Tag Archives: ALF

Torture by America, Mayor Lionel Rivera, and the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission

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The issue of how the US government under the Bush Administration, with the help of its Democratic Party and Republican Party collaborators, has legalized and openly allowed the use of torture despite it being internationally illegal is a big issue in our country. Many Americans are up in arms about this, and rightly so. One of the first duties that the pro-Peace/ antiwar community must do is to fight to end governmental use of torture on prisoners held. Common sense guides us on this one. We have to stop open US governmental use of torture NOW.

So where is the local Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission on this one? This is a group that has a pastor leading it at this time, and that also has 3 paid staff members working in its office. What are they doing to fight governmental use of torture against captured prisoners?

It has been months now when I first brought up the need for the PPJPC to demand that the city government pass a resolution against governmental use of torture. After all, Colorado Springs is a part of the USA, so governmental torture of prisoners is something done in our name.

Yes, they do claim that we have a democracy here in the US, so it is claimed that our government represents all of us when it makes policy decisions. Certainly a local peace group then should be demanding that government make the right policy decisions.

At the time it was proposed by me that the PPJPC make it our mission to go to the city government meetings held down at City Hall to try to get a resolution passed demanding an end to governmental use of torture, it was agreed that this was a good idea. It was agreed that the group would move on the issue.

Sad to say, the PPJPC has done absolutely nothing to bring any measure or resolution proposal to the mayor, Lionel Rivera, nor to the Colorado Springs city council. Nobody has ever in this group mentioned any reason to why it should not proceed with this campaign, but the paid office staff and pastor board director have merely chosen to silently do nothing.

These same people do often go to meetings arranged by the city police, where they then proceed to take their marching orders as to how to proceed with their ‘protests’, or not to proceed???, as spoon fed to them by Colorado Springs city attorneys. But they have not found the time to take a measure to the city government to demand that a resolution against the use of governmental torture be passed and sent to Washington DC. Do they really have any excuse for their inaction? I think not.

It is time that the PPJPC begin to carry out its mandate to oppose war and promote justice. We are not doing that at present, but instead are merely acting as a corporation, a non-profit one though. Yes at the present time, we in the PPJPC are of no particular profit to the community, since our group is failing to actually adequately fight on behalf of Justice and Peace.

We, as a group, are failing to demand something of Mayor Lionel Rivera and the city council, and are allowing them to be merely city government hacks captured by Pentagon and Lockheed Corporation. We, at the PPJPC, are failing in our mission to oppose war and injustice. We are failing at being a viable community action group, one that is activist and democratic. We are failing to oppose our government’s active use of torture on POWs.

Afghans persist in face of annihilation

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Horror! The Taliban is reported to have taken back a half-dozen Afghan towns around Kandahar. It’s an inevitable development of course, the catastrophic consequences of which will be equally unavoidable if America sticks to its guns on the matter. Refugees are already pouring out of the areas. Are they fleeing the Taliban fighters? From the reports of our jingoist embed press, how will we ever know? I’m pretty sure the Afghan refugees are fleeing our retaliatory air strikes, which are certain as rain to blanket every living occupant now determined by US precision weapons to be dark skinned combatants. It will be like Waco without the interminable siege. Who are we kidding? Our unmanned drones are named “Predators” and “Reapers.” They’re armed with missiles of “Hellfire.”

Obama fields loaded questions from NPR

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Michele Norris of National Petroleum RelationsA public radio listener wrote to criticize the interview of Barack Obama on NPR’s All Things Considered. They thought the coverage too favorable, plus there was no equal time given to John McCain. I suspect this is the result when public radio courts the lower denominator of the American media audience. Did they hear the same broadcast as I? All six questions posed to Obama were loaded, disguised in the insufferable sucrose voice-of- concern of Michele Norris. Is she the half-wit she pretends if she composed this soft-pitch spit-ball: Democrats are generally regarded as the ‘tax and spend’ party. Are you prepared to tell us that tax-n-spend is good for America?

Actually I was paraphrasing. Here are the six questions, front-loaded with false characterization or innuendo.

1. “The GOP has used the same argument for decades, that tax and spend liberalism is bad for America. ‘Tax and spend’ is almost a hyphenated phrase that’s become equivalent a dirty word. Are tax and spend policies really bad for America or is that what you’re intending to do?”

2. “Its been said many times that the candidate who will win in November will be the one who can convey that they really feel their pain … How do you convey that message?”

3. “It’s said … you just didn’t seem to connect with white working class voters … How will you do that in the general election?”

4. “Do Americans perhaps need a reality check, high gas prices might be here to stay, and are you the person who perhaps is willing to deliver that unwelcome message?”

5. “Will gas prices stay high?”
Trying to force Obama to be the unwelcome messenger.

6. One last question: Lakers or Celtics?
Hoping he’d alienate one half of the listeners or the other. Naturally Obama handled all these questions with aplomb.

The AIPAC friendship society at work

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AIPAC is an organization of friendship, and its work is legendary. A recent film allows us to see just how this melding of minds works in actual practice. See the film over at the BBC and ask yourself, is Zionism really racism?

Don’t these nice Jewish people have the right to protect themselves from stone throwing kids, ‘suicide bombers’, and the like? Don’t they have a right to the land? AIPAC is certainly a nice group of people, right? Certainly Barack Obama thinks so. See the text of Obama’s AIPAC Speech

Isn’t AIPAC working on behalf of a beleaguered and peaceful people? They just need a little more US assistance per Obama to bludgeon the Muslims into the ground? Vote Obama if that is what you want. Vote for Obama if you want more war in the Middle East.

Bush has lost his credibility, but the Man for ‘Change’ will bring the American people back on board for more of the same. He’s Black, you know? Remember Colin Powell?

NMT to live-blog the Belmont Stakes!

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Belmont
The Patriots lost the Superbowl, presaging the break of America’s patriotic streak, relegating it to mud wrestling I thought. But the multimillionaire owners of Big Brown, one race away from the Triple Crown, decided their jockey should wear the Stars and Stripes. I want to be there while the otherwise favorite bites red white & blue hubris.

The 140th Belmont will be NotMyTribe’s first live-blogging exercise. Not too long. Ten minutes to post. I’m off to Google an image.

Image above. Now Big Brown’s trainer has guaranteed a win. More American Bring It On.

There they go! They’re off. Big Brown not far behind. Ichabod trails. On the outside Big Brown. Waits on the outside. Millions riding on this race. For all those unemployed hoping to to live off a bet on the horses.

A half mile to go. Marie’s up on her feet. Swinging her arms at the TV. She points out that Big Brown is last. Into the final 16th. A shocking something. 38 to 1 Da’Tara.

Stars and Stripes last. Hubris Baby.

Another bit of Hysterical Revisionism…

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This one from a purported former head of NORAD, allegedly had his finger on the Nuclear Trigger for 3 years therefore he knows all there is to know about radical Islam.

He spouted that Islam had been attacking the West since the 7th century, that it was and is and always will be about envy of Western achievements.

This doesn’t jibe well with the fact that in the 7th century, Europe was in the darkest part of the Dark Ages, Rome had just fallen forever, and none of the Kings of Europe including Charlemagne and his Daddy, Charles Martel, could even so much as write their own names. Some enlightened Western thought there, yes?

While and at the time what we now think of as the Muslim World were far far ahead of the West in every matter of art, literature and science. They invented Chess, Algebra, and chemistry. Amongst others.

But the Good Major General Some-name-or-other doesn’t let facts get in his way, no sir…

Next up is the assertion that the European powers decimated Islam to the point that they took centuries to crawl up to the level of whatever…

Again, REAL History rears its ugly head…

The European Powers managed to kill more Europeans than they did Arabs, and far more Europeans than the Arabs did. These would be European Jews and CHRISTIANS.

People who cite the Crusades as a shining example of Christian virtue, well, damn, what if they’re right and that actually IS the best Christianity has ever accomplished? I as a Christian am constantly defending my faith against the best efforts of these Bozoes to defile and destroy it. But never mind.

After getting kicked out of Jerusalem a scant 70 years after they had finally won it, they brought back to Europe the beginnings of the Renaissance, mainly in the form of Persian and Turkish and Arabic technology. They also opened up a corridor of Plague which not just figuratively Decimated Europe, it was like 3 and a half TIMES decimated…

Decimation means dropping your population by 10%.

So, according to the NutSack General, (God, PLEASE let the punk read this, PLEASE?) what happened was the diametric opposite of what actually did happen.

Another thing the Crusades brought to Europe, (and the Crusades aren’t officially over, mind you, nor is the Inquisition, just ask Pope Ratzinger) were more Christian-on-Christian and Christian-on-Jew crimes like the 30 years War, the Hundred Years War, war after war after war and all in the name of Religious Purity, and…

using the Crusades as their guideline.

World War One and the Spanish “Civil” War and of course WW2 were the almost culmination of it, but, wait, THERE’S MORE! Every stinkin’ single war of the 20th century can be traced to the massive defeat Europe took during the Crusades.

But hey, they put a Hate-Freak like THAT in charge of America’s Nukes?

…and he has the ear of the Bush Crime Family and their newly adopted son, John McCain.

so long, Mom…
I’m off
to drop
the Bomb…

McCain was dubbed the “POW Songbird”

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An excerpt from prisoner of war John McCain’s November 9, 1967 interview for the North Vietnamese newspaper NHAN DAN:
McCain told vietcong about US attack procedures
Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain have released a fact sheet on the highly decorated hero’s service in Vietnam. If this is reminiscent of the Swiftboat shits against John Kerry, at least these vets have the official records and news reports. Apparently John McCain III crashed a total of five planes, received one and a half medals per hour of service, and while the admiral’s son was pampered in the Hanoi Hilton, his extensive singing earned him the name “POW Songbird.”

FACT SHEET: Military record of John Sidney McCain III

Both McCain III’s father and grandfather were Admirals in the United States Navy. His father Admiral John S. ”Junior” McCain was commander of U.S. forces in Europe – later commander of American forces in Vietnam while McCain III was being held prisoner of war. His grandfather John S. McCain, Sr. commanded naval aviation at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

McCain III, like his father and grandfather, also attended the United States Naval Academy. McCain III finished near the bottom of his graduating class in 1958.

McCain III lost five U.S. Navy aircraft

1 – Student pilot McCain III lost jet number one in 1958 when he plunged into Corpus Christi Bay while practicing landings.

2 – Pilot McCain III lost another plane two years later while he was deployed in the Mediterranean. ”Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral.

3 – Pilot McCain III lost number three in 1965 when he was returning from flying a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. McCain III radioed, ”I’ve got a flameout” and ejected at one thousand feet. The plane crashed to the ground and McCain III floated to a deserted beach.

4 – Combat pilot McCain III lost his fourth on July 29, 1967, soon after he was assigned to the USS Forrestal as an A-4 Skyhawk combat pilot. While waiting his turn for takeoff, an accidently fired rocket slammed into McCain Jr’s. plane. He escaped from the burning aircraft, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and threatened to sink the ship.

5 – Combat pilot McCain III lost a fifth plane three months later (Oct. 26, 1967) during his 23rd mission over North Vietnam when he failed to avoid a surface-to-air missile. McCain III ejected from the plane breaking both arms and a leg in the process and subsequently parachuted into Truc Bach Lake near Hanoi. After being pulled from the lake by the North Vietnamese, McCain III was bayoneted in his left foot and shoulder and struck by a rifle butt. He was then transported to the Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton.

1973 New York Daily News labeled POW McCain III a “PW Songbird”

On McCain III’s fourth day of being denied medical treatment, slapped, and threatened with death by the communist (they were demanding military information in exchange for medical treatment), McCain III broke and told his interrogator, ”O.K., I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.” U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973 article written by former POW John McCain.

It was then that the communist learned that McCain III’s father was Admiral John S. McCain, the soon-to-be commander of all U.S. Forces in the Pacific. The Vietnamese rushed McCain III to Gai Lam military hospital (U.S. government documents), a medical facility normally unavailable for U.S. POWs.

By Nov. 9, 1967 (U.S. government documents) Hanoi press was quoting McCain III describing his mission including the number of aircraft in his flight, information about rescue ships, and the order of which U.S. attacks would take place.

While still in North Vietnam’s military hospital, McCain III gave an interview to prominent French television reporter Francois Chalais for a series titled Life in Hanoi. Chalais’ interview with McCain III was aired in Europe.

Vietnamese doctors operated on McCain’s Leg in early December, 1967. Six weeks after he was shot down, McCain was taken from the hospital and delivered to a U.S. POW camp.

In May of 1968, McCain III allowed himself to be interviewed by two North Vietnamese generals at separate times.” May 14, 1973 article written by former POW John McCain In August 1968, other POWs learned for the first time that John McCain III had been taken prisoner.

On June 5, 1969, the New York Daily News reported in a article headlined REDS SAY PW SONGBIRD IS PILOT SON OF ADMIRAL,

“…Hanoi has aired a broadcast in which the pilot son of United States Commander in the Pacific, Adm. John McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner…”

The Washington Post explained McCain III’s broadcast:

“The English-Language broadcast beamed at South Vietnam was one of a series using American prisoners. It was in response to a plea by Defense Secretary Melvin S. Laird, May 19, that North Vietnam treat prisoners according to the humanitarian standards set forth by the Geneva Convention.”

In 1970, McCain III agreed to an interview with Dr. Fernando Barral, a Spanish psychiatrist who was living in Cuba at the time.

The meeting between Barral and McCain III (which was photographed by the Vietnamese) took place away from the prison at the office of the Committee for Foreign Cultural Relations in Hanoi (declassified government document). During the meeting, POW McCain sipped coffee and ate oranges and cakes with the Cuban.

While talking with Barral, McCain III further seriously violated the military Code of Conduct by failing to evade answering questions ”to the utmost of his ability” when he, according government documents, helped Barral by answering questions in Spanish, a language McCain had learned in school. The interview was published in January 1970.

McCain III was released from North Vietnam March 15, 1973

In 1993, during one of his many trips back to Hanoi, McCain asked the Vietnamese not to make public any records they hold pertaining to returned U.S. POWs. McCain III claims, that while a POW, he tried to kill himself.

McCain III was awarded “medals for valor” equal to nearly a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat

For 23 combat missions (an estimated 20 hours over enemy territory), the U.S. Navy awarded McCain III, the son of famous admirals, a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars, two Commendation medals plus two Purple Hearts and a dozen service medals.

“McCain had roughly 20 hours in combat,” explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs — the first official U.S. representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon.

“Since McCain got 28 medals,” Bell continued, “that equals to about a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat. There were infantry guys — grunts on the ground — who had more than 7,000 hours in combat and I can tell you that there were times and situations where I’m sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by comparison. The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down.”

No one is faulting John McCain for collaborating with his Vietnamese captors. He survived captivity, however arduous or not. It is enough to say he is a survivor. It would be too much though to call him a hero.

Socially Retarded Animated Sphincter

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Who ran over my cane yesterday.

I had gone downtown, complete with my bicycle and trailer, to pick up a computer for my landlady. (it’s a nice one too…) Just by co-inky-dink it was right across the street from Toons and in a truly amazing co-inky-dink Eric happened to be there… and Marie, and we shared some Vegetarian Munchies and good fellowship, then I went on home… with a minor mishap on the way.

I’d gone about a block or so, and the load shifted on my trailer.

I stopped in the alley and was rearranging the stuff when some freak Yuppie in a big ass SUV came down the alley. Seeing me in distress and struggling to get everything done so as not to inconvenience folks, by dropping everything off my trailer or something, he did the natural thing, instead of spending maybe a half minute of his time turning around and going out one of the 5 or 6 other exits from the alley, he crowded past me, and in the process of so doing, ran smooth over my cane.

I only assume it was “he” all I could see was a massive Grey Monster Car running over my cane and barely missing me. Then drove off like nothing had happened.

What could possibly be so damned important on a Friday evening that he couldn’t invest a half minute of his time avoiding actually running over somebody’s only means of transportation? When I’m not on the bicycle, that cane is my lifeline.

Jonah's CaneIt’s still useable, as one can see from the picture, just ugly as home-made soap.

(I need a better camera)

Maybe he thought I was homeless, which shouldn’t make any difference. People ALL have rights… unless the rich or Near-Rich want to take those rights, in which case never mind…

This action is mind-boggling rudeness. If he had run me personally over, instead of just my cane, I strongly believe it would have made him not one whit more difference.

This is a not very gentle reminder that the first shots in any Class War are never fired by the “lower class”.

I’m sure it’s possible to drive an SUV without being a total asswipe. Just seems this guy didn’t want to put out that much effort.

Riot police were standing by on Saturday

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State Democratic Convention riot police contingent redeployed to concert brawlCOLORADO SPRINGS- Channel 5/30 News reporters were called away from the World Arena last Saturday to cover a stabbing at a public music event at the flea market. A fight broke out in a crowd of 2000 people and the first responders found themselves undermanned. Fortuitously, riot police had been standing by at the Democratic State Convention. At 1:30pm, this contingent (or fraction) was redeployed to provide backup. The KOAA TV camera captured the hardware the CSPD had anticipated needing to provide convention security on this otherwise harmonious and peaceful, uncloudy and idyllic Colorado Springs Saturday at the World Arena.

The riot police arrived via a sleepy Mountain Metro Transit bus.
Deployed by city bus

Anticipating a violent confrontation.
Upper body armor

Full and half plexi-glass shields.
Two types of shields

Do CSPD officers wear caps anymore?
Kevlar helmets

Looking for provocation.
Waiting with knuckles dragging

Showing their number.
Police line

“Coincidentally, a ‘crowd control’ team of police officers equipped with riot gear was already on standby across town at the State Democratic Convention.”

Advice for next DC Madam

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All sex worker administrators working in financial capitals DC or NY or London may want to take note, when affairs go awry, you are entangled with the vice squad, and you are hailed as that episode’s “DC Madam,” consider making your client list known far and wide, instead of hoping to parlay it for reduced charges. Whether convicted or not, you will shortly be found dead, by your hand, without a sign of foul play. A suicide, like journalists, aids, and other compromised folk before you.

Did Deborah Palfrey have any chance, like her colleague Brandy Britton three months before her? Both met with suicide before their tales could really go viral. The Pamela Martin & Associates agency catered to the most powerful mobsters in the world. Including but bigger than US Senators, Vitter or his ilk, including but bigger than government agency or military heads. The now dead girls were in bed with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and USAID. Can you name badder johns? Putin’s KGB gang, serviced by the Russian gymnastics team, comes in a distant minor league.

National Day of Prayer versus May Day

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Join us this May DayA billion years to raise the tree frog
 
A hundred million years of lovers curling against each other in sleep
 
Half a million years of campfire sparks ascending to the stars
 
Twenty-one centuries since Spartacus and his fellow slaves brought Rome to its knees
 
Two centuries since the Luddites demonstrated the proper treatment of workplace technology
 
One hundred and twenty years since the Chicago government used the Haymarket disturbance to justify the execution of seven innocent men: “Hang these men and you kill Anarchy in this country!”

A century since anarchist Leon Czolgosz proved them wrong by assassinating President William McKinley

Eighty years since Henry Ford tried to buy off workers with the weekend

Sixteen years since the rioters of Los Angeles showed what it takes to get justice in this country

Eight and a half years since the WTO protests shattered plate glass in Seattle and complacency across the world

One day to gather in our communities, to celebrate the coming of spring and the potential of resistance

Counting the days to our next chance to make history

Eleven weeks to the international day of action against climate change called to coincide with the G8 meetings in Russia*

Eight months to plan unpermitted marches and rowdy street parties for New Year’s Eve

Nine months to prepare a surprise for the next Presidential Inauguration

A decade to establish radical social centers and free schools in every community

Twenty years to explore everything that can be accomplished while wearing a mask

A generation to replace grocery stores with gardens and cough syrup with licorice root

A century for dairy cows and toy poodles to go feral

Five hundred years to melt down cannons into wine goblets, water pipes and sleigh bells

A millennium for the dandelions growing out of the sidewalk to become redwoods

…and the rest of eternity to enjoy

(*Adapted from Crimethinc, MAYDAY 2006)

Star gazing close to home

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On my walk today, I noticed something that looked like a tiny planetarium on a neighbor’s deck.
 
“Is that a planetarium on your deck?” I asked, half kidding.
 
“No,” he replied. “It’s a telescope.”
 
“Really? Like a Celestron?”
 
Smiling, he shook his head. “No, not like a Celestron.”
 
Check out what my neighbor does in his spare time.

Do 700,000 dead kids mean anything?

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Do you have feelings one way or another about your friends in the media business? It’s easy, I realize, if you’re not particularly activated about the war, to have no opinion about what the media is or is not telling you. It’s easy to remain apolitical if the news you hear doesn’t resonate with any alarm. You ask: “Everyone is against the war, why belabor the point?”

Some weapons involved the deliberate targeting of childrenLet me put it to you this way. Let’s say that over the hill, on the other side of the world, 700,000 Iraqi children were being murdered. You may or may not know that, I excuse you for not knowing, 700,000 is a rough estimate extrapolated from the Johns Hopkins calculation that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed since the US invasion. We know that over half of the population are children. I can forgive you not knowing, but I have a harder time forgiving those who do know, and don’t want to tell you.

You’d think the death of 700,000 children would be cause for alarm.

Do you think if you knew about 700,000 children being killed, and that your fellow citizens knew, that you might be able to raise an objection, collectively, and prevail against your elected representatives to have the killing stopped? Perhaps we disagree on whether you could make a difference or not, or would be moved to make that difference. But I’m pretty damned sure that seeing 700,000 kids burned, strafed, sniped, exploded, starved, poisoned or run over, would prompt a universal humanitarian outcry, your voice included, and eventually the perpetrators would have to relent. That’s a likely reason, I believe, why you and others are not being shown the killing.

They watch 700,000 Iraqi kids die so you don’t have to.

Now what do you think of the people in the position to know, atop the hill, with an overview and the best analysts to deduce the horror being masked by military spokesmen? What do you think about those news people deciding not to tell you about it? The only people with the power to spread the word, with the power to save the children by alerting the rest of the world to the continuing slaughter; what is your opinion of those people?

Now it’s true, they have bosses who are beholden to the corporations that earn a ton from selling the weapons used to kill the kids. There’s oil afoot, and huge contracts, and all sort of profit to reap, and hell, an anti-capitalism spiritual belief system to tamp down. The corporate media have their reasons, and the newscasters are but people like you and me trying to hang on to their jobs. But 700,000 children. Should you begrudge the bastards 700,000 Iraqi children?

I’ve called them bastards, those with the means to cry out the alarm for the next 700,000 children who’ll die by the hands of our soldiers, our administrators, or our neglect. They won’t tell you about it, and you’ll profess your ignorance and meanwhile resent all attempts at intercession. I say those newsmen are bastards who would cover up for the crime of 700,000 murdered children. In what kind of regard do you hold them?

Pictures in remembrance of Elizabeth

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Elizabeth FineronA memorial will be held for Wilma Joanne “Elizabeth” Fineron at Benet Hill Chapel, 2pm Monday April 28.
 
Steve Handon will officiate the ceremony. The music will be performed by First Strike Theater alumni. Benet Hill Monastery is at 2577 Chelton Rd. The chapel is located behind the school.
 
The Gazette wrote that Elizabeth walked her talk, the Indy featured a similar tribute. CSAction reprinted an email Elizabeth sent about her hospital ordeal.
 
Below we’ve collected some pictures of Elizabeth.

Early portrait

Already a knowing smile

On the steps with brother and cousin

Long blond hair

Becoming a nun

With friends in Woodland Park

Irish

In the afternoon sun

Birthday

Gathering with friends

Big smile

For a tribute and more pictures, click here.
For an amusing photo sequence, click here.

Elizabeth sent this email about her difficulties at the hospital:

I have had a very rough medical month and a half. I went into Memorial with Pneumonia the second week of March. While there they planned for me to return to have the right Corroded Artery done and in the meantime they sent me to Health South Rehab to work on balance. I stayed there a few days and returned home to wait two days to go back to Memorial for the surgery. I had the surgery and went home. At home I watched the hematoma on my neck get bigger and bigger and me get “dimmer and dimmer”. On Monday I saw Dr. Carlson and the next day (April 1st) I returned to Memorial for him to go in and heal the INFECTION. While in my neck he accidentally cut into the artery. In order to stop the bleeding he had to cut the main nerve to my tongue. A plastic surgeon (Dr. James) came and sewed up the tongue. Then Dr. Carlson put a patch on the Artery. Two days later he went back in to remove the patch and put a vein from the leg. While in something happened to my vocal cord. They kept me in Memorial a few more days and sent me back to Health Care South. I just got home yesterday and will have home medical care for a while. I feel very withdrawn from every thing so Paulette, if you want to call me or come visit me that would be terrific and I can get caught up. Love you both.

Elizabeth.

Will race protest be curtains for Obama?

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If Al Sharpton has his way, it’s the end of Obama.
 
The policemen in New York City were let off for pumping fifty bullets into an unarmed black man, a young bridegroom on the eve of his wedding. Racism is alive and well at the NYPD, and an angry protest by Americans of Color, calling for recognition of racism and reform of the New York police department, will amplify the issue further.

Meanwhile in Pleasantville USA, the suggestion had been ceremoniously posited to the American television audience, and spun without a ripple of discord, that in one eloquent moment last March, Barack Obama transcended the color barrier and dispatched racism to the circular file of American folklore. What a glorious feeling it was, to imagine our nation ready for a smart man in the presidency, regardless his color, but someone forgot to read the memo at the NYPD.

If the black community in NYC gets up in arms about the recent verdict, and does object to policemen, even black ones, being permitted to gun down innocents who fit suspicious profiles, ie. are black –if there is a indeed still a racial divide– what then happens to the colorblind society tapped to elect Obama in November?

If racial tensions build in NYC, Obama is not going to be half white enough.

I’ll vote for a black man, so will you, so will every Democrat on our horizon, but can you speak for the Hoosiers and hillbillies beyond? They have the vote too. Cops have the vote. NASCAR fans and Christian bigots and Rush viewers have the vote too. Lets also throw in Fox viewers, and the CNN misinformed, and everyone who is going to be barraged with the already uninterrupted glowing tributes of maverick, heroic, white man father-knows-best Hi-Ho-Silver McCain.

The worst thing the media could muster about McCain, as an equal time aside, while it was percolating the Obama mystique, was that McCain was too old. They joked about it dismissively, as if McCain had not a black man’s chance in Mayberry. McCain has gotten no younger, but the media will call it a comeback, and we can add that to their new-leaf effusive attaboy of McCain.

Support Our Homeless Troops

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COLORADO SPRINGS- I watched yesterday as a group of homeless men disbanded beneath an underpass. I remarked how their yet unbent frames and close-shaved heads made them appear more menacing than usual. Then I noticed one had a graphite prosthetic calf, and I thought about our vets who disappear themselves into being vagabonds. Homelessness is elective you could say, like despondency or suicide. If one in four of America’s homeless are veterans, why not tell us what that fraction amounts to? They must know.

Americans were just leaked the number of suicides among our soldiers and veterans. It’s more even than have died in the Iraq war. We hear about the seemingly haphazard suicides, self-destructive acts and reckless endangerments, but who puts it together? Did you imagine the tally as a result of the war would be so high?

Probably the incidence of PTSD, they say now 30%, is equally under-documented. Who will contravene with the VA, the DoD and the State Department to give us the real totals?

Americans recently honored the 4,000th US casualty in Iraq. What was THAT milestone for? The American Friends Service Committee had been circulating a collection of army boots –Eyes Wide Open, before the number became unmanageable– to correspond to the official US losses. It didn’t occur to me how some military families might feel left out by that count. What about the non-combat deaths, or the wounded who expire stateside? What about the suicides, or the brain-dead? What about the broken bodies who would be over-represented by a pair of boots, who would need a single boot, or none at all?

What is the real figure so far, of US lives sacrificed to the war? What fraction of a Vietnam wall memorial are they setting aside for the true casualty count? Enough for ten thousand? Is our tally of wasted-lives several times that?

I want to know where are the yokels who make a big deal about supporting the troops? Where are they while homeless vets look for heat and food? Where is the support for young men haunted to the point of committing suicide? Is that yellow sticker on your car the furthest extent to which you support the troops? Do you hope your sticker remains obscured in the garage until the homeless vets pass?

I hope the yellow ribbon Support the Troops sticker comes to mean you’re good for a meal, a ride, a place to sleep, or spare change for a drink. I didn’t support the troops, what they did and still do, or the trouble they find themselves in now that their killing duty is served. You encouraged them, you’re still welcoming them home and cheering their continued deployment. You broke these young men, now support them.

Garrett Reppenhagen Winter Soldier

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COLORADO COLLEGE- Iraq Veterans Against the War held a mini- Wintersoldier hearing this evening at the Max Kade Theatre in Armstrong Hall. They screened the original 1970 documentary, originally unseen in this country and unavailable until just recently on DVD. Afterwards four soldiers told of their experiences in Iraq. IVAW chairman Garrett Reppenhagen told an interesting story:

Have you ever seen pictures of fighter planes which bore tiny icons beneath the cockpit indicating how many planes they’d downed? Well some US soldiers in Iraq were putting little “car” stickers on their windshield to show how many cars they’d bumped off the road or totaled. Military vehicles are instructed to stop for nothing, so cars moving too slowly or stopped by traffic are simply hit and pushed out of the way. Commanders eventually had to forbid the stickers when the drivers’ views were being impaired by too many stickers. You could earn half stickers for dogs, or bikes or people.

Garrett was at the 50mm gun in a convoy when the humvee ahead swerved to hit an Iraqi child. The vehicle did not come close enough so the driver swung open his door to extend his reach. Garrett explained that armored doors are so heavy that they require two soldiers to lift them on or off their hinges. He’s certain the Iraqi boy was killed on impact.

When they returned to their FOP, Garrett was relieved to see an officer approach the guilty driver and scold him loudly for his actions. Later the very disgruntled soldier revealed that he was not reprimanded for striking the boy, but rather for having opened his door, exposing his fellow soldiers to the risk of gunfire.

To Recreate 68 at the Denver DNC is not a call to incite a Rumble in the Jungle

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Free the Conspiracy EightContrary to the hype it is encouraging, RECREATE-68 does not want to recreate the violent clashes of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. That would have to be up to the police. While we know the Chicago Seven (+1) and their cohorts did not go quietly, it is now also well admitted that the violence in 1968 was perpetrated by the Chicago police without provocation.

I don’t think anyone wants to relive that brutality again, especially as riot police today have much more debilitating and potentially lethal weaponry. Recent demonstrations, as in Seattle against the WTO and in Miami against the FTAA, have seen militarized police force used against a well intended, if obviously outraged, outcry.

Last week at a public debate against Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown, Recreate-68 event coordinator Glen Spagnuolo made clear that they are not interested in receiving a beating or permanent injury at the hands of overzealous police. Of course the catch-phrase “recreate 68” does titillate with accompanying slogans like “Do It in Denver,” but this is done to pique people’s interest, and it has accomplished that.

Recreate-68 is determined to get people engaged with the DNC, in the streets, instead of in front of their televisions as passive spectators to the usurping of their power. The Democrats are party to continued funding of the war, raiding the US treasury for the rich, denying Americans universal health care, taking away our civil liberties with the Patriot Act, and colluding with murder, torture and profiteering. If the American people go along with these crimes, they are accomplices. Too bad they are also the victims. Official channels do not permit people to raise their voices above a silent consent. The DNC in August, in Denver, is opportunity knocking in the streets.

When party organizations admonish you to work through the system, they perpetuate their power to deny progressive reforms. The will of the people has only ever expressed itself through protest. Democracy, Human Rights, Abolition, Suffrage, Child Labor, Civil Rights, Pacifism. We have only made these gains by collective action. A redress of grievances is what it’s called in the constitution. I can just hear Democratic representatives saying, “oh we can’t go that that far, we could never get elected if we advocated for such extremist reforms.” They are undoubtedly right, because real reform is always up to you. But as much as Obama can urge you to feel hopeful, “you” doesn’t mean you voting for a representative who is promising you in actuality nothing.

Recreate 68 is about recreating the sense of connectivity Americans held in 1968, when young and old put their bodies into the line of fire desperate to bring an end to the disastrous Vietnam War. The people’s movement of the sixties had been growing, led by men soon assassinated. Students were rioting in London and Paris, and Cassius Clay was suspended from boxing for having declared himself a conscientious objector. By 1968 people understood that nothing would change unless they did it themselves.

Today we are into the sixth year of the Iraq War and there is no American antiwar momentum to speak of. There are diverse projects on the internet and in sporadic protests, but the US effort is a pitiable movement compared to the public outcry overseas.

Particularly lacking are young people. You may say it is because there is no draft, but enough are still volunteering to fight. I rather think that the youthful opposition is absent because of No Child Left Behind. Our children are being educated to be uncritical thinkers, in particular, narcissists and apolitical bubble babies with no immunity to corporate misinformation. They may be cynical, and clever by half, to the extent that they lack a social conscience. As a result, their forever adolescent thinking that nothing can touch them keeps them civically disengaged until it is too late and they are indebted to the machine.

The youthful cynicism which the slick corporate media celebrates as hip irreverence keeps kids from caring for their fellow people, and certainly holds them from believing that anything they do can make a difference. Look at the average age of the typical social activists. They’re past middle age. Is this a coincidence?

Young Americans, even up to age thirty something, are so jaded to have become tragically ineffectual. Electoral politics might be the extreme of their participation, and look where it will get them, against fraudulent pollsters and rigged voting systems.

I’m curious about what will happen in Denver if Recreate-68 is able to mobilize the youth. Perhaps kids will only be able to express themselves as Grand-Theft-Auto and Half-Life have taught them, as our soldiers are doing, cast adrift in Iraq. In that case, the disembodied violence to which we carelessly expose them will have come home to roost. If Denver becomes a riot, it is a development I think we will need to face.

For my part, I hope we can recreate 68. Let’s break through the media moratorium on the social issues important to us. Let’s remind the TV populace that we want to hold at least our Democratic Party politicians accountable to listen to our needs. If the candidates will not, and we’ve already learned that someone like Dennis Kucinich cannot get the nomination, perhaps the party system is too phony to matter.

What if the Democrats are only shills for the Republicans in charge? I believe the Democratic convention might only be setting up a candidate to lose to John McCain. For example, do you think Americans are ready to elect a woman or a black man to the presidency? I’d like to think so too, but I have a feeling the media is prepared to inform us in November, “oh, so close but no cigar!” Who is suggesting that Americans are past the gender or race card? Is it the corporate media, tool of the rich white man? Since when did the average American TV viewer wise up? George W. Bush’s approval rating was already at a dismal low when Americans reelected him in 2004. This, even after televised debates showed unequivocally that Bush was the dunce everyone remembered from the back of their classroom. Even if Bush didn’t really win in 2004, as in 2000, at least there were enough dumb white voters to make it look legitimate. Are those constituents going to vote for an unexperienced, non-veteran non-white Obama? Those errant voters are still out there, you see them, they still have W-04 stickers on their cars. And the the black box vote counting, voter registration and poll both gate-keeping are still in the hands of Republicans.

If the Democratic Party really hopes to represent the people, it has to do much better. If the Democratic Party is not prepared to offer Americans a real alternative to the corrupt misrepresentation in Washington, we can find better entertainment with the charades of the WWWF. Should the Dems hear this from you? Is your representative listening or still asking you to show patience? Take him or her to the mat, in Denver, in August.

Money for COS buses is going to HWY 24

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COLORADO SPRINGS- Instead of spending a quarter Billion (minimum bid) to widen two miles of HWY 24, they should/could but probably ain’t would spend half that and double the number of bus routes.

Y’all do realize that the widening of the road is for the people who are building their multi-million dollar houses on the side of the mountain, (the ones that are going to slide into Bear Creek, mountain ground isn’t all that stable, especially when you modify it) and for the dumbasses who are going to get sucked in to Our Very Own Local Love Canal aka the “luxury apartments” they’re fixing to install on top of that toxic waste dum(b)p… no question mark because it isn’t a question.

Folks in Teller and Park counties (the loudmouths who think they run the counties) are yelling that opposition to the widening the road is hurting them… or at least, the developers.

They don’t have enough water in those counties to support the current populations.

But like the song sayeth,

“why they tried to tear the mountain down, to bring in a couple more..
More people, more scars upon the land”

Oh, and lest some of the people who haven’t read what all else was written about that particularly huge monstrous sore spot are browsing, that “road improvement” won’t actually benefit the Teller and Park county folks, it ends up at the corner of HWY 24 and 24W-Business… where the Sinclair station is… right by the big plastic dinosaur… which in turn is right behind the BUS stop.

The Dirty Half-Dozen Dozen Dozen

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Unleashing hell as they burn in itThe DoD records for 2007 reveal Army, Marines allow more convicts to enlist and Army doubled felony waivers and US military ups recruitment of criminals and Double number of ex-cons join the US army. The variation in the headlines invites the question: which is it- 861 cons or ex-cons? Is the army enlisting soldiers from the prison population, or from the post-rehabilitated? I’m not sure if either is more unsavory to train to shout “Kill! Kill! Kill!” These are men guilty of burglary mainly, and aggravated assault, but also manslaughter and rape. Representing for the US.

Remember Lee Marvin and the Dirty Dozen? In a fictional WWII adventure, a squad of hardened convicts was offered a reprieve from their prison sentences in exchange for volunteering to join a suicidal commando mission. Given the arrangement would have been kept a secret, we’re left to imagine that it could have actually happened. The film came out in 1967, when redemption through patriotism, manslaughter for flag and country as atonement for vile crimes, might have had some appeal.

Can you imagine being an Afghan or Iraqi, your life, your home, your family, your future, in the hands of a criminal/ex-criminal? If there’s a common denominator with law-breakers, it isn’t just immorality, it’s bad judgment, and dare I say it, none-too-brightness. The US military is committing a war crime to put the lives of occupied peoples in such hands. The Geneva Conventions stipulate that care of civilians must be responsible and adequate. At least Marvin and fiends were only tasked with shooting everything up.

An Army spokesman minimized the recruiting development thus:

“We are a reflection of American society and the changes that affect it: today’s young men and women are more overweight, have a greater incidence of asthma and are being charged for offenses that in earlier years wouldn’t have been considered a serious offense, and might not have resulted in charges in the first place.”

For those of you concerned only for our soldiers’ welfare, there’s a big problem there too. At least the Dirty Dozen were self-contained, messing only with each other’s psychopathic urges. The 6x12x12 degenerate recruits who entered US military service in 2007, up from 457 in 2006, are integrated into the ranks of all the branches. Your sons or daughter have to serve side by side with these dubious bedfellows.

Higher food prices now being driven by higher fuel prices

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We can now see the first effects of the world energy crisis, as local grocery stores are creeping their prices of basic foods upward. The dollar stores also are not exactly dollar stores these days, and never will be again. There are two reasons for these price hikes.

First off, the Pentagon is doing this to us. We are throwing them money (and hence the military suppliers and contractors money, too) like it is going out of style. This is money we simply don’t have, and therefore it is coming from loans to our government, who then passes it off to those that have literally bought the government.

We know who eventually will get stuck with paying off these bad debts, too. It will be the working class and lower middle class of our country. And meanwhile, the rich suck at this gigantic welfare program (teat) with absolutely no shame, as they wave the American flag outside all their offices pretending to be the great patriots. The lower echelons of this fraud get 10% off!

Second cause of the rising prices is simply that we have hit the crisis of declining world oil supplies head on, and nobody has any solution to it beyond trying to corner the world supply (Thank you, Dick Cheney and Dumbo Dubya). But capturing control of world petroleum supply doesn’t exactly increase it, even if such a plot were to be ever successful. All in all, we still have yet to come up with an alternative to the mobility of oil transport, and we are dependent on oil, as we have been for all the later half of the industrial revolution.

Some think that the solution is turning back to coal. Some think it is turning to the deadly nuclear option. Some dream of sun, hydrogen fuel cells, and wind. Meanwhile, in the real world, it is still oil that fuels civilization, uh ‘civilization’ as we know it.

We currently have a rapacious economic system that expands constantly at nature’s expense. Nature is now fed up with it, even if our family and neighbors are not. Nature is run down, and will be run out if we continue this way.

Meanwhile, the prices have begun to inch up and we grow uncomfortable here at home. Elsewhere, things have grown more desperate from the start. Ahead, it is $4/ gallon prices this summer, and the sky will certainly be the limit. Oil barrel prices flown up from below $10 a barrel (not adjusted for inflation) as close back as the mid- ’80s some 22 years ago, to heading towards $120 a barrel right now. It is easy to see how our dollars are now being turned to pennies and we haven’t seen anything yet.

There are some horrible times for the world ahead as the world begins to run into shorter and shorter supply of oil. Meanwhile, let’s shop if we can, shall we not? It’s going to be much harder to do that soon.

Manitou Springs tribute to my mother

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Lifetime achievement awardMANITOU SPRINGS- (Last night my mother Kathy Verlo was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Open Space activists at the Manitou City Council. I was overcome by their gracious tribute. Here are the notes I prepared in thanks.)
 
I’d like to thank you so much for this recognition of my mother, and assure you that my father very much wanted to be here today. He intended to be here, but inadvertently scheduled a trip, and as an afterthought realized the conflict. He asked me to relay his gratitude and apology.

It is actually fitting that my father is missing this meeting by being away on a trip, because travel was always a bone of contention he shared with my mother. They both liked to maintain their connections around the world, but my mother’s sense of obligation to the local community was very strong, and when she served on the city council, her responsibilities became more regimented. When my father would propose an idea for a trip, my mother would agree, so long as she could be back to Manitou by the next Tuesday City Council meeting. This posed an interesting challenge for their travels. Sometimes Mom would have to return early, often she would not go along at all. So it is hardly a coincidence that after her death, my father has been away with more frequency.

I relate this detail about my mother, not to reflect on her dedication to this city, but to illustrate the determination she showed to make a difference, and the effort she knew it required. I can imagine that all of you serving on the council right now know full well this task. I’m sure a number of you are very reluctant to miss a single meeting, less the interests of opposing parties take advantage of your absence. This was how my mother was able to hold steadfast to the ideals she believed in. This was the strategy required to stand firm against the development of areas now celebrated as open space. She lost plenty of battles, but with a great deal of help from you, won some important ones, and that’s why we are here today.

Now… in Kathy’s spirit, I would like to divert my remarks for a moment. I’ll confess straight off I’m barely brave enough to do it without this preamble, but I’d like to take advantage of this podium to address an important issue, and I hope some of you recognize this as vintage Kathy. No matter the occasion, it was never about my mother, but about what could be accomplished with each given opportunity. You could be discussing last week’s flier, but at the same time, she would be handing you another flier.

I have to rush from this meeting, to another scheduled at the same time, the annual meeting of the ACLU, where we are discussing free speech and the limitations being considered at the State Democratic Convention to be held in Colorado Springs in May. There are plenty of issues to protest, relative to what neither major party is doing, and I hope any or all of you seize this chance to advocate for your particular concerns when the state delegates arrive to put together their party platform.

As well, I’ve passed out fliers to many of you already about an event happening this Sunday at Colorado College, related to KRCC 91.5 on the radio. Amy Goodman, of the news show Democracy Now, is paying a visit, and will speak about the current state of the nation at 3 o’clock on Sunday. Please come. We worked very hard to bring Democracy Now to KRCC, my mother included, but they’ve put the show in a terribly unpopular time-slot, 7pm weekdays. Are you able to listen to Amy Goodman at that time? Undoubtedly not. In fact, she’s on right now, and we are attending a meeting. One of many.

Democracy Now is a wildly popular news program, wherever it’s carried. Many people stream it off the internet, and it keeps everyone so much better informed than the usual corporate media sources, including NPR. Public radio listeners think they are well served by NPR until they hear Amy Goodman, and then they become just sick about how they are being betrayed by corporate spin.

We have to spread that sickness to as many people as possible. If we can convince KRCC to reschedule Democracy Now to the morning drive hour, many more people will, not by accident, become immediately better acquainted with world events. There will be no more uncritical interviews with only government spokesmen or think-tanks to hear “the surge is working” or to keep placing a question mark after “global warming.”

If more of your friends and neighbors get to hear more than the corporate-interest-only news, you won’t have to do as much proselytizing yourself. You will more readily find agreement on issues that benefit our community. Like the environment, and health care, and social inequity, and peace. Instead of the media diverting us with issues like Free-Tibet, more of us will question “hey, is the CIA behind the unrest in Tibet?” Fewer of us might advocate for militarized intervention to Save-Darfur if we are asking “hey, is this about our oil companies fighting with China over who gets their hands on the Sudan?” The list goes on.

The opportunity Democracy Now presents is an urgent one. All of you, I know, have interests in bettering our community and in particular issues you’d like to become better understood. Your biggest hurdle is an uniformed public, and your biggest adversary by far is the media which keeps them that way. We can seize hold of that media, locally, by making it more responsive to the people. Like any enterprise, there will be so much less to do later, if we do more now. Please come on Sunday and lobby KRCC to do this for the community.

I’m going to make this same appeal tonight to the ACLU folk, and other ensuing gatherings this week, so I hope we can bring some real support this weekend.

I impose on you like this with the full confidence that my mother would support this plea, as she was fully supportive of every of my efforts –like any good mother, and so I should add– in particular those that advocated for the benefit of all.

I thank you for this opportunity. I apologize if I’ve taken undue advantage, but in the spirit of my mother I remind you –and you know this– the struggle lives on. Thank you on behalf of my father, and my sisters. As much as my mother would have quickly turned to re-gift this award to the nearest person in the room who she considered more deserving or perhaps someone who she suspected would grow by the encouragement, I accept it on behalf of her family. Your recognition of my mother really does mean a great deal to us.

Battlefield without Borders a reading

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Battlefield Without BordersAn excerpt from STANDING THERE, After the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, June, 2006
 
Days before,
Rachael had told a story.
It seemed simple then.
“A bug flew into my eye
while I played soccer.
For a full minute,
I stumbled across the field,
half-blind, frantically blinking,
trying to free the bug,
holding my big, clumsy
fingers at my side.
It was hilarious.
Teammates told me ‘Just kill it,’
but I laughed and blinked
and the bug broke free.”

Poet David Ferri-Smith will be reciting from BATTLEFIELDS WITHOUT BORDERS on Sunday April 13, 7pm TONIGHT at the Gill Foundation.
    David’s Colorado tour raises money for Direct Aid Iraq:
Monday April 14, Pueblo 12noon CSU Aspen Room, 7pm UU Church
Tuesday April 15, Alamosa 12noon Nielson Library, 7pm Carson Aud.
Wednesday April 16, Montrose 7pm
Thursday April 17, Grand Junction, Grand Valley Peace & Justice
Friday April 18, Durango 7pm Fort Lewis College, 130 Noble Hall
Saturday April 19, Durango Bookstore
Monday April 21, Grand Junction 11am, Frisco 7pm Senior Center
Tuesday April 22, Fort Collins 7pm, Bean Cycle Matter Bookstore
Wednesday April 23, Boulder 7pm, Friends Meeting House

An American Socialism?

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In the current housing bankruptcy “crisis” which was in fact created by the privately owned Fed through interest rates that reached 1% in 2003 combined with lax oversight of the banks, the bail out now being talked about in Congress will help… no surprise… the banks by and large. It is meant to deceive the public again by using words such as “helping” the homeowners, or “saving” peoples homes. NOTE: When you save a mortgage you save the bank’s payments by insuring they keep coming in. Besides the fact that people don’t own their homes, the banks do!

Regardless, in a socialist system this kind of gross manipulation would never have happened in the first place. And the half honest sensible solution by these charlatans in Congress should be to refi these homes to these homebuyers at the new lesser value. Because the value is lost anyway. And these homes were wildly overvalued by an out of control speculatory financial cabal. Besides, the bundled debt obligations and structured investment vehicles are worthless. Adding misery, the value of these homes will keep crashing. The rub? The banks and Investors made millions off these paper schemes and walked away… and probably paid little or no taxes. And now, the home buyers who were preyed upon by these lenders, owe money on a devalued home that was used only as a commodity by the “gentlemen” on Wall St. to manipulate, through the creation of CDO’s and SIVs? Sure! That’s capitalism. Systemic political and corporate corruption. And it’s going to get worse.

Congress desperately needs this property tax, interest payment, revenue stream to keep flowing to the banks and the states. But the reason this is a problem for Congress of “what is the best poison” to cure this, is that to bail out the home buyer who got screwed, is using tax money to keep receiving tax money. It’s double taxation!! And a zero sum game… besides rewarding the crooks. More deficit spending. But the Fed doesn’t care about homeowners and thusly told Congress as much by introducing Paulson’s new scheme to have the Fed take over the duties of the SEC and oversight of the big investment banks and their financial debauchery and chicanery. To keep the graft and secret deals going. The “dark trades” as they’re called. And spineless Congress cannot protest. They are owned by the Fed. In fact they are linked in responsibility by their repealing of the Glass-Steagall act with Greenspan’s urging (which Clinton didn’t veto) and attaching the Commodities Reauthorization Act attached to an appropriations bill in 2000. Ahhh the rewards for the capitalist elite are sweet indeed. No accountability, no worries, no chance of getting the blame. The yellow press at their beckon call.

Socialism would put all properties under the ownership of the people with all rents going to the citizens public fund and distributed to each social association for necessary services, loans, needs. There is no reason for housing or land to have any kind of increased value over the years. NONE. Ask yourself why your car then, doesn’t appreciate in value? Or your furniture? Real estate has been another way to oppress and exploit people by putting them into massive debt and making them pay banks twice the value of the home over the term of the loan. Besides the fleecing by the middlemen realtors and speculators using homes as commodities,(thus the current death spiral in housing). Have you ever looked at your amortization schedule? On a fixed rate 30 year loan? You pay twice or more of purchase price, if you paid off your loan! And you’re paying the bank first. We are insane for agreeing to this but that’s why the banks are the most powerful sector of capitalism. Which include the privately owned Federal Reserve. Oh you say, I made thousands when the market was good! No, you made the banks richer and more powerful by putting the next person into new debt for 30 years at 1 1/2 to 2 times the mortgage payment. Now your house increasing in value, puts upward pricing pressure on all homes and finally drives them out of reach of buyers. Thus the 1% housing bubble. For every person who “wins” in the capitalist system, 8 people lose (and those who depend on them). Otherwise you wouldn’t have a system where 10% of the population own 85% of the household wealth and property. The trick is to keep you thinking you’re winning when you’re really just up to your neck in debt in this American Casino Land.

Capitalism is a constant barrage of fairy tales and propaganda aimed at deluding the masses into believing there is no other way a social/economic system can be run. And that to be rich (or at least have the opportunity-possibility to be) is the ultimate goal because that is the genuine expression of self freedom and self worth! Or the lie that mercantilism and worker owned production could not work alone… without the corporate structure or Wall St. But the facts on the ground show us the truth, that capitalism is a fascist system designed to concentrate wealth at the top, steal our productive gains, and by doing so, makes those at the top the most powerful, privileged members of a society. It’s Monarchical. A plutocracy. Oligarchs rule. Fascism! Congress, the court system and state/city regulatory systems are subservient in every way to maintaining the fascist construct. Question: Ever taken part in an organization by volunteering to help change one of the many injustices in this country? You know what I’m talking about then. Wall after wall after obstacle after pot hole after bought off politician …all lined up to trip you, slip you and flip you upside down. New rules to increase petition signatures required for public ballots. Electronic vote stealing and manipulation. Redistricting. Third parties crushed. City council and board meetings held during weekdays. Hundreds of fees and licenses required to run business. Lobbyists at every turn. Zoning codes that dis-allow creative housing solutions and energy use. State insurance commissions. Mineral rights sold for pennies on the dollar… On and on and on… Unless of course your organization/church is involved in taking up the slack for capitalisms failures… then you’re a Mother Theresa! What’s that saying? “I work to feed the poor, they call me a saint. I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

Many people I talk to, on all fronts, are frustrated. And many realize that it is the corporate structure, their power to manipulate policy, to move jobs overseas, encourage wars, and the massive deregulated profit taking and currency manipulation that is at the center core of this American milieu. Besides the fact that no one I talk to has make a thin dime or dollar on Wall St. But the thing I keep running into are differences on how to solve the problem without changing the system drastically. A hypothesis that can be presented is that there is much delusion and neurosis in this land. The idea that we can somehow keep the system we have and make it work for the masses of productive working people, is the delusion as repeatedly, the corrupt one party system consistently proves otherwise. The neurosis is contained within this same idea that is the crux of the delusion. Knowing that something needs to change drastically and on the other hand knowing (by experience or observation) that it is irrational and impossible within the corrupt fascist matrix that will not allow drastic change that is needed. This creates neurosis. The constant tension of this negative psychic entrapment, is energy that has to be released and is finally. Usually negatively in some way. But it could be positive and productive IF there were a real alternative to work toward. Democratic socialism.

Socialists are realists. They are objective creative intelligent humanitarians who know that this delusion and neurosis is not healthy and requires a clean break from the causation. Often I am scoffed at by others for this view. Where? Where would – could this happen? I think that if it’s possible anywhere it would be in a state that seceded from the nation. Vermont’s trying and testing the water. Though even then, there would be no consensus for a socialist form of citizen led, decentralized government. No, until the public is re-educated as to the true intent and purpose of democratic socialism and its platform, and can be persuaded that exploitation of man by man is unacceptable, they will forever bicker and fight among themselves, as children who fight for a place in the lunch line or over possessions. Seemingly without the skills to reassess, re-strategise, and break away from the malignancy present all around us. Socialism takes a deep commitment and concentration to assess the situation on the ground (objectivism) and rationalize, then actualize the alternatives that will then benefit the real producers of capital (us) and replace the owners of the means of production and pushers of propaganda. It’s time to consider socialism as the correct answer to our dilemma.

Mugabe and the British move to regain control over Zimbabwe

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The world corporate press has been going non stop against 2 African governments the last couple of years. The targets have been the governments of Sudan and Zimbabwe. Why such attention given to these 2 African governments out of a continent full entirely of unsavory governments and dictators? Is it that the US and Western European elites have suddenly become a group of benevolent saints, only concerned with the welfare of the poor Black populations of their ‘Dark Continent’? One can’t really think so.

So let us take a brief historical look at Zimbabwe now, and see why the corporate press is so hot for regime change? One does not have to be in love with the 82 year old Mugabe, current head of the Zimbabwe state, to question why our attention is focused by others in his direction. Has this attention about ‘human rights’ been consistent, coming from the European and US governments and their servile press? Yeah, right…

Let us ask several questions, then… Has the corporate press informed the world public about the economic warfare being waged by the colonialists against their former colony, Zimbabwe? Well, why not? Zimbabwe is an economic basket case today, but the US and Europeans have made it so, as well as Mugabe himself, but that’s not what the corporate press wants the public to know. They are campaigning for regime change and not the welfare of Zimbabweans. The governments and their press want to gain back direct control over Zimbabwe, not save the people living there. Look for the likes of O’Reily and the other media whores at the Fox ‘News’ stable to be shedding crocodile tears on behalf of that population though, as the Murdoch press in England routinely does, too.

Another question, too? A lot of press has been given to the dangers of an anthrax terrorist attack on the US. Has any of the pro-military/ police state press ever informed the public that the largest case of anthrax terrorism directed against people happened in Rhodesia (the white racist Apartheid state ruling over Zimbabwe) just a while back? That’s right, the Whites of Rhodesia-Zimbabwe that were intimately connected with Great Britain, used anthrax against the Blacks of that country. It was the largest such biological warfare use of anthrax in world military history.

As somebody around back then, I don’t really remember the press ever giving much a shit about the affairs of Zimbabwe back then. Now, they can’t do anything else other than blab on and on about Zimbabwe, same as they do about the Darfur in Sudan. The British, French and US governments want control back over these 2 regions of Africa. And they want the general public to think that they are being good people if they help cheer lead for that effort. Go figure? I blame our pathetic educational system here for people being so naive and gullible. How ’bout you?

Click here to read more about the anthrax biological warfare of European colonialists against their Black neighbors in Africa. This info actually was writtten by a White Rhidesian racist, too.