Tag Archives: Parade

D.C. Capitol police versus Colorado Springs police

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Charges Dismissed Against African-American Minister Targeted and Tackled by Capitol Police

Meanwhile, here in Colorado Springs the city continues to go after a woman with multiple medical problems needing multiple hospitalizations since the day they roughed her up at the annual city’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, even though she was not found guilty of any wrong doing at her first trial! Why?

The amazing thing about this effort to get Elizabeth Fineron convicted of something (this will be the third set of different charges the city has accused her of) is that the Colorado Springs police didn’t want to arrest her in the first place, they just wanted to rough her up, which they did by hauling her fast across the pavement. When she finally managed to struggle back up she was outraged and wanted to know if she was under arrest? The answer from the police was NO.

However, Elizabeth had just been deliberately humiliated by this police brutality in front of a large public crowd, and like the Reverend Yearwood Jr. in Washington D.C. had gotten upset by his rough treatment, Ms. Fineron was also upset, as any normal person would have been at that point. She did not feel that the police should just be allowed to treat her as if she was nothing more than a big bundle of trash to haul around at their free will, and demanded ‘to have her day in court’.

Still, the police refused to arrest her, at that time perhaps feeling some shame at what they had done to her? Elizabeth though, went from policeman to policeman stating that they had manhandled her for no cause at all, and that she wanted to be arrested alongside the other people being roughed up. They kept saying that she was not under arrest at all.

At last, one cop reluctantly told Elizabeth that if she tapped them with a finger they would call it assault and arrest her, though they wished she would just go away. Elizabeth’s response was simply to say NO… You guys beat me up, an elderly lady in poor health for no real reason at all, and now you want to act as if that was all right????… and she touched a cop with her finger tip… softly. Some arrest, huh? A real dangerous lady that the cops are now wasting our city tax money on for the umpteenth time to get her in the press… It is all very sad.

The city has decided not to retry 5 of the others their police roughed up, but goes after Elizabeth still, and Eric Verlo? As amazing as that seems?! Who can begin to try to understand their reasoning there? And all this time the Colorado Springs head cop, Richard Myers, has been playing with the Justice and Peace people as if the police is out to protect everybody? It just is not convincing at all, Police Chief.

At this point, not even the pro-war, Far-Out Right Wing Gazette editorial staff wants this idiotic attempt at prosecution to go on. Today, they came out with an opinion piece asking that no retrial of either Verlo or Fineron be launched. It was couched in their usual vile rhetoric, but still they thought it insanity to go through a trail again. They had the courage to take a position.

But where is the city council and mayor on this one? They like to talk nice, but have refused to speak out against city prosecution of the folk that police under their managerial direction roughed up. They are mum.

Shortly after St. Pat’s Day, the police had a riot in Los Angeles and beat up on people there, and even that notorious city not known for having their police under control disciplined some police for their actions. And now, the Capitol police admitted that they had gone wild taking down the Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr. as they did. What’s wrong with the city government and its officials here in Colorado Springs? It’s certainly not for lack of other municipal areas’ more positive examples that they act as they do.

The sad thing about this, is that the city council and mayor have expressed a desire that the city not be put in a bad light but they are completely unwilling to do the things necessary so that the city does not stand out and be seen as being a more intolerant and disrespectful place nationally than is the norm. They want to have their cake and eat it, too. That’s certainly the message they are giving out by wasting tax monies on yet another trial. Or, actually it will be two trials this time, as both the prosecution of Eric Verlo and Elizabeth Fineron will have two separate trials. It’s all very crazy…

Stop wasting our city tax monies on this nonsense, and come up with some legislation that would demilitarize the annual city St Pat’s Day Parade. By continuing this prosecution with yet another trial, you are using tax money to promote the idea that marching soldiers, Hooter girls, and politicians downtown is A-OK And city monies are to be allowed to promote such, yet city monies will stamp down hard on any counter social message trying to come out alongside the business as usual stuff.

Not all this city is made up of intolerant people who want liberal ideas censored using city tax monies. Not all this city wants its police to be used to rough people up and then to harass them using the judicial system afterwards. Get with the times, for they have changed since you in the city council used our tax monies to pay John O’Donnell to organize your march of squads of soldiers in a supposed Iraqi War ‘victory’ parade through downtown from the same spot your police assaulted Elizabeth Fineron for expressing a counter social message.

‘Freedom Communications’ tap dances for wiretaps

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The Gazette rag today took time out from its campaigning to increase global warming and campaigning to kill off more species of life to laud El Paso County for using wiretaps. See page A3 of Sept 17 ‘DA defends wiretapping’.

The county had 11 times the # of wiretaps of Denver in 2005, but only 3 times that county’s amount this year. There just seems to be a great need to listen in on people by the police here according to the District Attorney and Gazette police whore (oh, I”m sorry, I meant reporter), Kim Nguyen. Why the big need, Kim? Terrorism?

Meth is terrorizing the community, so civil liberties needed to be shedded from the citizenry, so says the great freedom communicators at The Gazette. I wonder if they got cops over tapping their foots out at the airport, too? Meth, homos, pedos, and Muslims. We need them wiretaps, foot taps, and loads of baloney from the police and press. Otherwise we won’t feel secure, now would we?

And we need those wiretaps, too, so that elderly ‘ St Pat’s Day parade participants can be stopped in their tracks and then charged with blocking the parade!

Fencing in the Free Speech Movement with Uncivil Liberties

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Norman Finkelstein wrath of Israel
In Chicago, the Ditto-headed Right has fired noted scholar, Professor Norman Finkelstein, for being bothersome to Israel. In our very own Colorado they went after and got Professor Ward Churchill canned for being bothersome by his speaking the truth. But certainly things are better out at the University of California farm in Berkeley, are they not? Well, actually…

Here at the home of the original Free Speech Movement (Berkeley) that broke the McCarthy Era witch-hunt of the post WW2 times, the Ditto-headed Right has taken on the Left on their own home turf, and literally is fencing in today’s Free Speech Movement What the government and its ditto-headed agents won’t do to go to stop protest these days! Wall it all off…

Hey, here in Colorado Springs they will even drag elderly pro-Peace people across the pavement and then try to prosecute them later with criminal charges for blocking the road! They will wave stun guns and discharge them in menacing manner while dressed in storm trooper fatigues! They will actually apply choke holds on American Association of Retired People qualifying folk, too!

And in our nation’s capital, D.C., they will break up antiwar press conferences and bash the attending journalists and their cameras. Good thing nobody was there from al Jazeera, since they would have gotten murdered by some sort of air strike or sniper action by National Security robots.

Welcome to America the Not So Beautiful. Everyday is becoming a Saint Patrick’s Day Parade throughout our great land! Civil liberties have now been replaced with Uncivil Liberties, and it’s become a brave new world for our nation’s very few nonDitto-heads. Heil Bush! And Heil to our new leader to come, Hillary Giuliani!

We march in line, Oh America. Wallmarted is your charm.

No ‘social statements’ allowed in the public park

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This incident in Kansas City has striking similarities with the police attack on the Colorado springs’ Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Bookmobile pro-Peace group. In Kansas City, CBS took over the public park and police helped censure opposing public views to the pro War, pseudo patriotic crap that CBS was promoting. See CNS Early Show Removes Anti War Protesters from View
 
It is disgusting to see our tax monies used to arrest people for exercising their free speech in city organized events.

I only wish I believed my own rhetoric

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Marie argues with Officer Paladino
Freedom to express oneself, to think independently, was the lure that led the masses to our shores. Safety from abusive and intrusive government is the dream that continues to draw people to our borders. Our military men and women are in Iraq and elsewhere fighting for these same principles on behalf of those who cannot battle tyranny alone. Yet here in Colorado Springs, where so many are at great personal risk because of American ideology, we do not recognize the basic Constitutional freedoms of our own citizens.

It was a private parade, you say. The police were just following the orders of John O’Donnell, the parade organizer. Those people had no right to be there. What a load of garbage. The city was a partner in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. They blocked off public streets and used public resources. For the city and the CSPD to hide behind another organization’s insurance policy is not only cowardly, it is un-Constitutional. The ACLU won a recent case in Hawaii, wherein a “private” parade sought to exclude a particular group from marching. The conclusion: government entities can not shield themselves, nor take directives, from private citizens using public resources. The rest of the country seems to understand this.

In any case, the excessive force used by several of the policemen called to the scene is absolutely indefensible. Miscommunication, fear of public safety, parade crashing. None excuse what ensued. Not for a minute. Today it was peace activists; tomorrow it will be someone else. This type of unchecked abuse of power is a terrifying thing to witness. The lack of accountability by the CSPD illustrates that this thug behavior is tolerated, perhaps encouraged. If they are willing to behave that way in the presence of hundreds of spectators, can you imagine the treatment of those less visible? Are they taught to leave their humanity at the door when they don their uniforms and guns?

While I appreciate the attempts made by John Weiss to reconcile the community, his call to the activists to drop the threat of a civil suit is wrong. Where the people have no voice the court system is the next step. A hung jury in so simple a case shows that we are a town that is not as freedom-loving as our local daily newspaper professes. Perhaps, as in Hawaii, a higher court will possess greater wisdom. It is the next peaceful step in our cherished democratic process. The checks and balances built into the Constitution provide a measure of hope.

If there is no relief to be found by those who have sworn to defend the Constitution, then we will have to take to the streets. Systemic change is always resisted by those in power. If the populace had not banded together in the past to demand its rights, women would not vote, blacks and whites would be segregated, workers would toil in dangerous conditions, children would be chattel.

We should not live in fear of our local government, they should fear and respect us. They are public servants. We are a country of the people, by the people, for the people. We will not rest until our government, including those on Capitol Hill, abides by the Bill of Rights. Don’t mistake quiet acquiescence for peace. It is a reaction to oppression.

What the peace marchers need is not a call to lay down, but the rising up of their fellow citizens. They call for peace. Let the rest of us support them with a call for justice. As Thoreau said in Civil Disobedience, “Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.” It is time for every concerned citizen to help stop the rampant abuse of power in our city and beyond. Without liberty and justice, there will never be peace. Here, there or anywhere.

Favorite photos of St Patrick’s Parade

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Peace marchers are stopped
The shirts versus the skinheads as child and companion look on

Bookmobile moves up from the rear
Peace marchers catch up

Bringing the bookmobile to a halt
Officer Paladino halts bookmobile, Marshall Pete Page blocks paraders

Putting in the call to parade organizer O Donnell
Parade monitor Dougie Haig phones organizer John O’Donnell

We redouble our call for PEACE
We will not be silenced

Paladino extracts Eric from bookmobile
Paladino enters bookmobile and retrieves Eric by the wrist

Eric taken from the Bookmobile
Eric is subdued by Officer Paladino and co

Esther is told not to interfer
Paladino grabs Esther’s attention

Esther is pulled to the ground
and pulls her to the ground

Taking us down March 17 2007
Paladino releases Esther from arm-bar hold, girls cry

We receive a scolding
Officer Paladino will not tell us his name

Marie asks about our first amendment right
Excessive force officers?

Bystander video shows Elizabeth knocked off her feet
Elizabeth is twisted off her feet

Elizabeth is not exactly carried
Paladino carries Elizabeth off

Elizabeth is dragged past WAR NO MORE banner
without clearing the ground

Molly holds on to her banner
Officer Wrede breaks Molly’s banner and tries to take it

Eric and Molly being led off the street
Molly is led off by the throat

Bill and Frank are apprehended
Bill and Frank are apprehended

St Patricks Day parade t-shirts
Frank is moved using a pain-compliance hold (illegal choke-hold)

Colorado Springs hillbillies
Hillbillies applaud as-

Frank Cordero being held in an illegal choke hold in front of the kids
-their kids get a civics lesson

Officer fires taser as a warning
We are driven off at taser point

The police contigent forgot the theme was green
Men in blue wore wrong color to the parade

Elizabeth is not a happy camper
No dialog

Elizabeth leaves by ambulance
Elizabeth makes her exit

(Photo credit due Mark Lewis, Eric Barker, Kate Holbrook et al.
See all the pictures at www.CSAction.org.)

Charges that might stick

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Paladino halts free expressionTo all supporters of the SPD7, please forgive our dropping our eyes from the ball. The city charged us with intentionally obstructing the parade, and we got caught up refuting the argument.
 
After the mistrial, we the defendants are now being led to understand that the city is pondering other charges, perhaps failure to disperse, perhaps resisting arrest. Fine. None of us failed to respond to a legal order, nor resisted arrest, even considering no one was being told we were being arrested. But that is to catch us up in another semantic argument.

Might I suggest charges that would have more traction?

If the city wants to find me guilty of trying to express myself, in a public place, in a parade run partially with public funds, policed by public law enforcement, they can find me guilty.

If the city wants to find me guilty of failing to stand idly by as friends and family were being dealt undue violence, in violation of the 4th Amendment, or with dignity, the 14th Amendment. Guilty.

Did we have the intention to march in that parade, as we had the year before, as we were permitted by the Bill of Rights, with every authority and respect accorded by law, to project our message of Peace On Earth to the 40,000 assembled there, most of whom, polls showed, would welcome seeing the sentiment spoken in public? Yes we did.

Does the city intend to show its citizenry and the rest of the country that freedom of speech, freedom from oppression, due process, and the enforcement of such rights don’t fly in Colorado Springs?

The travesty started with three opinionated dim-bulbs among the parade organizers, made worse by several violent police officers. If the city persists, they confirm that the blood-thirst, anti-American, anti-freedom, anti-civil-liberties conduct was endemic and systemic. As a resident of Colorado Springs, I’m going to do the patriotic thing and root that out.

I know what you did last spring

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Taking us down March 17 2007
We were able to obtain these prosecution photos during the trial. Officer Paladino has finally released Esther from a painful arm-bar. The sign (obscured by a balloon from the Chipotle parade unit passing beside us) reads KIDS NOT BOMBS.

Eric taken from the Bookmobile
Esther asks the police officers why they are initiating such violence.

Esther Kisamore is brought to the ground
Esther is then pulled by the arm to the ground for having interfered.

Elizabeth, whom the police pretended was the peace marcher seen sitting down, was still leaning into the Bookmobile trying to find her walking cane.

Hung jury is defeat for police and city bosses

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In the end, the decision by the defense attorney to let the police and parade organizers do all the talking is what got a hung jury. In short, it was the witnesses for the prosecution that did all the blabbing contrary to what the reactionary daily paper, The Gazette, would have wanted to image to the public. Only Elizabeth Fineron testified as a defendant and her testimony was quiet and reasonable. The prosecution witnesses came off as a little too slick at times, and quite a bit incompetent at others.

The Gazette editorial staff have consistently tried to paint the St Pat’s Day Parade proPeace group as loud and belligerent, and pushy with their message. And they have projected that the message of peace somehow was an endangerment to the public by being allowed with all the allowed (and encouraged) pro military messages at the parade. In this they echoed the argument by city officials and their parade organizers that push the anti-social message that War somehow is patriotic, while peace activists are to be taken as being dangers to the community and violent.

The defense attorney argued that no blame should fall to the police, they were merely as confused as the defendants were from the general chaos coming from basically an incompetent group of organizers. But this message was a false one actually, that merely was a defense lawyer strategy not to take on the police directly inside the courtroom.

In reality, the police had all the power to use discretion and avoid the excessive use of force to police the parade, but just did not do so since they were so gung ho and ready to bop the ProPeace people on behalf of the organizer and his agents.

There was no miscommunication at all, and 2 of the jurors were apparently able to sense that this was the case and decided to stand firm and hang the jury. They saw that the blocked street was the conspiracy of parade organizers themselves, and not the proPeace walkers. The other 4 jurors were impervious to common sense and allowed their own fixed prejudices and desires to bop proPeace people on the head, too, to prevail with their votes to convict. Nothing much was going to change their minds.

In short,the prejudices both for always supporting the police whether Right or Wrong, and also for those who supported the right to have both military and proPeace groups together in this city parade seemed to stay fixed throughout the testimony. Four of the jurors would probably have convicted the defendants as being guilty of conspiracy to commit murder if they had been asked to do so by police and prosecutors. Two of the jurors had the ability to say to themselves, ‘Just hold on now…this could have been done totally different at this parade.’

This desire by city bosses to squelch anything other than proWar and military based commentary at their city St Pat’s Day event has now caused them to allow the police to get away with roughing up a group of mainly elderly and infirm parade participants, and has helped squander hundreds of thousands of municipal tax monies in trying to get away with it. Will they just keep thumping away with more waste for their crusade by going for a new trial of these innocent individuals? Will they argue again that these 7 people conspired together to deliberately and to intentionally block this sponsored city parade? Will they just continue to look and act vicious and stupid by taking this same action once again, bringing in the lawyers to thump heads after having the police do so?

One thing is for sure… If The idiot editorial staff of The Gazette has their way, that’s just exactly what city officials will try to do. They will waste yet more tax monies in an effort to convince the public that proPeace people are violent, and proWar people are peaceful. And we will sink into having yet another Alice in Wonderland style trial taking place inside the city.

What would Lockheed want with their monies influencing the local scene as Colorado Springs major employer? And what would the Bush led Pentagon want? The police are there to do the bidding of these folk and not so much to ensure public safety of parade participants themselves. They are perfectly ready to make examples of any that would try to step out of line from public promotion of militarism inside the City of Colorado Springs. They call that defending the public safety. Isn’t that right, Police Chief ‘Liars’ Myers?

The J&P fails to argue its case in court

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For weeks now, I have had a sense of impeding doom as the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission has consistently failed to adequately argue the case of the Saint Patrick’s Day Seven police attack in the court of public opinion. The issue of how the city used its police force in a brutal manner to suppress the citizens right to express their opinions in public was not put forth in a strong manner, but rather increasingly was replaced with a love fest with the police chief, orchestrated by a religious pacifist contingent that only has seeked to underline its eternal commitment to turning the other cheek.

This meek and defeatist attitude about defending antiwar speech has now been extended into the court room, as the St Pat’s Day 7 seem headed towards losing their criminal case. They have allowed the ACLU lawyer to not argue their issues for them, all the while watching like meek sheep before the slaughter. So far, the desire to have their day in court has been taken away from them by their own lawyer!

Instead of arguing that the police acted in an unreasonable manner and with undue force, the attorney for the defense has said that the police were in an untenable situation, absolving them of any responsibility for what happened. What an astounding weak defense, as the St Pat’s Day 7 lawyer has absolved the city and its police force of all blame for the attack on his own defendants! Instead, he has confined the defense to only insisting that the ‘volunteers’ for the city contracted organizer of the event, John O’Donnell, had acted in an untrained and indisciplined manner, and that John O’Donnell himself had seemingly tried to cover up that fact.

But where is the obvious here? Did the police have to follow orders from the city contracted parade organizers without being obligated to use any of their own discretion? No they did not, but that is not being argued in the court by the defense lawyer. He just cedes the issue entirely, though it seems rather obvious that a little bit of police initiated discussion would have gone a long way before pulling out the heavy use of physical police force. Instead, he has weakly allowed the gloating cops involved to just act like it was their natural right to have attacked his defendants in they way that they did! And that the defendants probably brought about their own problems…

This case has also always centered on the role of John O’Donnell, and whether or not the City of Colorado Springs would be allowed to divorce itself entirely away from its relationship with him. Because neither the defense lawyer nor the Justice and Peace Center has made the slightest effort to expose this man’s incestuous relationship as city organizer of pro-military events for the city, they have allowed the man to posture as an innocent private person solely concerned with the ‘security’ of parade participants, and not as a suppressor of one point of political view to the favor of cheerleading the other political point of view, which is the pro-war point of view.

He has done this through consistent backing from the city government with tax monies taken from all the citizenry. This should all along have been the main defense argument, both in and out of court. Instead, in all cases, both the defense lawyer and many in the J&P have referred to him as being ‘good people.’ In fact, he is practically a paid employee of the City of Colorado Springs, who directs their police force even though a ‘private’ citizen and not a police official, and organizes major city events under the complete guidance of city government. And an official who suppresses free speech against war that he finds objectionable while allowing pro-military views to proliferate.

The J&P has not been arguing its case before the court in the trial, and has been weak at doing so in general. Today is going to be the last day of the trial, and hopefully the jurors can see through the obscurantist trial proceedings to understanding the real issues not being discussed there. And upon doing that, that they can find the defendants not guilty??? That is now a big ‘IF’.

Unfortunately, the defense lawyer has let a scenario be presented where it appears natural that when the police say jump, that the defendants should have jumped through the hoops IMMEDIATELY. And that by not doing so was in fact, only their way of blocking the parade route,which is what they, in fact, are charged with doing. In short, the St Pat’s Day 7 are seemingly being hung by their own lawyer.

PS- I had thought not to write any more here but am doing so now because of the importance of this trial event. I think it’s important that a true picture be presented of what is now transpiring in court here on this particular blog.

Day in court for police brutality

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The recent CS Independent update on the St Patrick’s Day Seven left the unfortunate impression that police brutality has become a less significant component of the events that day. In reality our lawyer wants his defendants to answer for our guiltless actions without demeaning ourselves making counter accusations of excessive force.

While the upcoming trial concerns only the specific accusation that we seven intended to obstruct the parade that day, in fact the actions of the accused were most certainly influenced by the repressive manner of the police. If our lawyer is unable to raise the issue of the unnecessary violence, the attempted humiliation, the illegal physical coercion and reckless injury at our trial this week, a remedy will most certainly require further legal action.

The CSPD learned nothing from their misdeeds at the 2003 anti-war protest. Now that people recognize my face from the parade incident, I find myself besieged by accounts of police brutalization of the city’s homeless and less fortunate.

If the Saint Patrick’s Day Seven are making too much fuss for your taste, please consider that it has less to do with our treatment suffered at the hands of the police. We stand for all Americans who expect their civil liberties to be respected, particularly those who may not have a parade audience in broad daylight to insure they will be treated with civility. Somehow we must impress upon the CSPD to adopt a culture of respect for the dignity of all the people it serves.

The ACLU has chosen to defend us because the police should not conduct themselves as if they have the license to curb free speech and inhibit the freedom to assemble. And certainly not by means of force.

Police foreknowledge on St Patricks Day

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Raining on our parade April 17 Saint Patricks Day 2007
We used to joke around the fire at Camp Casey about whether we were being surveilled or infiltrated by agents or disruptors even, as has been done with historic regularity to opposition political groups and their organizers. Even to discuss it today with CPIS or PPJPC feels self-aggrandizing. We know ourselves that we do not pose such a threat that law enforcement would need to monitor our actions.

Let’s dismiss out of hand the idea that struggling activists in Colorado Springs would merit infiltration. So too wiretapping or bugging devices. Have we ever raised but a timid excuse-me to authority? Have we ever mobilized even more than a smattering of protesters ready to press our local leaders for accountability? We have not. We might grab the news on occasion, but in that respect we seem quite willing to telecast our intentions on the local news. To eavesdrop on us then would be redundant.

Alright then, how about email exchanges? Any need to monitor our email passing to and fro? Local ISPs handling the email could flag potential buildups of momentum. Is law enforcement in touch with them? Maybe, maybe not. Who wants to sort all that, or file the paperwork to get the analysis from Buckley.

At least an observer might want to watch our general mass mailings, for calls to arms. What about checking those weekly announcements at a minimum to see what we say we are doing?

And what about the websites? There are less than a handful of community websites which post and discuss upcoming actions. Would the police be looking at websites like this, or csaction.org, or ppjpc.org to try to sort out what’s up?

Police Chief Myers, in explaining the mishandling of St. Patrick’s Day, pointed the finger at the PPJPC and myself for duplicity in joining the parade. Myers explained that our websites made no mention of our intentions to march with the Bookmobile. Well, putting aside their erroneous conclusion, Myers’ statement confirms the answer to the last question: are the police checking in on us online? They say they do.

The police check the websites
If they had looked at our website, they would have seen what? Our calls for participation in the parade, our discussion of the parameters of the permit, our reservations, when we would be assembling, where we were parking, even the larger plans we had to conduct a peace rally in adjacent Pioneer Park. Those were plans we were still trying to juggle. I was hoping to gather onlookers from the parade route and have them join us afield for an impromptu peace rally. These plans were fully fleshed out and debated online, in multiple places. If the police studied our websites as they say they did, they would have seen our plans for that Saturday.

So even if the police weren’t infiltrating us, surveilling our meetings, wiretapping our phones, monitoring our communications, sifting our email, or reviewing our public announcements, they would have known from our websites that the PPJPC was marching with the Bookman, in green peace t-shirts, as we had done, announced and recruited for, online, the year before.

The police excuse of having been taken unawares on St Patrick’s Day, of being confronted with not knowing whether we had a permit, of stopping us in the parade route instead of earlier in the assembly area, begins to ring a little of falsehood.
Come to papa
The odds of us encountering a smiling Erwin Paladino of the CSPD, head head-cruncher of the 2003 anti-protestor police work, begin to look very improbable. The strategy then to throw us to the ground creating a scene, creating an obstruction themselves, making a lesson out of dealing with people stubbornly clinging to their rights, begins to look a little premeditated.

That is, if you believe the police are keeping their eye on us. We disrupt at the Broadmoor, we seek redress at our representatives’ offices, we banner the main streets, we interfere with military job fairs and recruitment strip malls. We show up at City Council and have them scrambling amok. We don’t plan any of this in secret. Probably somebody’s responsible for keeping themselves abreast.

So did Erwin Paladino draw the plum job of getting to apprehend us one block from the official parade start? Or was it a big coincidence? At the staging we could have rallied or prevailed from a dialog unhurried by the pressure of holding up the parade. At Tejon and St Vrain the police got to appear improvisational and exercise executive authority to take us down.

CSPD Officer Erwin Paladino of 2003

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Come to papaHas it been made clear enough in the multitude of retellings of the events of St. Patrick’s Day 2007, that an Officer Erwin Paladino was the chief agitator in the police camp? He directed the arrests and handled most of them with two chief accomplices, guy with taser and guy of choke-hold. (Maybe not coincidentally the three men in blue in our T-shirt advert image at right.) The other of the fourteen policemen on the scene stood in the wings to receive us as we were removed from the parade route.

If the police had been interested in removing us efficiently from the street, the officers could have handled it on one swoop. Instead Paladino was let to do the dirty work, dirtily, throwing me to the ground, yelling at us pell mell, acting over-taxed when in fact the police outnumbered us.

Police misconduct, 2003
Imagine our surprise when Mark Lewis, reviewing the videotapes from the wrongful arrests of peace activists in 2003, discovered that the chief police bully in that case was the same Officer Paladino! You can hear him on the tape telling a woman she could walk to Boulder because he was impounding her car, then handcuffing her before she could even do that. She and friends were standing outside of a Dairy Queen, where they’d parked, after the tear-gassing of the antiwar rally.

The Dairy Queen Dozen won a settlement from the city of Colorado Springs, an admission that the police had acted improperly. And yet four years later, here’s the same wrongdoer, Officer Paladino, pulling the same uncivil behavior, the same abuse of authority, the same escalation of brutality, worse actually, in the midst of children and elders.

We’re told that any admission of wrongdoing on the part of CSPD could never include a reprimand of a particular officer, certainly not one like Paladino who wraps himself in a flag whenever there’s a fallen officer memorial.

To tell you the truth, I got the very strong impression, on St. Patrick’s Day when we were trying to learn his name from the other officers, that they weren’t too proud of his actions either. Most of the police bent over backward to treat us with consideration, as something of an apology for what went wrong on the street. Paladino would not tell us his name when we requested it, and when it came time to record it on most of our arrest forms, the officers filling out our paperwork pretended amnesia it seems, they didn’t want to betray his name either if he wasn’t brave enough to give it himself. That’s a man not likely respected by his colleagues.

Until our trial, until criticism can be brought on police misconduct, who might Paladino be mishandling today? We were fortunate to have cameras focused on us at the parade, and to have a large crowd protecting us with its gaze. What of the hapless vagrant in a dark side street? He bears the brunt of the policemen’s abuse of authority, regularly beaten and harassed by officers with aggressive personality disorders and the means and opportunity to vent them.

Your dad is going to die of cancer

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Iraqi girl whose father has just been killed at a checkpointIt’s just been reported that the children of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are more likely to suffer child abuse. Is this finding not terrible enough for their parents to take heed and refuse to to be ordered there?
 
All soldiers going to Iraq and Afghanistan doom themselves to exposure to Depleted Uranium. Does it give anyone pause that they are dooming themselves and their families to certain ill-health? They’re not making a selfless sacrifice, they’re sacrificing their kids.

By the VA’s own report, over 11,600 Gulf War vets have died since 1991. A third of the soldiers involved in that 100 hour engagement are now on disability. The health problems have been called Gulf War Syndrome because the military won’t admit responsibility, like it long denied the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam. But doctors are now certain the many common symptoms are due to DU. Already we are seeing birth defects from Iraq War veterans.

Of course the media is not addressing the problem, but why aren’t soldiers figuring out the cause and effect for themselves? Do they still think the Department of Defense is looking out for them? After the Walter Reed scandals? After the failures to deal with PTSD?

Remember an unusual report early in the Iraq occupation when Dutch troops were to replace a US Marines encampment? The Dutch commanders instantly forbade their soldiers to inhabit the American barracks due to DU contamination. They deemed it better to bivouac outside the camp, exposed to attack outside the fortifications, than to suffer the certain DU exposure about which the American soldiers had been told nothing.

I have an idea of how to bring this message home to our soldiers. It involves the soldiers’ families because they are already impacted negatively, and stand to bear the brunt of losing their father or mother, of having to cope with a bitter, violent veteran, or having to care for the eventually terminally ill invalid. Here’s my plan:

I live in a neighborhood that houses the families of officers posted to Fort Carson. Usually they’re newcomers, usually just the families, the fathers being away in Iraq. Kids know these families from talking amongst each other at school.

The next time this or that house is pointed out to me, I’m going to tell the kids to be nice to those children because their father is dying of cancer. Never mind succumbing to IEDs, or to mental illness, the veteran will more likely than not, die a slow death of cancer or leukemia or whatever mysterious debilitating fate, owing to the DU he inhaled over there. Imagine the talk at the school reaching the soldier’s children. They’d bring their fears home. It’s a heartless rumor to spread to kids, but maybe their alarm could prompt an awakening and ultimately save their dad’s life.

This subversive message can be directed toward soldiers at other opportunities. Be it a panhandler with PTSD, or a proud veteran in a parade, treat them both with a sincere gentleness because of their pending struggle with cancer. Thank them for their service, apologize that their sacrifice will turn out to be so tragic.

Bring the message home.

Creepylocks and the three blondes

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Petit family as media would have you see them- Natalee, JonBenet, Nicole and STRAW DOGS emasculated husband Dustin Hoffman.
The spectacular triple-murder-rape invasion of the Petit family home in Cheshire Connecticut drew comparison to the brutality of the supersexed ruffians from A Clockwork Orange. Sam Peckinpaw’s Straw Dogs was released the same year, banned in the UK until only recently, and depicted the similar rapist bogeyman but focused on cultured man’s incapacity to safe-keep his house and blonde.

Failing as a protector is a timeless phobia which has driven such memorable protagonists as Braveheart, Rob Roy, Josey Wales, the Coward of the County, ad manipulatum. So well explored in fiction and fantasy, why must the media exploit those unlucky victims in real life?

We already know legions still vicariously work over the ritual assault of little JonBenet. Our whole populace displayed an embarrassingly unhealthy curiosity about the ease with which an unaccompanied young white girl could vanish in Aruba. And then there’s the slut fetish, aimed at Nicole Simpson, defiler of America’s Hertz sweetheart, given her due, where we got to stalk her sexual promiscuity and cut it quick. Those ugly national predilections are known. Why then parade the Petit cadavers through the grinder?

The Petit blondes were murdered, their house burned, the perpetrators apprehended. Already the story sows fear and drives firearm sales and home alarm upgrades. Why dwell further into the grim of their grisly deaths? Can we not resist hearing that mother and daughters were tied to beds, raped, etc, tormented, revisited, etc? The two joy-rapists are going to be celebrated in prison. Not only for despoiling the rich man’s white women, but for Goldielocks taste testing womanhood from a controlled sample: supple experience, freshly husked, and Media’s favorite fixation the forbidden fruit. And though the news pretends a hushed reverential tone, a voyeur America along for the ride.

Like an ant on a banana orchid

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While their older brother, sisters and cousins were “peeling” across the Caribbean Sea on a banana boat, Devon and Ryan were overjoyed to learn that they would get to visit the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve near Tulum to learn about the different ecosystems of the Yucatan peninsula. They bounded with unbridled joy from our adorable beach cabana to wait in the heat and humidity for the tour van.devonready.jpgOur open-air boat motored quickly through canals used by the ancient Mayans as well as various lagoons, our guide stopping periodically to point out birds or plants that might be of interest to us. One particularly engaging stop was for the banana orchid.

The banana orchid is an epiphyte, a plant that lives on another plant without damaging its host as a parasite would. The banana orchid’s pseudo-bulbs (the banana-y looking things) play host to nests of stinging ants. The ants feed on the nectar of the orchid and protect the plant from other insects and pollinate it in return. An endless parade of ants marched up and down the stem of the orchid, ignoring us as we all smelled the slight scent of banana surrounding the blooms.banana-orchid.jpg
Amazingly, a nearly identical species of banana orchid is endemic to the Cayman Islands. Still an epiphyte, but living on different trees and aided in pollination by the tree itself. Nary an ant in sight.

To me this is an astounding example of adaptation and the bounty of the natural world. I guess every living thing strives to survive, no matter the circumstance, and hopes for a little cooperation from its fellow beings. There is no right way. No singular path. We can hammer out a workable existence using the resources that surround us.

The pigs said WHAT?

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OK now that was just too stupid… they’re claiming we assaulted THEM? Since when would the Pigs have allowed anybody to strike them with any object and not either A) Kill the person on the spot or B) have him thrown in prison for the rest of his life?

Shame to the Pigs and even more Shame to their unthinking supporters. What will they tell their children NOW? At the Parade when Mommy and Daddy were telling the kiddoes that the Pigs were protecting the freedom of anybody to protest or speak openly against their regime, and the kids could easily see that Mommy and Daddy were LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH, and now…

Now their children get to see how Mommy and Daddy will stand up and Lie to back up the Uniformed Thugs once again….

A logical question, but I know from personal experience that it won’t stand up in court, is Why, if the pigs were being assaulted, did the Pigs not file that in their Official Pig Reports on the day of the attack?

Not one of the people arrested was charged with assaulting the pigs, not one.

Hitting a cop or even spitting on one, or (if there happen to be no civilian witnesses) even TALKING BACK to their collective Cowardly Ass would be enough to bring a charge of Aggravated Assault against a Peace Officer, which would carry a LIFE sentence…

I would ask if the Pigs think everybody in the world is as Stupid as they and their equally cowardly supporters are…

But that question answers itself…

Witnesses to the St Patricks Day arrests

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Colorado Springs hillbillies
If you were a witness to the parade events on March 17 this year, please contact the PPJPC if you haven’t already. The CSPD has amassed two 3-ring binders full of accounts from their sympathizers which attest to the peace participants striking the officers with their banners and otherwise resisting arrest. Missed, it seems, by any of the bystander videos. If you wish to shed an altogether different light on the scene, please call the PPJPC or the ACLU and they can put you in touch with the defense lawyers.

Impunity breeds yet more impunity

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The Imperial Presidency has struck once again with Libby being pardoned. The Democratic Party has allowed Bush-Cheney to act with total impunity since the word GO. Now they say that they are outraged! It’s a little too little and too late for that.

Here in Colorado Springs, we have the same mindset by government officials. They have acted to allow the use by John O’Donnell of all public monies necessary to help organize for them, pro-war ‘patriotic’ parades, airshows, and troop marches through the city. Then they gave him the impunity to use police municipal police to attack dissenters.

Similarly, School District 11 officials have acted with impunity to fire Iraqi War vet, Brian Wolfe, from his substitute teacher position. They did this because he began to speak out at weekly vigils and in city council meetings against the ugly events in Iraq he had earlier participated in. Employees of all sorts have no real rights to due process, and neither do paraders in downtown Colorado Springs. Abuse has become generalized as impunity breeds yet more impunity breeds yet more ways to abuse those who challenge impunity.

The Iraq War is about much more than Iraq. The ‘War on Terror’ is about much more than opposing terrorism. Like the ‘Drug War’, too, all these ‘wars’ are merely excuses for extending impunity to yet more impunity to yet more impunity. And we mainly twiddle our thumbs, finding reasons not to act so that we shall remain yet more impotent as impunity becomes generalized.

St Patrick’s Day Six plus One

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Get a lawyer! Get a lawyer! Yes, go get a lawyer! In days gone past, people would shout, ‘Get a witch doc, he will intervene for you with the Gods!’ Well, us Justice and Peace folk got a lawyer for the St Patrick’s Day Seven, and we seem just as credulous as the most primitive of people about this magician playing against the legal Gods on behalf of those criminally charged.

No need to stay together, the lawyer says. Split into two! And get another lawyer, two. Two, three, many lawyers! I’ve seen folk meekly following the worst guidance of doctors many a time before, but now I guess I will get to see pro-peace people hypnotized by their legal, uh friend, the lawyer.

Eric seems to have accepted the advice to split The Seven into Six plus One, and so has the Six. Solidarity now thrown out the wind. This is now a legal issue and stand still.

It seems, we will stand still until the court rules against The One in favor of the city and its police, that the city government had assault people who tried to walk against the Pentagon. Gone is the issue of how John O’Donnell is mere front man for how the city issues permits and tries to stifle all but Pentagon led (and fed) parades, air shows, and assemblies in this city. No counter social issues Now! It’s divisive! Eric misled the poor city of Colorado Springs. Guilty as charged. Now stay out of any parade.

What is typical here, is how this decision to split the case was made not by our group discussion, but by a lawyer or two in our midst. And perhaps a publisher, too. In fact, most of the Justice and Peace still have yet to hear about how there will be two trials, not one. So sez the lawyer and we shall follow and do. All fall down. We got the lawyer, and he will be our downfall. How often this happens when Movement activists fold up, and allow themselves to be led by the nose by ‘legal specialists’. Deals and decisions get made in secret, and input of commoners get wiped out.

Such faith! To oppose the guidance of our legal counselor would be ‘inappropriate’, they would say? Of course, what was once a political matter that needed the mobilizing of public support, has now been turned into a hidden away, private court matter with all the rules to be followed of a legal system that allows Guantanamo to happen. People who still believe in following the rules of a democracy that doesn’t really exist, also seem to be content following the rules of a legal system that only exists in skeletal remains, too.

It looks bad in the days ahead for the St Patrick’s Day Six plus One. Shaking hands and hugging the police by the ACLU (as done at their recent annual meeting) will lead to defeat in the court room, but good relations between wanna-be power brokers and power. Lawyers most often get the people beat, not saved. A ‘good lawyer’ gets the Six saved, the One beat, and the Movement down the drain. And for that, he will be thanked.

That’s the better scenario. The worst, is well worse. Solidarity would do better.

‘Save Darfur’ interventionists seem bloody ignorant about Africa, its culture, and its history- Save Lado, too, Comrades!

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Free Tibet, Stop Genocide in Kosovo, Liberate East Timor, and now Save Darfur with that ‘genocide’ tag being thrown around again. And lots of vitriol against Arabs and China mixed in. There seems to be all sorts of poorly thought out comments and ill considered positions going around town concerning this issue of ‘Darfur’, currently in the national spotlight ala Paris Hilton.

One local activist recently claimed on his web site that the Sudanese government was a US puppet state. Talk about getting it totally backwards! The reality is it’s the independence of the Sudanese government from DC control that Another activist here in the Springs was cheer-leading Democratic Party Colorado Governor Ritter for taking steps to firm up the US campaign beginning an economic war against Sudan. Colorado will not do bizness with bad Africans! Oh, Whoopee, Guvnor! I’ll bet my bottom dollar that you will do business helping your political buddies commit GENOCIDE against Palestinians and Iraqis, though. Am I right?

Right now, the Colorado Springs pro-peace people seem to be stumbling around in the dark on many fronts. The police attack on the St Patrick’s Day parade participants has them stumbling, and the anemia of the national Pro Peace folk hasn’t helped either. So why not jump on the ‘Save Darfur’ bandwagon? It makes sense. I guess there is just not enough problems on the home-front at this time? So let’s go save some Black folk from the evil Arabs and Chinese! And we’ll be led by Dubya, who will correct his problems in Iraq by changing a letter and nuking Iran.

The Justice and Peace had ourselves up a booth at Juneteenth today. They placed us right next to our old buddies, the storm troopers under the command of Police Chief Liars Myers. We’re getting to be almost family at this point. And on our nice little table we had some lit about Saving Darfur.

No, nobody had brought any material saying it might be nice saving all of Africa by getting the US the fuck out of their. I felt in a genteel mood and just sat for a while chitchatting and smelling the bbq. The Gazette was Heiled as being so very generous for poor Black folk by having ‘given generously’ with the publicity. It felt so good, so why be contentious? I just couldn’t…

I had my sign ‘Stop US War on Somalia’ with me, but Aw Shucks. Why confuse folk still trying to decide whether the Dar is for the Fur, or the Fur is for the Dar? And every body’s Albanian is still not much up to par And what’s the national language of island nation of East Timor anyway? Uh sorry, I meant the half island nation of East Timor. Hey, why shouldn’t we demand liberation and independence for West Timor, too? And what’s the next half-island down the shore? The world is complex, but you can speed read it if you are a liberal interventionist, for sure! I would have felt like a simpleton with my sign at the picnic.

There were some pamphlets to help you out on this with Darfur on our table. Did you know that Darfur was once an independent nation? Until the British defeated them of course.

Believe me, you will never learn this sort of stuff from the ‘Save Darfur’ crowd. They just don’t know it. That’s right. Darfur was pasted onto Sudan by the British. Those who paste on may want to peel the paste on back off, though. For humanitarian reasons, no doubt. From Blair to Brown to Save Darfur!

By the way, I am thinking of starting up a Colorado Springs society to save the Lado people. Don’t know about them? Hey, they’re just right down the road from Darfur. And guess what? They are victims of genocide, too. Save Lado! Is it pronounced like in Spanish, or like ‘lad oh!’ in English? It’s always fun when nobody can pronounce the name of the place we’re headed to ‘intervene’ into. Makes it more fun to watch the TV news!

I’m not making this up, so do the research on your own and let’s then get together and start a group (or 2 or 3) at Colorado College and get some sweet chickens (let me know if the use of ‘chickens’ here is not pc, like headless chickens) to help us out. What do you say? This is America, is it not? Anything can happen. We’re a good people for sure. So let’s do something for the Lado people right now! Start the propaganda, uh I meant ‘education’ going and we’ll get the troops in as soon as we can!

Meanwhile, let the conservatives increase the military budget a tad more, so that we’ll all then be ready to move into action together.

Save Lado!

Abuse, or politically motivated false allegations?

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Occupational Hazard: False Allegations of Child Abuse Against Educators
By Brian Barrido, Esq. and Jay Mykytiuk
A school custodian was accused of sexual abuse by five girls. The charges were later dropped when the girls admitted that they had fabricated the story because the custodian had reported them for vandalizing a restroom. An Assistant Superintendent jumped off a bridge to his death after being accused of abusing a student. He had been cleared of any wrongdoing earlier that day.

A social studies teacher was accused of molesting a student during a school field trip. Eleven months later, his name was cleared when his accuser recanted. A nine year-old girl offered to pay each of her friends one dollar if they would accuse her teacher of abuse.

False allegations of child abuse against teachers and other school employees can be economically, emotionally, and financially devastating. It can lead to criminal prosecution and long jail terms. And it is a real phenomenon. One school administrator claims to receive 10-12 false accusations of abuse against teachers every year. Multiplied across the country, this number is staggering and disturbing.

Because crimes against children are so horrific, naturally accusers are taken seriously. What this means for accused teachers, is that they are usually presumed guilty—a presumption that can be very difficult to overcome. The most common motive of students who falsely accuse their teachers is to punish teachers who either disciplined them or give them poor grades. A false accusation of physical or sexual abuse will usually ensure that the targeted teacher is, at the least suspended or fired, and at worst, brought up on criminal charges. If an investigation is not properly handled, or the accused educator is not adequately represented by legal counsel, they may lose their careers and their freedom.

Some schools are addressing the issue before the problem arises. School handbooks advise teachers not to have any physical contact with students. Others discourage teachers from ever being one-on-one with a student in a classroom. But despite these precautions, educators remain vulnerable to abuse charges due to the nature of their positions.

The consequences of a guilty plea or conviction for physical or sexual abuse are potentially disastrous. Besides substantial jail time, the convicted abuser will lose his teaching license. If convicted of sexual abuse, one must register as a sex offender, and have their name and residence publicly posted. The convicted abuser will be barred from certain types of jobs, and will often be forced to undergo psychological treatment. This adds up to a steep price for simply choosing a career in education.

An educator accused of physical or sexual abuse against a child should seek counsel immediately. A competent attorney will investigate your case, gather character witnesses, and argue your case to the District Attorney. Your attorney should secure expert witnesses in the area of child psychology. In general, it is crucial that your attorney prepare a comprehensive legal strategy to combat the false accusations and prove your innocence.
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What if you had protested the Iraqi War? What if you were an Iraqi War vet who had recently spoken out publicly against an unpopular war? What if you had repeatedly protested The Iraqi War on a street corner near to the school where the accusations came about? What if you had spoken out at your city council’s meeting in front of the mayor and then been covered on multiple channels of the local news and had spoken out against a police attack on a pro-peace group at the local St Patrick’s Day Parade?

You do the math…

See Solidarity

Impersonating a soldier

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We all know it’s illegal to impersonate a police officer, but is it illegal to impersonate a soldier? This notion appears to me to be an utter urban myth, readily quoted but unsubstantiated. Is there such a restriction? We are seeing recent veterans getting in trouble for wearing their uniforms at peace rallies, they don’t face jail time, but rather not insubstantial downgrading of their discharge status. But you and I face no such punitive risk. Why don’t we take the lead and don their uniforms?

I’m not certain that pretending to be soldiers protesting the war would come off well at all, but perhaps it could embolden real soldiers to do it. What if they wore each other’s uniforms, from an opposite branch of the military for example? Does their code of conduct preclude that? Would such political expression jeopardize a vet’s retirement benefits?

The so-called surge has yielded an upsurge of soldiers now calling for peace. We see it on the streets when we hold up our PEACE NOW banners. A good portion of honks, thumbs-up, and peace-signs come from active duty soldiers. We even see them tooting their horns to get our attention, less we miss their smiling encouragement. Our soldiers are ripe for taking a stand against this war. Let them do it. Let’s figure out a way to include their voices. They have earned the right, after all, to speak out as soldiers. We sent them to war as soldiers, however can we presume to strip them of the authority when they return?

I could only find a law passed last year, the Stolen Valor Act, which made it illegal to impersonate a decorated soldier, such that “anyone who knowingly wears, manufactures, or sells any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the U.S. armed forces, or any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, or the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration or medal, or any colorable imitation thereof, except when authorized under regulations made pursuant to law, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”

Which gives me an idea. Let’s get some Op. Iraqi F. uniforms and decorate them with LEGAL NON-US medals, such as Iron Crosses and Nazi regalia, and then parade as satiric soldier-dissenters. Neither military getups nor creepy regalia appeal to me, but there might be something pretty chilling about the sight.

Largest vet’s group defends antiwar vets right to protest war

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Adam Kokesh, and other vets speaking out against the continued US occupation of Iraq, are being threatened by the top military brass and Bush Administration. Yet, it is striking in how unpopular the war has become, that the leader of the largest vet’s group in America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, is now defending the right of these vets to protest this war without harassment from the Pentagon establishment.

Many politicians in local, state, and federal governments, feel that it is perfectly OK for soldiers to be forcibly paraded in pro war demonstrations paid by our tax monies, but that free speech for dissenters, including military dissenters, should be put down by any means at their disposal, including using attacks by police, dishonourable discharges of GIs, etc. This war will not be ended either by soldiers or civilians sitting back quietly and waiting for politicians to act responsibly. The politicians will act in the interests of the military-industrial complex instead, unless pressured by our continued protests.

We owe the antiwar vets all of our support. Together, patriotic vets and patriotic civilians can end this war by our actions and continued opposition to the politican’s war. Those dissenters in the military are an inspiration to us all, and together show that patriotism does reside in the ranks, even in a military full of people voluntary largely recruited by rank economic incentives.

The Peace Movement needs to do all it can to help defend from government persecution our friends, the antiwar vets of America. They are supporting the end to persecution of foreign peoples by our imperialist government often at great personal risk to themselves. May their ranks grow yet larger, as the world needs this as well as our own country itself. It is a case where patriotism becomes international solidarity, and international solidaritiy really is the patriotism of the future that the world needs more of now.

Memorial Day jingoism and celebration of death

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The 3 largest Colorado papers all had the same headline pictures this Memorial Day. Graduating Air Force Academy Cadets all throwing up their caps into the sky in unison with jet planes flying overhead. Thus we arrive to half time in America’s annual jingoistic display. Second half of this supposed public patriotic display of support for imperialist foreign policies will certainly be the 4th of July.

We are awash in ‘support our troops’ brain wash. Don’t you dare not support them! And not supporting the constant and continual warfare is always construed as not ‘supporting the troops’. Thirty of us met the parade of cars entering into the Air Force Academy base and they penned us dangerous folk in behind chains and concrete barriers. Up on the hill mounted Calvary watched us terrorist Injuns down below. What a sad lot the people entering the base seemed.

It gave me great pleasure to hold a sign demanding that the torture of American held POWs be ended. Just how proud can these graduating cadets actually be, when the employer they will be working for has such a low reputation from routinely torturing people? How about their parents? How proud can they really be?

This Memorial Day’s celebration of death just seemed more gruesome and pathetic than it has ever been. There was something pathetic about it all that seemed etched in the faces of the people in their vehicles as they came in. Next step? Buy some fire works and pretend that one is having a good time. Eat some turkey dogs and drink a little. Red, White, and Blue.