Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Stormtroopin'


In the early morning hours there's a din in the air; mayhem's on the loose. Stormtroopers comin', and you better be prepared. Got no time to choose....

Comin' up that street, jackboots steppin' high.
Got to make a stand. Looking in your windows and listen to your phone. Keep a gun in your hand....

Two hundred down, and it's comin' 'round again. Got no second choice. Where's the justice and where's that law. Raise your healthy voice.... Get ready. Stormtroopers comin'....




The recently concluded Republican National Convention in St. Paul served as the grand coming-out party for the Homeland Security State.


Its enforcers, fully panoplied in the military regalia that is rapidly becoming standard police attire, could be seen either strutting through the streets hungry to conduct a beat-down or marching to military cadences. Armored vehicles prowled the streets, while military helicopters rattled overhead.
Several journalists, including Amy Goodman and two associates from the independent, left-leaning Democracy Now! media enterprise, were arrested and assaulted by police while covering protest marches.


Large sections of Minneapolis/St. Paul, a placid Midwestern American community, were made to resemble Baghdad under military occupation. As in Baghdad, homes in the Twin Cities were subjected to "pre-emptive" military raids on the eve of the Republican Convention. Beginning the night of Friday, August 29, multi-jurisdictional paramilitary police units armed with automatic weapons stormed residences where left-wing activists were billeted in anticipation of protest demonstrations.


More than one hundred people were handcuffed and questioned during those raids, many of them forced to lie face-down on the ground while officers searched for evidence of various purported plots to disrupt and "terrorize" the convention. According to Glenn Greenwald, a civil libertarian commentator who was on-site immediately after the raids, at least some of the police who conducted the raids couldn't resist tormenting helpless detainees with jocular talk about summary executions.


In total more than 800 people were arrested during convention-related demonstrations. The most significant of those arrests involved
seven people detained during the pre-convention raids who were eventually charged with "conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism" under Minnesota's version of the PATRIOT (sic) Act.

Amerika, 2008: A riot policeman during the Republican National Convention in Minnesota's Twin Cities.


This is the first time American citizens have been accused, in a civilian court, of committing a crime "in furtherance" of terrorism. It will not be the last.


Some elements of the protest "community" that materialized in St. Paul were incontestably seeking a confrontation with the police as a form of ideological street theater.


While some consider this approach to be useless at best, it's not that different in principle from tactics perfected by Samuel Adams and like-minded patriots of our founding period.

Other street activists in the Twin Cities expressed their contempt for the criminal violence of the State by deliberately impeding peaceful commerce and destroying private property, which is neither useful nor justified.


But it is the prosecution of the "St. Paul Seven," and the long-term surveillance project involving the RNC Welcoming Committee, that will have the most important tangible consequences. The methods of infiltration, surveillance, and apprehension used against those activists will provide a model for future crackdowns against any organized dissent.


Accounts of the arrests in the corporatist press retailed prosecution claims that the activists planned a campaign of mayhem and violence that would have included attacks on public transportation and attempts to kidnap Republican delegates.


The "evidence" seized during the raids consists of unremarkable construction materials -- cans of paint, rope, roofing nails -- that could be used in various disruptive ways. The search warrant application also permitted police to confiscate "computer systems" and "media in whatever form," in order to obtain detailed information about the activities of the RNCWC, which is described as an "organized criminal enterprise."


That document also claims that "possession of the property above described constitutes a crime." Thus someone who owned a computer or a single can of paint could be arrested, indicted, and perhaps convicted of terrorism charges in absence of a single documented criminal act if the prosecution can supply a convincing narrative.


And in this case, as with so many others, the job of supply the appropriate narrative has been given to "confidential informants," two of whom (along with an "undercover investigator") are cited copiously in the warrant application and the criminal complaint. The "corroboration" offered for the most lurid and disturbing charges -- those dealing with actual violence and property destruction -- consists entirely of the accounts provided by paid informants.


"Of the stuff that was seized by the police, about ninety percent is just common household items that we're told were going to be used for criminal acts," commented Bruce Nestor, a defense attorney for the detainees, in a telephone interview with Pro Libertate. "In fact, there is nothing here that in itself constitutes evidence of a crime or a plot to commit a crime. [The prosecution] wants us to view these items in light of the story being told by the paid informants, and the presumed political beliefs of the detainees."


Police who conducted the pre-convention raids claim to have found 37 "caltrops" -- spikes that are scattered on a motorway to disable cars during a police pursuit. What was actually found was not a supply of standard-issue caltrops, but roofing nails that had supposedly been "weaponized."


"To be fair, roofing nails could be used as caltrops, but they could also be used as roofing nails," Nestor pointed out when I asked him about that reported discovery. "Some police experts insist that these particular roofing nails had been modified or bundled together in some way that suggests an intent to use them to disrupt traffic. But this is suggestive, once again, largely because of the stories told by the informants. Otherwise you've got common roofing nails" -- possession of which is evidence only of a plot to repair one's roof.


Similar considerations apply in evaluating the claim that police discovered "weaponized urine" (no, I'm not kidding) during the pre-convention raids. What the police, citing breathless reports from their confidential informants, triumphantly described as an attempt to create a very crude bio-chem anti-personnel weapon was described by activists as a rudimentary chamber pot.


Given the frequency with which well-publicized "international terrorist plots" prove to be media spectacles choreographed by the FBI through paid informant/provocateurs, it's reasonable to suspect that the case against the "St. Paul Seven" may involve a domestic application of the same approach.


Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was present in St. Paul to speak to peace activists at a St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, believes that "what violence there was [during protests] bore the earmarks of provocation by the likes of Sheriff Fletcher and his Homeland Security, FBI, and -- according to one well-sourced report -- Blackwater buddies."


McGovern describes one instance in which "a man who looked like a protester -- dark clothes, backpack, a bit disheveled" -- was identified as one of the police officers who had carried out the Friday night raid against the RNCWC. "The young protesters asked the man, and two associates, to leave [the protest], at which point the three hustled into a nearby unmarked sedan," writes McGovern. "The license plate, observed by a Pioneer Press reporter, traced back to the detective unit of the Hennepin County Sheriff's office...."


It's worth remembering that the same time-honored tactic was on display during the August 2007 Security and Prosperity Partnership summit in Montebello, Quebec almost exactly a year earlier. In an incident captured on video, a group of ineptly disguised police infiltrators, armed with rocks and reeking of foul intentions, were caught trying to infiltrate and radicalize a peaceful protest march.





While McGovern may be right about the involvment of agents provocateur, there's reason to believe at least some of those caught up in the pre-convention sweep harbored criminal designs.


One of the seven activists arrested during a "pre-emptive" sweep, a young man burdened with the theatrically villainous name Max Jackob Specktor, was found to possess several sets of black clothing, goggles, helmets, several implements that a vandal would find very useful (a bolt cutter, a pry bar, spring loaded "punches," and metal pipe of various sizes), and documents suggestive of something other than innocent intentions.


Obviously, if the prosecution can prove that Specktor was planning to participate in a riot, he should be convicted of that charge and be given the appropriate penalty. If he has proven co-conspirators, they should likewise receive a suitable punishment. The ominous novelty of this case resides in the effort to punish the familiar misdemeanor offense of "conspiracy to riot" as a form of domestic terrorism, and to incriminate others who appear to have committed no offense at all as part of a widespread terrorist plot.


The prosecution depicts Specktor as part of the "black bloc," a radical element within the larger anarchist community that carries out "direct action" in the form of assaults on property confrontations with the police.


It's likely that a trial would place Specktor at the center of a series of concentric circles intended to implicate others -- beginning with his immediate co-defendants, and working out to those identified as belonging to "affinity groups" -- as part of a large domestic terrorist conspiracy. If this turns out to be true, this one case could metastasize into a public works project for prosecutors across the country. It will certainly provide a template to be used whenever any appendage of the Homeland Security Leviathan wants to suppress organized dissent and prosecute it as a criminal act "in furtherance of terrorism."


In March 2007, the RNC in St. Paul was designated a National Security Special Event (NSSE). Shortly thereafter, the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department began hiring and deploying infiltrators. According to Sheriff Bob Fletcher, his department, working through the local Joint Terrorism Task Force, was involved in a nation-wide effort to track down and keep suspected protesters under surveillance.


The lead agency for Ramsey County in this undertaking was Fletcher's Special Investigations Unit, under the direction of former US Secret Service Special Agent Tony Samec (who is one of four affiants listed in the warrant application). The application observes that Samec, who most likely was temporarily seconded to the Sheriff's department, "has been involved in numerous NSSEs throughout the United States."


Ramsey County's Special Investigations Unit has an interesting relationship with the federal government. It was the chief local federal subcontractor for the crack-down on dissent during the RNC. But it was also being investigated by the FBI for corruption. And in one of those bits of historical symmetry one would find implausible in a novel, those two developments intersected in the days immediately prior to the RNC.















Guilty on corruption charges: Deputy Timothy Rehak (center-left with his arm around his wife) is led away from court by a steroid-enhanced police goon after being found guilty of stealing $6,000 in an FBI sting operation. Rehak was a member of the Ramsey County "Special Investigations Unit" that spearheaded the crack-down on dissent during the Republican Convention in St. Paul.


On August 27, just days before the pre-emptive raids on RNC protesters, two close associates of Sheriff Fletcher on the SIU were found guilty of theft and civil rights violations. Officer Timothy Rehak and Mark Naylon were convicted of stealing $6,000 during an FBI "integrity check," a sting operation intended to ferret out corrupt police officers.


Rehak is a former St. Paul police officer who had a troubled history before Fletcher asked him to join the SIU.


Naylon, significantly, has never been a police officer, despite the fact that he commanded considerable clout on the force.


He was Fletcher's chief PR spokesman. Before that he was the best man at Fletcher's second wedding. He operated a private security firm that employed off-duty deputies to serve as bouncers at a nightclub owned by a man named Mike Ogren, who was convicted of an illegal gambling operation in 2003.

Spinning the crack-down: Ramsey County Sheriff Robert Fletcher (center), along with former Secret Service agent Tony Samec (left), unveil to the media the supposed terrorist arsenal seized during pre-convention raids on residences in St. Paul.

Despite the fact that he had no training or authority, Naylon was permitted to carry a sidearm, make arrests, and otherwise behave as if he were a duly deputized member of Fletcher's department.


On occasion, when a member of Fletcher's department needed to cite a "confidential informant" to obtain a warrant, Naylon would play that role as well -- perjuring himself by providing the exact "testimony" an officer needed to secure permission for a search or an arrest.


The SIU first came under FBI scrutiny more than five years ago. A July 2003 raid on a bar discovered an unlicensed gambling operation. The bar's owner claimed that the proceeds were helping to underwrite Fletcher's re-election effort. That charge was recanted, but it stirred up an FBI inquiry that prompted the sting operation against Rehak and Naylon and led to their eventual conviction.


During his four terms as Sheriff, Fletcher has radically expanded the size and budget of his force, and strong-armed the county commission (by way of litigation and a cynical PR campaign) to build a new $61 million jail. He also developed a reputation for cronyism (demonstrated by his treatment of Naylor), empire-building, and what former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer calls "conspiratorial" thinking. Most importantly, he eagerly queued up for every dime of federal largesse he could find.


To put the matter tidily, Robert Fletcher -- ambitious, power-fixated, and compromised -- was an ideal local subcontractor for the Homeland Security State.

Former FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley, who exposed the Bureau's ineptitude in investigating the 9-11 plot (or, perhaps, its passive complicity in abetting it), resides near St. Paul.


In a letter written to FBI Director Robert Mueller three weeks before the attack on Iraq, Rowley warned that the "`pre-emptive strike' rationale being applied to situations abroad could migrate back home, fostering a more permissive attitude on the part of law enforcement officers in this country."


During his visit to the Twin Cities, Ray McGovern asked Rowley if the spectacle unfolding in St. Paul offered an awful vindication of her concerns. Referring to the pre-emptive raids and the military occupation of the streets illustrate how once the Feds take control of matters, "all the rules go up in smoke" and "otherwise wonderful community police officers [will] turn on their own peaceful citizens...."


To employ the argot of Star Wars fans, Rowley believes that St. Paul demonstrated how quickly "local" police personnel are transformed into stormtroopers when the Feds activate Order 66.
In fact, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, the apparatus on display in St. Paul was a federally controlled local militia, rather than a local police agency in any sense of the expression.


However one addresses the nuance of the proposition, this much seems clear: The Homeland Security Death Star is now fully operational.


On sale now!











Dum spiro, pugno!



37 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was frustrating to listen to the local area pundits bending over backwards to not find fault with the police. Of course finding fault with the police is akin to finding fault with the "troops"

Here's a video clip that conveys a different message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRbRhbCFPnM

Here's the Digg....
http://digg.com/political_opinion/Paint_Cans_and_Roofing_Nails_Deemed_Terroist_Weapons

Anonymous said...

Another great post, Will. This whole episode (or episodes) raises a very, very serious question: given that many of us assert a right to defend our home as our castle, what then? What has it come to that we need to be armed against not only criminals in the common sense of the term, but against the police as well? "Pre-emptive" house raids, as a policy, does not bode well for the right to keep and bear arms. Soon only the ideologically-correct will be allowed to keep their arms...

Anonymous said...

Will, I was there attending the events for Ron Paul in Minneapolis during that time of the raid you mentioned. While the real consistency of the "urine" was not told in the televised story, the local paper said it was later found to be gray water used for flushing the toilet. There was a stark contrast between the RNC and the Rally for the Republic. Louis

Anonymous said...

"...or, perhaps, its passive complicity in abetting it."

or, perhaps, its active complicity in facilitating it.

thoughtcrime spree said...

All groups are infiltrated whether its white power, black power, whatever power. Never join a "protest" group. One day looking at pages like these will be a thoughtcrime. It always cracks me up how petty tyrants fear words and the truth so much. What are they so afraid of? That the sheeple will wake up? An organizer or agitator will emerge? Not being a fascist I guess I'll never know.

Anonymous said...

In New Zealand a preemptive police raid on 'militant' Maoris was due - in part - to evidence of balaclavas having been ordered online by the 'terrorists'.

The Maori 'activist' leader has quite a demeanor when confronting white authority figures.

PoliceRaidMaoriStronghold

I believe there has since been an apology to the Maori community over this ridiculous exercise.

At around five minutes into the clip the 'activist' leader shares his opinion on all things political.

Sorry, Will, if this brings out the Oversight Committee from church. I take full responsibility.

Anonymous said...

Only protests which are politically useful to one side or the other of the welfare/warfare state are allowed. All others will be infiltrated, corrupted and prosecuted.

Soon people will only be able to talk to their pillows of their subversive thoughts because anyone else they talk to may be a paid informant eager to implicate them in a conspiracy for violence and turn them in to get a bounty.

scrimshaw bazooka said...

Yea is that Ted Nugent lyrics!? Ted was cool before he became a fascist. Don't ever be afraid of jack booted jerk offs their masters will put them down when they aren't useful anymore. I live in bible belt land and it is funny some of the stuff I hear out of people concerning this next Diebold sealed & delivered election. "Obama is a muslim and will end all gun shows and gun rights!" "Bomber McCain will get us in WWIII and bring the draft back for those ungrateful whippersnappers with their MTV and boompa boompa rap music." We are in dire straits people.

scott clark said...

If urine is a weapon, then your bathroom can now be considered an arsenal.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that this man used that room in his house for the explicit purpose of producing forth his vile weaponry."

Anonymous said...

So weaponized urine ...

Prior to producing the urine the foul miscreant terrorists took ample vitamin B and ate Cherrios so said urine would smell bad and leave a stain!

subversive heresy said...

You mean lil' Jonny won't be able to look at subversive pages on tubes of the intarwebb!! *Gasp* good thing I taught em about telnet, proxy servers and IP mask. Huhuhuhu, gegege.

Anonymous said...

scrimshaw bazooka,

can you explain to me how ted nugent is a fascist? you REALLY lost me on that one.

rick

Kent McManigal said...

LEOs (Liberty Eradication Operatives) are the "standing army" we were warned about.

If you choose to vote, vote in self defense this time.

sandals and granola said...

repuglican=fascist
ted nugent=republican

Grigg Family said...

rick, The Nuge has become an unvarnished apologist for the Warfare State.


As alluded to by sandals and granola, Nugent also uses every concert to execrate the Democrats (who deserve that treatment, of course),and to preach little homilies about the supposed virtues of voting for the Republicans (who are even worse than the Dems).


Nugent is also the prototype Chickenhawk.

His dad was an Army Drill Sergeant who encouraged his son to live as an individualist. So Nugent became a rock star and, to avoid the Vietnam draft, feigned insanity by defecating in his pants during physicals.

No problem so far, since dodging the draft is entirely appropriate. The problem is that Nugent (like Rush "anal cyst" Limbaugh, Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney, and Newt "Cancer Ward Divorce" Gingrich) mocks the supposed cowardice and lack of patriotism allegedly displayed by those who oppose wars he's too old to fight.

All of this is really sad. Nugent's professional act grew stale for me by about 1980, but he's a very talented writer and radio host. His book "God, Guns, and Rock-and-Roll" was a delight to read, and anyone who suspects the aid of a ghostwriter need only listen to one of Nugent's performances as a host or guest to realize that he's unusually literate, and very well-spoken when he care to be.

William N. Grigg said...

rick, The Nuge has become an unvarnished apologist for the Warfare State.


As alluded to by sandals and granola, Nugent also uses every concert to execrate the Democrats (who deserve that treatment, of course),and to preach little homilies about the supposed virtues of voting for the Republicans (who are even worse than the Dems).


Nugent is also the prototype Chickenhawk.

His dad was an Army Drill Sergeant who encouraged his son to live as an individualist. So Nugent became a rock star and, to avoid the Vietnam draft, feigned insanity by defecating in his pants during physicals.

No problem so far, since dodging the draft is entirely appropriate. The problem is that Nugent (like Rush "anal cyst" Limbaugh, Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney, and Newt "Cancer Ward Divorce" Gingrich) mocks the supposed cowardice and lack of patriotism allegedly displayed by those who oppose wars he's too old to fight.

All of this is really sad. Nugent's professional act grew stale for me by about 1980, but he's a very talented writer and radio host. His book "God, Guns, and Rock-and-Roll" was a delight to read, and anyone who suspects the aid of a ghostwriter need only listen to one of Nugent's performances as a host or guest to realize that he's unusually literate, and very well-spoken when he care to be.

Kent McManigal said...

Support for the police-state policies and programs (such as The War on Drugs, The "PATRIOT" Act, and the War on Terror) which are rampant throughout the federal government, and often (but mistakenly) linked to only the Republican side of the cow-pie, makes Ted Nugent a fascist.

Anonymous said...

His politics aside, I'll give the Nuge a bit of a pass. In addition to his love of firearms he is also an avid bowhunter (which, having adopted the latter in favor of the former I can appreciate) who learned from Fred Bear. Could be he just got caught up in the hype of celebrity.

Ok, that's as much of a pass as I'll give . . .

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Anonymous said...

Will,

thanks for the reply. i think the term fascist (if we are to ensure the purity of the word) does not apply here. however, the terms you employed seem to do him more justice.

this classic by jeffrey gaines comes to mind in describing the man and his ilk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SVfzZHQymw

Rick

Bearded Spock said...

The Republicrats are also creating a police state in Mexico.

I live in a war zone. Not a metaphorical war zone, an actual one. Armed soldiers patrol my street daily in full combat gear with loaded weapons. The squads have fully automatic rifles and a fifty caliber machine gun mounted on one of their Hummers. There have been over 900 war-related deaths in this city alone this year, but I do not live in the Middle East. I live two miles from the U.S. Border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The war is the war on drugs.

Juarez is on the other side of the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. It has half the area of El Paso, but twice the population. Even though El Paso is the fourth poorest city in the U.S., Juarez workers (including the police) make about twenty five percent of what their counterparts north of the border make. The enormous profits from the drugs going north and the guns coming south are simply too much of a temptation for many of the law-enforcement officers and other otherwise honest people to resist.

The most recent surge in violence started about a year ago when Mexican President Felipe Calderon signed a deal with President Bush called the Merida Initiative (or Plan Mexico) to step up enforcement in the border area. Bush committed to provide 1.4 billion dollars in military aid to Mexico and Calderon started stepping up the pressure on the cartels and the corrupt local cops. There were early successes, but then all hell started to break loose.

The problem was that as the local group known as La Linea started to loose it's grip, another cartel from Sinaloa started moving in to fill the void. President Calderon's troops unintentionally were aiding one side in a war between two criminal organizations. Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the local boss, hired a group of ex-military mercenaries--known as the Zetas--to help him maintain control. The Zetas brutally gunned down many police officers who were formerly on Carrillo's payroll for suspected disloyalty and defection to the Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaqun Guzman Loera, known as "el Chapo" (Shorty). The fact that many of them did not defect--but were rather just prevented from aiding Carrillo by the Army and the other Federales--made no difference. Most of the cops that weren't killed resigned or were fired for failing lie-detector and other "trustworthiness" tests. With almost no cops left, the streets started running red with blood.

Living in a war zone is not fun. The cost of living is low in terms of money but high in terms of risk. I am stuck here until I can get a visa for my wife, a Mexican national. The house across the street from us was raided by the cops a year ago, but no drugs were found. The owners fled, but the looters took everything, including the front door. It was a really nice house with trees and a pool. Now the place is abandoned and decaying. Gang signs are spray painted all over it.

The Mexican Army that was brought in has so far been relatively free from corruption although they have made no noticeable impact on the amount of violence or the quantity of drugs running through the area. There have been growing reports of human rights violations from soldiers, who are simply a poor substitute for civilian police. A scandal broke out when it was revealed that the U.S. military was teaching them torture techniques to obtain information. The random warrantless searches and checkpoints make me nervous. We are not allowed to photograph or film them. I don't think they are winning this war because they only operate during daylight hours (as far as I've seen) and they often look scared. How long they can resist being corrupted themselves on a $500/month salary is the question I wonder about.

Obviously, all this could be avoided if drugs were legalized in the U.S. and guns were legalized in Mexico. Sure, addictions may increase but that would be less of a problem if the drugs were more affordable. At least addicts wouldn't have to prostitute themselves, steal or rob to get high. The U.S. would have at least 1.4 billion more dollars to help addicts if we didn't have to give the aid to Mexico. Honest Mexicans could defend themselves rather than relying on the now almost non-existent police force.

The capper is that many of the Zetas, the ex-military mercenaries responsible for a lot of the murders, were trained by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency before they switched sides to make more money. Your tax dollars at work, folks.

William N. Grigg said...

Mr. Spock -- Could you contact me directly at WNGrigg [at] msn [dot] com?

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Helpful report from 'bearded spock'; thanks.

A couple of years ago, I was in El Paso and decided to walk across the border at the I-110 crossing. A sign on the US side warns of jail for those bringing guns into Mexico. At the Mexican end of the bridge over the fenced-in river was an Immigration office. No one challenged me, and there was no turnstile, so I just strolled on past ... entering Mexico with no documentation or inspection whatsoever.

There's a big park on the Juarez side. Aside from a few cut-rate dental offices nearby, not much of interest to tourists. It appeared to be a poor part of Juarez, though I wouldn't know.

Crossing back northbound couldn't have been more different. The fenced-in pedestrian walkway feeds straight in to a US Customs office, much like a TSA airport checkpoint. I presented my US passport. The Aztec-faced officer scanned it, and then scowled silently at the data on his monitor screen for awhile. Did I fit some suspicious profile? Who knows ...

Then the interrogation started. Are you carrying any drugs in your shirt? No. Are you carrying drugs in your belt? No. Are you carrying drugs in your boots? No. The officer realized, from my confident, almost smirking answers, that I had nothing to hide, so a body search would be a waste of time. He admitted me, reluctantly, to the United States.

As Mr. Spock details so well, drug prohibition enfranchises criminal gangs and fuels their internecine violence, as it corrupts the authorities. But on a more trivial level, it's deplorable that what should be a friendly border has a hostile feel on the yanqui side. Every entrant to the US is treated as a criminal suspect, who might be involved in either drug smuggling or terrorism.

Legalize drugs; defund the mafia; demilitarize the border. Obviously this would happen, if US authorities weren't on the criminal syndicate's payroll too, in a big way.

Kent McManigal said...

US authorities ARE the criminal syndicate!

Qnunc said...

So no neocon types were arrested? Not that they have anything to protest, but what about any of the neocon press? Here's what Michelle Malkin wrote about the protesters: Losers.

I'm wondering about the black bloc. (Google articles, Google images.) The police managed to suppress completely peaceful protesters in order to "pre-empt violence," yet, except for token arrests, it is only the violent ones who managed to elude them. Some of their tactics -- "The black bloc will continue to break police lines, occupy buildings, takeover areas, unarrest people, etc. with the goal of moving from protest to actual resistance" -- could NEVER be done by legitimate protesters.

Anonymous said...

The U.S. government "officials" have no more authority than you or I. People can only have authority from nature/nature's God, or consenting individuals. The individuals in government have no more authority from God than you or I, and I do not give them a drop of consent.

There is a difference between force/violence/power, and "authority." Men everywhere would do well to become familiar with it.

-Sans Authoritas

Mark said...

Freedom not Fear International Day of Action October 11th

Mark said...

It was about surveillance and Tyranny on Display at the Republican Convention

Mark said...

And, re Mexico:

1. Drug
War Terror


2. Mexican Military Proposal

3. Radio TOTOP Oaxaca/Zapatista Solidarity

Please consider acting in solidarity on the 11th to defend the innocent. Regular global demos for the protection of humanity in the face of this onslaught of militarisation and imperial abuses of power.

And in solidarity with the EZLN

Delivered to the UK Government on September 11th:

Officers of the security state and others who support or profit
financially from the security economy, be on notice:

The UK, US & EU governments are intent on turning society into an
authoritarian police state-in-the-making. Not only is this morally
wrong and an abuse of power, it also directly prevents the very
openess and democratic processes necessary to build a good society. As
non-violent activists we feel this keenly, for we who campaign for a
just world now find ourselves forced to defend our essential political
freedom.

The restrictions on assembly, freedom to protest, rising surveillance
and encouragement of a 'snoop' culture, the removal of hard won rights
like habeus corpus and many other rights; these are totally
unacceptable in a democratic society. And those who support these
laws, whether as legislators, enforcers or apologists for the status
quo are collectively guilty of abuse of power and should be
prosecuted. Are you aware that our ancestors died for these
principles? We will not allow you to give them away!

We therefore hold you and all other relevant government bodies
responsible, including the Home Office, the Cabinet, police force and
local councils who crave ever-greater means of surveillance and
control over the populace. And we hold guilty those companies that
directly benefit from the selling of surveillance equipment or who are
inappropriately shielded from our democratic protest at their cruel
and dangerous activities. And we denounce the state that colludes with
these corporations.

We call upon you, good people within these organisations to end your
blind acceptance of these laws and the various wrong-headed doctrines
that support their enactment, including the war on terror. All
doctrines that encourage the notion we need a civil liberties
crackdown are false doctrines!

We demand that you
1 .Scrap ID cards & the proposed database state
2 Bring about strict punishment for abuse of power (like arresting
peaceful protesters under anti-terror law)
3) End council powers to snoop on its residents
4) Repeal SOCPA s132, 128, 145
5) Abort the Counter Terror Bill

And this is just the beginning! Stop the persecution of dissidents,
for these are the lifeblood of any democratic society. Recognise that
dissident actions, whether against state or other co-called
anti-social behaviour; these are usually born of necessity. They are
symptomatic: of perpetuated injustices, of the failure of economic and
political power structures to include everyone, of the need for a wide
debate, deliberation and inclusive legislative process about the
direction of society. Without justice, no peace! Protests and
anti-social behaviour reflect our collective failure to create a good
and authentically democratic society. Do you not see that we
dissidents are good , because we want a society in which all can have
their freedom to self-determination in solidarity with one another,
and not just a few? And the irony that we cannot possibly achieve this
by being demonized? Without a whole-scale reappraisal of how our
society operates, justice cannot be secured. But this is now
impossible under our vote and closed media/celebrity culture system
because those with power will not let the necessary, and serious ideas
into the mainstream. We are peaceful, but we can see why the terrorist
blows up a plane to get on the agenda, even if we disagree with means
and ends.

We demand the government adopts a new approach to dissidents. If not,
levels of terror, protest and general civil unrest will only grow.
Reinstate civil liberties and human rights for all, but at the same
time you must enlarge them. Open up the public sphere for peaceful
activists! We need a full debate in the mainstream media, so that the
views of non-violent, non-sectarian dissidents (those many radicals
now excluded from the coverage their causes deserve) can be heard, and
their ideas openly debated. For only then will demoracy have the
chance of fulfillment and the challenge of our times addressed. We
need open and ongoing, daily debate about how to use our freedom well,
about the way we organise society; about how our culture can bloom.
Facilitation of THESE things are what we need from public servants –
not Robocop! For it is through these means, and not through
authoritarian measures that peace will be possible. We will not let
the logic of the surveillance state continue!!

Picnic Warfare Part II Declared

Anonymous said...

hey,


off topic here, but how do you embed the links?

rick

the hairy ape said...

Saw some scary articles about Skeletor Chertoff having the right to waive any laws he sees fit to for the building of the bandaid on a severed artery wall along the border. Some farmers and ranchers will be stuck in a no man's land outside the wall. But they are just little people, useless eaters so they don't matter. All hail the new corporate feudalism obey!

Anonymous said...

Rick,

Check this page for embedded links.

Greg Bacon said...

Ted's Ok for beer drinking and hell raising, but if he's so gung ho about the Iraq War, then he should have gotten over to Vietnam when he had the chance.

Check out these lyrics from another rock band dynasty, Steppenwolf, who recorded this song, MONSTER, in the late 1960's.

Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey


http://www.lyricsdomain.com/19/steppenwolf/monster.html

Welcome to Amerika in the 21st Century. Since we freed the blacks and killed off most of the Red Man, the only ones left to fuck with is us.

Watch how we devour one another.

Anonymous said...

Failure to realize that in the current times, there is no difference between common criminal and 'law enforcement officer' is what allows this obscene situation to not only exist, but to fester and grow, eventually culminating in what we were shown in Minnesota for the RNC.

The only way this will change is when the 'law enforcement officers' realize they have alienated themselves from the communities they are employed by and live in, and are considered by those communities to be the largest criminal enterprise in operation. And treated as such by those communities.

Most cops are good people, but are way too easily cowed into believing the propaganda they have been indoctrinated with since day one in the Police Science courses at the local tech schools.

And sadly, the truth is, there is so much corruption within the law enforcement community, that two sets of laws are now in functional deployment- theirs and ours. And we believe our position to be subservient to theirs. To our own detriment.

Kent McManigal said...

I'll believe that "most cops are good people" as soon as they stop enforcing counterfeit "laws" and crush those LEOs (Liberty Eradication Operatives) who do.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Dear Will,

It is eerie how closely this story parallels the rise of Nazism in Germany. Here we call them "The Police," there they called them "Das Sturmabteilung" - the Storm Troopers. Also known as the Brown Shirts - in the days when the Nazi Party did not have much money, before George Bush's grandfather financed it, they found surplus brown uniforms cheap, and the name "Brownshirts" passed into history. Their aggressive, brutal and intimidating behavior was IDENTICAL to the police attitudes and behavior today in America. Absolutely the same.

Hitler was by all accounts a very nice man - there are endless movie clips of him surrounded by children, all happily chatting with him, clips of him hugging kids and kissing his dogs, clapping his friends on the back, smiling, doing a little jig - he was in person a much, much nicer man than, for instance, George Bush.

But behind that charming and amiable front, the glamor, the music, the pomp and circumstance, hid an enormous evil. What could this terrible aberration have been? Simple, and on the face of it not even so evil at all. It was a total conviction that he and his friends knew better than others how others should live their own lives. In pursuit of a stable and prosperous society, all human rights were suspended. No dissent was permitted - it would result in imprisonment in a concentration camp if you were lucky, or execution if you were not. The ends, of social order, justified the means, of vile inhuman cruelty.

And, you know, at first there seemed to be nothing wrong with this. The country enjoyed an economic miracle, emerging from the Depression way ahead of Britain or America, to full employment, national pride, and an industrial infrastructure that astonished the rest of the world.

Motto: Deutschland Uber Alles!

In English: Why worry? Be happy!

It was only after the machinery of total state control was in place that the criminal motives of the leaders began to emerge. The invasions of other countries, the looting of their banks, their museums, and their wealthy citizens, the murder of Jews and anyone seen as racially inferior, the eugenics (Aryan breeding programs) and the euthanasia of Mongoloids, all came out in the open, but nothing could then be done about it by anyone who objected. Anyone who tried, invariably died in the attempt.

The scale and cruelty of the Nazi criminal enterprise - for that is what it really was - is beyond our comprehension. It was vast. There is almost no one who knows the full extent of it.

The same is happening to us today in America. Little by little, we are being told more and more how to live the smallest details of our lives, under the pretext of "helping" us and keeping us "safe". Little by little our freedom to act, and even to think, according to our conscience is being eroded, and little by little, the criminality of this regime is being revealed.

All, of course, gift-wrapped in the Stars and Stripes.

(Wouldn't it be funny if, some day in a distant continent, groups of angry skinhead deviants wave the Stars and Stripes, as some deluded folks today in America wave the Swastika, not understanding the ugly reality behind the glamor?)

I am afraid we will eventually end up the same way as the Third Reich did, in the destruction of our society, probably in a nuclear war which was never intended to happen. Much as the Nazis believed their imposition of Nazism on the rest of the world would be welcomed, this country is confident its imposition of "democracy," which is just a system for the looting of the public treasury by the oligarchs, will be welcomed everywhere, at the point of a gun if necessary. Just like the Nazis.

And I fear that just like the Germans sorely regretted not stopping the Nazis while that was possible, we will end up bitterly regretting not stopping this cabal that is consolidating its powers over us, while we still had enough freedom left to do so.

Oh well. Darwin was right. The mentally fit nation will survive. The stupid nation will die. This applies, too, for our whole human species. If our brains and our technology end up evolving faster than our morality, it is a physical deformity, like a couple of extra and useless limbs, which will kill us.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Sincerely,
Lemuel Gulliver.

Anonymous said...

Man falls to death after police stun gun shock

September 25, 2008


NEW YORK (AP) — An officer appears to have violated police department guidelines when he used a Taser stun gun on a naked, distraught man teetering on a building ledge, officials said Thursday.
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Inman Morales, 35, was pronounced dead at a hospital after his nearly 10-foot fall Wednesday. Police said he suffered serious head trauma when he hit the sidewalk.
Officers had radioed for an inflatable bag as the incident unfolded, but it had not yet arrived at the scene when Morales fell.

“None of the ... officers on the scene were positioned to break his fall, nor did they devise a plan in advance to do so,” said chief department spokesman Paul Browne.

The lieutenant who directed the use of the stun gun was stripped of his gun and badge, and the officer who shocked Morales was placed on desk duty as the investigation continues. Their names were not released.

Witnesses and neighbors said Morales had become distraught and threatened to kill himself earlier in the day. When police arrived in response to a 911 call, he fled naked out the window of his third-floor apartment, clambered down to a ledge and began jabbing at officers with an 8-foot-long fluorescent light.

An amateur video posted on the Web site of the New York Post shows one of the officers raising a stun gun at Morales, who freezes and topples over headfirst as the crowd screams.

The man’s death renewed focus on the use of stun guns by the NYPD. Thousands of city police sergeants began carrying Tasers on their belts this year after the department expanded use of the weapons. The pistol-shaped weapons fire barbs up to 35 feet and deliver 50,000-volt shocks to immobilize people.

Browne said guidelines specifically prohibit the use of stun guns when the subject may fall from an elevated surface.

Kent McManigal said...

Lemuel,

That is probably one of the best comments I have ever read on a blog. Thanks for posting that for us.