Shameful

I'm very grateful to Krista at Thinkery for collecting links to stories on today's events in Saint Paul around the truncated RNC. Not much is appearing in the national and mainstream media about the events, and most of it is presented as "all protesters were anarchists causing mayhem" but those elements were minimal compared to the peaceful and orderly protesters, and the enormous police presence (helcopters, mounted police, cops on bikes, SWAT teams and riot squads) have been systematically engaged in preemptive and illegal arrests and detentions and thuggish intimidation. But national and local bloggers and citizen journalists have been posting eye-witness accounts, video and documenting the events via Twitter and other media. And they arrested Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and two of her producers as they were doing their jobs of covering the news. They've been released now, but I'd say that this has done some real damage to the reputations of the Twin Cities, and to citizens' confidence in law enforcement here (not terribly high to begin with).