They all but admit being involved in the riots at the RNC in this release they sent out begging for support of their arrested comrades:
Although it went virtually unmentioned in the corporate media, on Sept. 1, the largest anti-war march of 2008 took place outside the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. 30,000 people from all over the Midwest and the country gathered at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul and them marched to the Xcel Center, the site of the RNC. Large numbers of buses came from all over Illinois, Wisconsin, and the surrounding states.
The march was overwhelmingly young people, and was led by the veterans’ and immigrant rights contingents. Other sizable contingents included a strong labor contingent, a poor people’s contingent, and a contingent in solidarity with Palestine. The chant “”Iraq for Iraqis — Troops Out Now” filled the streets, along with the crowd favorite, “Who’s the Biggest Terrorists in the World Today? Bush, Cheney and the CIA!”
Among the many speakers at the Minnesota State Capitol, where the march gathered, was Michael Prysner, an Iraq war veteran who represented the ANSWER Coalition. Mike addressed the crowd, “I was sent to Iraq in 2003 not to save the Iraqi people, but to kill the Iraqi people. I was sent not to free the Iraqi people, but to imprison and torture the Iraqi people. I was sent not to liberate Iraq, but to occupy Iraq. There is no longer any question that this war was not for so-called “Iraqi freedomâ€, it was not an act of self-defense, and it was not simply a foreign policy error by the republican party- it was a well-calculated plan carried out by both parties to dominate the Middle East, killing as many innocent people as necessary and profiting from that human suffering.”
The police have engaged in a widespread riot against social justice organizations, resulting in the arrest of around 300 protesters. Most of the arrested are still in jail, and at least one person with a serious medical condition has been refused care.
Even before the Convention began, protesters had the organizing centers raided. Armed groups of police in the Twin Cities have raided more than half-a-dozen locations since Friday night in a series of “preemptive raids.” The raids and detentions have targeted activists planning to protest the convention, including journalists and videographers from I-Witness Video and the Glass Bead Collective. These media organizations were targeted because of the instrumental role they played in documenting police abuses the 2004 RNC Convention. Their comprehensive video coverage helped more than 400 wrongfully arrested people get their charges thrown out.
Democracy Now! producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar — who clearly identified themselves as members of the media — were arrested, and could face suspicion of rioting charges, a felony. When Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! went to the scene to inquire with a police commander about the arrest of her producers, she too was arrested. A CodePink march and several breakaway marches were also met with police repression. Tear gas and concussion grenades have been used to disperse crowds.
There is an undeniable pattern of police repression at these conventions. In 2004, 1500 protesters were arrested at the RNC. Subsequent litigation on behalf of the protesters revealed that national and local enforcement conspired to deny protesters their civil liberties and civil rights. Protesters were held in miserable conditions, and only mass pressure forced the police to release them.
They then go on to ask for money, which is no doubt then distributed to the many terrorist groups they openly support. No mention of the guns and other weapons confiscated from their fellow travelers, or of the violent attacks on RNC delegates. Just a ready to release email sent scant hours after the mayhem they caused using the kids they helped push into a mindless conflict with the police as a fund raising tool for their terrorist friends.
The Michael Prysner quoted above is one of the new “winter soldiers” who has been making the rounds with A.N.S.W.E.R. and other Marxist groups claiming that America’s evil. A little bird told me he’s paid by the commies for each appearance so he makes a pretty good living slandering the troops. He’s also a great fund raising tool for the Worker’s World Party which controls most of the groups he works with.
Anyone else see a set up here? The cops claimed that many of their raids were driven by informants, and the Black Bloc contingent that started the violence may have been showing up at a lot of A.N.S.W.E.R. events. The thing is there haven’t been many instances where anarchists rioted with guns and certainly not with bows and arrows, it’s almost as if that stuff was planted there to get people arrested.
Long time communist shill Amy Goodman staged her arrest by interfering with them arresting her cohorts. And almost everyone else arrested was involved in outrageous activity you and I wouldn’t think we could get away with. I wonder how many kids were told that throwing stuff at cops was protected speech, or that if they got in trouble their “comrades” would help them?
Nothing mobilizes money to the communist cause like mass arrests it seems, so isn’t it convenient that so many “peace protesters” were arrested yesterday?
