Why we were falsely arrested, by Amy Goodman

America = Iran ?
America = China?

America doesn't equal iran or china. go to those places it is a very different world. In America we have a legal system to balance the police force. i pray that the legal system does it job ( praying to my God is something i couldn't do in Iran or China)

When you prayed to your god here did it work? Did he come and bail you out of Jail? Did hje post yopur bond? Did he straightern the police out? If praying helped you , fine but ....

Yes, prayer works. I don't expect divine intervention in every problem I have. God doesn't promise to make your life easy, he tells us it will make it harder, but he promises to making life more fulfilling.

What were their expectations when they decided to go and protest? I bet they got what they wanted. So my next question is what's the problem?

Oh JJ come on, they had press passes on. as long as they were simply filming the police should have let them through their lines and gone around them. that's what you do with journalists in america. it's china that batters and locks up journalists for covering the wrong news at the wrong time.

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." - Thomas Jefferson

How can a government call itself the leaders of the free world when its own citizens are arrested for covering stories, history in the making. If you are scared now, look up H.R. 1955 it is the biggest load of 1984 you will ever see.

If it would have been anderson cooper or bill o'reilly, the mainstream media would be all over this story.

If it had been them they wouldn't have rattled the cage.

The litigation that will inevitably follow these conventions will have huge implications on the future of the 1st Amendment.

Fascinating position you take, here JJ.

You have a tendency to bitch about the media, and a lot of the time, I don't disagree with some of the things you say about major news stations. They ask limp nerfed questions that don't even discuss many major issues. They don't cover the appropriate stories, etc. etc.

Conversely this news organization wanted to film the protesters. Did they want to get arrested? Who knows, but the video I have seen so far is of officers limiting the press.

The press, my friend, should be unlimited. They should be able to cover everything but the most classified government projects. Why shouldn't we know that JOURNALISTS are being arrested? Would you have heard this story about the protesters if it weren't for her?

No.

She is doing her job, and I thought you would be all for this.

Rattling the cage is exactly what the press is SUPPOSED to do.

I thought you were an advocate for real news. it doesn't get much more real than getting arrested on tape.

The point they bring up about it taking years to resolve amazes me, too.

Wouldn't it be nice if we expanded the department of Justice? Did you know that the department of justice is ranked 13th out of 22 departments in the U.S. Budget? They receive about 27 billion dollars annually. Don't you think that it's about time to boost our spending? Just a little boost (say, what we spend in 1 month in iraq) could increase their budget by nearly 30%??

See, you wouldn't have ever learned that if she hadn't been arrested.

Not to get too far off topic, here, but why aren't the budgets for all agencies and all of the tax provisions in the tax code adjusted for inflation?

It would eliminate a lot of work for a lot of people, but I digress....

What were we talking about?

she intended on getting arrested for her program, which imo sucks.

people will eat a donkey's dick for ratings, what a shame.

Normally I would say the press goes too far to squeeze out a few words, but after seeing the video it was obvious was apprehended illegally.

if people on this post were smarter they would stop responding to the neocon trolls J Jammer and clayjj05. Don't listen to their rants, they claim to not be repugs, not neocons, I've even read jammer in two different posts, one claiming he was a "conservative," not a republican and one claiming that he was not even conservative. They are here to disrupt and cause mayhem, that is why most if not all of their comments seem so nonsensical. Read them for yourselves, they're baffling! Just please stop responding to them, ignore them and maybe they'll go away. They are not here for constructive debate. They are here to disrupt only. Please think about this....this post won't be here for long because like the good trolls that they are, and in typical republican fashion, they'll run and cry to their mommies that this is a personal attack and have it taken down. All the while their nonsensical spew is all over this site. Beware!

You have read no such thing.

This is how lies start and how liars are born. If you are better than who you complain about then research and truth should be your fuel.

Apparently not.

And I don't report post. hahaha....I report spam. You know the posts that promote websites?

Opinions on the internet are as painful as you only allow them to be. And I nix you of that authority.

I think we've failed to appreciate the invaluable assistance given us by J_Jammer and many others expressing identical views. I know I have.

I understand, yes, many of you believe - J_J is a nuisance. A waste of time to read. Cranially defective. Logically inept. Always perversely out of focus and off-topic. Proudly ill-informed. None too swift. All that.

But more than anything else J_J is an embarrassment to all conservatives. Like me.

This is one of OURS? God no. THIS is the GOP Base? As Peggy Noonan said, "It's over."

"With friends like these?" We've lost.

J_J is a study in the perfectly servile authoritarian subordinate mentality. J_J is a character from Orwell and should be studied as such.

J_J's righteous obtuseness always has flourished wherever Democracy was most hated and feared. J_J's knee-jerk partly-line reactions consistently prove the opposite of what is intended.

J_J is the perfect tool. One tirelessly used by despotic rulers: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini. Typical of the mindless obedience expected of their tools was instant raving adulation of the Party Line - however ridiculous it became - it was the right thing. Forget debating the point - that was treason. The Party was at war with everyone.

Even during the famous 'show trials,' knowing they were falsely accused and about to be executed for doing nothing wrong, the faithful declared eternal fidelity to The Party.

Jammer's technique is far from new. When radio signals were sent to inform the peoples of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, Russia, and China, why democracy was a better system - they were JAMMED by the one-party state.

Clearly that's in the name and icon, the function to be performed, that's why J_J is on line.

More than anything J_J and company underscores why conservatives are demoralized I think J_J should be encouraged to continue writing and exposing his views to others. They are so clearly out of sync with classical conservative ideals – not neo-conservative not neo-liberal nonsense – that even the dimmest Republican can see how far off course the party has been lurched.

Face it. Liberals have tried and just can't reach the real Republican base with persuasion or reasoning alone. But J_J and company can turn them around and do all that work by themselves – and never even know it!.

A Republican party so radically off center is nowhere near to being conservative.

It is too much like a Politburo even to be American..

This is a horrendous event. To me the progression of attacks on people speaking up in our society is frightening. In 1991 I was beaten within a couple of inches of my life & 'disappeared' by the police for about 14 hours. I was in the process of leaving a legal protest where the police had been violent and frightening, but in those days they wouldn't have dreamed of attacking press & credentialed people. They didn't attack marked monitors even. This progression to attacking beating and arresting the press is a seriously dangerous progression. Go to democracynow.com and write in to demand that they drop the charges against the press --in this case Nicole, Sharif & Amy.

Actually, here's a DIRECT link to all the info and email addresses you'll need to demand that the charges be DROPPED:

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/9/3/call_to_action_on_behalf_of_dn_journal...