The Minneapolis Police were given "legal' authority to shut down any protest or group of 25 people or greater. They were also authorized to use rubber bullets, mace and the other array of non-lethal weapons on innocent, peaceful demonstrators, practicing our First Amendment Rights. Also violated repeatedly was the Fourth Amendment Right protecting us citizens against illegal search and seizure. Police violated the laws of assault and battery and destruction of evidence of their crimes, as evidenced by their targeting journalists."
Calvan notes, probably correctly so, that even if the city council had not approved these fascistic tactics that they would have been by-passed and the police and various state and federal officials would have done it anyway.
Despite months of efforts by grassroots activists and even a Green on the City Council -- making grand speeches about protecting free speech -- despite the people doing the very best that they could to monitor, participate and speak out, the fix was in and democratic participation was merely a charade for the real power being exercised, even on the nearest thing to local control as you can find in the government -- at the City Council level -- and even in one of the most left-influenced places in the country. (Globalization and the Demolition of Society , Pp. 248-249)
[i] Nasser, Alan, "The Threat of U.S. Fascism: An Historical Precedent," Commondreams.org, August 2, 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2933/, accessed July 10, 2009.
[ii] This was U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler, who stated in a 1933 speech: "I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. . . . And during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. . . . I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. . . . Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. . . ." From "War Is A Racket," twf.org, September 11, 2001, http://www.twf.org/News/Y2001/0911-Racket.html, accessed February 14, 2011.
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