The Largest Minority

October 16th, 2008 by Allison Kilkenny

For years, colonialists have been angered by the policy of taxation without representation. The famous protester, John Hancock, arranges a boycott of the large company British East India Company. Hancock begins to smuggle tea into the country illegally without paying taxes. Britain responds by allowing the East Tea Company to sell directly to the colonies thereby undercutting the profits of smugglers.The East Tea Company is aided by lobbyists and powerful members of Parliament. The smugglers, including Samuel Adams and John Hancock, call for East Tea Company colonial employees to abandon their jobs.

Meanwhile, in an underground cellar in a Bostonian pub, the Sons of Liberty, the secret organization of American Patriots, are detained by British guards. Unbeknown to SoL members, they had been infiltrated by British spies, who have been reporting the group’s activities to His Majesty for the past five months. The Sons of Liberty are now a “terrorist organization,” and the members are arrested. The group is never able to meet Adams and Hancock at the harbor in order to dump the tea.

Undeterred, Adams and Hancock decide to dump the tea themselves. The Revolutionaries don war paint and feathers and sneak toward the ship. They are immediately stopped by Captain Roach and the royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson.

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October 2nd, 2008 by Manila Ryce

Obama and McCain both voted to fuck us over with this latest attempt to protect the rich (as if FISA wasn’t enough), but that’s not what’s really surprising given the record and policies of these criminals. What is surprising is that Dennis Kucinich still cares about the common worker but insists on calling himself a Democrat.

Anytime an armchair political expert argues that Nader would be more effective as a Democrat I point to Dennis Kucinich, that scrappy little leftist who’s consistently silenced and neutered by his own party. Time to lose those shackles brother and enact some real change. Drop your support for that corporate shill we all know you hate, stop taking orders from Pelosi, and join your counterpart below. You know you want to Dennis. Walk into the light already.

September 24th, 2008 by evmonk

Say what? Here’s the story, straight from the Army Times:

….It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home…[but] this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities….

“Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”

….They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack….

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them….

“I don’t know what America’s overall plan is — I just know that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are standing by to come and help if they’re called,” Cloutier said. “It makes me feel good as an American to know that my country has dedicated a force to come in and help the people at home.”

Well that’s nice. The only problem is that I’m pretty sure deploying an active-duty military force within the United States without an extreme scenario that would necessitate it is illegal, and for good reason. It’s not clear what the army will be used for, if anything, but it puts us on a slippery slope, especially if the army is used to repress “civil unrest” and enforce domestic law in instances where state and local authorities are capable of doing so. As the Departments of Justice and Defense jointly stated in 1979:

“The [Posse Comitatus Act of 1878] expresses one of the clearest political traditions in Anglo-American history: that using military power to enforce the civilian law is harmful to both civilian and military interests. The authors of the [PCA] drew upon a melancholy history of military rule for evidence that even the best intentioned use of the Armed Forces to govern the civil population may lead to unfortunate consequences. They knew, moreover, that military involvement in civilian affairs consumed resources needed for national defense and drew the Armed Forces into political and legal quarrels that could only harm their ability to defend the country. Accordingly, they intended that the Armed Forces be used in law enforcement only in those serious cases to which the ordinary processes of civilian law were incapable of responding.”

August 16th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

The Democrats really are better than the Republicans on issues of civil liberty and anyone who disagrees with that statement will be locked up in a warehouse.

Inside a warehouse on the northeast side of Denver are dozens of chain link cages topped with rolls of barbed wire. A sign on the wall reads “Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility”. This is where masses of protesters will be sent during the Democratic National Convention when (not if) mass arrests take place.

The warehouse has already been dubbed “Gitmo on the Platte” by those planning to express their freedom of speech during the convention. Upon seeing video from inside the warehouse, Zoe Williams of Code Pink described the facility as being, “very bare bones and very reminiscent of a political prisoner camp or a concentration camp.” Captain Frank Gale of the Denver Sheriff’s Department would not discuss what he described as his “game plan”, and said that the facility was supposed to be a secret.

The ACLU has raised questions about how prisoners will be able to access food, water, bathrooms, telephones, medical care, and where they can meet with attorneys. None of these basic necessities seem to have been taken into consideration in the bare warehouse that people will be herded into. Mayor John Hickenlooper says there will be a community outreach program to explain the facility’s function.

source

August 11th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

Google is scheduled to hold a debate independent of the corporate Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). This is possibly our one and only chance to get Obama and McCain to debate Ralph Nader and any other third-party or independent candidate running for the presidency. We must pressure Google to lower their requirements to 5% before this opportunity is lost. While using exclusionary tactics to silence opposition, these two major parties seem to think that freedom, a term they both speak highly of, means having power for yourself at the expense of others.

In 1992, independent candidate Ross Perot, who was polling at 7-9 percent, was included in the debates at the request of George H.W. Bush, who made Perot’s inclusion a precondition for his own participation. Under current CPD requirements of 15 percent, Perot wouldn’t have been admitted today.

In 1996, Bob Dole proposed that if Perot were kept out of the debates he would allow the Clinton campaign to decide the terms of the event. Clinton agreed. George Stephanopolous, senior advisor to Clinton at the time, took pride in the undemocratic deal between the two candidates, explaining: “As long as we would agree to Perot not being in it, we could get everything else we wanted going in. We got our time frame, we got our length, we got our moderator.”

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August 2nd, 2008 by Manila Ryce

Barack is selling out the lives of future generations to big oil. I wish I could say this most recent flip-flop surprises me or that he’s become a disappointment.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that’s what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy…

…”The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling,” Obama said in the Post interview. “And so we don’t want gridlock. We want to get something done.”

Later, Obama issued a written statement warmly welcoming a proposal sent to Senate leaders Friday by 10 senators — five from each party. Their proposal seeks to break the impasse over offshore oil development and is expected to be examined more closely in September after Congress returns from its summer recess.

The so-called Gang of 10 plan would lift drilling bans in the eastern Gulf of Mexico within 50 miles of Florida’s beaches and in the South Atlantic off Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, but only if a state agrees to the oil and gas development along its coast. The states would share in revenues from oil and gas development.

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Rather than adhere to the democratic principle that representatives work for us and must represent our interests as public servants, Obama recently told a group of Uhuru News activists who asked “Why is it you have not had the courtesy for one time to speak on interests of the oppressed and exploited black community in this nation?” that his answer wasn’t going to “satisfy their positions” and that they could always vote for someone else. It’s that kind of pompous attitude which shows Democrats take our votes for granted.

When you can’t even address the American people with the same kind of willingness that you do towards AIPAC, there’s a big fucking problem. Barack’s challenge for liberals to look elsewhere suggests that he’s not fearful of losing votes for selling us out to corporations. He’s relying on the notion that liberals will ultimately need to vote for him once they realize they have nowhere else to go. Unfortunately for him, enough of us do know where to go - towards third parties and independents. Obama never gives us a seat at his theoretic table where he brings together Republicans and corporations in order to “get things done”. Liberals who support Obama are just as guilty of selling themselves out as the morons in Middle America who supported Bush the last two elections against their own interests.

July 27th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

McCain and Obama think it was. Given that they can’t say anything without checking with focus groups and military sponsors first, what do you think? Sabah al-Nasseri argues that the Iraqis not only brought down the violence and rebuilt the government, but that the US “surge” actually made things more difficult for them to do so. The main cause of death and instability in Iraq has always been, and continues to be, the US occupation.

July 23rd, 2008 by Manila Ryce

Can Obama become any more of a joke? I’m posing this question honestly to the few Obama supporters who visit or stumble across this blog: What’s your breaking point? At what point do you finally drop your support? Is there even such a point, or is the “anyone but a Republican” syndrome too strong to be defeated by reason? If you can type in complete sentences and don’t need a helmet to surf the web, please let us know whether there is hope for you and your kind or if we’re just wasting our time with words.