not to mention creating a housing crisis. Democracy, Miami style, the Bushista regime's own Banana Republic.
From Democracy Now:
FTAA Protesters Say Miami Police Violating 1st Amendment Rights
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...AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined on the phone by Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch. We are dealing with separate issues here. One is how the police are dealing with the protests. The other is what are the issues. But so often with these anti-globalization protests, the two issues merge. Can you talk about that, Lori Wallach?
LORI WALLACH: The reason why there are people here, some of whom have taken two and three-day bus rides from the midwest and the northern part of the east coast to come to Miami is because they're motivated to try to stop FTAA because it's an expansion of NAFTA.
We have had a ten year track record of NAFTA destroying good jobs, lowering wages, ripping up the rural lifestyle and economy in Mexico. In all three of the NAFTA countries, NAFTA has been a disaster for most people. So people are coming from not only from all over the country but from all over the hemisphere to say, we're for partnerships in the hemisphere, but we're not going to allow a NAFTA expansion.
The problem is the process of negotiation of FTAA, the 31-country NAFTA expansion being discussed here is so secretive and so closed that the only time there's any way for the public to voice its concern and opposition to the current plan is in protests. And unfortunately, the - if ask you me -
the overreaction, near hysteria caused here in Miami by the police, slideshows, showing dangerous terroristic looking figures as the opposition to the FTAA and by the mainstream media has resulted in what is an incredibly oppressive feel and frankly, the show of police force is more likely to cause a problem than to resolve it.
I mean, last night, large caravans of 20 police cars, all with sirens on were zig-zagging through town, just showing that they were there, columns of horses trotting around, and it's two days before the meeting. No one is even here yet! It's -- so, you know, it's quite an oppressive feel and I guess that goes hand in hand with what the FTAA is substantively about, but it's the substance that brought people here.
LIDA RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: If I may add with respect to that. I think Lori is absolutely right. One of the concerns that we have is that what is happening here with the passage of an overly broad ordinance that you were talking about earlier that is designed and was tailor-made just for this protest, that in its first draft had a sunset provision on Thanksgiving Day, it would have been... The ordinance would have been off books once the protesters left is that you have you have a sense in the eyes of the protesters, and in the eyes of the people that are coming here that the police have already decided what -- what the police thinks of them, and it decided what it thinks of them not because they throw a rock or bottle or because they assaulted anyone, but simply because of the position that they take, and this is really crucial. I am going to hammer on this again. I think it's very important. Police departments are not supposed to be in the business of carrying out the political whim of politicians. And yet, this police department is doing exactly that.
In the very materials that Lori was talking about, and in a brochure that has the police department's logo and a letter from the police chief, the question is asked, what is NAFTA?
And the answer is a one-sided, very biased answer that shows that the police department has taken a position.
And the answer is: the mission of the FTAA is to preserve and strengthen the democratic institutions of the western hemisphere and on and on and on.
I will tell you that that's a position that some people would completely disagree with.
When you have a police department in the business of carrying out the political wishes of the politicians, you have a recipe for disaster because that police department is already trained to disregard the views of other people, and to punish people and arrest them not because they have done anything wrong, but because of their views. ...AMY GOODMAN: What about the issue of churches and other spaces that were making space available for people coming in to voice their opinion. We're being told that there would be fire inspections, that they would be carefully watched, causing a number of them to pull out?
AMY SALAS JACOBSON: That the zoning would be changed.
LORI WALLACH: That did in fact happen. That did in fact happen.
We have reports from churches who are -- we were trying to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the churches because of this, because they were threatened. And the churches are so scared of having to close down their sanctuaries that we have not been able to go forward. But that is happening. Not only that, but the other things that are happening include
police officers going to local businesses and forcing them to take down any literature that in any way raises questions about the FTAA. One police officer in fact told several businesspeople and we have interviewed these people. One city of Miami police officer told several businesspeople that they needed to take those materials down because they spoke ill of the FTAA and they spoke ill of the city of Miami Police Department, and that that would not be tolerated. This is the climate that we have created. Amy talks about Seattle, but as Lori was pointing out, they're not teaching the -- the police department is really not learning the lessons of Seattle. What happened in Seattle is very well documented. Somebody in the Clinton administration gave the order to clear the streets because the protesters had been sitting on the streets, blocking intersections, peacefully. The only way to get them up was to arrest them. Logically, arrests would have taken hours. Rather than taking the hours necessary to arrest them, the police took out their sticks and starting beating them.
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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/18/1633211>