The Patriot Act and the Jackboots of St. Paul: We Saw it Coming

Poland started World War II.

That was the National Socialists story, and they were sticking to it. It went along with other stories, like the Reichstag fire, Anschluss and German nationals at the mercy of anti-German Czechoslovakia. And each of them were in equal measure, bullshit. And not calling bullshit lead to more bullshit, which lead to still further bullshit, which . . . you get the idea. The bullshit kept snowballing, until Germany was in some deep shit. At some point, calling bullshit was impossible - not that it was ever easy. Someone would have had to risk their comforts, their freedom, perhaps their families, even their lives. Finally, after it was too late to call bullshit, some of them did exactly that. The attempt on Hitler's life failed. The conspirators were caught and executed. Even the great Fieldmarschal, Rommel who had no involvment, died mysteriously. It is understood by historians that the Nazis had him killed.

Those who do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.

Which is why I'm calling bullshit, now, in America, on the UNPATRIOTIC, UNAMERICAN, ANTI-DEMOCRATIC meatheads that call themselves police in St. Paul, Minnesota. Buried behind all of the sensationalism which was bound to follow a woman Governor, extremist Republican, mother of five with a Down syndrome baby and pregnant daughter, cum-Vice Presidential nominee, was another story that I likely wouldnt have heard about until I was on my way to work Monday morning . . . except that I tried getting ahold of one of our members the only way that I know how - through his email on YouTube. Oddly, someone had emailed me some videos about the riots at the RNC.

Though I remember hearing about them peripherally, I blocked them out. It was just a bunch of jerks from the left trying to stir up trouble, I had decided. Why not let the GOP have their convention in peace, the way that the Democrats had been allowed to have their convention? It was just a bunch of rabble rousers, stirring up trouble, and I wanted no part of it.

Some of these so-called rabble rousers, it turned out, were my morning fix. I listen to Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman during my morning commute. Somehow, like everyone else, I became distracted from the important issues by the shiny, new running mate, Sarah Palin. I'd stopped listening to the alternative news sources that had been a source of strength to me. Then, I found out that Amy Goodman had been arrested while questioning police about the arrests of Democracy Now! producers Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.

This is how it happened. The riot police descended on the crowd where Kouddous and Salazar were filiming. As the police approached her position, Nicole Salazar displayed her press credentials and asked the police for an avenue for retreat. This was their response:

Koudous and Salazar were arrested and faced felony charges for "Probable Cause" Inciting a Riot and Salazar was handcuffed and dragged by her feet, causing her face to be scraped on the asphalt and her nose to bleed. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was on the floor of the Republican National Convention, when she received a call on her cell phone that Koudous and Salazar had been arrested. Concerned for the safety and health of her associates, Goodman left the convention and went outside to confront the police, demanding to speak to a police supervisor:

Goodman was arrested and cited with misdemeanor obstruction of a legal process and interference with a peace office (emphasis added).

To say that I am angered by this would be a gross understatement. That Salazar's brutal arrest failed to provoke a firestorm of media outrage against this kind of monopolistic abuse is evidence that the mainstream press - once fairly labeled liberally-biased - is firmly in the pocket of the corporations which fund and promote both parties. Days after starting her new program on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, host of The Rachel Maddow Show on both MSNBC and Air America, mentioned this story briefly, but has not discussed it since. The bombastic and wry-humored Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's Countdown has yet to make so much as a cursory reference to the fact that his journalistic colleagues were arrested.

The silence is deafening.

It has taken me over a week to find a way to place this outrage into a written format that doesn't include expletives. It would be easy enough to indict a police force, whether caught up in the excitement of the crowds, or acting on specific orders to satisfy specific political aims. It would be easy to call the St. Paul riot police "Jackbooted thugs," denouncing their actions as draconian and as undermining the first amendment. But the responsibility has passed beyond the scope of the St. Paul Police, or City Attorney John Choi, or Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner. As a people, we did not inherit this Republic as a trust of bottomless plunder, but as a responsibility to ourselves and our posterity to maintain and defend. It was through that spirit of responsibility that we became a nation, and it is in that spirit that I offer the following reminder of history to a complicit and dangerously inane media:

In Germany, they first 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 trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. 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 nobody left to speak up.

In other words, Pastor Neimoller warned us that silence not only gives consent, it invites your own destruction. Dangerous things have happened since 9/11; things which the Democrats and the Media have quietly pretended not to notice. And now we face a government that wishes to silence not only the voices of protest and dissent, but those that would hold them accountable. You would think that the media would respond with outrage, making the collective fates of Amy Goodman, Nicole Salazar and Abdel Koudous the same historical indictment on silence that The Diary of Anne Frank became on Fascism. Yet regardless of the monopolistic style of government, the use (and defense) of torture and cronyism apparent in the Bush Administration, the abuses of power and the cronyism apparent in Governor Palin's record, and regardless of the fact that journalists have been, and are being arrested for doing their jobs, only Dr. Maddow dared mention this attack on free speech.

Amy Goodman does what no other journalist has the strength or courage to do: her sacred duty as a member of that little-valued people's branch of government, fourth estate. That her colleagues who sold us out for million-dollar salaries, six-figure wardrobe budgets and overwhelming fame, have not stepped forward in her defense, is hardly surprising, but it does expose their legitimacy - or rather, lack thereof. So it is up to us, the people of the United States, to fight for our inheritance: this Republic.

UPDATE, 9/16/08: When I called the Ramsey County Attorney's Office today, the individual I spoke with said that no felony charges were going to be filed. Whether or not these two journalists will face lesser charges, it is clear that Ramsey County Attorney and gubernatorial candidate Susan Gaertner, at some point conceded that these charges were excessive and false.

UPDATE, 9/22/08: Charges have been dropped against Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Koudous. This was not reported by mainstream news, and all letters protesting these arrests came about as a result of a savvy internet community getting involved and demanding justice. A further investigation into the excessive force used by police is pending.