“From NATO to the DNC: Does More Repression Mean We’re Winning?” @ In These Times

Posted on June 14, 2012

Rebecca Burns — June 8, 2012: “Three weeks after the opening of the NATO summit in Chicago, many local organizers are still spinning from the massive and aggressive police presence that descended on the city. Though the City Council Wednesday passed a resolution praising the Chicago Police Department and other first responders for their work during the NATO summit, the National Lawyer’s Guild says that it has received reports of more than 70 instances of police brutality during the week of the demonstrations.

Part of the reason the CPD and Police Superintendent Gary McCarthy in particular have received such fawning praise from public officials and the mainstream press (One Chicago Alderman, evidently concerned that the comparisons to Braveheart didn’t go far enough, likened McCarthy to George Washington during the City Council meeting Wednesday) is that some of the worst civil liberties abuses took place prior to NATO, out of the public eye. And as Chicago activists tackle the aftermath of multiple raids and more than 100 arrests—including those of the ‘NATO 5’ being charged with terrorism-related offenses in what defense lawyers say are cases of entrapment—the FBI has already begun questioning North Carolina activists about protests planned for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this September……………………….”

Read more at In These Times.