[Peace-discuss] Cindy Sheehan: what a police state looks like
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at illinois.edu
Fri Sep 25 17:57:02 CDT 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Tell Me What a Police State Looks Like
Cindy Sheehan
Pittsburgh is what a police state looks like!
I have been to dozens of protests, large and small, since my son was killed in
Iraq, but I have never seen anything like today and the only term I can use is:
Profound Overkill. There were easily two cops/soldiers for every one of us
protesters…or maybe even 3 to 1.
About two thousand of us gathered in Arsenal Park in Pittsburgh to try and march
downtown. We were all peaceful and had no weapons. We had only traveled a few
blocks when cops dressed like they were in full combat with heavily armed
opponents stopped us and blocked our way with a new weapon called “LRAD:” A new
“crowd control” device. LRAD stands for: “Long Range Acoustical Device.” I was,
unfortunately near it when the cops turned it on. It’s painful.
The group dispersed and went in many different directions. Some of us got to a
corner a few blocks up from where we were initially stopped and I am not
kidding, at least 500 cops were stopped in formation at this intersection with
their gas masks on and nightsticks at the ready to crack the head of anyone who
actually tried to peacefully cross their lines…unarmed, of course.
I spoke to dozens of cops today and tried to explain to them that we peaceful
protesters are only trying to exercise our 1st Amendment rights and the cops
should be protecting us, members of their own class, and not suppressing our
freedoms and actually physically hurting us.
There was absolutely no reason for the over-reaction of the police state to the
protesters today. Do not believe the news propaganda that says the protesters
were the cause of the violence…it was the cops. The thugs even dropped tear gas
from helicopters. We’re like ants trying to struggle against anteaters.
Seeing the National Guard troops, fresh from Iraq, broke my heart the hardest. I
also talked to dozens of them, none had ever heard of posse commitatus, and
asked them if my son, their brother, died in Iraq so they could steal the rights
of his mother. Most of them wouldn’t even look at me. The cops and soldiers
should be ashamed of themselves for allowing their selves to be used as tools of
the Robber Class “elites.”
“Just following orders” is not a defense.
The G20 will announce tomorrow that they will become the new “permanent council”
for international economic cooperation. Who the hell do they think they are? Who
voted for this? Who gives them the authority to have this power over our
wellbeing and our very lives?
We do, that’s who.
We allow the Robber Class complete, destructive control over our lives by not
taking to the streets and outnumbering the thugs 10 to 1; 100 to 1; 1000 to 1…
There’s so few of them and so many of us.
When we will learn?
From the G20 protests in Pittsburgh, PA...11:38 pm
Posted by Cindy Sheehan at 8:36 PM
http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2009/09/tell-me-what-police-state-looks-like-by.html
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