Sending FOUR police officers
to arrest a nonviolent blogger accused of harassment at his place of
employment is simply the long arm of the Police State showing its
clumsy, puppet-stringed hand.
Ask yourself, is this the response you’d get from the police if you
told them someone was sending you too many texts asking you hard,
unthreatening questions about your public conduct? You might be told to
get a new phone number and that these cases seldom go anywhere – unless
you’re connected to power.
The real threat activists, like Lane, make is when they shine a light
on unethical and corrupt relationships and practices that shovel
taxpayer money into the pockets of developers (and back to politicians)
while everyone else gets greased ($10M annually to local police forces).
Transit riders get greased in this process too, but not to their
benefit.
Lane has been targeted by TriMet for reprisal. When Lane exposed
himself to liability via texting, TriMet used its privileged connections
to the prosecutor and police to bring the hammer down. The response to
Lane was not designed to correct behavior but to punish, to limit Lane’s
future opportunities in life, and send the usual message to activists:
sit down and shut up, or else. That’s what happens in a Police State
when you threaten the status quo as established by the elites, the
powerful and the wealthy.
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