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Right wing, left wing, and government power

Answer: Both should be upset by events in Seattle, WA, where a carefully calculated smear campaign was used to deny American citizens their Constitutional rights.

By now we all know the story we've been fed by the corporate press. You know the one -- about how all these nuts and flakes met in Seattle and went on a rampage and destroyed downtown Seattle, and the police in turn used tear gas and arrests to break up the riots.

The only problem is that the NON-corporate press has totally different things to say. They say that there were perhaps 50 to 100 black-clad thugs, and that police deliberately allowed those people into the area and looked on passively as they started smashing storefronts and burning dumpsters. They say that the anti-WTO demonstrators tried to stop the crimes but got no support or help from the police -- instead, they were tear-gassed, beaten, and then the city placed under martial law where even possession of a gas mask was grounds for arrest. Some of their commentators speculate that these black-clad thugs may have actually been police officers under cover, even, with orders to give an excuse for the city to invoke martial law.

So who's right? The 2nd Amendment folks know. They know how the government has been trying for years now to say that the 2nd Amendment is not part of the Constitution. Now, it appears that in Seattle, the 1st Amendment right to free speech is no longer part of the Constitution either. According to reports in the independent (non-corporate) press, demonstrators in areas outside of downtown had their rallies charged and broken up too by black- clad police officers in jackboots.

I don't generally support most of the anti-WTO tirades. I believe that government, in general, needs to serve its citizens by protecting them from criminals (corporate or otherwise), but otherwise needs to keep its grubby hands out of our lives. But disgust at how swiftly Seattle declared martial law and dispatched the National Guard and black-clad thugs in jackboots to gas, shoot (with rubber bullets) and beat peaceful demonstrators does not need me to agree with the anti-WTO folks. It merely requires me to be someone who believes in the Constitution of these United States of America -- a Constitution that was, once again, shredded in Seattle Washington this week. As usual (see: 5th Amendment, which RICO shredded), but this time it was blatant, with tear gas, jackboots, and National Guardsmen on every streetcorner, in a scene that I would expect in some third world dictatorship, not here in the supposed land of the free.

And the sad part is that, unless you read the independent press, you'd never know it.

See:

• Salon Magazine
• The Nation
• ZMAG
• IndyMedia Seattle
• Info Subway