The more people hear about this new strain of the "freedoms" we're supposed to hold dear, the better.

Amazingly, the local print media has been fairly even-handed about the multiple raids over the last 24 hours. By "fairly even-handed", I guess I mean "didn't just commend the police & refer to the protesters as violent anarchists, but actually offered their side too". In this day & age, that's worthy of praise.

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The media should have taken the neighbor up on her offer to go video the detainees and ask them questions over the fence, BUT as usual they take their orders from the cops too.

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Steady friends.

This outrageous behavior by police agencies is meant not just to intimidate but to provoke us, to get us to do something which they can make a big national issue out of and which they can use to justify even greater repression.

Don't take the bait; and hold back anyone around you who is eager to take it or is trying to get you to. During the VietNam protests and in countless labor struggles the use of police spies to incite violence was common. It is entirely foreseeable that they will try that again.

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We had it right in the '60's. Cops are pigs. I don't wonder any more though if they eat their young. The answer to that is obvious.

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According to links from the Common Dreams website, a handful of people have been arrested and charged with "conspiracy to commit riot" for which there is no proof as far as anyone knows. From what I understand, police withheld warrants & detained people on the floor in handcuffs, seized laptops, journals, and political pamphlets, have stopped reporters on the streets and questioned them - all "pre-emptive" anti-protest activity. Sounds like a serious violation of citizen rights to me.

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... we are not talking about anything even remotely resembling a democracy, and the officials are an aristocracy, no matter what they call themselves. They are being protected from contamination by the presence of uppity peons. A representative republic is a form of democracy, and old Ben Franklin wouldn't have been at all surprised to find that we couldn't keep it after all. Chances are he could have guessed how it was lost, too. Hell, even I saw most of it back in high school.

Ian

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light and siren. If more of us would do it more often they would become more aware of a public attitude that is on the increase. I really think that cops should pay us. We should get a percentage of all of the drugs that they steal and resell.

I know your going to tell me that there are good guys out there just trying to make a living for their families. I can't help but think that they should go get an honest job. It gives a poor example for the children.

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The UpTake's Chuck Olsen pulls up to the scene on the Cretin/Vandalia Ramp on I-94. This appears to be part of a series of police actions proceeding the Republican Nation Convention in St. Paul.

Surrounding a green painted former school bus are a half dozen highway patrol squad cars and several Ramsey County Sheriff's office cars. The sign on the bus says "Earth Activist Training Permaculture Demonstration Bus."

Chuck reports the bus was declared a "commercial vehicle" and then towed, leaving the people who were on the bus stranded and temporarily homeless.


Let us not forget.

peace,
Paul

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We have two methods that are effective against these people -- our video cameras and our votes.

If, that is, we can get our votes counted. Please urge young people to register to vote. And keep in touch with the media.

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The video shows Mike Whalen say the house number is 951, not 591, as written in the first para.

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for letting the cops handcuff this "enemy combatant" and violate the 4th Amendment. Get used to this sort of thing if McCain becomes boss. Or maybe even FISA-loving Obama, too.

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Few people these days remember that the Sheriff is the supreme law enforcement officer in the county. The Sheriff even has greater authority than Federal agents who must first seek permission from the Sheriff before doing an operation in his county.

"...we're getting closer to a federal police state. That's what we fought against 200 years ago -- this massive federal government involved in the lives of people on the local level."
Charles "Bud" Meeks, executive director of the National Sheriffs Association

Sheriff Mattis set the precedent in 1993

"Amazingly and quite simply, the Castanedas demanded, as part of their federal lawsuit settlement, that the Big Horn County Sheriff's office devise a policy that required all federal agencies to check with the Sheriff before they could take any action in Big Horn County.

Coincidentally, this policy fell on the lap of Sheriff Dave Mattis who was not even Sheriff at the time of the raid. However, Sheriff Mattis agreed with the policy and helped develop this most novel and unique agreement that the lawyers of the United States Justice Department also signed. However, the Justice Department took steps to keep this agreement secret and undisclosed. Imagine a small town sheriff in a county of only 12,000 people being the overseer of federal agencies within his county!


The Sheriff has the authority to demand the police and Highway Patrol officers act civilly and respectfully towards peaceful demonstrators. Unfortunately, they have enormous political pressure to let the abuses continue and to allow the police to evolve into State power enforcers, not law enforcers.

The power of the People is greatly amplified, or greatly diminished, based on which side the police force and military is on. We MUST organize campaigns to woo and elect sympathetic Sheriffs or we will be forced to cower in fear of our own neighbors who happen to be cops.

That brings up a secondary plea: Those of you who are cops, know cops or live near cops; you had better start EDUCATING them and shame them if you have to so they understand what they are doing to their own country!

Here is a link to several examples of Supreme Sheriff Authority

.

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they were very aware fo the fact that they had to face re-election. These guys often tell their deputies not to cost them votes. Although I can take you to counties where the moment you are from out of county you can spend the weekend in jail for a burnt out tail light.

The St. Paul sheriff thought that the locals would not be offended. He may have fooled himself. The sheriff that was letting his deputies kill Mexican nationals, lost his job. Mexican nationals don't vote. But the rest of the county did. The Angelos, the Latins, and the Blacks all voted together on that one.

I reccommend that Minnesota purge itself of all republican politicians. Now if I can just get my own state to do the same thing. Would any of you guys like to buy Inhofe or Coburn? I'll sell out cheap.

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