Very cool demonstration from Minnesota of how police forces have been militarized. In addition to the five fold growth in SWAT forces since the 90's, there's been a shift in attitude. All likely due to a misdirection of GWOT Homeland security $$ and thinking towards domestic protest. The side effect: The heavy handed approach here will cause a quick shift protest to the open source/disruption model if things deteriorate. Protest is dead.
Directly related to the militarization of police, this just came up on BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/02/south-carolina-sheri.html
Posted by: Grant | September 02, 2008 at 08:33 PM
If the Republicans are elected there is a high probability that there will be protests in the streets again at the inauguration. Will be interesting to see how the police forces react, given the protests in previous DC inaugurations over the past 8 years.
Posted by: dano | September 07, 2008 at 11:20 AM