Kimya Dawson knows from where protest must burst: At the Seams.

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Eric Verlo

Kimya Dawson not only nailed the essence of protests for #BlackLivesMatter. She knew in which direction the protest marches needed to push. Toward our system’s seams. If you are having trouble finding the lyrics of her song about HANDS UP DON’T SHOOT I CAN’T BREATH, it’s because it’s called At the Seams.

I’ve taken the liberty to reformat Dawson’s brilliant lyrics to unpack her references and simulate her cadence.

AT THE SEAMS by Kimya Dawson

1.
Left hands hold the leashes
and the right hands hold the torches,
And Grandpas holding shotguns
swing on porch swings hung on porches,
And the Grandmas in their gardens
plant more seeds to cut their losses,
And the poachers,
with the pooches
and the nooses,
preheat crosses.

And the pooches see the Grandpas
and they bare their teeth and growl,
While their owners turn their noses up
like they smell something foul,
And they fumble with their crosses
and they start to mumble curses,
And they plot ways
to get Grandpas
off of porches
into hearses.

But the Grandpas on the porches
are just scarecrows holding toys,
And the Grandmas in the gardens
are papier-mâché decoys,
While the real Grandmas and Grandpas
are with all the girls and boys
Marching downtown to the City Hall
to make a lot of noise,
Saying:

Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

2.
Sometimes it seems like
we’ve reached the end of the road
We’ve seen cops and judges sleep together
wearing long white robes.
And they put their white hoods up,
Try to take the black hoods down,
And they don’t plan on stopping
til we’re all in the ground.

Til we’re dead in the ground
or we’re incarcerated
‘Cause prison’s
a big business form
of enslavement
Plantations that profit
on black folks in cages
They’ll break our backs
and keep the wages.

It’s outrageous that there’s no place
we can feel safe in this nation
Not in our cars, Not at the park,
Not in subway stations,
Not at church, The pool, The store,
Not asking for help,
Not walking down the street,
So we’ve gotta scream and yell:

Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

3.
You tweet me my own lyrics,
Tell me to stop
Letting a few bad apples
ruin the bunch.
Don’t minimize the fight
comparing apples to cops
This is about the orchard’s poisoned roots,
not loose fruits in a box.

Once the soil’s been spoiled,
the whole crop’s corrupt.
That’s why we need the grassroots
working from the ground up.
And we look to Black Twitter,
to stay woke and get some truth,
‘Stead of smiling cops
and black mugshots
from biased corporate news.

‘Cause if you steal cigarillos,
or you sell loose cigarettes,
Or you forget your turn signal,
will they see your skin as a threat?
Will they KILL you, And then SMEAR you,
And COVER IT UP and LIE?
Will they call it “self defense”?
Will they call it “suicide”?

Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

4.
Decades of cultivation start
from tiny seeds that were once planted.
And we mustn’t take the gardens that
our elders grew for granted,
Though it is up to our youth
how new rows sown are organized,
Because movements can’t keep moving
if old and unsharpened eyes
Can’t see the need to hear
what those on the ground hafta say,
In Ferguson and Cleveland,
Staten Island, The East Bay,
Charleston, Phoenix,
Detroit, Sanford Waller,
Seattle, Los Angeles,
Chicago, Baltimore.

Climbing flagpoles, Taking bridges,
Locked together to the BART,
Speaking up about injustice
in our music and our art,
Storming stages to ask candidates
when they’re gonna start
Really DIRECTLY addressing issues
BREAKING OUR HEARTS.

Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

5.
And if the altars are torn down,
we’ll just keep on placing flowers
For the boy whose body was in the road
FOR MORE THAN FOUR HOURS.
We will honor the dead
of every age and every gender
‘Cause we can’t just have it be
the brothers’ names that we remember.

Oh black boys with skateboards,
and black boys with hoodies,
And little black girls who
are on the couch sleeping,
And all of the black trans
women massacred,
Too many black folks killed and brutalized,
And there’s no justice served.

After the lynchings of our people
by the murderous police,
Who stand like hunters ’round their prey
gasping helpless in the street,
Feet from the TEEN SISTER they tackled
and locked handcuffed in the car,
Feet from her TWELVE YEAR OLD BROTHER DYING —

WHILE NO ONE DID CPR…

6.
And we’ll keep on planting flowers,
and we’ll fight until the day
That we don’t have to pick them all
to put them all on graves.
Yeah we’ll keep planting flowers
and we’ll fight until the day
That we don’t have to pick them all
to put them all on graves.

Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

FBI undercover rats on sovereign pals, says they planned to seize small county jails, except he was their lone soldier.

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- Very interesting testimony Friday at the trial of sovereigns Stephen Nalty and Steve Byfield. The prosecution’s latest witness was FBI INFORMER Marshall Ringer. Not a sovereign citizen type turned by government agents, Ringer is a disgraced police officer hired by the FBI and inserted into the so-called “enterprise” to report its activities and propose courses of action conducive to arrests. Ringer calls himself a “self-employed security expert.” His handler FBI Special Agent Ryan English calls him an “embedded confidencial human source”. His targets gave him the title “Continental U.S. Marshall”. They hoped he would recruit like-minded sovereigns to the cause of correcting what they saw as a corrupt judicial system. Ringer’s FBI codename was “Earp”.

The accusations corruption hinged on the understanding that according to Article VI of the US Constitution, positions of public authority must take an oath secured by a bond. The “enterprise” had discovered that many Colorado judges and prosecutors and sheriffs and other elected officials didn’t have oaths or bonds on file. If this expectation was indeed a misconception, and Article VI is inapplicable, you’d think the remedy might be to tell the would-be reformers, “no, that is not a requirement, here’s why, etc.” Strangely that was never done. Neither to their person, in a handout, or to reporters looking into this sad case. An undercover would present an excellent opportunity to huddle with the enterprise and say “hey guys, I was looking into this oath stuff and discovered that according to such and such law, or ruling or whatnot, oaths and bonds are no longer mandatory, end of story!”

But “Earp” didn’t. Nobody did. Nobody has yet to spell it out, even in this courtroom. When the defendants have tried to put Article VI into the trial record, they’ve been refused. So the issue is certainly a curious one.

Instead of using an undercover to diffuse the oath-seekers by presenting the incontrovertible truth of their error, the FBI and the state prosecutors instead gathered evidence to ridicule their character. We’re told they met in trailerhomes, they struggled to cobble enough money together to give their marshall a pair of handcuffs. They dreamed of putting together a network of De Jure judges to replace the corrupt ones currently alas De Facto.

Tapes
You might think the taped conversations of the sovereigns would be damning. The defendants certainly seem to be embarassed by them, but they’re less incriminating than disarming. When “Earp” asked what was he to do with the officials he arrested, he was told, nothing, for now. Do not take any action on your own. Wait for instructions from the People’s Grand Jury. Every time “Earp” goaded his colleagues about what he could do, they’d tell him to wait until matters could be addressed democratically and judicially.

The most interesting information to come from the undercover testimony was about how the FBI wires up its informants. Colorado law requires that at least on person in a conversation consents to being recorded. As a result, every recording presented to the court begins with the person wearing the wire dictating this preamble: “This is confidential human source X, on such and such date, etc” before that informant gets out of his car or enters a meeting area.

This offers potential targets a remedy for how to avoid intrusive surveillance by authoritarian law enforcement agencies IN COLORADO. Before every meeting, have everyone say out loud: “I do not consent to being recorded.” In unison is fine. Then a leader can then ask: “Was that everyone?” To which everyone can answer in unison: “Yes.” Provided that everyone said it, that meeting cannot be recorded. Such a method not only invalidates a recording being used as evidence later, it makes the recording a crime and the agency undertaking it and in possession of it, cupabe. If an undercover continues with the recording, he’s committing a crime.

In the case of te sovereigns, and likely your scenario as well, the government’s criminal act will far exceed in severity what they thought they were recording you doing.

We’ve yet to learn how, but apparently this undercover was discovered by the defendants early in 2017. They outed him by accusing him of making recordings and giving them to the FBI. That’s when he extracted himself and the indictments and arrests happened immediately thereafter.

The Enterprise
However you may feel about these perhaps misguided judicial reformers, their adversaries are behaving every bit the corrupt villains they pretend not to be.

The accused called themselves the People’s Grand Jury, the Indestructible People’s Trust, The Colorado Supreme Court, the Continental US Marshalls, the De Jure whatnot, or simply We The People. There seems to be no end to the permutations but they never called themselves “The Enterprise”. Yet that is what their accusers call them. In fact, for the duration of the prosecution’s case, a posterboard has been left in the center of the courtroom, beneath the judge’s dias, from which the jury cannot look away, it’s titled The Enterprise, with photos of ten member now-defendants, like employees of the month, except with mugshots, ranked in order of their title or prominence. Another ten members didn’t warrant photos or arrest, yet are listed as culpable parties, guilty by association and without the chance to . You wonder if that is legal. It certainly is prejudicial. Never mind if the witness testimonies don’t add up, there is The Enterprise, like it’s a thing instead of a characterization fashioned by frame-up artists.

MONDAY UPDATE:
On Monday defendants were given one day’s recess to review the evidence for their defense, which being incarcerated has impeded. So FBI informer Marshall Springs will resume his testimony tomorrow. But the courtroom also heard that the prosecution plans to bring TWO MORE UNDERCOVERS to testify, plus two cooperative witnesses, one of whom is a co-defendant who’s taken a plea to turn STATE’S EVIDENCE.

So that makes THREE undercover officers infiltrating “the enterprise” of not much more than a dozen conspirators, two of whom have become so intimidated they’ve changed their minds about what they were trying to achieve.

The next few days should prove enlightening and heartbreaking because although prosecutors have been documenting what the defendants did, they haven’t demonstrated the acts were crimes,. As much as defendants conspired, organized and racketeered, they didn’t aim to make one cent profit, illicit or otherwise. To what offenses did the cooperative witnesses plead guilty and what accusations do they make toward their friends?

So Nalty and Byfield have the rest of the day to study the evidence against them. The jail has not provided the paper and pencils ordered by the judge. The jail hasn’t afforded the defendants access to the case evidence either. Nalty indicated today that he’d spent a sum total of 45 minutes with the electronic files. He asked for a break of four days to prepare for the rest of the trial.

Both are in Denver jail, though their legal papers were not transferred with them when the defendants are on loan from Adams and Arapahoe Counties respectively. All the defendants being charged with conspiracy are being detained in different jails to prevent them talking to each other. But the problem is they don’t have their case papers or filings, and are in Denver’s customary 22 hour lockdown in their cells, which inhibits using the jail computers which are confined to the jail law library.

Prosecutor Shapiro responded to the defendant’s complaints of the jail not providing paper and pencils by cavalierly handing them writing pads, which they grasped with handcuffed hands, with polite thankyous. Though Shapiro no doubt know they won’t be allowed to take these into the jail. Then he condescendingly bragged that he’d resolved that complaint by providing “brand new” pads to each defendant. Defendant Byfield’s pad had a couple sheets missing, so he immediately pointed out that his pad wasn’t new. I couldn’t help but burst out with a laugh.

The judge thought there was merit to Nalty’s complaint Both defendants have scant access to the jail computers necessary to see the evidence. By the prosecutor’s own admission, the “tens of thousands of pages” would have been prohibitive to provide on paper, and the “hours and hours of taped testimony” likewise can only be provided electronically.

Prosecutor Shapiro acquiesced to allowing the defendants one day to catch up, though it sounds like he is well aware that analyzing tens of thousands of pages and hours and hours of evidence would take longer than that. Shapiro told the judge he calculated the state had wiggle room to allow a one day delay and still finish with the case by Friday. Here’s what he calculated: The state figures to rest its case by Thursday afternoon. That should leave a day and a half, less closing arguments and jury instructions and jury deliberations, to finish the trial on Friday. The prosecutors’s case will have taken six and a half days, but Shapiro thought the extra day needed to look over the evidence could come out of the defense’s day planned for defense.

To help the defendants prepare, Shapiro volunteered a preview of the witnesses to expect to testify to close out their case. Coming up we have four Gilpin County administrators, but we have also two more government undercovers, and the two cooperating witnesses. One of them co-defendant Bryan Baylog.

March on DC with your own protest message, not one dictated by NGOs. Yes, you’ll need a banner and poles.

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Eric Verlo

Organizers of the post-inaugural WOMEN’S MARCH in Washington DC this weekend are telling participants not to bring poles for signs or flags, or even knapsacks. Ha ha ha. As you travel across the country to march, remember who’s making the real sacrifice. The march coordinators are paid. You are spending the time and expense because you have something to express. Bring it. The only reason organizers want you unequipped is so your [rogue] message won’t stray from theirs. Does that sound democratic? They also have a different goal than you. Their mission is to pull off a smooth event. Yours is to make history.

As a veteran of countless protest marches, national, regional and international, I encourage newcomers to stick to their nonconformist inclinations. Independent critical thinking is what led you to take action in the first place.

To begin, THIS IS YOUR MARCH.
Washington DC belongs to you. Inauguration Day and its aftermath belong to you. Just because someone squats a Facebook event on a day conducive to public gathering doesn’t give them dibs to call the shots. A stand-alone call to arms, such as MLK’s Million Man March or CodePink’s A Billion Rising, is another matter. Spontaneous uprisings against historic events are no one organization’s to control or temper. Especially if they begin with capitulations to the state.

Here’s the usual pattern. After a FB event goes viral, nonprofit activist groups jump in to offer their expertise, resources and manpower. The nonprofits thus dominate the details and the event originators have little ground to object. Thrilled to see “their” event succeed, these new-to-the-spotlight activists don’t know that street protest is anathema to nonprofits whose existential foundation is not to disrupt politics as usual. Falling into the trap of coordinating ineffective demonstrations is often blamed on newbie error, but in Washington DC, newbies making the newbie mistakes are employees of nonprofits seeded to pretend the event had a grassroots origin. What the NGOs are really doing is setting a prescribed burn, or backfire.

Backfire: a fire set intentionally to arrest the progress of an approaching fire by creating a burned area in its path, thus depriving the fire of fuel.

Bastards! Fortunately backfire has a further meaning, probably not unrelated to the sketchy forestry strategem.

Backfire: rebound adversely on the originator; have the opposite effect to what was intended.

Just as DC lobbyists monopolize your representatives, professional activists have staked out the capitol and squatted on what is the public’s only access to speak to power. Accept their invitation to come to DC. Thank them for their legal support, their logistics and water bottles, but you’ll handle your messaging thank you.

NOTES FOR NEXT TIME
(If you’d prefer not to dwell on criticism, please skip to the section on RULES. For me, these counterproductive “mistakes” set us back every time we give them a pass.)

1. Telling participants they can’t bring stuff like food or chairs! The event’s duration is being throttled to what can be endured between meals, without a pause for rest. Do you go to meetings without chairs? In the cold outdoors one can’t even sit on the ground.

2. Hiring private security contractors, “some identifiable, some undercover”. WTF? DC’s cops, National Guard, Secret Service, and “Shadow Teams” aren’t enough?

3. Coordinating with police. What? What?! To whom Black Lives Can’t Even Matter? Sorry no.

4. Stifling expression with limits on how to carry signs. Without sticks. “Flags but without poles.” Restricting marchers to signs reinforced with only cardboard tubing. Viewed from a perspective to show the numbers, the march will bear no legible message at all.

5. Telling marchers they must handcarry small bags. You’d think they don’t want marchers’ hands free to carry signs at all.

6. Stooping to a permit, as an excuse to self-police and make participants feel honor bound to unecessary concessions (the permit terms). You don’t need a permit for First Amendment activities. NGOs use permits to effectively reserve public areas and restrict their concurrent use by others. It’s a means to control public space.

7. Scheduling the march on the day after the main event, in time to disrupt nothing. Diluting the inherent outcry, expending from everyone’s discretionary resources to converge on DC. As a result we’ll have two mobilizations. Both massive, hopefully, intead of one which could have TIPPED THE SCALE.

RULES ARE
Meant to be broken. Permit holders can enforce rules within the confines of their event area, with the assistance of authorities if needed, but not outside it. Organizer “rules” can’t be enforced on Metro, or on public streets, or along march route. DC police may pretend they have that authority but they don’t. Cops lie. Know your rights.

To hold a sign where it’s visible in a march, and big enough to where it can be seen among multitudes, you need poles.

BRING POLES.
There is no safety reason whatsoever, in Washington DC, for forbidding the use of sign poles. We’ve seen pole restrictions attempted at national conventions, in close-in urban areas with vulnerable storefront windows, but Washington’s boulevards and setbacked facades evolved with political marches. Demonstrations, parades and motorcades are everyday for DC. Your sign poles pose zero threat and you don’t have to relinquish them. Not Post-911, nor in the Age of Trump. If an NGO-deputized cop won’t allow your entry to their rally, their privatized-park, have someone wait with the contraband outside its bounds. Banners are best seen on the edges of rallies anyway. When attendance numbers reach overload, you’re golden. Move with the numbers. Otherwise wait and join in as the march departs from the rally.

What’s best for poles? Lengths of bamboo from garden nurseries. Bamboo is stiff, light, and utterly non-threatening. Eight footers will hold a banner above marchers’ heads while still allowing you to rest the poles on the ground when the march lags. Six foot lengths give you adequate leverage to keep the banner taut but are more work. Either are cheap and expendable. Bring extra. Bamboo are thin enough to hold reserve pieces bundled. You can grasp a bundle of three as readily as a single pole. Those extra poles can be allocated as you see other marchers in need.

Let’s rule out pipe, lumber and dowels for being too heavy. Broom handles are expensive. Wooden stakes are uncomfortable and too short, and apparently, too “pointy”.

Various widths of PVC are rigid enough to about eight feet. Steel electrical conduit can give you ten feet. Both are cheaply available at neighborhood hardware stores. The baggage holds of charter buses can’t accommodate pieces over eight feet.

Alternatives to fixed lengths poles would be telescoping poles such as hiking sticks or monopods. Usually these do not extend beyond five feet. Longer telescoping tool handles used for painting for example extend but won’t contract to shorter than five feet or so.

Sectional poles such as geodesic tent poles can be folded to different length permutations. Depending on the weight of your banner material, multiple tent poles may be required to provide sufficient stiffness.

The benefit of collapsible poles is that you can conceal them until you are ready. Provided you have a BAG.

BRING A BAG
There are plenty of ordinary reasons to need a bag. Lunch. Extra layers of clothing. Hat, sunglasses, bandana. Extra gloves, hand warmers, snacks, literature to share, stuff handed you at the rally.

As a banner holder you’ll need supplies like duct tape, markers and string to fix signs, and those aforementioned extra tent poles. Maybe a backup banner or gag props for an alternative photo op.

We bring bags to work, school and play. Who expects that a day traversing DC doesn’t call for a bag?

Don’t be fooled into believing that for safety reasons all bags must be clear plastic. DC surveillance can spot the excess heft of dangerous materials such as explosives or weapons, without having to see them. What they’re really looking for are items like ropes, carabiners, harnesses, goggles, which activists can use for nonviolent fun, to mix things up and entertain, provide media moments and get attention.

Besides which, clear bags will make for unsightly messy photos. Neither does your bag need to be restricted in size. Bring a backpack or knapsack. Leave your hands free to carry that sign!

The best reason for you to shoulder an ordinary opaque knapsack is to give cover for others to bring bags with necessities you overlooked. Cameras, accessories, extra socks, bullhorns, batteries, umbrellas etc.

There’s nothing so heartbreaking as a mass of people who’ve come from across the country to participate in a march that goes nowhere. An uneventful demonstration garners no press, wins no recruits, and only burns out those who thought they came to DC to effect change.

I watched half a million hispanic Americans assemble on the National Mall for Immigrant Rights. Many of those half million took a great risk marching in DC. It’s possible many as a result were deported. They could only follow the rules of course, received no media coverage, and accomplished fuck-all.

BRING CHAIRS
Come to DC with a demand, but bring more than the leverage of numbers. Carry with you the potential that you might LINGER. That’s the pressure the media can’t ignore.

Chairs, umbrellas, canopies, tents, enhance your stamina and protect you from the elements. The longer your protest runs, the more time there will be for latecomers to join in. That’s the momentum the state is worried about. Project that.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” – Frederick Douglass

Douglass also said: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Your march organizers have promised their DC colleagues a toothless beast. It’s not what they tell their donors, nor how they phrased their invitation to you. You brought your physical body to DC to support the cause. Is it theirs to squander?

UPDATE: Deaf blind judge gives Shadoe Garner 75 DAYS JAIL for possession of Wicca ritual athame and for littering.

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- Shadoe Garner was found guilty today by a judge who didn’t blink at the public defender having no time to prepare, at discovery evidence not being provided to defense, at prosecutors withholding half their witnesses and videos (depriving the defense of knowing what might have be exculpable evidence), at being forwarned that a 35C Appeal was virtually guaranteed, and despite two police videos making very clear that Shadoe’s rights were violated, if only the judge had ears and eyes to see it.

The courtroom staff should have seen trouble brewing earlier in the morning when an attorney announced “the court will call Emanuel Wilson” and the old judge replied “I’m sorry, did you say Javier Lopez?” Uh, no.

Judge Frederick Rogers is a dead ringer for filmmaker John Huston, with none of the latter’s sense of humor. He tried a case before Shadoe’s, a young black vet with PTSD who was awarded a large settlement for a traumatic brain injury and who went off on his lawyers for witholding the award in a conservatorship. The judge found him guilty of making threats, however exaggerated, giving no allowances for his mental disability.

In Shadow’s case, Judge Rogers denied all motions to wave speedy trial, and declared he wouldn’t suppress the prosecution’s evidence based on the defense not having seen it. The judge wanted to see it presented first so he could assess its worth to the charges before considering suppression. Essentially, motion quashed.

The evidence wound up supporting Shadoe’s claims, that he identified himself, that he had served papers on Commander Tony Lopez, not littered, and that the “weapon” he carried was a religious talisman, if also a knife.

“My name is Shadoe Garner”
Three times on the video Shadoe Garner told officers his name when asked, both first name and last. He even provided his date of birth. From that the officers could have run a check on his identity without having to take him into custody for not having an ID. The officers even testified that they heard Shadoe say all that. But the judge only heard the defendant say “Shadows” and so felt the defendant was being evasive. Officers can even be heard on the video using Shadoe’s name as they talked to him!

Instead of cross-checking his info in their system, the officers took Shadoe from the crowd and that operation required a pat down. Before doing that, Officer Montathong asked Shadoe, “do you have a weapon or anything that could poke me?”

Weapon vs. Athame
“Yes” Shadoe replied, I have an Athame” and he gestured to his left thigh. The officers retrieved what they alerted each other was a knife. Shadow countered “It’s not a knife, it’s an athame, a ceremonial object.” He repeated that explanation several times on the video.

It might be relevant to point out that Shadoe was wearing his robe, a distinct purple garment which officers would recognize over and over on the 16th Street Mall or at Stoner Hill, where the Dirty Kids live.

Shadow thinks of himself as a Wiccan druid, and the ceremonial dagger he refers to as an athame is as ritualistic as his robe. Shadoe told me he had ground-scored the robe weeks before. It’s a hooded cape that can only be described as a theatrical vestment.

The “knife” too was theatrical. The prosecutor constantly pointed out that its length was longer twelve inches, much too long for a pocket knife. It’s length was more like a kitchen knife or, more obviously, a SWORD.

The weapon pulled from a sheath strapped to Shadoe’s leg was a 12″ bowie knife manufactured by “Force Recon”. Sargent Martinez recognized it from his Marine days as a military combat weapon.

The First Amendment isn’t a pass to COSPLAY in urban environments, but a homeless person doesn’t have much choice about what possessions they can leave at home and which they have to carry.

Both Sargent Martinez and Officer Montathong said Shadoe was wearing a trench coat, even though the videos depicted the robe clearly. What trench coat has a hood? The officers stuck to their story because it’s regulation they say to suspect protesters wearing trench coats. Officer Montathong said protesters “always hide pee containers under their trench coats to throw at police.”

I’ll note here the officers removed Shadoe from the protest because they felt unsafe in the crowd. Sargent Martinez was calling the shots that day and testified the crowd numbered “five to six” peaceful, seated, protesters. Though the police numbered twenty, Martinez didn’t feel safe. For backup Commander Lopez called in Metro SWAT too.

“I am a process server”
Shadow repeated multiple times that he was a “process server”. No one questioned the officers whether it was customary to charge process servers with littering.

Shadow was arrested for littering because he served Commander Tony Lopez with an 11-page notice of a federal lawsuit. Lopez refused to take the document so Shadoe thrust it at his chest and it bounced to the sidewalk. “Cite him for littering” barked Lopez. Officers gave Shadoe a chance to pick up his “trash” or be ticketed for littering. Shadoe replied that he couldn’t retreive the papers, they now belonged to Lopez. Lopez had been officially served, documented by a witness video. If Shadoe took back the papers the transaction would be undone. As he explained this, Shadoe cast aside a cigarette butt. “Pick that up” ordered the officers, “or you’ll be cited for littering.” Shadoe dutifully bent and retrieved the cigarette butt. He wasn’t about to be given a ticket for littering.

He didn’t have an ID. Like many homeless, he’d lost it in a previous interaction with DPD. The police confiscate IDs from Denver homeless, probably as a deterrant to further contact. But Shadoe gave his name when asked, even though the police inquiry was unwarranted.

Appeal
The next step will be for Shadoe to appeal, but he’s got to do it from jail. The public defender’s office has to meet with Shadoe before the deadline expires and that’s not a likely priority for them. His next hearing is August 22 in District Court, division 5G. Shadoe is charged with felony weapons possession on account of a second offense, his persisting in carrying a ceremonial athame.

Shadoe’s single request to Judge Rogers, as the judge considered his sentencing, was to ask that the weapon not be destroyed, as called for by Denver ordinance. The city objected but the judge ruled that the evidence was required for Shadoe’s appeal. By his plea, Shadoe demonstrated that the evidence means more to him than a mere knife.

Shadoe has a very good case. The DPD abused his Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure. There’s the First Amendment right to his religion practices. And there’s the right to effective counsel which Shadoe was denied.

Judge Rogers has made a lot of work for the courts above him. Who knows how many other defendants are going to be jailed before judicial superiors figure out that Rogers has got to go.

Denver Occupier Martin Wirth was shot in the back as sheriffs shot each other.

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Eric Verlo

Much as it’s comforting to think our Occupy Denver comrade Martin Wirth went out in a blaze of glory, with bank repo henchmen in his gunsights, another truth seems to be emerging from the crime scene report and autopsy. Key details are still obfuscated, such as where were sheriffs deputies when struck by bullets and what caliber ammo were they firing? Evidence made public indicates that deputies fired many shots into Martin’s home trying to snipe him at his computer desk. Martin was not hit until he tried to make his escape up the hill out back. Our friend was shot with eleven large caliber hollow-points IN THE BACK.

The location of shell casings and penetration trajectories in the house suggest a shootout between someone who came up through the basement garage and others who breached the front door. Neighborhood witnesses have yet to recount in full what they saw. Martin is dead, but we are told the Park County deputies didn’t trim their force of enough trigger happy motherfuckers for locals to feel safe contradicting the official version of events.

According to the Final Anatomic Diagnoses conducted by a Dr. Galloway for David Kintz Jr, Park County Coroner:

Present widely distributed over the back involving the upper; mid; the lower; the left gluteal; and the left upper thigh laterally; are 11 entrance type of large caliber gunshot wounds showing circumferential marginal abrasion

Deputies claim Martin was levelling his gun at them when they shot him, except all eleven of their Hydra-Shok bullets struck Martin Wirth in the back.

WOUND SUMMARIES:

The autopsy reveals eleven entrance gunshot wounds involving the full spectrum of the back with a predominance of the mid-back. The autopsy further reveals five exit wounds involving the lower right neck and the mid and upper chest. A sixth exit wound is located in the upper abdomen, in the midline. At the autopsy, three bullets were retrieved outside the body. One bullet is found in the clothing related to the chest; a second bullet is found under the head while removing the clothing; a third bullet is retrieved from the body bag. Two large caliber bullets are recovered from the right and left anterior chest wall. One large caliber bullet remains deeply embedded in the left pelvis. The extensive internal injuries in this case associated with six anterior exit wounds preclude a precise definition of wound tracts.

The crime scene report described where Martin’s body was left for hours and the pool of blood beneath him, but does not say where Sheriff’s deputy Nate Carrigan was found, nor where two other deputies were injured.

The diagram below records where bullets struck Martin’s house.

If evidence supported the Park County narrative, all the facts would probably be public. Instead we’re left to speculate: whether officers sprinkled the home with empty shell casings matching Martin’s gun, or if deputies deployed with rifles of the same caliber as Martin’s so their rounds could be confused for his.

Martin Wirth made it clear he intended to defend his home from fraudulent foreclosure. He told a variety of people he wanted to shoot it out if it came to that. I’m not certain it did. One neighbor described the Park County eviction team visit on February 24 thus:

“They showed up like the Marines invading Iwo Jima. I think they attacked the house like the Marines landing on the beach.”

Paul Castaway and a mother’s grief

Posted on July 20, 2015 by David Lee Anderson

DENVER, COLORADO- On July 19th 2015, I met the Mother of Paul Castaway, a young native American man who was shot four times by the Denver Police Department and died of those fatal shots. At the memorial service she saw me sitting there watching her, she quietly walked up and held out her hand and ask me my name, then in a very soft and quiet voice she said “Thank You, for coming” With her eyes and slow movement of her step you could see the weight of her grief. I was stunned into silence.

[Paul Castaway’s Mother and the memorial for her son, killed by the Denver Police Department one week ago on July 13th 2015.]

When we arrived at the memorial site, she knelt down in prayer placing flowers there.

I started to reach for my camera, and then I heard her first quiet sob. I was frozen in place as I listen to her sobbing, a mother’s grief for a lost son that only she can suffer alone. There would be no clicking of the camera in this moment of sorrow.

Earlier in the day I had been to a support the police rally in the Civic Center Park, I was there as part of a group of counter demonstrators. The police support group were very loud and unyielding in their support for their police Department.

As I sat listening to the Mother quietly sobbing for her lost son, I wondered; If those police supporters could hear this Mother’s grief, if they could see her tears; would they still fell the same about their blind support of the Denver Police Department.

[The police protecting their KILLER COPS supporters from peace activists.]

A hero does not shoot an unarmed man in the back, then pose for trophy photo.

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Eric Verlo

SORRY, NO. And I’ve seen this composition before. Abu Ghraib. Or any of the trophy shots found on the digital cameras of US soldiers in free fire zones. These officers are holding up for display a critically injured man struggling to breathe. Shortly he’ll be interrogated while still in intensive care, while America pretends this is justice.

Sergeant Jay Cook saw escapee David Sweat running for the dense woods. No, shooting an unarmed man in the back does not fall within rules of engagement, neither for border patrol nor fugitive manhunt. Sergeant Cook was among a posse of thousands, including all variety of aircraft and vehicles. Though Sweat had evaded capture for 21 days, this was the first direct sighting. Cook was too porcine to make chase, but did he think the prisoner could outrun everything else? Shooting Sweat twice in the back was an act of cowardice, like that of snipers or drone pilots. Jay Cook is an American Hero for the Police State.

Police take poetic license with wanted posters of New York prison fugitives

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Eric Verlo

LOOKIT! New York authorities have issued fresh images of escapees David Sweat and Richard Matt. You might wonder where they got photos more recent than the last mug shots, which was the last time the prison break fugitives were in custody. Plus the news coverage has been unequivocal that authorities haven’t seen the wayward prisoners since.

It turns out the latest images are called “PROGRESSIVE PHOTOS” depicting how the convicted murderers are supposed to look at ten days into their freedom quest. Authorities are assuming they haven’t reached razors, so each has a ten-day shadow; and police artists have Photoshopped t-shirts over the original penitentiary vestments. But the photo manipulation didn’t stop there. The original mugshots were taken in identical environments, but these renditions feature distinct atmosphere changes, both darker.

The younger David Sweat is now lit with harsh florescent lights as one might encounter him in a convenience store or in YOUR GARAGE. Sweat’s pores are exposed like one might observe from inappropriate intimacy. Sweat’s receding hairline now looks more like hair plugs, as if his first stop after Dannemora was to a hair club for men. Sweat’s original friendly demeanor has been replaced with a calculated desperation. I’m guessing police artists have a PS morph tool labeled “John Wayne Gacy”.

Sweat’s brother-art-thou, alleged lothario Richard Matt, is now bathed in the incandescent light of YOUR BEDROOM.

I’m sure wanted posters have always afforded sheriffs the discretion to paint fugitives as menacing as needed. Photo manipulation is another animal altogether. It’s not poetic license, it’s character assassination. And it’s extrajudicial. Sweat and Matt are guilty of a nonviolent jailbreak. Until we can offer them justice — run boys run.

Deadliest motorcycle “gang” in Waco shoot-out was not Bandidos, Cossacks, Scimitars, or Vaqueros. It was police.

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Eric Verlo

393

Bandidos, Cossacks, Scimitars, Vaqueros Motorcycle Clubs
Was the Waco Shoot-out a gunfight between rival gangs or an ambush laid by law enforcement? Police are monopolizing the testimony but the evidence suggests a barroom brawl became a pretext to kill or arrest club officers, essentially grassroots organizers, now charged with “organized crime”. Investigators can litter the crime scene with brass-knuckles, knives and wallet chains, but the shell casings are going to be police issue. Motorcycle headlights were on, indicating club members were trying to leave. Police claim that the brawlers redirected their fire toward officers, but did that happen while the bikers were trying to ride off? Because riding requires both hands. This gangland “shoot-out” was a St Valentine’s Day Massacre executed by cops.

[5/20 Update: HA! The nine casualties died of gunshot wounds, sustained outside the restaurant. No shell casings were found around the bodies. Eight of the nine were Cossacks. The eighteen wounded are not expected to be charged. So much for the narrative that gangs were fighting each other, or that Bandidos were the aggressors.]

It’s described as being a gang shoot-out, but what happened in Waco is still shrouded in the fog of the official POV. Did motorcycle club members shoot at each other? They’re unavailable for interviews, locked up on million dollar bonds. The Twin Peaks restaurant claims the shooting started outside. The only witnesses reaching reporters are the sergeant giving the press briefing and undercover cops purporting to describe the tensions between the “gangs”. By my reading, informant provocateurs incited trouble by “rocking” patches which claimed the territory of “Texas” for the Cossacks Motorcycle Club.

Something like three dozen undercover officers were monitoring the usually uneventful bi-monthly meeting of the Confederation of Clubs and Independents, in anticipation that the “Texas” patch would offend the Bandidos MC. They were able to respond within 45 seconds of the alleged altercation. What might have been an unremarkable barroom brawl, if even that was not contrived, turned into an ambush that killed nine and wounded eighteen. Zero officers were hit and I will bet every bullet was theirs.

Let’s say the melee happened as the police and media describe. Why the blackout on the club affiliations? Why are the 170 arrestees being detained on a million dollar bond each? Why aren’t reporters challenging the police narrative? Witnesses assert that at least four of the dead were killed by police. How long before we learn how many undercover officers had fired their guns?

The media is making much of the anticipation that fellow gang members are converging on Texas to avenge their comrades. I think the police know that it’s themselves who are the targets of the bikers’ vengeance.

No doubt one can say the bikers were not boy scouts, but have you seen the photos? These “gangs” wore their colors, in this case patches, like boy scout badges. And everyone in uniform creased jeans and leather vests as tidy as bowling shirts. Did you see the mugshots? If you look past the long hair and tattoos you’ll note everyone is clean shaven. This was a Sunday outing. These are family men and women, not gang members. The Cossacks are a “Harleys Only” motorcycle club for God’s sake!

Police aren’t naming the “gangs” involved in what’s being called the “Waco Shoot-out”. Because they are motorcycle clubs, for one, and because the only gang deserving of the notoriety is really the police.

NOTES 5/20:
Names of 9 dead. All killed by gunshot wounds, all outside the restaurant: COSSACKS MC ROAD CAPTAIN Daniel Raymond Boyett, 44, of Waco TX; COSSACKS MC ROAD CAPTAIN Wayne Lee Campbell, 43, of Arlington TX; COSSACKS MC SERGEANT AT ARMS Richard Vincent Kirschner Jr., 47, of Kylie TX; COSSACKS MC Matthew Mark Smith, 27, of Keller TX, formerly of Scimitars; COSSACKS MC Charles Wayne Russell, 46, of Tyler TX; COSSACKS MC Jacob Lee Rhyne, 39, of Ranger TX; Jesus Delgado Rodriguez, 65, of New Braunfels TX; Richard Matthew Jordan II, 31, of Pasadena, TX; and BANDIDOS MC Manuel Isaac Rodriguez, 40, of Allen TX.

Names of the 170 booked and charged with organized criminal activity: Martin Lewis, 62, retired San Antonio PD detective; Marcus Pilkington, 37; Michael Kenes, 57; Michael Woods, 49; Julie Perkins, 52; Nate Farish, 30; Ronald Warren (wounded), 55; Morgan English, 30; Ryan Craft, 22; Rolando Reyes, 40; Jonathan Lopez, 27; Richard Benavides, 60; Michael Baxley, 57; Aaron Carpenter, 33; Jarrod Lehman, 30; Ricky Wycough, 56; Royce Vanvleck, 25; Ester Weaver, 46; Ryan Harper, 28; Timothy Bayless, 53; Michael Chaney, 53; Mitchell Bradford, 29; Nathan Champeau, 34; Noe Adame, 34; Owen Bartlett, 34; Rene Cavazos, 46; Berton Bergman, 47; Greg Corrales, 47; John Wiley, 32; Jeff Battey, 50; Kenneth Carlisle, 36; John Craft, 47; Lindell Copeland, 63; Matthew Clendennen, 30; Michael Thomas, 59; Narciso Luna, 54; Owen Reeves, 43; Richard Donias, 46; Robert Robertson, 36; Reginald Weathers, 43; Richard Dauley, 47; Rudy Mercado, 49; Seth Smith, 25; Steven Walker, 50; Thomas Landers, 58; Valdemar Guajardo, 37; Walter Weaver, 54; William English, 33; Marco Dejong, 37; Melvin Pattenaude, 51; Jarron Hernandez, 21; Jason Moreno, 30; Jeremy King, 32; John Martinez, 30; Jeremy Ojeda, 37; John Guerrero, 44; John Moya, 26; Jose Valle, 43; Joseph Ortiz, 34; John Vensel, 62; John Wilson, 52; Jorge Salinas, 24; Justin Garcia, 23; Justin Waddington, 37; Lance Geneva, 37; Lawrence Kemp, 40; Lawrence Garcia, 51; Josh Martin, 25; Eliodoro Munguia, 49; Lawrence Yager, 65; James Rosas, 47; James Stalling, 56; James Venable, 47; Gage Yarborough, 22; Gilbert Zamora, 60; Gregory Salazar, 42; George Wingo, 51; James Eney, 43; Edward Keller, 47; Christopher Eaton, 46; Christopher Stainton, 42; Daniel Johnson, 44; Daniel Pesina, 21; Don Fowler, 51; Doss Murphy, 44; Drew King, 31; Brian Eickenhorst, 28; Edgar Kelleher, 50; Andrew Sandoval, 30; Andrew Stroer, 49; Arley Harris, 32; Bobby Samford, 35; George Rogers, 52; Jacob Reese, 29; Joseph Matthews, 41; Juventino Montellano, 46; Mark White, 41; Bradley Terwilliger, 27; Ares Phoinix, 36; Benjamin Matcek, 27; Craig Rodahl, 29; Daryle Walker, 39; David Martinez, 45; David Rasor, 37; Christopher Rogers, 33; Andres Ramirez, 41; Robert Nichols, 32; Seth Smith, 28; Theron Rhoten, 35; Timothy Satterwhite, 47; Anthony Palmer, 40; Terry Martin, 48; Wesley McAlister, 32; William Redding, 35; Matthew Yocum, 25; Phillip Sampson, 43; Phillip Smith, 37; Jason Dillard, 39; Jacob Wilson, 28; Dustin McCann, 22; Billy Mcree, 38; Kevin Rash, 42; John Arnold, 43; Kristoffer Rhyne, 26; Raymond Hawes, 29; Richard Kreder, 33; Robert Bucy, 36; Ronald Atterbury, 45; William Aikin, 24; Trey Short, 27; Christian Valencia, 26; Michael Moore, 42; Jason Cavazos, 40; Roy Covey, 27; Brian Logan, 38; Colter Bajovich, 28; Ronnie Bishop, 28; Nathan Grindstaff, 37; James Gray, 61; Jimmy Pond, 43; Clayton Reed, 29; Tommy Jennings, 56; Ray Allen, 45; James Devoll, 33; Blake Taylor, 24; Matthew Folse, 31; Sandra Lynch, 54; Marshall Mitchell, 61; Mario Gonzalez, 36; Larry Pina, 50; Richard Luther, 58; Salvador Campos, 27; Michael Lynch, 31; Michael Herring, 36; Richard Cantu, 30; Tom Mendez, 40; Sergio Reyes, 44; Bohar Crump, 46; Jerry Pollard, 27; Eleazar Martinez, 41; Jim Harris, 27; Christopher Carrizal, 33; Diego Obledo, 40; David Cepeda, 43; Brian Brincks, 23; Dusty O’Ehlert, 33; Juan Garcia, 40, engineer for Austin water dept; Kyle Smith, 48; and Jimmy Spencer, 23.

Walter Scott murder and frame-up video proves South Carolina police have fewer good apples than bad

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Eric Verlo

Officer Michael Slager was a bad apple, but not one good apple turned him in. Instead the rest of the apples recounted how they attempted CPR (they didn’t), and backed Slager’s account, until a bystander video exposed them all. Thanks to the video, Officer Slager is being charged with the murder of Walter Scott. Slager fired eight shots, the last measured and fatal, because a wounded arrestee could dispute his version of events. The takeaway for police in North Charleston might be that planting weapons on dead black suspects will no longer be business as usual, OR, if there’s a witness holding a camera phone you have to kill him too. Do you doubt that is not Officer Bad Apple’s one singular regret?

Je suis a manipulated photo, like statue of Saddam toppled by fake Iraqi crowd

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Eric Verlo

HEY! Where are the Parisian masses supposed to have been marching behind the World Leaders?! Media images were cropped to suggest the Euro cabal headed the populist march, but a long shot establishes the illusion to have been a lie. It turns out the forty figureheads held their own parade for Charlie Hebdo in a vast no man’s land of high security. Video footage shows the leaders surrounded by only media, beckened to move hither and forth to simulate an advance, marching in place more or less like a chorus line of marionettes.

The photo-op is disgracefully contrived, the subjects looking cluelessly right and left at imaginary onlookers, waving occasionally at what are probably only government snipers on the rooftop. An audio track records applause generated by a small number of determined clappers, while stage managers bark cadences to prompt the line forward, repeating “Vite, vite, vite” and “Ein, Zwei, Drei.”

The complicity of the international press recalls the iconic toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue by US marines, flanked by an entourage of Iraqi collaborators made to look like jubulant masses by means of judiciously cropped camera angles, unmasked in the alternative press by under-populated far shots. Even if the leaders’ isolation is dismissed as pragmatic, what does a complicit media tell you about whose agenda is rolling out the JE SUIS CHARLIE offensive?

The impromptu summit had media waxing that Paris at that moment was the “Capitol of the World.” An Anglo-Capitalist Putsch, yes. The march in Paris was a self-congratulatory televised re-declaration of the War On Islam. President Obama’s non-attendance is a red herring, and points to another missed opportunity. Had Obama been any kind of people’s hero he could have sent a drone in his stead to dispatch this Islamophobic assembly like just another Afgan wedding party.

Bored Oklahoma teen murder suspects not bored or under-educated enough to be considered teens

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Eric Verlo

James Edwards, Chancey Luna and Michael Jones
Bored Oklahoma teens who shot a random jogger in the back are being tried as adults not juveniles because “it was an adult crime”; though killing while bored seems a juvenile crime by definition. So does immediately confessing a motive, “we were bored,” to the police, it would seem to me. But there’s more. Despite the confessions, it was not immediately clear who pulled the trigger as the three teens trailed their victim, Australian college baseball player Christopher Lane, in their car, then sped away to find a next target. But that didn’t stop Oklahoma police from charging just TWO of the boys with first degree murder, bail denied, with the third considered an accessory. I’ve provided the mug shots to give you a hint. For which 15 and 16 year-old do you think the state of Oklahoma is seeking the death penalty? (Spoiler: YES) And the older accessory –17 but white– gets bail and will be tried as a juvenile.

Pundits deride African American leaders for not decrying the Lane murder like they did that of Trayvon Martin, presumably because the victim was white. But I’ll ask where is the community outcry for young James Edwards and Chancy Luna, joy-killers they may be? Though I understand full well that other than the “doing it for fun” headlines, this event is unexceptional. Black children bear the brunt of law enforcement everyday, our prison system follows in the lynching tradition.

Crowdsourced Boston Marathon pics point to usual paramilitary suspects

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Eric Verlo

YES, MORE CSI DIY CROWDSOURCING PHOTO-ANALYSIS! If you could anticipate that criminologists would scrutinize surveillance videos for who left what at the scene, or who behaved oddly after a bomb blast, you could probably plan to evade detection, by, for example, bringing a larger bag to conceal the bag you’re going to drop off.

A soft bag would be least suspicious but would need a reinforced shell to pretend it wasn’t empty afterward. That might explain some of the bag photos cropping up online, some of them dismissed because they’re mistaken for before shots that were really taken after. It turns out the after photo of the Craft/Seal Special Ops at the Boston Marathon Bombing isn’t problematic because their full packs appear to be weightless. Yet the bags are bulging at the same time. Would your elbow be bent, or would you be rocking on your heels, bearing a full load? What are they packing, parachutes?

No need to compare their uniform backpacks with scraps of bags shredded by the bomb inside. We need to ask, what WERE these guys carrying, before then after? Obviously it wasn’t first aid equipment or anything that came in handy for this deployment, apparently. Don’t you find it disturbing that the unspeakable happened at the Boston Marathon, everyone’s scrambling to be helpful and these two authorized attendees don’t appear to have anything to do?

Colorado police brutality retrospective: the 1934 Relief Strike Battle, UP story “Girl Radical Leads Mob in Denver Riot”

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Eric Verlo

If one image captures the “Relief Strike Riot” of October 30, 1934, it’s of Patrolman CV Satt who continues to fire his service revolver after he’s felled by a bottle thrown by a striking picketer. Although Colorado newspapers were anti-union, their accounts vary enough to reveal the escalation of violence for which the DPD was responsible and for which they and the newspapers I’ll bet have never apologized. This article will be the first of a series to unearth the newspaper accounts which documented the events of Oct. 29 through Nov. 3, 1934, mostly because the police tactics and media defamation are remarkably similar today.

(Caption on above photograph: “This remarkable photograph was taken when the rioting between Denver police and “relief strike” picketers was at its height at W. Jewell ave. and the Platte River yesterday. Patrolman C. V. Satt is shown rising after he had been struck over the head with bricks and a shovel. He has his service pistol in his hand, ready to fire at his assailants, but Sergt. Henry Durkop is restraining him.”)

INTRODUCTION: THE BATTLE
As with many “riots”, the confrontation of Oct. 30, 1934 was instigated by the abrupt arrest and detention of a union organizer. What follows is an entertaining eyewitness account which attempts to defame the picketers and laud the police officers for their restraint, although the other reports and photographic record suggested otherwise.

Colorado Springs Evening Telegraph, October 31, 1934, page 1, column 8: GIRL RADICAL LEADS MOB IN DENVER RIOT — FERA Project Pickets Spurred Into Battle by Woman Believed Imported Agitator By DAVIS CAMPBELL, United Press Staff Correspondent

DENVER, Colo, Oct 30 (UP)– A dark haired, attractive girl led demonstrators into hand to hand battle with police here today, as the picketers, under alleged communist leadership, sought to force a strike of Denver FERA workers.

The girl, who was believed by police to have been an imported communist sympathizer, was the spearhead of the rush of demonstrators who attempted to rescue their arrested leader, Gene Corish, 35, of Denver, from the hands of police.

I followed the demonstrators from the time they gathered with the intention of picketing the FERA projects. Police believed they planned to descend on a project at Alameda avenue and Cherry creek. Instead they headed for another at Evans street and the Platte river.

FERA Workers Fight Reds.

There they rushed into a group of FERA workers and sought to take away their tools. The relief workers fought back. But, by the force of superior numbers the demonstrators were winning the spirited battle when police rushed up.

Several picks and shovels had been thrown into the stream.

The police leaped into the midst of the hand to hand fighting. They seized Corish, who appeared to be the leader of the rioters, and dragged him to a patrol wagon.

Instantly the girl leader of the rioters set up a cry of “Don’t let the (here she used an unprintable epithet) have him” and she started toward the patrol wagon swinging a shovel someone had wrenched from a worker.

Others joined the rush. Bricks and clods flew thru the air toward the little band of a dozen husky policemen, outnumbered about 50 to 1 by the rioters.

The patrolmen formed a cordon around the patrol wagon, and retreated slowly toward it, fighting every step of the way, but using only their clubs and fists. They very apparently were seeking to avoid serious injury to anyone.

Officer Felled by Bottle.

Suddenly a beer bottle flew thru the air and struck one of the patrolmen (I learned later he was Carl V. Satt), squarely on the head. Satt dropped like a log.

A rioter stood over him with a shovel in his hands, apparently ready to swing another blow at the unconscious man.

Driven to desperation by this development, police drew their pistols and fired what sounded to me like more than 30 shots.

A rioter dropped, wounded thru the hip. He was Henry Brown, later found to be superficially wounded.

I think Patrolman Marshall Stanton shot him. Stanton told me later he believed this was the case.

I was certain, as I watched from some distance away, that I saw two other rioters drop, but, if others were wounded, they were carried along by their fellows and were not taken to hospitals.

Rapidly the ranks of the demonstrators broke, giving ground before the police fire. Several paused long enough to hurl bricks and rocks such as those which had already injured Sergt. James Pitt and Sergt. Henry Duerkop.

The police made 10 arrests in all.

Thru all the violence, FERA workers sided with police. They appeared determined not to give up their jobs.

INTRO 2: PHOTOGRAPHS
From the Rocky Mountain News, October 31, 1934, page 4

Caption reads: “A group of the “strikers” parading near the Cherry Creek relief project. Only 21 bona fide relief workers in Denver left their jobs yesterday to strike.”

Caption reads: “This view was taken just before police and so-called relief striker started their bloody battle at the Platte River near W. Jewell ave. yesterday. The arrow points to Patrolman C. V. Satt, who was struck in the head by a missile and critically injured. Other patrolmen are shown on duty around the patrol wagon, as one of the picket leaders is being placed inside.”

Caption reads: “During the heat of the battle. This view shows the action in the encounter between police and strike picketers on the Platte River yesterday. Two of the picketers, knocked down by policemen, are shown lying on the ground.”

Caption reads: “After the smoke of battle. This shows the battleground where strikers and police met yesterday just after all the action had ceased. Two strikers are shown down on the ground and beyond them is Patrolman C. V. Satt, who was perhaps fatally injured when struck by missiles of the strikers. He is prone on the ground but has pulled out his revolver.”

Caption reads: “R. W. Rankin, a relief supervisor, shown waiting for the ambulance after he had been struck over the head by a patrolman following a private fight at the strike demonstration held yesterday at Civic Center. He suffered a severe scalp wound.”

Caption reads: Henry W. Brown, who was shot in the hip during the encounter between the demonstrators and police on the Platte River yesterday. He is shown here as he lay on a cot in county jail after his wound had been treated in Colorado General Hospital.”

INTRO 3: NEWS HEADLINES

CS Gazette, (AP) Oct 29, 1934:
Relief Strikers March on Capitol – Governor Refuses to Talk to Crowd When One ‘Red’ Won’t Keep Still

Rocky Mountain News, Oct 30
‘Relief Strikers’ March On Capitol, make Demands – Threaten Violence at Projects Today If Officials Do Not Grant All They Seek
Will Rogers – Says Bread Line Is Encouraged by Deficit of New York Stock Exchange
Young Folk Lambast Older Generation For Getting World Into Present Mess – No Punches Pulled as Boys and Girls Have Their Say

CS Evening Telegraph, Oct 30,
RELIEF RIOTERS BATTLE DENVER POLICE
Agitators Shot and Four Officers Injured as Mob Tries to Foment Strike – Blazing Guns Disperse Communist Led Crowd, Radio Car and Gas Station Burned, Score of Attackers Hurt, FERA Workers Refuse to Walk Out
Girl Radical Leads Mob in Denver Riot – FERA Project Pickets Spurred Into Battle by Woman Believed Imported Agitator

RMN, Oct 31
POLICE ARMY WITH MACHINE GUNS WILL GUARD FERA WORKERS TODAY
Force of 300 Officers Will Use Bullets and Tear Gas If Necessary to Protect Relief Workers From Molestation – Agitators Threaten Violence After Yesterday’s Bloody Clash
Witness Says Police Fired When Driven Back to Car – Gives Graphic Account of Rush by Screaming Men and Women Who Volleyed Rocks at Officers

CS Gazette, Oct 31,
RESUMPTION OF VIOLENCE IN DENVER STRIKE FEARED
City Tense After Bloody Riot on South Platte – Barricade Erected at Table Mountain, to Be Visited Today by Agitators

CS Evening Telegraph, Oct 31,
DENVER QUIET BUT TENSE AFTER RIOTING
Mob Gathers But Fails to Carry Out Threat to March on projects – Police Precautions Against Further Outbreaks Nip New Demonstrations; Report Agitators on Way to Foment Trouble in El Paso County – Mob Gathers in Englewood but Fails to Carry Out Threat to March Against FERA Projects
Don’t Expect Any Agitator Trouble on C. S. Relief Jobs p1, c7
Mountain at Golden Resembles Fortified Castle as Workers Prepare to Resist Strike Mob p1, c7

New York Times, Oct 31
‘Hunger Marchers’ Routed at Albany; Rioting in Denver – Many Injured in Denver – Relief Strikers Attempt to halt Federal Project–One Shot Fighting Police, p1, c1

RMN, Nov 1
Relief Strike Riots Subside as Police Act – Agitators Fail to Start Anything at Various FERA Projects
Pretty Girl From Illinois Finds Denver Police Nice p4, c1

CSET, Nov 1
Roundup Ends Denver Relief Strike Threat – With Agitators Arrested, Leaderless Mob’s Spirit Broken; Plot to Spread Disorder in State Fails
U.C.L.A. Branded Communist Hotbed

RMN, Nov 2
File Charges Today Naming 15 as Rioters – Two of Group Face Fine of $1,000 and Year in Jail If Acts Are Proved, p14
College Students Battle Radicalism – Form Vigilante Committee at Coast School

Colorado Springs Occupy saved from the haters, Occudrama: the Final Act

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Eric Verlo

He bragged at GA about how he’d personally mobilized tonight’s contingent to descend upon Occupy Colorado Springs to depose its leadership, but did Agent Dumb really think someone who’d sworn to destroy OCS, another who’d stolen the first Facebook group, another who’d tried to sabotage OCS actions, another who’s snitched to both the press and FBI, and another who’d betrayed each and every occupier, would be entrusted to decide the fate of OCS? Agent’s sidekick Wolf, who’d swiped the FB group, kept hissing “make everyone admin, make everyone admin.” But when Agent Dumb pushed forward with a proposal it was this: “Dissolve every element of Occupy, its website, Facebook group, and all its infrastructure.” Seriously?

He felt disenfranchised by the probationary terms to which he was being held, but basically Agent Dumbass’s renewed interest in Occupy was only because he wanted to kill it. The hater tag-team could not have, of course, because OCS actions go on, headless. At least now the insurgent chatter should lessen, now we can recruit real occupiers, free of those who wanted to wrestle control so they could call the shots from online, never having to attend a thing, and making sure to prevent OCS from scheduling meaningful actions. Been there, done that. Occupy Colorado Springs LIVES!

Was it heavy handed to rain probation slips on their anti-occupy parade? It came as quite a shock that mob rule wasn’t the rule with Occupy. I think the most important message sent is that you can’t overwhelm a meeting with greater numbers and declare yourself in charge. That’s war, not democracy. Occupy Colorado Springs is much greater than the members who attend its meetings. There’s nothing undemocratic about telling would-be usurpers to bugger off. Occupy Pueblo fell to a similar attack. They let some newbies in and lights out.
The most important message

Execution of anti-Western al-Gaddafi suggests he wasn’t strongman enough

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Gaddafi, Qadhafi, Zenga Zenga, dead dead I know very little about the dark side of Colonel Gaddafi. I’ve never seen him outside the filter of Western media. For all I know he emptied baby incubators, hid WMDs and ran rape camps. He wasn’t responsible for Lockerbie, the CIA knows that much. The deposed leader’s execution yesterday was nothing to celebrate. It was sad, brutal and shrouded in mystery. Hugo Chavez hailed Gaddafi as a fallen hero, and I’ve never had occasion to disagree with Chavez. Nor have I ever taken issue with George Galloway and he hated Gaddafi. Probably the aging revolutionary was both heroic and corrupt, eccentric and lunatic. Gaddafi was the most powerful protector of Africa, and the only leader to have apologized for Arab role in African slave trade. Naturally he had to be booted from the club.

Is the US only ever up against evil strongmen? Isn’t it obvious that any leader who opposes US hegemony has to be a strongman? Putin is as formidable as any former Soviet foe, and by comparison, Gaddafi was fey. He let down his guard, thought he could sell out to the New World Order and keep his nationalized oil. But the Capitalist jackals do not respect ideologues and will exploit it as weakness.

Captured alive, Gaddafi was brutally mobbed, although the predominant Arabic voices urged keeping him alive. Multiple video angles contradict the official statement that Gaddafi succumbed to crossfire. Video images seem to show special uniformed soldiers heading against the flow of Libyan fighters converging on Gaddafi after the fatal shots.

Was this a Mussolini moment? Hardly. To the last moment Gaddafi seemed incredulous that his people would betray him. I’m not really sure they did. He railed against the CIA and al-Qaeda backed “rebels” who were tearing Libya asunder. NATO’s strength undoubtedly tipped the balance, and Gaddafi’s demilitarization of Libya left him with insufficient defenses.

Looking at a video still of the final moments of Libya’s deposed leader, I’m reminded of the picture we once posted of Silvio Berlusconi’s bloodied face. We took it down I believe because it celebrated violence I suppose. I regret caving to whatever bastards took offense. Their timid sensibilities keep fascists like Berlusconi in power. Since that one glorious grasp at justice populi the Italian despot has stayed out of the public grasp, the Prince of Wales nearly didn’t it.

The Western press is pitching Gaddafi’s undignified death as a warning to all leaders who challenge white rule. I think it’s significance reaches much further. Summary execution at the hands of a mob. Could happen to the highest of the well heeled.

Wikileaked: US soldiers are babykillers

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Eric Verlo

A document released last week by Wikileaks tells of a 2006 raid by US troops on a farmhouse near Balad, Iraq, where the American soldiers handcuffed a household of ten, and executed them with gunshots to the head. Killed: one male adult, three female relatives, an elderly woman, four children aged 3-5, and a 5 month-old infant. Then the raiding party called in an airstrike to cover the crime. Perhaps cross referenced with the Iraq War Logs, reporters will identify which outfit committed the murders, because that’s the only way light is being shed on US war crimes, via Wikileaks. Incidentally, the Ishaqi Incident was reported on in 2006 with the Pentagon dismissing accusations that its actions were anything but appropriate. But this recent cable reveals that the USG knew what they’d done. You’d think the Department of Defense would have an interest in cooperating, because until the killers of zip-tied babies are fingered, all American soldiers are babykillers.

Kill Team shots were censored to keep you from seeing victim was so young

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Remember this damning photo, the American GI grinning as he posed with his haphazard victim? You saw the version with the Afghan’s identity obscured, and you thought it was bad enough. Not hardly. The USG pixelated the faces out of respect for the victims we were told — not to keep everyone from grasping how young was this victim, told to stand still while our soldiers lobbed a grenade his way and ducked for cover.

The future of photography is time

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Eric Verlo

I know little about fine art photography, darkroom craft or print collecting, but I will foolishly assert this: the future of the two dimensional print is the time-dimensional print. It’s only with the evolution of high definition that I dare say it, video. THE FUTURE OF 2D IS NOT 3D IT’S 4D. (Actually 3-D is a tech injected myopia, by 4D I mean two dimensions plus time plus sound) I do know that photo technology for everyman has breached the fourth dimension, mounted paper prints are a throwback for older generations like mine, who think of the past in terms of stills. Before us it was black and white. Moving picture snap shots are no gimmick. Purists can mourn losing the split-second frozen in time, but who can argue that elapsed time does not add an infinity of fractions more? Yes color film lost the contrast of monochrome, just as paint left the shading of charcoal. Movies have long since eclipsed slide shows and now it’s time that single-frame photographers step up to digital video, same fixed shot, same composition, time exposure set to however long will hold the viewer’s gaze. Soon online videos will embed as smoothly as static images, and two dimension visuals will be lifeless.

And like its archival predecessors, devoid of the information we already want to glean from the past.

I offer two examples for this argument. If modern galleries can break the silence barrier, the visual arts would also benefit by retaining the dimension of sound too.

Michael Deppisch’s montage of the 2010 Nashville flood.

Hector Thunderstorm Project by Murray Fredericks

Hector Thunderstorm Project from Murray Fredericks on Vimeo.

Police/press foist huff n’ puff terrorism

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Time Magazine got caught darkening OJ’s mugshot to make him look menacing, so now the Otero County Sheriff makes sure to art direct the original. Lean into the shadow Mr. Lutalo, let’s see your game face, thank you! Alas, mugshots of even the least of arrestees circulate so widely online, the public can recognize when a suspect is made to look like the Big Bad Wolf. This is 64-year-old Terrorist Ojore Lutalo, the “Amtrak Anarchist” who went one better than Xmas Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab by not even packing combustibles. Ojore is scheduled to go before the Otero District Court Friday. 2/3 UPDATE: ALL CHARGES DROPPED! With apologies I hope. Move along, nothing to see here. As simple as that?

We, the ppl need an INTERPOL blotter

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Eric Verlo

In virtually every city and county in our America’s Most Wanted USA, you can access police blotters and mugshots of the latest arrests, replete with personal details above a small print disclaimer that persons profiled are only accused of the crimes described, and should be considered innocent until proven guilty. Why then, in this pillory-centric culture, is it often impossible to learn the names of real found-guilty criminals? And why are reporters, and often foreign governments, complicit in keeping the names secret? I’m thinking for example of the 23 US operatives convicted of kidnapping in Italy, the Blackwater goons recently discovered plotting a murder in Germany, and the USAID subcontractor apprehended in Cuba, for starters.

Just this week, a Yakuzi handful of Israeli officers decided against traveling to England after their British hosts warned them of the possibility arrests warrants could be issued against them for war crimes committed in Gaza this time last year. The identity of the four IDF officers is being kept confidential, requiring not only the cooperation of the international press, but of the activist groups pursuing justice through the system. Certainly their names would have to be known to be able to file papers in British court.

Are accusers keeping quiet based because they’re admonished for despoiling chances for a fair trial? Social justice advocates are natural patsies for wanting to respect every defendant’s dignity, even that of a war criminal.

Back in the US, some local news outlets even air holding tank arraignment video pleas before the judge. Contrast this with the still-universal ban on cameras in courtrooms. The different policy has everything to do with who can afford a lawyer, or the cooperation of the corporate press.

Here’s a brilliant example today, of a Swiss tycoon issued a world-record-setting speeding fine of $290,000 for driving his ferrari 137kph through a village. The fine was calculated based on a court’s assessment of his wealth, approximately $22.7 million. Arrested, tried, bean-counted. His name? Undisclosed.

Space time capsule December 21, 1968

Posted on December 18, 2009 by Eric Verlo

What does it mean that the stars we see in the sky represent light coming at us from millions of years before? The images we have of Earth, of ourselves from space, reflect a distant past too actually. Although we’re accustomed now to visualizing our planet from above, as a quilt of satellite photos wrapped around a globe, viewable from any distance on Google Earth, the actual vision they mimic is a single thoroughly ubiquitous NASA photo called “The Blue Marble.”

We have only a handful of actual pictures of our planet, taken during the lunar expeditions Apollo 8-17, between 1968 and 1972. Together they allow our minds to conjure our blue globe selves floating against the continuum of space, but they’re also snapshots of the past, of home forty or so years ago.

That’s not just our planet set against the dark universe, that’s you, spinning along. Were you looking up toward the astronauts on their mission as these pictures were taken? You might have watched the launch at Cape Canaveral and hours later thought about the first men to leave Earth’s orbit.

The above photo isn’t the “Blue Marble.” The image above differs from the photo taken by Apollo 17 on Pear Harbor Day, December 7, 1972. That photograph was the first to capture the Earth in full sunlight, but it showed only the Southern Hemisphere. I wanted to chose one where you’re in the picture.

The above image is the first photograph of Earth taken from space, snapped by Apollo 8 as it left for the moon, Saturday, December 21st, 1968. If you were in North America at the time, you’re at the lower right.

If you don’t remember where you were around noon on the winter solstice in 1968, here’s a subsequent photograph they took on their eighth orbit around the moon. It’s the first “Earthrise” seen by man. That was December 24, 1968, a date for which you probably have additional family snapshots.

Ward Churchill speaks on which settler invasion wrote the book on Apartheid

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Ward Churchill spoke in Tucson on Friday and Brenda Norrell has posted the footage. Watching the ex-CU professor speak, I can’t help but think about the university students’ loss. They’re missing the lamentably rarefied perspectives he offers of course, but more important, the inspiration gained from such an engaging luminary.

Throughout his lectures, Churchill likes to put questions back at his audience. He understands, if I can presume to project his rationale, that a mentor’s role is to bounce ideas around, and be sure his students have minds open enough to let them resonate. It’s also a sign of someone fully confident with what they are teaching. Churchill gives you the impression he’s interested in the best argument you’ve got, and I believe him, but in reality he’s going to have few peers up to the task.

When it’s time for Q and A, Prof. Churchill calls it mud-wrestling, and welcomes all shots, “even spit wads.” He draws the line at brick bats, because he says, one might bounce off his head and hit somebody else. He warns, as if he’s had practice, “because someone might get hurt. I can assure you it won’t be me.”

I wished at that moment that Tucson was not so far from Churchill’s curiously vile detractors, who attended his trial in Denver, and who hold bitch fests online about every Churchinalia for reasons unspecified. I predict they’re remunerated; the love-to-hate pretext is wearing thin, these yahoos are pro-Israeli tea-baggers. So there’s no Drunkablog or Pirate Ballerina there tonight to take the “perfessor’s” challenge. Although wouldn’t such an exchange have been simply tedious? I recall this dismal attempt mounted against “Wart” by a couple CU college Republicans, it was just embarrassing. Have Churchill’s online critics ever confronted him in person I wonder? They can spout off in the safety of anonymity, and that’s about it.

Churchill’s speech to the predominantly Anglo and O’odham border activists was about the bigger issues behind the border wall. The theme of the gathering was Apartheid in America, and Churchill demonstrated how South African Apartheid came of the successful colonial methods practiced in the United States. These were the strategies employed by the Germans in taking and settling the Eastern Front during WWII, and of course the goals of Israel in Palestine.

Churchill described how settler invasions vary from colonial administration. In the latter case, the colonizers can go home, in the former, they stay. Another distinction is critical, the settlers aren’t moving to a land and becoming part of the social system, they remain citizens of the occupying force. They bring their identity and the foreign system with them, to apply against the people indigenous to the land. The process involves two steps: displace enough of the natives to make room for yourselves, but leave just enough to serve as a labor pool, for all the building that is required of empire building. You’ve need of only a portion of the original population, to do the manual labor required of developing the land, but eventually you need them to die off. The Nazi strategy in Poland was to eleminate a great deal via war, then another mass through starvation, ill health and exposure. Methods mirrored today in Gaza. As a USA example, Churchill sited the average life expectancy of a Native American on a reservation in 1975. The age was 44.6 years old. That’s 1/3 less that the G-Pop average, equivalent to thinning the population by a third.

To cut to the quick, Churchill asked his audience how they felt about social challenges like sexism, racism, ageism, classism. All were basically in accord as being against. What’s the problem, Churchill asked. If so many are against these things, why do they persist? Then he threw imperialism into the mix, which had not been mentioned. Churchill said we cannot adequately address the others until we have a clean conscience about the land taken from America’s First Peoples. This must be the priority. First Peoples, First Nations, First Priority.

Below is the video of Friday’s Tohono O’odham event in Tucson. Take note also of the excellent speeches which followed the keynote, by Ofelia Rivas and her brother in particular.

Click ON DEMAND, then select the “Live Show Fri Nov 13 2009 06:20:55 PM” or watch it at Livestream/earthcycles.

Illegal Alien costume has a Green Card

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Eric Verlo

It’s called the Illegal Alien Costume, available at Target, Walmart, et al. And look– he’s tendering a Green Card! That means he’s overqualified to work the night shift cleaning super center floors. Immigrant rights activists are calling for the retailers to pull the costumes. No human being is illegal, certainly not #1 enemy of the state, which most Americans associate the Gitmo jumpsuit. Halloween party planners say, lighten up! Political Correctness goes too far to ask us to show sensitivity for the thousands of undocumented workers being rounded up by ICE, incarcerated indefinitely in privately operated Wackenhut detention centers, who may or may not be wearing orange Guantanamo prison garb. When Abu Ghraib type snapshots emerge from these DHS funded facilities, next year’s Halloween xenophobic gag may be for adults only.

Who owns images of American dead?

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Eric Verlo

AP photographer Julie Jacobson was reticent to publish her picture of dying US Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard. Though his father was opposed, the Associated Press overruled. But this was no victory for the public’s right to see a true reflection of war. The D.o.D. is still indignant, but I suspect Jacobson’s report was ultimately vetted in their favor. Military propagandists need to represent America’s growing losses in Afghanistan. Jacobson’s image provides their limited hangout. Like the other photographs of casualties which have escaped through embeds, the image of Lance Corporal Bernard is desaturated of blood, and the surrounding events fit the military endorsed narrative.

Have you noticed that all combat images coming out of today’s wars are drab and lifeless. Obviously this motif is not being applied to the PR shots of jets and military hardware, but scenes of soldiering in Iraq and Afghanistan are dusty and grey, like scenes from a dark virtual world.

The colors in Jacobson’s controversial photo are similarly under saturated. Earlier casualty pics have even been rendered as black and white, and this is no exercise of artistic license. Colorless images telegraph little resemblance to our real world lived in color. An emotional distance is created, most obviously like the detachment we feel looking into the past. Everything before the late sixties happened in monocrome. Early color photographs always shock children with the prospect that lives in generations past might have been been lived in a world of contemporary vibrance.

The photographs from Vietnam were helped by that nation’s lush tropical greens. Images of the wounded were all the more gripping –and demoralizing from the military’s point of view– because unlike in Korea and WWII, the blood was red.

Most images taken in Vietnam came through the military staff photographers. The unapproved subjects, which subverted the official face of the war, emerged from the cameras of independent journalists.

Julie Jacobson facilitated the release of this picture, by letting slip two details pertinent to the official US narrative in Afghanistan. Would you believe, just prior to this engagement, friendly Afghans came out of their houses to tell the US soldiers where they could find the Taliban? Probably to ensure Corporal Bernard’s squad pointed their guns away from their homes, but that’s not how the story was spun. Jacobson recounts that these Afghans were eager to inform on the Taliban.

The jocular Jacobson records another telltale crowd-pleaser in the aftermath of the Taliban “ambush,” when she found herself flanked by Afghan National Army troops. When the firing started, Jacobson sought immediately the ranks of US soldiers, because the freakin’ ANA Afghans “aren’t very good.”

Today’s media embeds are basically a privatized signal corps. Their photos should belong to the taxpayers. Insinuations that military families should dictate what images can be used, in the event of death, is a cruel irony. Are the families consulted about what Uncle Sam wants to do with their loved one when he’s still alive? Millions of federal tax dollars are spent on our soldiers, all the more when they die. I have little sympathy for the families who couldn’t stand up for their children and protect them from the capricious whims of our military. There is absolutely no reason to ask their permission about what happens when their little soldier meets his/her calculable fate.

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