Tag Archives: Reds

The PPJPC heads toward a Saint Pat’s Day Massacre

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The PPJPC is heading toward a Saint Pat’s Day Massacre this year due to it’s undemocratic and cliquish administration’s misleadership. Several members have spent their time in unreported and undisclosed meetings behind doors with various businessmen, policemen, and municipal government officials, all this done without any real review of these people’s personal actions.

The PPJPC board does not have any membership control of its activities at all, since its membership meets only once a year, and possibilities to discuss and review the supposed leadership’s decisions are negligible. So what has been planned for this year’s parade after all these side manipulations behind the scenes?

IMO it looks like an ambush of pacifist leaning sheep and a bloody massacre by the pro-war city government is being headed towards blindly by the PPJPC. I certainly will not bring my family to this event this year, as the leadership of the PPJPC appears to be totally inept at analyzing what is being set in motion against them. They repeatedly show their ineptness in protecting antiwar people from being abused and attacked in this city.

To briefly review, the city finally dropped all charges against last year’s PPJPC victims of the city’s police attack and wolfishly began to court the PPJPC participation in the parade this year, under a revised set of rules and regulations. The new rule is that ‘social issues’ will now at last be allowed, but that the PPJPC will only be allowed 35 paraders in their contingent, as will all the other pro-military groups participating, who will have hundreds combined marching in a myriad of different pro-military formations.

Now here is the kicker. This small contingent of misled, naive, and gullible PPJPCers, will then get to run the gauntlet of the majority pro-military spectators, who have had one year of steady propaganda and misinformation against proPeace paraders of last year’s parade, from the city’s daily paper, all its Right Wing blogs, and all its pro-military groupings. This is an setup that should have been obvious to anybody with much a brain, but somehow the PPJPC office crowd and the churchly pacifist type liberals that run the show there, think that all is somehow A-OK and accepting of them, and this all of a sudden without any misgivings from the past! Talk about gullible!

It looks bad at this point, as the ‘positive thinking’ mindset has taken totally ahold of the clique running the PPJPC. This parade is not going to be very pretty, and this crowd of self-serving ‘leaders’ that has been making the decisions without any membership input, will have only themselves to blame for the probable debacle that will occur. If you do decide to go, just be sure to keep your kids safe from what ensues.

Stop plans for ICE detention in Denver

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OPPOSE the construction of a new immigrant detention center in Aurora!
Colorado Progressive Coalition office, 1600 Downing St. Suite 210
Saturday, March 1 11:00 a.m.

The GEO Group, one of the nation’s largest private prison corporations wants to build a new 1,100 bed immigrant holding facility in Aurora. The Aurora Planning Commission will vote on the proposal to build this facility March 12.

If you would like to help stop this facility from being built:

1. Contact Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition with your name and/or organization to sign on to the attached petition. Contact: chandrarusso-at-gmail.com

2. Contact the Planning Commission directly, along with the Mayor and Aurora City Council, and tell them to oppose the detention center. Their email addresses: schapel-at-auroragov.org, citycouncil-at-auroragov.org, etaur-at-auroragov.org, and rrpeters-at-auroragov.org

3. Personalize and print the petition as a letter to be sent to: Planning Commission Members, Aurora Mayor and City Council c/o Susan Chapel, 15151 E. Alameda Parkway, 2nd floor, Aurora, CO 80012

4. Join us on Saturday, March 1 at 11 a.m. at the Colorado Progressive Coalition, 1600 Downing St. We will meet to review strategy, talk about how to engage safely and respectfully. We will then drive out to Aurora to flyer. If you are unable to make it to this event but know others that might, please forward this message to them.

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Dear Planning Commission Members,

As you may know, the GEO Group, a billion dollar corporation, wants to build a new 1,100 bed immigrant holding facility in Aurora. This facility will hurt our community and lead to great suffering while putting millions of tax dollars into the pockets of a destructive corporation.

We strongly urge you to OPPOSE the construction of a new immigrant detention center in Aurora when it comes up for hearing on March 12.

Here is why:

Detention hurts asylum seekers and other victims of torture and trauma Torture survivors, victims of trafficking, and other vulnerable groups can be detained for months or even years, further aggravating their isolation, depression, and other mental health problems associated with the horrors they have experienced.

Conditions in detention are atrocious Detention centers across the country have prevented men, women and children access to phones and food. Several people held in immigration detention have died because they did not receive basic medical care. The GEO Group was forced to close detention centers after the US Justice Department sued for “abuse and neglect,” “life threatening conditions,” and sexual assault of children.

Private prisons profit off of misery GEO is expecting $30 million a year in profits for its new Aurora facility. GEO has a vested interest in having sufficient men, women and children to fill its beds. To GEO, they’re not people, they’re profits- at $95 per person per day. To this end, the GEO group has given hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to ensure elected officials push for policies that benefit GEO- more detentions nation-wide.

A detention center can become a poorly run state or federal prison almost overnight The GEO Group has not been granted an immigration contract for its proposed Aurora facility, meaning it could be used as a prison. Private prisons have been shown to cut corners, have inadequate staffing levels and receive little government oversight.

As decision makers for Aurora, we trust you will make choices that strengthen our communities and enhance our way of life. We believe you will support development that enriches our neighborhoods and maintains our values.

Building one of the country’s largest immigration detention center in Aurora does neither of these things. It is an affront to communities, families, workers and tax-payers. We trust you will not allow this detention center to be built.

‘Super Delegates’ make the corporate party super undemocratic

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Corporations have one big problem in controlling political expression in that all they have is money, not numbers. Tons of money get spent on fabricating false images, manipulating sentiment, and plastering everything with advertisements for the top dogs the corporate world has running in the arena.

Still, sometimes the rabble voters get out of hand, and that’s where the so-called ‘super delegates’ come in as the ultimate corporate trump card. American ‘elections’ are not a democratic system at all, and its design is just to appear to be democratic without actually being so. ‘Super delegates’ are mere icing on the cake of undemocracy that we suffer with every 4 years.

Go figure, what’s is democratic about the government financing all the primaries for the 2 corporate parties in the first place? Nothing. As if the corporate world is not already buying the elections before hand, the corporate government moves in with hundreds of millions of corporate dollars to show its favoritism to the 2 official corporatized parties. It is one thing for the government to finance the real election, but the primaries are not that at all since they are just party functions. In short, they are a facade of procedure that the 2 corporate parties (with a big push from the corporate media and corporate government) put out to pretend to being democratic, when in reality they are no such thing at all.

To many, electing a Black American will represent ‘change’. To many, electing a White woman will do so. And to many, just getting George out of office will be all that is needed for them to think that the country is moving forward once again. Wrong. Until we establish a political system that has more than the most pathetic pretense of being functionally democratic, we are all on the super-highway to getting screwed yet even more than Bush has already done to the country. Corporate looting of our nation and to the world as a whole cannot stop without us beginning to construct a democratic system where none now stands. We need a democratic America, and that is not an America led by either the Democratic or Republican parties.

The Early Warriors in the Fight for Racial Equality

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Since Martin Luther King Day is coming up shortly, it behooves us to post some material about who really got the Civil Rights Movement moving in the beginning. It wasn’t just tie wearing preachers spouting something vaguely connected to Jesus’s teachings that made this a Movement that had to be dealt with by America’s ruling White elites.

Today, it has gotten even worse. MLK has been turned into a lifeless corporate icon, and today’s supposed civil rights heroes are pretended to be people like Condi Rice, Barack Obama, and General Colin Powell!

Open the most wretched media rags (The Gazette? lol…etc.) and you will see hacks like Thomas Sowell promoted endlessly with photo of his Black face prominently displayed over his columns. And Oprah brings us out to the ‘Far Left’ of these corporate media sponsored ‘rights warriors’! Judge Joe Hill the ‘Center’.

In reality, even the Black Congressional Congress has lost any punch they once had. They have been mainly neutered by the Democratic Party power establishment. So where did the radicals come from that made things happen in the past? Some were Christian inspired radicals, some were Muslim inspired, and many were inspired by ‘The Reds’.

See the published New York Times review of

DEFYING DIXIE
The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950
By Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore

A message from Michael Moore

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John Edwards favored by Ralph Nader and Michael MooreIn judging the crop of presidential candidates, who has time to visit every political blog and read the hundreds of analyses put forth daily by credible opinionators? I become overloaded in election years trying divine truth from political rhetoric. Thus, I welcome help, in the form of intelligent research and analysis, when making my decision.
 
Who better than consummate bullshit sniffer Michael Moore to do the legwork for lazy disinterested voters like me?
 
I have to admit, that for purely shallow reasons, I might take an interest in politics were he elected.

Getting high with Darwin and Keynes

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stop the war on drugsThe war on drugs. Oh yes, it’s a nasty endless little war, one that’s filling our prisons with small-time users/entrepreneurs and costing the taxpayers billions. It’s a war that hasn’t helped our poor addicted countrymen one iota, and it’s a war for which win-happy Bush has not yet declared victory. But neither has he hung his head in defeat, which he certainly should.

The DEA bigwigs ought to be lamenting the indisputable fact that its decades-long fight against drugs is not working. In fact, it’s making things worse. After spending more than six billion dollars to cripple the Medellin and Cali cartels, the IBM and General Motors of the drug industry, cocaine production and trafficking in Colombia has actually increased. Hundreds of smaller and more efficient cartels have filled the void left by the blue chip cartels, kind of like the dot.com explosion, except the brilliant, creative, innovators happen to run drugs. And the DEA hasn’t a clue who they are or how to stop them.

The war on drugs has penalized and incarcerated thousands of small-time drug dealers/users, the weak and dumb, the poor souls who would never be counted among the fittest in a Darwinian assessment. Years of artificial selection have given rise to the super drug-dealer, the one who, like the virulent bacteria that have arisen from overuse of antibiotics, is more efficient, more cunning, more innovative and much more difficult to eradicate. How can politicians hope to win a war with a strategy that ensures that only the most efficient and creative drug traffickers survive?

The relentless persecution of small-time drug dealers has decreased the supply of drugs on our streets. I suppose this can be seen as a good thing. However, the demand remains. Thus, according to accepted economic theory, interdiction has supported higher prices for the super dealers and provided incentive for more traffickers to enter the drug economy.

Alas, the war on drugs has been a complete waste of time and money. It’s time for the DEA to huddle in the war room and come up with a new strategic plan. They should bring in some new generals, hopefully with public health backgrounds. They might even want to get off their moral steeds and decriminalize recreational drug use, thereby decreasing the demand for illegal drugs. They might decide to throw their allotted resources at dangerous criminals and our underlying social problems and let the small-time stoners be. That is if success is truly their goal.

After all, wouldn’t it make sense to address the underlying demand for drugs? Shouldn’t the DEA stop focusing on supply and address the unchanged demand for illicit drugs? Of course, this would mean funding public health initiatives and educational programs which are not nearly as fun as fighting a war against cagey dark-skinned enemies in exotic foreign locales. No, the men in suits aren’t really interested in giving up their fat federal budgets in order to win the struggle against drug abuse.
The war is too much fun.

So we will keep building expensive prisons and filling them disproportionately with people of color, too poor to make waves. We’ll keep propping up the super-drug dealers we’ve created. We’ll ask Congress for $1.4 billion to fight the drug-crazed Mexicans from Merida, the enemy du jour. And we’ll rejoice that, as is true for all of our wars, there is no end in sight.

The Lost Boys?

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Lost boys want youIt’s amazing. The US has killed a lot of people through our life times, and yet there has never been another group of children from these devastated countries torn apart by US foreign policy made terrorism, flown to families in France, Britain, and the US like the Sudanese ‘Lost Boys’ have been.

I guess there were no ‘Lost Boys’ in Iraq, Lebanon, or Afghanistan, nor from Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Vietnam to save? It seems, the US only goes for taking in ‘Lost Boys’ when they seem to come from countries that have supposed villains that are not our own government leaders. But is the newest set of ‘Lost Boys’ even lost, or are they actually the ‘Stolen Boys’?

The latest 103 of these supposedly ‘Lost Boys’ were said to have been found in Darfur, and not Chad. But an international scandal has broken out where the people carrying these kids off are now accused of being kidnappers themselves. In short, they are accused of stealing these kids. See the BBC report… Chad case children ‘not orphans’

Did they do this deliberately? Were they misled? Were they in cahoots with pro-interventionist propaganda groups like the so-called ‘Save Darfur’ who wanted to use these kids to urge their governments to intervene against Sudan with occupation troops and economic warfare? Will we ever find out for sure the truth in this case?

Personally, I think that the truth may lie somewhere in between. Maybe the people were trying to help these kids just escape from their poverty, and didn’t really care that the stories they were giving these European Bleeding Hearts that were to carry them out were all untrue? After all, how often does the Developed World come to aid some of the kids of Africa? How often does one get a free ticket to immigrate? Here in the US, we round up immigrants like they were stray dogs and cats.

Promoting foreign intervention into Third World countries is big business, and if 103 kids were needed to push that cause, then 103 kids were rounded up. Who cares about the details since these kids were getting a bargain? Something to think about when you hear a ‘Lost Boy’ story in the weeks and years ahead. Maybe the ‘Lost Boy’ was not so lost to begin with, but his family or themselves simply found a ticket to ride out of a bad locale into a much nicer one? Who could blame them?

But YES, it does turn out that there is a ‘Save Darfur’ group connection with the French group Zoe’s Ark that was taking these 103 kids out of Africa. The two groups are part of the same effort to supposedly ‘rescue’ 10,000 kids (‘orphans’) from Darfur to safety in the US and Western Europe. See Reuters’ Factbox about Zoe’s Ark

Why not just push these First World countries to save the children of Africa by giving back some of the hundreds of billions of wealth stolen from that continent? But then how would they get the troops in? Picture of ‘orphans’ are needed for that.

Verizon hardhats are actually NSA posse

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Verizon listening
Verizon thinks it’s a selling point that you’ve got hundreds of hardhats listening in on your conversation. Though the team is pitched as the tech support which is keeping you networked, I guess the commercials can’t avoid the humorous Verizon dude smirking at what he’s overhearing. Interesting truth in advertising. Are we supposed to think what happens with Can You Hear Me Now Dude stays with Can You Hear Me Now Dude?
 
Congress is deliberating about indemnifying these guys if litigious Americans ever find out Verizon & freinds are forwarding eavesdropped calls unto the security agencies.

This week’s ACLU forum discussed the increased surveillance by our government. Loring Wirbel gave specifics about the NSA’s activities. Forget where calls originate, or to where. Everything is being recorded. We may not be parsing it all, but it’s all getting collected. Every single call, every internet query. We know cell phones can be used to record ambient noise even when they’re not on talk.

Health Care for all

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Hundreds of thousands of people a year in the US are injured in some way due to our crumbling and insane health care system’s defects. Thousands upon thousands die.

For-profit medicine just does not work contrary to what the pro business propaganda constantly tells us. We can do much, much better.

First step would be to declare health care a human right for all, and then to seek to make that a reality. Insurance companies have been perfectly happy to not deliver care to so many people that they should now just be totally removed from the equation. There is just absolutely nothing that they give to the delivery of medicine.

Health care for all is easy to bring about. Just remove the insurance companies entirely. The public doesn’t need them interfering with delivery of medical care in the US.

And when that is done, get these companies entirely out of providing retirement income to the elderly, too. The public sector could and would do it better too.

Why the US Lacks Full Health Care is a good article online at the California Nurses Association website.

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.)

I only wish I believed my own rhetoric

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jena 6 Update

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Those who support the Saint Patrick’s Day Seven here in Colorado Springs are not making a fetish out of this case. There are many other worthy causes out there we support, too. Everywhere the US Judicial System is miscarrying justice. Below is an appeal from supporters of The Jena Six of the lousy state of Louisiana.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Dear Supporter,

On September 20th, Mychal Bell–the first of the Jena 6 to be convicted–is scheduled for sentencing. If the District Attorney has his way, Mychal will face 22 years in prison. It’s a horrifying moment for Mychal, his parents, and the rest of the Jena 6 families. It’s also a perfect time for those who can to come to Jena, in person, and stand with them. We know it’s a serious time and financial commitment, but we wanted to give you the opportunity to join the hundreds of people who have already emailed us to say that they will come. If you can join us, please click on the link below to RSVP:

http://colorofchange.org/jena/rsvp.html

Our presence in Jena–in large numbers–will help focus media attention on the situation in Jena, escalate pressure on Louisiana public officials, and most importantly, show the families of the Jena 6, especially Mychal Bell and his parents, that we will stand with them in the face of this injustice.

On July 31st, with only a few days to prepare, 300 people from across the country rallied at the Jena Courthouse. We delivered a petition signed by 43,000 ColorOfChange.org members to the District Attorney demanding that he drop the charges against the Jena 6. It was a powerful day that made it clear that the Jena 6 and their families won’t have to fight on their own. Since then, more than 100,000 people have taken action and contacted the Governor, media attention to the case has grown, and we have an even bigger opportunity to make a profound impact.

As we plan for this event, we want to get a sense of how many people can commit to coming to Jena. Below are some details about getting there, so you can figure out if you’ll be able to join us.

Details

If you’re flying to Louisiana, the closest airports to Jena are Alexandria (45 minute drive) and Monroe (1.5 hour drive). You can also fly to Lafayette (2.25 hour drive), Shreveport (2.75 hour drive), Baton Rouge (3 hour drive), New Orleans (4.25 hour drive), or Houston (about a 5 hour drive). The closest hotels are in Pineville and Alexandria. As they fill up, we’d recommend staying at hotels near the airports above.

If travelling from out of town, you’ll want to get to Louisiana the night before, as things will start early in the morning, probably by 8am or 9am. Organizers will meet you when you arrive at a central location in Jena and get you situated for the day. We will be providing maps, organizers’ cell phone numbers, and other information closer to the day-of; you will be able to reach someone in case you have any problems, need directions, or have questions along the way.

RSVP

Once you’re confident you can come, please rsvp at the following:

http://colorofchange.org/jena/rsvp.html

If you have questions, you can send them to jena@colorofchange.org.

If you can’t come, don’t worry. We’ll be sending emails soon with more ways to take action between now and the 20th. Whatever your participation, we thank you for your ongoing commitment to justice for the Jena 6. It continues to be our privilege to be part of such a powerful community of support for these young men.

Thanks and Peace,

— James Rucker
Executive Director, ColorOfChange.org
August 28th, 2007

Hung jury is defeat for police and city bosses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grandfather’s virility

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Art and Jean Hough
I like this picture of my grandfather. He passed away this summer and my sister and I looked through old family albums to choose a few photographs that might tell of his life.

Neither of us knew much about Grandpa’s youth, even about his character as my mom’s father. We’d only ever seen him as granddad to endless bursts of grandkids. He made his famous pancakes on sundays. His voice seemed always intoned with a cautionary chiding. “Oh, you wouldn’t want to do that.”

I remember riding with Grandpa in his old Nash Rambler with carpet samples in the back, running errands about town. He might have talked about the furniture store he once had, I don’t remember. His kindness was unwavering. It never occurred to me that a grandparent could be otherwise.

So in preparation for the funeral my sister and I were let to fashion a remembrance of our grandfather from photographic whole cloth. My sister is an art director who is very adept at manipulating a mood. We’d be enlarging originals, many of our relatives had never seen, or seen clearly, into prints which could recreate fiction. From hundreds of pictures we could mold an arresting romantic figure which we hoped they’d recognize.

Indeed we found a shot of Grandpa and his young fiancée posed on the front fender of a touring car, pointed toward the barren hills of Bonnie and Clyde, a sunny day, the two smiling, perhaps self-consciously at each other.

There’s another of Grandpa alone, wearing an apron, standing over the kitchen sink. Doing the dishes we presumed, but the dark shadows and soft sunlight coming through the lace lent the scene the suggestion that Grandpa could turn around any second with an engagement ring.

There’s a picture of the two of them sitting in a modest living room, he on the armrest actually, leaning back and against his wife, both of them glowing with happiness. Above them hangs a picture of an angel, which a cousin noted, had always hung above one of the later bedrooms.

These were the standouts to me, in thinking about which might be my favorite, but I chose another. I have no idea whether it catches an authentic side of Grandpa or not.

Someone mentioned that Grandpa and Grandma were once featured in a magazine article about a typical young family or some such sort. Grandpa worked for Montgomery Wards and they moved each year, Grandma giving birth at each relocation. It was thought that this picture might have come from that photo shoot. The composition is unusual I think, a kitchen chair on the sidewalk in front of your home. But this picture reflects something I can imagine having been in Grandpa’s character. He was a dandy.

There’s his wife, looking uncomfortably like a sidekick, and Grandpa seated in her presence; not merely unchivalrous, but self-satisfied and unguarded. I accidentally cropped his shoes when I scanned the pictures in the hasty late hours before the showing, but I assure you the body language was consistent, a nattily dressed first fiddle, head of household, master of the manor. I think it’s very evident in his pose, and I wonder if he knew it wasn’t true.

My grandfather on my father’s side, a fiery nordic who died when I was younger, cut a formidable figure around the house. You had to be quiet when you got too near Gudfar, unless he was laughing, and it seemed that activities were scheduled around his nap schedule. In any case, I didn’t find out until much later in life that he didn’t wear the pants in that family.

Oh, he was the oppressive dominant male, certainly the decider, but the guidance was Gudmor. She brought wisdom to the table, and certainly the emotional wisdom. Gudmor was always quick to cry when family visits ran short, something I could not conceive my stern grandfather would ever do. Gudmor was also the person to whom everything mattered, and so the not-uncommon better half. This was nothing that I saw in my youth, it had to be told to me later. Sure enough I see my own personailty reflect that heritage.

So I wonder, about Grandpa Hough, if I mightn’t have gotten something of a similar predisposition from him? It would make sense, wouldn’t it, that my parent’s attraction might be based on the similarity of their expectations for each other?

I’m sure that my grandfather, the snappy dresser, was also the beneficiary of having a very strong wife. And suddenly I can see that in all the pictures. My memories of my grandparents, even their eulogies, recount the two as inseparable, indistinguishable after so many years, from one another, but it seems to me that Grandma was the action-taker. She made the rules and prompted the activity. I have plenty of memories of Grandma. I think what Grandma wanted mattered most. I’m not sure Grandpa had an opinion most of the time. I think it was his wife, the more engaging, more communicative, clear-headed, stronger half.

So here’s a picture of my grandfather, fingering his hat like it’s a nobleman’s cane, like it’s lighter than air in the hands of someone made to feel at the top of his game. Let to feel, most certainly.

Both my grandfathers survived their spouses. But by only a couple years. Grandpa Hough moved in with his son, regained his health for a short time, but never did come into his own. I wonder if he ever had.

US government breeds terrorism everywhere

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Our government is the #1 breeder of terrorism across the planet, same as it is the #1 world breeder of drug trafficking. The latest from Iraq is news of how a car bomb went off in a Kurdish market where people buy their food, with hundreds killed and wounded. Who did it? The short answer is that you and I did.

How so, you might ask? Simple. It’s because you and I mainly sat back and watched our government destroy a country, and then divide up the ruins between 3 principle groups; the Kurds, the Shia, and the Sunni. Then we sat back while our government set them against each other. We did next to nothing to stop this from happening, and we continue to do next to nothing as if it were not our responsibility to act.

OK, that’s the short and abstract answer to who set that bomb off. But who might have done it physically, and why? Most will turn their accusations to one of the groups being victimized by the US occupiers. But truth is, it could have been set off by many others, including the Turkish government and the US government itself. Can imagine the Turkish government, whose brutality to the Kurds is legendary, but not the US government? But why not?

The US government practices collective punishment daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. It so much as a bb gun goes off directed at US forces, the US levels entire neighborhoods. In Afghanistan, it’s just bombs away from a high. In Iraq itself, the reaction usually mimics more the Israeli style counter insurgencies against Palestinian communities. In both manners, the civilians take a big hit for any resistance activities that they may or may not have partially sanctioned i their neighborhood.

Back to the market bomb. What is there to make us think that the US military does not use these terrorist attacks as yet another tool in the manipulation of events to make their occupation of Iraq come off? They did this sort of thing constantly in Vietnam, as did the French in Algeria. In war, nobody can ever be too sure of who is responsible for what? What one can be sure of is that occupation breeds acts of terrorism, usually against others than those doing the occupying.

Message from the US government post 9/11? We are better at using terrorism than you can ever be, al qaeda.

Farfour Mouse vs Mickey

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It’s hard to believe how lost in LaLaLa Land are America’s proZionist conservatives. One big issue for some of them is the supposed ‘hostage taking’ of Mickey Mouse by Gaza Strip’s Farfour Mouse. I’m not making this stuff up either! See Farfour for yourself.

These lunatics of the American Right don’t get riled up about what Israel and the US have done to the million plus people of the Gaza Strip, way over 50% of them children. It matters not the least to them that Gaza has the lowest standard fo living in the world, and that most of the inhabitants living in this total misery are children. No. Instead they are worried about this mouse, Farfour! They’re worried that he’s a terrorist rat teaching the kids to hate! Can you imagine how lost in nonsense these nuts actually are? They’re our neighbors, too. Scary.

Here is another clip with some CNN commentary of Farfour in action, but go read the American posters’ comments and see who is really sick in the head. And nobody seems too concerned about Farfoura. But then again she’s not a mouse, is she? She’s more the butterfly… The Daffy Zionist Ducks can handle that. But don’t pick on Walt’s pre-WW2 made fascist rodent, or they get all upset.

And nobody seems to care about Walt Disney himself. He wa a rather loathsome character.
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Below is the real situation in Gaza, where per capita GDP is now around $500-$600 per year and falling.
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on the 40th anniversary of occupation my statement in the UN
SPECIAL MEETING TO MARK 40 YEARS OF OCCUPATION
BY ISRAEL OF THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORY,
INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM

UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
7 June 2007
STATEMENT BY

DR. MONA EL FARRA
PROJECTS DIRECTOR
MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN’S ALLIANCE

Red Crescent Society For Gaza Strip
GAZA

?Your Excellency Mr. Paul Badji, Chairman of the Committee,
Distinguished guests and Excellencies,

It is my honour to be amongst you today, despite the gravity of the occasion being commemorated, on this 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

First, let me say that 2007 is the 40th anniversary of 59 years of the brutal occupation of the Palestinian people.

As we called for an end to apartheid in South Africa and the right of all people to live together and have equal rights, we must now, before it is too late, call for true justice for the Palestinians.

Today, we heard about the economic plight of the Palestinian people. We heard about Palestinians in Israeli prisons which number close to 8,000 men and women, including approximately 350 children under the age of 14, most of whom have been tortured.

How many UN resolutions must be passed by the UN? How many years of calling for 2 States before there is an understanding that Israel continues its aggression on the ground against women, children and men, the demolition of thousands of homes and the continued building of the apartheid wall?

Let us not just speak of the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza. We must never forget those who live as second-class citizens inside Israel and most of all, those who were forced from their homes and lands in 1948.

Now is the time to call for a real peace, with justice for all the children in the region. This can only be accomplished by supporting the right of return of all Palestinians.

Now is the time to acknowledge that the two-State solution is not the answer.

From Gaza I came, where the children of my country have no safe homes, no safe streets, no proper and adequate health facilities, no proper food, clean water, or regular electrical power, no recreational activities and no good education. The list of deprivation of their basic needs is too long to count.

I lived this occupation as a child, and am still living it as an adult. I can see it in the eyes of my daughter when she is afraid, tired, restless and exhausted because of the unsafe and unpredictable quality of life in Gaza under occupation. I saw it as soon as we crossed the borders on our way to Egypt, where she sensed something new and different: freedom, safety and space. Gaza is like a big, unsafe prison. And it is a very small place for 1.4 million people, half of whom are children.

I face the occupation every day during my work when hundreds of Palestinian patients are denied permits and accessibility to proper medical treatment, outside Gaza. There are a few lucky patients who get a referral and permit for treatment outside Gaza. The majority, however, have to wait and wait. Many die while waiting.

What is more heart-breaking than children who do not have adequate food and a healthy atmosphere to grow up to be well rounded adults? According to the Health Work Committees Organization, 42 per cent of children in Gaza under the age of 5 suffer from iron deficiency anemia and 45 per cent suffer from some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, due to the experiences that they are subjected to as a result of the non-stop military actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces, which almost always affect civilians in one way or another.

I will never forget the story of a woman in labor, who had to wait several hours at a checkpoint last November, during one of many Israeli military operations in the north of Gaza. Eventually she arrived at the Al Awda hospital in Jabalia refugee camp where she gave birth to her baby. When she left the hospital with the baby to go to home in the village of Beit Hanoun, there was no home; her home had been demolished by the Israeli occupying army. There are many cases and many stories, but I believe it is not the numbers that really matter, even one incident such as the above is one enough human rights violation.

I remember a 4-year old child in the same village who was forced to stay in one room with all members of his family for 48 hours while the Israeli Army commandeered their home. The child was thirsty and the soldier was there with his bottle of water, the occupied and the occupier in the same space. The soldier offered water to the thirsty child. The child said “no, no, no”. The child’s natural reaction was a combination of fear of what the soldier represents and the steadfastness in the face of the occupation. This is what characterizes the Palestinian people: steadfastness and resistance in the face of all adversity; even small children can express it with their natural reactions more than any words or speeches. The soldier on the other hand is a human being that has been forced by the Israeli occupation machine to lose his humanity.

Whenever I think of Palestinian children and their lives under occupation, I always think of the Israeli children. As adults, we have a commitment to both sets of children to provide a safe environment for them to live peacefully. It is not the occupation or the wall or the ongoing aggression against my people that will bring safety or security for Israeli children, only peace that is based on justice will do so. Justice means that the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people must be considered. Israel must recognize its moral responsibility towards the Palestinian refugees.

While Israel is physically outside Gaza, it still completely controls our lives, all aspects of our lives: health, education, economy and freedom of movement.

Life under occupation is degrading to human dignity. It has deprived us of our freedom, and only free people can make peace. It is most peculiar that we are forced to deal with the patterns of life under occupation as normal, well-established facts and when people lost hope and faith in the world or any future chances for change, and when the world turns its head away.

On the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, it is fitting to call once again on the international community to put pressure on Israel to fulfil its obligations by abiding by the UN resolutions related to Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israeli occupation should be ended now and the right of return must not be forgotten.

Thank you.

US Military Spy on Hundreds of Antiwar Demos

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The Pentagon spied on hundreds of antiwar demos says the ACLU. Unfortunately, many activists in the proPeace crowd (and even the ACLU itself) seem to act as if they cannot draw the logical conclusions from this and act accordingly. Instead of helping publicize this reality of police and military surveillance and disruption of Peace proponents and their activism, they act as if doing so might be a hindrance and derailment of the Antiwar Movement! Therefore they run from the fight when it gets down and dirty. Isn’t that sad?

Without battling on behalf of those that might very well be the direct victims of this surveillance and rather instead acting as if they are chickens with their heads cut off who can’t come to the defense of those vilified without cause, is not helpful but harmful to the Antiwar Movement.

We must show solidarity with people when they are attacked and found supposedly guilty without due process. We must act forcefully on behalf of these people. Otherwise, we are accepting of the reality of those that want to make the whole world into one enlarged Guantanamo, where allegations need not ever be proven, but simply accepted as given fact by authority.

Activism without Solidarity is empty of content. The US military spy on hundreds of thousands of us, and we should not act as if the harm that falls upon some of us for our activism merely has innocently fallen out of the sky. If you know this, then work as if those peace activists that have been slandered are in fact innocent until proven guilty. If you do not, then in fact you are working with the saboteurs of The Movement For Peace, and not against them.

Resurrection Day!

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From Oaxaca comes Resurrection! Hundreds of thousands once again march in a city smaller than Colorado Springs where previous protesters and their leaders had been brutally assaulted, tortured, and kidnapped away into far away prisons. Big business polls suggest that 2/3 of Mexicans are behind the illegitimate government of Felipe Calderon. Oaxaca disagrees. What an inspiration!

Be the second to see this film on youtube about the march. I was the first. You might want to start about 1/3 way through though as the first 1/3 didn’t show much. Ni Perdon, Ni Olvido

From Y to V- The CIA’s Otpor strategy to overthrow governments

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Since so many pacifists seem prone to accept at face value and fall for any rhetoric that appears to be supporting ‘peaceful’ means of protest, even when it is being pushed from the Pentagon and Washington DC, the following information is quite important. This is from Setting the Stage for Turmoil in Caracas…
—Repeating the East European experience in Venezuela—

The new imperial strategy includes something called “American Corners.” These “corners” are small offices set up by Washington throughout the target country that basically serve as mini-embassies. It is not completely clear what exactly these “corners” do, but inside you will find an array of information about the United States, including study abroad opportunities, English classes, and pro-U.S. propaganda. On top of this, the mini-embassies also organize events, trainings, and lectures for young students.

Interestingly, they seem to be very abundant in countries that Washington seeks to destabilize. The former Yugoslavian countries have a total of 22 American Corners, including 7 in Serbia. The Ukraine has 24, Belarus 11, Russia 30, even Iraq, with 11. By far the highest concentration of the “corners” is in Eastern Europe, where Washington has focused its destabilization efforts in recent years. [17]

There are at least 4 “American Corners” in Venezuela, the most for any Latin American country, and the U.S. also finances literally hundreds of organizations throughout the country to the tune of more than $5 million a year. [18] Together, these U.S.-funded organizations are working to implant the Eastern European experience in Venezuela. As reported by Reuters, the Venezuelan opposition is already learning the Serbian tactics to overthrow a regime from a retired U.S. army colonel named Robert Helvey.

“Helvey, who has taught young activists in Myanmar and Serbian students who helped topple the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, is giving courses on non-violent opposition tactics this week at an east Caracas university,” said the article. “Neither Helvey nor the organizers of the Caracas seminar would give details of exactly what opposition tactics were being taught. But in his work in Serbia before Milosevic’s fall, Helvey briefed students on ways to organize a strike and on how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime,” reported Reuters. [19]

And more recently, in the university city of Mérida, history professor from Texas, Neil Foley, hosted an event sponsored by the U.S. embassy and the Venezuelan-American Center (Cevam), not an official “American Corner” but serving the same purpose. Foley, who has also spoken in various “American Corners” in Serbia, gave speeches in both Bolivia and Venezuela on “American values.” [20]

I attended one of Foley’s speeches and, as expected, it was a complete pro-U.S. propaganda campaign imposed upon the university students. The professor gave exactly the message that the U.S. Embassy had paid him to give, speaking wonders about American society and “American democracy.” According to Foley, the United States solves all of its problems by tolerance for others and an all-inclusive “dialogue,” between opposing parties. And sending a clear hint to the Venezuelan students, Foley implied that any government that does not live up to these standards “must be overthrown.” [21

Also, besides the full article (which is well worth reading) from where this excerpt came from, the additional following article is also of interest. Behind Venezuela’s “Student Rebellion”. Who’s pulling the strings?

NATO Out of Somalia and Sudan Now!

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Last night, a nice person called me up and wanted to assure me that she and other pro-Peace activists in Colorado Springs had not called for military interventionism into Darfur when they recently met at Poor Richards. I was half asleep and there was background noise on her end of the line, so the conversation didn’t really go on for too long. But for several hours now I have been thinking of this call. What to make of it?

Actually, it brought me back to the days of when so many nice liberals (and socialists, too) were demanding that Clinton do what he wanted to do anyway. They demanded that he intervene against Yugoslavia. They always made it clear that they were not calling for NATO to bomb the living day lights out of Yugoslavia, but that is just exactly what they helped accomplish. Today a US military base stands in Kosovo, and it has been deemed Europe’s Guantanamo since American held POWs are sent there to be tortured and held in secret.

Even worse, by being complicit in the NATO and US campaign against Yugoslavia, the liberal supporters of ‘action against Milosevic’, essentially sat on their butts for 8 years, while the Clinton gang killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and spread lies that Bush later used about there being WOMD in that country, all just waiting to be used to kill millions elsewhere. Today, Iraq is occupied with American troops. Surprise!

Fast forward a few months to Africa… NATO is in Sudan, and is now being considered for use in Somalia. And this good person who called me wants to reassure me that no Peace activists are pushing that this be the case. Yes, but it is the case, so why not ask (demand) that NATO get out of Africa? Instead, what is it the ‘action’ that is actually being demanded of by ‘Save Darfur’ folk?

I just don’t get this?! They are demanding that economic war be waged against Sudan as NATO troops intervene in country after country as forces of occupation and reaction! Why in the world would Peace activists want economic ‘sanctions’ to be applied to any country in the world by Britain and the US, 2 horrible imperialist and genocidal powers?

I am going to call this woman back up and ask that she, or any of the people who met at Poor Richard’s, write to explain on this blog what ‘action’ they want, and to explain their reasoning. I just don’t get it? I would think they would be more thoughtful about asking for ‘action’, when their allies on this taking of ‘action’ are Dubya, Condi, Madelyn Albright, and Tom Tancredo. I just don’t get it? The best action that can be taken is to demand that the US and Britain, NATO and the UN just get out of all of Africa. And while we are at it, how ’bout demanding getting these troops out of the Balkans and Afghanistan, too?

Democratic Party corruption sinks the heart of Cindy Sheehan

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Cindy Sheehan has been grieving a long time, and this Memorial Day after the capitulation of the Democratic Party legislators in Congress was particularly rough. But it is more than that. The pain is made even worse by how inactive so many rank and file Democratic Party voters are in opposing this war.

At street vigils we see this, too. So many liberal minded folk wave and honk their horns in support of our vigil, but then it seems that they never get out of their cars to be the protesters, and not just the driver by-ers. After a while, this becomes disheartening.

We hope that Cindy gets her spirits back up and rejoins the activist antiwar movement after some family time off. She deserves the best, and she has given America her best. Here is her last commentary about how despairing she now feels. Many feel the same alongside her.

We are sad to see it be so, but when push comes to shove, the Democratic Party is not to be relied on. Cindy Sheehan tried to push the Democratic Party into action, but the corporate controllers resisted. She is not the first, and will not be the last to fail in such a project.

Good Riddance Attention Whore
by Cindy Sheehan

I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called “Face” of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such “liberal blogs” as the Democratic Underground. Being called an “attention whore” and being told “good riddance” are some of the more milder rebukes.

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

article continues

Sand Creek No Gun Ri

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This morning will be the dedication of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. The headline of today’s Gazette? “One man’s battle” about whether the 1864 slaughter was a massacre or a battle, and reporting the re-release of a 1925 first hand account written by Irving Howbert who, 61 years after the fact, did not recall the atrocities ascribed to his unit. Whatever kind of near sesquicentenial slap in the face is this? Do you think the prominent placement of this insult could have something to do with blurring America’s vision about current military massacres?

Normally respected Old Colorado City historian Dave Hughes is republishing the book, and wants to repaint the Sand Creek Massacre as, well, not a massacre at all. A quick recap: One early morning in 1864, 700 cavalry volunteers swooped into a village of 500 Arapaho and Cheyenne refugees, killing nearly 200 (the Gazette says 150) committing unmentionable atrocities, following the command “Kill or scalp all, big and little; nits become lice!”

I first heard Dave Hughes talk about the glories of war at, of all places, the traveling Vietnam War Memorial. It reflected a myopic immoral tide change I would never have been cynical enough to foresee, and it presaged our national sanction of the US war of aggression against Iraq and acceptable collateral damage. In the shadow of the traveling wall, remembering the 58,000 American dead, where not often enough did someone mention the millions of Vietnamese dead, Dave spoke of his immense pride of commanding his men, suffering the terrible casualties they did in Korea. The heavier the toll, the deeper his pride, the blustery commander was volunteering, if it weren’t for old-age, to do it again. I kid you not. Though he lost half his men to the battle, he would bravely venture more.

Downplaying massacres seems to be Hughes’ game. If you Google No Gun Ri, the now admitted deliberate massacre of hundreds of Korean refugees in 1950, here’s what do you’ll get: Dave Hughes on record standing up for the actions of American machine gunners. Here too, he wasn’t there, and relies on the recollection of soldiers who might have reasons to be blanking out on those parts. For shame. I know and like Dave Hughes, but he’s got a moral screw loose. And as we’ve seen in this town, that’s catching.

Elsewhere in the news, a play opens in London which retells the tragedy of Fallujah, in the actual words of participants on both sides. Authorities note 70 breaches of international conventions by the US forces. Soldiers like Dave Hughes can explain to themselves the necessity of sniping, gassing and obliterating hundreds of civilians in the regular conduct of war. Luckily wiser soldiers and statesmen before them have already addressed man’s bloodlust and agreed there are crimes that must never be rationalized.

Rush Limbaugh needs to get the can for Hate Speech, too

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Here is a video of Rush Limbaugh’s promotion of ‘black face’ in the wake of Imus’s getting his papers from his sponsors for his own racist hate speech. Barack the magic negro The timing was deliberate, too. It is Limbaugh’s defense of Hate Speech in general, of which he is one of the biggest practitioners of.

These hypocrites call for the firing of any even mildly liberal professor they can dig up, and then try to wrap themselves in the mantle of ‘Free Speech’ when it comes to themselves and their constant spreading of Hate Speech across the airways. But there is a big difference between the two types of speech. Let me give my own experience at an antiwar vigil yesterday to illustrate.

Yesterday me and another antiwar protester were practicing our right to Free Speech by appearing with signs at a busy intersection. They said ‘PEACE’ and ‘NO WAR’. Some hecklers who disagreed with our message started shouting ‘Bush, Bush, Bush’ from their cars. They, too, were practicing their right to Free Speech, but then it turned nasty.

It turned into an example of them practicing Hate Speech. These young and belligerent men parked their cars and started to menace us. One of them told me to ‘Suck his Dick’, as they threateningly seemed to be building up to a physical assault on us, even though hundreds of driver-byers would have been watching! They made it clear that they would have assaulted us physically, except for the fact that so many onlookers would have witnessing their attack if they did.

As they left, one of them who had worked himself up full of hatred for us, angrily backed his vehicle into the tall lamp post in the parking lot of the Fast Food ‘restaurant’ he was at. Comical and sad. That’s what practicing Hate Speech usually comes down to, but it does have the danger of potentially causing others deep harm, and usually in an effort to stop others from their right to exercise their Free Speech.

Let’s face it. Much of the work of people like Ann Coulter Imus and Rush Limbaugh is nothing more than the most flimsily camouflaged Hate Speech. It’s basically not much more than telling others to ‘suck their dicks’, and it’s usually directed at people of other races, other sexual orientation, and those from other cultures. Oh, and against others practicing their Free Speech to openly disagree with government policies.

It is not being against hate mongers’ Free Speech to demand of their sponsors that these practitioners of Hate Speech either clear up tehri acts and eliminate their Hate Speech routines, or just hit the road. There are plenty of ways to express one’s disagreement with ‘liberals’ than in using Hate Speech, so let the message be sent out that we are tired of this constant hate mongering on the airways.

Some like Rush Limbaugh and Imus will never engage in civil exercise of Free Speech, but rather will continue to principally engage in Hate Speech if continually allowed to. So let’s hope that Rush will get the can, too, like Imus did. That would be a big victory against Hate Speech, and a big victory in favor of Free Speech. Similarly, me and my fellow antiwar protesters of yesterday will continue to engage in our right to Free Speech, no matter how many middle fingers come our way along with the threats to possibly physically attack us.

We will meet soon with the city police to discuss how to keep them from physically attacking us for practicing Free Speech in this city. I don’t expect much, or anything for that matter. The police, just like the Bush Adminstration, are totally in favor of Hate Speech and totally incapable of defending the public’s right to engage in Free Speech. I’d have to see a miracle from God before I would ever think otherwise.

The United Nations is complicit with US war criminality and genocide everywhere

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The United Nations is fully supporting US war crimes in multiple nations around our planet. It has become nothing less than a total satellite captured in the orbit of the US Pentagon. In Iraq, the UN has sat by without ever condemning the US genocide in that country, but rather participating in it. Over 2 million Iraqi casualties have been killed solely due to US interference against the Iraqi people over more than a decade and a half, and the role of the UN has been in total support of that.

There are currently over 4 million Iraqi refugees, 2 million inside and 2 million outside Iraq. The UN has little to say about that, and little relief offered to the victims. All its efforts go to help the US government intervene around the planet.

Jordan alone, with a population of a little over 5 million has taken in almost 1 million Iraqi refugees! That would be the equivalent relative to population as if the US had had to take in 60 million destitute refugees from some war zone! Syria, with a population of slightly less than 19 million, has had to take in an even greater number of Iraqi refugees from US violence than the almost 1 million in Jordan. And as the US and Israel are currently threatening Syria with attack alongside its ally Iran, the UN sits back nodding its head in acquiescence! Lest we forget, Syria was Iran’s ally while the US and its Arab client states were funding Saddam Hussein in its war upon Iran. It is the US that supported Saddam, not Syria or Iran, and the UN never did anything to stop him from killing hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of innocent Iranians. .

The situation is the same around the globe, as the UN everywhere is running backup for US foreign policy and the resulting mayhem and atrocities that follow in the wake of US war crimes. The United Nations is helping the US occupy Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Haiti as well as Iraq. These are all nations where the US violated international law and bombed, invaded and occupied these countries with its military. The United Nations has acted as an integral part of these war crimes, lending the support of the troops of its misnamed ‘Security Council’ at crucial intervals. In short, the United Nations has become the Pentagon’s whore, constantly pimped out to service America’s reactionary foreign policy.

We move to Africa, and the United Nations today is calling for occupation of Somalia with its troops instead of condemning the US-Ethiopian invasion of that country. The United Nations offers no security to the people’s of the world from US war crimes and genocides. In Africa, the countries of Rwanda and Congo can attest to that.

The UN rushes into action everywhere behind US military interventionism and it offers political cover for the US just to help perpetuate this criminality. With its history the United Nations can no longer hope to be reformed but instead should be impeached and dissolved the same as was done to its predecessor, The League of Nations.

The people of the world need to get the UN out of the nations it currently helps occupy on behalf of the US. We need an international body of nations, but the UN has defaulted on all its responsibilities, and is not acting as anything other than an agent of the richer imperial nations of the world, all bullied into line by US firepower. This is a body that can not be reformed any more, just as is the US 2 party system of corporate political control. It’s time we admit that the UN is complicit with all the US war crimes being committed and not innocently continue to back this organization as some possible alternative to the US government itself. It isn’t, and never will be.

Stop the war now and get the United Nations troops back to all their home countries. These troops are nothing more than mercenaries in the same vein that Halliburton’s are. They are not peacekeepers, but rather nothing more than another type of privatization of US military operations. Dissolve the UN Security Council Now and Help Save the World from US imperialism. The UN is no friend of anybody, other than friend to the rich and powerful corporate state creeps heading up the US government.