Big censored story of the Republican Convention
By Bruce B. Brugmann (Scroll down for the alternative coverage)
While the Republicans were turning into instant reformers and mavericks inside the convention hall,
outside the St. Paul police were roughing up demonstrators and arresting journalists committing the grave sin of journalism.
Somehow, none of the reformers and mavericks inside referred to the violence outside nor tried to stop it and very few of the mainstream papers or broadcasters thought it worthy of coverage. Fortunately, the press rallied nationwide and, led by the Free Press Organization and the Society of Professional Journalists, collected more than 60,000 protest letters in 72 hours and delivered them to City hall in St. Paul this morning (5/9/2008). The letters called on Mayor Chris Coleman and law enforcement officials to drop all charges.
Personally, I am appalled at official St. Paul. I come from a town only five miles from the Minnesota border, Rock Rapids, five miles south of Luverne in the southeast corner of the state. I visited Minneapolis and St. Paul many times through the years. I watched George Mikan play for the old Minneapolis Lakers and I watched Paul Giel play University of Minnesota football. And for two summers I worked out of the downtown YMCA in Minneapoilis in its YMCA camp on Half Moon Bay Lake up in the Iron Country.
Minnesotans are good progressive people and vote in people like Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale, Paul Wellstone, and (hopefully) Al Franken. Garrison Keillor does the Lake Woebegone radio stories out of St. Paul. How in the world did this happen in St. Paul, Minnesota?
I recommend the two daily papers, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Dispatch, do a major investigation and figure it out and call for some real reformers and mavericks to get the local cops and City Hall back in line.
Under the First Amendment, It ought not to be a crime to demonstrate against Bush and the Iraq War and it ought not to be a crime to commit journalism to cover the demonstrations. After all, even the Republicans "demonstrated" against Bush and Cheney and their ruined war and economic policies. They in effect declared Bush and Cheney persona non grata at the convention and refused to even mention their names in their speeches. B3
Continued coverage of the journalist arrests at the RNC:
From Free Press.net: St. Paul in the Hot Seat over Journalist Arrests
From Editor and Publisher: Letters Protesting Journalist Arrests at RNC Delivered Today in St. Paul
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Comments (1)
I saw the report about Amy Goodman's roughing up and arrest only on "Bill Moyer's Journal" on PBS.
I am shocked at the lack of national media coverage...and especially, the gestapo-like tactics of the St. Paul police captured on video.
What on earth is going on in the Midwest??
I grew-up in the Midwest.
I spent my first year in college in St.Paul.
Then, it was a quiet and peaceful town.
With the Republican arrests, St. Paul more closely resembles...the Chicago of the notorious 1968 convention.
I echo Brugmann's call for an examination of those convention arrests by the local newspapers.
But most of all, I ask the good citizens of St. Paul to look into their hearts...and ask how they can allow such police overreactions...to go unexamined... and unpunished
Posted by Lex Wadelski | September 6, 2008 12:19 PM