TWIN CITY TRAGEDY: SILENCE
the arrests began on saturday: homes were raided, laptops and cell phones confiscated. automatic weapons cocked and brandished at peaceful citizens. people cuffed on living rooms floor as their homes were searched.
what were they guilty of, these (mostly) twenty-somethings? they were guilty of planning to protest the republican convention. in other words, their lives were invaded and their dresser drawers ransacked because of something the police THOUGHT they were THINKING.
pre-emptive arrests. the kind of arrests that have been expressly forbidden since this country was founded--at least, until GWB disemboweled habeas corpus and elevated suspicion to the level of a committed crime. and don't go crying for no phone calls, neither, you'll get your fucking phone call when we tell you.
megan wilson's Earth Activist Bust (the "permibus") was seized. the bus is also her home. do the police seriously believe that people like megan are terrorists? if they do, we are all in trouble. if they don't, we are in worse trouble, as the police become robotic arms of some unseen, lawless masters.
how were these people targeted? the minneapolis joint terrorism task force recruited everyday citizens to plant in groups considered potentially dangerous, like vegans. police began systematically rounding up everyone identified by these recruits and locking them up days before the convention started. there were at least 300 arrests as of yesterday, at least that's what i've been able to glean from the blogs: there has been NO coverage of this in the mainstream media outside the twin cities themselves, and that is a criminal omission on the part of outlets like AP, Reuters, CNN and the like.
if amy goodman herself hadn't gotten arrested yesterday, even alternet might not have covered this story.
the new york times covered arrests only after the protests turned violent--which they did (watch the video on this page), and i'm not at all surprised. after three days of sweeps and unwarranted, violent, pre-emptive arrests, the mood in minneapolis was ugly.
and naturally, once protests actually began, the pepper sprayed and the rubber bullets flew. police wore gas masks.
the other side of the Big Silence is how the republicans manipulated hurricane news in order to take the focus off of their pathetic excuse for a convention: thousands of acceptance-speech tickets still unsold, scandal swirling around mccain's extremely ill-chosen running mate, the fear of comparison to the democratic convention in denver. despite the fact that conventions were held in this country smack in the middle of the second world war, gustav was enough of a reason to cancel the republican's party--at least after john mccain was talked down from whatever ledge he was on, imagining it would be a cool idea to move the whole fucking show to NOLO in the face of the storm. i would ask "what is that man thinking" if there were any evidence that he's thinking at all. he sure put his foot in his mouth with that comment about "taking off his red hat" to put on his american hat.
i know it's been overquoted and overused the last few years. maybe that's because it's become so frighteningly applicable:
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Jackie Sheeler getangrywithme.com
PROFILE OF A TERRORIST
She is eight
and has faith.
All her memories
are of war and death.
Her brothers, mother,
father, and their parents, too,
are gone:
blown apart
like her arm
that in childhood wonder
reached out to touch
a toy in the street
that turned out
instead
to be a bomb.
Watch for her.
She still has faith.
She learned her lesson well:
how to make
down to the last detail
the instrument
that ruptured her future
beyond repair.
She carries a box of them
gingerly
to the best places.
The toys she sells
shine irresistible
in their straw nests.
You can find her
any hour.
She is eager to share her wares
so that you and she
can see
all whom she loved most,
again.
She lives for that return.
Michele Gibbs
