A great commentary about New York's Gestapoism!

Jim Hightower is a former Texas Agriculture Commissioner and a leading voice of progressive populism. I've read a couple of his books, and now he's known as one of America's greatest commentators.

Over on Daily Kos, Hightower has just released a brief video commentary about the right-wing suppression of dissent during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. (This was the convention where the GOP exploited 9/11 for political gain.) You can find it here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/2/11923/4210

Hightower reports that the city now has over 600 lawsuits against it from people wrongly arrested for exercising their right to free speech. The dissidents are winning their cases, for videos prove that police were making up phony charges against them. In one case, a cop even told a group of people they were allowed to hold a banner, but they were arrested for it by other officers anyway. One of the people with the banner was charged with leading an unauthorized parade through the intersection, but now a video has proven that she never even left the steps of the library.

Officers who were caught lying by making up charges against the demonstrators ought to be fired immediately. There ought to be a law that says if a cop lies like this, they lose their job and their pension. Some states have laws that take former police officers' pensions away if they commit a felony after they've retired. (I learned this from the episode of 'Cops' where a retired policeman got caught cheating at a casino.) So why should cops be able to keep their pensions if they lie while on the job? And for every case the city loses, the city should dock the salary of the police officials who were involved. There has to be some accountability for individuals in the police department when they deliberately do the wrong thing. This is the only way we'll be able to ensure honesty in law enforcement.