"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." -- James Madison - (1751-1836)


"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. " : Ayn Rand in "The Nature of Government"


"Throughout history there have been tyrants and murderers. And for a while they seem invincible, but always they fall. Always."-Mahatma Gandhi

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings: Helen Keller

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is , more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime ; he is a good citizen driven to despair.--H.L Mencken


"When even one American-who has done nothing wrong-is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth-then all Americans are in peril" Harry S. Truman


"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943


"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed: Ayn Rand - (1905-1982) Author - Source: Atlas Shrugged, Francisco's "Money Speech"

"Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush moustache and swastika armband -- it creeps up insidiously...step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone." ~ Baron Lane

U.S. Constitution - R.I.P.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Targeting the Free Press

Police Seize Journalists Notes About RNC Protest Plans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIm-IWaOPjo

National Lawyers Guild reports..... A trio of journalists who have a track record of documenting police abuse at political conventions were stopped and searched during the early morning hours in Minneapolis. Police took their video equipment, cell phones, computer, hard drive and notes about protests planned for next week's Republican National Convention. They took away their ability to report.

RNC Raids Have Been Targeting Video Activists
"St. Paul is a free country!" cried a resident of Iglehart Avenue, a neighborhood street in St. Paul, Minn., as she watched her next-door neighbor's house being overtaken by police officers on Saturday afternoon. Just one in a series of house raids over a 24-hour period the weekend before the Republican National Convention, St. Paul police surrounded the private home with weapons drawn, detaining people in the backyard, while journalists, activists and neighbors -- including several children -- looked on.

Their crime? None whatsoever. No one was trespassing or engaging in acts of civil disobedience. Instead, members of I-Witness Video, a New York-based media watchdog group that records police activity in order to protect civil liberties, were holding an organizing meeting at 949 Iglehart, the home of St. Paul resident Mike Whalen, when armed police officers arrived in the early afternoon and ordered their surrender.

Apparently, independent journalists, the last bastion of the free press, are frowned upon in fascist Amerika, only the corporate lapdog press need apply to cover the RNC. The gestapo seems to be actively seeking out journalists who don't publish the official propaganda, detaining them without cause, stealing their equipment and notes, assaulting and intimidating them. Breaking heads and taking names they are...Isn't this type of tyranny exactly why Freedom of the Press is guaranteed by the Constitution? Oh and, by the way, the Declaration of Independence is quite clear on our obligations in just this sort of situation..."But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." Oh..darn...is it still legal to quote the Declaration? Well, I guess I should have at least been in designated "free speech zone"before doing such a radical thing....hell, these days Homeland Security labels you a terrorist if you admit you have read the Constitution....sigh...big red flag attached to my name on the no fly list for sure....no Bahamas vacation for me.


Posted by Melinda L. Secor at 10:05 PM

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Naomi Wolf must be freaking out. Even more than me, that is. Phil

Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 12:53:00 PM CDT

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The Militarization of Our Police