The final night of the convention led to confrontations between police and protesters. At least 396 people were arrested, an official said this morning.
By CURT BROWN, TERRY COLLINS, RANDY FURST and HERÓN MÁRQUEZ ESTRADA, Star Tribune
Police arrested scores more people Thursday night after another series of tense showdowns with protesters on the final night of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.By CURT BROWN, TERRY COLLINS, RANDY FURST and HERÓN MÁRQUEZ ESTRADA, Star Tribune
Sweeping into the State Capitol grounds in riot gear, police used snowplows, horses and dump trucks to seal off downtown from antiwar demonstrators attempting a march to the Xcel Energy Center.
Peacenik is glad someone showed up to protest. This news report is straightforward, but what follows is a comment from Earthian, commenting on another story at commondreams.org about the arrest of Amy Goodman. Earthian's comment is from Sept 4, 2:27 p.m. Peacenik thinks it has some relevance:
Comment by Earthian
The courageous actions by Amy Goodman, the other journalists, and the protesters reminded me of a passage I read in a book called Defying Hitler by Sabastian Haffner, a young, progressive, white (Aryan) German lawyer in the 1930s, during the rise of the National Socialists.
After the brief passage below I'll leave a link to a review of the amazing book.
Here is the passage (he is a lawyer with other lawyers, and is in a library-like room):
" . . . the intruders had arrived at the library. The door was thrust open and a flood of brown uniforms surged in. In a booming voice, one of them, clearly the leader, shouted, 'Non-Aryans must leave the premises immediately.' It struck me that he used the careful expression 'non-Aryans,' but also a rather colloquial expression for 'premesis.' Someone, probably the same person as before, answered, 'They've already left.' Our ushers stood there as though they were about to salute. My heart beat heavily. What should I do, [how do] I keep my poise? Just ignore them? Do not let them disturb me? I put my head down over my work. I read a few sentences mechanically: 'The defendant's claim that . . . is untrue, but irrelevant . . .' Just take no notice!
"Meanwhile, a Brownshirt approached me and took up position in front of my worktable. 'Are you Aryan?' Before I had a chance to think, I said, 'Yes.' He took a close look at my nose, and retired.
"The blood shot to my face. A moment too late, I felt the shame, the defeat. I had said
'Yes!' Well in God's name, I was indeed an 'Aryan.' I had not lied. I had allowed something much worse to happen. What a humiliation, to have answered the unjustified question as to whether I was Aryan, so easily, even if the fact was of no importance to me! What a disgrace, to buy, with a reply, the right to stay with my documents in peace! I had been caught unawares, even now. I had failed my very first test. I could have slapped myself.
"As I left the Kammergericht it stood there, gray, cool, and calm as ever, set back from the street in its distinguished setting. There was nothing to show that, as an institution, it had just collapsed. There was also nothing about my appearance to show that I had just suffered a terrible reverse, a defeat that would be almost impossible to make good. A well-dressed young man walked down Potsdammer Strasse. There was nothing untoward about the scene. Business as usual, but in the air, the approaching thunder of events to come . . ."
p 150, 151Defying Hitler
Here is a review:
Perhaps each of us will face a choice in this budding police state.
Amy Goodman did. And she passed her test. She attempted to see a commanding officer. She attempted to see her reporters and free them. She has that right. Journalists have additional rights.
Perhaps others of us will face our test and will have to choose between humiliating ourselves by cooperating with totalitarian bullying OR demonstrating courage by NOT cooperating with totalitarian bullying.
Haffner's story is remarkable.
Haffner answers a number of questions. Why didn't the German people resist the rise of their totalitarian police state? What was it like being IN that situation?
I ask a question: What must progressives do to resist our emerging police state? (I think Amy, her colleague journalists, and the protesters she documented provide one answer--defiance.)
Sabastian Haffner notes that at some point it became too late for Germany to avoid the path of their totalitarianism. It is not yet too late for us to stop the creeping movement towards a totalitarian police state of America.
