Basta!

It saddens me to see what is happening in Minneapolis. I've been getting reports for the last few days from people who are there. Houses have been raided. Men with guns have stormed into houses where children have been sleeping. The police have rounded the people up, put them on the floor, handcuffed them, and held guns on them. The police have knocked down people in the streets.

They've confiscated property, including a bus that has been going around the country teaching people how to live more simply, in tune with the land. The police have injured people and taken them to jail and denied them medical care. They've done this all to people who weren't doing anything illegal. I've been making calls every day. Today, we were making calls to the jail to try and help young man who was knocked to the ground by the police, injured by them, and not given adequate medical care; instead he was taken to jail and told that coughing up blood was normal.

Now tonight I see they are teargassing peaceful demonstrators. I'm not watching TV, but I doubt they are showing any of this. Are they? I read some of the coverage out of Minneapolis. Some of it seemed very slanted—they were calling the marchers "violent anarchists." I look forward to hearing from people who were there to see what the truth of it is.

I wonder what events will inspire the American people to finally say, "Basta!" The illegal Iraq war didn't do it. The mess of Hurricane Katrina didn't do it. The loss of our civil liberties didn't do it. The torture of prisoners in Iraq and Cuba didn't do it. The tanking of our economy didn't do it. Will the tear-gassing of American citizens do it?

I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens in November and beyond.