I was literraly 2 feet behind the person who filmed this. The guy in the pink shirt talking mid way through is my friend who I went to the rally/protest with

Please! This is not a Police State. When you fuck up, you get arrested. Go talk to some real oppressed people sometime, asshole.

Exactly, regardless of your views on the war in Iraq or protests, it is an absurd statement to say the US is a "police state". Try living in a real one sometime then come back and compare. If this were a police state someone would kick in your door and drag you off to prison just for posting something critical of the government on this site.

Also, the unintended death of an innocent civilian during a military operation is not "genocide". It sucks certainly, but it isn't genocide. Ask someone in Darfur, Rwanda, Cambodia, or a Holocaust survivor about genocide.

Also, having the republicans win due to democratic incompetence does not make the government "fascist". And Bush, dork though he is, is not Hitler.

The constant use of exageration by the Left only makes them lose credibility, hence the term of the "Looney Left" in Britain and the rise of Thatcherism and the now centrist Labour party.

I want to throw out the Republicans in the next election, so if the Left could just stop exagerating, start focusing on a few key issues important to most Americans (instead of constantly trying to connect dozens of unrelated issues) and stay unified instead of constant infighting we could win!

The US does have a larger percentage of its population in jail than any other country and if you look at police shootings its also higher than many other countries. It may sound extreme to call the US a police state if you live in the suburbs or are on a college campus and your only negative interactions with police are illegal arrests at protests done for political reasons but if you live in a poor community and know people who have been shot by police its not a stretch. Of course its not like Rwanda or North Korea but if thats what it takes to call something a "police state" and attacks on civil liberties are dismissed as alarmest at what point do you start complaining....

The treatment of prisoners in Iraq wasnt that different than how some prisoners are treated back here. The cases that make the newspapers of prison guards staging gladiator matchs between gangs, putting young prisoners in cells with sexual predators as punishment and even regularly using electorshock to get confessions (there is a trial over this in Chicago) are just the tip of the iceberg. Its easy to talk about appealing to moderates and ignore talk of police brutality as something only fringe groups support but even from a strictly electoral standpoint the Democrats probably lose more votes from Americans who grew up in poverty who dont see a difference between parties than they do among centrists. Unfortunately when such issues are brought up, its framed as if such disillusioned voters are the small number of radical middle class activists (who might vote for Nader) since the percentage of the US that is poor and grows up in violent neighborhoods is always ignored as being somehow nonexistent (which is why the Democrats probably would have done just as bad in New Orleans if they had been in the White House as the Republicans)

Getting the Democrats into office or even the Greens wont change a thing for most Americans if the debate is always framed as one between Convervatives who hate the poor and think they are lazy and Liberals who feel sorry for them. As long as a good percentage of the US is treated as second class citizens where they are talked about (but never given a voice) rather than talked to as equals things are unlikely to ever change.

If you even knew you're rights you wouldn’t' be talking so much out you're ass. Why don't you go support a real cause that doesn't aid in the killing of innocent Iraqis? The brain washing of you're mind by TV is you're oppression. Mentally, you are oppressed and you keep you're self in check oppressed. YES YOU DO!

STOP WATCHING FOX NEWS!

See for yourself. Click here:

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/09/1769526_comment.php#1769660

so, walking into a blocked off street when the crossing light is green is "fuck[ing] up"?

I don't see a police state in this video, I see some white wanna-be revolutionaries picking fights with police and then claiming police brutality. I also see quite restrained and professional police. Why don't you try this in North Korea or on one of your beloved Arab countries and see what happens to your sorry asses.

we were crossing during a green light , my gf got ran over by one of the dirt bikes and beaten with a baton , her brother was the one beating held down by the cops in the video and jane and i were the only ones that got the charges dropped. this wasnt fun at all there was supposedly 300 cops there. if you can avoid such a situation like this.

that was horrible tactics, you just untightly marched around not supporting eachother, thats embarrassing show of solidarity. no weapons no anything, are you a bunch of kids? no de-arrest attemps either?
it wasn't much but you guys need to meet and discuss tactics and group movement

Alex, I'm not sure I agree with you regarding the tactics. The bloc took off from Powell & Market heading down the sidewalk obeying all traffic laws, and proceeded to legally cross the street headed towards a free party on the Civic Center lawn.

The police decided they did not want us at the Love Parade, surrounded us, and many people were stuck inside the police encirclement and arrested. To the best of my knowledge, those arrested were charged with jay-walking. Would it have been tactically sound to attempt to de-arrest those in the encirclement? Maybe... would it have resulted in compounded charges far more serious than jaywalking? Almost certainly.

When engaged in a legal march down the side-walk, I don't think it should be necessary to adopt tactics which can help protect the group from unjust arrest. Obviously that might've been helpful here, but hindsight is 20/20 and I don't think that any of this demonstrates a lack of solidarity.

In regards to people who have decided that what they saw in the video does not constitute a police state... yes, most of the cops behaved in a somewhat actively passive manner -- but the attempts to force the populous into submission through an unnecessary show of police presence does, in my mind qualify as a police state. Perhaps it's not as bad as it is in other countries -- but in America this approach coupled with our cultural subserviance to authority creates what one might refer to as an implicit police state.

police state....


.

1) How much money do you make a year?

2) How much did Mommy/Daddy put in your trust fund?

3) How much is your house worth / how big is it?

4) How many kids do you have?

Well there you go. That's why you think that way

we didnt think of tactics for a couple of reasons , we didnt think we would be broken up by a mass arrest , we didnt think the cops would be that big of assholes (big mistake) and we didnt have the numbers we had before we kinda spread out at the park.

So if you were an arrestee, they must have done a cite and release rather than the fun technique of letting everyone stay in jail until Monday morning when court is in session, then deciding to not charge anyone (which I believe might be legal without being wrongful arrest - it is legal in some cases to detain people short term under suspicion. What was the charge? Someone providing a quick tutorial of the many laws that exist would be helpful (such as no processions of more than 10 people without a permit.. is this true?) that are typically not enforced due to discretion.
My opinion is that there was some poor communication Friday evening. While great communication *during* the event itself isn't necessarily desired... for instance you don't want to announce to everyone in the vicinity "off we go to the love parade in a large isolated group! We'll wait a couple of minutes for you to position your motorcycles", there was almost zero news on this site and elsewhere. Of course on the other hand, I don't know what others could do once you were arrested.The newswire and ECR Radio people supposedly only had a couple callers who were on the line for 30 minutes at a time, so the hosts were calling around to people they suspected might be there to try to figure out what was going on.
By the way, Josh W. is pretty spectacular in being on the scene with camera cleanly focused, but safely out of trouble, and getting video edited and uploaded.

the report that it was only 5 minors was wrong there were 10 all together at the station (counting myself) btw i hope everyone is doing ok that got arrested , much love.

So which high schools/early entrance/junior high/waldorf do you guys attend? Lowell?