It's really quite ugly in St. Paul as both Garrison Keillor and Glenn Greenwald comment about it over at Salon.com.
(NOTE: Link to video of girl holding flower being pepper-sprayed and hit by riot baton is at the bottom of this diary.)
Then again, when Donna Brazile gets pepper-sprayed on her way into St. Paul's Xcel Center, to do a CNN gig, I guess that says quite a bit all by itself!
Here's Keillor's overview (dated tomorrow, Sept. 3rd) of what's going on 'down the hill' in his hood:
Sept. 3, 2008 | The Republicans are meeting down the hill from my house, helicopters are pounding the air, and there are more suits on the streets and big black SUVs and a brownish cloud venting from the hockey arena where the convention is assembled...
(--SNIP--)
Too bad that the Current Occupant and Mr. Cheney canceled their St. Paul appearances so they could focus on hurricane-threatened New Orleans and lend their expertise to rescue operations. As it turned out, they weren't needed, which has been generally true for a long time...
(--SNIP--)
Meanwhile, he posed a stark question for voters to ponder: How much would you like to see Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska, as the next president of the United States? And what does the question say about Mr. McCain's love of the country that she might suddenly need to lead? No need to discuss these things at length, really. The gentleman played his card, a two of hearts. Make of it what you will.
And, here's more of Glenn Greenwald's brilliant commentary, from the past 24 hours, about the sad situation this week within the police state a/k/a St. Paul:
While Greenwald, and the blogosphere went to great lengths over the past 24 hours covering Amy Goodman's arrest (and that of her two producers), as Greenwald notes in his commentary updated from just over 20 hours ago, and in his brilliant reportage over the past 72 hours, the home raids over the weekend, and the lesser-reported physical abuses, and outright trampling of the civil rights of hundreds of mostly-harmless protesters and peace activists there is the real travesty this week at the RNC.
Just as was true for the despicable home raids this weekend, there will be no shortage of people defending all of this (browse through the comment section here to see many such people). The fact that there were some criminals engaged in some destructive acts (who, needless to say, should have been arrested), apparently means that whatever the Police do both before and afterwards is justifiable (just as the existence of some Terrorists justifies whatever the Government does in many people's minds).
And, I'll leave with you links to this--to me it is the most striking--image, for anyone that thinks (even for one moment) that the federal, state and local police presence in St. Paul is not excessive, thanks to a link from Glenn Greenwald's story from yesterday: "Protester extending flower to police being pepper-sprayed and hit on the arms with a riot baton."
This is not my America.
DIARIST'S NOTE: This is the second-part of a two-part series published on MyDD over the past 36 hours. The first part of this is available via this link: "Where is the outrage? Amerika?"