Dowbrigade News: DNC - The Protesters Holding Pen
Dowbrigade News:: "Yesterday afternoon we wandered around back of the Fleet Center to get our first up-close and personal look at the Protesters Holding Pen. We were not disappointed. Looking more like some high-tech slaughterhouse, with double fenced chutes and narrow passageways to channel the theoretical demonstrators past the huge empty parking lots where tour busses will be off-loading the delegates each afternoon as they report for duty at the Convention Center, it is hard to see the area as in any way affiliated with free speech or the exercise of constitutional rights. It is a holding pen, without water, electricity or toilets, better suited to animals than human beings.
So where will the protesters go as an alternative? How will they be able to congregate, demonstrate and march if every street corner and rooftop are occupied by the forces of order which have announced that they will tolerate no protests outside the Cage?"
posted by JOlmsted @ 7/26/2004 11:16:00 AM
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Song for Cindy Sheehan Video
Madeleine BAROUKHEL-MOUREAU 
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It is beyond me how anyone can endorse this sort of a situation.
I really believe that most American's understand that free societies cannot be totally safe, and the action of relegating freedom to "containment areas" are extremely corrosive to democracy.
So why is this happening? Does the government feel it is more cost effective to "blanket" the populace with authoritarian militarism rather than bringing sophisticated solutions to immigration and customs, what about NEST teams equipment to scan large areas for WMD's of sorts, and what about improving the capacity of bomb squads to address bomb threats? I have no problem with snipers being deployed out of sight for large gatherings if there is a verified threat, and I have no problem with delegates having their security details, but I find it utterly unacceptable to continue this authoritarian militarism that is being forced upon the American people at all levels with no other options for reducing the threat level.
It's time for American's to stand up and say we accept the relative risks of living in a free society, and this "penning" of protesters is unacceptable!
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