Is our democracy being occupied?
Did you know that $8.5-million that was spent on security during the FTAA meeting came directly out of the $87 billion President Bush extracted from Congress for Iraq last month? Who is being occupied?
Excerpts from the FTAA Indy media web site are below. The corporate media's embedded reporters didn't cover the police brutality that took place in Miami during the FTAA (Free Trade Areas of America) protests.
This photo was posted on FTAA IndyMedia web site with an article:
A Firsthand Account of Tyranny and Resistance … events in
Miami Nov. 18th - 22nd, with reflections on what it all means.
Kealan, 11.24.2003 21:30
On the Internet here -- http://ftaaimc.org/en/2003/11/2216.shtml
FTAA IMC Wrap-Up #2: The Miami Model -- 11-25-2003
Jeremy Scahill of Democracy Now! <www.democracynow.org> writes, “After last week, no one should call what Timoney runs in Miami a police force. It’s a paramilitary group. Thousands of soldiers, dressed in khaki uniforms with full black body armor and gas masks, marching in unison through the streets, banging batons against their shields, chanting, “back ... back ... back.” There were armored personnel carriers and helicopters.Miami Mayor Manny Diaz called the police actions last week a model for homeland security. FTAA officials called it extraordinary. Several cities sent law enforcement observers to the protests to study what some are now referring to as the ‘Miami Model.’”
What is the Miami Model? It is several things: extremely violent police response to nonviolent demonstrators, embedded reporters behind police lines -- and arresting and harassing “non-embedded” journalists, and other tactics used in the past by Timoney, including mass arrests and an arsenal of “non-lethal” weapons. Most significantly, though, it represents the next step in the criminalization and repression of dissent that is occurring in the United States right now.
Read more: http://www.ftaaimc.org/en
