Category Archives: Opinion

Florida Jury Shames Nation by Finding Killer of a Child Not Guilty

by Cimaxion

A jury of six women in Florida has seen fit to let Trayvon Martin’s killer go free. The disgust of Candlelight Stories is profound and extends into a more general realization that racism and the general fascination with security, guns and bigoted neighborhood watch groups is a symptom of the undying brutal hatreds rotting this country from the inside.

That it can even be suggested that a kid walking home is somehow to blame for fighting for his life is appalling.

Candlelight Stories sincerely hopes that the sub-normal George Zimmerman has no future.

Los Angeles Police Randomly Shooting Innocent People During Manhunt

by Cimaxion

The LAPD and Torrance Police Department are terrorized to the point of deadly incompetence by a single crazed gunman on a mission of revenge. Nut-jobs who write manifestos and go out to hunt police are quite rare and somewhat beside the real point. What we should all be extremely concerned about is the fact that the absolute finest that the LAPD has to offer – those who manage to get promoted into the detective ranks – apparently have such poor training, such poor instincts, and such callous disregard for life that they are willing to open fire on women delivering newspapers, simply because they happen to be driving a blue pick-up truck. Then, moments later, Torrance police open fire on another pickup truck just around the corner. This other pickup is black. So which is it, guys? Blue or black? Does your crazed gunman typically dress up as a woman and throw newspapers onto front lawns?

How many people are these assholes going to execute in their hunt for a lone Rambo wannabe?

Amazingly, the LAPD chief, Charlie Beck, considers this a ‘case of mistaken identity!’ Seriously, chief? What are you smoking today? This is an appalling case of dangerously stupid people who work for you shooting at innocent people for absolutely no reason. This is a case that should make a chief of police witheringly angry to the point of punching some cops’ teeth out onto the sidewalk, firing them, humiliating them in public, with criminal charges to follow. But that isn’t happening. Maybe the chief has a barbeque planned with these detectives. He wouldn’t want to miss that.

The problem here is that this deadly reflex to shoot at anything without understanding the target goes against any kind of training these people should have received. Firing your gun without knowing what you are shooting at is unacceptable. I don’t want to sound too reactionary, but cops who shoot innocent people really do deserve what’s coming to them. A newspaper woman is much better than a dangerous cop.

It goes without saying that I am horrified at the shocking violence and disregard for innocent life on display by the LAPD and Torrance police. An insane murderer’s rampage has somehow exposed our police force as an extremely dangerous organization.

For the Beats Killing Women Was Not a Problem

by Cimaxion | 4 Comments


I have very mixed feelings about the core group of writers known as ‘The Beats.’ They were Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ is one of the milestones (or millstones, depending on point of view) of American literature. Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ is one of the great twentieth century poems, and Burroughs wrote the distorted fever dream of homo-erotica known as ‘Naked Lunch.’ There’s lots of intensity in Beat literature and poetry. There’s a willingness to seek out the world and experience. There’s a seeming openness of mind. But every time I delve into the Beats and their work, I become listless, bored, irritable and worried. I find the general direction of their writing to be toward a distinct and virulent hatred of women. The glassy-eyed hero worship of these writers seems odd to me. Wouldn’t it be better to try rejecting their premises? Why do they still have such a hold over the popular imagination? Why hasn’t poetry been able to dispense with these people yet?

What I like about this documentary is that it does in fact touch upon this subject. What I don’t like about it is Johnny Depp prancing around with an unsmoked cigarette trying to convince us of his Beat/hipster/baggy jacket coolness.

The Beat hatred of all things female manifests itself most obviously in the fact that Burroughs stood his wife, Joan Vollmer, up against a wall in Mexico and blew her brains out with a gun. There’s great mystery surrounding his escape from the authorities in Mexico who quite naturally wanted to investigate and prosecute the man for murder. I would have prosecuted him too. He told various stories about playing a game of ‘William Tell,’ or inebriation or drug use to explain how it happened. But in order to fire a bullet through his wife’s forehead he had to lift the gun and point it at her. It sort of goes without saying. Would you be able to point a gun at your spouse? Hopefully not. I wouldn’t be able to even lift a gun in my wife’s general direction. So why was a man who blasted his wife’s head open welcomed back into his little group of Beat friends? Why would such a man become the life of the party in literary circles? Why would such a man love guns and fire them at tin cans in his backyard for the rest of his life? Good questions. Easily answered. Nobody gave a shit about the man’s dead, blown-open wife. She was just a lady in Mexico married to a bisexual genius. That’s the problem with the Beats. That’s the rock bottom attitude of the most important literary movement in America during the twentieth century.

Here’s what Burroughs had to say about killing his wife:

I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan’s death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing. I live with the constant threat of possession, and a constant need to escape from possession, from control. So the death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a life long struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out.

Let me translate that for you: “I killed my wife and was so inspired by the act of killing a female that I became a great writer. And I want to kill again. I have to constantly struggle with the urge. My writing helps with that.”

Get the idea? Murder inspires good writing… according to one-third of the Beat literary movement. The other two-thirds were just fine with that.

You may think I’ve gone too far or have some literary ax to grind. But I would suggest that reading the Beats without keeping these ideas in mind is self-deception. It’s all right there on the page if you actually read the stuff. These guys weren’t gentle spirits with open hearts and minds. They were brutal little elitists from Columbia University who were willing to kill and dump dead bodies into rivers in order to protect their group. Kerouac helped a friend dispose of a murder weapon, then took the murderer out to a movie. That murder, which was in fact the brutal slaughter of a gay man who was making advances, led to inspiration for Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg who all attempted and partially succeeded at novels based on the incident.  Again, murder inspires Beat writings. If one really wants to get down in it, one would go so far as to say that the prime mover behind the Beat movement – its basic inspiration – was a gay-bashing murder in Riverside Park. People may say whatever they like about writers trying to work out the demons, but I see something much darker than that.

Kerouac later based the main character of ‘On the Road’ on Neal Cassady, a man who appears on film to be a psychopath. I’d be looking for dead bodies buried under any house that guy ever lived in.

I think the Beat movement should be done over for the twenty-first century. This time, try not to blast anyone’s brains out across a wall.

Continue reading …

President Obama Begins Indefinite Detention and Turns U.S. Military Against Americans

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

On New Year’s Eve, while few were paying attention, President Barack Obama signed into law a bill which authorizes the military to investigate and indefinitely detain any American citizen that the President chooses. It is now the law of the land, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by a Democratic president, that you can be identified as a possible terrorist and put into the hands of the military without any communication with the outside world – including attorneys, family, friends, or journalists. The military can then hold you without hearings or trials of any kind for the rest of your life if they so choose.

This is probably the single most frightening legislative act ever undertaken by an American Congress or president. The idea that a president could even remotely consider signing such a draconian and unconstitutional bill into law would never have occurred to me even during the Bush administration. The fact that the first black president in U.S. history is also the first president to turn his military against his own people should bring us all to tears of rage. I voted for this president. I donated to his campaign. For these things, I am now deeply ashamed. This is not a president that brings hope. This is not a man who represents to voters who he really is. This is not a man that I can ever vote for – no matter who the opponent is. Because ultimately, regardless of who Obama’s opponent turns out to be, that person will not have been involved with this law. That person will not have been a person who voted to turn the U.S. military against Americans. That person will not have enacted a law that would fit perfectly into the books of any tin pot dictatorship across the globe. In fact, nearly every dictatorship or authoritarian government worldwide has exactly this law on their books. All dictatorships need this law in order to pick up citizens who dissent and put them away in secret places – or kill them.

I don’t like Ron Paul because I think he’s probably a racist and a homophobe, but he’s angry about this law and he was one of the very few who voted against it. Seems reasonable to me. Let me put it this way: No president who signs a law like this should ever be reelected. Any opponent is preferable by a very wide margin. I hate myself for saying this because I have voted for Democrats all my life. But this is a presidential betrayal of the highest order. Worse, it is a governmental betrayal. Its magnitude is so great that it calls into question our ability to manage a democratic system. It weakens the very foundations of everything we have assumed and trusted about our system. It is an abysmal and terrifying start for the new year.

The ACLU says this about the law:

The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.

No American citizen can allow the U.S. military to take them into custody. And therein lies the real problem. If Americans find that they have no governmental or legal recourse to prevent their arbitrary abduction, arrest or ‘detainment’ by the military, then they have only one possible option left. That would be armed resistance against the U.S. military. What would you do if your son or daughter disappeared into a military prison without any trial? What if all three branches of government agreed that it was just fine to make Americans vanish without trial? With the current climate surrounding the Supreme Court this could certainly happen. What if a president began using this power to make troublesome people or political opponents vanish? What would your option be?

Your option and the option of great numbers of other frightened Americans would be something resembling armed resistance. Eventually, Americans would start killing U.S. military personnel. Soldiers who jumped out of vans to snatch Americans off streets would be shot to death by people defending themselves. This would be justified. In any democracy it would be legal self defense. In a country where the military has been turned against the citizens it becomes justifiable and necessary to kill military personnel while still firmly supporting the nation and its Constitutional basis. This is the unthinkable potential situation created by President Obama and our Congress.

Obama has signed a law that operates outside of the Constitution which guarantees due process to all American citizens. We are all presumed innocent until proven guilty. Obama, the House of Representatives and the Senate do not want that to be the case anymore. They are eliminating that fundamental Constitutional protection. This is a violent and dangerous act against freedom and the American people.

Obama has signed a law which now makes every member of the military a potential threat to every American citizen at home and abroad. You must remember that nothing in this bill requires anyone to prove that a detainee is a terrorist. Since no lawyers or courts are involved no one actually needs to prove anything. The law will simply be used to arrest and hold anyone of the President’s choosing for any reason of the President’s choosing.

A journalist could be detained by the military because the President asserts that the journalist wrote something suspicious in a newspaper article. We may never hear from that journalist again.

Think very carefully about this the next time you watch your troops celebrating Thanksgiving during an NFL broadcast. Those smiling, turkey-eating troops now have the power to march into your house, throw you into a canvas bag and take you to a cinder block cell where no one will ever hear from you again. That’s no exaggeration. What do you think ‘indefinite detention’ means?

The President signed this bill into law with his own little attachment to it – a statement. He claims to have significant issues with the detention provisions. He promises that his administration will never use those provisions to detain Americans. He ‘promises.’ But of course he signs the law. He takes the power. But he wants us all to feel a little better about it because he promises he really won’t use it. This is one creepy little bullshitter if I ever saw one.

Obama has lost all my admiration, my support, my money, and my vote. I will vote for anyone else. Anyone. I don’t care if it’s a Republican. I don’t care if the person can’t read, write, or do arithmetic. The bottom line is that whoever that person is, he or she won’t be Obama. Recall elections should be held to try to remove Senators and Representatives who voted for this bill. I am personally voting for a Democratic primary opponent to my current Representative who voted for this law. People who pose as liberals – like Al Franken – should be removed. The very idea of a liberal Democrat voting for this terrifies me. It really means that we are running out of options. Someone is so interested in gaining this power of indefinite detention that they are willing and able to get everyone working in concert for it. They have totally overcome the distinctions between Democrats and Republicans… liberals and conservatives.

Obama has seized the single most important legal power underlying all dictatorships and authoritarian governments: the power to make people disappear.

Here’s an interesting Russia Times America report on the bill from early December 2011:

Egyptian Military Leaders Begin Systematic Beating and Slaughter of Peaceful Protesters

by Cimaxion


The Egyptian military, which is supported by the United States military, has begun a brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters by beating and killing. Recently, they appear to have targeted mainly women, beating them with sticks, stomping on their heads and chests, and dragging them half naked through the streets.

This is the Egyptian military. This is the leadership of Egypt. The revolution of January 2011 has failed. Egypt has sunk into a brutal military dictatorship that has begun to rape, beat and kill all dissenters. I do not believe in peaceful revolution against murderous dictatorships. When confronted with barbaric monsters like the current leadership in Egypt, one must kill or be killed. My advice to Egyptians is to eliminate soldiers wherever you might find them by any means at hand – like the Libyans did. I say that because I’m an American. And nobody on the planet knows how to do a revolution like the Americans do. And the one thing we know about revolution is that when you want to win you put your gun in the other guy’s face and pull the trigger. Peaceful protests are for smirking idiots like the Dalai Lama.

But I do not think Egypt’s revolution will work. There are too many poor uneducated religious people and they will react to freedom with more brutal attacks on women. It is the nature of religious people under pressure to brutalize women. It happens in all places where you find poverty mixed with religion. In fact, it is oppression of women that fundamentally defines all religious behavior. Reading a Bible or a Koran is like reading an instruction manual for the subjugation and enslavement of women. These books are horrific works by deformed men who were terrified that they might not know for sure who really fathered their children. That is about all I have to say on the subject of the very sad and dying nation of Egypt. Arab Spring looks to me like a death march. I am also deeply ashamed of my country’s military association with Egypt. It is a profound embarrassment to all Americans to know that our military officers give advice and money to rapists. Disgusting.

Needless to say, I will not be visiting the fucking pyramids any time soon.

This news video contains disturbing images and shocking violence:

Congress Attempting to Hand U.S. Military the Power to Disappear Americans

by Cimaxion

The U.S. Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act which codifies into law the power of the U.S. military to arrest and detain Americans indefinitely, without any legal charges and without any oversight whatsoever. In other words, the United States government is handing its military the power to disappear anyone it wants to. The bill apparently designates the entire planet as a battlefield and makes it legal for the military to imprison U.S. citizens for any reason. No evidence of any wrongdoing is required. The military could simply suspect or dislike you and make you vanish. Forever. No one will even know what happened to you. A soldier can drive up, grab you, put you in an unmarked van, take you to a military prison, and keep you there until you die. That is exactly the same authority wielded by every South and Central American dictator over the past sixty years. It’s a power used by dictators and authoritarian police states across the globe.

Only seven Senators voted against this terrifying bill. They are:

R-Rand Paul (KY)
R-Thomas Coburn (OK)
R-Mike Lee (UT)
D-Thomas Harken (IA)
D-Ron Wyden (OR)
D-Jeff Merkley (OR),
I-Bernard Sanders (VT) (one of 2 Independen­ts in the Senate)

Well, now you know. It would seem clear that the other senators are becoming a threat to civil rights and the protections of the U.S. Constitution. I don’t really see any way to logically argue in favor of these people or support their continued presence in the Senate.

The Obama administration has said that the President will most likely veto this bill if it reaches him. But it is Obama who has opened the door for this bill by resolutely defending his right to kill any American citizen that he defines as an enemy… without charges and without trial. Our President now executes Americans without trials. And now our Senate wants the military to snatch people without trials.

Here’s the Facebook page for ‘One Billion Against Indefinite Detention Without Trial Law.‘

University of California Has Physically Attacked Tuition-Paying Students

by Cimaxion

University of California at Davis students staging a sit-in have been attacked by school police with massive doses of pepper spray. The use of weapons against tuition-paying students by the university is grounds for removal of any administration officials with knowledge of these tactics. This is disgusting. Students have a long-standing tradition of free expression on their campuses. Sit-ins are a harmless and excellent way for students to express outrage. The pepper-spraying police should at the very least be discharged. There should also be legal charges brought against them.

The spectacle of the university going after its students with weaponry and armored police thugs is simply outrageous. It’s an appalling act of stupidity and cruelty. This school should be hammered with lawsuits and public outrage. While Penn State University allegedly rapes small children, University of California blasts pepper spray into the faces of its kids. What the fuck may I ask is going on in this country? Our higher education system has typically been the only thing giving our country an edge internationally. Now it would seem that even that system is cracking.

It seems clear that every single protester at every protest nationwide should be armed with a canister of pepper spray to use against police. Their faces are vulnerable under the helmet guards. Every single protester with pepper spray. It looks to me like the time for passivity might be ending. There is a tactic that I think could be used against police. It would be the singling out of an individual officer by hundreds of protesters. The surrounding of a single officer might put the police ranks into a very uncomfortable position.

Congressional Effort to Censor the Internet

by Cimaxion

The ‘Protect IP’ bill before Congress would give corporations and the government the power to completely shut down internet sites without any due process just for posting a single copyright infringing link. So for a site like Facebook, if a single user posted a single copyrighted something or other, the government could simply pull the plug on Facebook and turn it off.

But chances are the law would be used to stifle expression and ideas from smaller sites. The government would simply have to accuse a site of being engaged in piracy and that site would be effectively terminated.

That’s a terrifying abuse of power. It would complete destroy the internet and anything resembling freedom of communication. This is a glaring example of how a small number of large corporations have taken total control of the Unites States government.

You can sign a petition and learn more at fightforthefuture.org/pipa.

Occupy Wall Street Keeps Coming Back

by Cimaxion

Rachel Maddow does a wonderful piece on the freedom of speech aspects of Occupy Wall Street. She contrasts the police at University of California’s Berkeley campus shoving students with batons to the 1964 Mario Savio speech in support of free speech for students. The police violence against students last week happened on the very plaza that celebrates Savio’s great speech.

New York City Police Attack and Destroy Occupy Wall Street Encampment

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

On the orders of New York mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD staged a brazen and unwarranted attack on the Zuccotti Park protesters of Occupy Wall Street late last night, removing and destroying the entire camp. This assault on Occupy Wall Street appears to be a coordinated nationwide effort with police departments in various cities operating in near concert.

New York has been foolish. The police should not have done this.

There are major protest activities approaching this week. The police assaults may be an effort to head things off before any more major statements can be made by the movement. However, it would be my guess that now all the gloves come off. It would not be unreasonable for massive numbers of protesters to shut down the entire Wall Street area. I think now the movement will be justified in the general public opinion when it escalates its actions. My guess is that if it wasn’t yet, Wall Street is about to become ground zero.

It does appear that there is a court order against New York to allow the protesters back into the park with their tents.  However, Mayor Bloomberg is ignoring the court’s order.

It is also reported that the police destroyed the protesters’ library of 5,000 books during their raid. Get it? That’s basically a book-burning.

It looks like the police also prevented press coverage of the attack. Network news helicopters were prevented from flying and journalists were roughed up and kept away.

However, it has now become clear that the Zuccotti Park protesters last week surrounded an emergency medical technician to prevent him from taking a mentally ill patient to hospital.  The EMT’s leg was broken in the scuffle.  That story fits in perfectly with the experience of a Rolling Stone reporter who was surrounded and prevented from interviewing someone.  One of those acts is a serious crime committed by the protesters against an emergency worker.  The other is an infringement of the right to freely speak with another person.  It is also an attempt to prevent a journalist from doing his or her job. I do not support such actions on the part of the protesters. But those are not reasons to destroy their encampments.

Here is Keith Olbermann excoriating mayor Bloomberg for his raging stupidity:

Here’s a television news report about the NYPD raid:

Here’s a live feed from the Zuccotti Park area:

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

Penn State Students Riot and Attack TV Van Over Firing of Coach Who Would Not Call Police to Report a Child Rape

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

In a deeply troubling sign of the mentality of Penn State University’s student body, mobs of students rioted yesterday in protest of the university’s firing of football coach Joe Paterno. He is the coach to whom a child rape was reported by a graduate student who witnessed the crime and allowed it to continue. That graduate student is now active receivers coach, Mike McQueary. Why this person has not also been fired is a total mystery. Paterno apparently thought his duties only required him to report the grad student’s allegation to his boss. He neglected to call the police. It would seem that he also neglected to follow up on the crime at any time during a nine-year period. The moral failure of such neglect is immense. Penn State University was certainly correct to eliminate such a person from its staff as quickly as possible. But the callous disregard for the damaged lives of the young rape victims on the part of the Penn State student body is not only revolting, it is frightening. These are young adults about to move into society and take jobs. They are supposedly educated. But they are raging in the streets and destroying journalists’ equipment over a football coach who refused to take any sort of adequate action following the brutal rape of a ten year old child.

It would amaze me if the university did not immediately act to expel every student it could identify as having engaged in violence against the journalists’ van at the very least.

These are students that I would want nothing to do with. Ever. I’m sure there are students who disagree with these rioters and those should not be lumped in with these barbaric people. This is a mob that has been fielded by this university. It simply cannot be ignored. They are a repulsive example of what Penn State University has to offer to the state it serves and to its nation. They have no apparent feeling about the rape of a child. They seem to believe that a man can ignore his duty to protect children and still maintain his status as ‘living legend.’ These people in this rioting mob should remember for the rest of their lives exactly how they behaved in the face of children who were raped and who went unaided by the heartless, reprehensible Joe Paterno and other members of the Penn State administration. Horrible. Disgusting.

Here is video of the student attack on a journalism van. It appears to have been taken by one of the rioting students. Mature content with language:

Would you hire one of these people for your company? Would you want one of these people living next to you?

Penn State University Appears to Have Covered Up Child Rape in Football Program

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Pennsylvania State University appears to have abandoned its primary duty to protect the children on its campus. The betrayal of its community and its children is shocking. Its football facilities appear to have been used for an ongoing series of child rapes by football coach Joe Paterno’s longtime assistant Jerry Sandusky. Two high-ranking university officials have been arrested for keeping the rapes unreported to law enforcement. That’s called a coverup where I come from. It would seem that a graduate student told a Grand Jury that he witnessed a 10 year old boy being raped in the football locker room. His decision at the time was to allow the rape to continue. Later on he says he went to coach Paterno’s home to discuss the episode with him. Paterno says he reported the allegations to university athletic director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the senior vice president of finance and business.

WHAT!!??

I’m sorry, but my jaw just hit the desk. Let’s go over that again. A graduate student witnesses the rape of a child and walks away. Goes to Joe Paterno’s house to discuss it! Joe Paterno goes to school administrators! No one calls the police! No one walks into the locker room, pulls the rapist off the child and beats his head against a wall. Are these guys kidding? There’s no use in this world for men who cannot help a child being raped. The rapist is an obvious psychopath and will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. That’s for sure. But these other men, Paterno included, have proven themselves to be unable to muster the small amount of strength required to stand up for a child. It should have been easy to walk in and stop that rape. It should have been a reflex. This graduate student continues to work for the university for 9 years without talking about the crime he witnessed. Well this fellow quite obviously serves no useful purpose in civilization.  His departure would go unnoticed. The same for Paterno. You, sir, should be somewhat more than ashamed.  You could go apply for work at the Vatican which, along with Penn State University, seems to run an efficient child rape network.

I am free to say that because high-ranking university officials have been charged with leaving the alleged crime unreported to police.  This puts the official posture of the university as being one of active coverup. It seems probable that knowledge of the alleged crimes will be more widespread in the university than currently understood.

One thing you can count on – if it had been one of Paterno’s grandchildren getting raped in that locker room, he most certainly would have called the police. He didn’t because he just didn’t give a shit.

The disgusting refusal by grown men to defend a child warrants not only the immediate dismissal of Joe Paterno, but also the closing down of the school’s football program at least until a very thorough investigation deeper into the university’s structure can be completed.

The only correct posture when you see a kid being raped is physical violence against the perpetrator followed by a call to 911.  Whatever Joe Paterno might say in the next few days to defend himself, ignore him and remember that defending a child from rape is a very simple and easy decision to make.

Saturday November 5 Is Bank Transfer Day

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Tomorrow, Saturday November 5, 2011, is Bank Transfer Day. That means that Americans everywhere are moving their money out of big banks and putting them into smaller local banks and credit unions that are FDIC insured. The Occupy Wall Street movement is having serious consequences and is beginning to wake people up to how easy it is to change things when millions decide to act. The big banks have been making life very difficult for many people through absurd fees, rates and indecipherable rules meant to empty pockets. But the problem is actually much more serious than that. Big banks are actually putting lives at risk through illegal foreclosures all across the United States. Masses of people are boiling with anger that is going to reach a critical overload. Moving money out of these banks into credit unions is a common sense approach to smacking big banks. But this event is just a warm-up. What we are practicing for is the eventual ability of the population to move almost overnight to totally destroy a chosen corporation. The ability to do so is almost here and will make itself apparent in very short order. I’m talking about a population that will be able to pick a corporation – say a major auto manufacturer for instance – and totally liquidate that corporation. This will be a weaponized and highly focused form of boycott, but it will be characterized by extremely sudden mass decision-making unlike anything ever seen in history. Get ready for it. Start your warmup tomorrow by moving to a credit union or small local bank.

The Bank Transfer Day Facebook page.

A Salon article about why Bank Transfer Day is only the beginning and the power of social media.

Oakland Police Smash Skull of Iraq War Veteran at Peaceful Protest

by Cimaxion

MATURE CONTENT – DISTURBING IMAGES AND LANGUAGE
In Oakland, Tuesday evening, police fractured the skull of Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen who is an Iraq war veteran.  Police apparently fired a projectile at his head. Mr. Olsen is in critical condition.

Oakland is an American city where police will lay a person out on a subway platform and brutally murder them with a bullet through the back. They are now firing deadly projectiles at Occupy Oakland protesters.

The use of projectiles by police against crowds is in fact a use of potentially deadly force and should be defended against as such. Any firing of a projectile toward crowds or individuals must be viewed as potentially deadly. The protesters would now seem to have a legal argument for self defense.

I predict that this protester and his injuries will soon cost the city Oakland tens of millions of dollars in damages.

That’s the thing about this movement.  It’s got a lot of very smart and well-educated people involved and they have really powerful attorneys who are going to rip Oakland a great big new asshole.

Oakland police were also filmed firing projectiles at people who went to administer first aid to the seriously injured Olsen. You can see that toward the end of the following video. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quiet like that, but I am very certain that the police officer who fired this projectile at people rendering assistance to an injured person can face serious criminal charges.

Is Occupy Wall Street Encouraging Bigotry?

by Cimaxion | 3 Comments

Who are the one percent?

Does anyone pay attention to what is being said when this ‘1%’ thing is thrown around?

Here’s a direct quote from the OccupyWallSt.org About page and must therefore be the definitive statement of the movement’s intentions:

‘The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.’

If you replace ‘richest 1% of people’ with different words like ‘Muslims’ or ‘Jews’ or ‘Whites’ or ‘Blacks’ or ‘Poor People,’ wouldn’t you have a serious problem?

Why is it that Occupy Wall Street can define a 1% minority out of a population and engage in open hostility and bigotry toward them? Bigotry against a part of a population is bigotry no matter what the rationale for it happens to be. Occupy Wall Street is not talking about corrupt rich people. It is not talking about criminals. It is talking about ALL rich people. It is equating wealth with villainy.

It should be obvious that not all of the richest people are in fact helping to write unfair rules. Michael Moore is rich. Is he writing some of the unfair rules?

Why is Occupy Wall Street unable to confine its hostility to actual policy?

In Germany, during the buildup of Nazism, people grew increasingly angry toward the wealthy and then turned that anger toward Jewish people.  Angry crowds, encouraged to chant mantras and direct hostility toward groups that they define as evil become extremely dangerous when exposed to a charismatic leader who is willing to exploit them.

I do not oppose constructive change of policy to make the economic situation more fair and to prevent the corporate control of government.  But I do oppose the fundamental and defining aspect of Occupy Wall Street which is to associate a particular group of people with a generic and unspecified evil.