Security goons at ALEC conference in New Orleans assault ThinkProgress reporters

[stevedeshazer]

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/05/288405/alec-security-attacks-thinkprogress/

Yesterday, at a conference in New Orleans, two ThinkProgress reporters were attacked by security guards for no apparent reason. Reporters Scott Keyes and Lee Fang were at the Marriott Hotel for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting, an event that brings together state lawmakers with corporate lobbyists to draft “model” legislation.

While we stood by the second floor lobby of the conference hotel, security guards surrounded us, demanding that we leave. As we were leaving, they approached us, violently pushed us and twisted our arms. A guard approached Fang from behind, tackling him and later bending his arm to take his camera. Keyes, faced similar treatment: two security guards roughed him up on the escalator, taking his video camera, and cutting Keyes’ hand as he attempted to leave the premises. As Keyes asked why he was being forced to leave, he was shoved from the back.

Asked why they were being so belligerent, the security guards said they were acting on instructions from ALEC. At certain points during the incident, they were able to turn on their video cameras and record it:

Video at link.

These people are too busy buying legislators and writing legislation for them to be bothered with riff-raff reporters.

The whole bunch of 'em oughtta be in jail.

[hifiguy]

1. Were these goons wearing brown shirts

and shiny black boots? Or would that make the connection too obvious?

[Rex]

2. Criminals don't like it when you film them in action.

Goons indeed, lawsuits should fix that problem.

[HereSince1628]

3. The little corporal treated unwanted guests in the beergartens this way

The flickerings through the wormholes of this time warpy thing are unsettling.

[socialist_n_TN]

4. This is why we need a progressive worker's militia

These reporters should have been escorted by self defense cadres. If the Brown Shirts are going to get violent, then self defense is needed.

BTW, I'm assuming that the Lee Feng is the same one that was on KO and RM's shows several times.

[Kelvin Mace]

5. Ok, please excuse a touch of frivolity

but the news of late has been so bad I have to crack a joke or jump in front of a train:

Personally, I would not fuck with a guy named "Fang".

Anyone else getting flashbacks about jokes by Phylis Diller's about her husband?

Anyone? Did I just give away my age?

{Crickets}

OK, I'll go home now.

[stevedeshazer]

7. Yeah.

I'm old enough to remember that, too.

:)

[Newest Reality]

6. Well, the jack-bootyness

goes with the new rules of the corporatist game, ey? Well, let's say, re-emerging.

There are no good reasons to maintain the facade so carefully and strictly anymore. Besides, the corporate mass media still streams into the minds of a large number of Americans to the point where its Simulation has a persistent impact on culture and perception.

So, what would be surprising about an increase in overt thuggery. It goes with the turning we are in and it is also a stark and unavoidable call to come to terms with how and why we are where we are now. That is, if a naked, corporatist police-state along-side a form of inverted totalitarianism is not what you had in mind for our people and future generations.

We are living in pivotal times. Their are unsettling signs that where we are and where this is going is some kind of strange chimera formed from various dystopian concepts and fictions. Hey, "You got your 1984 in my Brave New World and keep your hands off my Gattaca!"

[highplainsdem]

8. K&R. Thanks for posting this!

I've added links to this topic and the ThinkProgress article and video to the long compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

[stevedeshazer]

9. Thanks, the whole thing is an amazing story.

The more this stuff gets out, the better.

[midnight]

10. K&R

[rurallib]

11. makes me think of that Jay Gould quote from the 1880s

(rich SOB in the robber baron days)
"I can get half the working people to kill the other half"

The security guards probably poorly paid, fighting guys who are working for their good.