the RNC Welcoming Committee-stand accused of "conspiring to riot," a second-degree felony. According to a police affidavit, the eight acted as ringleaders in a plot to "kidnap delegates" and "sabotage the Xcel Center."
Authorities leveled the charges based on evidence provided by paid informants and undercover agents who infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee in the months leading up to the convention ("Moles Wanted," 5/21/08). "We assumed the group was under surveillance and that that could include informants," Trimmer says. "It was an open group and we weren't organizing anything illegal, so we didn't want to kick anybody out."
But the RNC 8 face more than the standard felony charges. For the first time, authorities are wielding an obscure state anti-terrorism statute passed in the nervous aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Second-degree "conspiracy to commit riot" ordinarily carries a maximum two-and-a-half-year prison sentence, but because the alleged crime was intended to "further terrorism," the sentence can be doubled to a maximum of five years.
"The statute's definition of 'terrorism' appears to be modeled after a statute in the Patriot Act," says attorney Bruce Nestor, who is defending one of the accused conspirators. "But whereas the Patriot Act statute requires an act of violence against people, the language here extends the definition to include 'violence to property.'"
The original bill, proposed May 2, 2001, had nothing to do with terrorism: It required morticians and funeral directors to issue death notices for unidentifiable homeless people. Twelve months, five revisions, and one national tragedy later, the bill had mushroomed into a massive omnibus bill that included the hastily appended terrorism statute. Because the addendum was a relatively minor part of a larger piece of legislation, no one seems to be able to say for sure who inserted it.
"There was reaction to 9/11 and everybody wanted to get prepared," says Rep. Mary Liz Holberg (R-Lakeville), who voted for the bill. "I think the rationale behind it was that if individuals act in an organized manner and perpetuate crimes on the public, stiffer penalties are in order."
The most controversial aspect of the statute is its characterization of terrorism, which includes any felony that "significantly disrupts or interferes with the lawful exercise, operation, or conduct of government, lawful commerce, or the right of lawful assembly." Attorney Larry Leventhal, who is representing accused RNC 8 conspirator Max Specktor, says the language is overly broad.
"By that rationale, the definition of terrorism could be extended to anything," Leventhal argues. "If they don't like what you and I are saying to each other over a phone they're tapping, they can say that it's 'terroristic.'"
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher says that the RNC 8 may not look like the terrorists who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center, but their actions justify the stiffer penalties. Fletcher points to the fact that a 50-pound sandbag was hurled from a freeway overpass onto a busload of delegates as proof.
"I think it's fair to say the people who were in downtown St. Paul during the convention, including delegates, felt a level of terror from the actions of the individuals associated with the RNC Welcoming Committee," Fletcher says.
The RNC 8 deny having any operational involvement in the sandbag incident, but admit that some members may have planned acts of "civil disobedience," such as blockading the Xcel Center.
At a probable cause hearing Monday, attorneys for the RNC 8 successfully argued for an extension to gather further evidence. But even if the defendants are convicted, it's doubtful any of them will serve the five years in prison called for by the new law.
"The judge has a great deal of discretion as to what probationary conditions to put into place," says County Attorney Susan Gaertner. "Generally, that might include up to a year in jail, community service, or treatment."
That comes as little consolation to Luce Guillen-Givens, one of the eight accused. Having been involved with various immigrant-rights and antiwar groups since the age of 15, Guillen-Givens, now 24, worries what will happen to the next person accused of "furthering terrorism."
"Historically, these crackdowns serve the purpose of disrupting and undermining movements of resistance," she says. "First, you try conspiracy charges out on the fringes and, if it works there, you move incrementally in."
Riot police face off with demonstrators as the police block a bridge into downtown St. Paul to keep protesters from getting close to the site at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota September 4, 2008. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj)
Tyranny on Display at the Republican Convention By Chris Hedges / September 8, 2008
St. Paul is a window into our future. It is a future where, as one protester told me by phone, “people have been pepper-gassed, thrown on the ground by police who had drawn their weapons, had their documents seized and their tattoos photographed before being taken away to jail.” It is a future where illegal house raids are carried out. It is a future where vans containing heavily armed paramilitary units circle and film protesters. It is a future where, as the protester said, “people have been pulled from cars because their license plates were on a database and handcuffed, thrown in the back of a squad car and then watched as their vehicles were ransacked and their personal possessions from computers to literature seized.” It is a future where constitutional rights mean nothing and where lawful dissent is branded a form of terrorism.
The rise of the corporate state means the rise of the surveillance state. The Janus-like face of America swings from packaged and canned spectacles, from nationalist slogans, from seas of flags and Christian crosses, from professions of faith and patriotism, to widespread surveillance, illegal mass detentions, informants, provocateurs and crude acts of repression and violence. We barrel toward a world filled with stupendous lies and blood.
What difference is there between the crowds of flag-waving Republicans and the apparatchiks I covered as a reporter in the old East German Communist Party? These Republican delegates, like the fat and compromised party functionaries in East Berlin, all fawned on cue over an inept and corrupt party hierarchy. They all purported to champion workers’ rights and freedom while they systematically fleeced, disempowered and impoverished the workers they lauded. They all celebrated the virtue of a state that was morally bankrupt. And while they played this con game, one that gave them special privileges, power and wealth, they unleashed their goons and thugs on all who dared to challenge them. We are not East Germany, but we are well on our way. An economic meltdown, another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, a war with Iran, and we could easily swing into an authoritarian model that would look very familiar to anyone who lived in the former communist East Bloc.
A few of those arrested in St. Paul, including eight leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee — one of the groups organizing protests at the GOP convention in St. Paul — now face terrorism-related charges. Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins, Erik Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald and Max Spector could get up to seven and a half years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge, which allows for a 50 percent increase in the maximum penalty. This is the first time criminal charges have been filed under the 2002 Minnesota version of the federal Patriot Act.
The Patriot Act, which was put in place as much to silence domestic opposition as to ferret out real terrorists, has largely lain dormant. It has authorized the government to monitor our phone conversations, e-mails, meetings and political opinions. It has authorized the government to shut down anti-war groups and lock up innocents as terrorists. It has abolished habeas corpus. But until now we have not grasped its full implications for our open society. We catch glimpses, as in St. Paul or in our offshore penal colonies where we torture detainees, of its awful destructive power.
The commercial media told us that what was important in St. Paul was happening inside the convention hall. The vapid interviews, the ridiculous soap opera sagas about Sarah Palin’s daughter and the debate about whether John McCain or Barack Obama has proprietary rights to “Change” divert us from the truth of who we have become. You had to search out “Democracy Now!,” TheUptake.org, Twin Cities Indymedia, I-Witness, along with a few other independent outlets, to see, hear or read real journalism from St. Paul.
It does not matter that the RNC Welcoming Committee describes itself as an “anarchist/anti-authoritarian” organization. We don’t have to embrace a political agenda to protect the right to be heard. Shut down free speech and radicals only burrow deeper underground, splitting ossified political systems into fractured extremes. We may well end up with the Christian right on one side, with politicians like Sarah Palin providing an ideological veneer to a Christian fascism, and embittered leftist radicals who turn to violence on the other.
St. Paul was not ultimately about selecting a presidential candidate. It was about the power of the corporate state to carry out pre-emptive searches, seizures and arrests. It was about squads of police in high-tech riot gear, many with drawn semiautomatic weapons, bursting into houses. It was about seized computers, journals and political literature. It was about shutting down independent journalism, even at gunpoint. It was about charging protesters with “conspiracy to commit riot,” a rarely used statute that criminalizes legal dissent. It was about 500 people held in open-air detention centers. It was about the rising Orwellian state that has hollowed out the insides of America, cast away all that was good and vital, and donned its skin to shackle us all.
Using horseback officers, police moved to cut off demonstrators during GOP convention in St. Paul. Photo by Nick Vlcek / City Pages.
'Dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers arrested in an orchestrated round up of independents covering the Republican National Convention' By Timothy Karr / September 3, 2008
In St. Paul this week, a new generation of media makers is under assault by the city's mayor and law enforcement officers.
These local officials think freedom of the press extends only to their allies in mainstream media.
For the rest of us, practicing journalism is a crime. While reports of brutal police arrests and home invasions are still coming in, by Tuesday night the picture became clear.
Targeting the New Press
The list of those detained ranges from the well-known (Democracy Now's Amy Goodman) and well-established (Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke) -- to the bootstrapping bloggers and video makers who are covering local protests for TheUptake.org, Twin Cities Indymedia, I-Witness and other outlets.
Police -- with firearms drawn -- raided a meeting of the video journalists and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. Journalists covering protests have been pointed out by authorities, blasted with tear gas and pepper spray, and brutalized while in custody.
Democracy Now's Goodman reports that a U.S. Secret Service agent ripped her press credentials from her neck the moment she identified herself to him as a member of the media. Her producers emerged yesterday from their jail cells bloodied and scarred, reporting unusually harsh treatment at the hands of local and federal authorities.
Mayor Coleman's Silence
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman hasn't responded to repeated phone and e-mail requests for comments on the targeting of journalists. Instead he praised the work of Police Chief John Harrington and painted those arrested as a small band of outsiders and vandals intent upon committing felonies against the good people of his city.
In less than a day, more than 35,000 people have signed a letter from Free Press (my employer) to Mayor Coleman condemning the arrests and demanding that he and local prosecutors immediately "free all detained journalists and drop all charges against them."
But when Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald pressed Harrington and Coleman to respond to widespread reports of journalist arrests, Harrington claimed ignorance while Coleman stood silent at his side.
Police spokesman Don Walsh intervened only to say that "arrest have been made" and that all those arrested were involved in criminal activities and not "simply non-participants."
Strib Forgets About Free Speech
In a bizarre editorial on Tuesday, the Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune hailed the police crackdown as "appropriate," blaming unrest on outsiders from beyond the Twin Cities.
"Many of those arrested in St. Paul weren't carrying IDs or wouldn't give their names. Those who were identified came from Lexington, Ky.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; Portland, Ore., and dozens of other U.S. cities," they wrote. "These weren't the sons and daughters of Highland Park and south Minneapolis."
The Star Tribune itself is owned by out-of-towners from Avista Capital Partners, a New York City private equity firm specializing in energy, healthcare and media investments.
Other than a brief story about Goodman's arrest, the paper has failed to report on the apparent targeting of independent reporters, even though groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have sounded the alarm.
Sweeping Real Journalism Under the Carpet
Here we have every indication of an orchestrated assault by federal and local law enforcement agencies to stifle independent sources of information. As shocking as this conduct is, more disturbing is the fact that the mayor's office and the local daily seem so unconcerned.
It's not difficult to understand why. With local leaders making every effort to roll out the welcome mat for mainstream media and the GOP, they'd rather sweep beneath the carpet those pesky independents who are showing us a side of the spectacle that is less scripted for prime time.
As an elected representative, Mayor Coleman should take a stand on behalf of a free press, rein in aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement, stop the targeting of journalists and immediately drop all charges against them.
As a powerful news organization, the Star Tribune should know better, and should be sticking up for a free press, regardless of the form it takes.
For now, the democratic spirit of journalism is alive not in the Star Tribune newsroom, but among the video-blogs and cellphone reports that are bubbling up from outside the convention.
Timothy Karr is Campaign Director for Free Press and SavetheInternet.com. Tim served as executive director of MediaChannel.org and vice president of Globalvision New Media and the Globalvision News Network. He has also worked extensively as an editor, reporter and photojournalist for the Associated Press, Time Inc., New York Times and Australia Consolidated Press. Karr critiques, analyzes and reports on media and media policy in his popular blog, MediaCitizen.
Screen grab of stock footage of soldiers funeral used in RNC video. (GETTY IMAGES)
Fake Soldiers Used In RNC Video By Michael Rey / September 4, 2008
Patriotic Montage Shown At RNC Featured Actors Hired For One Day Shoot, Not Military
It was a video that was supposed to elicit soaring patriotism and real emotions about the Pledge of Allegiance. But to do that, it used fake soldiers and a staged military funeral instead of the real thing.
On Tuesday night, 15-year-old Victoria Blackstone, a sophomore at the St. Agnes School in St. Paul, led the crowd at the Xcel Energy Center in the Pledge of Allegiance. The audience heard her 434-word essay, “Pledging myself to the Flag of the United States of America,” an essay she’d entered in the “Wave the Stars & Stripes” essay contest and won. The RNC turned that essay into a three and a half minute video, a visually stirring montage rolling over Victoria’s words about sharing the Pledge with Americans who have stood at important moments in history.
There’s the Continental Congress…A real WWII vet…Photos of workers at Ground Zero. A close-up of a folded flag presented to a grieving widow at a military funeral… profiles of soldiers swelling with pride in slo-motion.
But CBS News found that the footage of the ‘funeral’ and soldiers is what is called ‘stock’ footage. The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.
The footage, sold by stock-film house Getty Images was produced by a commercial filmmaker in Chicago. Both Getty and the production company, Mr. Big Films, confirmed that the footage was shot on spec and sold to the Republican National Committee.
One of the actors, Perry Denton of Chicago, Ill. also confirmed that he was hired on a day-rate as an actor for the shoot and told CBS News he was surprised to learn the footage was shown at the convention.
A veteran’s advocate said that with soldiers still deployed and in harm’s way, there is an obligation not to sugar coat reality.
“What it does reveal is a serious lack of understanding and a lack of personal connection to the military,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Rieckhoff, who is at the convention with a contingent of veterans added that a video tribute to Medal of Honor winner Michael Monsoor, a Navy Seal killed in Iraq, shown on Tuesday night, used combat video that appeared to him and several other veterans of the Iraq war to have been staged.
After a Web search of videos played at the Democratic National Convention last week, CBS News found no obvious use of stock footage.
The RNC did not respond to CBS News’ request for a comment.
After graduating college, Barack Obama worked for three years, first in Harlem and then in Chicago, as a community organizer.
'Community organizers work in neighborhoods that have been hit hardest by the failing economy' September 4, 2008
Community organizers across America, taken aback by a series of attacks from Republican leaders at the GOP convention in St. Paul, came together today to defend their work organizing Americans who have been left behind by unemployment, lack of health insurance and the national housing crisis. The organizers demanded an apology from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for her statement that community organizers have no “actual responsibilities” and launched a web site, Community Organizers Fight Back, to defend themselves against Republican attacks. “Community organizers work in neighborhoods that have been hit hardest by the failing economy,” said John Raskin, founder of Community Organizers of America and a community organizer on the West Side of Manhattan. “The last thing we need is for Republican officials to mock us on television when we’re trying to rebuild the neighborhoods they have destroyed. Maybe if everyone had more houses than they can count, we wouldn’t need community organizers. But I work with people who are getting evicted from their only home. If John McCain and the Republicans understood that, maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to make fun of community organizers like me.”
Though many people are unfamiliar with community organizing, the job is both straightforward and vital: community organizers work with families who are struggling–because of low wages, poor health coverage, unaffordable housing, and other community problems–so that collectively, they can fix those problems and make government respond to their day-to-day concerns. Organizers knock on doors, attend community meetings, visit churches and synagogues and mosques, and work with unions and civic groups and block associations to help ordinary people build power and counter the influence of self-interested insiders and highly paid lobbyists at all levels of government.
Scorn for community organizers has been a prominent feature of this week’s Republican convention. On Wednesday, three Republican leaders mocked community organizers:
* Former Governor George Pataki said: “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer. What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.”
* Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said: “On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer. What? [Laughter]…I said, OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume.”
* Governor Sarah Palin said: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”
Community organizers were quick to fire back.
“I have ‘actual responsibilities,’” said Jacqueline del Valle, a community organizer in the Bronx. “If Mayor Giuliani and President Bush cared more about working people instead of just people who can hire high-powered lobbyists, maybe I wouldn’t have so much responsibility. Maybe working people would have an easier time in America today. But that’s not our reality, and they don’t have to mock us while we’re trying to clean up their mess.”
The community organizers launched their new web site to defend themselves against Republican attacks. They emphasize that their work will be necessary as long as lobbyists have undue influence over American government and the economy continues to fail people who work hard and still struggle to provide for themselves and their families.
Newlyweds portrayed by Heidi and Jim Turpin of CodePink Austin. Photo courtesy of Heidi Turpin.
'We were the only bride and groom there!' By Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / September 2, 2008
I spoke by phone last evening with Austin CodePink member, Heidi Turpin, who is in the Twin Cities this week along with her husband, Jim to join in the demonstrations at the RNC.
Heidi and Jim were getting ready for a speaking event after the day's big march and rally that drew thousands, the vast majority of whom marched peacefully as they had planned to do. Heidi said the march drew a lot of media, including a large contingent of foreign press. CodePink activists had come from around the country to bring their trademark color, humor and street theatre to the RNC, including beautiful large puppets created especially for the events. Heidi and Jim as a McCain/Bush wedding couple were a popular draw for the cameras. "We were the only bride and groom there!," Heidi said. Because she and Jim were wearing Bush and McCain masks (hard to talk when you are wearing a rubber mask!), they had prepared press cards to hand out, and she said they distributed about 80 of their cards to journalists who approached them.
Heidi reported seeing lots of riot police and police on bicycles, but she didn't witness any arrests. Meanwhile, reports emerged that world-renowned journalist, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! was arrested in the afternoon along with two producers from her show. Goodman, highly respected for her calm, straightforward style, was trying to find out from police the status of her staff, who had been arrested and roughed up for simply trying to document police and demonstrator activity. Suddenly, she was abruptly arrested herself. Goodman and her staff were later released, and a segment on today's Democracy Now! program will be devoted to a report about their experiences.
Among the marchers were members of Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, who had just held their national conventions in the Twin Cities ahead of the RNC. Here is a good interview with a few of the several hundred VFP members who traveled to Minnesota for the convention and RNC demonstrations. The interview was aired on Democracy Now! and was conducted by another renowned investigative journalist, Jeremy Scahill.
[Susan Van Haitsma posts as makingpeace on Statesman.com. ]
'The questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention... brought anxiety to Republicans' By Elisabeth Bumiller / September 1, 2008
ST. PAUL — A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket. On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.
Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.
Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin.
Although the McCain campaign said that Mr. McCain had known about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he asked her mother to join him on the ticket and that he did not consider it disqualifying, top aides were vague on Monday about how and when he had learned of the pregnancy, and from whom.
While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.
At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described.
Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.
But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.
Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.
With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.
“They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,” said a Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”
In the final stages, two Republicans familiar with the process said, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, emerged as a key advocate for Ms. Palin.
Mr. McCain’s advisers said repeatedly on Monday that Ms. Palin was “thoroughly vetted,” a process that would have included a review of all financial and legal records as well as a criminal background check. A McCain aide said the campaign was well aware of the ethics investigation and had looked into it.
“It was obviously something that anybody Googling Sarah Palin knew was in the news and there was a very thorough vetting done on that and also on the daughter,” the aide said.
People familiar with the process said Ms. Palin had responded to a standard form with more than 70 questions. Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said Monday the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.
Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, said in an e-mail message that Ms. Palin had been interviewed by Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., a veteran Washington lawyer in charge of the vice-presidential vetting process for Mr. McCain, as well as by other lawyers who worked for Mr. Culvahouse. Mr. Salter did not respond to an e-mail message asking if Ms. Palin had told Mr. Culvahouse and his lawyers that her daughter was pregnant.
In Alaska, several state leaders and local officials said they knew of no efforts by the McCain campaign to find out more information about Ms. Palin before the announcement of her selection, Although campaigns are typically discreet when they make inquiries into potential running mates, officials in Alaska said Monday they thought it was peculiar that no one in the state had the slightest hint that Ms. Palin might be under consideration.
“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.
Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.
“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”
The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Ms. Palin’s background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.
State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,” he said.
A number of Republicans said the McCain campaign had to some degree tied its hands in its effort to keep the selection process so secret.
“If you really want it to be a surprise, the circle of people that you’re going to allow to know about it is going to be small, and that’s just the nature of it,” said Dan Bartlett, a former counselor to President Bush.
Former McCain strategists disagreed on whether it would have been useful for Ms. Palin’s name to have been more publicly floated before her selection so that issues like the trooper investigation and her daughter’s pregnancy might have already been aired and not seemed so new at the time of her announcement.
“It’s a risk,” said Dan Schnur, a former McCain aide who now directs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. “No matter how great the candidate, it’s a significant risk to put someone on the ticket” who hasn’t been publicly scrutinized.
“They obviously felt it was worth the risk to rev up the base and potentially reach out to Clinton supporters,” Mr. Schnur said.
Police arrest a group of protesters along Shepard Road in St Paul on Monday, Sept. 1. Photo by Richard Sennott, Star Tribune.
Protesters at Republican Convention shout 'our streets, their war' September 1, 2008
Shouting “our streets, their war,” about 10,000 demonstrators — far fewer than the 50,000 some had predicted — flooded into downtown St. Paul’s narrow streets on the steamy first day of the Republican National Convention.
By Monday evening, authorities said 283 people had been arrested, including 129 on felonies. Dozens were pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed. One police officer was punched in the back, another suffered from heat exhaustion, and St. Paul hospitals reported nine minor injuries and several heat-related cases in emergency rooms. While block after block of marchers chanted and peacefully waved signs, the carnival atmosphere turned increasingly ugly as Monday wore on. Before the bulk of the demonstrators finished their march, rogue bands of a few hundred protesters splintered off. Some smashed windows at Macy’s and a downtown bank building, others challenged police by blocking roads.
Hundreds of cops, sweltering in heavy riot gear, swept in to block streets and protect delegate buses as the St. Paul police requested help from 150 National Guard troops by 3 p.m.
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman praised officers for showing restraint and said a small number of law-breaking demonstrators marred what was an otherwise peaceful day of free speech.
“Their efforts were nothing short of heroic,” Coleman said. “They did not fail. They did not take the bait.” St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington said the trouble makers came from a half-dozen loosely organized groups totaling up to 180 people, representing a small fraction Monday’s turnout.
A cross-section of dissent Protesters came from across the state and the country on what was expected to be the largest demonstration of a week filled with protests. They marched after a sun-drenched noontime rally on the state Capitol lawn, snaking down a route negotiated for months and circled in front of the Xcel Energy Center as delegates arrived for a session cut short by Hurricane Gustav.
Cu Nyugen, a Vietnamese native who lives in Minneapolis, brought his 12-year-old daughter, Mai, on the eve of her first day of sixth grade.
“It’s important for the younger generation to see and learn about different points of view,” Nyugen said.
Alberto Arenas, a professor at the University of Arizona, came from Tucson to let people know not all Arizonans support their senator’s presidential bid. Bill Schuster, a Vietnam War veteran from Blaine, wanted “to do my part because I don’t like what’s going on and I don’t like us being in Iraq.”
Marie Williams, 77, of Minneapolis, carried a “Dissent is Patriotic” placard.
“I started coming to protests with Paul Wellstone and I haven’t stopped,” Williams said. “I can’t count up to 50,000, but this is a lot of people.”
Organizers’ hopes of 50,000 marchers fell short and some were disappointed by the turnout, wondering if the 90-degree heat, aggressive police tactics and President Bush’s cancellation thinned the crowd.
“I’m disappointed – this is far too few people,” said Lennie Major, a teacher from Mounds View. “We needed 10 times this many to make an impact, this will only be a blip.”
But P.J. Goodette, who came from San Jose, Calif., smiled as he waved a turquoise flag with a peace symbol and high-fived a line of Minneapolis police officers standing by their bicycles.
“I can feel it in the air,” he said. “Things are changing and I’m here because I want to be part of it.”
Escalating violence The peaceful mood started to change after 1:30 p.m., when several groups broke off and began resisting police. At 3 p.m, about 250 people locked arms to block delegate buses near Robert Street and Kellogg Blvd.
In a standout with 100 police officers, authorities warmed them to disperse or they’d start launching tear gas. Minutes later, when the group refused to move, officers tossed in a dozen tear-gas canisters, prompting the crowd to retreat two blocks down.
Some demonstrators then attempted to line the street with obstacles, including newspaper bins, sand bags and trash cans. Witnesses said police also used concussion grenades and smoke bombs.
“Most of [the demonstrators] were pretty good,” said CarolLee Folsom , a bystander who used to work for the Ramsey County sheriff’s office. “But you don’t know what any of these people are going to do. And they warned them, so anybody that wanted to get out could have gotten out.”
Demonstrator Andrew Sigmundik, 18, disagreed and said the police were “aggressive” and went “overboard,” and that he witnessed “one guy in a wheelchair getting Maced and some other people getting hit by those police bats.
“Nobody was trying to cause destruction or violence,” he said. “The idea was to just block the streets. We were just trying to disrupt the delegation, and I think we succeeded.”
Harrington, the police chief, said the first illegal salvo happened about 11 a.m., when a Dumpster was shoved into an occupied squad car down W. 7th St.
“I’m not sure how anyone can say that’s protest,” said Harrington said.
About 2 p.m. protesters dropped bent nails into the intersection at 6th and Wacouta Sts. The group swelled to more than 200 as they turned up 4th St., tossing garbage cans and newspaper kiosks into the road.
Then a few marchers broke off and threw objects, shattering three windows in a bank building at 4th and Minnesota Sts. As sirens screaming in the distance drew closer, drowning out the shouting crowd, a masked marcher threw his bike in front of the lead squad car.
Others continued up 6th, closely pursued by more than a dozen slow-moving police cars. A few officers walked in front of the cars, clearing the barriers the marchers had thrown in the street. By 6th and Cedar, many of the marchers had moved to the sidewalk, and were beginning to disperse. A few smashed out three windows at the Macy’s store.
Many members of the group wore kerchiefs pulled up over their faces and one person jumped up and down a few times on the roof of a parked police car before breaking its windows, starting with the back.
After that, the group broke apart running in several directions. Some hid behind cars in a parking lot on that corner, until the commotion died down and then they calmly walked away.
Police, National Guard, fire tear gas into protest group By Pioneer Press staff / September 1, 2008
Local police and Minnesota National Guard units are using a combination of pepper spray, concussion grenades and tear gas on a group of breakaway protesters gathered on Kellogg Boulevard in downtown St. Paul. The group of about 150 protesters, many thought to be with the group "Funk the War," had been blocking traffic for much of the afternoon.
At least one person — a young man wearing a gas mask, no shirt and a backpack — was taken into custody. He lay down on the street as a group of officers surrounded him and took him away.
Police also escorted a group of 17 mostly black-clad youth across the Robert St. Bridge in an apparent effort to get them out of downtown.
Rubber bullets were fired into a crowd at Seventh and Robert Streets. At Seventh and Jackson, police have more than a dozen people in a parking lot as police handcuff them. Police continued to spray the crowd with pepper spray. More details are to come.
The confrontations continued after a main group of anti-war protesters marching from the state Capitol peacefully reached the Xcel Energy center in downtown St. Paul earlier today.
RNC: Lawyers Protect Protests
All day, breakaway groups of protesters roamed throughout downtown, blocking traffic and breaking windows. A group calling itself "Funk the War" temporarily blocked traffic across the Wabasha Street Bridge until mounted police moved them along. Three bus loads of reinforcements joined bicycle and mounted police, gathering at Kellogg and Wabasha, wearing gas masks.
Other reports of violent confrontations and damage to property that occurred before and during the march include:
# The exit at Seventh Street off Interstate 94 was blocked by a group of about 10 protesters who chained themselves together with lockboxes. The protesters said they were part of the Pittsburgh branch of the Northeast Anarchist Network. "(The purpose) was to shut down the delegates from getting to the RNC," one said. The police have officially shut down the exit. # There have been several reports of broken windows, including at 380 Jackson Street, where masked protesters smashed windows on the back side of Galtier Plaza; at Heimie's Haberdashery, where a glass table was turned over and smashed at Sixth and St. Peter streets; at Macy's at Seventh and Wabasha, and at the 1st National Bank Building at Fourth and Minnesota streets, where four large ground-floor windows were broken or smashed, apparently by rocks. # There was a Minneapolis police car at Sixth and Wabasha with the windshield bashed in and tires slashed. # Numerous people have been arrested, including: Eight at the corner of Sixth and Wall streets. One threw a paintball at a cop, and the windows of two police cars were broken. Twenty protesters are being arrested at 6th and Wall in Lowertown, St. Paul. The protesters, calling themselves nornc.org, are dressed all in black and wearing bandanas across their faces. They are chanting, "We love you," and singing as 40 police officers, half in riot gear and half bicycle officers, stand guard as more officers search and handcuff group members. # There have been several reports of tires slashed, including on an SUV, on a coach bus near the Garden Hilton and on a FOX 9 TV truck. The driver of the FOX van chased the protesters on foot but didn't catch them. Downtown resident Chrles Burmann, 53, watched the incident near Wabasha and Seventh street. "It brings back a lot of memories from the '60s," he said. "He just slashed these guys' tires — it's a little uncalled for." # Before the march even began, police fired tear gas into a group of people wearing black clothing and bandanas over their faces. The group had blocked John Ireland by Kellogg and walked down the middle of the road to Twelfth Street, tipping a dumpster as they went. They pulled traffic signs down and threw them in front of police squad cars. Police in riot gear then fired the tear gas at St. Peter and Exchange at about 1:35 p.m.
One protester was asked: "Why are you doing this?"
"You're writing about it, aren't you?" he said.
As groups gathered in different areas of downtown St. Paul before the anti-war march began, there was a confrontation between police and a breakaway group of protesters at the intersection of Seventh and Minnesota streets in downtown St. Paul.
Police attempted to direct the crowd up Seventh Street, and protesters attempted to push through police barricades heading down Minnesota.
Shoving ensued, and police discharged a pepper-spray-like substance into the crowd, and held the intersection.
The crowd paused and played music and danced in front of cops, while those who were hit with pepper spray laid down on sidewalks and had their eyes flushed. At least one member of the press was also hit.
Police pushed the crowd up West Seventh armed in riot gear carrying sticks.
As a group of marchers passed the Dorothy Day Center near Seventh Street and Main, they formed a "pit" and began dancing in front of the Center.
When protesters arrived at the main protest area near the Dorothy Day Center, they were met with supporters of the war in Iraq, who carried "Victory Over Terrorism" signs.
The counter-protest was led by Joe Repya, a 62-year-old retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and RNC delegate who volunteered for active duty at age 58.
There were some verbal confrontations, but for the most part the mood of the crowd remained buoyant, dancing to music blasting from a portable speaker.
"They were throwing a lot of words at us," Repya said. "Nothing I'd repeat in front of female company."
Protesters wore a variety of garb, from colorful, almost clownish outfits to black bandanas over their faces. Cops wore gas masks and moved down Seventh Street on bikes and horses to push the crowd forward before the breakaway group separated into smaller groups and spread throughout downtown, often running.
Some protesters let out the air in government vehicles, and police seemed to allow them to roam.
Joe, a member of D.C. Students for a Democratic Society, was a part of the breakaway group, which seemed to be led by an impromptu dance and protest organization called "Funk the War."
"They've disrupted the lives of so many people, Iraqis, New Orleaners, they didn't help them. The least we could do is disrupt their day for a couple of hours," said Joe, who declined to give his last name.
"The cops are being very aggressive," he added. "Hopefully, they'll let us keep practicing our free speech."
Marcus Washington, a freelance videographer wearing a "Media" badge, said cops sprayed him with pepper spray twice at Seventh and Minnesota streets.
"I grabbed my press pass, a walked forward with my camera toward police just to film them and they maced me," said Washington, shirtless and whose face was streaked with a liquid used to flush the pepper spray. "I got delerious and blind and fell over. ... It's still burning because I shaved my head and I have tattoos."
On Seventh Street near Main, eleven local citizens, clad in bright yellow bibs, assembled themselves with a goal of preventing violence by inserting themselves between cops and protesters. They were mostly middle-aged adults and they talked with authorities to let them know their purpose. They wore armbands that say: "I will not hurt you."
There was a report of tear gas being sprayed into the crowd at Seventh Street and Cedar.
At Eleventh Street and Minnesota, a group of 30 - 40 people, one of whom said they "are with a group of fellow citizens of America practicing Democracy," wandered in front of cars driving on the street in what appeared to be an attempt to disrupt traffic. About 50 riot police followed the group as it continued to move toward the Capitol.
Reporters witnessed members of the group slash the tires of a FOX news van and let air out of the tires of government mini-vans.
The same group of about 100 people wearing black formed a blockade at Sixth and Cedar streets and overturned traffic routing signs and newspaper boxes and threw them across the road. Traffic is blocked on many downtown streets.
About 2,000 protesters waved peace sign flags and rallied at the state Capitol ahead of the march to the site of the Republican National Convention. Hundreds of police wearing bulletproof vests and carrying batons stood by.
The crowd was far short of the 50,000 that organizers had hoped to attract, but officers in riot gear were stationed along the route of the march to Xcel Energy Center. Police initially estimated the crowd at 10,000, but then revised it sharply downward an hour later.
An anarchist group known as the RNC Welcoming Committee had worked for months on strategies to disrupt the convention. Despite preemptive police searches over the weekend that resulted in six arrests, the group issued a statement Monday saying it was "moving forward with a national call to crash the convention."
The group was not formally involved in Monday's march, which was organized by a coalition of antiwar groups.
Police said they were prepared for anything.
"We will not tolerate lawlessness in the city of St. Paul," St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington said. "If you come here to throw rocks, if you come here to throw Molotov cocktails ... we will stop you."
At the rally, speaker after speaker called for an immediate end to the war and more spending on domestic needs, such as providing health care and fixing crumbling bridges.
At the capitol, a group of 200 or so college-age people holding a banner that read "Students for a Democratic Society" began walking the route before the set time of the march. Many wore bandanas around their faces, bracing for the possibility that police would use tear gas.
They soon stopped in front of a couple dozen counter-protesters who were holding signs that read "Victory over terrorism." The students played the song "Like a Virgin" and performed the "Electric Slide" dance in front of the counter-protesters.
Immigrants, labor groups, veterans, student groups and others gathered for the rally, which was to walk about a mile and a half from the Capitol to the site of the convention and back.
At the rally, a 25-foot-long ice sculpture rose 3 feet in the air and spelled "Democracy." Some protesters flew kites, waved American and peace-sign flags and carried homemade anti-war signs.
Peace activist Steve Clemens, 47, from Minneapolis said he was disturbed by the number of police.
"But we can't control that," said Clemens, who had already been arrested once _ for crossing into a restricted area during a march Sunday.
Alan Rybak, a real estate agent from Lakeville, Minn., stood along the protest route carrying a sign that read "Support Our Troops."
"I'm here to support our troops and to tell (protesters) to get a job and go home," said Rybak, a Republican Party activist.
Monday's larger rally went ahead even as the GOP curtailed the day's official activities because of Hurricane Gustav.
Police executed a series of raids in the days leading up to the march. One of the six arrested over the weekend on probable cause of conspiracy to commit a riot was released Sunday, according to attorney Bruce Nestor. No charges were filed against the woman, 23-year-old Monica Bicking. The other five remained jailed, possibly until Wednesday, Nestor said.
In the raids, police seized materials including knives, axes, bomb-making materials, maps and anti-war literature.
One man was briefly detained by police Monday morning after a smaller march by about 100 veterans opposed to the Iraq war. Wes Davey, 59, a retired first sergeant from St. Paul, said he was willing to be arrested for his cause. Police first said Davey had been arrested, but spokesman Pete Crum later said he wasn't.
Police officers watch a house that is being searched during the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Saturday, Aug. 30, 2008. Protesters said police raided several Minneapolis homes on Saturday, just a few hours after Ramsey County sheriff's deputies raided an organizing site of a group seeking to disrupt the convention. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis By Glenn Greenwald / August 30, 2008
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.
Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning -- one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of the raided houses is known by neighbors as a "hippie house," where 5-10 college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone we spoke with said that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that they were filled with "peaceful kids" who are politically active but entirely unthreatening and friendly. Posted below is the video of the scene, including various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going on here.
In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house. One of the individuals renting the house, an 18-year-old woman, was extremely shaken as she and others described how the officers were deliberately making intimidating statements such as "Do you have Terminator ready?" as they lay on the floor in handcuffs. The 10 or so individuals in the house all said that though they found the experience very jarring, they still intended to protest against the GOP Convention, and several said that being subjected to raids of that sort made them more emboldened than ever to do so.
Several of those who were arrested are being represented by Bruce Nestor, the President of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers' Guild. Nestor said that last night's raid involved a meeting of a group calling itself the "RNC Welcoming Committee", and that this morning's raids appeared to target members of "Food Not Bombs," which he described as an anti-war, anti-authoritarian protest group. There was not a single act of violence or illegality that has taken place, Nestor said. Instead, the raids were purely anticipatory in nature, and clearly designed to frighten people contemplating taking part in any unauthorized protests.
Nestor indicated that only 2 or 3 of the 50 individuals who were handcuffed this morning at the 2 houses were actually arrested and charged with a crime, and the crime they were charged with is "conspiracy to commit riot." Nestor, who has practiced law in Minnesota for many years, said that he had never before heard of that statute being used for anything, and that its parameters are so self-evidently vague, designed to allow pre-emeptive arrests of those who are peacefully protesting, that it is almost certainly unconstitutional, though because it had never been invoked (until now), its constitutionality had not been tested.
There is clearly an intent on the part of law enforcement authorities here to engage in extreme and highly intimidating raids against those who are planning to protest the Convention. The DNC in Denver was the site of several quite ugly incidents where law enforcement acted on behalf of Democratic Party officials and the corporate elite that funded the Convention to keep the media and protesters from doing anything remotely off-script. But the massive and plainly excessive preemptive police raids in Minnesota are of a different order altogether. Targeting people with automatic-weapons-carrying SWAT teams and mass raids in their homes, who are suspected of nothing more than planning dissident political protests at a political convention and who have engaged in no illegal activity whatsoever, is about as redolent of the worst tactics of a police state as can be imagined.
UPDATE: Here is the first of the videos, from the house that had just been raided:
Jane Hamsher has more here, and The Minnesota Independent has a report on another one of the raided houses, here.
Sarah Palin's Bio Gets Padded By Yuki Noguchi / August 29, 2008
If you happened to check Sarah Palin's Wikipedia entry Thursday, you might have had a good tip about today's announcement. Someone — and apparently it was just one person — felt like the existing biography wasn't appropriate for a vice-presidential candidate.
To listen to NPR's report, go here / National Public Radio
NPR just had a story about a flurry of mostly-positive edits that occurred to Sarah Palin's wikipedia page, 45 minutes before her VP candidacy was leaked--including edits that removed/downplayed references to the brother-in-law scandal. The author of those edits? An anonymous user with the handle "YoungTrig." Trig--I'm sure just coincidentally--is the name of Palin's infant son.
The NPR story noted that editing your own page on wikipedia is considered a "no-no," according to their terms of use.
'You mean, if John McCain croaks, she becomes our president?' By William Greider / August 29, 2008
The news was so stunning I refused to believe it until I saw John McCain on the TV screen announcing his pick for Vice President. There's no need to disparage Sarah Palin. She's seems like a smart, serious person. But what the choice reveals about McCain is devastating with a capital D for Desperation. Within forty-eight hours, all America will be talking about her. What people will say is, "You mean, if John McCain croaks, she becomes our president?" Gasp, yes. That is what McCain has decided. So much for "experience" and wise judgment as a campaign issue.
The Senator was widely thought to be on the fifty-yard line, nose to nose with Barack Obama. But this selection reveals the Republican campaign strategists knew better. Picking the obscure and under-experienced governor from Alaska for veep means McCain and his people recognize they are in a very weak position for the fall campaign. So weak they decided to throw a forty-year Hail Mary pass and hope audaciously for a lucky catch.
It won't succeed. In fact, I expect this gambit is going to drive far more voters to Obama's column than it does for McCain.
Choosing Palin kills the "experience" argument. Republicans must have recognized from their own market research that it wasn't working for them. For two months or more, McCain and his handlers have smeared and slandered Obama, mocked his star quality talents, belittled his lack of tenure in Washington back rooms and accused him of unpatriotic egotism. Clearly, their internal polling told them this line of character attack wasn't grabbing the public. Playing the wise old man was not going to be enough to overcome McCain's other significant handicaps, his somewhat doddering style and memory lapses, his deadly embrace of right-wing cant and G.W. Bush.
So, what the hell, let's take a wild shot and see what happens. The other veep possibilities are dull guys in good suits. Let's go with the young gal from Alaska. She's not only a woman--she's a mother! You want history-making? We Republicans can do history-making.
Their internal logic was obvious, it was also pathetic. Putting a woman on the ticket is supposed to draw away those discontented Clinton voters in the Democratic party. Not going to happen, I think. First, that group has dwindled considerably in the last few days--thanks to Hillary Clinton's straight-shooting endorsement of Obama and especially to Bill Clinton's brilliant blessing. The former President went the full mile in defending Obama as ready to be President by reminding everyone that he too had been dogged for a youthful lack of experience. Any remaining bitterness among Clinton voters will not be salved by supporting a hardcore right-winger on feminist issues.
The early returns I am hearing from people suggest that McCain's gambit may prove to be a home run (mixing my sports metaphors) for Obama. One young friend first heard the news from his mother who called to say, okay, she was switching to Obama. For months, she had rooted for Hillary and insisted Obama was too wet behind the ears. "You can stop arguing with your mother," she said.
Palin's previous political experience was as mayor in a town of 6,000. Did they mention this to John McCain? Or did he perhaps forget? Senator McCain says he has seasoned judgment, but he may have been over-cooked.
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Kate Braun : Winter Solstice Falls on Saturn's Day by Kate Braun / The Rag Blog. Our celebrations during the Winter Solstice take from many traditions, including the Roman Saturnalia, Druid customs, the German "Yule," and the birth of Jesus; and it was Queen Victoria who popularized the lighted Christmas tree.
Allen Young : Ralph Dungan, the 'Good Liberal' by Allen Young / The Rag Blog. A recent obituary of Ralph Dungan, one of President John F. Kennedy's top aides who later served as ambassador to Chile, reminds Allen of a revealing experience he had with the man referred to by a historian as a "good liberal."
Ed Felien : A Good [Angry White] Man With a Gun by Ed Felien / The Rag Blog. Paul Anthony Ciancia considered himself a "good man with a gun" -- a warrior against the traitors who were taking over our government, bankrupting our currency, and trying to establish a New World Order -- when he walked into the Los Angeles airport and opened fire with an assault rifle.
BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : Matt Hern Writes With Bravado That Sports Do Matter by Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog. Engagingly written, Matt Hern's "One Game at a Time" is motivated by the belief that sports do matter as much as sports fans think they do. Hern, like leftist sportswriter Dave Zirin, "walks into the terrain where sports and politics mesh."
Lamar W. Hankins : Right-Wing Rants and the Abominable Straw Man by Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog. The Internet is a marvelous tool when used honestly and correctly, and with recognition of its limitations. But it is also home to angry rants, often from the far right, that make ridiculous claims -- like the one (that actually originated on a satirical site) saying that the Obama administration was setting up gasoline stations to provide free gas to low-income [read: black] people.
HISTORY / Bob Feldman : A People's History of Egypt, Part 12, Section 1, 1947-1948 by Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog. More in Bob's series on the continuing movement to democratize Egypt, this time covering the period from 1947-48 when an anti-imperialist left made experienced growth -- and the Muslim Brotherhood collaborated with the Egyptian regime.
Harry Targ : My Nelson Mandela by Harry Targ / The Rag Blog. An irony of 21st century historical discourse is how real historic figures -- like the late Nelson Mandela -- get lionized, sanitized, and redefined as defenders of the ongoing order rather than activists who committed their lives to revolutionary change.
Michael James : Back to Uptown, 1965-1966 by Michael James / The Rag Blog. Mike continues his remarkable memoir, accompanied -- and inspired by -- photos from his upcoming book. His adventures -- and the making of an activist -- continue as he heads back to Uptown Chicago, "progressing along my path with another left turn and a big step into America."
Alice Embree : Chile and the Politics of Memory by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog. Chileans went to the polls Sunday and appear to be reelecting Socialist president Michelle Bachelet on the 40th anniversary of the bloody U.S.-supported coup against Socialist president Salvador Allende. Alice writes about the dramatic contradictions in Chilean politics and history.
Paul Krassner : A Tale of Two Alternative Media Conferences by Paul Krassner / The Rag Blog. Paul remembers the original Alternative Media Conference in June 1970 at Goddard College in Vermont -- and it was a wild and wooly affair headlined by the likes of Ram Dass, Harvey Kurtzman, and Art Spiegelman -- as the college hosts another conference keynoted by progressive radio host Thom Hartmann.
Harry Targ : STEM and the Tyranny of the Meme by Harry Targ / The Rag Blog. From the fear of "falling behind the Soviets" to the missile gap and, more recently the wars on drugs and terrorism, the fear of falling behind some fictional adversaries is an ongoing "meme" used by economic, political, and military elites. The latest? Now it's the "STEM crisis" and the fear that we're falling behind other nations in science and technology .
Alice Embree : Anne Lewis' New Website Brings Austin Movement History to Life by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog. Noted documentary filmmaker Anne Lewis has created a website called Austin Beloved Community that uses audio, film, photos, maps, and personal recollections to create a "digital collage" about the struggle for social and economic justice in Austin from the 1880s to the present. Alice interviews Lewis about the unique project.
BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : Marc Myers Tells Us 'Why Jazz Happened' by Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog. Ron reviews a new book on America's own music in which Marc Myers "provides the reader with a deep, rich, and broad perspective on the confluence of jazz and U.S. history in the decades following World War Two."
INTERVIEW / Jonah Raskin : Novelist Beverly Gologorsky Was Shaped by Sixties, Feminism, and The Bronx by Jonah Raskin / The Rag Blog. Another unique interview from Jonah with novelist Beverly Gologorsky, whose latest book, "Stop Here," "the title of which nearly shouts its presence. Gologorsky, "a novelist shaped by the New Left," edited anti-war publications Viet-Report and Leviathan in the '60s and '70s.
Bob Feldman : A People's History of Egypt, Part 11, Section 2 by Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog. The latest in Feldman's series on the "movement to democratize Egypt" covers the period of 1945-6 when Egyptian communist and labor grew and faced government retaliation.
David McReynolds : We Are All Wounded Veterans by David McReynolds / The Rag Blog. Long-time pacifist writer and activist McReynolds says there's something "infinitely sad" about the recent celebration of Veterans Day. "In the bad wars -- which are the only wars we have fought for some time now -- there is the terrible knowledge that the enemy was never really the enemy," he says.
Michael James : Going Off Campus, 1965 by Michael James / The Rag Blog. Mike continues to share experiences and images from his rich history as an activist and adventurer -- that will be published in an upcoming book, "Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul." Here Mike reports on the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, community organizing in Oakland, and his travels across the country in a 1957 Plymouth station wagon "drive-away."
Alan Waldman: 'Keeping Up Appearances' Tops Second Tier of My Favorite Britcoms by Alan Waldman / The Rag Blog. Waldman has been reviewing vintage, mostly-British television series now available on DVD, Netflix, and YouTube. "Keeping Up Appearances" "is a very funny sitcom with a brilliant cast," starring Patricia Routledge as social-climbing snob Hyacinth Bucket.
