In Minnesota last weekend, in the days before the 2008 Republican National Convention began, the police raided at least four buildings housing nonviolent protesters in preemptive attacks designed to stifle free speech. These are outrageous violations, but, unfortunately, they are part of a dangerous and consistent pattern going back almost a decade, a standard unconstitutional operating procedure.
After the jump: how the police repression at the RNC in the last few days is a deliberate implementation of police repression tools honed at Democratic and Republic Conventions over the course of the last eight years, as well as the methods used at the Washington DC and Miami anti-corporate globalization protests.