Chris Hedges: Tyranny on Display at the Republican Convention - St. Paul is a window into our future

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Tyranny on Display at the Republican Convention

Posted on Sep 8, 2008
By Chris Hedges


St. Paul is a window into our future. It is a future where, as one protester told me by phone, “people have been pepper-gassed, thrown on the ground by police who had drawn their weapons, had their documents seized and their tattoos photographed before being taken away to jail.” It is a future where illegal house raids are carried out. It is a future where vans containing heavily armed paramilitary units circle and film protesters. It is a future where, as the protester said, “people have been pulled from cars because their license plates were on a database and handcuffed, thrown in the back of a squad car and then watched as their vehicles were ransacked and their personal possessions from computers to literature seized.” It is a future where constitutional rights mean nothing and where lawful dissent is branded a form of terrorism.

The rise of the corporate state means the rise of the surveillance state. The Janus-like face of America swings from packaged and canned spectacles, from nationalist slogans, from seas of flags and Christian crosses, from professions of faith and patriotism, to widespread surveillance, illegal mass detentions, informants, provocateurs and crude acts of repression and violence. We barrel toward a world filled with stupendous lies and blood.

What difference is there between the crowds of flag-waving Republicans and the apparatchiks I covered as a reporter in the old East German Communist Party? These Republican delegates, like the fat and compromised party functionaries in East Berlin, all fawned on cue over an inept and corrupt party hierarchy. They all purported to champion workers’ rights and freedom while they systematically fleeced, disempowered and impoverished the workers they lauded. They all celebrated the virtue of a state that was morally bankrupt. And while they played this con game, one that gave them special privileges, power and wealth, they unleashed their goons and thugs on all who dared to challenge them. We are not East Germany, but we are well on our way. An economic meltdown, another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, a war with Iran, and we could easily swing into an authoritarian model that would look very familiar to anyone who lived in the former communist East Bloc.

A few of those arrested in St. Paul, including eight leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee—one of the groups organizing protests at the GOP convention in St. Paul—now face terrorism-related charges. Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins, Erik Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald and Max Spector could get up to seven and a half years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge, which allows for a 50 percent increase in the maximum penalty. This is the first time criminal charges have been filed under the 2002 Minnesota version of the federal Patriot Act. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080908_tyranny_on_display_at_the_republican_convention/

[calimary]

1. Funny, I was just criticized elsewhere here for bringing up a Nazi reference.

Oh you can't do that! Well, I heard an old World War II veteran talk about it at a public hearing back in January 2005. He said he was seeing the same trends happening here as those he witnessed in pre-war Germany.

[Raksha]

10. I have a friend who is a WWII vet...but on the German side.

He's 84 years old now. He grew up in Nazi Germany and served in the German Navy. He was stationed on the island of Leros as a radio operator. When *HE* tells me it's deja vu all over again--and he's been doing that for past years!--I believe him.

[calimary]

13. Um... yeah. I would assume he would know. Just like that old gent I heard speak.

I would think their credibility on the issue would be unassailable (unless of course you're a scorched-earth republi-CON who would try to take down Princess Di and Mother Teresa if they thought it might gain them something).

[tom_paine]

18. What good is credibility in the face of the Bushie/M$M False Reality Bubble and Noise Machine?

No good, I am sad to say. Or: as much good as a bag of sand in a desert.

Maybe a year or two ago, I wrote an e-mail to Keith Olbermann regarding the large numbers of people (I know a couple, myself) who were personal victims of the Nazis who are experiencing similar feelings regarding the Bushies.

Their testimony would be powerful and unshakable. Naturally, Corporate M$M would rather burn it's own offices down that give ordinary people like that a microphone with the opportunity to speak to millions, even for a moment.

Can't happen. Won't happen. 0% chance. I say that with the certainty of a subject of a totalitarian nation, though it is a kinder and gentler Inverted Totalitarianism, and I would still much rather be here than in either of our Sister Nations, Putin's Russia or Commie China.

If you didn't guess, I never received a response from Olbermann and he could never dare air such a story in spite of the fact that I would guess if you took a random sample of WWII victims and even German participants, I would be amazed if any less than 50% of them answred that modern Amerika gave them a sense of "deja vu".

Naturally, no such study will EVER be undertaken, and if it was, it would never be allowed to be seen anywhere where more than 10,000 at once might see it.

That, too, is a virtual 99.999% certainty.

[calimary]

19. I don't know anybody who's heard back from the Countdown people or Olbermann

about emails they sent in.

Doesn't mean it shouldn't be sent in. All I know is - the more that arrive on the same topic, the more the folks inside are apt to start wondering whether this might just be something worth checking out.

[PDJane]

2. Yes.

This is my opinion on what I saw over those few days.

[Solly Mack]

3. The thing is...it's not the future if it's happening now

That such actions can become more widespread...more common place...more business as usual...more that's just the way it's always been....that's the future.

[marmar]

6. Very true.....We've got the virus, now it's spreading.

n/t

[izquierdista]

4. The difference

Communists had to pay lip service to Marxist ideals, like empowering the workers, providing to each according to his needs, equality for all, etc. Republicans don't. They make no excuses for worshiping capital and exploiting workers, telling them are on their own and not to expect any help from the state.

[SpiralHawk]

5. The k and the r

eom

[Pastiche423]

7. K&R!

[Truth2Tell]

8. K&R nt

[ccharles000]

9. kick

[OneBlueSky]

11. what's the difference between the 2008 Republican convention and the 1968 Democratic convention?

in 1968, the television networks covered the police violence live as it occurred . . . it was so bad that people like Walter Cronkite went on the air to denounce what the police were doing . . .

in 2008, pictures of violent police actions were nowhere to be seen on network tv, or even on cable . . .

that's the difference between where we were then and where we are today . . .

[Raksha]

16. That's absolutely true. The TV networks

did cover the police violence then.

The only small compensation for the kind of censorship we have now is that people can use their cell phones to videotape what corporate media doesn't want the world to see, and then post their videos on YouTube. We didn't have cell phones or the Internet in 1968.

[OneBlueSky]

17. that's true . . . but the number of people logging onto YouTube and . . .

accessing those particular videos is in no way comparable to the entire nation having the carnage broadcast into their living rooms on a nightly basis by all three networks . . . the offset is minimal . . .

[crickets]

12. K&R

[katty]

14. go Chris--indeed it is

[intheflow]

15. Chris Hedges really gets it.

The show of force against the peaceful protesters is bad enough, but the "pre-emptive raids on peaceful groups and reporters is some scary shit. K&R