Some interesting points here, worth noting:
Cenk Uygur points out that police have a long history of planting “agitators” (or provocateurs, rather) in peaceful protests to justify arresting everyone who was demonstrating.
Also, the group who were sexually assaulted during a “kettle” (which the Turks point out is a very unwittingly appropriate term for the situation) were all either independent journalists or volunteer civil-rights legal observers. Funny how the cops singled THEM out, of all people, for an impromptu “strip search” involving crotch-grabbing and anus-fingering (which of course turned up nothing but humiliation for the victims of the bogus “search”!)
Not noted, but should have been: Sexual abuse, of persons of any gender, is another long-standing police tactic against peaceful demonstrators and legal and media observers alike, to punish them just for being there (and presumably, to deter them from ever “being there” again). And this in turn has other deleterious effects: deterring people from knowing/demanding their rights, and also keeps the real story of what went down from getting out there. Thus, citizens are forced to swallow the mass-media narrative, which is often highly biased in the authorities’ favor, and also often quite inaccurate to boot.
Long story short: Police-state fascism and rape culture go together like rancid peanut butter and moldy jelly in a shit sandwich. They’re both on the rise in Donnie Drumpf’s US of Amnesia. And anyone who truly cares about freedom of speech and association — not Freeze Peach, not the nonexistent “right” to be a bigot — should be outraged.
And ready to revolt, using any means necessary, at any time.
