The Free Speech Zone

We made fun of the Chinese during the Olympics for setting up a park in the city where protest would be allowed if one signed up and got proper clearances. When two elderly women signed up they were arrested and sentenced to hard labor for daring to want to protest. Yeah, we had a good laugh at those clueless Chinese dictators, right? Thank God it could never happen here. But it is happening right here, right now, and it's not even front page news nor will it show up on the nightly news. Read Glenn Greenwald's story about the pre-emptive arrest of protesters in St. Paul, Minnesota here. Evidently, it's now illegal to protest. Someone needs to tell the conservatives that protest isn't really protest if it's removed from the gaze of the powerful.

These same neo-con fascists will constantly boast about "freedom" but deep down they really don't believe it. The Bill Of Rights? A quaint but obsolete document. They'll always cite "freedom of speech" as a great American value but really wish all protest would just go away. You see, it angers conservatives when they actually have to look at people who disagree with them. They'll say "of course you have the RIGHT to protest!" ... as long as you take that protest to where nobody in power can actually see it. Siberia maybe? Or perhaps what the GOP set up during the 2004 convention... a "free speech zone". Just like China.