CSPD acquires urban assault vehicle. What line have activist informants been feeding them?

COLO. SPRINGS- This image just in from a reconnoiter of the downtown police garage. The CSPD has mobilized an urban assault vehicle, for, I don’t know what, keeping up with the Jones’s? Ever since Springs police decided that the Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission held gravitational pull over all political dissent in El Paso County, the CSPD holds weekly briefings with a PPJPC staffer, and of late they’ve added morning tete-a-tetes with an OCCUPY delegate from Acacia Park. What are those “representatives” telling them? That law enforcement needs bigger ammo? Would now be the time to suggest we call organizers who grease the mechanisms of oppression, however ill-conceived their intention, by a more appropriate term, RATS?

I can understand neighbors with differing opinions about whether cops need more helicopters, or K-9 intimidation duos, but how ever does the ordinary citizen rationalize that their police department needs riot equipment? To protect us from ourselves? We found out a couple years ago that the CSPD has a busload of their own people-suppression gear. Now we have an armored personnel carrier for cops? Because they can’t drag defenseless nonviolent protesters across the pavement without mechanization? The Acacia Park protesters have been happy to seek permits to set up their literature canopies and have organized community service cleanup actions to put a shine on their model compliance, meanwhile the police are arming up…

EPILOG:
Is this a political cheap shot? Yes. It’s trash talk. No argument. Why and when Colorado Springs took delivery of an armored vehicle is entirely conjecture. Maybe it’s the usual cost-plus profiteering scheme. That’s not really the point. The point is, what intelligence is CSPD getting from their de facto adversaries?

The sight of a new armored vehicle to use against civilians should be a major embarrassment to someone who considers themselves tasked with offering assurances to the city that all local protest will be inoffensive and dismissible.

The CSPD needs armor WHY? Not even crime here has ever escalated to a level which would require an armored assault by the police.

I was content to leave it at that, but oh well, some people need it explained.

It is not conceivable that anything public citizen advisers might have whispered at regular meetups would have prompted the CSPD to armor up. But what are the collaborators conferring with police about? We know the why, for a seat at the table, so what goals are they selling out?

It would be false praise to suggest the PPJPC had a role in bringing the armored UAV to town. But the PPJPC cannot escape responsibility for eroding the role and breadth of activism in this city. In particular for playing informant to the CSPD, for being the conduit of intimidation which the police want to push the other way, and for employing an executive director who has a personal resolve against confrontational activism. You won’t see him at protests, organizing protests, or promoting protests. You’ll see him keeping his meetings with other respectable nonprofit heads, and his appointments with the CSPD, and fielding their calls when they catch wind of other dissenters. No surprise that a once energetic PPJPC is now but a social justice knitting circle of communion takers.

Of course it’s worse, because Colorado Springs social circles are small enough that the CSPD only needs one snitch. Not that any illegal activities have been planned, certainly no violence, but the CSPD wants to keep tabs, and the PPJPC is happy enough to believe that if you have nothing to hide, then keeping city authorities informed shouldn’t threaten you.

For those who need this spelled out: civil disobedience is by definition illegal, and benefits incalculably from putting authorities on the spot. Giving them your game plan in exchange for not upsetting the apple cart does not favor those who are protesting the apple cart.

So what is whispered in these regular meetings with the police? Let’s imagine only the most innocent possibilities. Who’s new to town, who’s jumping on this national campaign, who’s retreating from the fallout from that recent action, what’s the scuttlebutt, what’s to these rumors, and what are CSPD’s concerns. It makes me nearly sick to think about. The relationship must be as with a lobbyist. The collaborator is enjoined to take responsibility for keeping the peace. Any surprises and it’s their rapport that suffers. Police embarrassed on the street? No cookie for you.

Occupy Colorado Springs organizers have fallen for the same bait, a quasi permitted stay in Acacia Park in exchange for daily updates with the police. A special relationship is how I believe it’s being billed. You’d probably call it a morning coffee with your boss, with info flowing his way, instructions coming yours.

If you are hoping to reform the system, thinking you have allies among the blimp-necks sworn to uphold it TO THE LETTER is probably wrongheaded.

The ugly arrangement at the PPJPC didn’t begin with Executive Director Steve Saint. The PPJPC sat down in 2003 after an antiwar rally was teargassed, to hash out a code of conduct agreement with the CSPD. Membership balked at such a prospect and the project was abandoned, but left the city with a paper trail with which to claim it believed it had cemented a deal and would consider further trouble to be a breach of the agreement. This came to light after the St Patrick’s Day Parade fiasco of 2007. An event which provoked the larges upsurge in participation in the PPJPC but rapidly dropped off with its failure to capitalize on the visibility.

I know a little about that because I was chairman in that aftermath, fighting an insubordinate staff who only slowly revealed their ulterior motives and stacked the board against me. The rationale? Public protests hurt alliances with other non profits. Being anti-military preempted cooperation with almost all the other social causes in an army town.

It’s of course a long story, but in the end you’ve got a career staff member determined to jettison antiwar efforts for the comfort of taking on the environment, poverty, and whatever causes get a Democratic president elected. Steve Saint very visibly put his name to the letter which invited Van Jones to come speak at Colorado College. Van Jones is as corporate a messenger as Barack Obama, with the same empty promises. This time instead of Hope, he’s selling Green. And it’s just as easy a sugar pill to swallow.

Did you know some disgruntled Dems have set about to form a Green Party? Guess who’s put himself at the center of scuttling that effort by neutering any grassroots platform? I take no pleasure in delivering this punch line.

Of course more than anything the antiwar movement suffered with Obama’s election. Now the hopeful are disillusioned and cynical, and who is the little PPJPC to revive that crowd? But the PPJPC backed Obama, stood in line to see him while their dissenters embarrassed them by protesting outside. Dissenters who ultimately had the police called on them for trying to have a meeting in front of the PPJPC office.

The PPJPC is fully co-opted, fine, but that the organization plays the role of informant to the police is untenable. A historically, unequivocally, uninterruptedly nonviolent activist community provides no grounds for the city police to escalate their crowd-control technologies, and it certainly doesn’t merit full-time paid informants trying to snitch on them.

David Barsamian and a Vet For Peace

Activist scholar David Barsamian visited Colorado Springs yesterday to speak on Afghanistan and raise money for the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission. Barsamian was his usual gracious and erudite self but the PPJPC can’t even embarrass themselves. At one point in his presentation, Barsamian talked of encountering a Vets For Peace participant, who’d been an active PPJPC member. “You remember Brian?” He asked the group, as if relating a greeting from an old friend. Blank stares all around. Barsamian scanned the room until his eyes reached Tony and I, demonstrably nodding our heads. “Of course you do” chided Barsamian, as he moved on. What a pathetic lot.

Activists have so far failed to construct a real American Antiwar Movement

Despite the grass roots sentiment against all the bloodshed that Bush and now Barack Obama are engaged in, activists in the US have ever failed to construct a real Antiwar Movement. Do you consider that to be a harsh judgment on my part? Then please consider the fact that the US is moving towards the end of what will a decade long occupation of Afghanistan, and yet there has not been one antiwar demonstration, on even a local yet alone a national level, that has focused on opposing this!

As Barack Obama escalates US war making further and into one more new country, Pakistan, the misleaders of the so-called US ‘Peace’ Movement remain totally silent and inactive about it.

Further, there never was any public antiwar reaction to the occupation and demolishing of Somalia, the Israeli destruction of Lebanon in 2006, and also the US moves against Russia with its Georgian adventure at big time war starting, that boom-a-ranged back into the faces of the Republican Klan, absolutely not because the ‘Peace’ movement ever did or said anything in opposition to that war in Southern Ossetia. And even with the issue of blatant US use of torture, the opposition to government terrorism remains scant and ephemeral.

The US public is utterly demoralized and unaware of its own power, thanks to ‘Peace’ misleadership itself, which seems to believe that only tiny groups of religiously motivated New Agers can come together and only for the most milquetoast reasons. Let me illustrate with the local PPJPC (Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission) and their PPJPC May calendar of inactivity. Look at it and weep! They simply plan to not mobilize themselves against THEIR President. Sad to say, the national groups they affiliate with are about on the same wave length, too.

Instead of being leaders, the misleaders who call themselves ‘Peace’ activists are leaders in public apathy and not challengers of it. Instead of smashing the War State, they seem to want to be junior partners to it. They are about as alternative as National Public Radio, KRCC, and The not so Independent are here in the local area. In short, they are not opponents to war making at all.

Without an end to the permanent War State of our American ruling class, there will be no economic or political stability to build a future for us in America. In fact, without an end to this constant construction for the War machine, the Earth is headed for a Dead End. We are currently just sleep walking toward oblivion and there simply is no way to sugar coat that basic fact. Wake up, American Antiwar Movement. You have to organize yourselves, because,People… nobody else is going to do it for you. Join and work with Coloradans for Peace here in Colorado Springs.

Summer Peace Camp versus a Colombian Caribbean Vacation?

Medellin
As usual, with summer coming up, my little girl wanted to know just how mad at her about her …uh… behaviors over the Winter I really was? She knows that if I had got really upset at her, I would be planning on sending her off to Vacation Bible School, otherwise known in our weird circles as the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission Summer Peace Camp. There she could learn about the cleansing effects of ‘non-violence’ as taught to her by some PPJPC version of ‘Mother Angelica’.

Too, she was really getting worried about being bored this summer and was not looking to going off to the family farm located right next to the Zetas’ paintball playground at Presa Marte Gomez, Tamaulipas and staring at the adobe (plaster) walls. So one night, as she watched Johnny Depp pirate around, I suggested maybe we too could go to Pirate Land- Cartagena, Colombia this summer, and fight crocodiles or something? So I said to her,

‘How about a vacation in Colombia this summer? There’s lots of family things to do down there!’

Her response to me was,

‘Sure, why not?’

That’s what I love about kids these days, they simply are open to anything. I told her then that if we do go to Colombia and live with the Caribbean Pirates that she would have to live off fried ants and guinea pig (cuy), since that’s all those poor people have to eat. That and aguardiente.

It just so happens that she has a boyfriend from Colombia who is a Pastuzo (Texas Aggie of Colombia) and that he has eaten cuy and says it is muy rico! The fried ants she kind of balks at though, but still, she was sufficiently excited at the thought of leaving the USA, that she had me rush off and buy us both one way tickets to Bogota! America, love it or leave it!

And that’s how it is that at long last, I will get to go on my Caribbean Vacation, that’s if we don’t spend too much time in the beautiful city of Eternal Spring, Medellin? I’m definitely looking forward to staying on for the Flower Festival there in early August!… Plus, you can simply just get lost in sightseeing in this under-appreciated city!

That’s Medellin in the picture above. It’s a Colombia emerald, a Colombia orchid, and a Colombian museo de oro… all rolled up into one! Honestly, it really does look like a nice place to spend some time on a family vacation. I’ll let you know how it works out! And then, there is always Mompox!

“As they sailed down to the coast the river had grown more vast and solemn, like a swamp with no beginning or end, and the heat was so dense you could touch it with your hands.”

from Gabriel Garcia Marquez – The General in His Labyrinth

General Simon Bolivar was headed to Mompox… As for us, when I have told people that we are headed for a vacation in Colombia this year, they look at me as if I had just told them I’m flying for Alpha Centauri instead. Oh well… But Mompox does sound like a rather relaxing place o me, though maybe the climate’s not quite right?

Ft Carson is Burnt Acres not Green Acres

Ft Carson fire of 2008For several years now Colorado Springs has watched in incredulous dismay as the Pentagon has tried to represent its local terrorism training center, Fort Carson, as being some sort of Green Acres to Coloradans. Incredibly, the local group of Democrats at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission have done their part in playing part of the game with the military in this regard, as they held joint meetings with the military and even printed up some of their propaganda about being ‘Green’ in their quarterly newsletter.

But what’s the real story about this supposedly lean, green, terrorist cell near by? Are they out to save Mother Earth through the military-industrial complex as they claim? If you are a True Believer in this Pentagon propaganda offensive, then take a look at this news item then… Fort Carson fire consumes 6,500 acres

It turns out, not surprisingly, that the military dropping bombs during heir ‘exercises’ is what started this fire out. These boy toys are noted for being just like that, but burning money off through weaponry is the American economy and so this Blood Red group must expand! Nothing green about it except for the American dollars being consumed so stupidly. It’s simply time to stop this bombs away, burn Mother Earth away machine. If you care about ecology, get out and show your concern by protesting the continuous and constant US military presence here in Colorado Springs.

It takes a lot of nerve to try to pass the pentagon off as Green, humane, and Earth loving, doesn’t it? But these Pentagon lairs get a humongous propaganda budget from American taxpayers to do just that. If your military backed job depends on it,t hen you might be the type of dunce to buy into this hogwash? If not, it’s just another reason to be sick of what the total militarization of America is doing to us.

*** Note that the fire pictured was a wildfire from last year at Fort Carson and not this year’s fire.

Iraqi Occupation, Abomination! Iraqi Occupation, Obama Nation?

dennis-apuan.jpg APUAN HOSTS JOBS AND THE ECONOMY TOWN HALL sez the El Paso County Democratic Party website here in Colorado Springs! Dennis Apuan is a very nice former head honcho of the local Peacecrat grouplet called the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission.

Special Guest Speaker Terrance Carroll to Join and he is a very nice man too, who has so very little power despite being Speaker of the Colorado State House of Representatives.

WHEN:
Saturday, February 7, 2009
12:00 noon to 1:30 PM

WHERE:
Ruth Holley Public Library
685 North Murray Blvd.
Colorado Springs, 80915

Both these Democrats are very nice folk, and I believe that Dennis Kucinich is, too. However…..?

Aren’t they also now shills for Obama? Aren’t they also loyal members of a War Party? Aren’t they both essentially silent on the major issues of the day? In fact, don’t they both pretend that the Democratic Party is something much better than it really is? That’s their job as Democratic Party decorations.

According to Dennis Apuan and the local chapter of the DP, As Democrats We Believe:

Defending all of the human rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
A clear separation of Church and State.
Swift and appropriate punishment for criminal behavior.
Freedom from undue government interference in our private lives and personal decisions.
Fiscal responsibility in government.
Equal opportunity for all citizens.
A quality education that gives all individuals the opportunity to reach their potential.
A quality environment in which to raise our children.
The value of diversity within the community.
Rewarding honest, hard work with a living wage and fair taxation.
Community support for strong families.
Security in our homes, our communities and our nation.
A nation that will serve as a model of economic and social justice to the rest of the world

Really now? Is that anything like the national program of the Democratic Party or is it in fact the polar opposite of the positions that Barack Obama and his herd of Slick Willie retreads takes? A message for this meeting would best be…

Iraqi Occupation, Abomination! Iraqi Occupation, Obama Nation!

Neither one of the keynote speakers seems to even remember anything about Iraq? Why is that? The Democratic Party is still keeping Iraq an occupied nation and by doing that, gives the lie that the national Democrats actually believe in all those nice things the local folk say they believe in.

Afghanistan Occupation, Abomination! Afghanistan Occupation, Obama Nation?

Get the message, Dennis? Your political party stands for bad times every much so as the Republicans do.

(There is Dennis Third from the Right in the picture… Black banner behind him)

Stop Obama’s Wars!

When you don’t pay ‘war taxes,’ is it ‘peaceful nonviolence’ or more like smug self-righteous religious complacency?

Pontius Pilate chief tax manMonday night I got asked out of the clear blue sky at a meeting of self described ‘Peace’ advocates if I paid taxes? I was kind of drowsy from shift work I had just finished doing, and didn’t really consider the fact that Jesus was asked just about the same question in his time, but by those he considered to be spies of the Roman Empire. I was being asked the question though from a self righteous and complacent ‘Quaker’ woman who was in the process of giving me her idea of a litmus test, for whether I would be allowed by her and her husband to be in one local antiwar grouplet here in Colorado Springs called the PPJPC?

I failed her test when I answered that I did indeed pay taxes (too much so IMO), and my statement that it was so was soon followed by a self righteous and complacent harangue about her opinion that the woman and her ‘leader’ husband did not pay ‘war’ taxes and that that was that and why did I not do as they do? The implication was that I should just shut up and let them run things in the group and keep my mouth shut up for good. Why? Well because I pay my taxes!

Further I was told at the meeting by the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission that I was not ever going to be considered a member of the group, no matter what. I was told that I gave neither time nor money to the group!, and that I was out of it in their eyes because I had written previously in the local press about how the leader of the group had called the cops on us for trying to hold a meeting to plan antiwar activities outside the locked doors of the group’s offices.

“All those bad things you said about us of the PPJPC!”

Locked out, because as members of the group we wanted some democracy inside an organization that has but one pretend membership meeting per year and is run by salaried office folk who want to be small business adminstrators instead of anything much else!

I have been told too that I must sign onto some sort of ‘adherence’ statement to the ‘non-violence’ aim of the group. Further the religious pacifists running the show have stated to the press that I and others, too, do not adhere to their Christian motivated ‘nonviolence’, implying to the police and press that we are time bombs about to go off! Meanwhile, they continually invite representatives of the police to ‘meetings’ with themselves so that they can supposedly make their events more ‘nonviolent’, I guess? A hug here, a handshake there, and let us know what you want us to do, Peace Officers?

So back to the question of whether it is peaceful nonviolence’ or self righteous complacency when one does pay taxes at this time of the year? Let us go to The War Resisters League and examine their understated list of the Consequences of War Tax Resistance some. What can happen if you just opt out and tell IRS to shove it? Here, these Christians tell you that you can go to jail but not to worry about it because almost nobody does (in the US). Go figure? To the feds it is more trouble to jail these few religious ‘resistoes’ than to just harass them in other ways. Why shoot down a gnat with an elephant gun?

However there are other consequences, including your right to travel freely outside the US terminated (one of local pacifist families has been confronting just such a restriction imposed most recently, as they were barred from visiting relatives in Canada). You can lose your income through a restriction coming about on licensing in the line of work you do. You can lose your property, much more of it than if you had actually paid those taxes to the government. That happens a lot per the War Resisters League, but they assure us that it all looks good on their own balance sheet of pros and cons! Well not on mine. Nor on Jesus’s balance sheet either! He was resurrected but I don’t know really whether that would happen to me if IRS decided to crucify?

But back to the case of the Quaker woman and her ‘leader’ husband who don’t pay taxes as they assured me that was the case. Her husband actually was in the military and supposedly gets some special pension for that, that I guess I am stupidly paying taxes for them to then lecture me about what a supposedly moral cretin I must be? Kind of a weird situation, ay?

But then again, let’s say that I’m wrong about that, and that these 2 Quakers get no income for that military ‘service’ at all? Where do they get their money from then? Stocks and bonds? Social Security? God? Plus, how can you draw a line between taxes for the military and taxes for other things, since Quakers do most often pay taxes for ‘other things’ and actually most just subtract some percent away (43%) from the taxes they in fact do pay to the government? Does that make it all Kosher then???

It really does not do anything at all from an individual angle, since the government just ‘garnishes’ the wages with interest added on directly from the salaries of religious protesters. However, non religious tax ‘protesters’ are often time not even given such benign treatment at all, since the government has codified well the idea that all ‘conscientious objection’ comes mainly about because ‘God forbids Believers to do something or other?’

No belief in God? Then you got no ‘Right’ to state morality coming from God as motivation, and no Right to really object, you damn atheists!

Does erecting this artificial accounting wall between supposedly taxes for good purposes and taxes for bad purposes help grind the War Machine down and then out? The AFSC (Quakers/ Friends) thinks it does, and is pushing to have 2 tax barrels put into Federal Law, where their religion’s membership can deposit funds into a ‘Peace’ Barrel, while the other religious folk can get the War Barrel! Is this really all that ‘peaceful non-violence’ comes down to in the concrete? Like it makes some dimes bit of difference to the government to separate ‘war taxes’ from a ‘Peace tax’?

Let’s say though, that you do not pay a cent to the government and some how keep them from garnishing your income with interest added in on top? That’s nice, and some few actually do just that and get away with it without being jailed. That is about as effective a route to fighting war as doing nothing though. To stop the war mass action is necessary, and not just becoming the one or two individuals here and there who sneak by the IRS.

So where does this Quaker couple now get their income from? Due to a successful career perhaps from stocks, and not a dime from military pensions or social security, they’re living off corporate dividends and previous savings not garnished by the government for ‘nonpayment’ of taxes? I can only speculate, however, I don’t think they have accomplished much at all, other than to make themselves smug in their religious complacency, as they drape themselves in flag and ‘peaceful’ Christian mantle for cops and other agents of the Roman Empire.

There are ways of resisting the War Machine but I do not think that trying to withhold tax monies is one of them? Neither did Jesus from what I gather from rather unreliable documentation, but he did try to evade the question of whether one should pay taxes with tricky ‘sayings.’ Ultimately that cleverness and not paying the tax are maybe the issues that got him the death penalty? I wasn’t there so I cannot really say.

They wanted to ‘Save Darfur’ but are promoting using White Phosphorous on Gaza instead!

olive treeIt seems that many of those who wanted to ‘Save Darfur’ are now actually out there supporting Israel and its daily bombardment of Gaza’s civilian population with thousands of half-ton explosives, cluster bomblets, and White Phosphorus shells, many if not most, made in the USA! What a puzzle?

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is one of those notables since he’s been a long time Zionist and demander of increased US military aggression against Sudan, but the group of newly gung-ho genocide advocates against the Palestinians also includes Hillel, the largest Jewish student group around the world. They fairly recently made ‘Saving Darfur’ the major focus of their political work. Now they have returned to the ‘Saving the Jewish State’ theme by killing Palestinians which is their #1 cause once again. See their website for the position Hillel Endorses JCPA Support for Israel. Now check out their ‘Save Darfur’ campaign for calling for military intervention by principally the US and Britain into Africa. Never Forget. Save Darfur and never save Iraq, Afghanistan, or Somalia, let alone Gaza?

OK, let’s go on over to another US group advocating vocally to ‘Save Darfur’, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum down in Miami, Florida of all places. What are they up to? Just check on CONSCIENCE at their website to see if they have located any problems in the world today other than Darfur? Oops, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Congo, Gaza are all missing! Gaza civilians not a problem for them…. ??? Neither are Armenians, Native Americans, nor Black African slaves. What holocausts? I guess there was only one with maybe an add on of Darfur? I’m surprised, in fact. Well they are worried about the Chechens, too, it seems. Just to be fair…

There are many others out there who wanted to ‘Save Darfur’. Some of them are the local peace do-nothings at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission here in Colorado Springs allied with United for Justice and Peace nationally, which has had many a member concerned about ‘Saving Darfur’. So much so that they actually held a rally or two to show their desire for more intervention by the US government. I remember seeing some of them in tears even.

Today I’m not sure where they have disappeared to? White phosphorus and Gaza just not their thing I guess? Neither is Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan, nor really even Iraq! Funny group of people. They never really seem to get it together to demonstrate for anything other than themselves? Always fundraising though. Got some money for their office people? Staff salaries are always important! They may or may not show up at the next rally against war? You never know with these folk?

What about the group Stop Genocide Now? What did you find other than their concern about Darfur? They claim to be the following…

‘Stop Genocide Now (SGN) is a grassroots community dedicated to working to protect populations in grave danger of violence, death and displacement resulting from genocide.’

Only Darfur seems to be where they have found this ‘population’ though. Go figure? ‘Genocide’ seems to be only in Darfur? That’s amazing!

OK, I’ll stop here. I think the reader has gotten the picture by now. ‘Save Darfur’ as a rallying point really is not about saving people that much by promoting peace in the civil wars of Sudan. There is another and rather well kept hidden agenda behind this campaign, and the fact that so many groups have a blind side about this hidden agenda they are supporting is quite telling.

For many of these folk, Darfur is on the back burner and blasting away at Gaza is primary. Don’t worry though, since they’ll all be back urging humanitarian intervention quite soon. Oh wait! Supporting the US-Israeli war on Palestinians is seen by many of these people as being humanitarian interventionism. Ain’t that right, Willy Pete? Where else will they go next?

“Because you have drowned others, you were drowned…” –Rabbi Hillel

UNDO THE COUP begins at home

COLORADO SPRINGS- Rita wants to remind local Democrats about which way to push Barack Obama, come January 20 after the inauguration, and before then, at the local Democratic Party precinct meetings. Whether we have expectations of Obama or not, if he doesn’t know what we want, how’s he supposed to deliver?

Here’s the full text of her latest communique:

CHANGE AND MORE CHANGE
by Rita Walpole Ague

With the Obama inauguration about to happen, may we all come to rest and live in peace and justice and true democracy. Recent comments made by Obama coordinator Bob Nemanich re. the anti-democratic stance certain of his old friends, do not surprise me in the least. Failures of our democracy to function as a democracy are not new, and have been around for awhile – some say since 1947. I recall when the FBI was doing warrantless wiretapping of the Kennedys and MLK, plus countless of their supporters and followers. Such blatant anti-democracy tactics have now reached new levels of power lust and greed under the oh so fascist, manipulative Neocons.

Consider Neocon “spook” surveillance and infiltration into so many organizations and efforts, certainly including numerous peace, and justice, and political and governmental organizations and operations The first such governmental operation that comes to my mind is the democratic and fundamental act of voting and having that vote count. No big secret – vote fraud’s gone broad based and high tech.

Here’s reality, as painful as it may be to face – we’ve lost democracy. And the “change” our almost president Obama has promised to render must first and foremost address this loss of democracy, and all the constitutional violations that go and have gone unchallenged and all too often hide and have been hidden under the guise of “security against terrorism.” In the words of the head of Grandmothers for Peace International, we must become our own media, a job Bob Nemanich did so well following the Democratic assembly when he, acting in his co-ordinator position with the Obama campaign, sent out an email far and wide with a request for info. on the intimidation and disenfranchisement that occurred at the Democratic county assembly in February, 2007.

Bob wanted identified who it was who had stood at the door and turned away countless elected delegates and alternates, many of whom had dangerously been kept standing outside in the bitter cold for hours. How tragic it is that question even had to be asked by Bob and the party vice chair Jay Ferguson, since the Democratic party chair, John Morris, was most certainly aware who this person at the door was – former NSA operative and then current chair of the local A.C.L.U., and now chair of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, William Durland. Certainly Morris knew who Durland was and what he’d been assigned to do, just as Morris knew and knows who Durland is and what he does when Morris recently authorized that complaints re. voting “irregularities” be sent to Durland.

And how tragic it was and is that Morris, supposedly a staunch Democrat and chair of the local party, praises people such as El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink, the same official who ousted me from his office in Oct. of 2006 as I attempted to cast an early vote and refused to take off my small “Grandmothers for Peace” button. Very recently and far more outrageously, Balink attempted to disenfranchise Colorado College students and keep them from voting, attempting to intimidate their parents with a threat of IRS involvement. Disenfranchisement and intimidation. Isn’t there a pattern?

And what role has and does Colorado Springs being a major “fusion center” play in these and all the other totally undemocratic and unconscionable incidents we’ve experienced here in Colorado Springs – for example, the tear gassing of peaceful demonstrators as they gathered prior to our entry into the Iraq war? Similar tear gassing occurred at that time only in one other city on earth – Athens, Greece. Then there was the brutalizing of the peace demonstrators during the 2007 St. Patrick’s Day Parade – their offense was wearing a uniform of sorts, green shirts with peace signs. They peacefully marched and rode under permit in the parade, and suddenly were brutalized beyond belief. Guess what? No national press coverage, even though one of the top stories of the year happened that day – the dragging in the street by a cop of Elizabeth Fineron, a physically disabled former nun, until she was raw and bleeding on her thigh and stomach, an act of torture still available for view on the internet and in photos which appeared in the Independent. Talk about terror!

Cursed until the day of her death with post traumatic stress disorder following her being so brutalized, Elizabeth died a year and a month later, the victim of a fully “infused” Colorado Springs Police Department. Next came the arrest, handcuffing and removal of two peace demonstrators at the 2008 Democratic State Convention, along with the destruction by police of the support poles for the banner. Their true offense was standing outside police lines, holding up a banner that asked: “Dems, please stop funding the war in Iraq.” Waiting to enter the arena to take part in the convention, elected delegates and alternates cheered the demonstrators, as simultaneously, unidentified persons, standing on a nearby hotel roof with a hyperbolic dish, surveilled and recorded the entire arrest incident. The official offense the police initially charged the peace demonstrators with was “obstruction,” but that charge was almost immediately abandoned and replaced with the charge of “trespass.” Guess who would be the party to bring and pursue such a complaint of trespass? You guessed it – the leaseholder of the convention site, the Colorado state Democratic party!

And then came the request by the head of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, at that time but no longer located behind the Independent in a building which the Indy owns, for police to appear and question and possible place under arrest four individuals, myself included, who sat in folding chairs in a streetside parkway outside the J&P office for an hour one spring evening and discussed the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver. We considered what “infusion” style police tactics might be (and unfortunately were) used on peace demonstrators. Once again, it’s difficult to miss the pattern of disenfranchisement and intimidation.

Rather than standing watch on the constitution and democracy and asking the hard but vital questions that are the basis of all good critical thinking, the U.S. has allowed itself to be spun by the greed and power mongers and their corporate controlled mass media into a state of “La La Land.” Not only was Elizabeth Fineron a victim of a fully “infused” Colorado Springs Police Department, but the peaceful older disabled woman, an Obama supporter, a teacher who dedicated herself to peace and justice for all, was a victim also of a naive, consumption preoccupied, unquestioning and not sufficiently concerned U.S. populace.

It’s increasingly apparent that what all this spells: COUP! Certainly we all, under the leadership of our man Obama, need to address the Neocon-insurged “IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID” peril we find ourselves in. But until we place as our number one priority the return of true vs. token democracy, and do what it takes to “UNDO THE COUP,” we’ll continue to be at the mercy of the military/industrial/corporate power and greed mongers who, like Bob’s old school friends, think we Americans are stupid, should not be able to vote, and believe democracy is a quaint, antiquated, naive institution. Our democracy, which has been tortured, waterboarded, and all but done away with over the years, will be beyond resuscitation if we don’t clearly concentrate on the root of the problems underlying the economic and total undemocratic mess we’re in today.

Let’s keep the faith, and Obama-style hope. Let’s honor of all our U.S. brothers and sisters who, along with Elizabeth Fineron, have donned a uniform and fought and died for their country – for democracy and the constitution, for lasting peace and fundamental justice. Let’s rejoice in the not so minor miracle that’s happened – the election of Barak Obama. Let’s celebrate his inauguration. Let’s push hard and fight peacefully but firmly for the change we so desperately need. And let’s never stop reminding our soon to be President Obama that we’re counting on him to bring about the change he’s promised – the change we so need and long for.

President Obama, congratulations, and never forget – we want to help you and your appointees to UNDO THE COUP!

Rita Ague

Arab dictator allies of US line up in support of Israeli terrorism against Gaza

Silence. Or worse yet even, efforts to blame Hamas instead of Israel for the new slaughter in Gaza. That’s what the US allied Arab dictatorships imposed on the Arab world offer their people. Complicity. Many of these Sunni Arab elites (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et cetera) are eager for the US to hammer the Shiite led Iranians, and have no solidarity at all with their own poor let alone the Palestinian poor of Gaza…. or Palestinians elsewhere for that matter. This is the opening battle of the war to bring about regime change in Iran for the Washington, D.C. rat class, and the Arab dictatorships controlled by the US government are fully behind the effort.

Meanwhile the corporate media in the US and Britain keep a tight lid on the spin of the actual news, all in support of their own imperialist ruling cabals. At least, the European Union and the United Nations have had the decency to tokenly oppose this slaughter by this Jewish/ Christian Corporate Alliance centered in the US, Great Britain, and Israel. Everybody around the globe pretty much knows who holds the big guns, and it is the US government and its immediate side kicks that do. Everybody realizes that there is always the big price to pay if one gets too out of line with what these gangsters want from them.

The US antiwar community, dominated by phony ‘Peace’crat types, are immobilized. It seems that the script promised by the ‘Peace’crats with an Obama victory were as false as they come. They all voted for Obama and now don’t know what exactly to do? Really going out and protesting against their rulers is something that might make them embarrassed and scares them no end. Locally, not a word from the office clowns of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace De-Commission, with them only wanting to turn the other cheek from reality, though reality just keeps on beating them about their public face.

So now we know why the Arab World hates us so? It has to do with their own gang of thugs kept in power by the US government. The US and Israel have even turned the Arabs into hating the PLO, now that the leader of the PLO, Abbas, is totally controlled by our sorry leaders in Washington, D.C. What a mess! And the world keeps on just getting more and more dangerous, more and more messed up, day after day. Nobody has any ‘national security’ these days, thinks to the Democratic and Republican gangsters that almost all voting Americans backed in the last election.

This Israeli bombing of mainly children Arab youngsters living in the most horrible poverty and isolation in Gaza, is their work. Aren’t you proud you voted for this, if in fact you did? Haven’t heard a word from Obama, have you? What does he care if a community of overwhelmingly young children is shut off, starved to death, and then bombed? He’s not for change at all. He’s simply for allowing the Jewish community of Israel to be allowed to steal yet more land from the Arabs that owned it.

UN Ambassador speaks of the hidden genocide against the Somali people

The UN envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, has said there is a “hidden genocide” taking place in the country. Left unsaid is that it is the United States of America that is responsible for this genocide, but at least the reality of the massacre was broadcast to the world so that hopefully some action might be taken, Somalia facing ‘hidden genocide’ What does it say about the character of the American people what they have done to Somalia?

Here in Colorado Springs, there is a group of pacifist liberal voters for the Democratic Party organized in the so-called Pikes Peak Justice and Peace commission. They have agitated through public rallies for more US military intervention into Africa despite being nominally a ‘Peace’ organization. They have done this saying that more US intervention into Africa was necessary to stop genocide from taking place! So one asks what have they said about this genocide against the people in Somalia where their own US government has been responsible for? What have they done to stop it? The answer to both these questions is that they have totally ignored what was going on. It has been of no interest to them.

Something very similar to this has taken place on the national level at the United for Peace and Justice ‘Peace’crat group, and all their local affiliates. What does that say about the character of the American liberal community? It really says to the general public that their supposed ‘protestations’ for ‘Peace’ should be taken with a big grain of salt. It also says that when these same people get onto the band wagon talking about genocide in regions of Sudan where the US government is itching to get further involved for multiple reasons all having absolutely nothing to do with stopping any sort of mayhem, that one should also weigh their inaction about not caring the least about people in Congo and Somalia, not to mention the continent of Africa as a whole. After all, the US government has been responsible for the destruction that is now causing this genocide in Somalia, but the liberal ‘Peace’crat voice is on MUTE.

The best we in the US can do to stop world genocides from taking place, is simply to understand the negative role ALL Us government intervention plays in creating world war zones. Their is not a positive role the US military has to play as long as we have a government run by the military-industrial-government complex. To call on this complex to do nice and decent things is just absolutely the worst thing to do. The call should be to eliminate this monstrous danger to the world, not advocate for its use somewhere or other.

UN Ambassador Abdallah’s voice will be ignored by the Powers that caused the hidden and silent genocide to occur in the first place unless other voices rise up and speak out. You won’t win many friends at the ‘Peace’crat groups for doing so, but doing so is a necessity. The US government is responsible for multiple genocides around the world taking place and we must move against the ‘Peace’ groups that barricade action from forming against these policies of Pentagon slaughtering. It’s time to get to work and demand better than what the liberal Democrats will ever have to offer.

US and Britain are starving Zimbabwe to death

zimbabwe currencyThe so-called US government’s ZIMBABWE DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT passed in 2001, began the US/ British efforts to starve Zimbabwe to death in a form of war called “Economic Sanctions.” This was a process similar to how the Clinton Administration began to kill off Iraq with economic sanctions that served to soften that country up for the Bush Administration invasion and subsequent occupation of that country, now to be managed once again by a Democratic Party presidency under Barack Obama.

The results in Zimbabwe have been equally as appalling as to what has been done to Iraq as inflation now runs at 231,000,000%! That’s right, you read that correctly. See BBC’s report Zimbabwe inflation hits new high

The background can be read about, too, at newzimbabwe.com… Economic sanctions undermine Zimbabwe’s economy, where one can find out about the role the International Monetary Fund played in beginning the warfare against Zimbabwe’s now starving people.

That’s right, and as people are starving to death in Zimbabwe due to the British and US government war against that country,there are those liberal fools who, ignoring the lessons of Somalia, Congo, and Zimbabwe, actually want the British and US governments to increase their military interventionism into Sudan! They call that humanitarian, too! In fact, our own local Colorado Springs ‘Peace’crats of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission are just some of those people, who call for interventionism even as they parade themselves off as pacifists. Not heard one word from them about Zimbabwe though. And mums the word for them about Afghanistan and Somalia, too, countries which are in similar dire straights due to US government imposed wars.

The US Antiwar Movement needs to wake up to where the wars are on fast, and to who’s the government pushing this stuff (their own). I’m from Texas and though I like the group ‘Asleep at the Wheel’, but when you see DP voting liberals driving while as asleep at the wheel as the local pacifists are, then it just makes one want to throw up IMO. Very sad, because the people of Zimbabwe, as elsewhere, certainly need some coherent support for their liberation. And I don’t just mean from Mugabe either, but from the US government and all its vampirish European government allies, too.

What Joe Lieberman says about Obama’s ‘new’ regime?

bush-lieberman-pinObama Wants Lieberman To Remain In Democratic Caucus The Huffington Post frames their thoughts along the lines of whether to have Lieberman ‘punished’ or not? But that is wrong. The real question is whether the 2 parties will have any differences between them at all, and Obama is answering that clearly by saying that it is not necessary?

The Obama presidency will in many ways be a modern day updated version of the Gerald Ford Administration. What happened with Gerald Ford was that he was a criminal inside the Nixon group (Nixon’s Vice President, in fact), who Nixon worked out an agreement with the Democratic Party and Gerald Ford himself, to have Ford be put into the White House and grant him a pardon for the crimes he had committed. YES, burglarizing other people’s papers is a felony and Nixon was a felon, but no charges were ever brought against him! And even worse, no criminal charges were ever brought against any of those most responsible for the entire chain of US government atrocities delivered across SE Asia over so many years.

Well, we now have the Barack Obama return of the Democratic Party to White House power, and Barack’s stance on Joe Lieberman is an indicator that no admittance of any criminal charges will ever be brought against the Bush Klan, an Administration that oversaw torture used against POWs, illegal invasions of other peoples’ countries, and many, many war crimes against civilian populations. His ‘let’s let bygones be bygones’ attitude towards Joe Lieberman underscores the direction he will take towards the criminality of the entire Bush collection of gangsters.

What moral bankruptcy here! How easy it would be for Barack Obama to state that YES the Democratic Party must stand for something different and Joe Lieberman is not that! Here is a man who supposedly ran on CHANGE and no change is obviously what we are getting…. JOE LIEBERMAN underlines that in spades. The ‘new’ regime in fact is not a new regime, but the very same old one that was there in place 8 years ago. That regime itself committed untold murders directed against the Iraqi people, and in fact, prepped the Bush Administration to do the dirty work it did. And all along, Joe Lieberman was there as part of that gang of Democrat-Republicans responsible.

Joe Lieberman also underlines the bankruptcy of those who have tried to turn Al Gore into some sort of cult figure. Her in the local ‘Peace’crats group, the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, they even had study sessions about the ‘Thoughts’ of Gore! At Common Dreams, a ‘Peace’crat group that has now censored me from being able to read even their website let alone post comments there, worship of Al Gore ‘thought’ is a steady feature. How easy it seems for these ‘Peace’crats to forget that Joe Lieberman was exactly who Al Gore chose to run alongside him in 2004. But Democratic Party tied voters are a rather shameless lot I think, and a rather thoughtless crew to boot.

No, there will be no prosecution of any of the major US war criminals for their crimes, and Barack Obama is playing his role as the modern day Gerald Ford to the hilt. The news will just keep getting worse and worse and worse in this regard. This is no regime CHANGE at all, and we have not gotten US troops withdrawn from their detrimental role throughout the entire world at all. The same gangs are still ruling over us, and Barack Obama is now head to the troop. No criminal charges, just pardons will rule the day.

Christian Love Video

crossMonks brawl at Jerusalem shrine. This reminds me of when some of our local liberal Christian ‘Peace’ monks called the police on us for trying to meet to plan antiwar activities at their Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission Shrine in downtown Colorado Springs. I wonder now how their new smaller shrine will be doing now that it has reopened.
 
Barack Obama HQ moved into their previous larger shrine. It certainly figures….

Rahmbo shoots down ‘Peace’crats fast

RamboHow fitting it is that the first announcement of a major figure in the newly forming Obama Administration is a pro-war Zionist nicknamed Rahmbo. Rahmbo accepts job as White House chief of staff Yes, with Rahmbo, Barack Obama is already shooting down the ‘Peace’crats who stubbornly refuse to do anything other than stumble about with HOPE in their teary eyes. It’s a HISTORICAL moment of stupidity on their parts for these Regressives.

Rahmbo comes straight out of the Democratic Party Mis-Leadership camp, too. A rabid Clintonite with a long history of toeing party line under Slick Willie. No… Make that he was one of the chief formulators of Slick Willieism and made the lines to be toed! Now how do we spell… NO CHANGE HERE?

Here from wikipedia is more info about Rahmbo Emanuel’s previous history… ‘Emanuel is noted for his strong style and his fundraising prowess.[2] He is co-author with current Democratic Leadership Council President Bruce Reed of the 2006 book The Plan: Big Ideas for America.’ More like more deep doo-doo for America, don’t you think?

I already have run into trouble with the Democratic Party’s ‘Peace’crats, having had them call the police on us for trying to meet locally here as more Left leaning members in Colorado Spring’s so-called Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission tried to hold a planning discussion for Peace action. And just today, the major website of the Democratic Party loving ‘Peace’crats, CommonDreams.organization booted me off from being allowed to read material there! I kid you not! They put me into a loop where I cannot log into their site to read material that most all others can read without logging in. I have been shunned! Boo-hoo-hoo??? Oh, Praise Their Lord, Barack Obama! My crime? I linked to the commentary here on NMT where I said that Obama would get us out of Iraq by taking us into Iran… Sacrilege! Block the Messenger!

The directions Obama is headed towards is a pretty obvious political place for the Democrats. He is headed to being the Commander-in-Chief of a country glued to imperialism and war. His party is headed toward continuing to try to prop up the total system of Military Welfare spending that our country is known for. No change here, My Friends. And the rest of the world, contrary to corporate reporting in this country, is not waiting a ‘new’ Adminstration with baited breath. Rahmbo and others soon to be announced will shoot down the “Peace’crats fast. They already have. And the whole world prtty much knows that already.

PPJPC office now only hoping for peace

old PPJPC officeCOLORADO SPRINGS- They couldn’t endorse Obama as the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, so the leadership closed their office and let the Obama campaign move in. The proverbial jury can now only pin its hope that the Democrats will promise peace, but the PPJPC office is no longer in the business. The staff and board have abandoned its membership, who represented a profound core of the local peace community.

Ehud Olmert does the Jimmy Carter shuffle!

Ehud Olmert
Jimmy Carter is the American adept at doing the religious thing. He began his campaign for president with the political announcement that he had been supposedly ‘born again’ through Jesus, and he has continued to fool the naive with the same schtick. Many religious pacifist liberals types adore his book about Israeli Apartheid, and see it as almost the Second Coming of Jimmy! Now, we have the ex-Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert, copy-catting the great Peanut Farmer and shuffling along with this own form of ‘rebirth’. It’s all a big song and dance!

The Capitalist System always has its carrot and stick pluralism moving full steam, and that is the role these political ‘conversions’ play, whether it be Bloody Al Gore, Jimmy ‘Peace’ Carter, or Ehud Olmert. Take these players all in with a big grain of salt. Uri Avnery, the great Jewish Israeli good heart seemingly doesn’t as he takes ‘the conversion’ of Olmert at face value in his most recent commentary, Olmert’s Final Divorce
From “All of Eretz Israel”

This type of political manipulation is borrowed from the churches, where the pastors and mullah rabbis are specialized in providing fake emotion to their masses of Believers. Benny Hinn anybody? Just a little over a year ago, I saw an example of this role playing at the Colorado Springs City Council meeting, where pastor emeritus of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, Jim White, turned the liberal crocodile tears on in full display. It was a fountain, in fact. He literally wept in front of his amazed audience as he asked the mayor and the council folk, ‘Why are we always so misunderstood?’ It was the most comical display imaginable! I say that because if I have ever seen glowing hatred in the eyes of anybody, it was in the face of Pastor Jim White when crossed. You can see that steely glare in Jimmy Carter’s eyes, too, if you only look a little.

So Ehud Olmert now wants peace with The Natives? What a con! He had the chance to achieve that but made no effort at all to concretize a Peace Initiative. Now he wants to play the saint in his retirement? What a bunch of throw up! These politicians always have all the personal character of ‘good’ used car salesmen, which is to say none. Watch the show but do not be taken in.

Lack of democracy in the PPJPC should not hide behind religiosity

Two PPJPC board members, Genie Durland and Dorothy Schlaeger, wrote to The Colorado Springs Independent trying to explain why the group’s officers locked some of its membership out of the PPJPC building where we had tried to hold a meeting.

To compound the insult of locking us out of the building, the new Board Director, Jo Ann Neiman, then called the police when she saw us still attending our meeting on the sidewalk in front of the PPJPC building! She explained to the police that she wanted us to be told that we were all trespassing!

So what did Genie and Dorothy have to say about all of this?

In short, they implied that we, the members of the PPJPC who wanted to meet inside the PPJPC rented building, were violence-prone, and they used a bunch of excessive religiosity about Gandhi to do so! They mixed their own liberal religious beliefs together with what they see as the teachings of the Hindu religious leader, Gandhi. Here is how they justified the current board director calling the police on us,

‘Many who consider themselves “peace activists” across the globe engage in tactics, which fail to engender peace. PPJPC is deeply committed to nonviolence and will neither engage nor support activism employing tactics inconsistent with Ghandian nonviolence.’

Genie and Dorothy, I might ask you both, what is ‘Gandhian’ nonviolent about suggesting we are violence-prone when we are not that in the least? You do the rather violence-prone Colorado Springs municipal police a big favor in labeling others amongst the PPJPC and general public in such a manner. You are actually encouraging police violence against us with this sort of rhetoric against us, who are all people that have in fact never engaged in any violent acts at all. In short, you are playing a game of Holier-Than-Thou and The Independent was absolutely correct in labeling and titling that as being ‘Malice in the Movement’.

What also is Gandhi-like in calling the police on us to tell us that we were supposedly trespassing by holding a nonviolent meeting, of all things? What is nonviolent in locking us out from the meeting we wanted to do inside of the PPJPC building, not out on the sidewalk? And most of all, what is nonviolent in a PPJPC organized to have a single membership meeting per year? That is undemocratic community organization, not nonviolence.

This is the real issue of concern, not whether to be tactically violent, as you falsely imply that it is. We tried to hold our meeting because we want some internal democracy within the PPJPC where now there isn’t any.

We want a group not controlled by paid office staff eating up tens of thousands of donated dollars in their salaries each year, just to run the group autocratically as they determine activities of their own making for non paid volunteers to carry out. This is non-sustainable situation in the long run, and it would be much better to help work out something, instead of locking members out of the PPJPC offices. Currently the group is headed towards a financial shipwreck and that is the Big Issue. The PPJPC has no real membership accountability at this time to check their deficit spending.

We also want a board picked by the activist , than have board members pick their own replacements beforehand and then present it as pre-determined fate to the rest of us who have no current voice in PPJPC policies. Most of all, we want a PPJPC that is not crippled by police interference into our own internal affairs. This has led to those who now hobnob at the police station with the cops in secret meetings then arranging affairs of the PPJPC where the cops are called out on other PPJPC members less religiously inclined than yourselves.

Most of all, this is about trying to make the PPJPC into something other than a religious-run clique, but into a true body of diverse people that for many different reasons are against the US government’s global militarism. You two are opposed to doing so, and hide behind the figure of Gandhi to oppose those who are. The religious and those not religious must be united in a Peace movement, not separated as you would have done.

Disagree with us if you will, but do not falsely label those who differ with you as being less non-nonviolent than yourselves. You are doing the work of the violence-eager police force and local government bodies when you do so. We respect your religious beliefs in nonviolence, but we ask you to not try to force these relgious beliefs that you have off on all others as you have currently justified doing so with your current letter to The Colorado Springs Independent.

We look forward to working with you together in the future as in the past inside the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission.

Betrayed by the at-peace community

With “malice,” is the word the CS Indy chose. Oh boy. For our out-of-town readers, the PPJPC dirty laundry has reached the printed news. It certainly is embarrassing, but probably too, about time. I’ve spent the last two years playing politely, leaving unresolved issues behind closed doors, painting optimistic pictures reflecting where I hoped the PPJPC could be. After the latest unfortunate escalation, I listened to entreaties to keep the developments between ourselves. Now why would it fall to me to keep a lid on somebody else’s indiscretions, without so much as an apology or expression of consideration from colleagues? No, thank you.

In fact, the response has been to try to impugn my integrity. Bring that one on.

I was sent into the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission with a mission, to discover why it appeared so dysfunctional. Participation was slacking and the office appeared to be dropping the ball. Why? I discovered a staff very determined to subvert all activities, period. In the guise of handy excuses. I’ve written plenty about outright insubordination, about refusal to rally membership, about foot-dragging with publishing, websites and fund-raising. To someone experienced with effective organizations it was obvious, to others steeped in social affinity groups, perhaps not so.

What I didn’t observe was that a cadre of members are quite satisfied to leave it that way. Now, from some of the more active people, I have become dismayed to discover the PPJPC doesn’t represent the Colorado Springs peace community, it represents the at-peace community.

Since my participation in Crawford Texas with Cindy Sheehan, through our Camp Casey encampment here, I saw that the PPJPC would not fully support the growing popularity of antiwar sentiment. The group takes credit for whatever happens, but won’t provide assistance. Now they’re actually hurting other efforts by playing the nonviolence card, implying that everyone else is not nonviolent enough. I defy anyone to tell me that I am not nonviolent. I’ll knock their metaphysical block right off their sagging shoulders!

Indeed, anger is considered violent, speech is considered violent. In a silent monastery I’d agree. And I underestimated the contemplative garden this group has commissioned for itself with the PPJPC. However, they are prepared to use every violent means of untruth, manipulation, shaming, and emotional extortion to protect their private prayer club.

I’m happy to leave it to them. I won’t fall again for pleas that their efforts need more and younger blood. They’re not prepared to open the doors to energetic people with higher expectations.

They claim to be the only game in town when it comes to standing up against war. That’s how they solicit donations. I think they ought to confess their game is spectator solitaire. Then there will be enough said.

El Paso County Democrats fight against local party leadership to UNDO THE COUP

Undo the CoupRita’s form response to the MOVEON.ORG FORM LETTER “Thanks so much for going to a Platform Meeting to urge that Al Gore’s energy challenge be part of the Democratic Party’s issue platform!”

Hi Noah:
Please note a correction. I did not go to a “Platform Meeting”, rather I am having one on Tuesday night, July 29. At that meeting, we will allow attendees to list and prioritize issues, and we’ll send results to both the DNC and directly to Obama Headquarters in Chicago.

One of the main reasons for this approach is that a group of us (I was one of a group of eight or nine) was elected as a Platform Committee at the El Paso County Democratic Assembly. The entire assembly elected us, choosing from a number of nominees. Open nominations occurred.

Within days, the local party had unseated and disbanded us, refusing even to allow those of us publicly elected to even know the names and contact information of the others elected. That same day, elected delegates and alternates had stood in the cold for hours, waiting to be allowed into the assembly, only (as I witnessed and signed an affidavit regarding) to be intimidated and turned away at the door by a former NSA man and recent head of the ACLU in this fair, fascist city of ours.

Soooo… such is life in our no longer a democracy city, county, state and nation. Goggle “Colorado Springs St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2007 police brutality” for an eyeful.

I am in the process of documenting numerous instances of violations of civil rights by elected and appointed officials and so called supporters of the progressive movement here in the last couple of years, including the arrest of two peace demonstrators at the recent Colorado State Democratic Convention, and the attempted arrest eight days ago of four people of peace as we (yes, I was among them) were leaving from a brief meeting on a public easement in front of the building that houses Pikes Peak Justice and Peace, an organization with a new chair of the board who asked the police to cite us for trespass.

So yes, we will certainly be considering Al G ore’s excellent proposals. One planned attendee has already stated to me that he considers renewable energy sources vital, and wants to end reliance on coal and new strip and other types of coal mining.

But our emphasis may well turn first in priorities to ways and means of “Undoing the Coup” in what was once a democratic nation, i.e. supporting and cooperating in Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s proposed congressional investigation into the activities/surveillance/infiltration of police and others. We will also be considering various ways and means of insuring that the vote be legitimately counted and recorded, etc.

Hope MoveOn can and will continue its great work and support all the vital “UNDO THE COUP” efforts that are needed so desperately. Thanks many times over for all you do and have done.

-Rita Ague

The DNC Alliance for Real Democracy is a counter-protest Fifth Column

Denver DNC 2008DENVER, COLO.- The Alliance for Real Democracy (ARD), formed to counter the scrappily-named Recreate 68 at the DNC, is in reality an unwitting fifth column, set up by Democratic Party allies to temper protest in Denver. The UFPJ and other sundry “non-violent” progressives are funneling their members into the less populist ARD actions to divert participation from the major DNC demonstrations. But the aforementioned underwriters aren’t providing any funding, surprise! Leaving the ARD to protest exactly what it’s supposed to: nothing.

Alliance for Real DemocracyI think it’s heartbreaking to watch earnest young activists, representing the organizations comprising the ARD coalition, trying to organize activities without any commitment from their national affiliations. And some of the more outspoken national leaders, keen to make appearances at the DNC rallies, are beginning to smell a rat. They’re making backup arrangements to coordinate with the boots on the ground, R-68.

A Fifth Column refers to a group of partisans, usually spontaneously organized, which forms behind enemy lines as a conquering army approaches. It is the additional “column” of civilian fighters which an attacker might count on to stab the defenders in the back. Franco boasted of his fifth column in the Spanish Civil War. The French Resistance represented a fifth column for the Normandy liberators.

America’s antiwar movement has had its steady divisions, between UFPJ and A.N.S.W.E.R. most notably, but the rift has become more critical with the advent of another hopeful Democratic election win. Four years ago it was Kerry, with groups like Moveon.org trying to tone down the antiwar rhetoric. This year it’s Obama, and the appeasers are out in battalions. As usual, it’s done in the name of “nonviolence,” where too vigorous protest is seen as insufficiently nonviolent for the Democrat’s fragile delusions.

When R-68 began the groundwork for DNC protests, they were vilified for evoking the Chicago 1968 police riots. R-68 repudiated the violence, but not surprisingly those statements have yet to be reported in print. Meanwhile the bad press gave UFPJ and other nonviolence apostles the opportunity to break away and form their holy alliance to give their members sanctuary from the ruffians, re unpredictable young people.

But will it really? The R-68 group includes Unconventional Denver and Disrupt 08, but neither have violent plans. Black Block script-kiddies will turn up no matter whose event. Police agent provocateurs will instigate violence no matter how pious your crowd.

Code Pink, IVAW, Veterans For Peace, and UFPJ are among the national endorsers of ARD. Tent State, SFPJ, and Students for a Democratic Society are examples of young activists getting caught in their elders’ tar baby.

Because it’s not enough to vote for Obama, you have to quash dissent for Obama. It’s the Alliance For Real Democracy For Obama.

Naturally Denver protest organizers, whether ARD or R68, have found themselves having to confer about time slots and permits, out of respect for the success of each other’s activities. As a result, the national head of UFPJ, Leslie Cagan, issued an email decreeing that no ARD organization member would participate in the major Aug 24 kickoff antiwar demonstration. This drew question marks from prominent activist leaders who want to be at the biggest rally.

Bi-monthly CONSULTA meetings were scheduled by ARD and R68 to coordinate efforts. But the morning before the second Consulta, Leslie Cagan flew in from NYC for an emergency meeting with ARD leadership to brief them on what not to negotiate. She followed this with a hastily scheduled press conference the next day on the subject of Iran, it appeared to preempt her rivals’ DON’T BOMB IRAN action planned for August 2nd.

Colorado Springs own PPJPC is an endorser of ARD. Their letter of support was read into the minutes of a recent meeting, and it read like the typical support they’re getting from everyone. I’ll paraphrase the PPJPC letter:

“We at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission are honored to endorse your efforts at the DNC … due to critical funding shortages, we cannot offer you any monetary support at this time … Likewise, I’m sorry that I will not be able to participate in any events that week , but will try to interest our members in attending…” We’ll be with you in spirit, etc.

Why form a fifth column if you’re not going to support it? Because the ARD‘s job is to do nothing. Doing nothing is exactly how you stab activism in the back.

Stop the War On Iran!

It may not be clear in Colorado Springs that the national antiwar movement is trying to deal with the probability for a coming military attack on Iran, because the local group Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission has planned nothing so far. They are asleep at the wheel downtown in the PPJPC offices. United for Peace and Justice has called for a series of actions next week, but where are the local paid crew at PPJPC here in town? MIA once again?

The national United for Justice Peace and Justice (UFPJ) has 5 suggestions for local actions, of which #2 and #5 seem to be the most important ones to take. Here they are listed below…

2) Ask your mayor to sign on to a resolution urging the Bush administration to pursue diplomatic engagement with Iran. At least 36 mayors have already signed on — now is the time to approach your mayor! For more information visit the Cities for Peace website.

5) You can organize a visible presence in a busy location in your town: a vigil, an afternoon of leafleting or tabling, a human billboard, etc. Be sure to pick a time and location that has a lot of pedestrian or vehicle traffic!

The local group pays out $600 a week in salaries to 3 guys who seem to be only there in the offices to pull down their salaries? I sincerely doubt that any of these 3 would be there without the money they get in their paychecks. Why are they not organizing these vigils suggested? Why are they not organizing municipal government resolutions against US government use of torture and against plans to go to war with Iran? That’s what they should be getting the money paid to them to be doing. What are they doing instead?

Not only is it the national UFPJ that is planning actions nationwide, but also another national grouping called StopWarOnIran.org. They are planning demonstrations on August 2 around the country. Where is our local PPJPC in the planning of these events? What is their unaccountable to no one other than themselves Board of Directors doing to plan for this event? Where are the 3 office staff who think it their business to impede others and keep organization of the group entirely under their control, even as their salaries are bankrupting the group? Why are they always doing nothing?

Time is running out to do activities against this planned war with Iran, BEFORE the attack occurs. The PPJPC here in Colorado Springs simply is not doing the work that needs to be done. This group needs to be reorganized so that it is not run top down, but bottom up. Organize today to stop this war on Iran from happening.

The many methods of US military torture

Waterboarding 1) Isolation 2) Simulated drowning or ‘waterboarding’ 3) Sexual humiliation and/or rape 4) Forced positioning 5) Sleep deprivation 6) Refusal to allow legal representation 7) Refusal to state the ‘evidence’ being used against prisoners
8 ) Refusal to classify POWs as being actual POWs instead of criminal prisoners 9) Trying POWs as if they were civilians, even though they are being tried in military courts 10) Refusing to inform families of POWs that their relatives are in custody

Hey, that’s quite a few methods of US government use of torture, is it not? And to think that they are still trying to pretend that they are not using torture! And to think that the United Nations has taken no actions against the US government for using torture! And to think that the local peace group here in Colorado Springs, the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, still has not found itself capable of asking the city council to pass a city resolution against the US government use of torture! Sad…

BTW, that photo is a picture of US troops ‘waterboarding’ a POW in Vietnam. You can click on the photo to see those American faces better. They’ve always used torture on POWs from other countries, so why support them? Why support the US troops in doing what they do?

DC lies about its massacres of Afghan civilians

Those that have paid the slightest attention to recent events in Afghanistan will have noted the lies of the US government where they claimed that their bombings had not this past week hit and killed any civilians at all. The reality is quite different though. We might note however that the BBC covers its report of these lies by putting the word civilians in parentheses! How indecent the press is in covering up for the liars of DC and London. US ‘killed 47 Afghan civilians’ They are part of the lying and pretense, too.

But let’s think for a second about who is making these accusations about killing civilians? It is the British and US puppet government in Afghanistan itself! So why put the word civilians in parentheses? This is shameful behavior by the servile press of the US and Britain, is it not? They just have to continue to lie on behalf of their own governments? It makes themselves look utterly stupid in doing so.

What does it say about our societies, where we have governments that torture poor countries like Afghanistan with occupation, war, and bloody mayhem? Look in the mirror, Public. Why have you not protested against these atrocities?

I especially find the role of the local ‘peace’ group the PPJPC repugnant in this regard. I am about the only member of this group that has ever even mentioned the word ‘Afghanistan’ in any of their banners and signs, activities and events. Instead they are out there hugging cops, ‘talking’ it over with Fort Carson Pentagon propaganda whores, etc. Meanwhile, the bloody assault on the people of Afghanistan goes on without any ‘peace’ group attention! Just pathetic!

We need to stop believing in the DC Pentagon lies about what they are doing in Afghanistan. This was is every bit as badly intentioned as the war against Iraq is. Just because the Democratic Party is so onboard in their Afghan adventure is no reason for supposed antiwar groups like the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission to sit on their butts about the issue of US atrocities there.

War and injustice are worries no longer

The PPJPC at mid-week, no visitors and nobody home
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.- Have I missed something, is the war over? Is militarism on the wane, injustice and inequity only distant memories? Why has the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, with its legions of dedicated members and earnest donors, decided to hibernate? Gone are the email notices, the meetings, the actions and the leadership. Gone evidently are volunteers and office activity. All of this follows a recent fund drive where membership dues were solicited only three months after last year’s takings. To pay for what? A full staff returning nothing to the members? Check out the inaction online or at [in]Active For Justice. Did the PPJPC lose its commission to represent the peace community? I have to hope so.