Green Party candidates arrested

This, of course is no secret but look who's saying it.

‘Democracy doesn’t exist here’ Cheri Honkala, US Green Party VP nominee

“Corporate-sponsored American politics have stifled true democracy,” says Cheri Honkala, Green Party vice-presidential candidate. “We really need the outside help” to ensure fair debates and return democracy to America, she told RT.

RT,

18 October, 2012

Green Party candidates Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala were arrested Tuesday after being denied entrance to the US presidential debates, despite being on 85 per cent of the ballots. “Democracy was taken away from us,” Honkala, told RT.

“Jill and I had decided to go before the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), we wanted to go in [to the debates], we’re on 85 per cent of the ballots in this country, and so we thought it should be up to the American people, so that they could listen to us and decide who they wanted to have as their president and their vice-president,”Honkala said.

The CPD was established in 1987 to monitor the presidential debates. CPD regulations stipulate that in order to be represented at the debate, a candidate must have at least 15 per cent support across five national polls and have the mathematical possibility to win the election. Tuesday’s debates were held by the CPD at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

“We’ve done our homework, it’s mathematically possible for Dr. Jill Stein and I to win the presidency, so we should be a part of the debates,” Honkala said.

However, despite being on 85 per cent of the ballots, Stein and Honkala were not invited to the big debate that took place Tuesday night. 

“We thought it should be up to the American people, so that they could listen to us and decide who they wanted to have as their president and their vice-president.” 

However, after being denied entry, Stein and Honkala were arrested for blocking traffic.

“We didn’t block traffic. We were at a stand-still because we were greeted by tons of officers who did not let us go in to the CPD, did not let us talk to somebody from the CPD."

“We were then arrested by the police officers and then we were taken by secret service to a secret location and we were handcuffed to metal chairs for eight hours in a very cold warehouse,” she said.

“It just seemed like an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars. Homeland Security is continuing to be used to preempt the civil liberties of people here in this country.”

Mainstream media silence

Honkala told RT that she and Stein have been charged and will have to face trial for what they say is a fight to bring real democracy to America.

“We will have to face trial. We were charged with disorderly conduct. It became very clear to the both of us that this was very political and they wanted us to be silenced,” she said.

“Jill and I, we speak to the 99 per cent in this country. We have a program that’s about eliminating the student debt, it’s about taking money out of politics, it’s about making sure that everybody has access to a job; it’s about ending climate change and it’s about ‘greening’ America,” she told RT.

Mainstream media seems to have mostly turned a blind eye to the arrest of the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates, as well as to their party platform, as the airwaves continue to be dominated by the two-party system in America.

“We have a problem with a small number of corporations owning most of our major media outlets here in this country and we really need the outside help from different international media outlets to tell the real story of the American people. 


We are fighting for democracy here – it doesn’t exist. We do not have fair elections. We need elections monitors here and we need help from the international community,” she says.

Should the system change and Americans elect Green Party candidates, democracy would come to America, Honkala believes.

“Not only people in the US would  benefit, but people throughout the entire world, because no longer we would have a foreign policy that would be about bombing and killing people in other parts of the world just for oil and for the 1 per cent [the wealthy few]. The international community would benefit as well from our foreign policy, which would be about other countries’ need to police their own countries, and work on their own democracies. We need to bring democracy back here to the United States, we need access to the media, and we need fair elections and debates.”

Meanwhile in Britain.....

Blind man Tasered after officers claim they thought his white stick was samurai sword

A blind man was shot in the back with a 50,000-volt Taser after a police officer mistook his white stick for a samurai sword.

The Independent,

18 October, 2012

Colin Farmer, 61, was making his way at a "snail's pace" to meet friends at a pub in Chorley, Lancashire, while unbeknown to him police were chasing reports of a man walking through the town armed with a sword.

He described how he felt like he was "trapped in a nightmare" after hearing calls coming from behind. "I certainly didn't know they were police – and I certainly didn't know they were shouting at me. I thought I was going to be attacked by some hooligans. The next thing they fire a Taser at me, though I didn't know it was a Taser at the time," he said. "I just felt this thump in my back. As soon as the Taser hit me, I hit the ground. I hit my head on the floor, then this policeman came around. I said 'I'm blind, I'm blind. I'm blind'.

"This policeman knelt on me and dragged my arms round my back and handcuffed me so tight I've had bruises since. I said you're hurting me, I'm blind – and there's no way he could not have seen my stick on the floor."

Mr Farmer was taken to Chorley Hospital for treatment following the incident last Friday. He was then taken back to the pub by officers. He said he is considering legal action against Lancashire Constabulary.

The force's Chief Superintendent Stuart Williams said patrols were dispatched to look for a swordsman following a number of reports. "One of the officers believed he had located the offender. Despite asking the man to stop, he failed to do so and the officer discharged his Taser," he said. "It then became apparent this man was not the person we were looking for and officers attended to him straight away. Lancashire Constabulary deeply regrets what has happened. We have clearly put this man through a traumatic experience and we are extremely sorry."

The matter has now been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Mr Farmer has relied on a white stick since suffering two strokes. He said: "I walk at a snail's pace. They could have walked past me, driven past me in the van, or said 'drop your weapon'. In your wildest dreams, you couldn't mistake me for having a samurai sword. I didn't just drop down in a helicopter. I'd walked a few hundred yards. They must have seen me."

Police did later arrest a man carrying a samurai sword on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly.