Welfare Warriors

FALL 2008

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  Fall 2008

Homeland Security Creates Police State at RNC

The Republicans held their National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul Minneapolis on September 1. To “protect” Republicans from the non-violent protesters, Homeland Security took over the St. Paul police department.

30,000 people marched against the war. We walked from the Minneapolis capitol to the RNC convention center. But fences and cops kept us from getting near the Republicans.

            Police overkill was phenomenal. Police were on foot, horses, bicycles, and in squad cars. They and their horses wore masks!  They carried long sticks, pepper spray, sound grenades, guns, handcuffs. They violated our constitutional right to assemble over and over again.

            Outside a concert on an island, National Guard boats with machine guns on front chased a boat with a sign that said, “Stop Torture.”

            In four days of marches there was only one minor incident of violence. Someone broke two windows at Macys. But that was the cops’ excuse to illegally arrest over 300 people and to spray and bomb.

The march on the second day was against the war on the poor. Kensington Welfare Rights organized it. This time we were surrounded by camouflaged soldiers with machine guns as well as the cops!

On Thursday when McCain spoke, the cops on horses and bikes kept us over one mile away from the RNC. Government force and violence clearly showed their pitiful fear of our resistance.

Pat Gowens
Milwaukee, WI