Tag Archives: Pikes Peak Justice and Peace

Press gloats over split in Antiwar Movement up in Denver

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The Gazette of Colorado Springs today published a national AP report gloating about how activists planning protests in Denver during the Democratic Party convention have been split into two different organizing groups. The Denver Post, too, has a commentary about this split… Convention protest hit by groups’ split The cops and corporate press could not be happier with this unfortunate development.

The split has several causes, not least of is that Democratic voters amongst Peace-antiwar group’s memberships really don’t want much of a protest at the Democratic Party Convention at all. Here in Colorado Springs we have the same phenomena, where many Democratic Party glued liberals are doing all they can to ignore the Denver protests and will avoid at all lengths going 1- hour North to participate in them.

The local Colorado Springs based Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission is currently playing dead on dealing with this upcoming big Colorado event. Their 3 paid staffers and Board cliquers have other things on their agenda, like perhaps napping for a year or so? Don’t look for them to help build up much (if any?) of a good vibe for going up to Denver to protest there. Heck, the word ‘protest’ is kinda radical, is it not? And these people are as ‘peaceful’ as deep sleep. They only get violent when woken from their sleep, in fact.

Actually there really is little of a new split here. Those who want to protest will, and those that don’t want to protest will try to hinder those that do. What else is new these days in antiwar circles? The Democratic Party people amongst us really should be labeled Inactivists.

Torture by America, Mayor Lionel Rivera, and the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission

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The issue of how the US government under the Bush Administration, with the help of its Democratic Party and Republican Party collaborators, has legalized and openly allowed the use of torture despite it being internationally illegal is a big issue in our country. Many Americans are up in arms about this, and rightly so. One of the first duties that the pro-Peace/ antiwar community must do is to fight to end governmental use of torture on prisoners held. Common sense guides us on this one. We have to stop open US governmental use of torture NOW.

So where is the local Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission on this one? This is a group that has a pastor leading it at this time, and that also has 3 paid staff members working in its office. What are they doing to fight governmental use of torture against captured prisoners?

It has been months now when I first brought up the need for the PPJPC to demand that the city government pass a resolution against governmental use of torture. After all, Colorado Springs is a part of the USA, so governmental torture of prisoners is something done in our name.

Yes, they do claim that we have a democracy here in the US, so it is claimed that our government represents all of us when it makes policy decisions. Certainly a local peace group then should be demanding that government make the right policy decisions.

At the time it was proposed by me that the PPJPC make it our mission to go to the city government meetings held down at City Hall to try to get a resolution passed demanding an end to governmental use of torture, it was agreed that this was a good idea. It was agreed that the group would move on the issue.

Sad to say, the PPJPC has done absolutely nothing to bring any measure or resolution proposal to the mayor, Lionel Rivera, nor to the Colorado Springs city council. Nobody has ever in this group mentioned any reason to why it should not proceed with this campaign, but the paid office staff and pastor board director have merely chosen to silently do nothing.

These same people do often go to meetings arranged by the city police, where they then proceed to take their marching orders as to how to proceed with their ‘protests’, or not to proceed???, as spoon fed to them by Colorado Springs city attorneys. But they have not found the time to take a measure to the city government to demand that a resolution against the use of governmental torture be passed and sent to Washington DC. Do they really have any excuse for their inaction? I think not.

It is time that the PPJPC begin to carry out its mandate to oppose war and promote justice. We are not doing that at present, but instead are merely acting as a corporation, a non-profit one though. Yes at the present time, we in the PPJPC are of no particular profit to the community, since our group is failing to actually adequately fight on behalf of Justice and Peace.

We, as a group, are failing to demand something of Mayor Lionel Rivera and the city council, and are allowing them to be merely city government hacks captured by Pentagon and Lockheed Corporation. We, at the PPJPC, are failing in our mission to oppose war and injustice. We are failing at being a viable community action group, one that is activist and democratic. We are failing to oppose our government’s active use of torture on POWs.

European troops in North Africa are regionalizing Darfur conflict, not ending it

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French imperialist troops in Chad, backed by the US and UN, are helping regionalize and spread the Darfur fighting, rather than helping stop it. Since the entrance of these troops into the region, we have seen attacks on both the capital of Chad, and also on the capital of Sudan. See CHAD: STATE OF REBELLION section of BBC’s reporting.

Worse, the regionalization by US and European backed troops of the North African conflicts, threatens to also destabilize the peace accords in Southern Sudan, and also to spread new wars into the Horn of Africa, where the US has effectively destabilized peace for Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia! The UN now admits that it has helped create, working alongside the US, a greater humanitarian crisis in Somalia than currently exists in Darfur. Plus, the UN and US have hardly definitively settled down the conflicts of Eastern Congo, Burundi, Uganda, and Rwanda.

None of this has stopped the liberal bleeding heart imperialist community from demanding more US/ UN/ French/ British action in Africa. The entire US and British antiwar communities are riddled with these pro-war folk posing themselves off as Gandhian pacifists, who just want to stop genocides…. by calling in the troops!

This is the real desert cooked up by a supposed ‘peace community’ that is in love with hugging the cops, hugging ‘the troops’, and hugging the Democratic Party politicians. They hug the supposed ‘Green’ corporations and Pentagon, too! In the Colorado Springs area, these folk have all but totally taken over the PPJPC (Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission) non-profit corporation, hiding themselves behind Jesus in the mean time.

All the antiwar community faces a real battle against these pro-war forces inside the ‘peace’ community, masquerading as pacifists. Their real program is to glue the antiwar movement to the Democratic Party Right, immobilize public protest, and to defang and derail all activity outside of small little gatherings of the most conservative of liberals.

Meanwhile, the Darfur conflict is becoming further spread, the Iraq-Afghanistan conflict is being further spread, and the American public has lost all desire to fight against the Rightward shift of its corporate elites. What a mess! And the greatest impediment to moving forward from this impasse, is once again folk posing themselves off as being ‘liberals’. Very sad….

Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission

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The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission is not a real community group at all. Real constituent organizations hold membership meetings from time to time, but the Justice and Peace Commission doesn’t. Instead, worse than a Stalinist organization, the group holds one supposed general meeting per year, where a small clique presents ‘board’ decisions as fait accompli to any who are suckered into watching the show.

The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission structure is that of a small business board, whose principle concern is always to raise funds. The funds are principally to be used to maintain a managerial staff who take a proprietary view of the organization. The organization is seen as theirs to be run for others, which is exactly what they proceed to do. Actually, the others are most often seen to be mainly themselves, as the office staff constantly fight to continuously keep an income flow moving to help guarantee their continued employment.

Over the head of all this, is now a minister who runs ‘the board’ as if he was running a church. Churches are small businesses and despite the pious manner of the pastors, most often pastors act like small business owners. Originally, it was a group of nuns who set the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission into operation, modeled along the lines of a semi-liberal church group. Despite the pretense of the group to be representative of ordinary people, the group has maintained the same undemocratic mode of ‘business’ managing that currently exists, over several decades now.

The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission board sees itself as a wheeler and dealer with the local power establishment. As such, it does not want to appear to be too confrontational in any way, but rather to appear as a responsible element of the community. It constantly embraces ‘communication’ with the military, police, and city council as a result. In addition, it fears anything and anybody that might impede this ‘communication’.

The PPJPC is not truly an antiwar group or justice group at all, but has taken on many characteristics of being a ‘new age’ organization. That’s a pretty safe way of maintaining some semblance of appearance of being different, without ever having to defend much substance or real opposition to the established order at all.

The real problem is that many small semi-alternative businesses and churches in the community give backing to this sort of thing. Plus, like a company union, the PPJPC is something that the mainstream Power Establishment would rather deal with than the real thing, which would be a real community organization run in a more democratic manner

Southern Colorado deserves better than this as it would be much better to have a pro-Peace organization that is not run from top down like a small business. That’s what we should strive for.

Bleeding Hearted Liberals running small check-list businesses make my heart bleed

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All around America there are bleeding hearted liberals running small businesses… small social service businesses. As a general rule, too, liberals don’t run businesses very well. They’re too damn dumbly soft and sweet, that’s why. So we can begin to understand why all these ‘reform groups’ (like the local area’s Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission.. for just one example) don’t make much profit for the people they claim to be serving (even as they keep them out in droves from their social advocacy groups, run as small ‘businesses’).

Here is the type of thing I am talking about,

…from an article appearing in The Nation…
‘Check off the boxes, copy the paragraph from two years ago, mail it in. As an election year approaches, I again face the piles of questionnaires that progressive organizations use to evaluate public officials. Environmentalists, feminists, campaign finance reformers, housing advocates and labor unions have all come to rely on these lists of our positions–often on issues that never even come up for a vote. It should come as no surprise that, for the most part, all we get out of this cumbersome process is a long line of “checklist liberals” who answer correctly but do little to advance the progressive causes that underlie the questionnaires.’

The rest of this article can be found on the liberal’s very own Nation Magazine at Transforming the Liberal Checklist

OK, OK! So the rest of the article is not very good, much like the liberal organizations themselves, and The Nation Magazine is not very good, either. It was still a good and insightful first paragraph of an article at least!

And the commentary reminded me of all those fund raising letters, free stamps with animal pictures on them, and ‘surveys’ to find out my learned opinions, etc. Reminds me of all the wasted time sitting in meetings where bleeding hearted liberals talk about running THEIR small businesses. You see? The bleeding hearted liberals are most always the ‘owners’ of small socially aware businesses calling themselves community’ groups, which these groups having small office staffs then try to run the group like it was a church or tiny corner store of some sort.

Yes, the small office staff always begin to behave as if they were real owners of the store, much in the same way that some convenience store minimum wage workers will try to stop a robber of some sort or other, by risking their own lives over pennies that supposedly belong to the stock owners instead. These small would be owners can snarl and bite quite hard if given an opportunity to do so. They often overpower the petty ‘robbers’ of their unit with their forceful indignations than can border on madness of sorts. Some times they get popped for being so dimwitted, too.

So what to do about all the PEACE and GREEN and SOCIAL JUSTICE groups’ ‘leaders’ acting in our name? They operate much as the Democratic Party does, which is to impede rather than progress the people forward.

The runners of these small businesses calling themselves ‘peace and justice’ outfits, most often see themselves not as an elected group of leaders for exploited workers struggling for justice and peace, but as a group of independent networkers and business operators, forcefully headed for making more profit for their own personal businesses, the social groups. They spend more time being angry at any of the lower levels of the ‘co-ops’ managed by themselves than at the power elites that cause the social injustice they are supposedly fighting against. When angered by the lower elements, their faces can become quite bulldog-like.

Recently a certain word has come into great popularity with this sort of manager owner of social cause… that word being the word SUSTAINABILITY. Why so popular this word, and with these people? It is because it strikes a chord with the small manager/owner and his small manager/owner mindset. They want to know if their small business is SUSTAINABLE and if their position as head of the operation is SUSTAINABLE most of all? SUSTAINABILITY is their biggest goal of them all. And now of course, corporate America wants to help them become SUSTAINABLE.

This sort of group run as a small business with paid staff who think themselves owners is a very huge impediment to any real social action taking place. The main technique of ‘the owners’ who are salaried is simply to eat up other people’s time. They know that they can out last them in energy by simply doing this, and can come out on top when actual decisions are to be made. In other words, they are well positioned to stifle.

Like owners of any corporation, ‘the owners’ of supposed social groups get paid real money for their time while the volunteers do not. Is this the model of a social action group that will get things done? Most certainly not. Unfortunately though, it is the model structure for liberals and their do-nothing liberalism everywhere today in America…. small groups with a paid ‘leader’ or two, spouting ‘good things’, and doing next to nothing besides appearing to be seeminglygood people.

At the recent meeting of the executive board of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, it was totally noticeable that nobody there had anything of a working class background. In fact, the idea of justice for workers is totally absent from this group with ‘justice’ in its name. Being so church-like, this group throws the word in as if it were a bone to the lower classes so next to being sweet dogs in the eyes of these nice people. They were about as working class in composition as the ACLU is!… to give an idea of what the meeting was actually like. Nobody was ‘angry’, just sad. Or happy when seemingly a crumb from real power is thrown in their direction. And at this meeting it had been.

The City of Colorado Springs was going to let the group march in the St Pat’s Day Parade! All Hallelujah, Jesus! But that is about more than this little essay can talk about for the time being. Just let it be said, that liberals running small businesses that should be action groups make my heart bleed. Bleeding hearted liberals make poor businessmen and the conservative business men will tear them to part. Antiwar groups should not be run like they are small businesses. Probably enough said at this point.

Veterans and Peace

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Tomorrow is the annual Veterans Day Parade here in Colorado Springs and the local peace group, Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, has decided to hide in the shadows rather than attend this event with a message for PEACE. In taking this cowardly stance, they are betraying those veterans that oppose the war that is turning US soldiers and Iraqis alike into cannon fodder so that the US military-industrial complex can continue to grow and profit.

Also, this parade is heavily subsidized by our tax monies. The pretense that it is a private event is patently false, since many military units often attend these events all around the country. In short, we pay money to the government that maintains the military, and the government then parades the military through the streets demanding that both the government and its military be backed up in support for its invasions, occupations, and destruction of foreign countries.

The Justice and Peace Commission not only is failing to show support for veterans by not taking a pro-PEACE message to this parade, but is also failing to support the right of ALL citizens to speak freely in this city with out being clobbered by the police when the message is Against War, and not for it. This group just does not have its act together at this time, which is a crying shame.

Darfur

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Darfur AID not sanctionsYesterday’s Colorado College rally (October 29) by the interventionist group, ‘Save Darfur’, was quite an educational event. There, we got to see a train load of comfortable American speakers demand that we begin an economic war against a Fourth World country, Sudan, to be carried out by US corporations and the US government.

How could anybody be against that, their puzzled faces questioned those few of us that were there with signs against the increasing US military presence in Africa? Don’t you want to help the people of Darfur? As a matter of fact, we do, and that is precisely why we oppose groups like ‘Save Darfur’. They do not advocate economic assistance to Africans, but rather they advocate ‘policing’ them and dominating them from Washington D.C.

Not a word was said about opposing AFICICOM, the new Pentagon intervenionist command center designed to terrorize Africa. Not a word was said about the US use of Ethiopian troops to invade Somalia and overthrow the government there. The Eritrean government is predicting an attack on their country backed by the US government since they opposed, and continue to oppose, US actions against the people of Somalia. Not a word was said against US military aggression in Africa at the rally.

The mention of the US genocide against the Iraqi people met a shout from the crowd to ‘stay on focus’ about Darfur. Nobody talked about the need to end the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq by the Pentagon. Nobody talked about the genocide of the Palestinians by the combined US and Israeli governments’ aggression. Not a word was said against the what is being done in Gaza and Lebanon, Pakistan and Iran by current US foreign policy. Not a word was said in opposition to the so called ‘War on Terror’, a made-in-the-US war that breeds terror, and celebrates terror and torture everywhere. Not a word was said against US government torture and rendition of POWs to be tortured by other countries.

Instead, we were exhorted by the speakers to begin a campaign to blame China for African bloodshed! This campaign is to be brought to bear on the Sudanese government and China from the countries that have terrorized Africans for centuries! Nobody in the pro interventionist rally crowd seemed to see anything much wrong with this? Instead they acted as if their actions were some how saintly and divine.

They talked about genocide a lot, though even Jimmy Carter has just declared most recently that the killings in Sudan do not meet the defintion of being a genocide. We agree. See the Christiian Science Monitor report ‘Elders’ criticize West’s response to situation in Darfur…Brahimi says West ‘pampered’ rebels, while Carter calls US’s use of term ‘genocide’ to describe violence ‘unhelpful.’ We too want to see the civil war and bloodshed in Sudan to come to an end, but do not agree with the activities of the group ‘Save Darfur’.

The US has spent at least $2.5 trillion in tearing apart Iraq and Afghanistan. We call on the US to spend that sort of money to end poverty, war, and disease in Africa. Why isn’t ‘Save Darfur’ doing the same? Instead they are calling for troops to be sent in, economic war to be begun against an impoverished country, and blame to be cast on the developing country of China. We find this to be shameful, and say that the Peace Movement should not put its stamp of approval on this campaign by the misnamed ‘Save Darfur’.

Peace Now. Spend the war budget on human needs. End the bloodshed by holding our own government responsible, instead of calling for it to increase its intervention into other countries’ affairs. We demand that the US start an economic aid package, without strings attached, that gives billions of dollars of reparations for the crimes that our government has done to Africans over several centuries. Forgive all of Africa’s foreign debt now. That’s how you help the people of Darfur, not by urging US power plays to control African resources.

Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission must demand no more US intervention into the affairs of other nations.

The Blame China pro US interventionists come to town today

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The group Save Darfur comes to town with their Blame China pro-US interventionist campaign today at Colorado College. This campaign is heavily backed by the Democratic Party and is designed to take the heat off the Democrats for backing Bush’s genocide against the Iraqi people. Many people unfortunately seem to be falling for the con.

It is disgraceful that the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission is also slipping this antiChinese campaign onto its list of events to promote. Why? The Chinese are about the last nation to be blaming for all the bloodshed that European colonialism backed up by US imperialism has brought to the African continent. Instead of concentrating on the misdeeds of our own American government, some in the PPJPC seem intent on promoting US interventionism into Africa instead.

Sure, the liberal interventionists take great pains to hide their true program. They say they are trying to save lives, not trying to push US military interventionism in Sudan. But that that is not so is clear by their entire lack of any campaign to get the US out of Africa. Instead, they play the US government blame game and encourage its campaign against China.

Shame on you Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission! If there was any sort of democratic discussion and decision making inside this organization, maybe a stop could be put to this local push for US interventionism? But the organization seems totally undemocratic in structure, and little is being done to change that despite so many promises to do so.

It is time for this organization decide whether they will continue to encourage doing pro intervention work in favor of greater US involvement into African affairs, or not. It is one thing if individual members on their own bring in their signs and banners For US Intervention, but quite another when the organization as a whole encourages participation as a whole in these pro US interventionist campaigns.

US Out of Africa Now! It’s time to reign in the US military and not to call for yet more aggression against foreign countries. It’s time for the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission to stop playing dumb on the issue of US interventionism into other countries’ affairs, even when the media says it is all for a good cause.

Student Zionist group, Hillel, and Darfur

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Hillel, the US’s most prominent student Zionist group, is actively pushing for US intervention against and into Sudan. On their web site which passes itself off as progressive and green, you will not find any concern for the people of Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Somalia, or Afghanistan. All these being countries currently being torn apart by US interventions into their affairs.

Instead, Hillel is all into encouraging the notion that US and British imperialism is a benign humanitarian thing for the peoples of Sudan to experience, just as so many other colonized and semi-colonized peoples have. Onward Christian and Jewish soldiers, I guess?

One local activist who is often times connected with the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission through his work at Springs Action Alliance, is now celebrating Hillel’s work over at the University of Colorado in Boulder. There some students have erected a ‘shanty town’ to ‘call attention to Darfur’. Some of these folk were Hillel sutdents for sure.

The Springs Action Alliance’s most recent newsletter called our attention to this ‘shanty town’ constructed by a few students over at the UC at Boulder. This activist is concerned about Darfur. Good. He wanted us to know about this ‘shanty town’ build for us to try to get our support for intervention into Sudan.

I guess though that this individual has forgotten about the segregated shanty towns of White Apartheid South Africa that Zionist groups like Hillel enouraged Israel and the US to accept for decades? He, and other local liberal Darfur fetishists seemingly are blind to the allies they sometimes keep, it seems. They focus on Darfur alongside at many times a rather mixed crowd, Zionists included. These Zionists of today want us to forget about Apartheid shanty towns, and to think that Muslims are putting people into shanty towns instead of Christian Whites, or Jews.

These liberals that push us to become more concerned about Darfur don’t seem to understand that we already are concerned about the violence there. We don’t need Hillel to ‘inform’ us of the problem. We don’t need the Carter Center folk either. We, too, are concerned with all the dying that is going on in that region of Sudan.

We don’t need Zionist backed construction of fake ‘shanty towns’ at UC-Boulder to prompt our interest. We are against the continued bloodshed in that sad region of Sudan, Darfur, with or without Zionists and Israel pushing the issue.

Unlike the Zionists, both Jewish and Christian in the US, we don’t primarily hold the mainly Muslim government of Sudan to be alone responsible for the killing that has occurred there. We also don’t think that an increase in US-British govenrment directed intervention is the solution to what decades of British colonialism in the region has brought about.

More Imperial directed colonialism is not the solution to problems accruing from several centuries of European colonialism, even if it comes disguised as UN or African Union intervention instead of directly Brit and American.

Hillel and Darfur? How sweet their concern for Africa certainly is. It’s just not very sincere though. Instead, it’s little more than a propaganda tool they hope to use to gain support for more Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians off more of the Palestinian’s land.

Who are they really going to fool long term here? Their concern about any killing going on in Sudan is nothing more than a distracting device, to help keep people’s attention away from Israel’s own crimes committed with the help of the US government. If they want to worry about shanty towns, then worry some about those refugee camps both Israel and the US have created all over the Middle East. Until then, their concern about shanty towns in Sudan rings a little too false to me.

Israel to grant citizenship to hundreds of refugees

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I am a member of the local Colorado Springs ‘PEACE’ group, the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission. A couple of weeks ago, this group organized a benefit for ‘Darfur’.

The most active promoter and organizer of this event was a young Jewish woman who has told me that she had supported the US attack on Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from being the head of that country. Of course, we know that a long US occupation of Iraq has followed. Now, it seems she has made her principle passion and work stirring up support for Western intervention against the current government of Sudan.

I find all this quite interesting in line of today’s news item. It stated that Israel was to grant citizenship to hundreds of refugees. Very interesting indeed. And where do these refugees come from?

My first thought was of course the Palestinian refugees that settler Jews in Israel created. Nah, that couldn’t be it, I thought. But what about the Lebanese refugees?

Israel had just recently invaded and deliberately destroyed the civilian infrastructure of that country, all contrary to international law. But then I thought… maybe it was the millions of Iraqi refugees created by the Israeli Jewish policy of supporting the US occupation of that country? Wrong again, it seems…

In a photo press shot, the Jewish government of Israel is granting citizenship to refugees from Sudan, of all places! I thought originally that these refugees from genocide might be from Armenia? But dumb me. Israel doesn’t think so much that a genocide ocurred in Turkey, a country whose government allies with the US government. Why then such concern from these theologicalrectically ‘Jewish’ thugs that run Israel for some Sudanese poh folk?

The answer is quite simple. Many Jews in Israel support claiming that there is a genocide in Sudan because they support the US’s goals to colonize Africa to block out Chinese access to African oil. Paranoid and delusional me no doubt! I should just naturally believe that Jewish government Israel is just a nice group of folk that are humanitarians.

We live in less than a perfect world. Who am I to doubt the motives of others? Jewish government Israel kills Palestinian children on an almost daily basis but their adopt a poor Black person program from Sudan must be so sincere. These are nice people, and so is the J&P’s Jewish comrade here in Colorado Springs. Save Darfur! Rah, rah, rah…

(PS- I am sending this post to the ‘Save Darfur’ activist I mention. That’s only fair. Let’s hear what she has to say about this news item? She really is a nice person.)

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.

Thank you, Larry Small

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I was able to attend the city council meeting where I made the effort to correct some of the more recent baloney that The Gazette had published regarding the city’s pro-peace community. I stated that local peace activists were neither harshly unconciliatory towards the city government and its police, nor were we into a love fest with the new police chief, Richard Myers.

Further, I offered our thanks and appreciation for the concern offered to us by some on the city council, and thanked Larry Small, vice mayor of the city, in particular, for the remarks he had made 2 weeks previous. He had stated that he apologized if any of us paraders for PEACE had been harmed emotionally or physically, by actions taken at the St. Patrick’s Day parade by law enforcement.

On behalf of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, I was able to tell the city council that we were appreciative of these remarks by the vice mayor, and that it was indeed noticed by us all and that we were grateful for what had been said. Still, that 7 of us faced criminal charges, and that we were now totally aware of the role that John O’Donnell has constantly been used as pro-military organizer for city sponsored events. While we are appreciative of the role taken at conciliation by the city council and police, we still were unable to allow the city government to continue to hide behind the pretense that John O’Donnell was a mere private citizen and that we should somehow be considered as illegitimate gate crashers at a private event.

We ask that police be restrained in their use of unecessary force in the future.

2003 police over-reaction under-revisited

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In March of 2003, as an invasion of Iraq loomed ever imminent, citizens of 800 cities worldwide mounted the largest peace rally in history. In Colorado Springs three thousand people assembled in Palmer Park to urge President Bush to chose diplomacy instead of war. The participants were peaceful, but the police incited frustrations by diverting traffic from Academy Boulevard which prevented drivers from seeing the anti-war banners and eventually used tear gas to prompt the crowd to disperse.

Colorado Springs was one of only two peace rallies in the world where police used tear gas that day. Many Springs families with small children were caught with no way to escape the gas. After a subsequent review, the CSPD admitted it had overreacted. As part of a legal settlement with the people they had arrested, the department agreed to host a public meeting to discuss matters of police conduct with respect to a citizen’s right to assemble peacefully. The meeting would involve a panel discussion on the issues and would be videotaped for public broadcast and for purposes of training incoming police officers. After four years of legal wrangling, the meeting is finally scheduled to happen this Friday, May 4th, at the Senior Center on Hancock and Uintah.

What an unfortunate coincidence that the arrests this Saint Patrick’s Day happened before Friday’s citizen-police meeting. As we are now well familiar, on March 17 at the annual parade, forty five permit-holding participants were prevented from carrying peace banners in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. Ten of them were brutally removed and seven of those were arrested; I was among them. The police and parade organizers still admit no wrongdoing, but bystander videos and photographs captured the police display of excessive force.

In the aftermath of the arrests, the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission has asked the Colorado Springs City Council to hold a public meeting to address police department policy with regard to what happened that day. As yet they’ve only agreed to meet in private, to acquaint themselves better with peace activists.

While we welcome a better acquaintance, the PPJPC is not interested in obtaining a permission slip to exercise our right to self expression. We are interested in every American’s natural rights and civil liberties. We hope to establish an understanding that our city police department will implement a policy to honor and respect those rights. For that purpose we are requesting a public meeting where Colorado Springs residents who were alarmed by the heavy handed law enforcement can voice concern and give their input. The meeting on Friday will only address the police misconduct of 2003.

The Saint Paddy’s Day Seven, as we are being called, currently face charges in Municipal Court for obstructing a public event. The American Civil Liberties Union has agreed to represent us because at play are violations of multiple amendment rights. The police use of illegal choke holds, menacing with a taser and reckless brutality causing physical injury fall under illegal search and seizure and citizenship rights.

We are called called the Seven but in reality we are the Saint Patrick’s Day Forty Five, because forty five of us were deprived our first amendment right to freedom of speech. The parade is described as a private event, but it is held on public property and is underwritten with public resources. “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

We are called the Saint Patrick’s Day Seven, but we are in reality the Saint Patrick’s Day Forty Thousand, who saw that day the attempted abridgment of a fundamental American right. A right which Americans aspire to extend to all people of all nations. Many of us watching that day had no idea we would have to fight for that right here.

What does ‘Otpor’ have to do with Colorado Springs?

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You probably missed the notice, but Otpor will be at Colorado College this week and next, ‘organizing non-violence’ oriented people. Otpor claims credit for itself for supposedly non-violently bringing down Milosevic in Yugoslavia, though the real credit for this feat had more to do with the violence of an illegal war against Yugoslavia organized by the US and its European allies than any local student movement in Belgrade.

And it had more to do with the funds the US government channelled into Yugoslavia to illegally influence the national elections there. Many of these funds went to Otpor.

These days, Otpor ideology acts in many other countries where the US channels funds to subvert local autonomy. It has changed its name to ‘Canvas’ and receives much aid not only directly from the US government, but also from many a rich American think tank. Essentially, it is a Right Wing imperialist US government pushed campaign masquerading as a form of international Leftism. It’s symbols are a clenched fist, even as it plays on the image of being Gandhi-ist and nonviolent, which has become a semi mystical religious cult amongst many US campuses harboring hordes of American middle class student types. Very attractive cover to keep help hide its hidden agenda of backing US government propaganda campaigns and interventions in nations around the world. Imperialists posing as non-violent pacifists recruiting relatively naive and innocent students who often believe in the sugar coated rhetoric being spread. What results is a ‘non-violence’ working side by side with US military and economic subversion of other countries.

The US government in the ’70s and ”80s at one time pushed another camouflaged Right Wing group inside the US disguised as Leftism. The leader of that cult effort was a man named Lyndon LaRouche, who still plies his wares from time to time. To the utter discredit of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, this group a few months ago accepted for its newspaper a full page advertisement from this fascist who has many connections with US government and military high officials. A split off of this group operates in Mexico where it postures as being Far Left in a similar manner to how it has operated in the US. OTPOR in a way, is an extension of this type of covert government operation in private politics that Lyndon LaRouche got quite well known for at one time.

Wikipedia has done an excellent job in its coverage of Otpor, whose connections to US funding remain shadowy and hidden though it operates across the planet. Since they will have 2 of their operatives as Colorado College doing their thing, hopefully some of us will be there to challenge them on their real record this week.

Get thee to the Broadmoor! ASAP!

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For Immediate Release: April 12, 2006 9:00am
Contact: Bill Sulzman (719) 389 0644
Activists challenge the blocked sidewalk at the Broadmoor
Colorado Springs, April 12, 2006 —
At 11:30am, TODAY, April 12, members of Citizens for Peace in Space and supporters from Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission and Springs Action Alliance will challenge the suspension of 1st and 14th amendment right to peaceably assemble on the sidewalk in front of the Broadmoor Hotel on Lake Avenue. Citizens for Peace in Space and the ACLU have challenged the blocking of sidewalks for the Space Symposium in district court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals before.

The annual Space Symposium at the Broadmoor Hotel, through Friday, has arranged a special event permit with the city that says, in part, “This permit grants exclusive use of the sidewalks on the east side of Lake Circle, from the south of Lake Avenue, to the north at the edge of the parking garage during above listed dates/times.” Negotiations with the CSPD have been ongoing and may resolve the situation. If not, the legality of the special events permit, blocking the sidewalk will be challenged, as it was at the NATO conference, and that challenge may include civil disobedience arrests.

National political organizers from around the country including Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the “Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space”, Tim Rinne, director of “Nebraskans for Peace”, and Frances Mendenhall of “Speakout at Stratcom”, from Omaha, will not be attending this year as in other years, but Citizens for Peace in Space will be present as always.

Bill Sulzman of Citizens for Peace in Space said, “The special events permit refers to Chapter 3.2.209 of the City Code as its authority.” “It does not go into detail but says : ‘The event organizer will be billed for the cost of the police officers during the event at the appropriate rate.'”

“This is obviously a huge ‘cash cow’ for the CSPD, and that’s why they agreed to shut down the public sidewalk,” he continued.

As always, the organizers urge everyone in attendance to be lawful and peaceful in word and actions, even in the event of civil disobedient arrests.

Let’s not drop the ball!

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This from the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission this morning…

Anyone who wishes to register a complaint with the police regarding the St. Patrick’s Day parade incident (you don’t have to be an arrestee to do so) please pick up a complaint form at police headquarters. Also, we ask anyone who considers him or herself a witness (having seen the incident) and who has pictures which help establish what happened to please call police headquarters and say what you saw. We suggest the latter since the media is implying that all the calls being received by police are supportive of police behavior and of the removal of peace marchers from the parade. Thank you.

The police are hearing mostly praise for their unconscionable actions over the weekend. Typical Colorado Springs. Please call in or file a complaint if you feel that they overstepped their bounds. Whether or not you were a witness. You’ve seen the pictures. You know what happened. Peace activists are getting some attention from the media…Let’s make sure we don’t miss an opportunity to advocate for peace and for civil liberties in our own community.

St Patrick’s interruptus for the record

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A family affairMay I clarify the actions of the peaceful marchers at the St Patrick’s Day parade? My fellow participants sat down, not to block the path of the parade, but to resist the rough-handed treatment of me and Esther Kisamore who were being thrown to the ground by a semi-uniformed official with his police badge obscured. This officer was yelling at us to get out of the parade, without telling us on whose authority. He was commanding us to furl our banners, grabbing three which he broke over his knee. All of this is documented by bystander videos. Officer Paladino, it turns out, then tried to wrestle the keys of the bookmobile which I was driving, still without addressing us formally. He pulled me from the truck, pinned me to the ground, and threw Esther on top of me as she was urging for calm, to the horror of the young children marching with us and the hundreds watching.

Who was it that decided our peace message was any more political than the political candidates, political parties, or pro-war organizations parading their ethics in the St Patrick’s Day festivities? In the spirit of the occasion, just as we had done the year before, we purposefully refrained from our usual calls for President Bush’s impeachment or trial on charges of war crimes. Polls now show that our pleas for an end to the war in Iraq reflect the general sentiment of the American public. What parade organizer, or police squad, has the right to squelch that cry?

We sincerely regret the traumatic scene witnessed yesterday by so many children. Yet maybe it provided a teachable moment. They saw erstwhile Officer Friendly revealed as unbridled authoritarian brute, baring tasers and choke holds to enforce someone’s subjective political opinion. Before their young eyes, freedom of speech in America was manhandled and thrown to the curb.

Eric Verlo
Owner, Bookman Bookmobile
Chairman, Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission
Permit holder 21, St Patrick’s Day Parade

Belligerence leads us to war

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By now Americans have learned our government’s routine of starting with belligerence and following with war. Between the start and finish, lies are used to justify our aggression. This time the intended victims are the people of Iran, whose country President Bush’s advisers have been wanting to attack for some time. Our current hesitation seems only to be about finding excuses for starting hostilities, after which bombing will begin and chaos will follow.

Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan lie in ruins amidst the ever-increasing strife the US has caused. Everywhere US warfare has generated terrorist acts, refugees fleeing for their lives, and deaths of innocent civilians including those most vulnerable, the children. We at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission ask you to mobilize your voices in protest alongside us, not only against the planned “surge,” but against making war on yet another country, yet another people, the people of Iran.

To oppose US belligerence is to support our troops, to support our country, and to support saving our own humanity. PEACE is patriotic. Join the J&P to demand peace NOW. Think of the countless who will die if we are not successful in bringing about peace. Our current government must be stopped from spilling more blood. US national security is at stake. Together we must win.

Join us March 17 in Pioneer Park for a rally for Peace!

PPJPC condemns US bombing of Somalia

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Instead of admitting that the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are immoral violations of international law, the US government has extended their war into more and more regions of the world. The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission opposes the most recent US bombing strikes in Somalia. These bombings are acts of war that have not been discussed or voted upon by anyone in the US congress. Further, they follow US government approval and encouragement of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, in itself a violation of international law.

The American people are asked to believe that only ‘terrorists’ are being killed and injured when the US conducts bombing raids in countries such as Somalia and Pakistan. In fact, the US is killing many innocent civilians and those casualties are being considered acceptable collateral damage by the Pentagon and the Bush Adminstration. We do not agree.

There is no way to pinpoint targets without unacceptable civilian bloodshed, especially when American forces do not even speak the local language, as is most often the case. We must not sit by and passively accept the resulting carnage without raising our voices in protest and condemnation. Essentially, the American people are being asked by their government to condone a policy of political assassinations that convicts others without trial or jury, and also maims and kills scores of innocent bystanders.

We at Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission reject these illegal acts of war and call on all our elected representatives to help stop this continual warmaking. We encourage everybody to do what they can to actively oppose the US military intervention in the Horn of Africa. Stop the bloodshed, do not feed into it. Do not encourage regional and ethnic conflict.

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Taking to the streets on Thurs Jan 11

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Plenty of banners availableThough long delayed, the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission is coordinating an action for January 11. We’re going to petition our Senators Allard and Salazar to end US torture and to close down Guantanamo. Cindy Sheehan is visiting Cuba to make that plea and efforts are being coordinated nationwide to call for an end to torture.

Now January 11 will be the day after George Bush’s announcement to increase troop levels in Iraq, in defiance of the will of the American people.

And of course there is the new issue of the US extra-judicial, undeclared-war bombing of Somalia.

And the new Democratic congress which has opted to abstain from discussing the war(s) until its 100 hour domestic reform agenda.

If any of those issues grab you, join us at 1pm Thursday when we’ll march from the J&P offices to Allard’s and then on to Salazar’s, followed by a car-pool to see Congressman Lamborn. Or join MoveOn and others at 5pm in Acacia Park for an impromptu rally.

Support your local war memorial

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I’m working on an address to our city council. I only have three minutes:

MemorialMr. Mayor, distinguished members of the City Council: as a member of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, I’ve come once again on their behalf to ask the City Council for your support of the traveling Iraq War Memorial, known as Eyes Wide Open, which is coming to Colorado Springs on October 12 and 13.
 
Two weeks ago, at the previous opportunity to address the council, the Justice and Peace Commission asked for the use of Memorial Park as a fitting site for a memorial. We also asked the City of Colorado Springs to adopt a resolution similar to that of the City of Baltimore, proclaiming the two day visit as “Days of Reflection on the Human Cost of War.” To this day we’ve received no formal response from the council. I’m here today to repeat our requests.

Actually we did hear one reply from Councilman Bernie Herpin, a resounding no, because he considers any such memorial to be a blatant anti-war statement. I’d like to ask Mr. Herpin: do you have such little faith in the patriotism of the general public, in the wisdom of your constituents, that were they to reflect -on the many lives the war in Iraq has cost us- that you think they would automatically be against the war?

Do you consider it patriotic, and showing support for our troops, Mr. Herpin, to hide the Iraq War casualties from the sight and memory of their friends, neighbors and community? If the war in Iraq, or as you call it, the War on Terror, is indeed worth fighting, why do you want to conceal its cost from the people of Colorado Springs, the people who more than nearly any other community in the country, must bear the cost of this war? The cost being measured, in their lives, the lives of their loved ones, the lives of their friends and coworkers. This is to say nothing of the many more who are injured and maimed.

Are you afraid to let the people of Colorado Springs gaze upon the boots of 2,700 soldiers -only the official count of the US casualties in Iraq- boots that stretch across vast green fields, nearly to the horizon? One hundred and seventy pairs of those boots will correspond to the Fort Carson soldiers who’ve died in Iraq.

The latest count of soldiers wounded in Iraq according to the V.A. hospital system is over 40,000. If the ratio of US soldiers wounded to US soldiers killed in Iraq holds for Colorado Springs, by a terrible coincidence, the 2,700 pairs of boots that Colorado Springs residents will see on October 12 and 13 will also correspond to the number of Colorado Springs residents -Iraq War veterans- who now move about in wheelchairs and on prosthetic limbs.

Is this your way to show support for the troops? To keep their sacrifices unseen from their countrymen and their city? Why are you so quick to send them off, to fight a war on foreign soil, and so quick to hide the cost they’ve paid or will pay? The media networks aren’t even allowed to show their coffins on television! Why are you conspiring to keep a soldier’s most ultimate sacrifice a secret? -because you think the American people would not support your war?

If you are so gung-ho to have someone fight this war on terror, why don’t you do it yourself? You go over there and do it! And reflect, please, whether you want your effort to go seen or unseen. Otherwise please know that you can count on us, that if you pay the ultimate price to defend our freedom, that we intend to make sure the people of this country and this city see it and show their thanks. Good luck and bon voyage.

Please accord the people of Colorado Springs the respect of honoring their sacrifice. I’d like to see the proclamation we ask for in writing as soon as possible, or I’d like to see each of you fill out the Defense Department paperwork to enlist to go to Iraq yourself. Thank you.

Tired of milquetoast advice

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Blue Lady in Manitou Carnivale
A conglomeration of peace activists took part in the Manitou Carnival Parade this year. We had fire-breathers, our Blue Lady, and a banner which read TIME TO REBUILD: A NEW WORLD IS POSSIBLE -THE PIKES PEAK JUSTICE AND PEACE COMMISSION.
 
We encountered someone along the parade route who objected to our bringing politics into the parade. Peace, justice, that’s politics?

We had followed advice not to be overtly anti-war. But where is that going to get this country? There was a politician a little further up the way whose red-white-and-blue entourage marched behind a large American flag. It wasn’t dripping with blood, so may I say that I think that was too much politics.

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I’m getting so much advice about how to go about things diplomatically, talk to influential people, find an elegant compromise, something to suit their interests which might encompass a portion of mine. It sounds worth a shot, but I’m wondering if altogether I’m losing sight of the bigger goal. The closer you get to people in positions of power, the more everyone’s principles seem to be mired in molasses.

I don’t want to sit down and with all politeness ask somebody to do the right thing. What kind of conversation will that be?

It’s not my responsibility to figure out how a radio station can afford a particular change, or how to shore up donations from conservative sources. Why should it be my place to figure out how they can find a face-saving resolution?

No. I want to pull the entire debate into the public realm. Make them do the right thing or keep flogging them until they do. It’s not my problem that they’ve done the community a disservice thus far. If they’ve driven us to such a point where so many of us have to put so much energy into righting their wrongs, then by god we’re going to be merciless in our castigation!

Do the damn right thing!

The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission

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PPJPCYesterday I attended the annual members meeting of the Justice and Peace Commission and felt like there was an inertia of inactivity, or let’s say activity of lesser consequence, which was not to be overcome. As if perhaps the PPJPC were not going to let this war disrupt their good efforts toward promoting sustainable living, fair trade and mass transportation.

The overriding issue this year? Finding a permanent home for PPJPC, instead of renting. That is a very nice goal, but it is my belief that circumstances have not dealt that hand. Our times have been dealt the specter of fascism in the form of undeniable crimes against humanity and the exacerbation of some very cruel domestic policies. Barbarians inside the gates so to speak. Now is not a time for starting a knitting club. At least not for the PEACE AND JUSTICE club!

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. I honor each of PPJPC’s goals, but I have to point to the limited resources. PPJPC has only so much money, so many members and so much energy. To put it another way, we have so many members, and so much energy, let’s direct everybody toward where we can make the most difference!

While I’m being an alarmist, why not look at global warming, which some experts are saying we can no longer reverse, and bird flu, which is spreading faster than you can Google for updates. I certainly do not have any remedies other than what seems to be obvious. Now is not the time to have a moron in charge of our country, particularly such a spectacularly ungifted dauphin whose regents are only motivated to protect and enrich themselves. That’s where we have to start.

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Another great concern I have about the direction of the PPJPC is its focus on propagating non-violent communication. This is the quite honorable idea that consensus can always be achieved through non-confrontational discussion.

If teaching non-violent communication should indeed be PPJPC’s mission, then the results become largely internal. Wouldn’t the membership of PPJPC have to increase by hundreds or thousands every month to justify such a meek objective? It can’t be enough to take donations from people who would like to see reform in our prisons for example, only to camp outside the prison walls and teach each other proper prison code of conduct.

To my mind, the pacifism which PPJPC is trying to teach, looks more like passive-ism. If the PPJPC board members want to be Buddhists, to accept whatever comes, to rise above earthly conflict, that is fine. But I would think it is hardly what its members are expecting the PPJPC to do. We can each of us choose the path of passivism, of acceptance, of transcendence, without need of a Pikes Peace Justice and Peace Commission.