Beijing on the Mississippi: The RNC police state

by Will Bunch | Columnist

Published Sep. 1, 2008, 10:42 p.m. ET

Last month, the world got a chance to see up close exactly how a thug regime manages to prosper while putting a lid on every form of dissent, even the most mild and peaceful forms of protest. It was the Beijing Olympics, and while the world didn't give the issue the attention it deserved, the world was still outraged at the lack of civil liberties allowed in China, how anyone seeking permission to stage a protest was instead detained, including these elderly women and some pro-Tibet demonstrators from Philly.

That could never happen here, right?

Right.

It already is, this week in St. Paul. For months, police in Minnesota backed by federal authorities, including the FBI, have been shadowing and infiltrating groups planning to protest the RNC, regardless of whether the planned events were legal and peaceful exercise of free speech. Now that the big event is finally here, the cops are arresting truckloads of people -- some valid, but most completely unjustified.

Here's a good overview from Glenn Greenwald in St. Paul:

As the police attacks on protesters in Minnesota continue -- see this video of the police swarming a bus transporting members of Earth Justice, seizing the bus and leaving the group members stranded on the side of the highway -- it appears increasingly clear that it is the Federal Government that is directing this intimidation campaign. Minnesota Public Radio reported yesterday that "the searches were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Today's Star Tribune added that the raids were specifically "aided by informants planted in protest groups." Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force -- an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI -- was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate "vegan groups" and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing. There seems to be little doubt that it was this domestic spying by the Federal Government that led to the excessive and truly despicable home assaults by the police yesterday.

So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protesters who have committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by months-long espionage efforts to track what they do. And as extraordinary as that conduct is, more extraordinary is the fact that they have received virtually no attention from the national media and little outcry from anyone.

Here's a follow-up post from Glenn with some of the newest developments today -- here's a video of a woman holding up a flower, and getting pepper sprayed, and most shocking is the news of well-known liberal journalist Amy Goodman of the program Democracy Now getting arrested for....well, watch this and tell me why she was arrested, because I have no clue.

I do know this, that unlike the famous chant in 1968, the whole world isn't watching. Ever since the backlash against the TV coverage of those police riots 40 years ago, big media has been fairly terrified of stories that appear to endorse public dissent or cast any kind of critical light on police misconduct of the type that is taking place in St. Paul this week. They should, because any kind of threat to free speech -- even when it's "just" the "dirty freakin' hippies" -- is a threat to all journalists, and to all Americans. They should be outraged by this Beijing on the Mississippi -- at least this journalist is.