From Madison, Wisconsin comes Court: Cops illegally taped nursing home sex. Not to be out done, the Inglewood cops just shot a homeless man 47 times and filmed themselves in the act! California Community Outraged by Police Shootings of Unarmed Homeless Man
If you want somebody dead, just call the cops! They’re armed and they’re dangerous and they have the brains about them of your typical Public High School PE teacher or Coach. PLUS, they can get away with murder LEGALLY. And do.
The Republican Cult has ended its convention, the nationalistic furvor was enough to make even a German Nazi blush.
Manchurian Candidate McCain accepted the GOP nomination last night. Gawd help us!
This is “freedom” in the GOP.
Cops beat, torture RNC protesters, and innocent bystanders.
Protesters kidnapped at RNC. And you thought China was different.
Elistist, indeed. Outfit Cindy McCain wore to RNC cost $300,000, more than most American homes.
Sarah “road to nowhere” Palin
GOP operative had charges against Obama assassination conspirators dropped.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes Sept 5, thomasmc.com.
McCain and Palin will be in Colorado Springs Saturday for a campaign rally at 9AM in the morning. It’s our chance to let them know that we appreciate them for what they have been doing to destroy our country and the world as a whole. You can try to get tickets to go inside and express your support for their ticket at Republican Party HQ, or you can stay outside with us Republican rejects who will still be very vocal with how we feel about The Clowns inside. Rally outside of the Colorado Jet Center at 1575 Aviation Way, Colorado Springs starting at least an hour before the 9AM rally. Bring some friends, too! Bring some brunch, donuts, and coffee and have a picnic with the cops!
The police rioters are really too much! Here is a photo spread of their tear gassing of the Poor People’s March yesterday at the RNC. You think that the US government would be ashamed of how they are looking before the entire World, but they have just completely lost it. All they seem to understand these days is how to use brute force, whether it be at home or abroad.
Riot Cops Gas Docile Crowd Outside the RNC Democratic Mayor Coleman of St. Paul has been doing his part to discredit US`democracy, too, by praising the police for doing a good job! I guess he thinks that at least it doesn’t look as bad as the Democratic Party ’68 Convention did in Chicago? Maybe not, but then again, people are getting a glimpse worldwide of how messed up the US truly is under the Two Party System of misgovernment.
WE INTERRUPT WITH BREAKING NEWS- New Orleans is under MARTIAL LAW. It’s a scoop! The Breaking News keeps announcing the anticipation of Hurricane Gustav, without explaining the images which speak the obvious. The National Guard have arrived, and they’re not carrying sandbags. The soldiers are sitting in parked Hummers, with assault rifles across their knees.
As if what undid New Orleans and Baghdad was the looting pursuant to Katrina and Shock and Awe. Hurricanes and floodwaters can demolish homes in the wrong neighborhoods. The homes on higher grounds have to fear the looters.
So a curfew has been announced, starting at 9PM tonight, with no set end time. Is that a curfew or Marital Law? If the power goes out, how are you supposed to learn when “curfew” has been lifted? If you’re found outside your property lines, you face arrest for ignoring the mandatory evacuation. You’ll be presumed to have intentions on your neighbor’s property.
The Mayor of New Orleans is warning that potential looters will be sent directly to Angola [Prison.] There will be no quarter, he appears to be saying, no temporary holding facility between court and sentence. You’ll go directly into the General [Prison] Population. Adding, “May God have mercy on you,” as if pronouncing the last rites on a condemned man.
Can he do that? Can they throw away the key on citizens innocent until proven guilty? Mayor Ray Nagin is speaking down to his constituents as if they are adolescents he can scare straight. But I’m sure the same TV audience which cheers when their Law and Order heroes smack down suspects who don’t confess, are loving these tough words of warning. Here’s a black man speaking as if he knows that his constituents 1. have no self respect, and 2. can’t wait to loot.
I see the same public desensitivity to excessive police presence, as became apparent at the DNC. We may stand aghast, but few question if it’s appropriate. Tons of cops, heavily armed, even pointing their guns at you. Unless you find yourself brutalized, it’s just added security. And so long as you don’t have a problem with whose rule of law is being enforced, who can argue with absolute power?
Perhaps security developments in New Orleans are not called Martial Law, because they’re closer to everyday law as we’re coming to see it.
Here are Mayor Nagin’s condescending words:
You need to be scared.
You need to be concerned.
And you need to get your butts movin’
Out of New Orleans. Right now.
That’s the scare tactic used to justify police crackdown. It makes me laugh.
And then finally,
I just talked to the Sherif and to the Police Chief,
I just want to send a strong message out to anybody
who’s thinking about lingering around
and becoming a looter.Looting will not be tolerated.
We have doubled the police force,
Doubled the National Guard force
that we had for Katrina,
And looters will go directly to jail.You will not get out -uh uh-
You will not get a pass this time.
As a matter of fact,
anybody who’s caught looting
in the City of New Orleans
Will go directly to Angola.
Directly to Angola.
You will not have
a temporary stay in the city.
You go directly to the Big House
In General Population.
Aight?
So I want to make sure that every looter,
Potential looter, understands that.
You will go directly to Angola Prison.
And God Bless You, when you go there.
DENVER- DNC day 0, Undercover observers.
Could this NOT BE A COP? My goodness the cops had undercover uniforms too! White shirt, tan cargo shorts, white socks, running shoes, camera and backpack. This bicyclist was helping to track Unconventional Denver as they veered from the permitted parade route along 16th Street Mall.
Another barrel bellied gentleman was recording the Sunday antiwar rally. There were hundreds of police video cameras out there, not held at the ready for something to happen, like the other videographers, but constantly pointed. Wouldn’t that be recording a bunch of nothing, unless you’re simply trying to document faces?
I have another theory, which comes of imagining dozens of surveillance cameramen each shift, clocking out and depositing multitudes of digital videotape cassettes, marked by location, time, and perhaps incident. Would that seem to be a nightmare to organize? I’m thinking these cameras were up to something else.
These two square pegs were videotaping the Sunday UA Lincoln Boulevard standoff. The person in the foreground is an example of what real participants look like. His camera is waiting for something to capture. The rear two have cameras aloft, whether they’re paying attention our not.
The yellow shirted boy scout gestured to this third duffer behind them. I’m not sure the signal except that he stepped back as I photographed.
I wonder if these cameras held aloft haven’t been retrofitted to give live video feeds, instead of recording unto individual DATs. I bet they’re transmitting wireless signals to a communications truck nearby, where not only are the images being recorded into a data bank, likely they are being monitored for a real-time sense of what’s happening in the crowd. That might explain why the cameramen were seldom seen panning or changing their angle. It might also be possible that they were receiving their instructions through the camera viewfinders.
Now this guy isn’t wearing the day uniform. What’s he doing? I include him just for contrast. He’s wearing the black colors of a provocateur or plant and sure enough when the antiwar march came its closest to the Pepsi Center, suddenly he broke his silence. Where before he’s stood back, observing the morning rally. Now he was moving through the marchers offering instructions. Many of the organizers were trying to create something of a circle in front of the Pepsi Center entrance. This “marcher” who held no banner, and wore no political message, was now helpfully urging everyone to continue past.
Alaskan news media chastised Sarah Palin for “conduct unbecoming a human being, never mind a governor.”
VPILF? ewww. (now, her hubby, on the other hand…) And it only took a few minutes for the nude pictures of her to start showing up. That should turn on the “Family Values” crowd. And, um, Cindy’s actually going to let John spend the next two months traveling around with her?
Mossad website says US to attack Iran before election. Whaddaya’ bet Obama jumps on the bandwagon if they do?
You have the right to remain silent. Refusing to remain silent may result in your being classified as a suspected terrorist. This is “freedom” in the 21st century US of A.
Gestapo raids headquarters of protest group ahead of RNC. 30 cops with guns drawn storm building, detain and photograph 50, for “fire code violation.”
Hurricane Gustav already category 4, (and expected to be CAT5 by Sunday morning) and it hasn’t even entered the Gulf of Mexico, where they usually pick up most of their steam. And it currently looks like it will make landfall where it will cause the greatest amount of damage to New Orleans. [Stormpulse]
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes Aug 30, thomasmc.com.
DENVER- Sunday DNC day zero, Civic Center Park, agent provocateurs
I made it a sideline to take photos of potential police instigators at the DNC protests. What excuse can law enforcement make for planting undercover agitators in a peaceful assembly? Encouraging lawlessness is how Pinkerton thugs used to bust up efforts to organize unions.
They stand out like black-clad thumbs. And they’re making the crowd nervous. I’m still not sure these thug cops aren’t planted to be noticed on purpose. They serve as sheep dogs, moving the flock along with just the faintest of aggressive postures to trigger fear responses.
Now would you say they’ve been joined by a female officer of similar demeanor?
Isn’t this fun? Can you detect another TRIO moving along the same walkway? Hint, they’re closer to forty something.
DENVER- Monday PM, DNC Day 1. Undercover Agent Provocateurs.
Circulating among protesters with video cameras is one thing, walking around like you want to start trouble is another. Can you spot the faux troublemaker? This image doesn’t show his professional ass-kicker boots. The two Unconventional Action participants facing him saw I wore an ACLU t-shirt and urged me to document this provocateur‘s actions.
Actually, in the image above there are two undercover cops in the foreground, moving past the two onlookers facing us. Everyone’s dressed the same, with some unsubtle differences. The cops are dressed EXACTLY the same, like best friend tweens at the mall. These two wore black backwards baseball caps, black hoodies, black bandanas, with spare bandanas worn at the knees as flair, substantial black backpacks, dark glasses, jeans, and heavy black boots. And of course, they have way above average muscles compared to the rest of the people drawn to a political protest.
So I kept taking pictures of this cop and his partner. Their stereotypical getup caught my eye, but the fact that I interrupted them suiting up to cover every further inch of their faces is what made me nervous. I wanted to keep using my flash hoping they’d feel detected and would go away. But I didn’t want to push it so far that they’d instigate a pushing match with me to have me arrested.
As tension grew at this standoff with the police, the line of riot police kept closing in. At the same time, these two started obscuring their faces and stepping in closer behind the first line of protesters. The job of agent provocateurs in these situations has been documented at the WTO and the FTAA etc. They push people into the line of policemen, initiating an “attack.” (And LO it happened this night.)
I kept taking picture after picture to deter them. Even if it they didn’t shove me, the riot police would begin clubbing everyone on their cue.
Finally they wandered off, either chased by the camera, or called off by their commander. If the DPD indeed wanted no riot, what were these undercover cops doing? I suppose their chief role might be to be recognized as police muscle, frightening everyone more.
You can tell by the fascist riot uniforms that the DPD has no qualms being feared. Police can terrorize even more effectively when people come to understand you follow sinister scruples.
UPDATE: Here’s what began that afternoon.
Welcome to the Democratic Party Police State, where freedom of the press a thing of the past. ABC News reporter arrested at Denver convention, for the crime of filming Democratic big wigs talking to big money donors on public property. They have it all on tape, and broadcasted it on the national evening news.
It’s about ‘effin time!
Karma’s a bitch, and she is pissed! Hurricane Gustav in line to hit New Orleans on Monday, just as the GOP convention starts. LA governor has already declared a state of emergency, and NOLO mayor warns that there are still thousands of FEMA trailers that will become little more than missiles if it hits. I don’t want to wish anything bad, but this could put an end to the GOP, once and for all.
This is the guy John McCain is considering for VP, as another category 3 hurricane is predicted to hit New Orleans, on the opening day of the GOP convention! [video]
Freedom is slavery. Halliburton charged with human trafficing.
Sickeness is health. McCain advisor says the answer to the problem of millions of uninsured Americans, is to just quit calling them that. “It won’t cost a penny.”
Oceania has always been at war with EastAsia. (Brought to you by the Ministry of Truth.)
Cops tricked protesters into pleading guilty to charges before being allowed to make phone calls, denied Constitutional rights. You have no rights under our “two party” system.
Freedom means drinking what the Party tells you to drink! Will CocaCola be
banned in an Obama administration?
This is beginning to make Nazi Germany look like Freedom Paradise.
Will Cheney have a 747 crash into Invesco Field during Obama’s acceptance speech? I’m just asking.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes Aug 28, thomasmc.com.
DENVER- Accounts of the Wednesday march from the Colosseum to the DNC are only getting half the story. Can I recount my small part? We were at the Pepsi Center entrance, laying the groundwork for the arrival of the IVAW parade and became concerned when workers positioned large dump trucks to block the way, to corral the marchers into the fenced gauntlet traversing the Auraria campus.
When I caught up with the already diverted march, I found out the coordinators had been on the lookout for me. Legal observers informed me that marchers were being forewarned of a man with a green banner who would be trying to instigate trouble. The message was being spread as if coordinators had intercepted this information from police scanners. In reality this was deliberate disinformation being given them by their police liaisons. The common goal being to keep out of trouble.
Well it wasn’t disinformation, because I most definitely wanted to disrupt this surprising and disastrous turn. I sought to prevent the march from being led like sheep into a dead end. But the ARD collective had clearly promised an uneventful march, and they were bent on delivering it. At every turn, at every temptation, they policed the march so the police didn’t have to. Stay on the sidewalk, stay off the grass, go this way unless you want to be arrested, etc. Like overly cautious boy scouts.
Navigating the Auraria enclosures, the coordinator monkeys would circulate alongside their restless marchers admonishing them “Hey guys, let’s keep the focus: on the vets and off the fence.”
So let me be less harsh in my criticism of the IVAW. A number of them are bright, well-motivated guys, but they are governed by committee decisions made by the predominant lessers, some about as daft as soldiers can get. On the Wednesday march too often the bullhorn was in the wrong hands. I have no sense yet of what their dressed-to-the-nines Marine official spokesman was thinking. But the other corrosive element in the event was mentioned in a comment to my previous post on this subject. Tent State/ARD.
Tent State idealists helped coordinate the Rage concert and the march. The parade monkeys who kept everyone in line were Tent State/ARD workers bent on civil disobedience minus any trace of disaffected incivility. Who do they think they are, telling angry constituents that they must accept their lot in the police state?
If Tent State has any role in the planned RNC protests, we must forewarn the activists in Minneapolis. They’re collaborator scum, every bit as fraudulent as the Democratic Party of good cop to the GOP bad cop. If we can salvage anything from our Debacle in Denver, it’s to ferret out these Quislings. Tent State, ARD, UFPJ, Code Pink and the Greens. Derelict saboteurs.
I love the spirit and wit of Code Pink, they show determination and stamina, but ultimately no savvy. Their I MISS AMERICA gag is dead on, but it’s a lament, isn’t it? She’s gone, their America. Where the occasion calls for drums, Code Pink would march us into battle to the beat of Kum ba yah.
DENVER- I have friends in Iraq Veterans Against the War, but their much anticipated action today was totally FUBAR. Given latitude by the other protest organizers to be the feature action on the last day of the DNC, the IVAW march aimed no higher than to ask that their rep be allowed to meet with a party representative. The IVAW had Rage Against the Machine do a free concert, asked the audience to follow them across town to lend moral support, and when the appointment with a DNC delegate was given them, the IVAW cheered, thanked their fellow marchers, and asked everyone to go home.
This in the face of hundreds of cops in riot gear, heavy machinery, and a large audience of bystanders, delegates and press. The confrontation needed to put the spotlight of media attention on the issue of military imperialism and corporate fascism, passed like it some kind of Pirates of the Caribbean amusement ride, everyone smiling and posing for pictures under the noses of heavily armored riot police menacing the crowd with batons and riot control guns.
Instead of chants like THIS IS WHAT A POLICE STATE LOOKS LIKE, or megaphone entreaties to ask why do nonviolent common citizens face such intimidation by police, the crowd watched Code Pink and other theatrical performances sing cutesy songs to recast the oppressive tone into a humorous light. They should have been signing “Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” Comedic relief is often laudable, but should we be laughing, instead of facing the militarization of our policeman stone cold sober?
No, instead of calling the Democratic Party and the City of Denver on their repressive ways to curb dissent, the situation was kept in check by the vets’ self-policing. The police never had to issue an order. Instead the IVAW coordinators were constantly detailing city ordinances and forewarning everyone about possible arrest. Every time, more and more people retreated from the action.
For example, the IVAW march was un-permitted, and yet they directed it into the allowed free speech area, instead of veering toward better visibility and “certain arrest.” Oh, you don’t have a “permit” for your march, but there are places that are off limits, meaning, for which you don’t have “permission?” Which is it then? The crowd of Rage fans wanted to have their voices heard. They didn’t want to be led in somber veteran respect mode until all their spirit was worn out of them. The IVAW march coordinators kept everyone in line, followed prearranged parade direction signs, and even allowed themselves to be led by the damn police golf cart whose backward facing sign flashed FOLLOW ME.
So the crowd followed the IVAW into the Free Speech dead end, and they and a multitude of press waited for something to happen. I heard an IVAW coordinator phoning Barack Obama’s office from which they were expecting a phone call. When no Obama appearance materialized, the vets led everyone back out again and into the “forbidden area” with it’s oft-reminded possibility of arrest.
I was asked to stay back with the rest of the followers, and not crowd the IVAW formation. I told the coordinator that he had led us into the Auroria free speech maze and back, and I was not about to obey a single further idiotic command, no matter how much “respect” the veterans were needing.
Seriously. All “out of respect for the veterans.” Even reporters were barked orders as if they were subordinate to the vets. I took umbrage at being told constantly to stop every few minutes to listen to the vets give their witness of Iraq and wait as their spokesman gave further statements to the press. Staying behind, keeping a distance, or keeping the way clear was supposed to be honored “out of respect for the veterans.”
These were the same veterans who went to war when we asked them not to. I’m very thankful that each of them has changed their tune now, but where was their respect for us before more than a million Afghans and Iraqis were killed at their hands? No, the veteran worship was severely misplaced. They earn no points from me for “their sacrifices in the service.” The bastards killed innocent people, they should be begging forgiveness, not assuming to command our respect.
That said, I think the antiwar movement is misplacing its hopes thinking the IVAW can carry any sort of ball promoting an end to war. The vets are after a return of their comrades, and better veterans benefits. That’s a far cry from pacifism, or even a repudiation of US predatory militarism. And this DNC stunt proved it. Here’s how the self-aggrandized crunts blew the last opportunity to show dissent at the DNC.
They held a concert which pulled the youth element away from where they might have been participating in street actions. Of course this is no different than Tom Hayden and Ralph Nader drawing their audiences from likely people who had to choose whether to protest or go see them. Not such a big deal, but it got much worse.
This afternoon the IVAW shepherded a reported 5,000 supporters not to the Pepsi Center delegate entrance, but deep into the Free Speech Cage, away from sight of convention delegates. After a long delay they moved everyone into the promising area, but kept thinning the crowd with warnings of potential arrest. They also kept the marchers well out of proximity of the police lines. The IVAW limited what anyone could say, out of respect for the vets, led them in a last chanted instruction to Go Home, then reminded stragglers that it was the expressed wish of the veterans that everyone leave the area lest an ensuing disturbance mar the IVAW event. After everyone was gone, the veterans even gave a round of applause for a nearby contingent of cops. More in the morning when I’m feeling less enraged.
‘Sign here on this ticket for speeding and failure to wear a seat belt (of course!). The bad news is that you have to go to court on this one.’ Thus spoke the cop as the woman sped toward her escape from being raped! In the good judgment of the cops one cannot depend, this case in point.
From our favorite paper, The Gagzette… Woman says traffic cop ignored her claim of rape This story has the ring of truth to it, as anybody stopped by the ticket-writing happy CS PD before surely can sense.
Anarchy: a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
From the moment I saw them I knew what they were. Scattered around in small groups, surrounded by bicycles and backpacks, sharing food, tossing frisbees. Some were dressed in black. A few had tattoos. They were young, and clearly dangerous.
How dare they question the status quo? We have over 200 years of American history and the two-party system is working just fine. They should be proud and grateful that they live in the land of the free and the brave. Like I am.
So why is it that I’ve never felt less free, or more cowardly, than I do right now?
Maybe instead of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the young anarchists to impede their progress, the cops ought to walk beside them or, better, just let them lead.
DENVER- Night has just fallen and a helicopter searchlight has moved from North of the Capitol, to Civic Center Park, to the downtown center. Police in riot gear are rounding corners off to the North East. Police troops riding SUVs are coming from the southern parts. I’m riding on the 16th Street Mall shuttle. As I get out, I see the bus has been followed by two white vans full of policemen. Across my path toward where Marie is waiting are a dozen bicycle cops.
Of course here we are live-blogging about DPD troop movements. Suddenly the server seems to be acting buggy.
If you think I’m suffering delusions of grandeur when I imagine that every cop I pass seems to be reporting the event into his headpiece, consider the budget they’re spending on all of us.
Denver spent fifty million on DNC security, including a Super Fusion Center. They expected fifty thousand protesters. That makes for some easy math. $50M divided by 50k means a thousand dollars of equipment and manpower had been allocated for each protester. Since fewer than expected showed up, that’s a lot of intelligence firepower to spread over quite a bit fewer than 50 thousand protesters.
If we figure the demonstrations thus far have drawn five thousand persons of interest. Would that mean $10,000 is being spent on each? Probably the figure’s more like 1,000 people who could be considered to pose an imagined risk. That would mean $50,000 per. Over the course of five days, that’s $10,000 each person, each day. Figuring 90% of the security budget might have been spent on equipment, $1,000 per day would remain to pay, what, seven law enforcement personnel working overtime for each citizen suspect?
If you consider yourself unpredictably active enough to be among those thousand, tomorrow, when you are facing a line of armor clad riot cops, pick out seven and have them call you Sir.
It’d be a symbolic gesture. Probably the actual DPD staff allocated to you personally is comprised of three riot cops, one plain-clothed informer, and two surveillance analysts. Does that leave one unaccounted for? One full time person working on who knows what about you? Very likely.
It’s hard not to feel special.
Democratic Party making it clear they want a fascist police state even more than the GOP. Only violence at demonstrations by neofascist, jackbooted cops. I hope the City of Denver loses many millions of dollars in lawsuits for violating the Constitutional rights of protesters. And the Democrats lose many millions of votes for their complicity in these crimes against the Constitution of the United States of America. (Excerpted from thomasmc.com Aug 26.)
…. Late summer authoritarianism is going full blast now! Nobody seems to be worried about anything in the Big Disconnect Universe. All is the same rosy lock-stock-and-barrel circus of grinning authoritarian clowns, as they talk empty ‘Change’ , Homeland Security, and athletic prowess in uniform military formations. It’s the Brave New World immediately before the world-wide Ecological Apocalypse!
It was China’s turn last week but now it is Klown Colorado LittleTon’s turn to co-host with the Democrats the Grand Show! To be followed of course, with the POW Hero Bomber and Christian Right’s ring of Carnival FunHouse nuts on parade. Oh what a display for the world to watch! Such inanity in such a short period of preCollapse time on display. Pre? Well, let’s not toy with when, where, and how, but it’s Collapse still for sure.
All the slow, slow incremental types are in Rapture but what a false pretend kind of Rapture they are having. Joe Biden is the leader at their head now! No, they do not convince neither here nor there, and the whole world will see the same authoritarian circus everywhere! We look and do not believe how deluded our fellow citizens self-deceive. Vote for the Grand Morass? Or smile and sigh? It’s all Great Big Disconnect.
There sure were a lot of the Thug Force out in squads the first day out. The highlight of the march was when Fox News showed up to bait us, but themselves got run off the field. And everywhere, cops, cops, cops, and more cops. Pigs on horses, pigs in the air, pigs every everywhere! Enough to keep most people away. Nothing but a big silly show.
One of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others, By the time I finish my song? Beside the haircut.
DENVER- Here are the clues: nondescript dark clothing, no distinguishing logo, requisite black backpack and cargo pants. See anybody else who brought layered clothes and a backpack to the couple hour long training event? Amidst dozens of cameramen, reporters and videographers covering the self-defense training, he was the only person who insisted on videotaping everyone’s faces. He wasn’t participating, he wasn’t asking for photo releases, and his was also the only handycam not aimed at the cops.
Taking videos is one thing. But look out for these types trying to instigate trouble. They’ll be throwing stones at windows, or grabbing you to thrust you into nearby uniformed police. These are the agent provocateurs who’ll try to start trouble.
I took the kids to Denver today for some pre-DNC activities orchestrated by RECREATE 68. There were self-defense trainings, Know Your Rights tutorials, drumming instruction and a whole ton of media — local, national and international.
There were also cops galore: on foot, on bicycle, on motorcycle, inside cars, outside cars, standing around in groups, staring, and acting generally creepy. Their omnipresence gave the day an eerie overcast. Ick.
As exciting as it was at Civic Center Park, the kids tired of it and pleaded for a trip to the nearby Denver Art Museum.
A muffin and a Monet later, we headed back to the safety of our own little police state down south.
That was embarrassing. The Indy asked me how to keep a protest peaceful, in light of participants who may be tempted to mix it up. The Indy said my advice was get them to behave. It’s what I meant of course, but I said: set a good example for others to follow.
I was talking to the Independent reporter about how one could participate in the DNC demonstrations without getting caught up in trouble. It is a perplexing balancing act. Despite every organizer’s best intentions, there are going to be soccer hooligans and plain-clothed provocateurs.
The best use you can put to all the digital video devices is to catch undercover cops trying to instigate crime. Young would-be rabble-rousers will have to offend for themselves because cameras might catch them too. Against police video surveillance, the bystander videotape will be the least of their problems. Principally, demonstrators will need to catch the various law enforcement agents trying to entrap participants and incite riots, for which they can blame their unwitting accomplices.
Don’t hold anything for a stranger, don’t follow the directions of someone you don’t already know to be an organizer.
And above all, remember why you’re here. To represent your message. To give voice to others. Taking to the street is as fundamental as fighting for your rights. They weren’t given us without somebody taking to the streets to demand them. Let the politicians and media and authorities know why you’re there. That’s real patriotism.
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.
If we can’t get a citizens oversight board for police conduct, we need COP WATCH. Here’s the difference a video camera makes: Denver bicyclist John Heaney lost two front teeth as he “assaulted a police officer” said six Denver cops. When this footage emerged charges were dropped and the officers are being investigated for excessive force and perjury.
The head-slam is hard to see from across the street, but you can hear the crunch of the man’s teeth against the pavement. Says the Denver Police Department:
“The investigation is underway, and no conclusions should be drawn until all of the facts are available and the totality of the circumstances can be considered,” said Division Chief of Investigations Dave Fisher. “Everyone in our country is initially entitled to a presumption of innocence, even police officers.”
Isn’t that rich? Even police officers, but not bicyclists, who may or may not have ridden through a red light. Police brutality is a violation of DUE PROCESS, it’s punishment before being found guilty.
Here was a true bit of American folk wisdom, Harry McClintock’s everyman philosophy whose context was whitewashed for the sake of children and the Protestant work ethic. The original lyrics of the hobo’s nirvana, Big Rock Candy Mountain, where omitted or reformed, are reprinted in bold here.
BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN
Harry McClintock, circa 1890One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
And he said, “Boys, I’m not turning.
I’m headed for a land that’s far away
Besides the crystal fountains.
So come with me, we’ll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains.In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There’s a land that’s fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs.
The farmers’ trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay.
Oh I’m bound to go
Where there ain’t no snow
Where the rain don’t fall
The winds don’t blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks.
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind.
There’s a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy MountainsIn the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
The jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again,
As soon as you are in.
There ain’t no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,
I’m bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
….
I’ll see you all this coming fall
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains….
The punk rolled up his big blue eyes
And said to the jocker, “Sandy,
I’ve hiked and hiked and wandered too,
But I ain’t seen any candy.
I’ve hiked and hiked till my feet are sore
And I’ll be damned if I hike any more
To be buggered sore like a hobo’s whore
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.”
[Private First Class LaVina Johnson] Raped, beaten, set on fire…
Y’all ever hear any new developments in the 46 year old case of Bobby Fuller, from El Paso Texas?
My brother went to school with a kid whose daddy was a Sheriff’s Deputy Homicide Detective.
Said HALF the homicides in El Paso County go unsolved.
I believe it. He also gave my brother advice on how to do it, steal a white van, pickup or sedan for the getaway, wear gloves, use a KMart special shotgun,(the ones that cost 79.99) standard off the shelf shells, kill the victim in his bathroom and leave…
Reason I believe it is the Jimmy Chagra assassination which took place in a High Security Office right across the parking lot from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department’s main entrance. By party or parties unknown.
Chagra would only have allowed one class of people into that office with guns.
Cops.
Case unresolved after 30 years.
Bobby “I fought the law, and the Law won” Fuller, found dead in his car covered in Gasoline, and the coroner said “Death by natural causes”.
Yes, once again it is the State of Louisiana, which is the state the whole country has fallen into in actuality. Cop torture by taser gets yet more bad press, but cops like to torture at times, and here in Colorado Springs these cops have tasers, too. Dead Black Man Was Tasered Nine Times by White Cop
I mean you might have not even heard about this story, what with the press having to spend so much time talking about Commander-in-Chief-Wannabe Obama’s tour of the war lands? Why do Americans not protest these tortures by cops using taser? This is what the thugs at the top call ‘Homeland Security’? It seems like we’re getting National Insecurity worse than Obama Bin Laden ever could have delivered.
And let’s face it, being Black has gotten much more dangerous lately in this country not less. Blacks just don’t have as much money, poverty is a crime, and crime gets you tortured by cop tasers here in America the Beautiful. Let’s register these Black people by way of the criminal injustice system. Put a brand on them why not?
Baron ‘Scooter’ Pikes you had a bad attitude! See what you done? Now Taser International PR will have to work overtime to help the National Security State ‘protect life’, trademark impending.
Snappy music on the site there, Dudes. So let’s go torture! Got any more spare Black folk to electrocute? Long live the South! The KKK lives on! Ain’t that sweet? Department of Homeland Security? What a damn joke… What a Frankenstein this country is on tasers.
