*This* is the Face of Fascism
(posted by Mona)
Anyone remotely familiar with my writing style knows that I am sparing with the “fascist” word — I do not wish to dilute its meaning. But what is happening in the Twin Cities of Minnesota in the last 24 hours — just prior to and in anticipation of the Republican National Convention — is almost impossible to describe any other way.
The War on Drugs has militarized our police and sheriffs offices, and now those municipal and county armies are sending SWAT teams armed with semi-automatic weapons after persons who plan to protest the Republican National Convention, as well as those who video-tape police behavior, i.e., the I-witness group that was responsible for helping release some 400 protesters at the ‘04 RNC convention in NYC via its arrest footage. They are being handcuffed, detained (sometimes prone on the floor), their computers and diaries confiscated, and several are charged with the bizarre “crime” of “conspiracy to riot.” Greenwald has the story as well as videos, and links to videos. Viewing quality is often poor, but these are a must watch. And if you catch only one, see the interview in Update II with Bruce Nestor, the President of the Minnesota Lawyer’s Guild.
August 30th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
[...] This is the Face of Fascism by Mona [...]
August 31st, 2008 at 12:21 am
[...] blogger Mona has already written a informative post about the events, called *This* is the face of facism. I also read about the events earlier today at [...]
August 31st, 2008 at 2:18 am
I will grant you that is what a police state looks like, but fascism requires more than a police state. For one thing, it requires a sort of statism for another it requires dictatorship.
This is, in my opinion, what an apathetic population looks like. People are letting the cops (and the people in control of the cops) get away with this because they don’t care.
August 31st, 2008 at 2:42 am
So what do we do about this? I give money to the ACLU, I gave money to the Strange Bedfellows Coalition. What else can we do?
August 31st, 2008 at 5:13 am
[...] Buck Naked Politics, Boing Boing, Firedoglake, Minnesota Independent, Boztopia.com, New York Times, The Art of the Possible, Discourse.net, Hullabaloo, Crooks and Liars, The Washington Note, pandagon.net and Pharyngula and [...]
August 31st, 2008 at 5:14 am
Having lived through the time I have always believed that this was Richard Nixon’s real motive for the drug war.
Local police in Philadelphia had, for years, been using the tactic of drug raids on social justice and anti-war protest leaders and communes in the days prior to a rally as their main method of disrupting protests. Nixon and Democrat Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo had consorted on many “policing” aspects of neutralizing growing legions of social justice and anti-war protesters. Federalizing drug raids allowed J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI along with a bunch of CIA turned DEA thugs to work directly with local police against domestic American protesters.
NOTHING about the war on drugs has anything to do with reducing crime, addiction or drug abuse. The war on drugs has always been about subverting American democracy in any and every way possible. From its use in subverting legal protests to its mass electoral disenfranchisement of minorities and non-conformists the purpose of the war on drugs is to assert a para-militarized intolerance of anything that conflicts with the extreme Reich-wing’s culture war in America.
I was there in the 1960-70’s and I am still here now. And I am wondering when Americans are going to start fighting for our democracy and constitution against these Jim Crow authoritarians who have usurped undemocratic control of our great nation.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:31 am
I second Martin. We are moving toward totalitarianism, especially as national healthcare will give them the final excuse to direct our private lives in detail, but we ain’t there yet. This is just apathy and confusion.
I’ve never been much of a fan of various street protests simply because the protestors generally cancel each other out.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:36 pm
The Volokh conspiracy says those bad anarchists had it coming.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:52 pm
wow, Orin Kerr’s responses are getting awfully snippy on the Volokh post.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I once had respect for Orin Kerr even when I disagreed with him — it is gone.
September 1st, 2008 at 4:38 am
We are moving toward totalitarianism, especially as national healthcare will give them the final excuse to direct our private lives in detail,
Impressive non sequitur, Eric. I now have the image of a German high-up in the 1930s explaining “You see, mein Fuhrer, thanks to the Reich’s national dental care system, we can instantly identify and eliminate everyone who has suspiciously Jewish-looking teeth.”
September 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
This has been fairly common police MO against the post-Seattle movement. Paul Rosenberg discusses such jackbooted methods against protesters through the 2000 Republican Convention, in “The Empire Strikes Back: Police Repression of Protest From Seattle to L.A.”
September 1st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
[...] convention in Minneapolis. I don’t really have much to add to what’s being said elsewhere. It’s an outrage and it breaks my heart that I can’t stand with them, but my place was [...]
September 1st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
[...] Kevin Carson: This has been fairly common police MO against the post-Seattle movement. Paul Rosenberg discusses such jackbooted methods against protesters through … [...]
September 1st, 2008 at 10:31 pm
[...] Kevin Carson: This has been fairly common police MO against the post-Seattle movement. Paul Rosenberg discusses such jackbooted methods against protesters through … [...]
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:50 am
[...] (H/T to the ever excellent The Art of the Possible) [...]
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
Ajay,
The idea that the drug war will lead to a militiarized police state is itself a non-sequitur - in theory.
Do you actually disagree that national health care (which we’ve just about got NOW) would allow the corporate state to direct our private lives? It would necessarily empower centralization and lack of exit in regard to our personal health matters, at the very least for reasons of bureaucratic (in the private and public sense) convenience.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
The idea that the drug war will lead to a militiarized police state is itself a non-sequitur - in theory.
The “militarized” aspect of it may be debatable, but a drug war can only lead to a police state due to the nature of the “crime.” Most crimes have actual victims who report said crime to the police: “Hey, somebody stole my stuff, somebody beat me up,” etc. Or for murder, the police either find a body, or someone reports that a loved one is missing. Point is, the cops don’t have to go looking for crimes.
But drugs are different. The dealer won’t report his customers, the customers won’t report their dealer, the guy growing his own won’t report himself. So, with nobody willing to report these crimes to the police, the police have no choice but to resort to evermore invasive techniques to find evidence of crimes: traffic checkpoints, undercover cops offering to buy or sell in hopes of making a bust, encouraging people to snitch on each other, spying, you name it. When a harmless, consensual act is made illegal, the only way the cops can prosecute is to find proof of people committing harmless, consensual acts, and such techniques can only be detrimental to freedom.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 am
Jennifer - good point.
I can’t actually think of a single totalitarian state that owed its rise to the creeping malign effect of a national health care system, but maybe someone else can help?
September 4th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Ajay,
I’d say the creeping malign effect comes from the fact that there exists a state apparatus that is so sweeping. Bismarck’s establishment of the welfare state in Germany was quite intact by the time Hitler used it to help reward “good” Germans and solidify his particular variant of totalitarianism.
Totalitarian states can’t often be traced to any particular branch of this or that nationalized (fill in the blank) - except perhaps a standing army - but these various state outgrowths can be dangerous in the aggregate.