Extrapolating from her photos, TimTim’s snapshot, (and Marie’s confirmation), Marie is seated at two o’clock in this picture.
Marie spotted at Birds Nest Stadium
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Monthly Archives: August 2008
It’s what’s for dinner
They Call Him “W” So He Can Spell It
Bush brings back nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban missile crisis. Bush announced that he will be putting missile shield in Poland, Russia responds with threat of nuclear anhilation if Poland allows it. Putin isn’t stupid (like Bush is), he knows the US is bogged down in two senseless wars, and can’t do a damned thing, and NATO will likely collapse rather than follow the idiot W into a nuclear war with Russia.
This is what McCain thinks of Social Security.
John McCain for alzheimer’s patient.
McCain claims he created national “do not call” list, 2 years after it was actually announced by the FTC.
McCain campaign tool CNN suggests Obama is the Antichrist.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes Aug 16, thomasmc.com.
Poland, Ukraine and Georgia are three troops in US battle plan against Russia
The US is advancing its battle plans against Russia on multiple military fronts, with Georgia, Ukraine, and Poland being the most key ones. That is not to forget about US missile plans in The Czech Republic and the US manipulations in other tiny nation-lets now under at least partial US command, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. All this NATO-Pentagon joint buildup against Russia goes on under a virtual blackout of media coverage.
Shhhh…. says the corporate press. It’s not news you need to know.
Russia is vocally telling the US what it plans to do about this, and we should all be up in arms about the Pentagon game plans for conflict with Russia. Russia could strike Poland over U.S. shield: report But quite frankly, with all ‘resistance’ contained by the Democratic Party, Americans are basically a flock of passive sheep. Add to that, the antiwar movement under liberal church direction is now dead asleep.
What are you personally doing to help change all that? Oh, and does that ‘missile Defense Agency’ logo seem somewhat familiar? Head on over to Colorado Springs’ Schriever Air Force Base to see who’s goading on a possible nuclear war with Russia? You can see that logo there once again.
Goodbye, Pervez Musharraf
— — — Musharraf
“running out of time”
Can you believe that this US puppet thug is still in office? It’s time for him to go home to the US or Britain and The Empire he has served up his own people to. Good Bye, Pervez! Getting rid of you is the first step for the people of Pakistan in ridding themselves of the American Neocons and their liberal Democratic Party Pentagon apologists who currently run their country. He will become another criminal ex-dictator quite possibly living on American shores.
Best venue ever!
Can Russians do worse than US soldiers?
I’m listening right now to live alarmist coverage of Russia’s occupation of Georgia. Embeds are reporting to analysts about the panicked Georgians, about forced labor, and about marauding Russian soldiers committing atrocities. A cease fire has been signed, and though we don’t hear any gunfire, American leaders and media hounds are blustering about the Russian disproportionate use of force. When did our DoD decide to recognize that war crime?
It’s only been a few days that the Russians have been tasked with restoring order in the belligerent Georgia. They’re making Georgians help clean the streets and they’re destroying the military facilities which the US-advised Georgian forces just used in their attempt to seize South Ossetia. I’m poised to hear Belgian/Kuwait atrocity fabrications as our talking heads try to prompt Americans to “do something.” The Russian move is being likened to Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, where Americans can have nothing but regret about not having acted to repulse the Soviets.
But we Americans know something about occupations now don’t we? How misbehaved have the Russians been? Are we hearing about Russian Predator Drones zapping unsuspecting civilians? Are we hearing of Russian snipers shooting everything that moves, including toddlers in their back yards? Are we hearing about cars and buses being strafed to a halt at improvised Russian checkpoints? Are Georgian ambulances being shot by helicopters?
Adorable Chinese pep talks
Artemev head shoulders and legs above
Did you miss this spectacular moment in men’s gymnastics? It was the last round on the pommel horse. Team USA was going for silver, the Japanese were already looking dejected about being left the bronze.
The three Americans sent to cleanup were –ironically said the announcers– each of them alternate team members. And then the unthinkable happened.
Well it wasn’t unthinkable, I was thinking it. I was rooting against team USA with my blackest might, for being the ass-backward patriotic pawns the US athletes are. I was amused to see Raj trip up, and thrilled when the same thing happened to the Taiwanese-American. Yeeeee!
But next up was Sasha Artemev, whose erratic record, we were told, was what disqualified him from the original team. He failed 3/4 of the time. But the 1/4 performance ranked him as world champion on the pommel horse. So as the diminutive boy contemplated his mount, under all the pressure I’d wished upon team USA, it became impossible not to have a change of heart.
I’d barely ever watched gymnastics before, but Artemev’s performance went from dazzling to miraculous. As a teammate of his told reporters later, for a moment it looked like Artemev might have launched himself skyward from the horse, but he defied antigravity and hung on. Who has ever fought being earthbound except race cars? I doubt even Michael Jordan has to temper his air flight.
Never the less, Sasha Artemev whirled like a helicopter tugging against a leash and landed as solid as you hope every time that every gymnast could, beaming, and it was Seabiscuit, Rocky and the Little Engine That Could!
But the tension now mounted because Team USA’s score had slipped so badly that now the German team was in contention to reach the bronze. Would the Americans medal at all? Everything was up to the German pommel horse numbers.
As each German performed his routine, Artemev’s act looked all the more luminous. The German routines were executed well, but were completely earthbound by comparison. What could the poor Germans do to compete in such a fix, short of improvise Artemev’s leap to the heavens and court probably an infinitely greater than 3/4 chance of failure?
Here’s a video of an Artemev performance at an earlier gymnastic meet. In this minute and a half, you get to see what the coaches feared would happen in Beijing, then you’ll see a preview of what ultimately did.
102 Olympic medals for white swimmers
Michael Phelps his poised to beat Mark Spitz’s record for medals won in a single Olympics. Does it say something that both are swimmers? Maybe there are too many swimming events? You don’t find 1/2 length, or 1/4 length fencing matches. You certainly don’t have shooting medley relays.
I can understand the merit of 50, 100, 200 and 400 meter distinctions. Relays also make team sorting events out of pretty plainly singular physical efforts. But do we need those variants at the international level which is often dominated by athlete superstars? If you want to have feel-good team events, perhaps relays could exclude the soloists.
How do you account for 34 swimming medal events out of a total of only 302 Olympic events. While baseball as an Olympic sport is being dropped? That’s two dozen athletes per team being offered no medal, while one swimmer gets a shot at eight.
No to mention that baseball has become dominated by athletes of color, while swimming as yet has not. It’s easier for our world neighbors to afford a bat and ball than swimming pools. Not to mention the leisure time necessary for the training. Whereas baseball is a social sport.
Is it amazing that America, home of the baseball World Series, played only among North American teams, doesn’t medal in the real world series? And how about our loss to Cuba? Even as both countries hold baseball to be the national sport, err, pastime, the match-up is still akin to a class AA school set upon single-room schoolhouse classification. We draw our athletes from a population 303 million, including the Cuban players who defect. Cuba’s talent comes from a pool of 11 million.
Second to last meeting for Recreate 68
DENVER- R68 held its second to last organizational meeting Thursday, closing almost a year and a half of preparations for the upcoming DNC. It’s been a long struggle against detractors, traitors and weak links, but the DNC rallies, concerts, marches and actions are coming together.
August action: STOP WARS FOR EMPIRE
COLORADO SPRINGS- In light of accusing Russia for what the US is actually trying to do in Georgia, in light of the naval buildup against Iran, in light of worsening stability in occupied Afghanistan, we thought we’d expand the Iraq Moratorium message to address US War for Empire.
An officer informs us we are not to place any permanent sign. Although we were already taking this one down.
Ralph Nader gets it right about the SEIU versus CNA battle
It is rare for a presidential candidate to even notice the tactics and strategy of the labor unions in America, except to perhaps go after their endorsement. But Ralph Nader recently wrote a commentary about the struggle to get decent Health Care for all Americans, and analyzed the battle between 2 unions that are key components of that struggle.
The SEIU and CNA are the 2 largest unions that have organized nursing service workers in the US, workers that are certainly key one ons the road to getting us all decent medical care coverage. Check out Ralph Nader as he writes about the differences between the 2 unions.
He got it right on, too. Single-Payer Health Care in an Age of Two-Party Politics Sad, but I just don’t see a good future ahead for nurses if the SEIU business unionism gang wins this battle.
On the tea-horse road to Tibet
Lady, lady, I take you today. No ticket! No tourist!
I’m standing in the town square reviewing my inventory of polite rejections when, lo and behold, my rogue sense of intuition wrests its way to the forefront and I hear myself saying, “Okay, so where are we going?” An abnormally large Naxi woman emerges from the shadows and sizes me up. “You ride horse?” she asks rather skeptically. “Sure, I ride horse,” I respond indignantly, at once calling to mind a favorite movie, True Grit.
Rooster Cogburn: Mr. Rat, I have a writ here says you’re to stop eating Chin Lee’s cornmeal forthwith. Now it’s a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of the same. See, doesn’t pay any attention to me.
[shoots the rat]
Chin Lee: [Runs into the room] Outside is place for shooting!
Rooster Cogburn: I’m servin’ some papers!
Okay, I know that had nothing to do with anything, but I liked it.
Anyway, thanks to trusty intuition, and the kind attention of my guides Richard and Li, I had a most magical day. I rode a shaggy little horse four hours up a steep mountain trail — the very path that for hundreds of years has linked southwest China to Tibet. At the summit were views of the Yangtze River and the breathtaking Snow Mountains, known to us as the Himalaya.
When the blue haze lifted, I could see all the way to everywhere.
TO THE LEFT OF THE CENTER PEAK IS THE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE
ALPINE FLOWERS AND CROPS
MARIJUANA MAKES A PRETTY CONTRAST
THE NAXI VILLAGE
VIEW OF LASHI LAKE
ME LIVING LARGE ON A TEENY TINY HORSE
PEPPER BERRIES
NAXI WOMEN PICKING PEPPER BERRIES
A BOY HIDING BEHIND HIS CABBAGE
AFTER TEN MINUTES OF CAJOLING HE’S READY TO POSE
ALPINE DOGHOUSE
THE MASTER’S CAMPSITE
FIRST BEND of the YANGTZE RIVER
LOOKING TOWARD TIBET
MY TRAIL GUIDE
OUR TRUSTY LITTLE STEEDS
MARIE AND RICHARD INCONSEQUENTIAL
THE NAXI MEN AFTER I BLEW THEM A KISS!
Little Georgia stateside pro-war lobby
DENVER- A dozen or so Georgian Americans were waving flags and signs at motorists passing the state capitol building today. I asked several of them if their effort was funded by the US State Department. “Not at all, one girl answered, oblivious, we’re here trying to incite Americans to join the war against Russia.”
Some had the stocky look of that region. They were probably simply frantic about the fate of their relatives back home. I couldn’t help but see them as alumni of the recent Georgian neo “Democracy Movement,” the preferred US method of conscripting client states.
A fan of McDonald’s
BEIJING- Could there be a more offensive marketing campaign than this one? McDonald’s has taken a revered Chinese symbol and turned it into a corporate billboard. Beijing 2008 brought to you by an American fast food chain.
In the “open-24/7!” store in the Athlete’s Village, McDonald’s touts one or two “healthy” menu options buried deep beneath the grease-laden, e-Coli-infected, allegedly-edible garbage they offer. Message to young people: you, too, can bring home Olympic gold if you shove this shit in your mouth and work real real hard. Just don’t forget that you must also pay constant homage to Nike, the goddess of victory, except when honoring Ralph Lauren, the lord of the Great Gatsby set.
Remember, too, that you mustn’t offer up your MasterCard, for that is a grave offense. These gods only accept Visa, your ticket to the world.
Peterson Air Force Base has a riot squad
COLORADO SPRINGS- There is a postscript to the Sisters Witness Against War arrests at Peterson AFB last Friday. Where we left off, three women stepped across the line to protest our nation’s ongoing militancy, and the base commander’s refusal to hear the consciences of pacifists. Barbara, Mary Ann and Esther were led away to be processed, handed to the police, then released. Esther told me the sight that awaited her as she was taken out of our view.
Taking this step, this year, by the way, was in honor of Elizabeth. As the three women were being escorted around the security/reception building, out of view from the protest, they encountered a line of soldiers, dressed in riot gear, being put through various drills. Asking about the apparent extremity of such measures, the women were told that this happens every time there are protests on the other side of the gate. The preparations are standard procedure.
If you can imagine what it’s like from our side, fifty or more quiet nuns usually, once or twice a year, holding home-sewn banners or small signs, facing a security booth being manned by a dozen soldiers, some with binoculars, some in plain clothes. It’s quiet and uneventful. You’d never guess there are people in riot gear being put through their paces behind the scenes.
I laugh because it’s always a nearly-spoken hope that one day we will walk toward the gate, and all of us supplicate ourselves in a compassionate plea to end the war-making. While probably every participant certainly has the courage to be arrested, decorum and a sense of pragmatism hold us back. We await a better opportunity, an impassioned leader to follow, probably. And so through the years, the sisters have only ever mounted a limited nonviolent assault on that yellow line.
This year as the arrests were wrapping up, a soldier noticed that someone’s feet had unknowingly strayed over the line. He pointed sternly and the wouldn’t-be offender hopped giddily back like a new gambler who hadn’t intended a bet.
Even this time, we murmured to ourselves, if only all of us would simply cross that line, they wouldn’t know what to do with us.
Well, as Esther’s report clarifies, they would know what to do with us. And they ready themselves every year to do it. Which has me thinking that they have a higher respect for our potential than we do ourselves. They know what’s at stake, even as we yet do not.
I struggle questioning whether we can reach across to the military mindset with our pacifist ideology. Especially as their militarism extends to dealing peace-petitioners physical blows. Will there be human consciences to reach, or just gung-ho soldier appetites to satisfy? That question holds me back.
Is Bush problem drinking still a secret?
We learned only after Roosevelt’s presidency that he had to be propped-up for photo-ops because FDR was otherwise confined to a wheelchair. The American public learned only after Ronald Reagan retired that he suffered from Alzhemers for most of his second term. Once our decider idiot’s joyride is over, is there something it will then be safe then to tell us that Vladimir Putin already knows about George Bush Jr?
We know he’s incurious, uneducated and inappropriate. We know he was an alcoholic and cocaine addict into his 40s, until he found religion before the campaign trail. Is it possible some of his down-home stupidity could be drink-fueled?
In the alter-universe of the blogosphere, it’s being surmised that George W. was blotto at the Beijing Olympics. Here’s one of the pics floating that thesis.
Green Party-pooper insubordination more embarrassing than imaginable
And I thought I hade a vivid imagination. Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has issued a press release detailing her explicit intention to participate in the Sunday DNC rally. The letter is very diplomatic but it spells out the ultimatum she was given by the Colorado Greens to desist. 
Compelling reading. On a related note. Cindy Sheehan will also be joining the lineup. This represents a significant divergence from her close allies Medea Benjamin and UFPJ’s Leslie Cagan. It shouldn’t be that way.
If you’re not inclined to read McKinney’s letter, and I’ll add it’s as direct as her speeches, I can summarize the threats made and actions taken. Spoiler alert. For agreeing to speak at a rally organized by R-68: Resignation threatened. Fundraiser, place to stay, withdrawn. All scheduled engagements canceled. Assistance to get on Wyoming ballot, withdrawn. Every effort to remove her from Colorado ballot, threatened. McKinney was also informed she had been last choice candidate of Colorado delegation. So there.
Are we witnessing someone’s hissy-fit nervous self-immolation? Could be, but it packs the wallop of a suicide bomber. Local party gutted; bystanders, fellow Greens, burned; vital preparations annulled just months from the election. Third parties probably attract people who have difficulty with authority. In this case with irreparable consequence.
Cynthia McKinney & Rosa Clemente Announce Their Participation in Anti-war, Anti-human rights Abuse Events Before the DNC
August 14, 2008As the United States activated Navy ships and the Air Force to begin an airlift of non-specified goods into the former Soviet state of Georgia, and military exercises began in the Persian Gulf near Iran, I received communications from certain individuals among the Colorado Greens who were organizing campaign support events there, suggesting that I not participate in an anti-war program being organized by other individuals in Colorado.
Perplexed, I began to do my research to understand the nature of the fissure that I seemed to be placing myself in the middle of. The communications to me about not participating in one of the scheduled events became more and more shrill. The events ran through August 26th. When the lineup of speakers, including Rosa and me, was announced for the events in question, I received multiple communications stating in various ways that the sender from the Green Party of Colorado, was on the verge of desperation over the matter. Within a few hours, I was reading messages stating that the Green Party of Colorado would be ruined if I participated in the End the Occupations/End the War march and rally slated to take place on the morning of August 24th on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol, or if Rosa participated in a Freedom March and Rally for Human Rights and Political Prisoners at Civic Center Park the following day.
An article appeared in a local Colorado newspaper stating that Rosa and I would not appear at the events for which we had been scheduled. Rosa responded to our Colorado Green Party contact that yes, indeed, we were appearing at the two events. Both Rosa and I then received messages demanding to know by a time certain what our plans were, and asserting that the Green Party of Colorado would be totally ruined if we associated with the group sponsoring the events. In addition, we were told that at least one resignation and sustaining membership would be tendered to the Party, and that Rosa and I could expect no support on the ground in Denver from the Green Party of Colorado, including a planned fundraiser and a place to stay.
Without receiving any additional response or information from either Rosa or I, the correspondent sent a message informing us that all Green Party of Colorado events previously scheduled for us had been canceled. Further, the message stated that ballot access petitioning by Green Party of Colorado would cease in neighboring Wyoming and that all efforts would be made to remove Rosa’s and my names from the ballot in Colorado. The message also noted that the Colorado delegation overwhelmingly supported Elaine Brown at the Green Party Convention.
With the e-mail messages flying “fast and furious,” I hope I have mentioned the highlights of this episode in somewhat chronological order. What Rosa and I would like to address now, is the ideological and rational order that produced this outcome. At the very first Green Party debate held in San Francisco earlier this year, I pleaded for unity of action and purpose as we face the challenges that confront us as a country. Rosa and I are proud to join with others who are sick and tired of war, occupation, human rights abuses, and the continued incarceration of our political prisoners. We are proud to join with others who are willing to do something about it. In the context of activities in Denver, that means cooperating with some organizations new to us and others with which Rosa and I have had a long-standing relationship. Let me explain some of those relationships.
I am proud to have received a Backbone Award from the Backbone Campaign, one of the co-participants of the anti-war, anti-occupation events in question, according to the organizers.
Rosa and I are pleased to have received the endorsement of M-1 of Dead Prez, who put out a video of endorsement and is rallying other conscious Hip Hop, Generation X voters to the Green Party with Rosa and I as its nominees. Rebel Diaz was on the stage with Rosa as she accepted her Green Party nomination for Vice President. Both Dead Prez and Rebel Diaz are participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.
Fred Hampton, Jr.’s mother, a victim of COINTELPRO, came to Georgia in the mid-1990s to help me gain reelection after a malicious redistricting case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Ward Churchill has traveled to my Congressional district to educate my former constituents on the COINTELPRO of yesterday and the COINTELPRO of today. Natsu Saito introduced me to other victims of COINTELPRO. I asked Kathleen Cleaver to co-author a report that was submitted to Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time of the World Conference Against Racism, on the unsolved murders of Black Panther Party members who were victims of COINTELPRO. Fred Hampton, Jr., Ward Churchill, Natsu Saito, and Kathleen Cleaver are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.
As a Member of Congress, I supported the release of all political prisoners and welcomed information from the American Indian Movement about Leonard Peltier. I have at many times in my political career been allied with the ACLU, and have always supported Pam and Ramona Africa and the MOVE Organization. The American Indian Movement of Colorado, King Downing of the ACLU, and Pam and Ramona Africa of MOVE are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.
Mumia Abu Jamal has endorsed the Power to the People Campaign and my Green Party candidacy. According to the organizers, Mumia will transmit a message to all of us participating in the events in question.
Finally, I have appeared on various stages with many Palestinians; I have proudly spoken at rallies organized by Larry Holmes. Debra Sweet with World Can’t Wait was among the very first to my knowledge to organize around impeachment as an imperative and I support hers and all other impeachment groups in their efforts. And finally, I have known Ben Manski for a long time as a socially conscious activist who is also a member of the Green Party. According to the organizers, a Palestinian refugee is slated to speak at the events in question, as well as Larry Holmes, Debra Sweet, and Ben Manski.
Rosa and I have not been given any rational, ideological, or strategically-acceptable reason by the Green Party of Colorado to dissociate ourselves from the movement that this country so desperately needs and that these individuals and organizations participating represent, as we all attempt to hold the Democratic Party accountable for its complicity in all of the crimes of the Bush Administration. Therefore Rosa and I will keep our appointments in Denver and we hope that the members of the Green Party of Colorado will attend our sessions and listen to what we have to say. I have faith that by taking principled stands against war and occupation, human rights abuse, the prison-industrial complex, and in support of freedom for political prisoners, the Green party will emerge stronger.
Cynthia McKinney
Green Party Nominee for President of the United StatesRosa Clemente
Green Party Nominee for Vice President of the United States
Rick Warren, what on the Earth are you here for?
Rick Warren, Southern Baptist guru pastor and author of the book, ‘What on Earth am I here for?’, has got me asking…
Rick Warren, what on the Earth are you here for, Man? I mean it is you who is going to be taking Barack Obama’s Christian loyalty oath this 16th of August at the Saddleback Church (love that name!) , right? Is this a power play on your part against Baby Graham, the Southern Baptist Preacher Man’s son?
Now I know that it is only God that is your thing and what all, but I got to ask aren’t you trying to get the Crazy Religious Right crowd back into play here by sponsoring this ..uh///… ‘debate’ between McCain and Obama? You going to be talking God a lot, right?
I wonder if you and Barack are going to be turning away any women wearing Islamic scarves away from audience participation? You are for tolerance I know and all that…. But Hey! Isn’t that ‘tolerance’ only when it is on Christian terms dictated by the American military? Both McCain and Obama don’t need to take any of that tolerance stuff too seriously, now do they?
Rick Warren, with this debate sponsored by little ol’ you, you will become a serious player big time, right? At least in the shopping mall world of God that is. You will have helped dumb down America yet another notch! Thanks to your friend, Barack. And thanky to God!
Dr. Bousa and the CIA
One could easily overlook certain political world happenings and believe that the Arab Lounge’s Ask Dr. Bousa is nothing more than yet another page in another innocuous single’s meat market web site. However$$$?
That would be to overlook the American Psycho Association’s …Oh I meant ‘Psychological’ Association’s work at Guantanamo for the Pentagon. Yes, nothing is as simple these days as it first appears. The US Christian government’s war on Islamic cultural beliefs is deep and repulsive, not to mention pornographic. Abu Ghraib… remember that? Now we have something called “Arab Lounge’.
So over-sexualization of Arab life is something that the Pentagon would want to push in its pornographic style. Homosexual rape, menstrual blood, and singles sites for Arabs and Muslims perhaps?
Those are some pretty seductive Arab women I am seeing in ads for ‘Arab Lounge’ Inc. Reminds me of the Israeli material military girls even. Reminds us of the American Psychological Assoication, does it not?
Yes, I do not think I am merely paranoid either? lol madly MADLY!!!! Cuties at Arab Lounge
Yes, the US government can actually be involving itself in seducing the young rich Arab males with porno sites! Do it and you got them by their dicks, Dick, might just be where it got started, and not just from some innocent business scheme! Hollywood might not be quite enough, and the Pentagon may actually have a hand in this ‘Arab Lounge’?!
Go figure? Nothing is as it ever simply appears these days. War is fought on so many different fronts. It’s a Brave and Creepy World out there.
Republican is a Synonym for Terrorist
Never forget who the real terrorists are. Republican terrorist assassinates Democratic Party Chairman in Arkansas. Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Malkin and the NeoFascist goons at Fox News must be so proud.
…so, I guess that means the USA is no longer a nation?
Judge rules murdering black people is not a crime if you work for the government.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes Aug 14, thomasmc.com.
Iraq Moratorium Third Friday is upon us
It’s time again to join others nationwide to buoy our antiwar spirit. Plus we show UFP&J that Colorado Springs will gladly cooperate with their pro-active effort. Given the interrupted opportunity for democratic strategizing, let’s convene again this month on the pedestrian overpass. But do not mistake the short notice for a lack of planning! We’ve devised a great visual and we need as many people to assist as possible. If you have time to attend an antiwar documentary, if you have time to hold back room meetings, even if you can envision participating in just one action in six months, consider putting in one lunch hour, 12-1PM Friday! Meet at NOON, FRIDAY at the MONUMENT VALLEY PARK I-25 OVERPASS. We have the peaceful message, we need your voice. Fully legal, and fully nonviolent even if detractors try to imply otherwise. 🙂
‘Independence’ for Kosovo and now ‘independence’ for Abkhazia and South Ossetia?
US officials huff and puff but cannot blow the Russian house down? They already did that by making Kosovo an ‘independent’ country, did they not? Now it is the Russian turn to do into the US as was done unto them.
We may well be on the way to seeing an ‘independent’ Abkhazia and an ‘independent’ South Ossetia being born. Both Russia and the US are now prepared to use smaller nationalities against bigger ones so it’s ‘independence’ time these days! The US and Russia learned to play this game from European colonial imperialism, and talk about ‘self-determination’ gone wild! The Vatican could well become one of the world’s medium size ‘countries’ if this ‘independence’ thing gets going good!
That’s what makes the title to this reportage by the BBC most comical! US warns Russia of lasting impact Wasn’t it the other way around when Putin told the US government that by making Kosovo ‘independent’ from Yugoslavia, that it had opened Pandora’s Box? Check out the map seen at the end of this article of the made-in-USA borders of Georgia. That’s about to change.
Plus notice where the Georgian city of Gori is located? It is located right next to the capital of the now destroyed South Ossetian capital. The US government is complaining because Gori got pounded by Russian forces, but where do we think the Georgian forces that moved into South Ossetia came from? It was from Gori. The Russian attack on Gori was payback for what the city did to their South Ossetian neighbor populated mainly with non-Georgians. The giants play with the Lilliputians, but the Lilliputians also like to bash each other.
Lack of democracy in the PPJPC should not hide behind religiosity
Two PPJPC board members, Genie Durland and Dorothy Schlaeger, wrote to The Colorado Springs Independent trying to explain why the group’s officers locked some of its membership out of the PPJPC building where we had tried to hold a meeting.
To compound the insult of locking us out of the building, the new Board Director, Jo Ann Neiman, then called the police when she saw us still attending our meeting on the sidewalk in front of the PPJPC building! She explained to the police that she wanted us to be told that we were all trespassing!
So what did Genie and Dorothy have to say about all of this?
In short, they implied that we, the members of the PPJPC who wanted to meet inside the PPJPC rented building, were violence-prone, and they used a bunch of excessive religiosity about Gandhi to do so! They mixed their own liberal religious beliefs together with what they see as the teachings of the Hindu religious leader, Gandhi. Here is how they justified the current board director calling the police on us,
‘Many who consider themselves “peace activists” across the globe engage in tactics, which fail to engender peace. PPJPC is deeply committed to nonviolence and will neither engage nor support activism employing tactics inconsistent with Ghandian nonviolence.’
Genie and Dorothy, I might ask you both, what is ‘Gandhian’ nonviolent about suggesting we are violence-prone when we are not that in the least? You do the rather violence-prone Colorado Springs municipal police a big favor in labeling others amongst the PPJPC and general public in such a manner. You are actually encouraging police violence against us with this sort of rhetoric against us, who are all people that have in fact never engaged in any violent acts at all. In short, you are playing a game of Holier-Than-Thou and The Independent was absolutely correct in labeling and titling that as being ‘Malice in the Movement’.
What also is Gandhi-like in calling the police on us to tell us that we were supposedly trespassing by holding a nonviolent meeting, of all things? What is nonviolent in locking us out from the meeting we wanted to do inside of the PPJPC building, not out on the sidewalk? And most of all, what is nonviolent in a PPJPC organized to have a single membership meeting per year? That is undemocratic community organization, not nonviolence.
This is the real issue of concern, not whether to be tactically violent, as you falsely imply that it is. We tried to hold our meeting because we want some internal democracy within the PPJPC where now there isn’t any.
We want a group not controlled by paid office staff eating up tens of thousands of donated dollars in their salaries each year, just to run the group autocratically as they determine activities of their own making for non paid volunteers to carry out. This is non-sustainable situation in the long run, and it would be much better to help work out something, instead of locking members out of the PPJPC offices. Currently the group is headed towards a financial shipwreck and that is the Big Issue. The PPJPC has no real membership accountability at this time to check their deficit spending.
We also want a board picked by the activist , than have board members pick their own replacements beforehand and then present it as pre-determined fate to the rest of us who have no current voice in PPJPC policies. Most of all, we want a PPJPC that is not crippled by police interference into our own internal affairs. This has led to those who now hobnob at the police station with the cops in secret meetings then arranging affairs of the PPJPC where the cops are called out on other PPJPC members less religiously inclined than yourselves.
Most of all, this is about trying to make the PPJPC into something other than a religious-run clique, but into a true body of diverse people that for many different reasons are against the US government’s global militarism. You two are opposed to doing so, and hide behind the figure of Gandhi to oppose those who are. The religious and those not religious must be united in a Peace movement, not separated as you would have done.
Disagree with us if you will, but do not falsely label those who differ with you as being less non-nonviolent than yourselves. You are doing the work of the violence-eager police force and local government bodies when you do so. We respect your religious beliefs in nonviolence, but we ask you to not try to force these relgious beliefs that you have off on all others as you have currently justified doing so with your current letter to The Colorado Springs Independent.
We look forward to working with you together in the future as in the past inside the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission.