Prepared For Better War?

  Titled It’s not just Homeland Security: US Army orders riot gear too, RT picked up on a procurement advertisement posted on the official government website for federal business opportunities, FedBizOpps.GOV. Printing it’s more than just stockpiling surveillance drones to spy on US citizens, the United States Army is attempting to procure an arsenal of riot gear in case the military must go toe-to-toe with civilians on US soil. A tidy assessment, that’s no doubt a valid conjecture, but the truth is, as has come out, American military personnel have been sent into combat and suffered for not being as well protected as others assigned to defend private property against our own U.S. citizenry whose resentment of wealth has required a military styled defense within the United States.

  But as RT points out, a solicitation for weapons posted on the official government website for federal business opportunities reveals the US Army has been in the market for nonlethal equipment that very well might be used in the United States. The Web posting made earlier this summer, has the Army asking for bids for riot shields, face masks, polycarbonate batons and body armor. And on July 10, they awarded the contract to A2Z Supply Corp of Stevensville, Montana, who pledged to fulfill their request at the tune of $6,589.98. Though RT does not bother specifying if this is per soldier/policeman.

  The latest inquiry from the US Army was filed only a few weeks before another call for bids was published by the Department of Homeland Security. On July 26, the DHS Office of Procurement Operations also wrote on FBO.gov that they were soliciting contractors to help equip them with riot helmets, tactical gloves, shin guards, body armor and other comparable equipment that could be used in tandem with a complex “riot control system.” According to the 2001 Executive Order that established the DHS signed by then-President George W Bush, the agency “will coordinate the executive branch’s efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States.” With an agency assigned only domestic duties asking for thousands of dollars’ worth of riot gear, and an army with more than one million soldiers seeking body armor, and not assault rifles, many are suggesting, according to RT, that the solicitation requests are readying the government for a full-blown war with its own people on US soil. The fact is as a Russian publication looking for controversy, they’re not versed in the facts that the United States has used controlled violence against American protest throughout its’ history. The first President George Washington led troops to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in rural Western Pennsylvania.

  But the major prominent fact is the less protected and threatened the police feel, the more apt they are to respond with violence which incites further violence among protestors to respond to as the cycles of violence continue rolling on. Protecting the police enough to put down their weapons against American citizens would be a start, just as the Soviet military did back in 1991 that helped to bring about Russia’s dynamic change we’re still waiting on to come to completefruition too.

RT goes on to print both American government requests to private enterprisearmaments suppliers were published within days of recent Capitol Hill testimony delivered from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that included excerpts confirming the federal government is considering deploying surveillance drones over California as a means of proactively patrolling American cities under the guise of “public safety.” Uh huh. While we wait on government representation of all the people that could possibly render those activities benignly on our behalf rather than malignantly calculated to render all freedom from government control extinct.

  Meanwhile RT reported the city of Anaheim, California has come into the spotlight in recent days for hosting a week of consecutive protests that targeted the city’s allegedly corrupt police department. Most likely as with the rest of America those underpaid officers are having to procure their own sideline investments to keep up with inflation the money handlers irresponsibly take no responsibility for unless it’s their own capitalizing on. Last weekend, two men were shot and killed by officers with the Anaheim PD. Peaceful demonstrations that erupted afterward spawned yet more violence dished out by the local law enforcement, escalating tensions between civilians and cops and causing many to declare that the brutal policing is a localized attempt to install military rule over the people. Now with domestic agencies and the national Army both asking for riot gear, the unrest in Anaheim that has already spilled into other US cities could soon be matched with government opposition — and opposition well equipped. To paraphrase Janis Joplin, “Lord, won’t you buy me, a Mercedes-Benz.” Then maybe I can move about without seeming to offend those in a position to use power that’s offensive to the very sanctity of everyone’s right to some day purchase an affordable Mercedes-Benz. That, God/Allah as our witness, no longer has to be armored for safety on this ruthless tyrannical planet.

7/30/2012

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Prepared For Better War?

7/30/2012 concluded: Meanwhile RT reported the city of Anaheim, California has come into the spotlight in recent days for hosting a week of consecutive protests that targeted the city’s allegedly corrupt police department. Most likely as with the rest of America those underpaid officers are having to procure their own sideline investments to keep up with inflation the money handlers irresponsibly take no responsibility for unless it’s their own capitalizing on. Last weekend, two men were shot and killed by officers with the Anaheim PD. Peaceful demonstrations that erupted afterward spawned yet more violence dished out by the local law enforcement, escalating tensions between civilians and cops and causing many to declare that the brutal policing is a localized attempt to install military rule over the people. Now with domestic agencies and the national Army both asking for riot gear, the unrest in Anaheim that has already spilled into other US cities could soon be matched with government opposition — and opposition well equipped. To paraphrase Janis Joplin, “Lord, won’t you buy me, a Mercedes-Benz.” Then maybe I can move about without seeming to offend those in a position to use power that’s offensive to the very sanctity of everyone’s right to some day purchase an affordable Mercedes-Benz. That, God/Allah as our witness, no longer has to be armored for safety on this ruthless tyrannical planet.

June 22 - July 31, 2018

A Not So Wonderful, Photo-opped, Cliqued, Life

  The circus is in fine shape? Though some want the show identified as unstable, while others are resolved to seeing the benefit of the doubt as just not real enough to be much beyond sycophantic. Sophomoric totems are humanity's destiny? 

Jim Morin, Miami Herald - 12/22/2015

Prepared For Better War?

  Tweeting what people think is, or not, thought scoundrelous behavior? That is a question. Whether it's right to facilitate mis-interpretations and wrong to unnecessarily fling idiosyncratic hyperboles, so indiscriminately, the public sphere's mere volleyed shallow catchphrases? What's faced is certainly not gumflapping. Yet people are due more than diametric positions muddled to distraction. Or not. Ba dump bump. 

  To be so absorbed and in love with power, as to be seduced by the very shortcuts that allowed your being there. Politicians should have more to do than attach to patriotism. ... too big for your britches.

Verse 2

  May have heard "down by the riverside" down by the riverside, as one'd expect, at Clearwater's Great Hudson River Revival, wondering whether, next year's, Bob Dylan surprise, anonymous, guest appearance happens, perhaps, somewhere back by the drums. 

  As it turned out, for 2018's show, two hours upstate by car, that same weekend, across the river, there was another huge multi-stage festival, Mountain Jam, that didn't necessarily intend to aid bad water's lethargic agenda with their annually held, first weekend following Memorial Day, festival. Which doesn't matter, after all, there are a lot of people. 

The Toshi-Aline Ohta and Pete Seeger Memorial Garden

History’s Do What Stage

  The dilemma's always how to tackle this now. Going along or resisting aren't options if they're the only choice. As eccentric as current circumstances seem, ...  

  Proportional appraisals are appropriate. That the present's confoundedly futile feeling's perturbing, is no different than when our theoretically less-sophisticated pasts handled matters. Politics are a business deal. Duh. Time plods. Imagery connects with people or no longer has relevance in the process of going along getting along. You'll enjoy the bitter taste because the syrup's just so thick, sweet and juicy. Diatribe rules? 

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Laying Out The Land, One Block At A Time 

Goshen’s Real Estate Bargain 

     Without growth, there's isolation - stagnation. Business can't stop progress, nor the negative ramifications. Such that the valley hamlet of Goshen, New York is expected to be satisfied with an attraction by the highway that would, indubitably, change the town's character. 

     If not there should be a town law, more specifically written, against facilities of any kind conflicting with, or exploiting, the Trotter Horse Museum and town's general reflection of the down-home character of earlier centuries' cities. Because their current law was stretched thin. 
  Threatened, or not, by plasticized America. Goshen's hardly the place for memorializing that hallmarked fate. And who doesn't like Legos? Go Lincoln Logs. But this real estate bargain is a seriously farcical tragedy.

     Bustling plasticized Goshen's cha-ching ring's unappealing to many residents as against the notion of what it means to be Goshen. Find another town’s spot and maybe a, possibly, more tranquil Goshen will want your donation of a Lego Trotting Horse statue for a nice, kind, remembrance of the occasion. Legos deserve a museum, without a scar.  

§ 97-10Allowable uses by district; prohibited uses.

A. ...

C. 

Prohibited uses in all districts.

(1) 

The following uses are prohibited in all districts:

(a) 

Any use that violates the environmental performance standards in § 97-50.

(b) 

Amusement parks and circuses and related activities, except for a temporary period on special license from the Town Board. For purposes of this section, a commercial recreation facility in a Commercial Recreation Overlay District is neither an amusement park nor a circus.

[Amended 9-14-2017 by L.L. No. 4-2017[2]]

Stop Legoland Protest - Saturdays, 12:30--1:30 PM  6 North Church Street, Goshen Great weather so join us for an hour to protest, spot zoning, pollution of the Otterkill Creek, illegal amusement parks in Goshen, the DEC investigation for lack of wastewater runoff control and the fine they received for breaking the Arcadia Hills sewer pipe in five places. Flyers and brochures. We need everyone's support to tell the town "It's Not a Done Deal." They have not built the park yet.  Concerned Citizens for the Hudson Valley   As it would happen, right before my exposure to Goshen's real estate blinders dilemma, a politician, from a booth I'd sidestepped, caught up and came around to face me, and offered his hand after explaining himself. Seems "I'm not from this district" didn't apply to the statewide office he seeks. Perhaps too amiably charismatic for the ruthless position, but no doubt a fighter being the career-long civil rights attorney, Michael Sussman. No matter that Green Party candidacies don't fit the moment's political necessities. The ornery Democrat's perspective should be in the New York State Attorney General's office. Pointing out that he's strictly worked from the adversarial side, misrepresents justice's highest ideals and why everything about our us vs. them quagmire falls short in a nightmarish Criminal Enterprise System.     A ceaseless chain cycles desperation's roots until healed. People doing bad drugs doesn't make sense. The whole hostile atmosphere is an unnecessary nightmare. When the police aren't on everyone's side, even criminals, horribleness occurs. Humanity at war with itself's oxymoronic.  The Soapbox View pursues the Twin Legacies  Andy Rooney and I.F. Stone

Ethiopian Free Speech Imprisoned

  A constitution guaranteeing free speech doesn’t necessarily ensure a voice is heard, especially when stifling opposition opinion is such a calculating art. Reuters’ headline, Ethiopia jails blogger, reporters, opposition figures covered the sentencing of twenty Ethiopians, including a prominent blogger, journalists and opposition figures who were sentenced for between eight years to life for conspiring with rebels to topple the government. After a deeply disputed trial according to the LA Times. Ethiopian prosecutors also, invoking the “Arab Spring” protests that rocked the Middle East, accused some defendants of trying to foment violence.

  European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was “seriously concerned” by the severity of the sentences that were also condemned by Amnesty International and other rights groups. A statement from the EU’s Ashton’s office said she was concerned the sentences had “a lack of clarity with regard to what constitutes a terrorism offence” that “can affect the freedom of expression enshrined in the Ethiopian Constitution.”

  A major recipient of Western aid, Ethiopia is fighting separatist rebel movements and armed groups it says are backed by arch-foe Eritrea. But rights groups say Ethiopia regularly uses security concerns as an excuse to crack down on dissent and media freedoms. While no one was immediately available to comment on Friday, the Addis Ababa, Ethiopian government denies the charge and is a key ally in Washington’s campaign against Islamist militants in Somalia.

  Prominent blogger and journalist Eskinder Nega was arrested last year and accused of trying to incite violence with a series of online articles gaining him imprisonment for 18 years. Five other exiled journalists were sentenced in absentia to between 15 years to life. Andualem Arage, from the opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice Party was jailed for life. Two other prominent opposition figures, Berhanu Nega and Andargachew Tsige, both out of the country, received life sentences.

  Quoted by Reuters, Judge Endeshaw Adane said in court, “The court has given due considerations to the charges and the sentences are appropriate.” At the time of last month’s conviction, the court said free speech could be limited when it undermined security. The 20 were charged last year, most in absentia, with counts including conspiracy to dismantle the constitutional order, recruitment and training for terror acts and aiding Eritrea and a rebel group to disrupt security. They were also accused of belonging to Ginbot 7, a group branded a “terrorist” organization by the government. “We can’t even express our fundamental rights anymore,” UDJ member Temesgen Zewdie told Reuters after the sentencing.

  Amnesty International said: “The Ethiopian government is treating calls for peaceful protest as a terrorist act and is outlawing the legitimate activity of journalists and opposition members.” Ethiopia is close to replacing Eritrea as the African country with the highest number of journalists behind bars. Two journalists were each jailed for 14 years on similar charges in February, two months after two Swedish newsmen were sent to prison for 11 years on charges of entering the country illegally and aiding a rebel group.

  Free speech groups denounced the jail terms and slammed the Ethiopian terrorism law as excessively vague and repressive, leaving journalists who merely interview dissidents vulnerable to arrest. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the trial in Addis Ababa was troublingly flawed.

  Peter Godwin, president of the PEN American Center anti-censorship group that honored Eskinder with its Freedom to Write award earlier this year, said, “The Ethiopian government clearly means to send a signal to its people. Speak against us, and you too could be jailed as a terrorist.”

  Before his arrest in September, Eskinder penned a column questioning the arrest of another dissident accused of terrorism, saying the idea that a frail, easygoing man under heavy police scrutiny was conspiring with extremists “defies logic.” Yet Eskinder ended on a hopeful note. “Tyranny is in retreat everywhere. It has lost one of its two last great bastions, the Arab world. The momentum is now on the side of freedom,” Eskinder wrote.

  After the sentencing, defense lawyer Abebe Guta told the Agence France-Presse news service that Eskinder would appeal his sentence, while his other clients were considering whether to do so. The Reporter Ethiopia.com also reported so there’s no lack of attention despite threat of government reprisal. Nonetheless nearly twenty years after world governments tried dissuading Nigeria from executing Ken Saro-Wiwa the problem remains of governments solving internal politics any way they see fit. Disregarding the rights of individuals where that relates to the undisputed power of the state.

8/13/2012

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Ethiopian Free Speech Imprisoned

8/13/2012 concluded: After the sentencing, defense lawyer Abebe Guta told the Agence France-Presse news service that Eskinder would appeal his sentence, while his other clients were considering whether to do so. The Reporter Ethiopia.com also reported so there’s no lack of attention despite threat of government reprisal. Nonetheless nearly twenty years after world governments tried dissuading Nigeria from executing Ken Saro-Wiwa the problem remains of governments solving internal politics any way they see fit. Disregarding the rights of individuals where that relates to the undisputed power of the state.

August 18 - November 16, 2017

  That circumstances couldn't be more worse or wrong's a reasonable conjecture. But much worse, and wrong? All worst wrong. Impossible. But whatever explanations suffice, self-righteous zeal's what's held us all hostage to power's conceits. Terribly Exhaustive. 

History, Totally Destroyed by Crispin Sartwell. Pegs power's cultural history in The New York Times.

  Consciously taken for granted, the game of controlling what people think, is, overall, a grab bag of unintended consequences from timid to severe. What power's wrought, can't but thunderous complaint and derision hold off at all. Pray, even that's not just contrived illusion.

  Andualem Arage, Eskinder Nega, you, me, PEOPLE! Sure, every age has had a toying with minds for purely commercial purposes attached to it. Pillage by any other name. Money must stream and fine. But what the world's made of itself is not one expecting a general peace but excited by some eternal joy of competition. Such that as offended by violence, as we are. We've succumbed to a certain level of entertained hypnosis Aldous Huxley warned against. Technically, superficial celebrity competition substituting for an actual social awareness. It's all current events. 

  "And so it goes."

 ——————————————————————————————

  The following essay was submitted to The New York Times, August 14, 2017. (altering began Nov. 10, 2017) Because this appears here, most Florida, Georgia and Mississippi papers also silently declined, as well as many national and international publications. A Reason magazine editor appreciated the idea being passed by them. 

  Basically, no doubt, all abstentions are of a similar reasoning to a funding inquiry response from the Andy Warhol Foundation. "Unfortunately the project that you describe falls outside the bounds of the Foundation's guidelines and therefore we are unable to assist you." And an historical association apparently didn't blink stating their organization didn't fund presentations of that type. 

  When journalism's art is about what everyone agrees, perhaps jargon's been much too appealing to everyone? Well, now that the lark the many have spoken's been alluded to, here's what I wrote following the country's tragedy dumped on Charlottesville since the fashion's spreading blame and not really - 

FACING THE LEGACY

  I'd anticipated a week's more reflection for this Times submission, before last weekend's cultivated cultural catastrophe in Charlottesville, Virginia.   

  I offer no criticism as a white person, with possibly less of an obligation to apologize for the nonsense still going on, than, at least, some people. As this extremely pivotal event assisted in fashioning my life. November 3rd, 1972, some members of the Sanford, Florida Seminole High School Seminoles Marching Band executed a brilliant act of insubordination in, the currently named, Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium.     

  Before the half-time show's start, alert to suspicion, the Drum Major had even stepped back along the front end zone line and looked straight in my nodding nothing eyes. Surprise. At halftime's conclusion, without authorization, after the rest of the band cleared the field, a group of us suddenly replicated the famous FAMU Marching Band's spontaneous instrument twirling dance to a thunderous ovation.

  The full account of the collaboration's including two white guys, who weren't trusted with leaking beforehand, is on pages 153 - 156 in, the Cold War parody, The Hammer and Cycle Messenger Service. An almost throw-away line, at the time, that evocatively elucidates racism's ridiculousness, was - "we'd probably get in less trouble" with the two white guys.  

  Also said before halftime's start, was the house "I was raised in was now a black funeral home." While unremarked was my home was a block from, the infamous Lake County Sheriff, Willis V. McCall's. 

  Cleve snapped, "... it's not that far away. Don't you think we already knew that about you?" Then while drawling out, "I think we'll always be linked," my eyes glazed over looking along the line of black faces turned towards me.

  Whitewashed American History left a grime that's not cleansing because the future's only faced facing the past. Not just mirroring what's impossibly replaced. Solutions are scattered and bias ridden. Focus unfocused. Adjust the Criminal Enterprise System and stop pretending it's just the weak's delusions causing the disgraceful criminality and violence. This many centuries and still raising babies with violence? It's not just the politicians who're cornered into exploiting self-righteous misunderstandings. But all of us who, on various occasions, are more than entitled to be interpreted innocent. 

  My idea is for a Sanford Memorial Stadium Presentation that justly honors the worthy ambition of trying to set things right, as they say. An art gallery extravaganza as sophisticated as they come, I claim. I write. Such that the art's already conceived to mean the public's reflection. If this work just remains obscure, misunderstood and under-appreciated, or even disliked. Ta da.

  But my proposal is for those pages, 153 - 156, read in the Sanford stadium, to function as a better bookend to Sanford History than what the dysfunctional Zimmerman boy's disaster regurgitated up. Disregarding a police order not to pursue and end up killing an innocent, unarmed, teenager, bookends the portion of Sanford lore that was a baseball game on that site, then named, Sanford Field. Where baseball legend Jackie Robinson was so derisively derided he couldn't complete the run to first base. Obviously, legacy's everything. 

  Jackie Robinson. Plus someone who confessed their, being there, regret to me. Everyone deserves this idea's being made into a polished production. Though I'd, just as soon, comfortably read anywhere outside the fence if that expression carried more positive cultural weight. Curiously wondering where the paint would run on that stroke? All part of the American masterpiece. 

  Because I'm aspiring to something more, and different, than just tagging Roy Cohn's tombstone as currently shown in The Hour Hammer and Cycle Messenger Service and broadcast on 8 Ball Television. The Sanford reading as a (and Hyde Park, London) commercial broadcast production is per a Florida College TV station's informal request. 

  The reading will be from pitcher's mound, facing the first baseline where Jackie Robinson couldn't run out to first and left the game. The last time he stood down. (Deland cancelled.) But not the last time prejudice seeped from a cracked façade. 

  My mother raised me not to sit on my laurels. So having accomplished my goal of speaking in The Great Hall of Cooper Union, as Abraham Lincoln had on his way to the White House, I'm relieved to have at least thought of a follow up. The show, thus far, is this op-ed and funding page: 

Charles M. Fraser is a novelist and Soapbox View political satirist.

——————————————————————————————

  So white people in general didn't associate with the "reading apology" the first go round. As Wikipedia states of Sanford citizens, when their mayor publicly apologized, they either don't/didn't believe what happened to Robinson, did, or they don't appreciate that the stigma requires a resounding washing out. Whitewashing our lives is unfortunately where a lot of people place pride.  

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Ethiopian Free Speech Imprisoned

  Ethiopia curtails criticism in the name of internal security. The free ride from historical judgement the world's helplessly ruthless leadership expects as their due, i.e. etc., etc., etc. Power's conceit. 

  Here again, or just still, as an American president is defending the "our history" slant as well. Blatantly denying the self-absorbed justification involved. Stepped up a notch. Using "we" for him and "his" team. Cult of Personality sideshow. Politics modeled after a jousting tournament, reduced to Middle Age. And patriotic shield is the throne the mentor was crowned with. The term is the country's still being played. Nice touch, adherents worked up to adulatory levels of idolatry? Political Science, at the core, for exploitation not exposition. Operatives aren't even directly paid anymore. Networked's appeal. A dream of socialism for the rich that's denied the poor while, at least, a partially contrived façade about how welfare money, that trickles right up anyway, is the flaw, while our benefits of the socialistic bent helped preserve this president's fortune. Three Card Monty is the closest game analogy for how we're still being played by how the political cards are dealt. Not the law, but culture.

  History is, of course, broader than how any political buffoonery can be portrayed. 

Expand The Superficial Consciousness 

  So does the president stand for nothing more than remaining in the dark ages of belief? He's worn God on his shoulder as if the Creator's role were merely just back-up to whatever quackery supports a team's solid bottom line. Where we've landed, now in time, as an era, the late teens of the 21ST Century, is where we've always been. Maybe it seems America was founded on the belief there's just an us. But America was still built on an expanding consciousness forged by intellectual ambition. 

  Didn't know he'd win, when he'd already won? Forging a mantle of arrogance melded with the aloofness of our presidency? A loss on his part would have still left him in the game. Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley/Our president and the birther issue, etc. Watch. He's least able to go into the lame duck night. Precedence's mount. 

  Dear Mr. President, 

  This is a personal invitation, requesting your  contribution to my Sanford apology film described above. Not "our history" as contended? But history's really how everyone contrives it. Petty jealousy's in the White House and the call for a grasp of maturity is outside? Does somewhat appear so. Fake fact or not, there's reality for conjecture. 

  Anyway. Here. Have a look, Mr. President. This'll add some perspective on your legacy's destiny. Being ashamed of pure performance, is nothing compared to disappointment in cultural blinders. 

  Seeing patriotism spectacularly dressed to distraction, and flaunted, and repeated, repetitiously, has created an overall numbness. Despite the noise.

  People aren't just endeavoring to emblazon this culture with shame, as has been defensively portrayed by the "not the liberal media" media. There's a stench to the cluelessness of being fed up with liberals. People may as well as one chorus, loudly sing,

WHAT'S DETACHED! 

  As if all understanding required were labels. If, at least, that surface reality were understood, then more about the president's background personality might have been acknowledged culture-wide. Ah, tomorrow. American History is more than what's labelled "ours." Watch the cited film, above the Pope cartoon. As I've written to President Putin. You guys have to get dis-entwined from some cultural flaws. Sooner the better, however legacy's are contrived.

Yeah, give this a look too. Check Schedule Listings