Post in Miami pays for FTAA protest police brutality

2007 Oct 17 01:43 UTC

At 12:51 PM 10/17/2007 +1300, Nanette Echols wrote:

>The Twin Cities' police are already in the mode of intimidation.
>Minneapolis police were in fine form for the critical mass ride
>which involved PReNC (A pre-RNC strategy session held here over
>Labor Day weekend). The police attacked peaceful bike riders and
>used some of the usual equipment, tazers (can cause heart attaches
>and paralysis), pepper spray (burns any open skin it touches) and
>excessive force. Read more about it here.
>
>http://www.rncwelcomingcommittee.org/?page_id=120
>
>Don't delude yourselves into thinking the St. Paul/Minneapolis
>police will be docile and respectful with any of the protesters.

Nanette knows what she is talking about (!)

Consider who the "client" is here:  People willing to shred the
constitution, spy on everybody, kidnap and torture hundreds of
people, steal from the poor to make the rich richer, kill hundreds of
thousands of people to steal their oil while yapping about
"freedom.".... (I'm not saying the Dems, who have mostly gone along
with it, are all that much different, but we ARE talking about the
RNC here, not the League of Women Voters....)

I think it's pure wishful thinking to suppose that the deals these
guys cut with St. Paul officials are respectful of dissent.

Responding to a previous post, I don't know whether the St Paul cops
are kinder and gentler than Philly cops, or Miami cops, or LA
cops.  I hope so, but it doesn't matter, as shown by the material
Nanette refers to.  They are a paramilitary force and likely will do
what they are told.  The responsibility doesn't lie so much with the
cops as with the officials who command them.

This issue raises in my mind some of the same questions as the
incinerator issue:  What is the *real* relationship of the people of
St. Paul to their government in 2007?  Hopefully decency and common
sense will prevail in the end--but they are going to need some help.

Respectfully, as an outsider