Preemption as a Tactic, and Hurricane Gustav

As the police continue to raid and preemptively interfere with activists and the media who document police misconduct in St. Paul, the activists have started preemptively protesting.

The GOP press releases say that tomorrow's RNC events will be largely delayed. Due to the protests? Well, the protests were due to begin tomorrow morning as delegates arrive at the Xcel Center. But seeing as the SPPD have begun preemptively raiding houses and spaces and detained various people on the street, protests have already begun today.

The SPPD encircled a cluster of protest organizers who met at Loring Park to discuss tactics. They were cornered until NLG legal observers and the media arrived. Later, Wobblies planned on marching around The Mall of America in Minneapolis. The police refused to let them off the train, however. A diabetic who needed insulin was not allowed to get out either. A Veterans for Peace march was obstructed by police as well, and police intimidated organizers at Seeds for Peace's kitchen. Click here to view pictures of a permiculture bus (belonging to a non-violent environmentalist group) being impounded by the St. Paul PD.

After all this hard work on behalf of the police to prevent Americans from protesting on Monday morning, it appears Bush and Cheney will not attend the first day of the RNC. The GOP is giving credit to Hurricane Gustav for this delay, not the "violent anarchists" in the seedy city of St. Paul.