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A reputation as a left wing rag!

UUULTRA COMBO

really all this about undercover cops inciting harmful incidents doesn't suprise me. looking back at the civl and revolutionary war, civil rights era, coal miner's strikes and many political protests, it's not hard to see that history just keeps repeating itself. hell, if the fbi did what they did fred hampton and had fbi files on mlk jr., who knows if they have files on CM organizers?

CMcMahon

Not really. There was an anarchist march in Palo Alto a few months back and 300-or-so of them just marched on down the road. They didn't even bring the molotov cocktails.

chipcom 

They couldn't afford the price of gas.

Brian Ratliff

Well then it was a (peaceful) march of anarchists, not an anarchist march.

Roody

Anarchist: a proponent or adherent of the political philosophy of Anarchism. Most maodern anarchists are peaceable types, but the 18th cenury ones were accused (often falsely) of terrorist acts, especially bombings.
Anarchists staged a peaceful protest march outside the US embassy.

Anarchic: Pertaining to times or conditions, often marked by violence, when lawlessness prevails.
The period following World War I in Germany was an anarchic time with street brawls every day.

willtsmith_nwi

Well true a bomber could conceal C4 in a backpack and ride a bicycle. Or he could conceal C4 in a backpack and walk down the street. Or he could take a bus, or a car.

But to do really SERIOUS infrastructure shaking damage, you need to load up a vehicle with a TON of explosives.

Rednecks have been tossing around sticks of dynamite for a hundred years. I'm not particularly any more or less concerned about islamic terrorists than I am about KKK terrorists.

J A Holman

Anyone who believes this has anything to do with terrorists.....is an idiot.

I saw this in another thread and it really puts it in perspective.

"Did police serve any function before 9/11?"

willtsmith_nwi

They're not ignoring them. I think that cyclists would argue that their homeland security dollars would be better spent on border security rather than covert operatives infiltrating pacifist organizations.

After getting slapped upside the head by WTC bombing 1 and Oklahoma City. The Clinton administration went on to conduct VERY EFFECTIVE anti-terrorism WITHOUT violating civil liberties. And had GW Bush ever BOTHERED to be personally involved with national security (READING and COMMUNICATING) rather than swaggering for the cameras in between vacations and making "shoot from the hip" ignorant, uninformed decisions, 9/11 would never have happened.

willtsmith_nwi

Yes, Judith Miller is just SOOOO left wing. Holding a story about the White House approving illegal wiretaps until after the presidential election is SOOOO left wing.

Conservatives never listen long enough to discover what a REAL lefty is like. All they know is the straw men built up by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly.

Severian

I think we've gotten off track a little here so here are some reminder points.

1) Citizens of the US have the constitutionally protected freedom off association, protest (read as: free speach) and assembly. Which means that our rights to get together in a big group and make noise about something that pisses us off is protected and must be upheld by civic institutions (cops included). In some localities you have to get a permit to protest but that's really only so the cops know to have extra uniformed units on duty to protect YOU as the protestor and to assure that your peaceful and lawful protest is not interrupted by hecklers, counter protesters, and bystanders.

2) CM protests, from what I understand, are supposed to be unannounced semi-legal protests of the car culture (I say semi-legal because of that whole permit-to-protest thing). They can get off the hook with the whole permit thing by just claiming to be having bad traffic control at a group ride. But it's sneaky because they also may not have an event organizer. A double edged sword. Cops can't arrest a mass of people who just get together to ride. But a leader of an event can do things like keep tabs on his group, discipline any bad behavior and generally do a better job of getting out the message than a disorganized mass of people.

3) Agents Provacateur are not always just cops. They could be counter-protesters. Hence why cops are there in uniforms. APs exist to help cause what might otherwise be a lawful gathering of concerned people to do rash things and have a peacable march become a full-on riot as emotions run high and thought ceases to be rational. Thats why APs are so dangerous. What makes the whole situation worse is that by Police Undercover agents getting involved as APs the event ceases to be a naturally occurring one and one that comes under the control of the system. Again, a two edged sword. Because some rallies become riots very easily and having UC units in the rally the cops respond faster to bad situations. BUT UCs who act as APs means that citizens are not free to truly express themselves. This is a subtle breach of our 1st ammendment rights. Since no-one can really catch Undercover Agents Provacateur and nail them, rightfully, for helping disrupt peaceful rallies. AND get those organizations whose duty it is to both protect our safety AND our rights to actually DO what they are supposed to do, not what they want to.

But... just imagine if we had never had a mass civil rights movement (which is what caused all of these convoluted laws allowing Police Departments to deploy UC agents in rallies) we would have unfettered access to the minds of those people we are trying to get to... every year it gets harder to change our political reality because of this sort of interference.

The whole terrorist shlock is just that... it's bunko. It is a convenient excuse for those in power to do what they want when they disagree with the politics of protesters. Just imagine if this were a rally for say.... Zombies or Perl-Stiching Fanciers Association....

ya dig?

Severian

*snerk* no kidding dude.... NYT is just barely left of centrist. I say just barely because they have no problem at least REPORTING on this sort of thing. the USA today would NEVER report on APs.