This isn’t a Teflon administration. It’s Kevlar. We’ve seen Bushco take direct hits and drum on like the Energizer Bunny. This cabal is Timex, its lies blatantly unmasked, guns smoking, hands bloodied, but if it has a heart, its telltale beat is not pounding, just ticking.
As I fantasize of a 2009 comeuppance, congress submitting our ex-leaders before the International Criminal Court to face the consequences of their audacious crimes, I cannot help but question whether and how justice can be served. Where is the authority to bring these men to justice? Who and whose army is going to wrench Bush and co from their above-the-law protectors?
Even if the weight of national and international law enforcement can pull rank over the intelligence community and its private muscle, can we prevent a Ken Lay possum maneuver from stopping an investigation in its tracks? Who will be able to avert a freak accident where Bush and Cheney and the whole lot will be theatrically killed off, in reality to party on in Paraguay until maintaining a facade no longer matters?
While I worry about the loophole of a remote Patagonian haven for post-Nazi war criminals, if the media is collaborating, is actual exile even necessary? Heart attack victim Ken Lay could even now be living it up in Aspen and Cannes among jet-setters who enjoy the irony. If no news agency reports it, would we know? Even as we don’t hear it, we know the tree falls. Had Elvis been facing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit, or a war crimes trial, I might imagine an ignoble death on the toilet and an afterlife in Vegas drive-throughs would be a small price to pay.
If the Neocons are dethroned in November, and may I say I consider the prospect highly unlikely, they seem awfully powerful enough to carry on scot-free. America can’t even get Karl Rove to obey a subpoena. We can’t even get an independent inquiry into Bush’s pre-political driving records. The Carlyle Group will certainly be able to afford an expert to confirm that the DNA of a chimpanzee found slumped over the presidential excrement-incinerator porta-potty matches that of our dear-departed dope-in-chief. We’ll believe it, even as a simian look-alike paddles his mountain bike around vast East Coast and Texan estates.
Justice denied, I’ll not believe it, injustice will prevail, I doubt very much there will even be the illusion.
What can we expect of a capitalist system gorging itself on the misery of others? The energized “food speculators” have found another way now to skim money off of commodities (and off those producing them) by racing out of their burnt down, failing criminal derivatives scams – that are and will continue to cause job loss, retirement and savings loss, home equity loss – and into food.
This should be stopped immediately by Congress in the interests of the nation and the poorest countries that are now experiencing riots and unrest over high prices and shortages. But you can bet the millionaires in Congress are profiting from this hideous behavior and won’t do a god damn thing about it other than throw money, our money, at it. Worthless solutions from bankrupt minds.The liars in the mainstream media blame everything else but the real cause …the Wall Street vipers. This is our American culture …profit at all and any costs.
Ethanol is turning out to be a speculative tool as well, besides taking land away from corn grown for cattle feed and humans. Sugar cane, other forms of bio-fuel will become speculator targets as well. Even water! All of this investing in commodities is driven by the falling dollar created by the Fed who crashed the dollar!! Lowering interest rates and opening cheap credit windows to Wall Street floods the economy with more worthless paper. This is driving the commodities bubble as well. Investors are trying to hedge against losses from the subprime/derivatives scams. It’s all related… not as the mainstream news claims that weather or high oil prices are driving this. Bullpucky.
“According to Grünewald, “Raw materials are the mega-trend of the decade,” and his company intends to intensify its involvement in both water and agricultural stocks. MIC investment in wheat alone has already yielded profit levels of 93 percent for the 2,500 members of the club.” – WSWS
I watched the coverage of the Pope’s final message to the lucky faithful — 60,000 hankie-waving fans in Yankee Stadium — and can only shake my head in disbelief. Am I the only one who doesn’t understand this Pope-worship stuff? It is so weirdly absurd that I hardly know what to make of it. Who are these people driving hundreds of miles to catch a glimpse of him? Those who turn out by the thousands, even without tickets, just to be near him for a few minutes? Looking at the pontiff (just the word makes me laugh) clad from head to toe in white, barely this side of the grass, reminds me so much of the movie Foul Play that the whole thing seems hilarious.
I am pretty sure that no one I know personally would even consider going to great trouble to see the Pope (except my mom, of course), so it makes me wonder what kind of person does. Are they part of other groups that also make me slightly uncomfortable, like NASCAR fans maybe? Or those who drive around the country in silver RVs looking for other people with silver RVs? Maybe I’m just jealous that I wasn’t invited to join the club. I did do a ten-year stint in Catholic schools, after all, and never missed Sunday mass until I went off to college. Even in Boulder I went to St. Thomas Aquinas for a few months, until time spent in the confession booth started interfering with my studies. So why do I not know what they know?
No pithy analysis will be forthcoming. As I said, this is beyond me.
The fascist business model in full view, unapologetic. Unaccountable. The Democrats have no intention of changing it. They have to protect their major donors. Obama is fully backed by Wall Street capitalists. He talks the talk of reform but he cannot and won’t walk the walk. He won’t tell you the real problem is the FED who created this mess. He’s just another black face in a high place. Powerless. Selling the illusion of hope. No substance.
USB bank today declaring more massive losses/write-offs. Muni-bonds and huge retirement funds will soon be reporting major losses. Member of PERA? Watch out! And of course when states start hurting bad, the taxes on these criminals who created this won’t be raised, nor fees increased on the oil companies who’ve raked in massive profits over the last 5 years… rather services and state education funding will be cut dramatically. Adding to the death spiral. Don’t you just love American capitalism? It’s a war/service cheap imports, low wages race to the bottom economy. And the vultures are coming out picking the bones of the unemployed and devalued real estate. Predators and scavengers. That’s the real U.S. economy.
We’ve lost all the gains from our productivity, we could have enjoyed, to these corporations and bankers/financial firms and war arms mfgrs. in their increased profits and paper schemes. Then by job loss, then poverty, our few possessions are lost-sold to the bottom feeders and other desperate folk.
A new American Socialism is needed that will stop war, take back the control of the currency from the Fed, abolish the IRS, abolish the corporate structure, abolish Wall Street and its speculators and commodities traders, and make the banks use social credit with low or no interest loans. Only low admin fees allowed. Then fully fund education through college, provide a national dividend to all citizens, fund a natl. health insurance program and return the means and ownership of production to the workers so that no non-productive parasitical outsider (stockholder) can make a profit from that company. Then turn our economy inward to the benefit of our people first with few exceptions in limited import and exports. And a radical energy transformation to zero point sources and hydrogen. Of course non of this will ever happen. As a famous autistic said: “I’m not a stupid person… Jenny.”
“Not surprisingly, neither in Paulson’s remarks nor in the 214 pages of the plan he released is there any suggestion that Wall Street firms or their top executives be called to account and held legally culpable for the economic and social disaster that has resulted from their reckless and often deceptive, if not outright illegal, policies and actions. US Treasury plan shields Wall Street speculators” -wsws.org
I’m not going to buy one of those GPS whatsits. I hear friends talk about them like we used to praise cellphones. They say they don’t know how they ever did without them. I do.
I’m troubled by two adjacent products I saw at The Sharper Image over the holidays. One, the store-full really, to reduce the physical effort required for menial tasks, the other, an honest to goodness little gadget to help you exercise your wrist and work on your dexterity. Confusing? It’s the same cycle we’re on with food. Eat craving-satisfying garbage, work it off with exercise equipment and sportswear. This is not a rat-race, it’s a gerbil wheel.
So what kind of aerobic workout do we need to make up for the mental activities we laid off when we hired the GPS? Sudoku? Concentration?
When driving, I’ve always made a game of trying to navigate by intuition, itself I like to think based on acumen. This might not always have been fun for my passengers, but there I assure you the grief was reciprocated.
What becomes of our minds if we don’t run our spacial recognition abilities through their paces? I’d no sooner gotten used to headlights which turn on and off automatically, and then I traveled to Europe. My rental didn’t have such a feature so what happened? I was leaving the lights on every time I parked, looking every bit the oblivious American.
Lately I’ve become accustomed to a car whose doors lock themselves automatically when you forget to do it. What kind of idiotic figure am I going to cut now as an international driver? Americans have a now celebrated disability with maps. We might as well send our GPS-equipped cars on ahead without us.
We’re fast approaching the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq occupation. Coincidentally we are 10 official US casualties away from the 4,000 milestone. While focusing on American deaths may grab the public’s attention, no emphasis is still being made to chart Iraqi casualties. The absurd difference between best estimates and what collateral damage our administration will concede, opens critics to ridicule as extremists. Over a million versus thirty thousand. I’ll hold a candle in Acacia Park to commemorate the Iraqi civilian count, however minimized, but I have not one more ounce of memorializing in me for the soldiers who should have refused deployment long ago, and are over there still driving up the civilian death count.
Do you remember the lesson of Horton Hears a Who? No matter how small, everyone matters. Fox has brought the theme to the animated screen and not-unlikely bedfellows are seizing on the message. Under the revival tents, the anti-abortion preachers want you to glean something further from Horton: that the very life of a tiny embryo could depend on you, if only your inner elephant can be persuaded you hear its call.
Although, they’re are not talking about the embryos deliberately created en vitro by fertility clinics, terminated when too many have taken to the uterine wall. Nor babies miscarried, nor still-born. Do the pro-life Hortons not hear them?
Let’s agree that abortion is tragic, and shouldn’t be bandied about as a lifestyle choice like a Brazilian wax or a boob job. Personally I’d prefer our culture wasn’t so enthralled with promiscuity. Don’t encourage drinking if you can’t live with the car wrecks. Don’t paint sex as the ultimate of fulfillments if your society has set as acceptable norm a procreative age over a dozen years later than we are biological capable.
Fighting Fifth Avenue and mankind’s propensity to hedonism is doubtless harder than bringing the hammer down on a pregnant teen. Shouldn’t the church come down on immorality instead of its victims? Abortion is a hard choice, like any harsh dilemma. We euthanize cats and dogs when there become too many. A “domestic” animal designates those in man’s care, which live to serve us, and die according to our dinner plan. We ride our horses but leave them to the French to eat. To our credit we show a reluctance to face nature’s difficult choices.
Religious beliefs have been the ultimate causes of war, justifying killings in fanatical number, to this present day. Religion is always behind genocide. What is it about pre-infanticide that’s got zealots so indignant?
Is this about an egg and sperm’s right to wed? Or about the church’s prerogative to mandate pregnancy? I think to a large extent, it’s about enforcing puritanism, the better to reserve the sex drive for manipulating people. You can’t have your masses contentedly debauched, they must be repressed and thwarted, being lured by sex to get married and pregnant to breed the next batch of easily motivated worker/consumer drones.
I admire the Right to Life credo that all life is sacred. But is it? Right to Lifers remind me of pedigree animal rescue outfits, only THEIR breed is sacred enough worth saving. What about other forms of life? Owls? Whales, small fish? Are these pious folks practicing vegans, concerned not to exploit any living being? Do they feed themselves like the Buddhists monks who consume liquids through a strainer, careful not to swallow even a flea?
The pro-lifer’s concern is not for the human being small person, it’s only for the unborn baby. And it’s only for the unborn of their likeness, and more than likely from their neighborhood. Other cultures’ offspring are mere driving factors of overpopulation, unless they are our colonial suppliers of cheap labor.
And what about already born babies? Or babies -or tiny children- belonging to foreigners, right now being shot at by our troops? Where is the Right to Life alarm about people we are depriving of life? Horton’s lesson was that others matter, regardless of size. Would that mean not just little people? What of adult people being exploited, tortured or condemned to death, who is concerned for their right to life?
One of the charms of Dr. Seuss is that his myriad creatures represent an incalculable gamut of fantasy beings. Horton does not hear a baby elephant for example, he hears a WHO. The Whos of Whoville are not of his world at all, and might well inhabit a forth dimensional anthill as far as Horton can figure. Would this not be quite the humanitarian message for religious nuts preoccupied only for their own? Miserably too, they are not obsessed with precisely their own, but about YOUR own, whom they claim as theirs to save. Their daughters are having abortions, to the last, I can assure you that.
The your-baby demagogues are motivated by penance, for deed past or to come, but instead of flagellating themselves, they’re beating on your daughter. They are concerned for the right to life of her baby, to be conceived unprepared for and un-afforded. They stand for that baby’s right to the unending cycle of ill-parenting, vocational training, indebtedness, and life of servitude.
Dr. Seuss lived long enough to see the Religious Right’s interest in exploiting the Horton Hears a Sinner theme. Both Theodor Geisel and his widow publicly repudiated the holier-than-thou interpretation being used to agitate against abortion. But now his earthly voice is extinguished, and we can see Pro-Lifers don’t respect the dead either.
I just got back from an invigorating Iraq Moratorium street- side demonstration. The cold wasn’t so bad, the IVAW boys held down a corner, one participant traveled a ways to be here, a Gazette reporter came with a photographer, and we were deluged with the usual honks of support. Then two supervisors from the nearby Post Office visited to tell us whichever of us had parked in their lot better move our cars or expect to be towed.
I stepped forward but noted the parking lot was only a third full, plus by coincidence I had a time-dated receipt from their counter. No matter they said, the parking was private, and/or you can’t protest on government property. They incorrectly asserted plenty more, finishing with “sue me” but wouldn’t give their names. One called out for security as I entered the post office to stand in queue, shouting to everyone that I was likely to cause a scene. The clerks volunteered the info I needed: Jim Hickle and Bill Schafner, big-for-their-britches USPS supervisors of customer relations, wannabe feds.
I’m always perplexed by the politics of the postal worker. I regard a number of them as my friends actually, whom I see everyday, including the late John S, about whose horrible political ethics I’ve already written. Why are workers, who benefit mightily from the APW Union, and who more likely than not are veterans, stand so passionately behind the right-wing? Postal workers are losing their jobs to privatization, their jobs are as blue collar as any, they come face to face with so much of the local community. Why would their personal opinions be so regressive?
UPDATE: After I left, another activist of our group was sitting in his car, having taken medication which called for a pause before he could begin driving. He was parked, as I had been, at the extreme north of the lot, far from any customer traffic. The same two postal authorities, Jim and Bill, approached his window and insisted he had to leave. My friend explained that we was quite willing, but that he was required to wait until his medication permitted it. They insisted he leave immediately or they would call the police. My friend complied, in a hallucinogenic state, and thankfully he made it home safely.
Britney Spears is not just the latest celebrity substance abuse train wreck, nor is she just the opportune diversion for our media eager to obscure private grand theft of the public sector. (Ignore war, warming and the economy, give me more Britney!) Ms. Spears is now also the poster child for corporate America’s biggest crime partners, the pharmaceutical industry.
Is there a medicinal remedy for alcoholism, for a methamphetamine habit, or any chemical addiction? Not really. But there certainly is a burgeoning market for psycho stabilizing, mood tempering meds. And Britney is their “it” girl.
Unlike Clara Bow, or for that matter Mary Pickford forward to Lindsey Lohan, Spears is being pegged for mental disorder normalization, not behavior correction. There’s a well paved road of drug and alcohol excess in Hollywood. Some stars overdose, some recover, just as you or I in anytown, anystate USA far off the tabloids. Frances Farmer was an unwelcome trend setter in the days before Lithium and Thorazine. Imagine if Ed McMahon had been able to pitch Paxil in the wings like Alpo.
Poor Brit. She’s got something the drug companies can cure and they can cure you too if you exhibit her symptoms. Lord knows it’s not uncommon, driving intoxicated, clinging to your children as they are taken from you because you are being judged unfit. Take heart, the diagnosis is not alcoholism which would require government intervention, education, diminished alcohol sales and advertising revenue; it’s not illegal drugs, which would mean more education and law enforcement; it’s not prescription drugs which would require more regulation, education, and a big hit to drug company profits. It’s… would you believe it? MORE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS!
A quick fix for Britney. She’s not drunk, she’s not addicted, she’s certifiable! She’s psychotic, bipolar, manic, etc, it’s treatable! Have you been feeling angry, depressed, tired, driven mad yourself? The pharmaceutical peddlers have a remedy for you. Not less booze, less drugs, or less meds, but more meds. Everyone’s a winner!
The solution to gluttony isn’t fewer potato chips but more of the Olestra butt leakage variety. Consumer-temperance paradox averted. patient’s infirmity stabilized, IV firmly tapped into bank account. Have you seen the prices of the insanity-normalizing medications? Insane! You’re going to wish you had universal health insurance. Or that you could just stop drinking.
So begins each post: “My friend so-and-so surprised me with a You Make My Day Award. Thank you! (You should really check out their wonderful blog!) I’m to post this with the following proviso,” etc, etc.
Nothing wrong with a little guerrilla marketing, in this case lighting a back fire up the social network where blogroll links and reciprocal courtesy comments were just not keeping everyone’s interest. Internet blogging has set into motion a real-time one hundred monkeys experiment, but of course someone has to address the task of monitoring the output. We won’t know if even a blogosphere of monkeys typing away can produce Shakespeare unless somebody is diligently evaluating the gibberish.
It didn’t take long tracing the roots of the You-Make-My-Day-Award givers to find someone who explained the rules as: “You have to pass this on to ten people” etc. And there it is. The YMMDA is a chain letter. And like so many viral emails, its driving force is a smile over coffee, pass it on.
Chain emails, whether they promise warm and fuzzies or anticipation that Bill Gates will personally pay you a quarter of a million dollars, are disseminated to chart social networks, yours. They plot connections between people, particularly the veracity of those connections measured by the speed and frequency with which you give your friends priority. Such information is valuable to anyone wanting a bead on you. Use your imagination.
So the You-Make-My-Day-Award is netting bloggers, internet users who may have moved on from circulating those clever email chain letters. I’m perhaps most disappointed that people using their blogs as creative outlets, can’t be creative enough to praise each other on their own initiative. They have to borrow a concept, a graphic and a blurb, and admonish each other to keep it up. These monkeys are getting tired.
Are “Climate Change” and “Global Warming” a rather convenient way for the large investment companies (now that they’re all jumping on the bandwagon) to step forward, in lock step with the Congress, and find the ways in which they can become the “players” in the unfolding “crisis” and have a new tax that will, of course as always, be a burden most on those who can least afford it?
Or are they really concerned about the planet? Was Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” more of an investment talk aimed at these owners of capital getting in on a carbon tax and trading scheme, rather than a real debate that gave time to the dissenting scientific view? And, is the dogma now that CO2 and greenhouse effect are really driving the race toward ownership of emerging large alternative energy companies in which the corporations will likely win? Calling CO2 a pollutant is deception. It is what trees and plants thrive on.
Ethanol has now become the new “savior” in our effort of curbing the import of foreign oil. But ethanol is net-energy. That is, it takes more energy to create it than it gives back, besides the agricultural mess it will lead us to. How is it in past earth warming cycles, man’s absence was a causation? Seemingly impossible. Is the Solar cycle part of a natural global warming process? Why aren’t we moving instead to form citizen owned solar and wind utilities that will help the vast majority to utilize these energies without the huge up front costs usually associated? Or unless implemented immediately and widely, would it be all for naught as the worlds energy needs will never be affected by alternative energies? In other words, how do you replace the 85 million barrels of oil a day the planet uses? Not to mention the tons of coal and millions of cubic feet of natural gas?
Gore’s 7 good foot soldiers steps to reduce Co2 “pollution” is almost Hitlarian. Don’t think, just do what I say …from a spineless politician who wouldn’t stand up (and told others not to) for an investigation into the 2000 stolen election.
Capitalism will overtake any real discussion of problems we face and destroy dissenters who offer up real solutions to energy use that are owned by the populace at large. And once they’ve taxed us for carbon they will figure out a way to tax the sun or wind for those who take advantage of it for their homes. Yes, reduce your use of oil, gas, coal, etc… but beware who really benefits from this mostly un-debated scare of global warming.
What do we get for behaving as they want us to? A cleaner world? But no monetary gain for us? If our government was really serious about this the tax incentives would come back as in the 70’s and much bigger this time. And in all states. But that would hurt the oil-energy companies.
Some interesting articles and comments for your consideration:
“The charge of denial has become a secular form of blasphemy … The heretic is condemned because he has dared to question an authority that must never be questioned. Here, ‘overwhelming evidence’ serves as the equivalent of revealed religious truth, and those who question ‘scientists of unquestioned reputation’ — that is, the new priestly caste — are guilty of blasphemy … ‘Denial’ has become part of a secular inquisition that stigmatizes free thinking.”
“Since 2003, the upper layer of the Atlantic has lost 25% of the extra heat it had built up in the past three decades…The broad consensus among solar scientists is that the Earth’s warming is almost entirely explicable by increased solar activity that began about 100 years ago, and which will end around 2020…But these inconvenient truths would be bad for the cause…”
UPDATE: The Gazette article is still among the top commented.
Here’s a string of the initial comments, in chronological order:
hmmmmm wrote:
Well this proves that if you break the law, and they did, and complain and whine enough then you can get off. Very disappointed in our DA on this one. quote “When you consider dragging an old woman across the street and not lifting her up, it’s really hard to see how that’s doing nothing wrong,” Verlo said. end quote. When this “old woman” refuses to get up and follow police orders, Yes they did nothing wrong. It’s called the law, and they broke it.
11/28/2007 7:44 PM MST on Gazette.com
csaction wrote:
No part of this trial was ever in the public’s interest and the city prosecutors were the last to see that. Some of the police used excessive force and that ruined their case. The parade rules weren’t applied to everyone equally, and that ruined their case. You aren’t guilty of obstructing the street when the police throw you down in the street. Explaining that you have a permit to march, just like the year before, is NOT failure to disperse. Allowing every politico in town to make a political statement EXCEPT those with a message of peace, is NOT equal protection under the law.
The strangest part of the city’s position, other than the obvious lame claim that they could get a conviction but decided not to, is Ms. Kelly’s apparent distrust of the legal system: “everything the police did was justified and there was probable cause for an arrest, but getting a conviction is another story”.
It is NOT another story IF the police did nothing wrong and there WAS probable cause for an arrest, and that’s ALL been decided by a jury of their peers when they couldn’t prove their case to 6 people in this town.
Is she suggesting that the jury system is wrong or that we, the people, are too stupid to see that the police and city are always right, no matter what they do? Does she think we can’t sit on a jury and decide the ruling based on the evidence, and get it right? The jury already got it right and the city wanted to intimidate the remaining 2 people with the threat of a trial, until the last minute, to stop them from suing for the police brutality, already proven to a jury.
11/28/2007 7:49 PM MST on Gazette.com
mananamaria wrote:
Apparently a jury couldn’t agree anyone broke the law in the first place. As far as I can tell, the threat to file charges against Verlo and Fineron, who both may or may no longer have pending lawsuits against the city and then dropping those is pretty telling. Besides did our finest not learn appropriat compliance tools that avoid the spectecals of dragging old women across a street and flagrantly threateniing people with tasers?
11/28/2007 8:03 PM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
CS, correction–they had a permit to march in a parade, not to interrupt the parade with a demonstration. In addition, Kelly is stating that another trial would be a waste of resources because the outcome would be the same…there is no insuation here.
11/28/2007 8:04 PM MST on Gazette.com
back2colorado4go wrote:
csaction, you have lost ALL credibility on these boards! And Manawhatever, you do not follow ANY of the facts about this. JWSTrue has it right. These people broke the law, and most people I know of agree that these people needed to be taught that what they did in public was a disgrace! The police PICKED THEM OFF OF THE STREET, and with resistance these people ended up hurting themselves! They are deceptive by lying for the permit and needed to be removed. No one, especially the children there to see the parade, needed to be subjected to these adults acting unruly and not listening to the police! You can protest many other ways without this sick little show! And I agree with the DA in one way though. For the little satisfaction we (the public) would get in prosecuting these people, it is not worth the cost and the publicity it would give these pathetic people in the process! And yes, juries are full of creepy people that let off murderers every day, so it is not so hard to see one that can’t decide this one! These people were LUCKY it was the police that dragged them from the streets after hearing how ticked some parade watchers were at these people when this happened! Way to teach our kids!!!
11/28/2007 8:21 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (4)
jwstrue wrote:
back2colorado4go, thanks for the support. Now we sit back and wait for jtrione to chime in…sometimes I think CS and jtrione are one in the same, maybe??
11/28/2007 8:50 PM MST on Gazette.com
tonytee wrote:
hey post person hummmmmm cops broke the law many times and have not been charged, people sometimes who break the law in history end up being heroes, sometimes the letter of the law is not always correct and golden, sometimes to make a difference in life you must break the law to make the world a better place to live and not not let the law become too powerful in trying to silence free speech.
11/28/2007 8:52 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (2)
pc12784 wrote:
CSaction, with the possibility of people like you in the jury pool, it is entirely reasonable to think that the jury would be too stupid to see that the police and city are right in this case. Your statement about excessive force still baffle me. If you don’t want to be dragged off the street by the police, MOVE when officers give you a lawful order to do so. It’s really quite simple. But JWS and back2colorado pretty much discredited everything you said in this thread anyway, so I rest my case.
11/28/2007 9:18 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (4)
lexiii wrote:
I wish they’d have gone ahead and prosecuted, but the county is trying to save money, and they are basically focusing on more important crimes, I think, which is a good thing.
However, I am not on the side of the protesters here, if there weren’t more important cases that need attention, I’d be screaming and hollering myself right now, but our jails are already over filled and we need the room for more violent offenders.
Even though they’re not going to be prosecuted, the stupid protesters still look stupid in the eyes of the public, that opinion will not change.
11/28/2007 9:37 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (4)
pastor wrote:
one thing I have learned about csaction is he is right and everyone else is wrong. Have anyone every read where he admitted he was wrong and said he was sorry. In his world the peace protest are always right and can do no wrong.
Here is an example of his world view “One more point: look at the list of issues that made the gazette change this blog. ALL rightwing issues. All rightwing hate speech. Vile, putrid, racist, sexist, Fox Noise, Rush Limpboy, dittohead, FotF issues. NONE leftwing.” ”
Mr. Rust, I see you like your peace activists stupid, brain addled, stoned hippies, with no fight in them, passively accepting any abuse from the enemies of the state. Or perhaps you like the theological activists looking for another martyrdom opportunity and willing to help any enemy nail them to the cross. Or perhaps activists that are just too stupid to see hypocrisy in the national (and local) theocracy proponents, or the threat that ALL theocrats represent to the peaceful majority. Sorry to disappoint. (not)” ” The theocratic party that wants to turn this nation into a theocracy, and is the Christian equivalent of an Islamic Republic, are who get criticized, along with the hypocrite, hate monger, adulterer, homophobe, foot tapping bathroom boys, and televangelist funditards. It has nothing to do with the religion and peaceful, loving followers of the Prince of Peace. It has to do with those straying from the message as much as the other Taliban, who want to turn back the clock on progress to created a biblical theocracy. It has to do with those that want to legislate “throwing the first stone”, battling those that want to legislate “thou shalt NOT throw the first stone”. The concept of the protection of targeted groups, is the application of that principle and those against it are NOT Christian, because it is the principle of their lord. BTW, preacher, I won’t cut you as much slack as the other guy. You know exactly what “Christian” Taliban means, you just defend them. I’ve explained this before and will not again.” all of these quotes are from him. FOR SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES CHRISTIAN ARE LIKE THE TALIBAN, WILL ALWAYS DEFEND HIS PEOPLE WHEN THERE ARE WRONG. So I am sure he will blame Christian for his friends getting in trouble, and that all of this is to silence his friends message.
11/28/2007 9:39 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
on the issues of the protester, they now know, if they disobey the police, they can get away with it by yell, that it is all the police fault. An make sure people like csaction spread their lies on line and in the newspaper, this is the normal blame the cops for our behavior.
11/28/2007 9:45 PM MST on Gazette.com
101abn wrote:
Once again, lazy DAs. I rest my case. Prosecuting the prostestors would probably cut in to the time they spend plea bargaining away other cases…
11/28/2007 10:10 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (2)
101abn wrote:
Neva Nolan. Nearly a HUNDRED COUNTS PLEA BARGAINED DOWN TO *TWO*. Did you watch the Channel 11 report on the clown with over a HALF DOZEN DUIs – INCLUDING KILLING A MAN – WHO LOST HIS DRIVER’S LICENSE, LEFT COURT, DROVE TO A LIQUOR STORE AND BOUGHT A BOTTLE OF BOOZE??? ALL FILMED AND CONFIRMED BY CHANNEL 11 NEWS CREWS. Our DAs are a BAD JOKE!
11/28/2007 10:26 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (3)
tonytee wrote:
actually lexiii i do not see the protesters as stupid in the eyes of the public, being one that is in the public i commend them for standing up for what they beleived in and taking it as far as they did, in this country too few people are sheep and will not step out and stand for what they beleive in that is why our country is in the dilemma it is in currently with politicians and fiancially, maybe more people need to step out of the box for what they beleive in instead of letting senior citizens do it for us, but maybe that is the only generation that has any guts left to stand up for something.
11/28/2007 11:50 PM MST
just1voice wrote:
Tony I think you are way off base on that one. Its not that people arent willing to stand up for what they believe in or that they are sheep following the flock. The majority of them do it WITHIN the limits of the law so it doesnt make headlines like these clowns did. Have you gone out and asked the “public” their opinion on what these people did? I have and as Lexi said, they look stupid and will continue to think they are stupid even though they wont be punished for it.
Besides, I can think of several other ways to punish a business owner besides sending him to jail so that is something the public needs to consider.
11/29/2007 7:10 AM MST on Gazette.com
skiracer wrote:
Tony – not sure exactly how you are in the public eye as I have never heard of you outside these boards and can’t find any information on basic internet searches. Someone mentioned on another thread you ran for a public office and lost. With the skewwed view points you have shown throughout the threads on this website and the apparent lack of a marketing plan I can see why.
Maybe the senior citizens in these case were convinced/brainwashed in to thinking they were standing up for a good cause. Heck, my grandmother voted for Clinton the first time around because she thought he was handsome and someone came around to her nursing home and told everyone there what a great guy he was and how his moral standards would help improve their lives in the retirement community.
The problem with what they did is that they lied their way into the protest (privately funded and run) and then refused to leave when organizers asked them to and then police asked them to. Arguing that you have a permit is not leaving. Step to the side of the road and then show your permit. But since it was privately run it doesn’t matter. Your permit can be revoked at anytime at the organizer’s discretion.
As far dragging rather than carrying an old lady across the street. I am going to guess that she was pushing 200 lbs if not more. Has anyone here tried to carry a oddly shaped, limp sack of potatoes weighing this much before. Now add some squirming into the equation and you can see why they dragged this person off the straight. Besides, I would be willing to bet that should she have been carried off we would hear about her injuring either her arms or her ribs.
11/29/2007 7:38 AM MST on Gazette.com
skiracer wrote:
And regardless of the cost, the DA should be prosecuting those who break the law. The problem with our legal system is not that too many people are getting 2nd chances, it’s that too many people never even have to plea bargain or go to court because of lazy prosecutors.
The DA just lost my vote when up for re-election. If you didn’t have enough evidence say so, but to say that you are backing out because you don’t have faith in the system you are supposed to uphold on behalf of the people is a bunch of BS.
11/29/2007 7:41 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
pastor wrote:
The next’s round of the peace protester hand book is to bring a lawsuit against the city and police for false arrest. I hope that everyone who hand entry for parade take notice and when this group try to entry next time, they make it clear to them no anti-war message permitted in the parade. If you bring in you anti-war or peace message (joke because they seem to end up in some type of fight with someone) you will be removed. This will stop them from cause trouble again.
11/29/2007 7:57 AM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
I went to war to push peace and democracy on other nations. In this nation, or atleast in this city peace is considered hate speach. This city had no case, thats why they lost and are hanging their heads in defeat.
11/29/2007 7:57 AM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
This city is changing, just drive on Fort Carson one day, count how many anti-war, anti-Bush stickers you see on people’s cars. It will shock you. But you people on this blog will probably just call those troops “phoney soldiers” or “anti-americans” or “unpatriotic”. We appreciate that. Thanks for the support. Go when Physical Training (PT) ends at 8:30am, you’ll see these troops in their cars where their PT uniform with with what you people call “propaganda” on their car. I love an America where our troops have the right to free speach, which you call “hate speach”.
11/29/2007 8:03 AM MST on Gazette.com
erniezippreplat wrote:
Break the law get away scott free with the Colorado Springs DA. Whoever run against the current DA next time around gets the five votes in my family
11/29/2007 8:08 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
lexiii wrote:
iraqwarvet, throwing yourself on the pavement during a family event isn’t speech, and it certainly isn’t peace.
If idiots want to stand up for peace, they need to be peaceable about it.
These protesters were no more peaceful than anyone else.
tonytee, the protesters were stupid. They acted like a bunch of tantruming toddlers. Grown men and women throwing themselves down like three year olds in front of little children, no less, because they were asked to leave and they didn’t want to leave.
Not only was that against their own message of peace, it was a bad example for the children concerning adult behavior, and it was completely inappropriate in the first place.
A family event is no place for a war protest, these selfish minded brainless old farts who think they’re still in the sixties need to grow up and find a more appropriate means of communication.
How can they send a message of peace when they, themselves, are not being peaceful?
11/29/2007 8:10 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
smackermack wrote:
GUYS your anger is in the wrong place!! It is the CITY ATTORNEY – not the DA who decided this!!! Read the headline and the first Paragraph of the article!!!
11/29/2007 8:55 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
No one want to silence the peace protesters right to speak, but we believe that there is a time and place for it. An most people believe that the St. Patrick’s Day parade was not the right time and place. Most people also seem to believe that if a cop asked you move you move you do not act like a baby. But I also must remind everyone that the peace protesters hand book, when the police ask you to move you drop an make a scene, so that it is caught on film, the reason is so you can make the police look like the bad guy.
Iragwarvet I have a question for you since you agree with the anti-war groups. Is it ok to block soldier return from the war? Is it ok to delay the soldier meeting with their family? Is it ok to destroy railroad tracks and stop the return of the military equipment from the war?
11/29/2007 8:56 AM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
TONYTEE, taking a stand or speaking out for what you believe in is one thing. Causing a disturbance during a public family event is quite another.
2 other bits:
– This country is in dilemma (according to you) because of corrupt politicians…
– This country is in dilemma (according to you) because of imminent recession…
Neither has anything to do with “stepping out or standing for”.
You wouldn’t happen to be one of the individuals who ran for mayor last term, would you?
11/29/2007 9:02 AM MST on Gazette.com
rambone wrote:
pastor wrote: “No one want to silence the peace protesters right to speak, but we believe that there is a time and place for it. An most people believe that the St. Patrick’s Day parade was not the right time and place.”
Oh, but it was the right time and place for an old pickup to drive in the parade with juveniles in the back, lifting kegs, acting like idiots?
Was it the right time and place for the police to scare the living daylights out of young children as they drug that poor old lady across the street by the back of her shirt?
Were you even there pastor? I was, and it was terrible that these fine police had to act like they were imposing martial law.
11/29/2007 9:11 AM MST on Gazette.com
davidb wrote:
Eric Verlo and Elizabeth Fineron should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. According to their own statements, they intentionally and premeditatedly challenged the police that day. Attorney Kelly, you do NOT speak for the public on this one. Do your job!
11/29/2007 9:20 AM MST on Gazette.com
rambone wrote:
lexiii wrote: “These protesters were no more peaceful than anyone else.”
Were you there lexiii? Or its this just another story you want to weigh in on? I watched the whole thing, from the moment they walked out of Acatia Park, to when they got beat down 1 block away. Their signs were just peace symbols, they were not yelling into the crowd. One more thing, that pig that drug that lady across the street is lucky to be walking on two legs today. Pull off that act in front of my kids is enough to get me sent to prison.
11/29/2007 9:20 AM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Iraqwarvet, actually if any one in a position of authority sees an active duty soldier driving around with this propaganda displayed on his/her POV–they will more than likely be ordered to remove it and potentially face administrative action.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits any type of slander against the Commander-in-Chief–in any form or fashion. While military members may disagree with the policies and procedures set forth by the Commander-in-Chief, they are prohibited by law from open criticism of those policies/procedures or the CIC himself.
Yes, military members can exercise freedom of speech–but only accompanied by certain restrictions as outlined in the UCMJ.
11/29/2007 9:22 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
pastor wrote:
So it is ok for these people to act the way they did. So again it is the police fault for doing their job, an the protester are not responsibility for their actions. So when is it ok for the police to move someone who does not listen?
11/29/2007 9:27 AM MST on Gazette.com
lwirbel wrote:
Lexii, you still aren’t describing this event accurately. Some people, like the AIM Indians at Columbus Day in Denver, choose to get arrested and commit civil disobedience by symbolically blockading an event. Verlo and Fineron were parade participants who the parade marshall decided, after the fact, he didn’t want in the parade, who were removed from the parade. The courts have a very mixed record on the right of a parade organizer to set rules, particularly in an ex post facto way. St Patricks Day organizers in Boston and elsewhere have some limited rights to exclude in advance gay and lesbian marchers, but once they’re in a parade, you have only limited rights to take them out. What’s also relevant here is what the courts have said about Apple Computer’s right to define who is a journalist. The company wants to exclude some people in advance because it says, “they’re only bloggers.” The courts say, no, Apple, even if it’s your press conference, you do not have the right to decide who is a legit participant and who is not. The St. Paddy’s Day organizer was really bordering on the edge of legality when he decided to remove folks with peace shirts after allowing Bookman in (and like Rambone said, they weren’t yelling, just marching).
11/29/2007 9:31 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Rambone if the police tell you to move out of the way, you listen and sort out the problem once you are off the street. You do not act like a little child. Rambone read your past posting you are some one who has a problem with Authorize and police. I was not there but people I know and trust were there an witness the whole thing from start to finished. They witness the police asking them to leave and witness the people not listen to the police officers.
11/29/2007 9:35 AM MST on Gazette.com
skiracer wrote:
Smackermack – My bad on the City Attorney vs the DA. Guess I heard DA used and skipped over the first few lines of the article on my reread after reading other comments. Regardless, the DA’s office should still be looking at this as Colorado Springs is in El Paso County, which is covered in the area he is responsible for. At a minimum a better reason/story/lie needs to be provided to the people of the city regarding why these charges were actually dropped. Saying you have evidence to convict but we are not going to is the same as saying we will chose which laws we are going to enforce.
As for the City Attorney (appointed by our wonderful all knowing and responsible City Council). You should be fired for either lying in your statements to the Gazette or for not upholding the law regardless of cost. If you have enough evidence a crime was committed and the police were correct in their actions you owe it to those of us who follow the law to uphold it as well as to the police officers who just had their name dragged through the mud because you are either a liar or lazy.
11/29/2007 9:36 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Lwirbel my problem is how they acted once they were told by the police to leave. I do not agree with the message they were bring in the St. Patrick’s Day parade but that is my opion. I feel that there is a time and place for that message and this to me was not the right place. With that said, I still feel they were in the wrong once the police ask them to move out of the way. They had to two choices 1. to move out of the way and sort the mess out. 2. Do not listen to the police and risk getting in trouble. The choices was up to them.
11/29/2007 9:47 AM MST on Gazette.com
justanothervet wrote:
That is right . Every time the police or any authority figure tells you to do something than do it. No protesting allowed. No thinking allowed. Vote Republican.
BTW you can send your Tea Tax to the Queen care of the United Kingdom.
11/29/2007 9:47 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (2)
lwirbel wrote:
That’s the main difference between you and me. If there was a huge accident or similar crisis and the police were getting everyone to move, I’d high-tail it. If the police were asking me to do something that was clearly a violation of my rights, I would challenge them and ask for their badge number. Never kowtow to someone simply because they are in uniform.
11/29/2007 9:54 AM MST on Gazette.com
duncan wrote:
lwirbel, from your comments I can only conclude that you had no issue with the Valedictorian from Lewis Palmer giving her speech about faith AFTER deliberately misleading the event organizers about her intentions. Is that correct? Or are you blocking that piece of evidence out to make your case? I guess lies and deceit in the name of a “cause” are complete justification to getting ones message across.
rambone, your internet tough guy act is tired. By your own admission since you watched the whole thing you had your chance with “that pig” and you did nothing. I doubt there would have been any change if your kids were there or not. It sounds like you could have used it as an example to your kids of what not to do when they grow up.
11/29/2007 9:57 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
rambone wrote:
Selective discipline? I had three short paragraphs to you. You chose to only comment on some short sighted belief that the police are the rule makers. These peace activist had the permits to be in that parade.
Act the way they did? You admit you were not there. Last I remember, he told me/she told me wasn’t admitted in a court of law. So why are you even making assumptions?
11/29/2007 10:00 AM MST on Gazette.com
lwirbel wrote:
Duncan, I actually know Erica from Lewis-Palmer and I have mixed emotions about it, I don’t think her case will stand up in court because of those deceptions, though her intention was partially admirable. I think this issue will stand up in a civil-suit court because the marchers were NOT engaged in deception. Bookman has always been an activist bookstore, and no great deception is involved in putting on green T-shirts. What about the Boston parade, if a bookstore known to be lesbian applied to the Catholic group to march, would it be deceptive to somehow have a lesbian sign on that float? I would say no.
11/29/2007 10:05 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Iwirbel I have no problem with your statement “I would challenge them and ask for their badge number. Never kowtow to someone simply because they are in uniform.” But can you not do this by getting out of the way of everyone else, so that you are not causing a delay in the parade? by doing this are you not listen to the police and showing respect to them and everyone else.
11/29/2007 10:06 AM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Quick question to someone in the know. What reason did the protesters use to apply for a permit under a business name that had nothing to do with their organization? Or is their organization called The Bookman?
11/29/2007 10:11 AM MST on Gazette.com
obxman wrote:
if the d.a.[could mean anything]had to pay for legal expenses in a failed prosecution,half these jokers would be out of a job.if civilians sue each other without merit,the losing party can be held liable for legal fees…..why not the government?!they don’t have to be right when they arrest you….you just have to be able to afford justice.
11/29/2007 10:33 AM MST
jwstrue wrote:
Come on Rambone…that’s like saying because airplanes crash, I have no respect for pilots and will never fly an airplane…you sound pretty libertarian to me. Perhaps you should relocate to one of those compounds in Montana or Utah. Be careful, you may need these guys some day…
lwirbel, most folks with common sense would not challenge authority while in the midst of a direct order–most folks would follow the appropriate complaint or challenge process. Sounds like you have the same problem as the protesters–there is a time and place for everything. When you are given instruction by a police officer–this is not the time to argue or challenge unless your desire is to be incarcerated. Yes, there are exceptions–but judgement and good sense is everything…
11/29/2007 10:35 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
lwirbel wrote:
Jwstrue, Eric has had The Bookman in the parade (and MLK parade, etc.) for several years’ running, usually has a sign about peace on the van, etc. He said something to J&P members a couple days beforehand, saying “Anyone want to be with the float?” Before that time, none of the peace groups had even thought about applying for the parade, whether or not they’d be allowed. The Justice and Peace Commission often has a float in the Christmas parade every year, allowed by the sponsors, usually with an alternative-energy theme, but no one ever thought of applying for some of these other parades.
11/29/2007 10:39 AM MST on Gazette.com
just1voice wrote:
Rambone, ignorance is bliss isnt? Why dont you check the app requirements for applying to be a cop before opening your mouth and making yourself look like more of an idiot. As for the State Trooper, he sure as anything could have made your day a whole lot worse by holding you and calling social services to come and collect your child. Dont think he had the right? Go and find out. Then you could sit here and complain about how he held you againt your will, kidnapped your child and made you look like even worse of a father than you probably are.
11/29/2007 10:41 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
jwstrue wrote:
Come on Rambone…that’s like saying because airplanes crash I have no respect for pilots and will never fly…you sound pretty libertarian to me. Perhaps you should relocate to a compound in Montana or Utah. Be careful, you may need these guys some day.
lwirbel, you may have the same problem as the protesters. There is a time and place for everything. Most folks, when instructed by a police officer to take some action, would comply and complain or challenge later. The only thing you will accomplish by direct rebellion is most likely incarceration. True, there are exceptions, but good sense and judgement apply here…
11/29/2007 10:44 AM MST on Gazette.com
just1voice wrote:
Here is the sad part of all of this. Hopefully everyone will live and learn. I guarentee you the parade organizer is amending his rules and regs and next he will not have this problem. I would imagine EVERY parade orgainizer is doing that so it is very unlikely that this “message of peace” they wanted to get out will not be seen again at any function like this. Why would you want someone hell bent on causing problems in your show anyway?
11/29/2007 10:44 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
jwstrue wrote:
…sorry, didn’t mean to repeat myself–couldn’t see the first comments
11/29/2007 10:46 AM MST on Gazette.com
jtrione wrote:
(laughing) Some of these comments get so hilarious. Makes for entertaining reading. And, just to clarify JWS, CSAction and I are two different people. I would think our approaches to various topics and our facility with the language would distinguish us in several ways, but, alas, not clear enough.
I cannot comment definitively on the actions that day, as truthfully, I was not there. I do, however, know that the sentiment at the time which drove and continues to drive this debate was that from the early moments of the war, Colorado Springs and our illustrious police department were forever enshrined in history as “Thugs of Intolerance”. We, the citizenry, witnessed the teargassing of peaceful protesters early on in 2003 and made the nightly news across the country for same.
So, I could see why the perception, real or not, existed during this parade event. The message which seemed to come through loud and clear from city government and the police force was “How DARE you liberal freaks question the certitude of our celestially ordained Bush administration and its actions in the world ? We will use EVERY means legal and illegal to keep you silenced.” So, no, all the comments below that those on the right welcome free speech are, frankly, prevarication. Conservatives during this period fell into a mindset that they could shout down or silence any dissent as they claimed to have higher moral authority, e.g. Bill O’Reilly’s infuriating habit of cutting off the microphone of those who disagree. The Gazette’s infuriating habit of editing AP news stories during that time to remove any possible anti-war opinions.
Those who are intellectually HONEST cannot dispute that such a pervasive mentality existed in this country for the last six years. Given that framework, it is not difficult at all to see the anguish from the left at a system which tried strenuously to silence dissent. And, for those on the right who are unable, for a moment, to see the frustration from the left, then, I’m sorry, but you would have to be CLUELESS to forget the Cheney-isms where he called into question the patriotism of those who dared to dissent.
Dunno, gang, hopefully we’re moving in the right direction. Remember, the bulk of the blame for the lack of unanimity toward the war effort falls squarely at the feet of the Loser in Chief who was unable to make a cogent case for military action and failed miserably at being a leader. A “leader” is able to rally people to his cause, not just browbeat them into obeisance. So, yes, maybe these protesters broke the law. I haven’t a clue. But, if they did, don’t they answer to a higher moral authority than some law designed to stifle protests of the left ? I think so. jtrione@mac.com
11/29/2007 10:59 AM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Thanks Jim for the clarification. I apologize, I was being sarcastic. For those who aren’t familiar, the distinction could be difficult because you both speak in dissertational formats and CS usually follows in support of your views…
Your comments are sometimes pretty hilarious as well…especially when the disdain for Christianity and the liberal arrogance shines through–all in good fun though.
11/29/2007 11:14 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Hey Jim, how are you today, I would never confuse you with csaction (I know everything) you have always been respectful to me and other. I think you are off base here on this issue. I for one question those in leadership who are against the war,why? for declares we have lost, meeting with out enemies and using those who hate us talking points as their own. Those in political power who support the peace movement have done everything in their power to ensure our solider will lose this war in order to win this next’s elections. I agree that Bush has made mistakes which war time president have not. Right now we have a chance to win this war but instead of backend our troops and giving them the funds and equipment need to fight this war the democrat’s want to withhold money in order to keep theses peace protester happy and to make sure that we do not win this war.
11/29/2007 11:28 AM MST on Gazette.com
pondfrogz wrote:
Wow, it appears I missed quite a conversation. Have a good day all and remember, there’s no problem that a six-pack and a good game on TV can’t cure. Just my meaningless comment of the day before tackling my fiancees chore list from $%*# on my day off.
11/29/2007 11:30 AM MST
turdman wrote:
Rambone-You are as lame as Tony Boy. Whine, Whine, I got stopped and I want to complain because I got caught and it isn’t fair.
11/29/2007 11:32 AM MST on Gazette.com
turdman wrote:
Bottom line in this case is the protestors are cowards. They protested and were legally arrested for violating the law. Then they all complained because they got arrested for again, breaking the law. Now they will sue the city because they believe their rights were violated. This group is really no better than the Westborough Baptist bunch. I hope next year they go to Denver to protest one of their events, so they can get what they really deserve.
11/29/2007 11:39 AM MST on Gazette.com
just1voice wrote:
Rambone dont flatter yourself. It would take a lot more than your couch commando comments to get under my skin. I never said your opinion made you those things. However, your lack of knowledge does. That and endangering your own child, setting a horrible example, and your running your mouth makes you a bad father. Whats wrong did I get under your skin?
No Im not one of them but I would give just about anything to watch you go one on one with the officer that you call “a pig”. Then you could teach you kids something useful, like how not to get your tail whipped.
11/29/2007 11:46 AM MST on Gazette.com
jtrione wrote:
Hey, Pastor Roy. Well, respectfully, I will disagree on some points. How do you equate “protesting” with “wanting to lose the war” ? That seems quite the logical leap to me. And, for the record, I have never taken a position on bringing the troops home early — I’m ex-military and understand the difficult role they are playing which does not fit nicely in “bumpersticker arguments” one way or the other. As one who has worn the uniform, I often cringe at some MoveOn.org statements and positions as shortsighted and limited. But, I realize that we on the left, have our normal centrists and our own “lunatic fringe”. We have to somehow work with both to craft a clear, cogent message.
I, personally, have never seen withdrawal from Iraq as a viable option and agree that a permanent presence of 50K per year is likely for the next few decades. As far as the failures of this administration (arguably in the running for the top five worst since the founding of the republic), there are not enough electrons to waste on these blogs. Yet, what seems more telling to me are the HUGE legions of right-wingers who, TO THIS DAY, support this guy. How many Bush-Cheney stickers do we STILL see on cars here ? It boggles the mind. All I know is that it certainly attaches a ‘stain’ to conservatism that will last for quite some time. For the next few decades, “conservative” will be automatically linked to the policies and actions of the Bush Administration. Nice albatross, guys, heavy enough for ya ?
And, PR, the point of this article was whether or not the protesters were in the right or not. Perhaps, they are reflective of a sentiment, wholly pervasive at the time, now weaning somewhat, that TO EVEN QUESTION the actions of the Bush-Cheney elite was somehow tantamount to disrespect for this nation. “If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.” Who thinks in such puerile, oversimplistic absolutes ? Republicans, that’s who. C’mon, to impugn the patriotism of Senator Max Cleland ? Seriously, how do they look themselves in the mirror in the morning ?
(laughing) I recall a comment at some point during all this when a secular progressive was asked about the disdain toward conservatives, especially religious ones, phrased as “you don’t need them to just be wrong, you need them to be evil”. As wrongheaded and awful as that statement appears, I think it’s dead-on. Perhaps where we liberals lose our footing is when we become unable to see the folks on the other side of the table as loving, compassionate humans who happen to be a bit misguided in their beliefs in our opinion. Maybe if we on the left felt that those on the right were truly championing our rights to hold (in their view) misguided beliefs, then protest incidents like these would be few and far between. But, when we feel that the cards are “stacked against us” by those in power and their representatives (the police), it’s easy to see the animus. jtrione@mac.com
11/29/2007 11:59 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Can someone please explain to me what this has to do with art.
“Fake mug shots of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other White House officials are on display at the main branch of the New York City Public Library, and the exhibit has caused quite a commotion.
About six manipulated photographs of members of the Bush administration made to look like mug shots are lining one of the landmark building’s hallways, with each current and former official holding a D.C. police date-of-arrest placard bearing the date they made “incriminating” statements about the war in Iraq, The New York Daily News reported.”
This is an perfect example of what is wrong with the peace movement and those who are against the war.
They love to Forcing their views on people by saying it is one thing and doing something else.
What does this have to do with the above story. The answer is both enter something under a different idea or name, but when there their used it to express a political view.
11/29/2007 11:59 AM MST on Gazette.com
csaction wrote:
Well, the parade arrests are still a hot topic on the ole blog. Where to start? It’s an amazing amount of misinformation but more importantly the correlation to those that would summarily convict us is 100% with those that know nothing about the basic facts. Disagree all you want; you would be amazed at how much I disagree what what was done, but understand this: the neocon tactic of revisionist reality (war is peace) doesn’t work when you want to battle videotape and photos with ill-informed subjective opinions. The city prosecutor couldn’t make that work and neither can you kids.
Glad to see Lexi prove she was the MIA tractor gurlie. Thanx. Glad to see preacher roid make no sense as usual. So on a day of great vindication, I’m glad to see those that hate peace lose a small battle.
To address as much as I have time for: “”whining and complaining” does not defeat prosecutors in court, Evidence does.
Elizabeth and Eric were not “PICKED OFF THE STREET” but pulled off their feet by Paladino, who emmbarrassed the department in 2003 with the “Dairy Queen Dozen” arrests outside the city limits.
There was no lie on the permit. We were invited back after walking in the 2006 parade. No subterfuge, and O’Donnell said he had no problem with our message. The problem was with the lie he was told by the same person who lied to police about the permit. http://csaction.org/StPatsDay/Odonnell.html
David B, all 7 were “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” in fact the charges were changed twice to make it easier, but the city didn’t make it’s case, so hung jury, then dropped charges. Patty Kelly is right that the outcome would be the same or they would loose outright with another trial. She wrong that the jury just didn’t get it. They did, except for the wife of the defense contractor who should have been recused at the start.
There are larger community issues of how private is a function held in the middle of Tejon and subsidized 50% for the cost of police? For such “private” events, does the 1st amendment apply, or does a permit void the constitution? If the constitution is voided by “private” events, does that mean our permit the next day, for our 4th anniversary rally mean that we could ban people we don’t agree with from Acacia Park? (like we would want to) http://csaction.org/31807/31807.html
In the end, when we have become a total fascist state and have no rights left, (while the American equivalent of the Germans in 1938 sleep) you won’t be able to find anyone who will admit they fought those fighting for rights and peace just like you can’t find anyone who will admit they voted for niXXXon.
In the end, this is a great conversation for our city to have and any city in America, because we need to understand our system in it’s superiority and not get in the way of it’s progress in the world. The lack of understanding of how our constitution works is appalling, but this is progress.
I guess we’ll see all of you at the 5pm press conference in front of the courthouse?
11/29/2007 12:00 PM MST on Gazette.com
hmmmmm wrote:
For someone who complains about being lied about, you sure post a lot only when it comes to your ridiculous protest where your people broke the law and got treated accordingly. Your people refused police orders, were subsequently moved, forcibly as you left no other option, after your “old lady” asked several officers what it would take to get arrested, and then appropriately charged. Where is the mis-information in that csaction? Your people are not martyrs, not worthy of anything but contempt. A full video of the incident shows the truth, and as much of a spin as you put on this, your people are still wrong. Next time, don’t expect any nicer treatment when you pull the same stunt.
11/29/2007 12:06 PM MST on Gazette.com
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hmmmmm wrote:
Rambone, are you speaking from experience on the gangbang comment little guy? Sure sounds like it. Maybe the aggressive defense of the police is a direct result of your ridiculous aggressive contempt for them. You opinion is ignorant. Nice racist photo by the way, Mark Fuhrman is still in Idaho if you need a place to move to.
11/29/2007 12:09 PM MST on Gazette.com
coloradogirl wrote:
I am a true believer in that life is just not fair sometimes. Justice does not ALWAYS prevail. I don’t think this was a vindication, just an abandonment of justice in the best interest of the situation.
I applaud the City Attorney for “giving up” so to speak. It’s like arguing over a $700 couch in divorce proceedings. You spend twice that to the attorney’s arguing over it. In the end, it’s just not worth it and the bigger person has to give up. Just like in this situation. The City Attorney didn’t want to waste anymore money on such frugal matters.
I personally was a witness to the groups display at the parade and I’m just as disgusted now as I was then. I wish we could send the protesters over to Iraq and let them protest there. Now THAT would be worth watching….
11/29/2007 12:32 PM MST on Gazette.com
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hmmmmm wrote:
Been here 20+ years, have a BS in computer related fields. I did military work in communications and do this job to defend the good people of my city from people like you. If you like I can send you the links for “aggressive” and “defense” definitions in great big letters and really small words so you can understand.
11/29/2007 12:52 PM MST
turdman wrote:
Rambone-Come on dude just having a little fun! I am just shocked is all. I mean I have never heard a grown man whine like a school girl. If you keep pushing out that lower lip of yours when you pout, you should put some sunscreen on so you don’t get a sunburn.
Can we still be friends?
11/29/2007 12:59 PM MST on Gazette.com
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jeep4fun wrote:
If protestors wish to protest they should apply for a permit through the city as any march is required to. For protestors to ruin what should be a community event for the purpose of enjoyment is simply silly. I believe parade organizers have the right to prohibit those groups (which this was)who wish to disrupt parade proceedings. The police acted appropriately in this instance. I grow tired of seeing idiots place the police department in a bad light due to their poor choices and actions. If you wish to truly disrupt a community event then you have to pay the piper. If you disagree with a particular event or view, request a permit from the city for your own event, but let our citizens truly enjoy the parades provided without divisive and inciteful actions and messages
11/29/2007 12:59 PM MST on Gazette.com
turdman wrote:
Hey Rambone,
Since your not doing very well on this blog today, maybe you can go down to the Gazette Telegraph office and protest this blog. I mean really, we must be violating your rights in some way. Maybe CSACTION can go with you and video tape the whole event. He can can then edit out the truth and you two can have a local TV station air your story. Maybe a lawyer can take your case and you could win millions by suing us. Maybe an officer will drive by and you could sue the city as well.
Justice, isn’t it a beautiful thing.
11/29/2007 1:09 PM MST on Gazette.com
jtrione wrote:
So, Jeep4Fun, what I hear you saying is that some government functionary, probably a conservative Republican appointee, gets to decide who does or does not get to be included in an event for “our citizens” (your words)? Based on what set of criteria ? Who are those “special” citizens ? Thought we all had a right to peaceably assemble or to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Where do you find justification to abridge those rights or place boundaries on them ? Remember, if not expressly enumerated, then those rights reside in the people. Not in you, dear friend, or in local laws designed to limit speech. Talk about “special rights”. 😉
11/29/2007 1:20 PM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Great points coloradogirl and jeep4fun….
11/29/2007 1:24 PM MST on Gazette.com
lwirbel wrote:
Jeepforfun, what you describe is not what the Constitution intended freedom of speech to mean. There are limits to allowing a soapbox speaker to stand on private property and say something. However, Mike the anti-abortionist has every right to show big pictures of foetuses on public land outside the World Arena, and it doesn’t do any good to say,
“He’s disturbing me because I’m going to see an entertainment event, Cirque de Soleil or Lee Ann Rimes or whatever.” James Madison and those writing the Bill of Rights wanted to make sure that freedom of speech WAS in your face, did NOT require a permit, and was bound to be incendiary and controversial. That’s the only way to protect it. Otherwise, our nation would be a larger version of Singapore.
11/29/2007 1:36 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
jtrione- This is not a “free assembly” issue. O’Donnell owns the right to the parade which means, he can deny access if he chooses. If the protesors want to make fools of themselves they can do it from the curb which is protected by the Constitution.
11/29/2007 1:38 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Jim, I may be wrong, but my understanding on these parade, when you applied for permission to be in the event you must fill out paperwork with what type of display you are going to enter. So if this is the case can not the group in charge make it clear on their paperwork, what type of display is permitted and what type is not? So if this group next’s year make it clear to all involve what will be permitted and what will not be permitted, we may be able to avoide this problem next’s time.
11/29/2007 1:38 PM MST
csaction wrote:
Hmmm, if you are a cop, thank you for your service and sacrifice.
Now, post the video. No one on earth has sifted through this evidence more than I have and I know every second of video and every photo. The lawyers and cops don’t know this evidence better than I do. You don’t need to post 165 videos on YouTube like I have, just 1. The one that shows what you say it shows. Just 1 video. 1 photo. 1 piece of evidence. 1 thing to back up what you say. You all have the same burden of proof as I do, so pony up. http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=csaction
Factual correction: Elizabeth asked several officers to arrest her, AFTER being dragged, because she had already gotten the punishment (not by a jury of her peers) but from Paladino, and wanted the rest of her day in court. She knew enough about it to know she had no recourse for the thousands in medical costs without the system’s protection, which she insisted on. (not contempt for the system, but admiration)
Jeep, we followed all rules and got a permit. We paid for a permit the next day in the park, and decided NOT to have our protest rally for the 4th anniversary the same day as the parade, which would have gotten us much more exposure with the thousands downtown. We decided to do both the parade with the peace message, welcomed the year before, and then the protest the next day. (4th year) Separate things with separate intentions. Everyone didn’t participate in both.
We did not make the police look bad and I don’t think the department looks bad. I think we’ve lost the PR battle, not them, and people (other than here) are capable of seeing that a couple of cops going too far does not a department make. The rest did their jobs with respect and professionalism and garnered admiration from us all.
We deal with cops all the time, and for those old gray beards like em, we’re talking 40 years of activism. I admire police, have 1 in my family, 1 was arrested at the parade and 1 testified for us along with photo evidence. I respect the new chief, and I’m pissed about the budget cuts. The rogues hurt the force, the majority are a credit.
11/29/2007 1:41 PM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Jim, this was a community event–someone has to be in charge or it wouldn’t be an “organized” event. Jeep4fun is merely stating those in charge should have discretionary authority when it comes to eliminating participants who are suspect. In addition this was not the time for an assembly, whether peaceful or not. Compare this to a recent public democratic debate when a heckler became disruptive–was the heckler allowed to remain in the debate audience?
Just the fact this group applied under a separate entity makes them suspicious from the start (my opinion). Some would view this as a sneaky attempt to disrupt the event by attempting to hide their identity from the start.
11/29/2007 1:41 PM MST on Gazette.com
jtrione wrote:
Pastor, Loring said it beautifully when he said that the Framers did not intend for anyone to limit speech. That person, authorizing a placard or not, is, by definition, infringing on the rights of free speech. O’Donnell’s claim that he could restrict displays of “social advocacy” during the parade is the problem. He does not retain any such right.
On public streets, the public can say whatever it wants, tasteful or otherwise. During PrideFest, would it be legal to restrict Phelps and his Westboro Lunatics from marching around with their tacky signs ? Of course not. Did the Nazis march in Skokie during the 70’s ? Heck ya. Freedom comes with a price tag that says “everything you see or hear may or may not offend your sensibilities”. Tough noogies. Deal with it. So, however misplaced an anti-war protest might be during a civic event, it is well within the purview of what the Framers intended. Period. Stylistically is that the best forum ? Well, that’s a question worthy of debate.
11/29/2007 1:46 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Iwirbel, this may shocked you and other but I am against those who do what do you call it “Mike the anti-abortionist has every right to show big pictures of foetuses on public land outside the World Arena, and it doesn’t do any good to say,” I believe this type of behavior does more wrong then good. I am against those who protest gay event with signs that use the f word or condemn them to hell, I am against those who hold signs calling our soldiers babe killer and such.
11/29/2007 1:55 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Jim are you telling me that if I show up for the Gay Pride event and want to march down the street with signs that say they need to repent. I have the right to do it and they must let me into the event? I am using this example to get an understand of what you are saying. I was always under the impression that the group in charge off the event has the right to say who can be involved with the event and who can not.
11/29/2007 2:02 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
CSACTION-I do not like what you stand for; however, your last post is the most honest thing you have written in a long time. I disagree with you on when Fineron poked and begged the officer to arrest her.
My point is this; The officers were there legally and had ever right to remove Fineron and others from the event. Just because she got dragged across the street does not make it excessive force. Refusing to leave the area after being ordered is a crime and the officers had every right to arrest them. If the city decides not prosecute that is their loss. Obvious the police dept agreed that there was no use of excessive force used by the officers because nobody got disciplined. We all know the police dept disciplines their own people.
The only good thing out of this whole incident is that none of these protestors will even disrupt the parade again. Thay will have to wait for another Palmer Park incident to spew their lies.
11/29/2007 2:03 PM MST on Gazette.com
csaction wrote:
The 2 issues are the heart of the matter. jtrione and lwirbel are correct. Follow the logic path. If the laws of the land don’t apply to a “private” function or property, then I can grow pot across the street from any school where I own property. Of course not. It’s illegal, and my private ownership does not circumvent the law.
Mr. O’Donnell gets the nonprofit (disputed) rate for police protection just like we did, the next day, in Acacia park. Half off. $25 per hour per cop, for 2 at a time, which is $50 per hour.
Acacia Park is public property, andthat designation does not change, when it is rented out for an alloted time. Anyone that disagrees with us about this war (and there are still some) can show up and protest our rally. They usually do. They are always offered water and respect. Our permit does NOT give us the right to say “the 1st amendment of the constitution does not apply for you today, so shut up”. (we, of course, would never even try that)
In the middle of Tejon, closed to the public traffic, for hours, with 46 police subsidized for thousands by the city through the tax payers, Mr. O’Donnell’s permit CANNOT allow him to do what I describe above.
Further, he cannot be allowed to apply his “new and improved” constitutional protections for free speech to ban a message of peace, BUT have military guards, political candidates, political parties, labor unions, and many other political issues raised at the same place at the same time.
I don’t think it’s difficult to see how far this would go if we were to allow it. You either understand the beauty of what the founding fathers did, or you don’t. You have to listen to me disagree with you. The Cost? I have to listen to you. (giggle) It’s a great burden some days, but the nation needs us all to be strong. LOL.
11/29/2007 2:06 PM MST on Gazette.com
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iraqwarvet wrote:
I love hearing people tell protestor how to protest. Like lexii, telling these people that they must protest a certain way. Or Pastor Roy using a totally different subject to illustrate what he means and making no sense. These are the same people who if they lived back in the 1950’s and 60’s would be hitting and beating the nicely dressed black men sitting at the lunch counters. Lexii tell the truth, you hate freedom? Please leave my country then. I defend the rights of all Americans, while you spit on the constitution.
11/29/2007 2:12 PM MST on Gazette.com
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justhefacts wrote:
Pastor-The event coordinator can prevent anybody they want from entering their parade, event or gathering as long as they have a permit to close the street. If the protestor’s wants to stand on the street corner and display signs they have the right to do so as long as they are not on private property or impeding veh or ped traffic. Westboro never entered any event, they just stood on the outside and protested.
11/29/2007 2:12 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
OK, If I am holding a parade and I want it to be all about St. Patrick’s Day . An I make it clear no political message permitted, how is that stopping some one’ s1st Admen tent, because I am sure next’s year and maybe the next’s parade in town this will be happen. Why? To ensure we do not have another problem like this.
11/29/2007 2:16 PM MST
iraqwarvet wrote:
Hey Pastor Roy, I’ll help you out. Next Friday night in Manitou Springs, Iraq Veterans Against the War will be putting on a concert at The Ancient Mariner. How about you come down there and walk around the place with your pro-war banners. And Pro-War doesn’t mean Pro-troop. Hold high your “Death to all who are not Christian, White, and American” sign. I promise not to kick you out. And so will all the active duty troops and veterans of this war that will be at the show. Deal?
11/29/2007 2:16 PM MST on Gazette.com
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jtrione wrote:
And, yes, Pastor, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You have the freedom to walk down Tejon during PrideFest wearing a giant A-frame sign quoting pithy silly verses from some retarded book of allegory talking about how all the other right-wing zealots want to create a permanent second-class citizen status for GLBT people. That’s your right, hon, and many have fought and died for you to exercise that freedom. You might get some perplexed looks, but more likely than not, you’d get propositioned or invited for drinks and a party. Tough noogies. Deal with it. Price of freedom sort of thing.
11/29/2007 2:19 PM MST on Gazette.com
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pastor wrote:
Iragwarvet I reposted this just for you since I had a question for you.
pastor wrote:
No one want to silence the peace protesters right to speak, but we believe that there is a time and place for it. An most people believe that the St. Patrick’s Day parade was not the right time and place. Most people also seem to believe that if a cop asked you move you move you do not act like a baby. But I also must remind everyone that the peace protesters hand book, when the police ask you to move you drop an make a scene, so that it is caught on film, the reason is so you can make the police look like the bad guy.
Iragwarvet I have a question for you since you agree with the anti-war groups. Is it ok to block soldier return from the war? Is it ok to delay the soldier meeting with their family? Is it ok to destroy railroad tracks and stop the return of the military equipment from the war?
11/29/2007 8:56 AM MST on Gazette.com
11/29/2007 2:22 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Hey Pastor, I counted 15 anti-war, Anti-bush bumperstickers today just driving through post going from gate 20 to the car wash near the B-street entrance. You should probably call the Post Commander and bring an end to this. But DOD Directive 1344.10 says they can, you know why? Because their Americans.
11/29/2007 2:24 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Now Jim you last posting was an insult to me why did you have to act that way toward me. I do thank you for your stands .
11/29/2007 2:25 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Iragwarvet sorry that is my 20th year of marriage dinner to one of most wonderful women in the world. Also I was not the posting about the soldiers getting in trouble. Oh by the way my nices husband had someone put one on his truck at night and he was very upset about it.
11/29/2007 2:28 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Pastor Roy, again asking a black or white question. But, I’ll try to answer it for you. No, I don’t think its alright to block troops. So what now? What brillant thing do you have to say now?
Now I have a question for you, did you think black men trying to sit at a all white lunch counter in the late 50’s and early 60’s was a bad way to protest segregation or did they make a point? Maybe you should read Thoreau someday.
11/29/2007 2:30 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
CSACTION-Once again your mudding the water. Nobody is talking about your right to protest. You just can’t jump into a parade without permission. If the coordinator, holding the permit, decides they don’t want you to enter their parade they can exclude you from participation. If you choose to stand on the curb and spew then go for it.
If a war vet decided to get up on your stage during your permitted event in the park and take over the microphone he could be arrested. If you, the event coordinator, decided he was not welcome you have that right to exclude him.
Pretty simple stuff.
11/29/2007 2:30 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Okay Pastor Roy, since you can’t make it, I’ll invite you to our next tower guard. You can bring your sign then, and its fine with us. Since it would be a good change, only two people actually had a problem with us 2 weeks ago. Or atleast only two people had the balls to come down to Acacia Park and say something. Pastor do you have the balls?
11/29/2007 2:34 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Hey justthefacts, I’ll ask you the same question. Shouldn’t the black men in the 1950’s and 60’s been arrested for doing that illegal action of sitting at the white-only lunch counters? You probably think they should have been beating by the police and angry white men, right? Oh wait, thats what did happen…sound familiar?
11/29/2007 2:37 PM MST
justhefacts wrote:
Hey Pastor when you go to the show this weekend don’t forget your “Hillary in 08” poster.They probably wii have quite a few for rent there. You might be able to buy a Hillary shirt from them also.
11/29/2007 2:37 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
They were peace protester who say they have the right of free speech, and that blocked the soldiers coming back from Iraq from seeing their family. As one soldier was quotes as saying “ We all wanted to be the ones to remove these people from our post” These protester destroy the railroad tracks going into the base and the Dem. Governor and Dem. Mayor stopped the police from doing there job and removing these people.
11/29/2007 2:41 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
Pastor- Don’t forget your “Hillary in 08” poster when you go to Manitou this weekend. Bring money also, they will be selling Hillary and Bill shirts there.
11/29/2007 2:42 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
Vet-pick a fight with somebody else. Your comment has nothing to do with this blog.
11/29/2007 2:45 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
justthefacts, for your information since we are a 501(c)3 we don’t endorse any candidates, but personally I won’t vote for anyone who voted for this war. Please go read H.J. 114 from Oct. 12, 2002. Senator Clinton voted for it. Can’t do it. And none of us are Democrats. So try not to pigeon hole us
11/29/2007 2:46 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Pastor, I read the news. I know what your saying and I didn’t agree with their actions. So what else do you got?
11/29/2007 2:47 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Oh by the way I drove by the Guard tower that week and I counted about 15 people and that was including the homeless people hang out in the park. So yes I did go by, on both Sat and Sunday during the day and I counted about the same amount of people.
11/29/2007 2:48 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
justthefacts, haha! can’t answer the question so you run. You are sad.
11/29/2007 2:48 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
JusttheFacts, why don’t you just show up. Why do you have to get someone else to do your work? I don’t like Hillary and never voted for Bill. I don’t vote for people who use the military as nation-builders. Sound like a current President?
11/29/2007 2:51 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Justefacts so much for peace love people inside the peace movement, I took it what he was trying to do was pick a fight with everyone who is against the peace movement, By trying to call us raciest.
11/29/2007 2:52 PM MST
pastor wrote:
Justefacts so much for peace love people inside the peace movement, I took it what he was trying to do was pick a fight with everyone who is against the peace movement, By trying to call us raciest.
11/29/2007 2:53 PM MST on Gazette.com
peanuts wrote:
So now it is politically correct to try people, WHAT AN INJUSTICE!
11/29/2007 2:53 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
JusttheFacts, my comment has nothing to do with this blog? What do you mean by that? Americans protested in the late 50’s and early 60’s by doing something illegal, if you know anything about history, black men sat at lunch-counters in the south which were labeled white-only. They were beaten by both the police and angry white men. It was illegal what these black men were doing. Their is some history for you, since obviously your still in grade school. Now, were the Black men back then justified for what they were doing, or should the white police and white men have continued doing what they were doing? Should the Black men have just been arrested?
11/29/2007 2:55 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
So that would leave FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. You would not vote for.
11/29/2007 2:57 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Pastor, I answered your question, why can’t you or justthefacts answer mine? I’m not saying your a racist, I’m just comparing the non-violent protests of the civil rights movement to what happened here on our streets of Colorado Springs, specifically what you people think is unjustifable behavior, since back then it was also considered unjustifiable behavior by the black men in the south. Whats your opinion?
11/29/2007 3:00 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Pastor, again not black and white. I never said I’m anti-all wars. Just this one. Open your mind dude.
11/29/2007 3:02 PM MST on Gazette.com
rambone wrote:
hmmmmm wrote: “Been here 20+ years”
So this gives an implant like you the right to tell native born people like me were to go? I bet I got the California part right.
“BS in computer related fields”
I never heard of that degree. I that like,”I started but transfered when courses got tough”?
“defend the good people of my city from people like you”
Me, with no criminal record, military service, college educated? Yeah right, defend from people like me. Maybe what the people need is to be defended from rouge cops like you.
“for “aggressive” and “defense” definitions”
No thanks, but I would like the definition of the combined words. You know, the way you posted it earlier. Nothing over two syllables please, I don’t have all week for you to spell check.
11/29/2007 3:03 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
iraqwarvet wrote:
Oh yeah, Pastor, I’m only 35. I don’t really remember FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, or Nixon (even though I was two when he resigned).
11/29/2007 3:03 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
The issue is we have always been involved in nations building in one form or another.
11/29/2007 3:16 PM MST on Gazette.com
Pedro Zapeta‘s case is a case of the US government robbing the very poor to give to the National Security State.
He was a Guatemalan trying to get back to his native country with savings from his extremely low paying US job as a dishwasher. Instead, the US government seized his piggy bank at the airport! Then they set his deportation up after lifting his wallet, so to speak. So how does the US government treat the well-to-do Guatemalans? Does it rob them, too, like they did this poor Guatemalan, Pedro Zapeta ?
I can answer that myself. In 1985 I flew back from Guatemala City to Houston, Texas. On board, their was a fellow US citizen who was scared to death because we were seated 2 rows right behind a wealthy Guatemalan who I started euphorically making fun of. I have a big mouth and was excited to be going home but my American companion was scared to death. It seems we were seated right behind Mario Sandoval Alarcon.
Who was he? Why was he being waited on by the air steward as if he was royalty? Why was he on a plane going to the US? Below is a little about the guy. The American woman next to me on this flight had to return to Guatemala so I shut up for her sake. Maybe that is what kept me from being thrown out an open door as we flew over Mexico that day. Who knows?
Now here is a bit about ‘Mario’ taken from some info published by Right Web about the US based World Anti-Communist League (WACL) headed up by Jesse Helms for so long ….
———-
Guatemala: In 1954, with the formation of the CIA-sponsored Army of Liberation (AOL) organized to overthrow reformist President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, Guatemala became fixed in a pattern of anticommunist political violence which persists today. (11)
The Eisenhower administration tagged Arbenz as procommunist and sent E. Howard Hunt of the CIA (and, later, of Watergate fame) to organize the AOL. (45) In 1957, a radical right faction of the government set up by the U.S. to replace Arbenz assassinated his successor, President Castillo Armas, and formed a new party, the National Liberation Movement (MLN).
Mario Sandoval Alarcon was the driving force behind the government, and the MLN became the legitimizer of his paramilitary operations. (11)
Sandoval Alarcon, known as the “godfather,” launched his career in the AOL, and has been head of the WACL in Guatemala since 1972. (11) He was the coordinator of La Mano Blanco, which oversaw the operations of many of the death squads in Central America. La Mano Blanco was coordinated by CAL.
The death squads have terrorized Guatemala since their formation in the 1960s. When interviewed by the authors of Inside the League a political analyst said,”People ask if the death squads are controlled by the [Guatemalan] Army. They are the Army.”(11)
Sandoval Alarcon was head of the National Congress and vice president under Colonel Kjell Laugerud Schell from 1974 to 1978. While vice president, he established close ties with Taiwan through his leadership of WACL. He sent an estimated fifty to seventy Guatemalan army officers to the Academy in Taiwan for training. (11) In 1980, WACL requested that Sandoval Alarcon help D’Aubuisson establish death squads in El Salvador. (11,45)
In 1979, John Singlaub and Daniel Graham of the American Security Council and soon to be founders of the new U.S. WACL branch, the USCWF, visited Guatemala. The purpose of their junket was to begin to heal the relationship between the U.S. and Guatemala that had become strained under the Carter administration. They also informed the Guatemalan government that a Reagan victory would lead to a resumption of military ties between the countries.
Mario Sandoval Alarcon attended President Ronald Reagan’s inaugural ceremonies. (11) Alberto Piedra, WACL member, was appointed ambassador to Guatemala by President Reagan. (38,40)
While Sandoval failed in his bid to become president of Guatemala, he remained the power behind the throne. In 1985, he was still the head of WACL, claimed to have a private army of three thousand, and the ability to put thousands more paramilitary troops into action on short notice. (11)
——-
(End of article. Alarcon is now dead.)
I happened upon videos of cops tasering arrestees. Gruesome scenes of obvious sadistic indulgence. Sometimes prolonged and repeated.
While the taser has become a popular tool for the police to deal with uncooperative subjects, it’s hard not to see pure sadism in the guise of standard operating procedure. The police bark their orders (usually, “put your hands behind your back”) and give a warning about using the taser. If still no compliance, zap.
Rather, ZAAAAAAAAAAP. Then the officer repeats his instruction. If the subject is still dealing with the pain, or is disoriented by having fallen, or cannot register the policeman’s command, no matter, ZAAAP again. More howls, more uncomprehending, ZAAAP, ZAAAP, until the officer deems it safe enough to sit on the subject and pull the subject’s hands behind the back himself to apply the handcuffs.
Try laying stomach down on your bed and raising your arms to clasp your hands behind your back. Of course you can do it, but it’s very easy to feel like you cannot. Imagine if you are recovering from the pain of the electroshock, or you’re bruised from hitting the ground, or perhaps you are disoriented from alcohol, as in many of the cases.
While tasers do appear to be reducing our peace officers’ exposure to physical contact with suspected criminals, did we mean to remove the human, humane element of their task? We didn’t hire robots for the job, for example. We probably intended, and we pay police accordingly, to exercise some elbow grease.
The job description for a police officer must include apprehending suspected lawbreakers humanely. We don’t authorize them to shoot suspects or drive Mack trucks into them, even if some law-enforcement researcher was to discover a non-lethal way that could be done.
With tasers, aren’t we touching on the abrogation of the right to due process under law? A person is innocent until proven guilty, we all know that, but it applies here because a person suspected of a crime must not be punished before their day in court. Police maintain that the taser is not a means of punishment, but instead is a non-lethal method to induce compliance with recalcitrant subjects. Putting aside the already numerous taser fatalities, the taser would have to be non-painful as well to comply with the 14th Amendment. Viewing the videos, it’s plain to see that tasers are excruciatingly painful and are being used by policemen as torture devices. Even to threaten to use the device is torture. Torture and the threat of torture is banned by international convention.
I must admit a cynical enjoyment of some of these taser videos. The large majority of subjects not cooperating with the police are drunk. In these videos, they were pulled over for drunk driving or for a domestic disturbance influenced by alcohol. I sympathize with the officers who cannot get through to those people, especially when they are derisive and combative.
The drunks try to avoid the commands they’re given using tactics of delay or distract or abuse. Of course, how much responsibility should they bear for behavior not entirely under their own control? When tasered a drunk writhes in pain like everyone else, but you wonder if he will have any memory of it later. Perhaps this plays a part in an officer’s thinking. The drunk, lost in a chemical state, is suspected of jeopardizing the safety of others, but can be judged on the spot for trying the officer’s patience, the taser becomes a means of instant payback. Traditionally, excessive force would have served this function, but at least the policeman would have had to weigh his interest in exerting the effort. The taser makes it too easy to make the wrong decision.
I wouldn’t trust myself with a taser, I’m too jaded. I already lament the social plague that is alcoholism. There are of course many root problems which our society needs to address. But so also, the alcoholic’s behavior is sometimes vehemently proclaimed to be voluntary. Our having to deal with the adversity and endangerment which alcoholics bring is too often not voluntary. In these videos, I take a vicarious pleasure in stopping that drunk. As long as drunks want to subject the rest of us to their drunkenness, and won’t show contrition until morning, we’ll want to indulge our equal and opposite discomfort and Zap ’em.
There had been a few harassing phone calls to the organizers of the SISTERS WITNESS AGAINST WAR event this week, so the counter- protesters who showed up were not entirely unexpected. It has been ages since we’d seen the other side on the sidewalk however. (Even this year’s Pridefest was unmarred by the usual picketers.) The Gazette reporter arrived just as all the sisters were wrapping up unfortunately, so the only photographs of the Peterson Hiroshima vigil in the Gazette will be of this crew.
The noisy counterpoint to our silent vigil had an interesting take on Iraq, and shouted to us that we were misrepresenting the truth to the soldiers driving in and out of the base. “There is no WAR! The war is OVER! Iraq is at PEACE! Our troops there are PEACEmakers! Support the TROOPS!”
The Gazette won’t have the photograph of the sisters, filling both sides of the Peterson entrance:
This article in the NYT made me laugh. Just this morning, while driving my kids to tennis lessons, we saw a Bichon Frise. I said, “Hey kids, it’s a Bitchin’ Freeze.” Devon, age 9, said, “Mom, is our dog a bitch?” Lara replied, “You just said bitch.” Devon, “Yes, but not IN VAIN!” Ho, ho, ho.
August 7, 2007It’s a Female Dog, or Worse. Or Endearing. And Illegal?
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch.
The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word, saying it creates “a paradigm of shame and indignity” for all women.
But conversations over the last week indicate that the “b-word” (as it is referred to in the legislation) enjoys a surprisingly strong currency — and even some defenders — among many New Yorkers.
And Ms. Mealy admitted that the city’s political ruling class can be guilty of its use. As she circulated her proposal, she said, “even council members are saying that they use it to their wives.”
The measure, which 19 of the 51 council members have signed onto, was prompted in part by the frequent use of the word in hip-hop music. Ten rappers were cited in the legislation, along with an excerpt from an 1811 dictionary that defined the word as “A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman.”
While the bill also bans the slang word “ho,” the b-word appears to have acquired more shades of meaning among various groups, ranging from a term of camaraderie to, in a gerund form, an expression of emphatic approval. Ms. Mealy acknowledged that the measure was unenforceable, but she argued that it would carry symbolic power against the pejorative uses of the word. Even so, a number of New Yorkers said they were taken aback by the idea of prohibiting a term that they not only use, but do so with relish and affection.
“Half my conversation would be gone,” said Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, whom a reporter encountered on his bicycle on Sunday night on the corner of Seventh Avenue South and Christopher Street. Mr. Musto, widely known for his coverage of celebrity gossip, dismissed the idea as absurd.
“On the downtown club scene,” he said, munching on an apple, the two terms are often used as terms of endearment. “We divest any negative implication from the word and toss it around with love.”
Darris James, 31, an architect from Brooklyn who was outside the Duplex, a piano bar in the West Village, on Sunday night was similarly opposed. “Hell, if I can’t say bitch, I wouldn’t be able to call half my friends.”
They may not have been the kinds of reaction that Ms. Mealy, a Detroit-born former transit worker serving her first term, was expecting. “They buried the n-word, but what about the other words that really affect women, such as ‘b,’ and ‘ho’? That’s a vile attack on our womanhood,” Ms. Mealy said in a telephone interview. “In listening to my other colleagues, that they say that to their wives or their friends, we have gotten really complacent with it.”
The resolution, introduced on July 25, was first reported by The Daily News. It is being considered by the Council’s Civil Rights Committee and is expected to be discussed next month.
Many of those interviewed for this article acknowledged that the b-word could be quite vicious — but insisted that context was everything.
“I think it’s a description that is used insouciantly in the fashion industry,” said Hamish Bowles, the European editor at large of Vogue, as he ordered a sushi special at the Condé Nast cafeteria last week. “It would only be used in the fashion world with a sense of high irony and camp.”
Mr. Bowles, in salmon seersucker and a purple polo, appeared amused by the Council measure. “It’s very ‘Paris Is Burning,’ isn’t it?” he asked, referring to the film that captured the 1980s drag queen scene in New York.
The b-word has been used to refer to female dogs since around 1000 A.D., according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which traces the term’s derogatory application to women to the 15th century; the entry notes that the term is “not now in decent use.”
But there is much evidence that the word — for better or worse — is part of the accepted vernacular of the city. The cover of this week’s New York magazine features the word, and syndicated episodes of “Sex and the City,” the chronicle of high-heeled Manhattan singledom, include it, though some obscenities were bleeped for its run on family-friendly TBS. A feminist journal with the word as its title is widely available in bookstores here, displayed in the front rung at Borders at the Time Warner Center.
Robin Lakoff, a Brooklyn-born linguist who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, said that she despised the word, but that enforcing linguistic change through authority “almost never works,” echoing comments from some New Yorkers who believed a ban would only serve to heighten the word’s power.
“If what the City Council wants to do is increase civility, it would have to be able to contextualize it,” said Ms. Lakoff, who studies language and gender. “You forbid the uses that drive people apart, but encourage the ones that drive people together. Which is not easy.”
Councilman Leroy G. Comrie Jr., the Queens Democrat who successfully sponsored a symbolic moratorium on the n-word that was adopted Feb. 28, said he supported Ms. Mealy’s measure, but acknowledged that the term had many uses.
“We want to make sure the context that it’s used is not a negative one,” Mr. Comrie said yesterday.
Back at the West Village piano bar on Sunday evening, Poppi Kramer had just finished up her cabaret set. She scoffed at the proposal. “I’m a stand-up comic. You may as well just say to me, don’t even use the word ‘the.’ ”
But at least one person with a legitimate reason to use the word saw some merit in cutting down on its use.
“We’d be grandfathered in, I would think,” said David Frei, who has been a host of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York since 1990. The word is a formal canine label that appears on the competition’s official materials. But Mr. Frei said he worried about the word’s impact on some viewers, especially younger ones.
“I think we have to take responsibility for that word on the air. The reality is it’s in the realm of responsible conduct to not use that word anymore.
Rupert Fox Murdoch, chief media architect of the New World Order, has acquired the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ had scant editorial integrity to lose, not withstanding the broohaha, but now the WSJ is in the hands of PNAC’s Newscorp and we know where they’re going. Now news of the NYSE will come from the mouth of doublespeak. The choosing of economic indicators can be more preposterous, and the upbeat spin or foreboding pall more egregious. Dow Jones bla bla bla, consume with confidence. Rupert says leverage the shirt off your back!
We each have our economic indicators to ground what we’re being told. Friends unemployed, or working multiple jobs, cast doubt on TV’s rosy outlook. Gas prices, cable bills, credit card debt, the difference between your credit card bill and the payment you can afford to send.
I have an indicator that I’m finding troublesome. I drive through a not affluent part of town everyday and of late I’m seeing more jaywalkers. Not itinerants, not street people, just unkempt poor. On this section of thoroughfare they’re approaching car windows, getting out of vans, dallying with bicycles across incoming traffic. I feel like I’m driving a foreign gantlet where pedestrians outnumber cars. But disturbing is to look beside you and see cars stuffed with people similar to the pedestrians, trying to catch your eye. It’s August, it’s hot, maybe that’s why the scene feels like Tijuana. But the aggressive eye contact is new. What it means I can’t ask.
Vigil to commemorate Trinity atomic test blast, July 16, 1945
Nuclear SILO N-8, Weld County, 1pm Saturday, July 14, 2007
(CITIZENS FOR PEACE IN SPACE carpool starts at PPJPC at 9:30am)
From Bill Sulzman of Citizens for Peace In Space: UPROOT, DON’T UPGRADE MISSILES IN OUR BACKYARD
The nuclear non proliferation treaty (1970) and the International Court of Justice opinion (1996) both call for the dismantling of all nuclear arsenals and the prevention of new nuclear weapons anywhere.
U.S. policy ignores both principles. Nuclear silo N-8 in Weld County should be uprooted not upgraded. Ranchers and farmers know the scourge that weeds represent. For good things to grow bad ones have to be eliminated and replaced. The 49 Minuteman III missiles in our state and the other 451 spread across parts of Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota are illegal, immoral and noxious for the whole world. They need to be eliminated to restore the integrity of our state and our country.
Join us on July 14 at Nuclear silo N-8 in Weld County, the site of the 2002 Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares action. Help us express our gratitude to Sisters Ardeth, Carol and Jackie and to Fr Carl Kabat who remains imprisoned for a similar action in North Dakota last year. We will also remember the Trinity atomic blast which occurred July 16, 1945.
The vigil at the silo will start at 1:00. We will leave in a carpool from the Justice and Peace Office, 214 E. Vermijo Colorado Springs at 9:30 AM on Saturday July 14. For more details call 389 0644. We will have maps for those who are driving.
Halliburton Energy Services 3445 N. Marksheffel Rd. Colorado Springs CO
Computer Sciences Corporation 1250 Academy Park Loop Colorado Springs CO
Dyncorp 1115 Elkton Dr Colorado Springs CO
Dyncorp Information Systems 985 Space Center Dr Colorado Springs CO
Halliburton Energy Services 410 17th St., Ste. 600 Denver CO
Dyncorp 303 E 17th Ave Denver CO
Dyncorp Inc. 2525 S Dayton Way Denver CO
Computer Sciences Corporation 1726 Cole Blvd Golden CO
Dyncorp Inc. 1711 Illinois St Golden CO
Dyncorp 143 Union Blvd Lakewood CO
Where is the war profiteering Center of Evil located in Colorado Springs? That is located at the well hidden away Lockheed complex at Fountain and Academy Blvd. You might be driving by it every day and not even have noticed the 3 groups of buildings in that area belonging to Lockheed.
Right down the road is the huge Satellite Hotel. There are other ‘defense’ companies located in the same area but easily missed by those driving by.
This Memorial Day the number of US soldier casualties in Iraq nears 3,500.
At 1,000 we held a vigil in Acacia Park. We did the same at the 1,500 and 2,000 marks. The numbered-cross memorial we mounted at Camp Casey COS commemorated near 2,000 deaths. The “Eyes Wide Open” boot collection came to town as the number exceeded 2,500. Colorado Springs was its last stop because the figures began to require too many boots to unpack at each stop. We met again in the park for the 3,000th, but I’m not going to eulogize any more boots until the number reaches 50,000.
That’s well into Vietnam War casualty territory and that’s where we’re going. The war got its funding, the military has revealed its plans to double the troop levels, the President is warning us to expect US casualties to surge, and sure enough we’re seeing the body count rise. Eight, fifteen a day. Not counting mercenaries. And still no one’s tallying the Iraqi dead.
I’m okay not to count the mercenaries. But what of our volunteer army, signing ever-increasing re-enlistment bonuses? I don’t want to count them either. Our soldiers keep shipping themselves off to Iraq to serve well-enough-documented evil illegal deeds. What’s to commemorate, really? They’re not jumping off cliffs, they’re driving armored vehicles into Iraqi children on the way.
Our soldier’s souls are already lost to us. That’s 150,000 active in Iraq. 300,000 counting the mercenaries. Plus who ever’s being held back with PTSD. Cry about that.
On this date in 1973, the military had counted 44 deaths for El Paso County. It was not enough even then.
The city police and parade organizers did not fully think out the consequences of their actions, but the attack on the peace group at the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was not unintentional. In fact, it followed logically from the political direction given by the Colorado Springs city council and mayor.
The city police are employees under the control of the city council and mayor, and it is the city police on behalf of the city government itself, that gives out John O’Donnell his own permit each year to hold a parade. In all effects, John O’Donnell is merely a sub contractor for the city who is given a permit to issue yet even more permits, that simply allow and disallow who amongst the general public can participate in a city sponsored parade each year.
John O’Donnell has a long history of operating city promoted events in our city, and most of them have a highly charged social message of support for the wars waged by the US government. He takes positions on social issues, and they are almost always relatively in support of war, and many events he has helped organize have been fully funded by the city of Colorado Springs city government. Though some have only been partially underwritten.
In fact, less than 3 years ago, John O’Donnell, the city government, and the US military (US government) used large amounts of city and federal tax moneys to parade troops through Colorado Springs streets in support of the Republican Administration led US invasion and occupation of Iraq. They called this ‘supporting the troops’, and called the parade a ‘Welcome Back Home’ rally. Of course, we now know that the troops have been redeployed over and over from Fort Carson, and the public has slipped dramatically in its support of this US government war making. At that time, nobody appeared too much concerned to see the city government and federal government working through O’Donnell to parade for a partisan cause.
Because the city government and John O’Donnell are so intertwined in supporting the partisan cause of celebrating the constant US government wars and aggressions that destroy other nations, it is no surprise that the city police acted to thump peace partisans for entering into the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. It was a natural reflex on their part, and to their credit, at least they did not get so totally out of hand and severely injure anybody they manhandled. That is the reason that the new police chief, Richard Myers can posture that ‘nobody got hurt’.
However, the city government and its police do hurt others when they take up partisan causes like supporting a US government war, and make no mistake about it, that is what they have been constantly doing. Driving down Cascade Ave. one sees the city tax money’s paid-for signs that say ‘Colorado Springs Supports the Troops’. Hint, hint… That means that the city government is supporting the Iraqi War. How clever the city government thinks it is to phrase their support for the Iraqi War in this manner.
In short, the city has a history of taking up the ‘social issue’ of supporting the US war on Iraq and uses the tax monies of all its citizens to do so. The annual military air shows each year are yet more ways that the city government uses tax monies and facilities to sponsor pro-war Pentagon fed propaganda. And through this steady city support of military aggression, now 7 people face criminal charges coming from a police action that could easily have led to no arrests, no threats, and no physical take-downs if the police had only had directions to use restraint, instead of heavy force.
To the city police, it seems natural to stop pro-peace participants from participating in city events. They have received no city government direction to do otherwise, and Mayor Lionel Rivera’s continued refusal to admit that the several police ambushes on us through the years have been totally totally uncalled for, only will lead to repeats of the same excessive use of police force in the months and years ahead. Too, he has repeatedly shown so far that the city government will refuse to accept that it has real bias in what events are allowed to parade through city streets. The bias is in favor of the military and war, and against peace advocacy by any public pro-peace assembly that would appear against war. The police are directed in their activities with this bias in effect no matter how much they might state that they are out there to protect us all. It will surprise no one that the police actually protect some more than others, and endanger many.
It is highly symbolic that John O’Donnell and the police decided to use the intersection of St Vrain and Tejon to have the police ambush us on St Patrick’s Day. This is the same intersection where the city and federal governments had him lead off the ‘Welcome Home Troops’ pro-war parade in June, 2004. They marched the troops with our tax monies around in a circle and then ended their pro-war demo at the same point. They had no problem with pushing social causes at that event at all. They do have a problem with us when we cross that fatal intersection calling for PEACE instead.
Mayor Lionel Rivera and his city police will do what they can do to try to stop us from participating in future city organized events. As it has been said already, we got roughed up for the message we carried, and not just for how we went about bringing it to the public. They will try to deny us the use of the public streets again unless policies are changed now.
The police and the mayor have refused to accept any blame for what was done St Patrick’s Day. To the credit of some of the city council members, others have done the opposite. Our thanks goes out to them for that.
We do want to work together with all to assure that all do have a way for public assembly without censure. Let the military march with kids in their camouflage khaki uniforms on, and let those that have the opposite message march alongside. The city belongs to both of our groups, and both of our groups pay tax dollars to open up city streets for public parades, and to close it off for other tax paying citizens who might even be against what the parades might seem to them to be about. After all, we don’t want the type of sectarian violence that the US military now has brought to the Iraqi people inside America itself. Do we? So city government needs to stop bias in what social causes it funds and endorses.
I was late coming to this country anthem. The chorus hit me today as I heard a succession of barefooted kids sing Jesus Take the Wheel solos at an elementary school talent show. Believe me the nuance was courtesy of cute soft voices timidly waivering off key. Last year it was Proud to be an American.
JTTW must be the current theme of our Christian nation, and could it be more horrifying? A bunch of Christians, driving too fast, in trouble, about to kill themselves and their babies and what do they want to do, shut their eyes, throw their hands up in the air and ask Jesus to step in. A touching show of faith to be sure, but as regards our nation’s deep trouble, the rest of us are in the bathwater. It was hands in the air that got us here; do you want to trust their crusader god to get us out?
Taking your hands off the wheel would be just fine if it meant scooting over and having a qualified driver take the wheel. Otherwise it simply means abrogating responsibility for dooming everyone because of your inattentive judgment, including a tragic misreading of spiritual guidance. It means burying your Master’s Talents instead of making something of them.
Jesus take the wheel from these dumbfos and take their licenses too. And their voter registrations.
I met an otherwise conservative old gentleman yesterday with a refreshing answer to the immigration question. Said he: “I’d welcome them!”
“This nation was built on immigration, we’re all immigrants -except the Native Americans- and I believe there’s room for plenty more. There’s obviously work so let them come.”
That’s the kind of empathy I think is necessary before we can address the real problem of immigration: what is driving refugees to cross our borders?
If Iowans suddenly started flooding into Kansas, only the most self-centered xenophobe would conclude it was for Kansas’ superior character. The rest would wonder, what is happening in Iowa to drive all those people from their homes? What industry is destroying the farms and businesses leaving Iowans no choice but to move off? More than likely it would be the same culprits that are at work in Mexico.
Big Agra and the usual multinationals, aided by the traditional ruling elite, have been raping Mexico and Central America for years, forcing the populations to move north, not for greener pastures, but any pasture at all. Mexicans are not coming to America because they want to be Americans. They do not embrace American culture, even our language. They are a displaced people. Let’s welcome them into our system and together we can address what powers are at work which have stolen their homelands. The forces are multinational, but the tools are American. They are the World Bank and friends. Our government.
It wasn’t always thus. I chanced to look up Emma Lazarus’ poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty where there are more words than form the fabled phrase we know by heart. To me they reflect a grand ideal that today serves only to inflate the American sense of self-importance. Time to go back to school lest The New Colossus (Mother of Exiles) become like the old.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
How does it feel to be part of a society led by a government that is deliberately torturing several hundreds of prisoners en mass? Good? This has been going on for 5 years now, and the American public acts as if they were a bunch of brain dead zombies. And not one leading Democratic Party presidential candidate has come out against this torture and has called for closing Guantanamo.
I am ashamed to be an American. We need to overthrow this two-faced one party dictatorship that rules over us and the world. Unfortunately most of our fellow citizens seem to be total chumps and chimps, out shopping and driving around in circles endlessly refusing to take the smallest steps to help liberate themselves. Luckily all this must eventually self destruct. There won’t be much left though.
Driving home just now I was listening to the radio. Over the air waves came the lyrical voice of John Tesh, doing his daily show, dispensing helpful advice to his listeners between songs. Today’s topic was anger. Do you ever get really angry at other drivers? Do you shake your fist or yell at them? Does your anger go from zero to fifty in a matter of seconds? Well, if so, you may have Intermittent Eruptive Disorder or IED. IED usually begins to manifest itself in early adolescence. It often takes the form of road rage, a desire for vengeance, or fury at one’s mate.
In my case, it generally involves a mad dash to the bathroom after a spicy meal, but I am glad to know that I’m not alone in my struggle.
Am I the only one who doesn’t understand this Pope-worship stuff? It is so weirdly absurd that I hardly know what to make of it. Who are these people driving hundreds of miles to catch a glimpse of him? Those who turn out by the thousands, even without tickets, just to be near him for a few minutes? Looking at the pontiff (just the word makes me laugh) clad from head to toe in white, barely this side of the grass, reminds me so much of the movie Foul Play that the whole thing seems hilarious. 
Britney Spears is not just the latest celebrity substance abuse train wreck, nor is she just the opportune diversion for our media eager to obscure private grand theft of the public sector. (Ignore war, warming and the economy, give me more Britney!) Ms. Spears is now also the poster child for corporate America’s biggest crime partners, the pharmaceutical industry.
This article in the NYT made me laugh. Just this morning, while driving my kids to tennis lessons, we saw a Bichon Frise. I said, “Hey kids, it’s a Bitchin’ Freeze.” Devon, age 9, said, “Mom, is our dog a bitch?” Lara replied, “You just said bitch.” Devon, “Yes, but not IN VAIN!” Ho, ho, ho.