Jim Hightower On Police State Tactics in Miami

Cops told to savage their fellow Americans...
ASHCROFT AND THE BUSHITES UNLEASH MADNESS IN MIAMI

What I personally witnessed in Miami, versus the news reports I saw and read, were two different worlds. The coverage was so superficial and unskeptical that it was embarrassingly silly, not only missing the story but devolving into rank propaganda. Hayden caught a typical instance of the media¹s attitude when the local ABC affiliate ran a clip of a young woman, her fingers aloft in a V-sign, being shot at point-blank range: The local ABC commentator said without the slightest evidence, 'She took a rubber bullet in the stomach, she must have done something. You wanna play, you gotta pay.'

In one case where the police cornered and were beating about 30 protestors, Ana Nogueira of the feisty Democracy Now show stood staunchly videotaping the scene, her press pass clearly visible. When police began handcuffing everyone in sight, Ana informed them verbally that she was a journalist, but an officer shouted out, She's not with us, she's not with us. She was arrested, forced to strip naked in front of male officers, and thrown in jail, charged with failure to disperse.

Lest you think that this was a Miami aberration and nothing that will affect you, this abhorrent, un-American strategy of intimidating and assaulting anyone who actually dares to use their rights in a mass demonstration against the establishment¹s elitist policies was done with the participation of the Justice Department and the White House, using funds authorized by Congress. Miami Mayor Manny Diaz exulted that what happened there was a model for homeland defense, and many cities sent law-enforcement observers to study what is now called 'The Miami Model.'

What I saw there shocked me (and I've been to the state fair twice, been involved in Texas politics, and have peered deep into the inner workings of Washington and Wall Street, so I don¹t blanch easily.)

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