What was at stake was whether or not the progressive forces that organize in the streets of America had a strategy for organizing that can effectively diminish police, press, and government efforts to marginalize protests.
The week proved that repression and suppression through raids, unreasonable searches and seizure, and violations of civil liberties like freedom of speech and freedom to assemble peacefully could successfully deter Americans from speaking out against their government. Repression and suppression could keep the number of people who participated in protests low and make sure the Republican Party’s convention would not be overshadowed.
And since Hurricane Gustav significantly affected the first day of the convention, it is worth asking what effect (if any) this had on decisions by the city to give police the right to engage in violence when engaging in so-called crowd control so protests would not detract from the convention.
What was at stake was whether or not those in the streets would find the moral clarity to make the actions less about standing up to the police and more about recognizing how the PATRIOT Act, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act, and other anti-terrorism bills (especially the state anti-terrorism bill in Minnesota 2002) have created and allowed for the police state protesters lived under from the last week of August when raids occurred to the end of the Republican National Convention.
Leaders of groups in St. Paul needed to formulate a response to all the police violence that would have included a rally & march to the Xcel Energy Center on Friday or Saturday and would have set the record straight for the people in the Twin Cities, America, and the world. Or, group leaders needed a Day of Resistance organized in the way a Day of Resistance was organized on March 20th to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War.
Now, what is at stake is how leaders and groups present at the DNC and RNC go home and take their experiences and use them to formulate a way forward that challenges a system which grants 50 million dollars to a city for security that has no problem with restraining free speech and peaceful assembly violently.
City Council members in the Twin Cities are speaking out against the suppression and repression that happened to people during the RNC. But, they must realize an overwhelming majority of officials in the state supported the Minnesota Anti-Terrorism Bill of 2002, which gave the state power to charge the RNC 8 (or 9) with “furtherance of terrorism” charges so that the penalty could be increased by fifty percent.
John Conyers, the man who has dragged his feet relentlessly on the impeachment of Cheney and Bush, pledges an investigation. But, does he realize that votes for PATRIOT Act and its expansions and also votes that have kept the “war on terror” going have created the system of repression and suppression journalists, protesters, and innocent civilians faced in St. Paul?
For the record, Obama and McCain have not responded to the police violence in St. Paul during the RNC. One might be able to understand why Obama and McCain said nothing about the police state in Denver, but the police state in St. Paul cannot be ignored.
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