Steve Bass to get his day in court, but he can’t say what he was doing or why, & above all he can’t mention “Occupy”

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.– Municipal Court Judge Spottswood W. F. Williams heard a final motion today before the AUGUST 10 trial of Occupier Steve Bass, charged with violating the city’s camping ban. The prosecution motioned to forbid from trial, “discussion of political, economic, or religious beliefs or ideology as a purported justification for the alleged acts”, and even “arguments related to the belief that the defendant’s conduct was constitutionally protected”, and in true Colorado Springs fashion, the judge GRANTED the city’s motion! YES THAT’S RIGHT, now if Bass wanted to say he wasn’t “camping,” he can’t say what else you would call it! In effect, Defendant Bass is prevented from explaining WHY he was occupying, or even THAT he was occupying, because saying “OCCUPY” is expressly forbidden. The judge will play it by ear whether to make an exception for himself during “voir dire” if selecting impartial jurors might require asking their opinion of “Occupy”. That’s IF BASS GETS A JURY AT ALL, because next, Judge Williams prompted the city prosecutor to research whether Bass was entitled to a jury of his peers for the infraction of camping…

The issue had already been resolved in an earlier hearing. Unable to find definitive wording on whether a camping ban violation invoked the right to a jury trial, the court ruled to proceed as if it did. But at today’s hearing Judge Williams related that in the interim over a casual dinner conversation, another judge informed him that the law read otherwise. So he put the question again to the prosecution. And again the citations came up inconclusive. This time however, with the clerk advised to continue the search, the decision stands at “pending”.

If Judge Williams opts to eliminate the jury, the forbidding of political or constitutional discussion is a moot point, actually two. There won’t be a jury to confuse, nor a judge either, because Judge Williams decided, by allowing the city’s motion, that the defendant has no arguments to make. Case closed. If the judge gets his way.

The point of today’s hearing was to hear not a judge’s motion but the city’s, a “motion in limine” used to reach agreement about what arguments can be excluded from the trial, often a defendant’s prior convictions which might prejudice a jury.

The core of the city’s motion was this:

…that the Defendant be ordered to refrain from raising the following issues at the Jury Trial…

1. Discussion of political, economic, or religious beliefs or ideology as a purported justification for the alleged acts, or as an issue to be evaluated by the jury;

2. Presentation of facts or arguments related to the belief that the defendant’s conduct was constitutionally protected expressive conduct;

3. Presentation of facts or arguments with the primary purpose or effect of proselytizing for the occupy movement, or otherwise using the Courtroom as a public forum;

4. Any reference to settlement negotiations with the Defendant prior to trial;

The city is guessing that because defendant Bass has passed on all opportunities to dismiss his case on technicalities, or plead for a deferred sentence, that he’s hanging on to get “his day in court.” Whatever that’s going to look like, the city doesn’t like it.

Points three and four were conceded by the defendant. No proselytizing was intended, and of course plea deals are confidential. But the discussion of #3 was amusing, because the city expanded it to mean absolutely NO MENTION of “Occupy.” Even though the defendant was cited in ACACIA PARK, in OCTOBER, under 24/7 media coverage, the prosecutor argued that mentioning OCCUPY “would be unfairly prejudicial to the City.” Further:

To admit evidence related to any political, economic, and religious debate concerning the “Occupy Movement” at trial in this matter would result in prejudice, confusion, and a waste of Court time. By allowing such testimony, the jury would be misled as to the elements of the charged offense which would result in confusion during jury deliberations. Furthermore, the prosecution would suffer unfair prejudice if the jury were allowed to consider the defendant’s private ideology…

Not only did the city fear it would lose a popularity contest with “Occupy”, it worried that the courtroom would be abused by public debate. The point was ceded by the defense because the “primary purpose” would always have been to present defending arguments, not proselytize.

The City’s request is that the Court be treated as a forum for resolving criminal disputes and not as a public forum for debate. Political, economic and religious debate should be restricted to appropriate public forums.

The prosecutor raises an incongruous irony: Steve Bass is on trial because the city doesn’t consider Acacia Park to be an appropriate forum either.

Naturally the defense objected to points one and two, though on the three particular defense strategies the city wanted to preempt, “Choice of Evils Defense”, “Defense of Others”, and “Duress”, the defense ceded as irrelevant. Judge Williams then granted points one and two with the proviso that Steve Bass be permitted to draft his own defense argument, to be presented to the court no later than the Wednesday before trial. Did you know that a defendant must have his arguments approved by his accusers before he’s allowed to make them in court?

I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that Steve Bass is going to get his day in court if he’s going to spend it gagged.

Was Steve Bass arrested for “camping” or was the city trying to curtail “Occupy”? Let’s remember that Jack Semple and Amber Hagan were arrested for taping themselves to a tent, and Nic Galetka was arrested for setting his things on the ground.

But Steve Bass won’t be allowed to mention those details.

———-
FOR REFERENCE: The city’s full motion is reprinted below:

MUNICIPAL COURT, CITY OF COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO

PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF COLORADO SPRINGS, Plaintiff
v.
Steven Bass, Defendant

Case Number: 11M32022

MOTION IN LIMINE

COMES NOW the Office of the City Attorney, by and through Jamie V. Smith, Prosecuting Attorney, and submits this “Motion in Limine,” moving that the Defendant be ordered to refrain from raising the following issues at the Jury Trial in the above-captioned matter:

1. Discussion of political, economic, or religious beliefs or ideology as a purported justification for the alleged acts, or as an issue to be evaluated by the jury;

2. Presentation of facts or arguments related to the belief that the defendant’s conduct was constitutionally protected expressive conduct;

3. Presentation of facts or arguments with the primary purpose or effect of proselytizing for the occupy movement, or otherwise using the Courtroom as a public forum;

4. Any reference to settlement negotiations with the Defendant prior to trial;

ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF MOTION

1. Discussion of political, economic, or religious beliefs or ideology as a purported justification for the alleged acts, or as an issue to be evaluated by the jury.

The Defendant is charges with violating Section 9.6.110 of the Code of the City of Colorado Springs, 2001, as amended (“the City Code”), entitled “Camping on Public Property.” Political, economic, or religious beliefs or ideology are not relevant to any of the elements of an alleged violation of City Code Section 9.6.110, nor are they relevant to any potential defense to that City Code Section.

City Code Section 9.6.110 makes it “unlawful for any person to camp on public property, except as may be specifically authorized by the appropriate governmental authority.” Testimony or arguments irrelevant to the elements contained in that language should be exclude from trial. C.R.E. Rule 401 defines relevant evidence as “evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probably than it would be without the evidence.” Evidence and argument regarding political, economic or religious beliefs of ideology have no bearing on the offense charged and do not meet the definition of relevant evidence.

Even if some discussion of these issues could be found to be of limited relevance, such discussion would only serve to confuse the issues and waste the court’s and jurors’ time, and would be unfairly prejudicial to the City. C.R.E. Rule 403 allows relevant evidence to be excluded when its admission would cause prejudice, confusion, or waste of time. To admit evidence related to any political, economic, and religious debate concerning the “Occupy Movement” at trial in this matter would result in prejudice, confusion, and a waste of Court time. By allowing such testimony, the jury would be misled as to the elements of the charged offense which would result in confusion during jury deliberations. Furthermore, the prosecution would suffer unfair prejudice if the jury were allowed to consider the defendant’s private ideology, as it is not an element that the prosecution must prove. Time and resources of the Court would also be wasted by allowing such testimony.

Furthermore, this Court denied the defendant’s “Motion to Dismiss-First Amendment,” on June 7, 2012, holding that City Code Section 9.6.110 is content-neutral, and that the defendant did not have a Constitutionally protected right to express his views in the manner that he chose on the date of the violation. Therefore, the sole issue before the jury is whether or not Mr. bass was camping on public property without appropriate governmental authority. Any evidence concerning political, economic or religious views that he was attempting to express through his conduct has no relevance whatsoever to any of the elements of the offense.

Discussion of the “Occupy Movement” as a political, economic or religious issue is also irrelevant to any potential defense which could be raised in this matter. Economic, political and religious beliefs or ideology are irrelevant to the following defenses that the Defendant might attempt to raise:

a. Choice of Evils Defense. C.R.S. Section 18-1-702(1) provides, in pertinent part, that “conduct which would otherwise constitute an offense is justifiable and not criminal when it is necessary as an emergency measure to avoid an imminent public or private injury which is about to occur… .” The statute goes on the state in subsection (2) that “the necessity and justifiability of conduct under subsection (1) of this section shall not rest upon considerations pertaining only to the morality and advisability of the statute, either in its general application or with respect to its application to a particular class of cases arising thereunder.” (Emphasis added.) Subsection (2) also states that:

[w]hen evidence relating to the defense of justification under this section is offered by the defendant, before it is submitted for the consideration of the jury, the court shall first rule as a matter of law whether the claimed facts and circumstances would, if established, constitute a justification.

The choose of evils defense “does not arise from a ‘choice’ of several courses of action, but rather is based on a real emergency involving specific and imminent grave injury that presents the defendant with no alternatives other that the one take.” People v. Strock, 623 P.2d 42, 44 (Colo.1981). in order to invoke the “choice of evils” defense, the Defendant must show that his conduct was necessitated by a specific and imminent threat of public or private injury under circumstances which left him no reasonable and viable alternative other than the violation of law for which he stand charged. Andrews v. People, 800 P.2d 607 (Colo. 1990).

There has been no allegation by the defense, and no facts in the police reports previously submitted to this Court, that allege a specific and imminent public or private injury would occur if Mr. Bass had not erected a tent on public property. Furthermore, reasonable and potentially viable alternatives were available to Mr. Bass to achieve his goal, such as picketing and handing out literature, on the date of violation. This was accepted as true and ruled upon by this Court at the motions hearing on June 7, 2012. it should also be noted that no state “has enacted legislation that makes the choice of evils defense available as a justification for behavior that attempts to bring about social and political change outside the democratic governmental process.” Id. at 609; see also United States v. Dorrell, 758 F.2d 427, 431 (9th Cir. 1985) (mere impatience with the political process does not constitute necessity).

b. Defense of Others. C.R.S. Section 18-1-704 describes the circumstance under which the use of physical force in defense of a person constitutes a justification for a criminal offense. Subsection (1) of that statute states, in part, that “a person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person…”. The defense does not apply considering the allegation in this case. There is no allegation that the Defendant was using physical force to protect himself from unlawful force by another at any time during the violation. Furthermore, no unlawful force was used or imminently threatened against any third party that would allow the Defendant to raise the defense.

c. Duress. C.R.S. Section 18-1-708 defines duress as conduct in which a defendant engages in at the direction of another person because use or threatened use of unlawful force upon him or another person. Duress does not apply in this case. There is no evidence that anyone was using or threatening to use unlawful force against Defendant or any third party to cause the Defendant to commit a violation.

2. Presentation of facts or arguments related to the belief that the defendant’s conduct was constitutionally protected expressive conduct.

Any claim by the Defendant that his conduct was protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is not a proper issue to be raised before the jury in this case. This is a constitutional defense that was already raised by the Defendant in his “motion to Dismiss-First Amendment,” and which was denied by this Court on June 7, 2012. The Court ruled as a matter of law that the Defendant’s alleged conduct was not a constitutionally protected form of expression.

3. Presentation of facts or arguments with the primary purpose or effect of proselytizing for the occupy movement, or otherwise using the Courtroom as a public forum.

It is anticipated that the Defendant will attempt to use this trial as a public forum to assert his political, economic, and religious views on the “Occupy Movement.” Courtrooms are not public forums. People v. Aleem, 149 P.3d 765 (Colo. 2007). This Court has the authority to restrict political speech within the courtroom and preserve its purpose as a forum for adjudication of criminal disputes,m so long as the restriction is reasonable and viewpoint neutral. Id. The restriction requested by the City is both reasonable and viewpoint neutral. The purpose of this Motion is to limit the evidence presented in this matter to the offense charged and potential defenses thereto. The Motion is also viewpoint neutral as the City is not taking a stance on political, economic, or religious issues and would not request that the Court do so either. The City’s request is that the Court be treated as a forum for resolving criminal disputes and not as a public forum for debate. Political, economic and religious debate should be restricted to appropriate public forums. To allow Defendant to raise thee issues would be contrary to legal precedent and the rules of evidence.

4. Any reference to settlement negotiations with the Defendant prior to trial.

C.R.E. 408 excludes from permissible evidence compromise or offers to compromise. Plea negotiations fall under this rule and may not be discussed in the presence of the Judge or Jury.

Do the 2012 London Olympics need extra security forces to protect Israeli athletes or to arrest them?

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Eric Verlo

Organizers are worried about inadequate security for the Olympic Games set to begin next month in London. What security threat are they anticipating exactly? It’s true the Olympics have become a bullseye for globalization critics. More and more, both athletes and groupies represent the jet set. But other than past indigenous protests in the Commonwealth territories, which amounted to no more than nonviolent blockades, what does the UK need paramilitary forces to defend against this time? Another 1972 Munich massacre? At the summer Olympics in Munich, the Israeli wrestling team was murdered by PLO terrorists called the “Black September Brigade”, but the official narrative leaves off that the Israeli athletes were targeted because they were IDF soldiers who’d participated in the counter-insurgent near-complete rout of the PLO, known as Black September. So that raises an interesting question. Is London expecting to host Israeli athletes who were veterans of Operation Cast Lead or the attack on the Mavi Marmara, whose assassinations someone might want to avenge? British authorities could address that most handily with preemption, because this time the IDF campaign against Gaza was widely regarded to have violated international law. Warn Team Israel that any such veteran setting foot in England would face prosecution for war crimes. While London is at it, issue the same warning to Team USA. Yeah, and Team UK, and Team Germany, et cetera, for Afghanistan, Libya, now Syria. It’s become the 2012 NATO War Criminals Olympics, gone professional, no amateur status terrorists need apply.

If by UN declaring a civil war in Syria classifies atrocities as war crimes, US covert forces there are war criminals

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Eric Verlo

UN observers have now labeled rebel clashes in Syria as having escalated into “Civil War”, initiating the legal foundation to go after Syrian president Assad on charges of “war” crimes. It’s a welcome bit of sophistry and should cut both ways. If the insurgent groups are armed and lead by covert special op forces of the US and NATO, then who are the bigger war criminals? So far the massacres ascribed to Assad, provoking Hillary Clinton’s condemnation, have proved to be the work of US-allied rebels.

Waldo Canyon concert fundraiser feted Colo. Springs self-interest & ignorance

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.- All night local speakers proclaimed: “Colorado Springs knows how to look after its own.” And doesn’t it! But I’m almost positive that it used to be, if only everywhere else, the virtue was looking out for others, not just your own.

The Waldo Canyon fundraiser for fire victims was titled “a community rising” and was explained as a coming together, without regard for religious or political differences, I would also add, minus humility and what would be common sense if the denominator wasn’t so debased. This was so embarrassing it hurt.

So we experienced a wildfire, part of the natural cycle of western forests, which burned a neighborhood probably built too far into a canyon, made worse, and ubiquitous right now across the Southwest, by an unnatural heatwave that portends climate change. Was any of that mentioned? NOPE.

Instead victims vowed to rebuild, as they fetishized firefighter vigilance over that ever threatening beast in the hills. Headliner Michael Martin Murphy, apparently the perpetual flame of wildfire vigil keeping, owing to his “Wildfire” hit but it was about a horse, sang a lament which listed the West’s many epic fires, appending mention of “Waldo Canyon” like a latest mining disaster. We’re supposed to prevent the fires apparently, like buying pink things to fight cancer. Wildfires aren’t tragedies except to logging interests. When Smokey the Bear cried, it was over timber that didn’t get logged. Of course national park visitors have to be reminded to exercise caution, because, the US Forestry Service jobs depend on the trees. We thought it was about Bambi’s mom, but those wildlives are managed too, with bullets, lest their populations threaten the trees.

Should people who who want to live in the forest be let to deny its nature like they shrug off global warming? And much as we gush over firemen, it’s a job. More clerks are shot at 7-11s than there are fallen heros listed on the multiple “national” monuments to firefighters.

The Waldo Canyon Fire destruction was the wrath of nature, whether owed to arson or deficient firefighting, the calamitous fire season throughout the state confirms that climate change created the perfect storm, but Jesus Springs is probably not prepared to consider the flaming villainy was an Act of God.

And where does anyone need reassurance that Colorado Springs doesn’t look after its own? We’re the no-holds-barred world street-fighting champions of supporting our workforce, standing up for our war criminal enabling ways. We’re a Support the Troops, Climate Denying, Drill Baby Drill, Charter-Schooling, God Hates Fags, No Thanks We’re Racists, God Damn apologists for Ayn Rand lowbrow cultural ignorance, and flag-waving PROUD OF IT. We don’t give a damn about burning other people’s houses, the people in them included. But when it happens to us, prayers and calls for prayers spam the internets.

We look after our own, if by our own, we mean our neighbors with homes. Colorado Springs stopped pretending to care about the homeless, it’s still piling on ordinances to criminalize poverty. If you’re homeless in Colorado Springs, you get as much compassion as people who lose their houses to our fires.

Smell test shows KONY 2012 viral vid tests positive for military grade virus

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Eric Verlo

Was mainstream media endorsing a viral Youtube video your first clue that the Invisible Children campaign bears the suspicious signs of US war-making propaganda?! What “Save Darfur” was to Sudan, the CIA-spelled backward [Africa’s] Invisible Children operation is to Uganda. With its Libyan protector out of the way, Africa and its resources have never been more accessible, so now AFRICOM’s cross-hairs are on regional insurgent defenders. Apparently Joseph Kony is today’s poster villain, and those pitching a US intervention in Central Africa want to convince the public the engagement would have an exit strategy not to exceed 2012. Flowers and candy.

What are we holding against Joseph Kony, indoctrinating child soldiers? What are American recruiters doing in our middle schools but trolling for our Invisible Children who, undereducated, undernourished and unprotected from predatory militarist propaganda, succumb to the economic or criminal justice draft?

Four Occupy tormentors unmasked

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Eric Verlo

Occupy Colo. Springs held a NO WAR ON IRAN demo today, counter- protested by some soldiers who think any antiwar criticism of their mission fails to Support The Troops. (Horrifyingly curious don’t you think, that US soldiers would already consider war with Iran as their mission?!) Joining them it turned out, were four of OCS’s sneakiest saboteurs. I got them with one camera click! From right to ultra-right: Raven Martinez aka Briaunna Webbing aka Occupy Csprings, Michael Clifton aka Agent of Doubt, Ian Carman aka “Father” Ian, and Ryan Butler aka Ry King aka Lone Wolf.

My policy until now was not to dignify any of these Facebook twits with attention, but their rumor campaign against OCS has become so virulent and untrue, and their misdeeds are now tipping the balance. Today the entire intersection had to bear personal megaphone taunts, but I’ll say that the final straw was yesterday when I learned of misinformation they attempted to spread to the local news. Occupy CS’s hand was forced in issuing a public statement about accused-arsonist Kyle Lawrence, because someone asserted Kyle had joined a violent group that had sprung up in OCS. Uh, let’s get to the bottom of that one, shall we?

WARNING: OCCUDRAMA AHEAD. All of it boring, but these creeps need to crawl back under their mouse pads. Ignoring them hasn’t worked, and even though they crave attention, I’ll give that a try.

Exhibit A

At far right is RYAN BUTLER aka Lucky Dog, aka Lone Wolf. When he disrupted OCS GAs he went by “Ry King”.

The secretive Ryan Butler is half of the Clifton/Butler nerd team that hijacked the “Occupy Colorado Springs” Facebook Open Group. It’s got about 400 members, doesn’t represent Occupy at all, and is maintained as a launchpad for Tea Party occu-haters under the pretext of “free speech” as decided by its unlisted admins Ryan & Michael. The open group was originally created by authentic occupier Amber Hagen, who in her idealism let all participant have admin privileges. When Amber discovered that haters among the admins kept wrecking the page, she began to delete them. Michael Clifton once recounted at a meeting how he and Ryan scrambled over Skype to keep Amber from shutting them out. They hurriedly deleted Amber’s admin access, thus exiling her from her own group. This was the act that inspired Raven Martinez to do the same with the OCS Facebook community page, in all fairness I should say, to prevent others from doing it to her.

Ryan’s claim to fame in OCS came from a failed coup to share the spokesmanship monopoly held by occupothead Jason Warf, but I digress.

Ryan had to step away from OCS after legal trouble from a drunken poker game gone awry, which he tried to blame on authentic occupy vet RTG. Ryan has a criminal record of domestic violence and wears a gun in his home in violation of having lost his permit to carry. That much is not disputed. But Ryan refutes RTG’s version of the event: that Ryan pistol-whipped his ex-girlfriend, which enraged RTG and the two fought, trashing the house. Both face assault charges and Ryan’s ex has filed her usual plea to the court to dismiss any notion that Ryan abused her. Instead we are to believe Ryan tried to defend himself with a vice-grips laying about (leaves a strike pattern similar to a gun maybe), accidentally striking his ex.

I’ll add that my perspective doesn’t come from hearing RTG’s testimony, but rather from eavesdropping on private IMs sent by Ryan as he deliberated what to say by way of damage control. Anyway.

Entirely relevant here however is Ryan Butler’s favorite bragging right, his secret Fight Club-inspired “PLAN-B” CLUB (First rule of Plan-B, you don’t talk about Plan B, snore). Apparently “Plan B” is for Amendment Two fans who want an alternate plan “when the revolution fails.” Was this the pro-violence group to which Michael Clifton alluded in TV interviews? It had nothing to do with Occupy, didn’t come from Occupy, and if its membership is limited to Ryan’s friends, I’m guessing that pares it down to two: he and Clifton. Thus Clifton’s statement about his disassociation from proponents of violence was also facetious, because the above photo was taken upon their arrival at the counter-protest, they came together.

But how absolutely scurrilous to attempt to tarnish OCS with the suggestion that occupy was the breeding ground of their pro-gun Amendment Two fantasy life?!

Exhibit B

Occupying more than the center of this photo is Michael Clifton, self-appointed videographer of the local occupy, known on Youtube and DIY newsites as “Agent of Doubt”.

Michael Clifton was a very early supporter of OCS, donating water and food as he documented its progress on Youtube, each segment introduced in his best impersonation of Alfred Hitchcock, minus the wit, or substance. Let’s say Clifton’s motives started out good, what would lead him last week to step forward and break the story about arsonist Kyle having a history with OCS, packaging his videos for best consumption by the local media?

Of course the answer is simple, and we’ve seen it before. Apparently 15-minutes of personal soundbite, TV attention converted to Youtube views, trumps any consideration for possible negative blowback for the movement. Clifton actually keeps distancing himself from OCS every time he alleges to speak authoritatively as an insider. It’s laughable if it wasn’t damnable, because this time the oaf said he quit when OCS members began to plan illegal strategies. Whaaat? –leaving listeners to infer that arson was among the strategies. What kind of tomfoolery insinuation is that?

Not surprisingly, once more Clifton is defending himself against accusations of being an informer or provocateur. I make no such charge. He’s an idiot. What can you do, Colorado Springs is full of them. Am I being too harsh? Read on.

In an earlier episode in front of City Council, Clifton famously declared himself an outsider to OCS so that he could take all the credit for a –he-thought– brilliant bit of investigative deduction regarding CSPD’s billing of man hours charged for policing OCS. Our friend had videotaped an OCS march you see, and noticed there weren’t any police officers in sight, ergo, the billings must have been fraudulent, yes, ignoring the possibility the cops were plain-clothed, or observing from a perimeter, or on call, etc. So like a flat-earther who draws conclusions based on only what he can see, our intrepid Sherlock declares the CSPD guilty of fraud, and… marches straight into the local office of the FBI to make the charge! The FBI, he reports, were only too happy to accept all his video footage into evidence!

This might point to Clifton’s real reason to declare he was not part of Occupy, because a GA consensus would have vetoed his FBI idea. OCS had recently endorsed a no-snitch policy, not on anyone, not even the city, and let’s face it, not least of all I’m guessing, TO the FBI.

Thus, however unwittingly, let’s call it witlessly, Clifton is an FBI informant in the very technical sense, isn’t he?

To put a fine point on it: everyone who’s participated in OCS activities recorded by Agent of Doubt Clifton, is now on record at the FBI, in not just the lossy Youtube segments available online, but the original hi-def digital sequences, in their entirety.

And while Agent Dork has been a stalwart companion to Occupy, if only for the videos which he converts into ad-views whose revenue he “contributes” to the Occupy movement by funding his own efforts to “promote” it, so far the sum of his efforts has been to give law enforcement and the local media evidence to build a case against Occupy. Thanks a ton Agent Dork. From here onward, your camera aught to record everyone giving you the finger!

Exhibit C

I was tempted because of his sign to give Father Ian Carman a pass. Who’s to say a Department of Homeland Security employee shouldn’t consider himself part of the 99%? But after successive absences from GAs, then hiding among the haters, it might be time to take a close look at this very disruptive occupier.

Divisive behavior can be very subtle, so I’ll cut to the quick on Father Ian. He revealed to us that he worked for DHS because he wanted to explain that he had access to confidential files on certain occupiers, one of whom, supposedly a veteran, still had a very high security clearance, indicating he was likely still active duty, or perhaps in the intelligence service. Father Ian was asserting this about our high profile occupy star JWS, effectively trying to snitchjacket JWS. Come down on that whichever way you like.

Exhibit D

Raven Martinez writes on Facebook under the identity of her daughter, or the occunonymous Facebook user “Occupy Csprings”. Once a formidable OCS volunteer, Raven suddenly became my own personal raving critic. It’s been suggested that her fury bears the air of a woman scorned — I’ll delve into that further down, if I feel like it.

As reported above, the Tea Party mutiny of Amber’s Facebook OCS open group is what inspired Raven to hijack the OCS Facebook COMMUNITY PAGE. Raven might have done it with the best intentions, but did it utterly undemocratically and to everyone’s chagrin and condemnation. Here’s what happened.

Embattled by internal struggle against the very identity of mothership Occupy Wall Street, the OCS GA had adopted the moderating policy implemented by the New York OWS to thwart vanguards and saboteurs, but the Springs admins at that time were refusing to implement them. Admins were continuing to post political endorsements, conspiracy theories and statements critical of fellow occupiers. Further protocols were adopted by OCS to require admins to use their initials to identify who was responsible. Again this was ignored, and now many of the admins were refusing to attend the GAs.

One day Raven noticed important posts being deleted and snide comments being made about OCS protest actions, all being done by an admin who would not reveal his/her identity, and worst of all, in the name of Occupy Colorado Springs. An admin herself, Raven made the clever move of temporarily deleting all the other admin users on the chance that this one might be stupid enough to reveal himself by complaining about his suddenly lost access. The idiot took the bait, and turned out to be none other than OCS-permit-holder and self-important-leader Hossein Momsforpot. For shit. Well this left Raven with a dilemma. Who was going to believe that Hoss was anti-OWS? More critically, who among the admins she had deleted, could she reinstate without the risk that Hoss would convince them to reinstate his admin status with which he could then delete Raven? This was the lesson Raven had gleaned from the hijack perpetrated by Wolf & Agent Duh.

I neglected to mention that the earlier hijack was accomplished anonymously, with Ryan pretending that sole admin status was held by “his dog”. So with her hijack, Raven added her own innovation, Raven loudly proclaimed that she’d been shut out too! She planned to claim that her eventual “reinstatement” was the result of an omniscient AnonymousTM hacker who’d intervened for the betterment of the movement.

Raven’s problem was that I had just the day before publicly refused an admin appointment, and when she cavalierly let suspicions fall on occupier PJ, he promptly deleted himself. Funny story, no?

Well, although a number of very earnest admins felt slighted, oddly enough things worked out for the better after Raven’s purge because all the internal occuhating stopped, and a number of the admins who felt pushed out ultimately outed themselves as Ron Paul enthusiasts, conspiracy nuts, or single-issue MMJ addicts. In reality, no one was ejected from OCS, but having lost their control over the Facebook page, they chose to make kissoff statements and move on.

So Raven was able to coax PJ and me to share the admin responsibilities with her, and it’s a good thing too, because when Raven eventually turned against the broader OWS mission, she’ll say it was because of my personal agenda, Raven went and DELETED the Facebook page. She thought she’d done it, but Facebook has safeguards fortunately, PJ and I were alerted and able to save the 3,300 member page from oblivion.

And the rest is history in the making. Three of us administrate the community page now, we trust each other and our dedication to the values and goals of the original Wall Street occupiers, and the Facebook likes continue to rise.

Is that enough about Raven? Yes it is. She’s doing her best to vilify and destroy our efforts, but that’s as much as I want to say about her.

What the hell. Each of these four unsavory characters knows that I could say far more than I’ve divulged here. I’m already embarrassed enough to talk about them as I did, good grief. The personal attacks on me are based on nothing that I hadn’t written about on NMT, yet they persist via email and phone calls to everyone they can reach. Well, here’s my shot across the bow.

Did Kyle Lawrence represent Occupy CS, as its attention-hangers-on assert?

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Eric Verlo

COLO. SPRINGS– Poor Kyle. Not only is the newly suspected-arsonist in a hospital burn unit with third degree burns, but his until-recent colleagues are now laughing at his clumsiness and are belittling his motives. “What did his vandalism accomplish?” –his advice-givers ask, as if sensing a teaching-moment for their Youtube viewers. Well, if Kyle Lawrence INTENDED to burn down a civic justice building, as his cohort alleges, he accomplished THAT. You can’t take that away from him, you polemically-challenged pedants!

But my ire has more to do with why you attention-divas rushed out with public musings at all, drawing the media’s attention to Kyle’s participation with the early Occupy gathering in Acacia Park. Kyle Lawrence, age 22, passed through what became Occupy Colorado Springs like many a disaffected outcast. He carried no responsibility as founder, organizer or strategist, and as it turned out, bore most resemblance to the many itinerants with criminal records that abound in homeless populations. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but of course the local media are going to revel in associating lawbreakers with OCS. Why be the direct conduit?

Would the local media have made the Kyle Lawrence connection on its own? Maybe. But certainly not, I’ll allege, with the bells and whistles provided by people pretending to have the inside dirt on Occupy. You’ve insinuated that other occupiers harbor felonious intentions, pretending that you left OCS as a result. What self-aggrandizing poppycock! Can you be both insiders and outsiders? Begone then, you cretinous sound-backbiters!

Presuming you thought your were stepping up to some moral obligation, I’ll ask this: Do spokespeople for OCS need to make a public statement repudiating Kyle Lawrence’s arson? That’s certainly a local strain of the nonviolence pedagogical virus. In my opinion, absolutely not. The act Kyle committed was a crime — what’s that got to do with Occupy? OCS doesn’t condone crime. To address it implies that crime bears some relation to OCS actions. It doesn’t. Who is held to be in favor of rape, robbery or murder just because they don’t publicly repudiate it? That’s nonsense.

Repudiating anti-societal behavior is a trap, actually, to extract the menace from protest movements. Get a disgruntled populace to repudiate all forms of self defense and they’ll police themselves. To ineffectualness, ideally. Mass demonstrations aren’t met by riot police in order to prevent riots, the deployment of police is meant as a deterrent to the people’s will to assemble. Our freedom of assembly is guaranteed by right because our landlords will constantly scheme to ensure we not practice it. Demonstrations large enough, and giving off an air of sufficient stamina, are what it takes to effect government policy. Toothless crowds, not at all.

This differential is quite obviously seen in the abundant effort to keep occupiers from using tents. Daily protests don’t gather steam. Occupations threaten to give them momentum.

Oh, famously –I think mythically– toothless determination can combat segregation, but it’s never produced regime change or any reform having to do with money, especially at the top. What was desegregation but a privilege which one lower class was forced to relinquish to another? Unfortunately the MLK mythology has been used very successfully to inoculate modern activism. Popular protest has been getting nowhere ever since MLK. Coincidence?

So no repudiation of Kyle Lawrence, on principle. OCS is law abiding and like anyone, presumed innocent until proven guilty. OCS has never advocated violence or lawbreaking, end of story. From an effective activism standpoint, it’s important to remember the St Paul Principles, which advise activists not to criticize the tactics chosen by others. It’s obvious to see why nonviolence zealots condemn the St Paul Principles.

Should Kyle’s actions be addressed? Not as yet, they’re alleged, first of all, and second, it’s hearsay. But if we are to believe Kyle’s accomplice, and before accounting for drunkenness, apparently the act of burning the Green Mountain Falls city building was a deliberate act of protest, misguided whatever, yada yada, but it wasn’t teenage vandalism, burglary or insurance fraud.

If Kyle and his accomplice are found guilty, as the crime so far is understood, it was a politically motivated crime and they will be political prisoners. A menace to society, yes, candidates for incarceration and rehabilitation, lamentably yes, but moral degenerates? Hardly. Make fun of them if you want, but their crime was idealism.

Occupy Wall Street mentor Adbusters issues latest tactical briefing. Chicago. May. Occupy.

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Eric Verlo

Vancouver’s Adbusters Magazine sent the initial callouts to occupy Wall Street, to be the natural successor to unfinished revolutions in Tahrir Square and Madrid. Quickly enough it escaped their grasp. Adusters has issued two dozen “Tactical Briefings” since before September 17 to advise the growing rebellion, to be interpreted coming from a valued mentor, albeit an outsider, technically now, a non-occupier. The distinction was never more obvious than when one of their briefings advised striking the camps and waiting out the winter. But their briefing #25 offers more than retreat, it sets OWS sights on the joint NATO-G8 summit to be held in Chicago this May, against which very large demonstrations are already being planned. No specific advice on the other hand for local occupies, wisely perhaps, where tacticians can add no more to the strategy than hold your ground, by definition, occupy.

ADBUSTERS TACTICAL BRIEFING #25

Hey you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,

Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.

And so will we.

On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.

And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights. We’ll go there with our heads held high and assemble for a month-long people’s summit … we’ll march and chant and sing and shout and exercise our right to tell our elected representatives what we want … the constitution will be our guide.

And when the G8 and NATO meet behind closed doors on May 19, we’ll be ready with our demands: a Robin Hood Tax … a ban on high frequency ‘flash’ trading … a binding climate change accord … a three strikes and you’re out law for corporate criminals … an all out initiative for a nuclear-free Middle East … whatever we decide in our general assemblies and in our global internet brainstorm – we the people will set the agenda for the next few years and demand our leaders carry it out.

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

#Occupy Colo. Springs Municipal Court

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Eric Verlo

OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Attention local media, if you’re looking for authentic spokespeople for Occupy Colorado Springs, you need look no further than today’s front row. Holding the big sign is first arrestee Steve Bass, to his right: three times arrestee Iraq vet Jack Semple, arrestee Amber Hagen, arrestee Raven Martinez, and arrestee Thomas G.

Also pictured, former Colorado Congressman Dennis Apuan, Occupy founding member Jon Martinez and Socialist activist Patrick Jay. Not pictured, Joel Aigner and Hossein Forouzandeh who were speaking at a UCCS occupy teach-in.

Here’s a video of the Saturday arrests of veteran of Fallujah Timothy “Jack” Semple and Amber Hagen of the 7-11 incident. Worth the watch. ROCKSTARS!

Mark your calendars, upcoming arraignments are scheduled November 21, 29 and 30.

Raven addressed the Colorado Springs City Council today on the unconstitutionality of the no-camping ordinance being enforced to curb the Occupy protest. Here’s what she said:

As a citizen of the United States, one has a given right to life, liberty, & property. These rights are protected by both the 5th & 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

In Bolling v Sharpe, The Supreme Court interpreted the 5th Amendment’s due process clause to include an equal protection element.

The 14th Amendment states:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of LIFE, LIBERTY, or PROPERTY, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Knowing that sleep is a necessity of Life, every American citizen has a right to sleep, regardless of status.

“HOMELESSNESS” is considered a status.

The camping ordinance ultimately denies one the right to sleep, therefore the right to live, based on their status. How many people have been arrested for setting up a canopy, with blankets & food, to take a nap or have a picnic on public property.

Now if a homeless person sets up a canopy, has blankets and food with them, will they be told to take down their canopy under the current camping ordinance? If so, then the ordinance is based on status, therefore unconstitutional.

If not, then it leaves too much discretion in the hands of the individual law enforcement officer, making the ordinance over-broad and unconstitutionally vague.

When one is homeless, where can that person sleep? If they set up to sleep on Public property they would be violating the current city ordinance, they will be told to leave and told of a shelter to go to, being their only alternative. This amounts to incarceration in the shelter without a violation of law having been committed. This also violates ones right to due process in that it allows for arbitrary enforcement.

When you criminalize a non-criminal act of necessity, you greatly increase the possibility of that person committing other crimes, as well as decrease that persons ability to obtain employment.

State v Folks, No. 96-19569 MM found that a city ordinance which punished innocent conduct, such as sleeping/camping on public property, violated the defendant’s right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, which is protected under the 8th Amendment.

I ask you to look at the constitutionality as well as the long term effects of such an ordinance, it starts a domino effect that negatively impacts an already hurting economy.

How much does it cost in tax payers money to pursue such a case?

We have to have change! If we want a better economy and overall society, then the government, Federal, State, & Local, must change the way they conduct business. Criminalizing acts of necessity is business, not a way to protect our American citizens.

“Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over & over again and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein

Pass a new ordinance to repeal the current one.

Colorado College closes doors on public lecture about Northcom, NORAD & the War on Drugs against Mexican people

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO COLLEGE- Today’s presentation by Brigadier General Daniel Hokanson, on the role of NORAD and NORTHCOM in the War on Drugs on the US-Mexico border was abruptly closed to the public, for reasons not made clear to community members who might have appeared to offer a critical reception. Was it something we said, or didn’t get to say, except through our signs held outside Worner Center? What’s wrong with NORTHCOM & PENTAGON OUT OF COLOMBIA & MEXICO? Who can argue with this arithmetic: CRIMINALIZED + MILITARIZED DRUG WAR = DEATH & TYRANNY? Although I suppose neolibs would deny DRUG WAR IS U.S. EXCUSE TO SUPPRESS REBELLION. Popular with students was: WAR ON DRUG IS AS BOGUS AS WAR ON POVERTY. We’d compare it to the so-called Global War on Terror, but at a neoliberal institution like CC, who knows how that would be interpreted. If I’d been able to ask any question at all, it would have been to the Political Science Department. Why hadn’t they invited a second speaker to offer a corresponding critique of US Latin American policy? Turnout for the talk was sparse, and the sponsoring faculty member expressed his bemusement at our diligence to protest what he thought had been scheduled under the radar. So we beat NORAD at its own game.

DPD used riot gear in dead of night to arrest camp singing national anthem

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Eric Verlo

DENVER- When Occupy Denver threatens to make a difference is when authorities have to shut it down. The sweep tonight is a good sign.
I’m not worried about Occupy Denver. I have a tent booked for this weekend, the police attack tonight will just raise occupancy rate is all. Now I’ll have to move up my check-in date to be assured a space. Colorado Police have already lost this engagement. The mere threat of arrest tonight only enlarged the protest, it didn’t frighten it off. Middle of the night arrests and tent-clearing are of little consequence. At height of the crowd strength, the police backed down. Tents will go up everywhere tomorrow. There’s not enough riot gear in the US to occupy the multitude of protest occupations. Denver state capitol here we come!

Gov Hickenlooper’s use of State Troopers to clear the capitol lawn in the middle of night probably preempted actions by other Occupy camps to draw police resources away. Next time how can they distract the popo legally? Follow Occupy Denver’s lead. Apparently peaceful, nonviolent free speech is enough to bring clampdown.

GA earlier in evening reaffirmed that movement is not about having messages heard, to be ignored per usual, but SHUTTING DOWN THE SYSTEM. It’s is not about speaking truth to power. Power already knows the truth. What it doesn’t know is extent of peoples’ determination. Denver GA wasn’t won over by voices content to keep occupation as daily sidewalk protests, lasting into winter, to usual no effect. You want protracted Wall Street protest? Antiwar vigils have been ongoing for 10 years…

Tents ARE key issue for all Occupy protests. What is your right to peaceably assemble if you can’t protect yourself from cold? Does 1st Amendment only apply in summer, during the day, and when authorities aren’t too bothered by your dissent? Thinking this movement is about getting your issues heard is to pretend #OccupyWallStreet means “Voice Off to Wall Street.” Nope. Tents are needed in Denver, Wall Street and everywhere because this movement needs to stop the system, not hector it until we lose energy & body temp.

The Denver Post doesn’t have a live camera from their building which overlooks the capitol and Occupy camp. They’re not press, they’re criminals. What they have is nominal, the view above actually, but a low rez surveillance webcam is poor excuse for a media outlet.

Those who think Occupy Denver should have decamped and gone home, are not thinking of the homeless -the fullest victims of Wall Street. Hopefully Occupy members who were praising the Denver Police so warmly in earlier GAs will stick around on sidelines at least to get lesson in police state. Of course all the members who chose to flee DPD intimidation will be welcomed back tomorrow. But voicing their next 2-cents worth? Not so much.

Police are people too, but they have a job to do. By coincidence it’s to stop you from stopping Wall Street. Yep it’s a dilemma. It’s probably no surprise that pro-fracking, pro-coal, pro-war, anti-immigrant, anti-union gov of Colorado would be against Occupy Denver. Issuing a warning of arrests to be made between 11-5am is extortion, threatening unlawful arrest is police state terrorism. Do we accept police raids tonight on Denver and Seattle camps? Protest is civil right, shelter is human right. Police state is fascist wrong.

Something to thing about: Whole crowds can be subdued by one tyrant with a gun, if they remain nonviolent. Numerical superiority counts where people have courage to act. When people say there’s strength in numbers, it’s not if you’re queued obediently to have your eye put out, or shot, or for rigged elections.

Colo. State Troopers are wearing riot gear to face Denver protesters, because post-curfew peaceful campers equals RIOT in Fascist police state.

Iraq & Afghanistan should have thought to require US to withdraw occupation every night. Military bases must violate some vagrancy law.

Cops sympathetic to 99% could have shown their mettle if they’d occupy their sick leave, occupy off-duty, occupy right to refuse unlawful orders. Otherwise state troopers are dumbasses and do not represent Colorado or 99%. I know by regulation cop IQ has max limit, didn’t know cowardice was also requisite.

Occupy Denver was won Oct 14 at 11:01PM, regardless what happens now. Threat of arrest enlarged crowd, didn’t shrink it. The movement’s momentum is proved.

Mid-night raid won’t matter. Cops wouldn’t face crowd at its largest, the Occupy protests have been emboldened past critical mass.

The 40 minute warning given to the protesters is actually the police giving themselves 40 minutes to shit their pants. The OWS juggernaut is on the move and the popo have chosen to side against 99%. Denver officers, you’re marching against the 99%. Occupy Denver will forgive you and blame your bosses. But you’ve probably heard of Anonymous’ motto.

Riot gear worn by Colorado police concedes conceit that Occupy Denver issue is illegal camping. OWS protest camp is free speech and assembly.

Solo Gaza relief ship Dignite Al Karama presses on for the dignity of Palestine

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Not only have nation states refused to sanction humanitarian relief missions to illegally besieged Gaza, events this week prove they are unanimous in prohibiting even citizens doing it themselves. Yet, one brave vessel has eluded sabotage, lawsuit, bureaucracy, and Greece’s Coast Guard paramilitaries. French Freedom Flotilla II participant DIGNITE AL KARAMA presses on alone to break the siege of Gaza. Without media escort, television cameras or witnesses, the crew of eleven, joined by print reporter Quentin Girard, will have only their cellphones to apprise the world audience of their progress against the bellicose reception which Israel has promised awaits any transgressors of its 63 year occupation and subjugation of Palestine, including its open-air prison called Gaza.

UPDATES: Dignite incercepted by Greek Coast Guard while refueling in Ormos Kouremenos, Crete. Taken under escort to Xinthya, where it’s promised they will be able to leave in the morning. Translation of French article below.

Flotilla for Gaza: The “Dignity” intercepted by Greek coast guard.

For two hours, late Wednesday afternoon, the “Dignity” is moored at Ormos Kouremenos, a small port in the far east of Crete. It needs to replenish fuel one last time before sailing to Gaza.

Suddenly, as it has already replentished 1,000 liters and is awaiting a second delivery, a gunboat of the Greek coast guard emerges. The passengers immediately understand. In this small bay where there are only fishing boats made of wood, they know it is there for them. The gunboat approaches, also an unmarked car.

The Coast Guard ask politely for our papers. Thus began a two-hour discussion and document control board where everything is carefully checked. Activists trample board.

“It’s too bad”, everyone is thinking. This was the last step before the big crossing. A dozen men in uniform, very polite, surround the Dignity. The phone calls multiply, presumably to refer to a distant authority. The Coast Guard require passports, they carefully register the names.

They don’t find much wrong with the boat. The captain didn’t have a logbook and the marina’s entry fee, 30 euros, hadn’t yet been tendered. Except that in this small fishing harbor, there was no place to declare one’s arrival. We must wait. Passengers prepare to eat, the menu that night, chicken pasta, coppa and lentils.

“We’re Very Sorry”

Eventually the Coast Guard announced that we must follow them to another port to sign authorizations and that the “Dignity” will be able to leave the next morning. It’s 10PM.

In the meantime they keep the boat’s papers to make photocopies. They ensure that there is no problem. One of them apologized repeatedly: “Sorry.” Omeyya Seddik, one of the passengers replied, “You’re doing your jobs, that’s normal.”

The “Dignity” is off again into the night toward the port of Xinthya, escorted by the Coast Guard boat which heads off without delay. Too fast. Many times it seems to disappear into the night as if really she doesn’t want to be followed.

The passengers do not know how to react. What to do? Keep a slim hope? Or immediately broadcast our circumstances and risk making it certain we will not be able to leave as promised. They doubt, they got the impression there were only Greeks among the Coast Guard and the people who were roaming around taking pictures.

Three days they are at sea, three days playing cat and mouse without knowing really if there was a cat. The dignity might perhaps not get to Gaza. It was the only ship of the “Freedom Flotilla” that managed to sail and keep up the hope of getting to Gaza. It went a little further than others, probably not enough. “We remain committed” they declare. “Tomorrow if we can go, we will continue to Gaza.”

RADIO INTERVIEW: Quentin Gerard explains: “This boat has become a strong political symbol.”

AWAITING CONFIRMATION: Swedish aid ship JULIANO still hopes to make a convoy. (Broadcasting live at http://ustre.am/zQHM)

As it stands, authorities have blocked or sabotaged 9 of the 10 vessels known to be sailing in the aid convoy. They are: The Audacity of Hope, Tahrir, Saorise, Juliano, Guernica, Louise Michel, Dignite Al Karama, Stefano Chiarini, Freedom for All, and the Methimus II.

Aboard the DIGNITE: Activists: Olivier Besancenot, Annick Coupé, Nabil Ennasr, Jacqueline Le Corre, Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, Osama Mouftah, Julien Rivoire, Omeyya Seddik; crew: Hilaire, Vincent and Yannick; not pictured: photographer/reporter Quentin Girard.

See their pictures at Liberte.fr.

Updated Facebook page statement of DIGNITY delegation:
La déclaration des camarades à bord du bateau

Message of the French delegation on board the Dignité Al Karama: The Freedom Flotilla is not dead!

Our presence at sea, on the Dignity-Al Karama, permits us to carry on the message of the international campaign of the Freedom Flotilla II and of the French Un Bateau Pour Gaza campaign. The statements by the Israeli authorities proclaiming the end of the Freedom Flotilla II, praising the Greek government acts as freedom of expression and actions of a civil society are now dead words.

We are at sea, and the collected national coalitions are not giving up.

States should no longer be complicit in this criminal blockade, and cannot silence the urge of civil society that simply demands, through this nonviolent action, the enforcement of law by permanent lifting of the blockade of Gaza.

We call on all justice-loving citizens to strengthen the effort, to allow the Dignity-Al Karama and all boats of the flotilla to go to Gaza.

Girard latest Tweets:

July 6, 3:36
Besancenot at the helm, small salad, sea of oil. Nickel.

July 6, 3:37
On the boat we wonder about the latest of the mercato and of the Tour de France. Any news?

July 6, 5:29
@JAntiwilders Dignity Is still heading to Gaza.

July 6, 5:29
@yanouz FT1 will not be on the boat evidently.

July 6, 6:19
@GirardTh Not too much wind, calm sea, it’s a change from the Atlantic.

July 6, 6:33
@JpKphotographer Yes, will you follow me? We need press agency photos.

July 6, 11:09
Did the Greek-Swedish ship manage to leave the port of Athens? Really?

In the original French:

3:36 – 06.07
Besancenot à la barre, petite salade, mer d’huile. Nickel.

3:37 – 06.07
Sur le bateau on s’inquiète des dernières nouvelles du mercato et du tour de France. Des news?

5:29 – 06.07
@JAntiwilders dignity is still heading to Gaza.

5:29 – 06.07
@yanouz F1 ne viendra pas sur le bateau apparemment.

6:19 – 06.07
@GirardTh pas trop de vent, mer calme, ça change de l’Atlantique.

6:33 – 06.07
@JpKphotographer oui, tu me rejoins? Ils ont besoin de photographes dagence de presse.

11:09 – 06.07
Le bateau greco suédois aurait réussi à sortir du port d Athènes? Vrai?

Navy Seals Death Squids

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Eric Verlo

It does seem unfair to conclude, after the US special forces operation to hunt and kill Osama bin Laden, that all Navy SEAL teams are death squads, but is it a logical fallacy? No one is now pretending there was any other objective but to kill the al-Qaeda leader and everyone who stood in our path, preferably unarmed. Now the latest revelation is that a duplicate assault team was kept at the ready. That’s how many executioners ready? The question becomes, are all Navy Seals trained to kill in cold blood? The answer could lay with the instructors at Fort Benning, the notorious “School of the Americas” where it used to be understood the death squads of South American dictators learned their trade, although now torture is taught at military camps and private contractor schools literally coast to coast, so isn’t that the problem? Torture being among other unsavory practices we say we do not do, while simultaneously forbidding revelations to come from Wikileaks.

When the Germans set their minds to liquidate civilians as their Operation Barbarossa drove toward Russia, they dedicated “special forces” called the “Einsatzgruppen” to do the deed. One because the task detracted from the forward advance, and two, because executing unarmed civilians proved a demoralizing task for the ordinary soldier. On the other hand, gathering noncombatants and shooting them in the back of the head didn’t require combat skills either, so the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from the police force of German cities like Hamburg, where the principle skill was exerting authority and pulling the trigger where others might flinch.

The Einsatzgruppen present vexing evidence for Holocaust deniers. Skeptics can point to inconsistencies about the function of gas chambers in the concentration camps, to suggest that the Nazis might have managed to work their prison laborers to death, but never intended to exterminate them. That argument fails when considering the role of the Einsatzgruppen, to hunt down Jewish civilians, take them to where no one is looking and shoot them. Prisoners of war, yes, and Slavs too, but by primary directive, the Jews.

When partisan acts of sabotage necessitated disciplinary retribution, the Germans had other squads to raze entire villages, these soldiers were chosen from the military brig or from convicts offered a military probation from civilian prison.

In either case the German Wehrmacht chose to match the criminal mindset to the crime. Though overwhelming in its savagery, WWII predated the “Free Fire Zone” where civilians are pretended to be adversaries and/or dismissed as collateral damage.

That’s not to say that today’s soldiers are all bad, many of them I’m sure are earnest peacekeepers determined to win hearts to Pax Americana. I’m sure your average Navy SEAL has rescued his share of kittens from trees.

So which is it, do the Navy SEALs train every member not to shy from shooting defenseless people at point-blank range, or are there designated specialists? Are those chosen based on excellence of performance, as the PR has it, or from among the sailors with disciplinary troubles? Because it’s looking like the bin Laden raid was not out of the ordinary, and no one’s defending it as such.

Bin Laden’s assassination offered a curious ray of hope for me when President Obama’s mission accomplished message was “justice has been served.” Might I dream that bankers and the world’s biggest criminals could feel a draft of discomfort at the idea that no one is untouchable, and the Commander in Chief’s idea of serving justice means a hail of bullets to whomever’s home he chooses.

Don’t worry, there are unspecial forces enough to go around. When Wikileaks released the video of unarmed Iraqis being gunned down by relentless, trigger-giddy helicopter crews, most soldiers acknowledged that such events were commonplace. In the US military, you don’t even have to be a specially rated soldier to rank as Einsatzgruppen.

In my 20-year experience with local policemen, owning two retail stores, soliciting their help with shoplifters, vandals, and whatever disturbances, I can honestly report that all were professional, competent, and very pleasant. That’s 100% of them, very nice people. I can also say that in my experiences protesting, those police-persons who arrested me were unwavering bastards. Also 100%. Not in any particular case the same officers, but statistically, if you compare the two absolute groups, they’re the same people.

Bin Laden was right, but you knew this already, America is a Godless nation

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Lawless and Godless. My stomach has been in a knot all day. I remember feeling this way when we executed Saddam Hussein, by all accounts a brutal despot. We tried him in a kangaroo court, without even the courage to make the audio or transcript public, because he would have ratted us out. Then we had him summarily hung. Now I’ve no great objection to regicide, I favor it actually when imposed by public coup. At the hands of foreign invaders it’s victor’s justice, and probably deliberately criminal to humiliate the conquered. Last night a US special forces hunt and kill team shot the unarmed Osama bin Laden and others, in a fire-fight whose casualty ratio was that of a firing squad. Bin Laden’s body was immediately disposed the way we taught Argentine and Chilean death squads to do it, disappeared out over the sea. Gone, just like those famous shoes that offended George the Wretched Bush, vaporized in post-incident explosives tests it was said, not kept by any Princeton grad as talisman keepsakes, like for example the bones of Chief Geronimo, the famed Native American resistance leader whose grave was robbed by elder alum Prescott Bush to provide the skull and crossbones for which the secretive society was named. Oddly, the operation to assassinate bin Laden was called “GERONIMO.”

That, or we named the mission after an expression that means, as far as I remember, “here goes nothing!” Usually shouted as you were leaping somewhere. Regardless it’s an incredibly insensitive subject to invoke as you’re intending to assassinate a later era’s most significant resistance leader. When we decide to take out Subcommandante Marcos, are we going to name it Operation Bin Laden? And don’t pretend someone doesn’t want dibs on his pipe.

We’re told we disposed of bin Laden’s body to prevent the forces of evil, aka Islam, from creating a shrine. But are Muslims the only people who worship at a shrine? I’m inclined to believe a whole other denomination of people attribute something mythic to a hero’s remains, more perhaps even than his mere followers.

Now I wouldn’t put it past America’s spooks to wring those shoes of the sweat of the wearer who summoned the courage to have a go at Bush, which no one before or since, neither prizefighter nor pope, has dared to do. Likewise, I’d think even your average incurious scientist could get a grant to scan the heart and brain of a man worth half a billion dollars yet renounced a life of luxury to dedicate his life to fight the godless Soviet invaders, and later, the most sinister, most profane dragon which has so far destroyed or enslaved everything in its fiery wake. What distinguishes this fluke DNA and how can we eradicate its traces so that Capitalism isn’t jeopardized by a recurrence?

But that’s looking at this from the scientific side.

That’s right, less than the extra-judicial lynching, I am most disturbed by President Obama’s decision to officially dispose of bin Laden’s body. To make it disappear, to thwart followers, as if it bore some malignant power, attributable to a kind of person like Adolf Hitler. Terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden killed but a fraction, compared to whoever it might be said was the mastermind of the War On Terror. And what of those behind the War on the Third World, the War on Debtor Nations, the War on the Not yet Enslaved, which has become the War On Islam? They were also his declared enemies. And so bin Laden was but an adversary, who held an opposing economic view. His means were violent, but peanuts compared to the poverty, death and destruction wreaked by Western imperialism and war. I subscribe to neither his methods nor his ideology, but Bin Laden was no demon. He was the champion of billions of our victims, and to call him a worthy opponent is to flatter ourselves.

And that’s why I suspect somebody right now is worshiping what remains of bin Laden’s essence, in the same manner that Sunday, the very day Operation Geronimo was deployed, the rest of the Western world was staring at television screens, in songful prayer, focused on a bible atop the coffin of a recently disinterred Pope John Paul.

Jesus Springs welcomes fugitive Bush

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Eric Verlo

After seeing Colorado College gush over a whitewashed CIA murderer, I’m not in any mood to watch local Christian groupies applaud George War-criminal Bush. The plan for Saturday at the Broadmoor is to pummel the arrogant creep with shoes, ceremoniously of course, and probably in effigy. We’ll have a Bush impersonator, a little monkey in a suit strutting about with impunity. And it appeals to me more that we not land any hits, so we’ll have Junior ducking this shoe and that, taunting us with his sick hehehe. And won’t that reflect reality? Justice frustrated by a snickering good ol’ boy. Except, is there outrage left for Bush? I know I hardly feel it anymore. It’s Obama dissembling about torture and dropping the bombs now.

Here’s the list of embarrassing local businesses and idiotri welcoming George Bush to Colorado Springs, they’re even giving him an award, apparently he’s an inspiration to charter school students:

Colorado Springs Christian Schools
Steve Schuck
Dick Saunders, Saunders Construction
El Pomar Foundation
Pete & Jackie Kuyper
Sonya Camarco, LPL Financial
Dewhirst & Dolven, Attorneys
Bob & Kelly McGrath
Dr. Ron & Renee Rains
Interim Healthcare
Clear Ink Foundation
Colorado Custom Decks
Dr. Mike & Kathy Hall
Mateos Salon & Day Spa
Dar Howard
Envision Investment Group
Dave & Lynda Bjorklund
First Western Trust Bank
Scott & Beth Bugosh
Richard King Brown
Freedom Financial Services
The Milestone Group
Clear View Properties
The Sonchar Family
Joseph & Melissa Hornsey
Ken & Rae Driscoll
Rick & Margaret Brown
David & Gloria Neuder
Todd Pickle
Lee & Mickey Bolin
Seelye Group Ltd.
Liberty Toyota
Matrix Design Group
DWG & Associates
Blazer Electric Supply
ACSI
Joe Woodford
Thor Iverson Consulting
Rothgerber Johnson Lyons LLP
Kathryn Emrick
American Iron & Metal
Stephanie Brock Design
Integrity First Financial
Phil & Mary Kiemel
Weavers Online
Rocky Mountain Custom Trim

Jeanne Assam, rogue private security shooter, friend of George W Bush, to be honored in Colo. Springs for being gay

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Eric Verlo

That’s it, my romance with the local GLBT community is over. Yes I had some qualms when my fey friends leaned hard on Gay Marriage when it was made a wedge issue in the election of 2004. Yes I rebuffed the campaign against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell because it implicitly encouraged military service in a time of US war crime. But I remained in the fold because I was reminded that equal rights for gays and lesbians are fundamental to the embrace of universal equality. Now my humanitarian tolerance is being tested by having to extend equality to moral-idiocy. Today I received an invitation to a GLBTA gala honoring former Colorado Springs lesbian Jeanne Assam, the most famous lesbian they could tap apparently. Famous for what? The name rang a bell. Assam was the disgraced police officer, redeemed New Life Church security volunteer, who preempted a presumed massacre by a teen abused-churchgoer come home to roost. He was bent on an armed rampage, but does that excuse Assam shooting him from a concealed position, without even an attempt at apprehension? Local GLBTA leaders think it does apparently, and maybe it’s no surprise then that they chose this photo to promote the event. Now I admit, next to preemptive war criminal George W. Bush, Jeanne Assam is an angel, even in sexuality-irrelevant Officer Unfriendly Ray-bans. But I say it’s time local GLBTA leaders give thought to showing equal consideration for the people of conscience community.

Opposing war is not a crime: stop FBI suppression of antiwar activists JAN 25

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO SPRINGS – JANUARY 25 – Protest the recent FBI raids and the DOJ grand jury subpoenas aimed at intimidating members of antiwar and Palestinian rights groups. Join Coloradans For Peace and compatriots beneath the windows of the FBI field office, located in the Plaza of the Rockies downtown, the complex where activists have been prevented from visiting their senator’s office, mostly a mall of investment bankers and brokerage firms. Not without irony, the main facade is named for war profiteer consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton. Come Tuesday Jan 25, from 4pm to 5pm. Meet on the NE corner of Tejon & Colorado.

Some consider the FBI to be the lesser of the US intelligence community’s seventeen known evils. Shall we draw the line at surveillance, infiltration and instigation of peace advocacy groups? Eric Holder’s Department of Justice won’t go after war criminals, torturers, or any facet of President Obama’s accelerated abuses on human rights. But they want to target humanitarian groups in hopes of tying their social causes to “terrorism, ” the traditional authoritarian label for political rival.

Peaceful protest movement infiltrators Mark Kennedy, Lyn Watson, cops Karen Sullivan, Daniela Cardenas unmasked

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Social justice activists across the US are uniting January 25 to protest the infiltration of peaceful protest groups by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. As European environmental organizations reel from the revelation that high-profile activist “Mark Stone,” really PC Mark Kennedy, served undercover for London’s MET for seven years, the Guardian has confirmed another unnamed infiltrator, identified by activist sources as “Lyn Watson.” A longtime Leeds Common Place volunteer, Watson is reportedly serving at another undercover location. Kennedy is in the US evading the blowback of many EU and UK former comrades. As US lawyers fend off grand jury inquiries against chiefly Palestinian-rights advocacy groups, the Minneapolis based Anti-War Committee has obtained confirmation that FBI agent “Karen Sullivan” had been disrupting from their midst since the 2008 RNC. A “Daniela Cardenas” is considered to be her accomplice.

While accounts vary between MET officer Mark Kennedy “going native” and privatizing his surveillance services, there are reports that Kennedy had been sexually intimate with a number of the activists he had been infiltrating. The role of “Lyn Watson” becomes critical because her reports would reflect that the authorities knew of and did not halt officer Kennedy’s improper conduct.

Green activist are debating the merits of releasing details about the infiltrators. Save Iceland made this excellent statement about Kennedy.

UPDATE UK:
To prevent further details from going public, the comments section has been disabled for the original Guardian article which refuses to name, or unscramble to photograph of Officer A, aka Lyn Watson. A subsequent UK Indymedia article has been deleted together with its thread. Discussion persists at another IMC in Sheffield now suffering under a common ISP hobble of sites designed to serve secure pages through HTTPS, having its certificate called into doubt. As a result visitors are warned by their browser that the site cannot be trusted until they finally desist from clicking through. For the benefit of those timid souls we reprint the comment thread, as of 4PM GMT.

Hold on …
13.01.2011 09:54

It says she disappeared in 2008, but someone is quoted saying “she was present at Drax and Heathrow climate camp actions, against Coryton oil refinery and various anti-capitalist gatherings and protests” … but the Coryton blockade was last year. Or was there some other Coryton action I wasn’t aware of?

Shame the Guardian took representations from the cops and no one else. They’ve even decided against a comments section – maybe in case someone decided to put her name up.

I might be missing some key piece of info or argument here, but I really think people have GOT to post her identity up here – people will want to know what info the state now definitely has on them etc.
proof-reader
Her activist name was…
13.01.2011 10:12

Lyn Watson. Haven’t got a photo though.
Someone
there was a earlier coryton blockade
13.01.2011 10:26

,,, on fossil fools day. yeah, i don’t see a problem in posting her (false) name… though in general i’m not sure what feeding this story is doing for our movement… though i am perfectly aware their is a wider public interest at stake…but it may cost us dear.
old timer
Media Whores
13.01.2011 11:43

Knew it was only a time before Dr Chatterton got his name in print. Seems to be one rule for the oi polloi and one for the careerists.
ACAB
No news here
13.01.2011 12:04

She came under suspicion long before Flash Mark did. When he was confronted, hers was the name put to him and he, apparently, said she was part of the “same unit” as he was, but was otherwise not forthcoming. She was long gone by then.
Stroppyoldgit
She may not have put it about like Shagger Stone…
13.01.2011 12:09

But Lynn certainly wasn’t averse to a roll in the hay.
Sleaze-watch
To say or not to say
13.01.2011 13:07

I can see both sides of the argument about how much to say about these spies.

On the one hand saying what has been going on will get some sympathy. On the other it reveals the spies who have been spotted, which tells the enemy which spies have not been spotted.

I come down slightly on the side of exposing them to the light of day. Circulate their photograph and brief details widely, together with what they were up to. This will allow those involved with them to realise who they are, even if they used a different name. The police and other forces of darkness will suffer more from the truth than we will.

A N Other
Thanks for the pic
13.01.2011 13:52

Many thanks for putting a pic up. Does anyone have a better one though. I’ve been told that I definitely know this woman, but can’t think who she is/was.
Leeds activist
medic?
13.01.2011 14:21

Am I correct in thinking she was involved in our medic collective?
fleabite
Guardian website
13.01.2011 15:12

I have been keeping an eye on the Guardian web site http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/12/second-undercover-police-officer to see what people had to say.

They opened up coments then suddenly stopped them, including not just saying that some comments had been removed by a moderator but deleting them entirely as if they never were. The entirely deleted comments are the ones that point to Indymedia and this thread in particular.

Possibly after “Officer A” was withdrawn from her unethical activities against campaigners she was pointed towards groups she should have been working against all the time, criminals. Unlike campaigners criminals may not be too kind to her.

If that is the case I have limited sympathy for her. Injury or death is not right, even for a maggot like her, though she deserves any verbal attack she gets for spying on campaigners. Her bosses got her into whatever situation she is now in, they should get her out of it.

Time to make sure information about her is spread widely, so the police can’t attack a single point like Indymedia and suppress the information.

A N Other

What Twitter resisted releasing to DOJ, and we may presume Facebook did not

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Eric Verlo

So the US Department of Justice wants Twitter’s records on the Wikileaks crew. So what, it’s social media — why expect that spooks can’t follow like everybody else? Except the USG wants to know more than followers or tweets, they want IPs, whose computer, network, when, etc, plus they don’t want persons of interest or the public to know what info they’re gathering. That’s a standard MO when investigating crimes like racketeering, but this is a DoJ fishing expedition with aim to criminalize journalism and whistle-blowing, in the meantime violating the privacy of untold thousands, if you are reading this, very likely yours.

Unless you know Kevin Bacon personally, you are separated by fewer degrees from rop_g, ioerror, birgittaj, Assange and Bradley Manning.

Twitter notified the users named in the December 14 DOJ request, whose lawyers had a judge unveil the document. The government of Iceland has summoned their US envoy to explain what claim the USG can make to personal data on Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of Iceland’s parliament. Salon has put the fax online which lists the specifics the DoJ is after:

A. The following customer or subscriber account information for each account registered to or associated with Wikileaks …

1. subscriber names, user names, screen names, or other identities;

2. mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses, e-mail addresses, and other contact information;

3. connection records, or records of session times and durations;

4. length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized;

5. telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporary assigned network address; and

6. means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number) and billing records.

B. All records and other information relating to the account(s) and time period in Part A, including:

1. records of user activity for any connections made to and from the Account, including the date, time, length, and method of connections, data transfer volume, user name, and source and destination Internet Protocol address(es);

2. non-content information associated with the contents of any communication or file stored by or for the account(s), such as the source and destination email addresses and IP addresses.

3. correspondence and notes of records related to the account(s).

AFTENPOSTEN exclusive Wikileaks cache reveals US collaborators

Posted on December 27, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Norway’s AFTENPOSTEN newspaper claims to have received the entire cache of Cablegate diplomatic cables. So far they’ve restricted themselves to releasing correspondence relating to US-Norwegian relations, revealing particular Norwegians doing America’s bidding, from those with “strong pro-US instincts, to another considered by “some very senior U.S. officials” to be “weasily.”

From the cable about weasily Norwegian Ministry of Defense State Secretary Espen Barth Eide who’s played a key role in keeping Norwegian troops in Afghanistan and tried to manipulate his Government to support US machinations in Haiti, these misgivings:

Senior Norwegian officials, with strong pro-U.S. instincts, have also told the Embassy in private that Barth Eide is not to be relied upon to promote U.S. priorities. One key test of Barth Eide´s inclinations will be the MOD recommendation on which fighter plane to purchase, the Joint Strike Fighter or the Saab Gripen.

News as well to Norwegians is a cable about Oslo’s regional governor collaborating with US plans to move/expand its embassy which had been meeting with severe resistance from the public.

Although the AFTENPOSTEN is published in Norwegian, the cables are being reprinted in their original, Here’s a listing of what’s out so far:

Dokumentene fra USAs ambassader

OSLO REGIONAL GOVERNOR OFFERS SUPPORT FOR NEW AMERICAN EMBASSY PROJECT (15.12 2010)

NORWAY: A POTENTIAL HAVEN FOR WAR CRIMINALS?
(15.12 2010)

ESPEN BARTH EIDE, POWER IN NORWAY´S MOD AND RISING STAR IN THE LABOR PARTY (16.12 2010)

RISING NORWEGIAN ANTI-SEMITISM AFFECTING ITS ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST? (15.12 2010)

13.2.2009: CONSTRAINTS ON NORWAY´S MIDDLE EAST ROLE? (15.12 2010)

NORWEGIAN LAWYERS SUE ISRAEL FOR WAR CRIMES ABUSES (15.12 2010)

NORWAY WILL NOT PUBLICLY SUPPORT UN 1267 KREKAR DESIGNATION (15.12 2010)

GOJ TO APPROACH DUTCH TO ASK THAT MULLAH KREKAR NOT BE EXPELLED TO NORWAY (15.12 2010)

MULLAH KREKAR CASE: STATE OF PLAY IN JORDAN (15.12 2010)

OSLO NEC – THE HIGH COSTS OF FREEZING THE PROJECT (15.12 2010)

21.5.2003: Tigers issue hard-edged letter demandinginterim structure in north/east (19.12 2010)

11.2.2009: Norwegian FM Stoere: The world at his feet (15.12 2010)

16.6.2003: Tensions notch up over sinking of Tamil Tigership and latest slaying of a Tiger opponent (19.12 2010)

15.7.2003: Tigers still refusing request from monitors tovacate forward base (19.12 2010)

11.8.2003: LTTE base issue; Tigers get ready for Paris meeting (19.12 2010)

4.11.2003: Provoking political crisis, President fires three key ministers and suspends Parliament (19.12 2010)

23.10.2003: President demands removal of chief monitor, but it is not clear how far she wants to push matter (19.12 2010)

5.11.2003: President Affirms Commitment to Negotiated Settlement and Cease-fire (19.12 2010)

12.11.2003: Sri Lanka update: No resolution in “cordial” President-PM meeting; Norwegians here to meet all sides (19.12 2010)

17.11.2004: Possible ways forward in political standoff between Sri Lankan President and Prime Minister (19.12 2010)

6.3.2004: Ignoring orders of LTTE leadership, rebel commander remains ensconced in east (19.12 2010)

9.6.2004: Recent meetings show the way forward for Sri Lanka peace process is troubled (19.12 2010)

15.4.2004: In meeting, Norwegian Ambassador reviews recent discussion with President on peace process (19.12 2010)

17.6.2004: Talks about Talks in Stasis while Norwegians Ponder Next Moves (19.12 2010)

23.6.2004: Norwegian peregrinations for peace (19.12 2010)

20.4.2004: Norwegian envoy Solheim finds GSL and LTTE committed to peace process (19.12 2010)

6.12.2004: “Low key” Norwegian visit to Wanni (19.12 2010)

29.11.2004: Norwegians concerned by JVP-orcheastrated campaign against them (19.12 2010)

18.8.2005: Norwegian facilitators send letter to LTTE leader Prabhakaran via London; GSL asks EU to list LTTE as terrorist organization (19.12 2010)

23.1.2006: U/S Burns reviews Sri Lankan peace process with Norwegian facilitator Erik Solheim (19.12 2010)

Here’s an excerpt about the US ambassador’s concern about “growing anti-Semitic” criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza:

4/27/2009 12:55
C O N F I D E N T I A L OSLO 000315 SIPDIS E.O. 12958:
DECL: 04/27/2019
TAGS: PREL, PINR, PHUM, IS, NO
SUBJECT: NORWEGIAN LAWYERS SUE ISRAEL FOR WAR CRIMES ABUSES

…

More recently, the Israeli Ambassador formally protested Norwegian Foreign Minister Stoere’s decision to stay in the room at the UN Racism Conference in Geneva during the Iranian President´s speech. The Ambassador also confidently told us that the embassy will likely sue the Norwegian National Broadcasting Company for what they perceive to be very biased news magazine reporting on Hezbollah and the Gaza war.

WHITNEY

Amazon pedophile guide author Phillip Greaves is going to Disneyland!

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Eric Verlo

PUEBLO, CO – Self-published self-abuser Phillip R. Greaves is going to Disneyland! Do I mean Disney World –because the molestation e-book author is being extradited to Florida? Naw. Thanks to the gung-ho deviant-phobic Florida Polk County Sheriff, the Amazon-banned-infamous, now civil-liberty-abridged, self-scribed child-lover will be jerking off all the way to the bank. Greaves’ The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure is accused of violating obscenity laws and haven’t we been down this road before? Freedom of speech, what’s indecent, Larry Flynt, Nabokov, to name the obvious?

Now I have to tell you, I’d much prefer to defend a literary classic than this Stuart Smalley act for the NAMBLA set, and I wince as I imagine the ACLU inviting more tar-and-feathers as it defends another pedophile, but freedom of expression is absolute. It applies to heretical dissidents as much as to Sarah Palin. Idiots have opinions too, that doesn’t mean you have to listen to them.

Greaves’ DIY rotten-oeuvre probably does not redeem itself with literary merit, I’m guessing, nor do charges mention the book contains contraband photos. Thus the Polk County Sheriff attack may be soiling new ground. The how-to manual is being adjudged indecent based on written accounts of defiling underage fictional characters. Greaves is not under suspicion of having committed the crimes. We can deduce by the lack of charges that no minors were harmed in the making of Phillip Greaves’ fantasies. His “guide book” contains no pictures of exploited children. Greaves is being charged with describing illegal sexual acts which are injurious to minors. So what exactly differentiates this book from other tasteless works of fiction which recount criminal acts, even the most taboo?

There will always be a bible-belt backwater to send out invites for a book-burning. I’m upset I suppose because the Polk County authorities were able to convince Colorado law enforcement in Pueblo to arrest Greaves on their behalf, based on his having shipped a copy of his weirdo book over to their Florida jurisdiction. So it turns our Colorado lawmen are uneducated enough that they went along. At least we could be grateful that evidently they lack the initiative to devise such a sting themselves.

In his zeal to whomp on Phillip Greaves on behalf of the angry mob over at Amazon thirsty for fictional pedophile blood, the Polk County Sheriff bragged he hoped to have the author “eating processed-turkey this Christmas.” As good an admission as any that prison chow is intended to be punishment. This one defines “cruel and unusual” which used to be rationale enough to prohibit state practice, but these days we can’t be bothered to prevent torture.

I shouldn’t minimize the ordeal which Greaves will face with his jailers and fellow inmates, needless to say he’ll be earning every penny of the huge civil liberties settlement to which he is entitled. Maybe in turn he’ll be able to sue Amazon too.

The upshot for the residents of Polk County Florida is that internet merchants will have to be very careful about what they ship to zip codes 33830, 33837, 33841, 33843, 33868, 33898, and 34759. I hope the Polkels get nothing at all in the mail until they recall the grandstanding idiot they have for a sheriff.

But seriously. Are we cheerleading for the prosecution of thought crime? If Greaves had written in the third person, would police be serving a warrant on a page-bound protagonist?

Compared to pedestrian pornography, Phillip Greaves is an amateur. In US sex culture every fetish seems to find its audience. Who can deny that the sexualization of American children is pervasive across print and screen? This isn’t about the arbitrary condemnation of the fantasy life of perverts. Subversive classics of literature are often censored based on accusations of obscenity.

Nominate Julian Assange for a Nobel? Time Person of the Year? No, jail him.

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Eric Verlo

I Am Just Sick. Julian Assange arrested, denied bail, confined to a UK jail cell deemed unsuitable for Bush, Blair or their murderous peers. Britain even assured Israel that its war criminals could visit England without fear of politically motivated arrest warrants. So much for the Assange-is-Mossad rumor. Arrested for what? Publishing evidence of governments conspiring against their peoples’ interests, in their own words? Really, what’s next for our pretense of Democracy?

No, it was accusations of sexual impropriety, technically. Rape and molestation being the corporate media’s chosen translation of how Swedes might describe a consensual sexual encounter gone off, according to post-coital television interviewees, turned insufficiently feminist-sensitive. Do I sound flippant? Two women in Sweden, described as groupies, of activist pedigree it’s alleged, one elder cementing the resolve of the younger, shall we call them Lewinsky and Tripp, accusing Assange of disrespecting their gender.

They play right into the stereotype I have of single-issue advocates who can’t get past affronts to their own personal agendas. Whatever Assange’s transgressions, is not the fate of the western world, the awakening of its public participants in the balance? Though Swedish authorities originally dismissed the accusations, the pair is determined to interrupt Wikileaks’ Cablegate to school Assange in his bedside manner?

Whether instigated by intelligence operatives or not, the charges made by the two women have been the only hooks which authorities have been able to get into Assange. Will extradition to Sweden to answer police inquiries lead to US rendition to a secret facility? Should we hope that at the very least the Brits resist US pressure to interrogate Assange, or affect the operation of Wikileaks by coercion and duress?

We must hope the Assange’s colleagues can secure Wikileaks before their sysadmin is tortured for his access codes.

Hearing the New York Times assail the character of Julian Assange as having delusions of grandeur, I’m reminded of how a centuries earlier ruling class rid themselves of the populist scourge Napoleon. Defeated once, Napoleon was able to escape banishment and had but to set foot on French soil and with only the force of his personality he was able to reconstitute his campaign to free the European citizenry of their despotic monarchs. Defeated again, Napoleon was too popular to execute and so was banished again. This time, it’s alleged, a heroic loyalist submitted to be contaminated with syphilis and thence to infect and ground the upstart Napoleon for good.

The remaining Wikileaks crew is at greater risk than Julian Assange, lacking his media visibility, they could be disappeared without fanfare. But that’s evidently a fading misconception of mine. Assange’s high profile hasn’t helped him.

GOP Republicorp outsources groveling lackies from subsidiary Democratards

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Eric Verlo

We the electorate have been warned that “REPUBLICORP” will be unveiled as the dreaded merger of the GOP and corporate masters. Unconcatenated into the spiffy boo-word is mention of the Democratic Party, a wholly-powned subsidiary. Sure they’re the voices sounding the alarm, and they will certainly blame the victim where voters fail to elect Dem incumbents. Or WHAT will befall us? The sky falls apparently, if the Republicans regain the majority in Congress. Although Dems won the majority during Bush’s term, but couldn’t subpoena squat. And those were the halcyon days before super majorities and the virtual filibuster. I bet Washington Democrats can’t wait to be delivered from their put-on-the-breaks personas and resume unabashedly rolling in the loot of unfettered capitalist rape.

Michael Moore calls the Republicans the bigger criminals, but I have to say, there’s something about a lying petty criminal that’s much more offensive, especially when you can tell the petty fiend has aspirations to larceny every bit as grand.

Myself, I am simply salivating at the satisfaction of seeing the bullshit party cretins decamp.

War Criminals Bush and Cheney coming to the Broadmoor, Oct 4-5, bring shoes!

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Should-be jailbirds Darth Cheney and Dubya Bush are coming to Colorado Springs! Monday Oct. 4 and Tuesday Oct. 5 respectively. Each will be the day’s 8:30 AM keynote speaker at the Annual Insurance Leadership Forum held in the Broadmoor Rocky Mountain Ballroom. Coloradans For Peace will host a standing room only reception outside, starting both days at 7:30 AM.
If you can’t muster tar and feathers, bring shoes!

At the very least, call CSPD and demand they arrest the pair for crimes against humanity, murder, treason, fraud –you’d think by now you wouldn’t have to explain their rap sheet! Cuff ’em!

In a recent interview on Democracy Now, UK senior statesman Tony Benn explained that he didn’t need to see ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair put on trial for war crimes. Benn leans toward Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s rationale for Truth and Reconciliation, where it’s enough to get at the truth to move on. Of course Bush’s successor offers us not even that.

Where are you on the matter of our previous administration’s guilt?

I’m inclined to believe that if no one from Bush & Co is brought up on charges, what example have we set for lesser or more maniacal criminals? Is it an utterly selfish fixation to want to see the Neocons held to account for their crimes?

PPLFF says no BDS of Israeli Apartheid

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Crap. The Anti-Apartheid BDS campaign targeted Cannes because of it, Hollywood luminaries boycotted the Toronto Film Festival over the same principles in 2009, you’d think the Springs gay community might have paid heed. Instead the 2010 Pikes Peak Lavender Film Festival opted to screen the Israeli melodrama Eyes Wide Open, Zionists’ illegal appropriation of Jerusalem be damned. When Canadian gays made international news for allowing Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to march in their pride parade, in spite of Jewish philanthropists pressuring the City of Toronto to withdraw funding, I hoped that COS pride festivities might opt to climb aboard. Instead this weekend Colorado Springs gets a full-on endorsement of Israel’s ongoing illegal invasion of Palestine.

It was a false hope. The Pikes Peak area gay community has found itself so embattled since Amendment Two’s 1992 measure to legalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, that common social causes are easily crowded out by Gay Marriage, DADT and brand recognition for LGBT. So much so that social justice activists can only participate in the pride parade on the condition that it be about solidarity, not antiwar. With gay issues being so politicized, should gays and lesbians get a pass on staying apolitical about war or racism? Whatever excuses we make, it’s a perfectly flamboyant example of silence equals consent. I count apolitical queens every bit as complicit with US military criminality as the above-it-all new-agers and NASCAR jackasses.

Set in an Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem, Eyes Wide Open doesn’t address the Israeli-Palestinian troubles, it ignores them, effectively normalizing an ethnically-cleansed Palestine. The film tells the story of an extramarital gay affair between Jewish scholars, blablabla, minus the evictions of Palestinians in the path of encroachment by Israeli settlers, and the hijacking of Muslim holy sites . “Beverly Hills 90210” was fine without scenes of the LAPD repression of Watts or East LA, but 90210 wasn’t pretending to be taped on non-Jewish land.

Eyes Wide Open was the title of the 2005 American Friends Service Committee antiwar boot-counting exercise to open American eyes to the enormity of casualties of the Iraq War — before the Eyes Wide Open slogan was adopted by a 2008 Israeli PR project to encourage American Jews to pay more attention to their birthright offer of Israeli citizenship. The death count of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan (now that the AFSC has been cleared to consider both wars illegal) has long since outgrown the AFSC budget for buying boots or lugging them around in rented trucks, and now EWO (Einaym Pkuhot) is a miserable tale about infidelity and sin.

Frankly, Trembling Before G-d was an incredible documentary about gay Orthodox men struggling with the DADT policy of Orthodox Judaism. I remember seeing it at the 2003 PPLFF, or so. I remember Rabbinical experts expounded on both sides of the argument with authority and humor. But that was before the BDS movement to curb Israel’s racist apartheid system. You either support the picket or you scab.

Objective reviews of EWO are scarce in the Zionist-dominated press, and increasing numbers are honoring the cultural and academic boycott of Israeli Apartheid. Refusing to see EWO is by no means concluding it is bad. For all I know the film may be using the ostracism of homosexuals within the Orthodox community to represent the growing alienation Israelis are feeling in the face of the open revulsion expressing itself by the rest of the world. Maybe it’s brilliant.

But I’m not deliberating about whether to see it. BDS means no to Israel, to its statesmen, artists, scholars and products. And the American companies which support Israel’s policy of Apartheid, several dozen, and now that includes our own PPLFF.

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