Ten
days ago, as the nation focused attention on the hurricane nearing the
Mississippi delta, another storm was brewing far upstream in St. Paul,
Minnesota – a storm far more dangerous, it turned out, but one by and
large overlooked by the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM).
When I
flew into St. Paul on the evening of Aug. 30, I encountered a din in
local media about “preemptive strikes” on those already congregating
there to demonstrate against the Iraq war and injustice against the
poor in our country.
St. Paul’s Pioneer Press expressed surprise
that “despite preemptive police searches” and arrests, a group calling
itself “the RNC Welcoming Committee” was still intent on “disrupting
the convention.”
A headline screamed, “Preemptive Arrests of
Protesters in Twin Cities.” But it was the article’s lead that hit
home: “Borrowing from the Bush administration’s “preemptive war”
playbook, police agencies in the Twin Cities have made “preemptive
strikes” against organizations planning to protest at the Republican
National Convention.”
In the following days I was to see, up close and personal, a massive and totally unnecessary display of ruthlessness.
What
struck a bell was that this domestic application of the doctrine of
“preemption” was totally predictable – indeed, predicted by those
courageous enough to speak out before the U.S. “preemptive” attack on
Iraq.
Ironically, it was FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley, living
in the St. Paul area, who served warning of precisely that in her
hard-hitting Feb. 26, 2003, letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller,
three weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. [NYT, March 6, 2003]
Confronting
Mueller on a number of key issues (like “What is the FBI’s evidence
with respect to the claimed connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq?”),
Rowley warned of the trickle-down effect of “the administration’s new
policy of “preemptive strikes””:
“I believe it would be prudent
to be on guard against the possibility that the looser “preemptive
strike” rationale being applied to situations abroad could migrate back
home, fostering a more permissive attitude on the part of law
enforcement officers in this country.”
Rowley called Mueller’s
attention to the abuses of civil rights that had already occurred since
9/11, and pointedly warned “particular vigilance may be required to
head off undue pressure (including subtle encouragement) to detain or
“round up” suspects.”
Transforming the Police
While in
St. Paul, I got in touch with Rowley, who has been politically active
in the Twin City area, and asked for her reaction to St. Paul’s version
of preemption. This was hardly her first chance to say I-told-you-so,
but she called no attention to her right-on prophesy five-and-a-half
years ago.
Shaking her head, Rowley simply bemoaned how easily
the artificial stoking of fear had succeeded in causing the “otherwise
wonderful community police officers of St. Paul to turn on their own
peaceful citizens (the surreal insanity we witnessed during the RNC).”
She added that, once the Feds, the so-called fusion centers, the contractors get into the act, “all the rules go up in smoke.”
The “preemption” began on Friday, Aug. 29, well before the RNC began on Monday, Sept. 1.
An
academic doing research on social movement organizations, who for
several months has been observing the main protesters – the RNC
Welcoming Committee, the Coalition to March on the RNC and End the War,
and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign – provided this
account:
“On Friday evening the space in St. Paul that was being
rented by the Welcoming Committee was raided by riot police, who
knocked in the door with automatic weapons drawn, forced the 60-70
activists inside onto the floor, handcuffed them, then proceeded to
confiscate all the banner-making supplies and movement literature.
“Over
the course of several hours the cops interrogated, photographed, ran
warrant checks, and eventually, released everyone one by one. Then they
closed down the space for a code violation. The next morning a city
code inspector arrived and found no basis for closing the space.
“Saturday
morning was one of escalation and terror. The Ramsey County Sheriff
Department, together with the St. Paul police, Homeland Security, and
the FBI raided four private houses. At 8:00 AM, dozens of cops in SWAT
gear broke down the door of one house where about a dozen activists
were staying. They were awakened with rifle barrels in their faces and
forced to lie face down for more than an hour.
“The cops stole
all the computers and other electronic devices in the house, and core
members of the Welcoming Committee sleeping there were arrested. It
being a holiday weekend, those arrested for alleged crimes could not
arrive in court until Wednesday, at the earliest. Thus, those trying to
organize demonstrations will be in jail for the entire time the RNC is
going on. Four other houses were raided and dozens of activists were
detained.”
The academic who wrote the report appealed to those
concerned over “this enormous police over-kill” to contact the Twin
Cities” mayors and demand an end to the “witch hunt.”
He added,
“The people who were arrested were some of the gentlest, most dedicated
activists I”ve ever met.” A far cry from the “criminal enterprise”
described by notorious Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.
Nanette
Echols, a resident of St. Paul who had been extending hospitality to
the visiting protesters, insisted they had done nothing wrong.
“In
the place they raided on Friday night they were showing documentary
movies to twenty-somethings in a clean, alcohol-free zone after
dinner,” she said.
Caving In to the Feds
The St. Paul
City Council? Only one member had the courage to speak out – Councilman
Dave Thune, who was particularly enraged that Sheriff Fletcher took
action within St. Paul city limits:
“This is not the way to
start things off”I’m really ticked off”the city is perfectly capable of
taking care of such things”This is all about free speech. It’s what my
father fought for in the war. To me this smacks of preemptive strike
against free speech.”
Thune objected in particular to Fletcher’s
deputies using battering rams to knock down doors, then entering with
guns drawn, and forcing people to the ground, as they did on Friday
night.
This was the unsettling backdrop as I flew into St. Paul
on Saturday evening, to speak at the Masses at St. Joan of Arc Catholic
Church on Sunday morning.
On Monday, I joined some 10,000 on a
peaceful march from the Capitol to the Berlin wall of fences and to
what the old Soviet Union would have called the “organs of public
safety” arrayed before the RNC convention hall.
On the fringes
there was some property damage and further arrests. What violence there
was bore the earmarks of provocation by the likes of Sheriff Fletcher
and his Homeland Security, FBI, and, according to one well-sourced
report, Blackwater buddies.
That’s right. Agent provocateurs.
Primary
targets of the repression were the alternative media, including any and
all those who might have a camera to record the brutality – as was
successfully done at the RNC in New York four years ago.
The
manner in which Amy Goodman and the two producers of “Democracy Now!”
were deliberately mistreated was clearly to serve as a warning that the
rules had gone up in smoke – the First Amendment be damned.
Tuesday
evening, after speaking at the “Free Speech Zone,” a fenced-off area
surrounded by the organs of public safety, I joined the Poor People’s
march up to the fences before the RNC.
I observed no violence at
all; yet, the police/FBI/national guard/and who-knows-who-else decided
they needed to clear the streets. My friends and I narrowly escaped
being tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, or worse. It was an overwhelming
show of force – not to protect, but to intimidate.
Palin Significance
After
speaking at a conference at Concordia University in St. Paul on
Wednesday, I was more eager to watch the Republican vice-presidential
candidate, Sarah Palin, deliver her acceptance speech than to risk the
tear gas and pepper spray.
The way she dissed community organizers was hard to take.
But
those things pale in significance, so to speak, compared to the way the
governor of Alaska proceeded to ridicule the notion of reading people
their rights. I had thought that despite the distance between Alaska
and Washington, the reach of the U.S. Constitution and statutes
extended that far.
Friends tell me I should not have been surprised. But, really!
After
the widespread kidnapping, torture, indefinite imprisonment, and our
cowardly Congress” empowerment of the president to imprison sine die
anyone he might designate an “enemy combatant” – after all that…well,
it seems to me that reading a person his/her rights takes on more, not
less, importance.
Not to mention the massive repression then under way right outside the convention hall.
It
was, it is, a scary juxtaposition. The following day Col. Ann Wright
and I went to the jail to offer support to the young people who had
been brutalized and then released. They had not been read their rights.
Many were camped out on the sidewalk, refusing to leave until their
friends still inside were also released.
Out of the jail came
Jason, a well-built young man of about 20 years, who needed help in
walking. We talked to Jason a while, and he showed us the seven, yes
seven, taser wounds on his body. One, on his left buttock, had released
considerable blood, creating a large stain on his pants.
Resourcefulness
The
young protesters had some success in exposing infiltrators in their
ranks. During confrontations, members of the Welcoming Committee, in
particular, took copious photos of law enforcement officers and then
memorized the faces.
This tactic worked like a charm in one of
the St. Paul parks, when a man who looked like a protester – dark
clothes, backpack, a bit disheveled – walked by.
One of the
protesters recognized the man’s face and searched through her camera
until she found a photo of the man actually performing the raid on the
Welcoming Committee’s headquarters on Friday night.
The young
protesters asked the man, and two associates, to leave the park, at
which point the three hustled into a nearby unmarked sedan.
The
license plate, observed by a Pioneer Press reporter, traced back to the
detective unit of the Hennepin County sheriff’s office, according to
the county’s Central Mobile Equipment Division.
Protesters later
picked two other men out of the day’s planned march – one because he
was wearing brand-new tennis shoes. The two left without indicating
whether they were with the organs of public safety.
So there is
hope. Young people are smarter than old ones. It is a safe bet that in
the coming weeks lots of unwelcome photos will be exposing various
agents provocateurs, including over-the-hill flat-feet in unmarked
cars, as well as young Republicans with unmarked tennis shoes.
If
those are the kind of “sources” upon which the police, FBI, etc. have
been relying”well, that would be like having Shia reporting on Sunni,
or vice versa.
The organs of public safety are probably not
quite so dumb as to be unaware that one cannot expect valid
“intelligence” from such amateurish antics. More likely, the attitude
is that any kind of “intelligence” will do for the purposes of local
law enforcement and timid public officials cowed by the Feds.