"The hottest VP from the coolest state" quipped one of the many popular buttons from the Republican National Convention (RNC). But Palin's success as a small-town beauty queen is the least of her disqualifications.
She denies man-made global warming, opposes sex education (something her unwed pregnant teenage daughter might have benefited from), believes that the war in Iraq is "a task from God," supports drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic Wildlife refuge, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and is being investigated by the Alaskan legislature for a possible abuse of executive power.
The pundits can barely keep up with all the skeletons hurtling out of this bible-thumping, gun-toting, hockey mom's barracuda-sized closet. It's hardly surprising then that scant attention has been paid to everything else that took place in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul that hosted the RNC last week. Which is a shame, because what did happen outside the convention halls speaks volumes about the shape of politics in the coming future.
Beyond the fortified world of convention speeches and candidate scandals, over 800 people were arrested and hundreds injured by the indiscriminate use of tear gas and pepper spray. It was impossible not to notice that St. Paul had spent over $50 million on security for the conventions. As in Denver, the host of the Democratic National Convention the previous week, police had set up a small caged area designated as a "free-speech zone."
Every other gathering of unarmed civilians speaking out against the Republicans was immediately surrounded by at least twice the number of police in riot gear, armed with state of the art crowd-control weapons including brand new tear gas grenades, pepper spray canisters, concussion grenades, smoke bombs, tasers, and rubber bullets.
Police also admitted to working with federal officials to spy on local citizen groups for over a year before the conventions. The outcome? Police in St. Paul weren't able to keep away determined anti-war protestors from the convention floor when Republican Presidential candidate McCain was speaking. But they did have ample opportunity to try out their new weapons on hundreds of people - including this journalist - and detain over 800 people in less than a week, some of them picked up in sweeping "pre- emptive" house raids even before the convention started. Most of those detained were slapped with "probable cause" felony charges of riot or conspiracy to riot.
"Probable cause" allowed the police to hold people for a minimum of 36 hours - not counting weekends or holidays - without formally charging them. Among those targeted in the raids and arrests were journalists - including four of my colleagues, medics, legal observers, and anyone the police decided could be a "protester" or an "anarchist." On Thursday local prosecutors charged eight people with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. Their crime? Helping activists from around the country coordinate their protests against the Republicans and their agenda. The father of one of the eight facing terrorism charges spoke of his 23-year-old daughter as a young woman moved by the injustice of poverty and war, "one of the best people in our society."
Many of the 800 arrested complained of the excessive force police used. At least one person claims to have been tortured inside prison with a bag over his head. The nineteen-year old Minnesotan was arrested after he mistakenly crashed into a policewoman on his bicycle. I saw another man being dragged out of a crowd by police on horseback. He was stunned with an electroshock weapon or taser and then arrested. The police also forced one of my colleagues to lie face down on the ground and then dragged her by her feet across part of a parking lot even as she kept screaming "Press! Press!" Her camera was on and her calls for help have now been watched hundreds of times on You Tube.
But even videotaping police misconduct is apparently suspect. One of the groups targeted by St. Paul police is I-Witness video, a respected watchdog group that has systematically collected video evidence of police abuse since the 1999 Seattle protests against the WTO. During this convention, riot police raided their space twice without any explanation. The second time they arrived with a battering ram and no warrant, claiming that they had reports of someone being held hostage in their office.
Last week's events cast a dark shadow - arresting clearly marked journalists, medics, and legal observers who are simply doing their job is not the hallmark of a democracy. Nor is grabbing people off the streets, indiscriminately pepper-spraying peaceful demonstrators, and spying on groups without a warrant.
Anjali Kamat is a producer for Democracy Now! a US-based news show.
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