Police prepare for unrest on Election Day.

[gatorboy]

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/police-prepare-for-unrest-2008-10-21.html

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.

Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.

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The black community will riot!

Yeah, if Obama loses there are going to be some PISSED OFF folks (me being one of them). But doesn't this hint at being a little freakin' racist?

[Lint Head]

1. I know I'll be pissed if Obama loses.

:dem:

[Top Cat]

2. Racist is what this is..... Blacks will not be the only ones out in numbers if they steal this.

[Lost-in-FL]

3. Terra! Terra! Terra! Beware of the dark colored people!!!! nt

[BlooInBloo]

4. Gawd I hope DUers don't fall for this shit....

Just wait, for example, until they tase their first black guy, waiting in line to vote.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-helpful-by-digby-nothing-like.html

[my2sense]

5. It's the freepers that are going to riot

when Obama gets into the white house. They are going to lose their damn minds - A black man running "their" country.

:silly:

[Jade Fox]

6. Yes, the racism is obvious....nt

[beachmom]

7. What an annoying article. nt

[Speck Tater]

8. The rich white neighborhoods will riot if McCain loses.

They will send their chauffeurs and butlers into the streets of Beverly Hills to protest.

[vaberella]

9. Of course. But I know Black people WON'T riot. Dems & Liberals?! Might.

People always assume that Blacks for some reason will feel upset if Obama doesn't win. Bullshit. That's not the case. Blacks are very cynical group of people, they see this world or America as a "white man's world". We're hopeful for Obama and supportive of his move, but we don't let that get to our heads. No way. There have been way too many times when our Black representatives have lost their spot and we have become jaded. So if it doesn't happen we'll go on checking, probably equate a lot of it to racism, others will just see it as a solidification of the "white power elite" in this country and move on. If he wins, then we'll take to the street and consider the US as amazingly changed for something new and different.

These people assume way too much about Blacks and seem to think all we want is any form of reparation or power over "whitey" (racist imaging). That's not the case, we want to be able to have the same presence and when things move beyond race to being about ability and qualifications. The ever present talk of the Bradley Effect, the ever present talk of Blacks vote for Obama because of skin color or race, the talk Blacks will riot if Obama loses...is all racist. It's media, mainly white media perpetuating these thoughts onto an entire race. While I find it far from the case in the Black community. Our position is one of cynical reproach.


Dems and Liberals of any race...?! Well they'll riot for the injustice of it all. They will see it as a Repub nefarious way of winning the stealing the election and will be extremely upset of another Bush term. But Blacks as a community...it's a whole other story.

[Raschel]

14. You are so right on the money, every single part of your post. n/t

[political_Dem]

18. Thank you, Vaberella.

I am so tired of people assuming that Black folks can't control themselves whenever something is wrong. And for The Hill to assume something like this, it says more about them than it does about us.

[liberal N proud]

10. Are they expecting the election to be stolen again?

Or will the rednecks rise up when Obama wins?

[jberryhill]

11. Man, those freepers have to stop sneaking in...

...to the annual meeting of "all of the black people" where they decide what they are all going to think for the next year.

[AuntPatsy]

12. What worries me more is why the believe the need for brute force??

Its pretty obvious the larger, much larger majority of sane americans are voting for Obama Biden.....perhaps they are aware of the hate filled mcunlikeable campaign going on and realize that they have unleashed the beast in this country, the real threat, the ugly soulless far right hate filled moronic bigoted underbelly of a once buried america....it is not Obama's side that will be rioting for he will win and win huge....they know it, Obama and company have cut them off at every turn, they have not allowed the same game plan from the criminal repugs to once again be able to steal our nations' highest office...

Oh they are racist no doubt, but this time they have lost the ability to steal another election and realize they had no back up plan to pen back in those radical right wingers they themselves have unleashed on US soil by pushing them in to such a frenzy of hate filled bigotry likened to the early fifties, I have heard some very ominous threats on the streets the last few days if they don't get their way come Nov 4th...crazy people out there and all of them mcpaltry supporters.......

[AndyTiedye]

19. BECAUSE THEY KNOW PEOPLE WILL BE PISSED OFF WHEN THEY STEAL THE ELECTION

[gauguin57]

13. Don't know what the rules are in your neck of the woods ... but if you're a pollwatcher ...

... find out the rules about cops being in the polling place. In my county, only constables are allowed to linger in the polling place.

As a pollwatcher in the last presidential election, I saw a cop hanging around in the polling place ... I pointed out to the judge of elections that the cop was not allowed to be in there, according to the election laws. And the judge asked him to leave!

I'm lucky I didn't find a ticket on my car!

If you're pollwatching, be sure you know what the rules are about the cops ... we don't want voters intimidated and disenfranchised.

[Undercurrent]

15. The only

violence we have seen in this election thus far is coming from the foaming-at-the-mouth idiots that McCrud and PigPalin have whipped into a hateful frenzy.

Yes, there is a big racist slant to this article.

[RepublicanElephant]

16. Is Posse Comitatus Dead? US Troops on US Streets

"In a barely noticed development, a US Army unit is now training for domestic operations under the control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. An initial news report in the Army Times newspaper last month noted that in addition to emergency response the force “may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.” The military has since claimed the force will not be used for civil unrest, but questions remain. We speak to Army Col. Michael Boatner, future operations division chief of USNORTHCOM, and Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine.

"The whole question here about what the Pentagon is doing patrolling in the United States gets to the real heart of the matter, which is, do we have a democracy here? I mean, there is a law on the books called the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act that says that the president of the United States, as commander-in-chief, cannot put the military on our streets. And this is a violation of that, it seems to me.

"President Bush tried to get around this act a couple years ago in the Defense Authorization Act that he signed that got rid of some of those restrictions, and then last year, in the new Defense Authorization Act, thanks to the work of Senator Patrick Leahy and Kit Bond of Missouri, that was stripped away. And so, the President isn’t supposed to be using the military in this fashion, and though the President, true to form, appended a signing statement to that saying he’s not going to be governed by that. So, here we have a situation where the President of United States has been aggrandizing his power, and this gives him a whole brigade unit to use against US citizens here at home."
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/7/us_army_denies_unit_will_be

[leftofthedial]

17. My personal attitude toward this country and my status as a citizen

will change irrevocably if a third consecutive election is stolen.

I have nothing left to lose this time.

[rebel with a cause]

20. exactly what a lot of other people feel.

And the young are involved this year. We may have a recurrence of the sixties but it will be condensed into a week instead of being laid out into a movement. If they steal this election they can expect the streets to be full of people, and they will not only be African Americans. They will be disgruntled voters from all groups and all classes. This is not going to be pretty. The police better pray that Obama wins and everything is on the up and up. JMHO