.



Viewing cable 09TELAVIV1098, ISRAEL, A PROMISED LAND FOR ORGANISED CRIME?

Reference ID - 09TELAVIV1098

Created - 2009-05-15 14:02

Released - 2010-12-01 21:09

Classification - UNCLASSIFIED

Origin - Embassy Tel Aviv

Appears in http://www.spiegel.de

VZCZCXYZ0018
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTV #1098/01 1351414
ZNR UUUUU ZZH (CCY AD66A605 MSI9229-632)
R 151414Z MAY 09 ZDS
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1845
INFO RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM 2041
RUCNFB/FBI WASHDC//INTD/CTD/CT WATCH//
RHMFIUU/US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION WASHDC
RUEAHLC/HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHDC 0068
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME 7509
UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001098

C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (CORRECTED ADDEE)

DEPT FOR CA/VO/L/C; CA/VO/L/A; CA/FPP SARAH SEXTON; INR/TIPOFF; DS
OFAC
ROME FOR DHS/ICE

CA/FPP: PLEASE PASS TO DOJ LISA HOLTYN AND BRUCE OHR
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958:N/A
TAGS: CVIS SNAR CMGT KFRD KCOR KCRM KTIP PINR IS
SUBJECT: ISRAEL, A PROMISED LAND FOR ORGANISED CRIME?

Summary
---------

¶1. (SBU) Organized crime (OC) has longstanding roots in Israel, but
in recent years there has been a sharp increase in the reach and
impact of OC networks. In seeking a competitive advantage in such
lucrative trades as narcotics and prostitution, Israeli crime groups
have demonstrated their ability and willingness to engage in violent
attacks on each other with little regard for innocent bystanders.
The Israeli National Police (INP) and the courts have engaged in a
vigorous campaign against organized crime leaders, including the
creation of a new specialized anti-OC unit, but they remain unable
to cope with the full scope of the problem. Organized crime in
Israel now has global reach, with direct impact inside the United
States. Post is currently utilizing all available tools to deny
Israeli OC figures access to the United States in order to prevent
them from furthering their criminal activities on U.S. soil. End
Summary.

Crime War Hits the Streets of Israel
-------------------------------------

¶2. (SBU) In November 2008, Israeli crime boss Yaakov Alperon was
assassinated in broad daylight in a gruesome attack on the streets
of Tel Aviv, only about a mile away from the Embassy. According to
several media accounts, a motor scooter pulled up alongside
Alperon's car and the rider attached a sophisticated explosive
device with a remote detonator to the car door. The bomb killed
Alperon and his driver, and injured two innocent pedestrians. The
hit was the latest in a series of violent attacks and reprisals, and
indicated a widening crime war in Israel.

¶3. In July 2008, a 31-year-old Israeli woman was killed by a stray
bullet on the beach in Bat Yam in front of her husband and two
children during a failed assassination attempt on noted crime figure
Rami Amira. In a feud between the Abutbul and Shirazi clans, crime
boss Shalom "Charlie" Abutbul was shot by two gunmen in September
2008, an attack that also wounded three bystanders. In December
2008, Charlie Abutbul's son-in-law, Nati Ohayon, was gunned down in
his car in Netanya. Before the fatal bombing of his car, Alperon
himself had survived at least three previous attempts on his life
before his assassination, and was engaged in an ongoing feud with
the rival Abergil clan (although there are numerous suspects in
Alperon's murder). The day after Alperon's death, two members of
the Abergil syndicate were sentenced for conspiring to kill
Alperon's brother, Nissim, in May 2008.

¶4. (SBU) In response to rising concerns for public safety, former
Prime Minister Olmert convened an emergency meeting of top law
enforcement officials, cabinet members, and prosecutors in December
¶2008. He promised to add 1,000 officers to the INP and to allocate
approximately NIS 340 million (USD 81 million) to improve the INP's
technical capabilities. In general, the rise in OC-related violence
has led some public figures to call for emergency state powers to
attack criminal organizations, and OC became a minor but important
issue in the February 2009 Knesset elections. Former Labor Party MK
Ephraim Sneh publicly decried criminal extortion in his campaign
ads, only to have his car torched in apparent retaliation outside
his home in Herzliya.

Background
------------

¶5. (SBU) Organized criminal activity is not a new phenomenon in
Israel, and major crime families are well known to the Israeli
public (the Alperons even featured in a recent reality television
program). Five or six crime families have traditionally dominated
OC in Israel, although the names and makeup of these syndicates have
fluctuated in recent years. The Abergil, Abutbul, Alperon, and
Rosenstein organizations are among the most well known, but recent
arrests and assassinations have created a power vacuum at the top.
New names such as Mulner, Shirazi, Cohen and Domrani have moved
quickly to fill the gap. Other up-and-coming groups include the
Harari, Ohana, and Kdoshim families. There are also a number of
rival families active in the underworld of Israel's Arab sector.

¶6. (SBU) Traditional OC activities in Israel include illegal
neighborhood casinos, prostitution rings, extortion, and loan
sharking, with each family controlling a different geographic
region. The Alperon family, for instance, dominates the Sharon
region, while the Abutbul operation is based in the coastal city of
Netanya. The focus is largely on easy money guaranteed by the
limited use of violence. Criminal involvement in the recycling
business, for example, has been well covered in the press. OC

families collect bottles illegally from municipal recycling bins and
restaurants, return them at the collection centers claiming twice
the actual numbers, and pocket the change for millions in profits.

Not Your Grandfather's Mob
---------------------------

¶7. (SBU) Despite their notoriety, OC figures have generally been
viewed as a nuisance to be handled by local police. Law enforcement
resources were directed to more existential security threats from
terrorists and enemy states. In recent years, however, the rules of
the game have changed. According to xxxxx, the old school of Israel
OC is giving way to a new, more violent, breed of crime. xxxxx told
conoffs that the new style of crime features knowledge of hi-tech
explosives acquired from service in the Israeli Defense Forces, and
a willingness to use indiscriminate violence, at least against rival
gang leaders. New OC business also includes technology-related crimes,
such as stock market and credit card fraud, and operates on a global
scale.

¶8. (SBU) As the reach of Israeli OC has grown, so have the stakes.
Crime families are working further from home and exporting violence
abroad. Older gambling schemes have grown to include sprawling
casino franchises in Eastern Europe. The Abutbul family began its
gambling business in Romania over a decade ago, and now owns the
Europe-wide Casino Royale network. In 2002, Israeli OC turf wars
spilled into Europe when Yaakov Abergil and Felix Abutbul were
killed two months apart. Abutbul was gunned down in front of his
casino in Prague in a show of force by the Abergils as they
attempted to capture a portion of the European gambling market.

¶9. (SBU) Israeli OC now plays a significant role in the global drug
trade, providing both a local consumer market and an important
transit point to Europe and the United States. In 2004, Zeev
Rosenstein was arrested in Israel for possession of 700,000 ecstasy
tablets in his New York apartment, destined for distribution in the
U.S. market. He was ultimately extradited to the United States in
2006, where he is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence. Two
other crime figures, Meir Abergil and Israel Ozifa, are also facing
U.S. extradition charges on charges that include smuggling 100,000
ecstasy tablets into the United States.

¶10. (SBU) The prostitution business has also grown beyond the
neighborhood brothel. In March 2009, the INP arrested twelve
suspects in what is believed to be the largest Israeli-led human
trafficking network unearthed to date. Ring leader Rami Saban and
his associates were charged with smuggling thousands of women from
the former Soviet Union and forcing them to work as prostitutes in
Israel, Cyprus, Belgium, and Great Britain. Some women were flown
to Egypt and smuggled across the Sinai border by Bedouins.

Law Enforcement Steps up the Pressure
-------------------------------------

¶11. (SBU) After years of perceived inaction, in 2008 the INP
created a new unit called Lahav 433. The elite unit operates under
the direct command of the police commissioner, and is charged
specifically with infiltrating and eliminating Israel's major crime
syndicates. Lahav 433 also cooperates closely with district
investigative units to combat smaller criminal organizations, many
of which are aligned with the larger crime families.

¶12. (SBU) Following Alperon's assassination, the INP initiated a
series of raids that led to the arrests of a number of leading crime
figures. Among their targets were Aviv and Adam Abutbul, sons of
crime-family head Charlie Abutbul, both charged with possession of
illegal weapons. (A third brother, Francois, is already facing
murder charges for a nightclub killing in 2004.) Police also
arrested gangland figure Amir Mulner for weapons possession and
conspiracy to commit a crime. Mulner is known to be an explosives
expert by army training, and is a suspect in Yaakov Alperon's
murder. He is also believed to be managing affairs for Rosenstein
while the latter serves his sentence in the United States.

¶13. (SBU) Yaakov Alperon's brother Nissim was arrested with 18
others in December 2008, in what was reported to be a "mafia
meeting" in a Tel Aviv-area caf. According to the Jerusalem Post,
the group may have been planning a revenge attack for his brother's
recent assassination. Alperon's son Dror, recently dismissed from
his army service for disorderly behavior, also faces several counts
of assault and was convicted on extortion charges. Also in
December, police in Netanya launched several raids on illegal
gambling houses and the homes of suspected money launderers with
ties to the crime families. In Ashdod, brothers Roni and David
Harari were arrested on charges of extortion. Regional police stuck
a blow against the Jerusalem Gang, and convicted its leader Itzik
Bar Muha.

Skepticism Hovers Over GOI Efforts
----------------------------------

¶14. (SBU)xxxxx told conoffs that
"thousands of foot soldiers" remain active on the streets despite
these aggressive anti-OC operations. He noted that approximately
2,000 people attended Alperon's very public funeral. xxxxx
expressed skepticism that recent arrests will bear fruit in the long
term without a sustained commitment to enforcement. He noted that
many of the crime leaders remain active while in prison and their
operations are not hampered significantly even when they are
convicted and jailed.

¶15. (SBU) In December 2008, former Prime Minister Olmert himself
admitted that efforts to combat OC have long been diluted among
different agencies, and that INP technology lags far behind that
allocated to security services for counterterrorism. Given the
recent change in government and the current economic crisis, there
is public skepticism as to whether GOI promises to remedy the
situation will be fulfilled. In 2003, following a failed
assassination attempt on Rosenstein, then Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon made similar promises to commit manpower and resources to
combating the problem.

¶16. (SBU) It is not entirely clear to what extent OC elements have
penetrated the Israeli establishment and corrupted public officials.
The INP insists that such instances are rare, despite the
occasional revelation of crooked police officers in the press.
Nevertheless, there have been several dramatic revelations in recent
years that indicate a growing problem. In 2004, former government
minister Gonen Segev was arrested for trying to smuggle thousands of
ecstasy pills into Israel, a case that produced considerable
circumstantial evidence of his involvement in OC. The election of
Inbal Gavrieli to the Knesset in 2003 as a member of Likud raised
concerns about OC influence in the party's Central Committee.
Gavrieli is the daughter of a suspected crime boss, and she
attempted to use her parliamentary immunity to block investigations
into her father's business. (Gavrieli is no longer a member of the
Knesset.) Just last month, Israeli politicos and OC figures came
together for the funeral of Likud party activist Shlomi Oz, who
served time in prison in the 1990s for extortion on behalf of the
Alperon family. Among those in attendance was Omri Sharon, son of
former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was himself convicted in
2006 on illegal fundraising charges unrelated to OC.

Courts Testing New Powers
--------------------------

¶17. (SBU) In 2003, the GOI passed anti-OC legislation that carries
a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment for heading a criminal
organization and three years for working in such an organization.
The law defines such a body as a group of people working in an
"organized, methodical and ongoing pattern to commit offenses that
are defined by the laws of Israel as crimes." The law also allows
for property forfeiture, both in the wake of conviction and in cases
where it is proven to belong to a criminal organization.

¶18. (SBU) Until recently, xxxxx, judges and lawyers have been
slow to make use of this authority, and are hampered by a lack of
resources, insufficient understanding of the tools at their
disposal, and reticence to mete out tough sentences. A witness
protection program for those who testify against OC is just now
getting off the ground, and is not backed by any specific
legislation. Nevertheless, on March 16th, a Tel Aviv district court
took the important step of sentencing 14 convicted criminals
belonging to two mob organizations in Ramle and Jaffa to up to 27
years in prison.

¶19. (SBU) Increased efforts by Israeli authorities to combat OC
have engendered retaliatory threats of violence. Recent press
reports indicate that as many as 10 Israeli judges are currently
receiving 24-hour protection by the police against the threat of
violence from members of crime organizations. Israeli OC appears to
be intent on intimidating judges personally, as a way of influencing
the legal process. Judges in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa have
been assigned police protection, underscoring the depth of the
problem.

Israeli Crime Reaches American Shores
--------------------------------------

¶20. (SBU) Israel's multi-ethnic population provides a deep well of
opportunity for Israeli OC to expand into new territory. Most
Israeli crime families trace their roots to North Africa or Eastern
Europe, and many of their Israeli operatives hold foreign passports
allowing them to move freely in European countries, most of which
participate in the visa waiver program with the United States.
Approximately one million Russians moved to Israel following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, and Russian citizens no longer
require visas to enter Israel. Many Russian oligarchs of Jewish
origin and Jewish members of OC groups have received Israeli
citizenship, or at least maintain residences in the country. Little
is known about the full extent of Russian criminal activity in
Israel, but sources in the police estimate that Russian OC has
laundered as much as USD 10 billion through Israeli holdings. While
most Israeli OC families are native-born and the stereotype that
Russian immigrants tend to be mobsters is greatly overblown,
indigenous OC groups routinely employ "muscle" from the former
Soviet Union.

¶21. (SBU) The profit motive serves as a great unifier among
Israel's diverse demographic groups. According to xxxxx, some
Amsterdam-based Hasidic groups allegedly are implicated in
international drug smuggling through links to Israeli OC. Arab and
Jewish Israeli criminals routinely cooperate and form alliances to
expand control of lucrative drug, car theft and extortion rackets.
Even hostile and closed borders pose few obstacles to OC groups.
According to the INP, 43% of intercepted heroin in 2008 was smuggled
from Lebanon, 37% from Jordan, and 12% from Egypt.

Israeli OC Operating Freely in United States
---------------------------------------------

¶22. (SBU) Given the volume of travel and trade between the United
States and Israel, it is not surprising that Israeli OC has also
gained a foothold in America. Over the last decade, media reports
have detailed a number of high-profile cases involving Israeli OC,
ranging from large-scale drug deals to murder. The ongoing Central
District of California grand jury investigation against the Abergil
family, where a RICO conspiracy case was initiated in December 2007,
best demonstrates the full extent of such criminal activity.
Investigators have linked Yitzhak Abergil and his entire network to
crimes of "embezzlement, extortion, kidnapping, and money
laundering." Yitzhak Abergil is currently under arrest in Israel
and facing extradition for related charges linking him to the murder
of Israeli drug dealer Samy Attias on U.S. soil.

¶23. (SBU) As part of an ongoing effort to track Israeli OC through
media reports and police sources, Post so far has identified 16
families and 78 related individuals who are at the center of Israeli
organized criminal activity. The consular section has revoked
several visas for those who have been convicted of crimes in Israel,
but many OC figures have no prior criminal convictions and carry no
visa ineligibilities. As a result, many hold valid nonimmigrant
visas to the United States and have traveled freely or attempted to
travel for a variety of purposes.

¶24. (SBU) In March 2009, Post received information from law
enforcement authorities that convicted criminal and member of the
Abergil organization, Mordechai Yair Hasin, along with his pregnant
wife and child, was intending to flee Israel for Los Angeles on
valid tourist visas. Hasin's visa was revoked based on his
conviction, as were his family's visas after they were determined to
be intending immigrants.

¶25. (SBU) As in the Hasin case, Post is using every available tool
to limit OC travel to the United States, but such efforts are not
always successful. In June 2008, Post issued Adam Abitbul a valid
tourist visa. Abitbul had no prior criminal convictions, and
carried no visa ineligibilities. Several months later, Post
received information from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)
that he had traveled to the United States to carry out a hit.
Abitbul returned to Israel prematurely for his father's funeral, at
which time Post revoked his visa. (Post can only revoke the visas of
Israeli citizens while in country.) In a similar case, in October
2008 Post issued Moshe Bar Muha a tourist visa; he claimed to be
traveling for medical treatment. Post subsequently received
information from the LAPD that Bar Muha is in fact the brother of
Itzik Bar Muha of the Jerusalem Gang (see above) and a convicted
criminal.

¶26. (SBU) As recently as March 2009, Zvika Ben Shabat, Yaacov
Avitan, and Tzuri Rokah requested visas to attend a
"security-related convention" in Las Vegas. According to local
media reports, all three had involvement with OC. Post asked the
applicants to provide police reports for any criminal records in
Israel, but without such evidence there is no immediate
ineligibility for links to OC. Luckily, all three have so far
failed to return for continued adjudication of their applications.
Nevertheless, it is fair to assume that many known OC figures hold
valid tourist visas to the United States and travel freely.

Comment: Israeli OC Slipping Through the Consular Cracks
--------------------------------------------- ---------

¶27. (SBU) Given the growing reach and lethal methods of Israeli OC,
blocking the travel of known OC figures to the United States is a
matter of great concern to Post. Through collaboration with Israeli
and U.S. law enforcement authorities, Post has developed an
extensive database and placed lookouts for OC figures and their foot
soldiers. Nevertheless, the above visa cases demonstrate the
challenges that have arisen since the termination of the Visas Shark
in September 2008. Unlike OC groups from the former Soviet Union,
Italy, China, and Central America, application of INA
212(a)(3)(A)(ii) against Israeli OC is not specifically authorized
per Foreign Affairs Manual 40.31 N5.3. As such, Israelis who are
known to work for or belong to OC families are not automatically
ineligible for travel to the United States.

Cunningham

[Text of cable cited at n e u f n e u f....]





.

.




[nine hours]




[eight hours]



.

.



AP Exclusive: CIA flight carried secret from Gitmo
By MATT APUZZO and ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press Writers – Fri Aug 6, 3:23 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A white, unmarked Boeing 737 landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before dawn on a CIA mission so secretive, many in the nation's war on terrorism were kept in the dark.

Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were aboard.

They arrived at Guantanamo on Sept. 24, 2003, years earlier than the U.S. has ever disclosed. Then, months later, they were just as quietly whisked away before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers.

The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those rights.

"This was all just a shell game to hide detainees from the courts," said Jonathan Hafetz, a Seton Hall University law professor who has represented several detainees.

Removing them from Guantanamo Bay underscores how worried President George W. Bush's administration was that the Supreme Court might lift the veil of secrecy on the detention program. It also shows how insistent the Bush administration was that terrorists must be held outside the U.S. court system.

Years later, the program's legacy continues to complicate President Barack Obama's efforts to prosecute the terrorists behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The arrival and speedy departure from Guantanamo were pieced together by The Associated Press using flight records and interviews with current and former U.S. officials and others familiar with the CIA's detention program. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the program.

Top officials at the White House, Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA consulted on the prisoner transfer, officials said.

"The so-called black sites and enhanced interrogation methods, which were administered on the basis of guidance from the Department of Justice, are a thing of the past," CIA spokesman George Little said.

The American Civil Liberties Union renewed its call for a broad criminal investigation into the detention program Friday.

"Secret detention constitutes a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, and the officials who authorized the CIA's secret prisons and torture program should be held accountable," Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director said.

At least four admitted al-Qaida operatives, some of the CIA's biggest captures to date, were on the plane to Guantanamo: Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Nashiri, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.

Binalshibh and al-Hawsawi helped plan the 9/11 attacks. Al-Nashiri was the mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Zubaydah was an al-Qaida travel facilitator. They had spent months overseas enduring some of the harshest interrogation tactics in U.S. history.

By late summer 2003, the CIA believed the men had revealed their best secrets. The agency needed somewhere to hold them, but no longer needed to conduct prolonged interrogations.

The U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay seemed a good fit. Bush had selected the first six people to face military tribunals there, and a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that detainees could not use U.S. courts to challenge their imprisonment.

And the CIA had just constructed a new facility, which would become known as Strawberry Fields, separate from the main prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The agency's overseas prison network, meanwhile, was in flux. A jail in Thailand known as Cat's Eye closed in December 2002, and in the fall of 2003 the CIA was preparing to shutter its facility in Poland and open a new one in Romania. Human rights investigators and journalists were asking questions. The CIA needed to reshuffle its prisoners.

The prisoner transfer flight, outlined in documents and interviews, visited five CIA prisons in Afghanistan, Poland, Romania, Morocco and Guantanamo Bay. The flight plan was so poorly thought out, some in the CIA derisively compared it to a five-card straight revealing the program to outsiders: Five stops, five secret facilities, all documented.

The flight logs were compiled by European authorities investigating the CIA program.

The flight started in Kabul, where the CIA picked up al-Hawsawi at the secret prison known as the Salt Pit. The Boeing 737 then flew to Szymany, Poland, where a CIA team picked up professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and took him to Bucharest, Romania, to the new prison, code-named Britelite.

Next it was on to Rabat, Morocco, where the Moroccans ran an interrogation facility used by the CIA.

At 8:10 p.m. on Sept. 23, 2003, the Boeing 737 took off from a runway in Rabat. On board were al-Hawsawi, al-Nashiri, Zubaydah and Binalshibh. At 1 a.m. the following day, the plane touched down at Guantanamo.

The existence of a CIA prison at Guantanamo was reported in 2004, but it has always been unclear who was there. Unlike the overseas black sites, there was no waterboarding or other harsh interrogation tactics at Strawberry Fields, officials said. It was a holding facility, a place for some of the key figures in the 9/11 attacks to await trial.

Not long after they arrived, things began unraveling. In November, over the administration's objections, the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether Guantanamo Bay detainees could sue in U.S. courts.

The administration had worried for several years that this might happen. In 2001, Justice Department lawyers Patrick Philbin and John Yoo wrote a memo saying courts were unlikely to grant detainees such rights. But if it happened, they warned, prisoners could argue that the U.S. had mistreated them and that the military tribunal system was unlawful.

"There was obviously a fear that everything that had been done to them might come out," said al-Nashiri's lawyer, Nancy Hollander.

Worse for the CIA, if the Supreme Court granted detainees rights, the entire covert program was at risk. Zubaydah and al-Nashiri could tell their lawyers about being waterboarded in Thailand. Al-Nashiri might discuss having a drill and an unloaded gun put to his head at a CIA prison in Poland.

"Anything that could expose these detainees to individuals outside the government was a nonstarter," one U.S. official familiar with the program said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the government's legal analysis.

In early March 2004, as the legal documents piled up at the Supreme Court, the high court announced that oral arguments would be held in April. After that, a ruling could come at any time, and everyone at the island prison — secretly or not — would be covered.

On March 27, just as the sun was setting on Guantanamo, a Gulfstream IV jet left Cuba. The plane landed in Rabat the next morning. By the time the Supreme Court ruled June 28 that detainees should have access to U.S. courts, the CIA had once again scattered Zubaydah, al-Nashiri and the others throughout the black sites.

Two years later, after The Washington Post revealed the existence of the program, Bush emptied the prison network. Fourteen men, including the four who had been at Guantanamo Bay years earlier, were moved to the island prison. They have remained there ever since.

The four men who were making their second journey to Guantanamo Bay received what they nearly obtained years earlier, before they were spirited away.

"The International Committee of the Red Cross is being advised of their detention and will have the opportunity to meet with them," Bush said in a White House speech Sept. 6, 2006. "Those charged with crimes will be given access to attorneys who will help them prepare their defense, and they will be presumed innocent."



.

.



On Facebook, wife learns of husband's 2nd wedding
By MEGHAN BARR (AP) – 11 hours ago

CLEVELAND — Dread of the unknown hung in the air as Lynn France typed two words into the search box on Facebook: the name of the woman with whom she believed her husband was having an affair.

Click. And there it was, the stuff of nightmares for any spouse, cuckolded or not. Wedding photos. At Walt Disney World, no less, featuring her husband literally dressed as Prince Charming. His new wife, a pretty blonde, was a glowing Sleeping Beauty, surrounded by footmen.

"I was numb with shock, to tell you the truth," says France, an occupational therapist from Westlake, a Cleveland suburb. "There was like an album of 200 pictures on there. Their whole wedding."

The husband claimed Thursday that his marriage to Lynn France was never valid. He said she knew earlier about the other marriage and was making the Facebook claim as a publicity ploy.

Affairs were once shadowy matters, illicit encounters whispered about and often difficult to prove. But in the age of Facebook and Twitter and lightning-fast communication, the notion of privacy is fast becoming obsolete. From flirtatious text messages to incriminating e-mails, marital indiscretions are much easier to track — especially if potentially damaging photographic evidence is posted online.

"All of these things are just a trail of cyber breadcrumbs that are easily tracked by good divorce lawyers," says Parry Aftab, an expert on Internet safety and privacy laws.

France, 41, was not completely blindsided by her Facebook discovery, which happened in January 2009. That fall, she had grown suspicious when her husband began taking frequent business trips, even leaving the day the couple's newborn son came home from the hospital. Once, she found his passport at home when he was supposed to be in China for business.

In October, before leaving for another trip, her husband left a hotel website up on the couple's computer screen.

"So I actually went there with a girlfriend, just to see for myself for sure," France says. "He was there with this girlfriend. I said, `Hey, I'm his wife. We've got a baby.'"

The woman told France that she was engaged to France's husband.

"Sure enough, they were registered for a wedding at Target," France says.

A girlfriend recommended checking the woman's Facebook page, which was then open to the public, France says, but has since become private. There, France found evidence of an unfolding relationship that she still couldn't wrap her head around. Overwhelmed with two young children, she confronted her husband. She says he told her he wouldn't actually go through with the wedding.

It wasn't until she saw the wedding photos that she finally began divorce proceedings.

"People who engage in these sorts of behaviors now have the option of trying to keep things private or turning it into a spectacle and becoming their own reality show," says lawyer Andrew Zashin, a child custody expert who is representing Lynn France. "In this case, it seems, the spouse may have crossed the line and gotten married while he was still married."

Aftab, a lawyer who runs the online protection site WiredSafety.org, says the lesson to be learned from the Frances' case is that no form of communication is sacred anymore.

"It's like trying to catch a river in your hand," she says. "It will leak out eventually."

But Aftab doesn't recommend snooping around online. That can backfire in court if used inappropriately — such as when spouses log onto each other's Facebook pages without permission. If your spouse isn't trustworthy, she says, get a divorce and save yourself the trouble.

Lynn's husband, John France, does not deny that he has remarried. Rather, he simply is insisting that he was never married to Lynn in the first place.

"I don't think I was cheating," France said in an interview aired Thursday on NBC's "Today" show. "If you have a marriage that's not right from the beginning, it's not right at the end."

France said Lynn France's claim of finding out about the second wedding on Facebook was "absurd" and said she knew long before. He claimed she was "losing the court battle" for custody of their two sons and was using the Facebook story for attention.

His attorney, Gary Williams, issued a statement Tuesday saying his client is asking a family law court to declare that his marriage to Lynn was "void since its inception."

"While it appears that John and Lynda France were both under the impression, once upon a time, that they were married, the fact of the matter is that their marriage was never legally proper," Williams wrote, "and, therefore, it does not actually exist."

Lynn and John France were married in July 2005 in a seaside wedding on Italy's Amalfi Coast, having organized the event through Regency San Marino, which coordinates weddings for couples looking to get hitched in Italy. On the company's website, Lynn is still the first radiant bride whose portrait appears in a gauzy veil, the brilliant blue sea behind her.

If that wedding was a fraud, it was news to Lynn.

"If that were true, then he's lied to the IRS," Zashin says. "He's lied to insurance companies. Banks."

In June 2009, against the advice of her attorneys, Lynn France dropped divorce proceedings when her husband came home and persuaded her to reconcile.

"I just wanted to believe the good when he came to me and said, `Let's reconcile, I love you,'" she says. "You want to give somebody a second chance."

But three months ago, Lynn says she was cleaning the sink when her husband took the couple's 2-year-old son out of her arms and said he was going to give him some milk. Minutes later, she heard the car running.

"He threw them in, no car seats, no nothing, and took off," she says.

She hasn't seen her sons since. John France had taken them to Tampa, Fla., where he currently lives with his new wife and, according to his attorney, is seeking custody of their children.

Lynn France called 911, but as in most parental custody disputes, little could be done. She is in contact with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children and has a team of attorneys preparing for a court fight. Authorities have told her not to attempt to take back the children forcibly.

For Lynn, the only glimpse of her children now comes, ironically, from the same Facebook page where she found those fairy-tale wedding photos.

Until the day she can see her children again, Lynn France says she continues to text her husband, pleading with him to bring the children back to Ohio.

"The only way I've been able to see my children is on her Facebook page," she says. "It's stranger than fiction to watch this woman living my life."

John France denied he was keeping her from the children, saying during the interview Thursday that he offered to buy her plane tickets to come to Florida.

A message left Thursday for Lynn France's attorney was not immediately returned.



.

.



I posted my approval of the Supremes' gun control decision yesterday, and I took a lot of flak for it in comments.

☛ Old Uncle Dave said... Can we now have AKs?

☛ 99 said... I'm furiously reading to find out about my hand-held rocket launcher....

☛ Blue! said... 99... Weapons won't save us.

Sorry but the key to liberty and freedom won't we won by firearms... the only thing a firearm will protect you against is your neighbor... the murderating fucks know that. That's why they want the streets saturated with guns.

☛ Blue! said... What that SCOTUS decision did was nullify the right of local and state government's to regulate firearms... and centralized that power to the Feds.

That's not a good thing....

☛ Blue! said... I mean we are supposed to be a civilized people (don't laugh)... any society that celebrates owning a piece of hardware whose sole purpose is to kill his fellow man is doomed to fail.

And if you think a Smith and Wesson will protect you against government troops then you're dreaming. The gubment has the people outgunned and outmaneuvered technologically... they can shut down a city or state even without a boot on the ground.

We need to be thinking higher....

☛ 99 said... I want them to be more reluctant to just pluck me from my business. I want to take some out before they take me out. I WANT THE CONSTITUTION. I don't care WHAT people do with their guns, including blow my ass out of the water. We need arms to fight tyranny.

Period.

No excuses.

All the bullcrap people use to excuse gun control is better dealt with by making a better society. If people don't have the balls to make that happen, they can't be taking away the means for the courageous, Blue. They CANNOT. There is no excuse.

And, dear, I so AM thinking higher. I'm looking for my rocket launcher.

☛ Blue! said... 99, the last time the people could even come close to matching the gubment with weapons was about 1976... since then technology has exploded and they have ALL the really good stuff. Rocket launchers and uzis are child's play to gubment-new world order forces. And don't tell me about what Afghanies and Iraqis did with IEDs and shit... those wars were meant to be sustained, not won.

Yours is a going out in a blaze of glory stuff...I'm thinking of beating these bastards. You can't beat 'em playing their game.

☛ Blue! said... And yes I'm for local and state gun regulation, not Federal government (SCOTUS) mandated gun proliferation.

If someone doesn't like their city or state's gun laws then they should move.

☛ 99 said... You can beat them. PHYSICALLY beat them. You can shoot them. You can get our country back or go out trying.

The "going out in a blaze of glory" language is JUST designed to make people who want America back feel like nut jobs. People who fear armed neighbors forget that they are selling their liberty for security and deserve neither.

I only mentioned "rocket launcher" as code for "nuke".

☛ 99 said... Listen to the story about the bird club guy being harassed by a cop at BP's direction. Do you suppose if the birder had been wearing a gun that the cop would have come over to "strongly advise" him to stop doing what is PERFECTLY legal and actually righteous? Maybe he would have set his taser on stun before he came to strongly advise the man then to stop doing what was 100% within his rights. If he can wear his uniform and his gun and use his cop car off duty, which he supposedly can because he is sworn to uphold the law, HE HAS TO UPHOLD THE LAW AND RESPECT OUR RIGHTS as well.

If cops can come into a house and kill a man who is exhibiting anger... because he was a big guy and they felt threatened... WHAT do you suppose is going to beat them?

If they can throw a grenade into your living room before you even know they're there, before THEY even know they have the right house, and even if it HAD BEEN the right house, IF THEY CAN THROW FUCKING GRENADES INTO YOUR HOUSE, what, what, what, what do you propose is going to beat them?

I'm on the phone to my friends in China....

Failing that, we better be able to AT LEAST worry them. The Constitution was written to make sure we did not have to be afraid of our government. Guess what? We're afraid. We're terrified. IT WON'T CHANGE UNTIL WE MAKE IT CHANGE.... as in FORCE... they do NOT heed petitions.

☛ 99 said... Or votes.

Don't you EVEN start with the votes thing.

☛ Blue! said... Apples and Oranges 99

What the SCOTUS did today was dis-empower local and state gubment as far as gun control goes... a city like Chicago should have the right to regulate guns... No one is disputing a person having a weapon or weapons at home to protect themselves and family. But these laws allowing someone to carry a concealed weapon in a crowded city are fuckin' crazy...

Dead grandmother watching tv....

The shooter in the above link was lawfully carrying a concealed weapon. Cities are not places for allowing anyone to carry a concealed weapon. You're being kneejerk here 99.

☛ Blue! said... And 99...the gubment and NWO are not worried about your lead hurlers...

☛ 99 said... And, Blue!, the lead hurlers of Chicago were not fazed by the gun control laws.

If enough lead hurlers start hurling in the right places the gubmint and the NWO will be pissing their pants.

☛ 99 said... And you are COMPLETELY avoiding my points about there not being lead flying when there is an equitable and decent society. The American People are ASKING for granny to get caught by a stray bullet FOR AS LONG AS WE WON'T DO WHAT IS NECESSARY TO FIX THE IMMISERATION OF MILLIONS FOR THE BENEFIT OF A VERY FEW.

It's up to us. We need the guns. And pitchforks.

☛ Blue! said... No 99... you're completely avoiding my point that when the gubment-NWO really decide to clamp down, your lead hurlers will be of no effect... you won't see a target to hurl lead at.

We're under their thumb 99... they want us to do each other in with our beloved lead hurlers... they'll come in and mop up the mess. They're fomenting a civil war as we speak... My point is that guns won't save us... and probably will be our doom. It's how the murderating fucks will win, the people will shoot each other up.

Technology trumps lead... all they have all the good stuff.

Keep praying at the altar of Colt...

☛ 99 said... They have already won if you don't think we can stop them from clamping down. If you don't like the idea of people taking them out before they can do that to us... or do... and persist in saying denigrating/snide things to people who'd get themselves killed to save you, then you are IN FACT doing your part to start the civil war you wish to cheat them of. Lead hurlers and Colt worshippers are your brothers and sisters... NOT idiots trying to get everyone killed. They could say you're the idiot trying to get everyone killed. We're talking everyone who will not be content to be a slave, here... and anti-American as you sound here, I don't think you can hang with that any better than most of the rest of us.

☛ Blue! said... I didn't say they couldn't be stopped... I'm saying our guns won't do it. Guns are only playing in their domain... it's what they would love. Some freedom fighting mook to rise up with with a rifle. They'll giggle as they zap him or her.

99 I'm surprised that your vision of this is so myopic.

☛ 99 said... Should I have been posting more about people getting thrown in the slammer for failing to pay their Visa bill? Do you not grok the implications of Obama throwing up his hands and leaving BP to kill people and sea creatures and point guns at them and shoot them AND JUST KEEP POISONING THE GULF TO HIDE THE MESS INSTEAD OF CLEAN IT UP? It means, yes, that people who have lost their jobs and suddenly can't pay their bills are going to be going to jail for it. And people are being dumped into the streets because the government bailed out Wall Street and not Main Street. I guess they're just being rounded up and sent somewhere on the QT or maybe more gun control nuts would be a little slower to give up what recourse they might yet have.

And what about all the grandmas in front of their tvs getting offed by UNARMED hungry young men for the contents of their pantries?

☛ 99 said...MYOPIC?

You're fucking kidding me, right?

YOU HAVEN'T TOLD ME HOW YOU PROPOSE TO BEAT THESE FASCISTS.

You just keep coming in with insults to people who would die for you.

FUCKING TYPICAL LIBERAL.

☛ Blue! said... 99... I'm gonna turn in... suffice it to say we'll agree to disagree.

People will die, they die everyday... I'm not for conceding our strength because we worship they same power they do. Violence is their domain... we shouldn't stoop to their low life.

And before I get called a coward or something... it's the non-violent man who possesses courage in the face of weapons... it's the short-sighted that try to match weapon for weapon and play a game they can't win.

Haven't we learned anything? I mean world history is fraught with guns ablazin'. I think the universe is calling for a new script.

I'm thinking it's little man in the loin cloth time... and I'll step up to be that as soon as I'm strong enough. I'm perfectly willing to be that change I want to see in the world.

Good night 99... Peace and Love

☛ 99 said... ALL we have against them is numbers. Or the Chinese. Preferably with guns.

☛ 99 said... I'm not agreeing to disagree with you! I WILL NOT AGREE TO THAT.

☛ 99 said... We do NOT have a Gandhi. People are NOT occupying the banks. There are no mobs in gas masks cleaning up the Gulf despite the bullets.

So fuck your cowardly nonviolence.

Killing in defense of life is not killing. It's defense of life.

Find me a Gandhi and I'll get with him. Failing that, VIOLENCE will HAVE to do.

☛ Blue! said... 99, there's anger and there's resolve... Anger is vulnerable to all kinds of emotional mistakes... Resolve doesn't concede until it wins.

Resolve is the answer... Gandhi threw off the Brits without a shot fired... people got hurt yes. But India kept it's spiritual integrity.

Bigger picture 99... bigger picture.

If you free yourself with a gun... you're gonna constantly need a gun to be free. Not the kind of life I would want anyway.

G'Night...

☛ 99 said... That is a platitude UNLESS you have a Gandhi. In case you haven't noticed, they've assassinated and suicided everyone with the power to move masses on that scale. In order to beat them without a shot, they have to be unwilling to keep being this shitty. THEY HAVE SHOWN THEY ARE GOING TO KEEP IT UP NO MATTER HOW FILTHY IT LOOKS. They don't give a rat's ass WHO reviles them. Quoth Fudd: "So?" Quoth Obama: "I don't have a crystal ball."

Quoth RFK Jr.: "I'll meet you on the barricades!"

Good morning.

☛ 99 said... Besides, that nonviolent resistance is for AFTER they've clamped down... not much good for stopping them before it's complete... and, lacking a Gandhi as we do, it will have to be individuals dying in open defiance and many, many, many, many of them before the masses rise up.

In ANY event, rising up is the ONLY way. If you channel Gandhi, I bet he would tell you: "No, no. THESE guys won't be stopped until you stop them." Gandhi was throwing off foreign occupiers, not standing down his own government and the global corporations who run it. It is remotely feasible we could accomplish more resignations of demoralized legislators Gandhi's way, but they have been at pains to show us over the last nearly ten years that upholding their oaths is the very last thing, literally, they would ever do.

Get real. We do NOT have a spiritual leader the entire country, or the entire world, reveres and will follow. The Pope is reviled as a Nazi and child molester. The Dalai Lama is just a funny guy in a dress. Russell Crowe is about as close to a leader of the masses as we have.

Shall we petition him to start the nonviolent global resistance?

The ancient masters cautioned that one must NEVER mistake what worked in one time, in one set of circumstances, for what will work in a new time and a new set of circumstances. And we've let them win the war before the battle has begun... unless the battle gets radically more massive than they expected. Surprise is ALL we have. I don't think we have a surprise Gandhi up our sleeve.... I don't think it would work if we did. An awful lot of nonviolent protest has been mowed down exactly as though it were rioters, too. They have that action pegged.

The burning cop cars and broken windows all over the world aren't fazing them either. They have their meetings behind huge physical barricades twenty blocks away nowadays. What would Gandhi do about that?

He'd send wave after wave of people to scale the barricades until they finally stopped shooting them... except they wouldn't stop shooting them even after the bodies were piled so high against the wall people could run up the pile to get over them.

The cops probably would stop after the first fifty or so, but the drone pilots probably would take a lot longer, and the private contractors would not stop at all.

As long as there are people as determined to harm others for profit as this, violence can NEVER be ruled out, even for lofty-sounding ends. If your loincloth idea would ever have worked in these straits, and I don't think it would, it would have to have begun for real in the spring of 2003 at the very latest.

If they can be ripped from their positions without violence, so much the better, but, I guarantee, they will not go peacefully. RESOLVE is making them go no matter what it takes.

It's stupid to keep fighting about it here because that's not the kind of resolve that cuts it. It's even stupid to talk about resolve. America, except the tea partiers, hasn't got it.

☛ Blue! said... Or we could be sane and find an alternative to violent resistance.

I don't know what that would be... all I know is that it exists and I'm mentally open to see it when it appears... maybe we don't need one Gandhi... we probably need millions of them.

Gandhi's and King's work shouldn't be in vain...

99 you're too committed to violent struggle, we can't win a violent struggle; we don't possess the neccesary hardware.

It's no lie that violence only begets more violence. I ask again... how many millennia does it take to learn that lesson. Blowing the bastards away only begets more bastards that have to be blown away, until some bastard blows you away.

New day... new tactic is all I'm sayin'.

☛ Blue! said... 99... why do you think local communities deciding about their gun issues is a bad thing ?

Let's look at urban America... when the bastards turn off the revenue stream, ship jobs overseas and generally debase the lifestyle of a city and it's inhabitants economic survivability and then the Feds allow guns to become as common as cell phones. What do you think the outcome will be?

The murderating bastards know that 99... That's how the operate... economically starve an area, then allow an influx of lead hurlers, let the ensuing mayhem work for a while... then and only then do they move in for the coup de' grace... when the population is totally fractured and unable to know up from down. The murderating bastards come in as 'saviors'...

Checkmate for us....

☛ 99 said...

[1] I hate guns and murderation, but I realize they are far kinder than other forms of violence in practice every day, i.e. the economic starvation, the kleptocracy, the vampiric suck of people's whole lives’ work, so they can buy yachts.

[2] I am a devoted meat eater, but thank the buddhas of the ten directions every bite that there are those out there not too squeamish to do the icky parts so I can eat.

[3] You don't seem to have any idea of just how much it took to be Gandhi. Martin studied him. One part you probably never heard of is the part where he insists that nonviolence is not nonaggression, where he says that you have to be willing to walk SMILINGLY into a hail of bullets to pull it off, AND, crucially, he says that if you are not able to do that, then you better fight and fight HARD. There's NO such thing as millions of Gandhis. We have ONLY what we have, and they're not Gandhis.

[4] And violence does not always beget violence, though it does in many instances. My father was beaten by his father, regularly and for drill. He took up boxing when young, but other than that he never hurt anyone. He never hit my mother, he hardly ever even argued with her. He never beat us, he didn't drink or swear or be harsh about anything.

BB2's father beat him. BB2 is a sweet old hippie who cries when his hamster dies and never stops being in the cause of peace.

I know all kinds of people with guns who wouldn't dream of using them offensively... all kinds of hunters who do it for food, not for trophies.

I can think of a thousand times when violence ENDED a completely insupportable situation where nothing else would. It didn't beget more violence. It ended it.

[5] It's like the determination not to spank kids, "because violence always begets violence," and little sociopaths are born of it, many not maturing out of it.

[6] Violence in defense of life is sometimes MANDATORY. Sociopathically-greedy people make that 100%. There is no end to violence without sweeping and impossible reforms, complete overhauls of our cultures, and THOSE are impossible without completely eradicating the current power structure.

[7] The thing that fixes urban America is that equitable and just society I keep mentioning. Nothing short of that will fix it. Gun violence hasn't even slowed in most places where gun control has been in effect.

[8] The Constitution should have MANDATED arms, because the provision is in there for the sole purpose of insuring the People can overthrow tyranny. It doesn't say "guns". It says "arms". I WANT MY HEAT-SEEKING MISSILES AND MY ACTIVE DENIAL SYSTEMS!

[9] Every cell in my body is about saving all sentient beings. For real, not just in the abstract. I assure you, you have to work with what you've got. You have to be able to SEE actuality and work with what you've got.

☛ 99 said... Too, there were some very famous studies of rats living in overcrowded conditions, emulating cities, back in the late sixties or early seventies. The rats became violent, cannibalistic, and HOMOSEXUAL in response to it.

It is well known that cities are supremely unsustainable environments, that too many resources have to be brought in from elsewhere to sustain them and it is wiping out the planet. People should be making new towns and tearing down or scaling back the cities. People should live where they can make a balance with their environment. Indian tribes lived in one place for thousands of years without depleting the resources. WE have to do that, or murderation IN FACT turns into THE mercy to all living things.

☛ 99 said... NATURE is violent! There are places and times and situations where violence is the ONLY alternative.

Gandhi did the nonviolence because he could see that it would MITIGATE the death toll of throwing off the Brits. The situation in Palestine would work best with a Gandhian approach for the same reason. The ONLY reason it would work is because of the huge public opinion AGAINST the evil Israeli oppression.

It isn't the same situation AT ALL with the NWO guys. They don't give a fuck and only pockets of people around the world who can't be hypnotized know to resist them, to fight them. There IS no group of nations whose disapproval is of the smallest part of a concern to the NWO guys. Gandhi's whole plan falls FLAT in the face of that.

OBVIOUSLY.

☛ 99 said... And as for the people killing each other in the cities, it is a great deal like the workers going postal over the illegal immigrants. People tend to direct their ire at something more their own size. The government is oceanic and they don't feel they can FIGHT that. So they fight each other or they fight the poor starving saps being lured by the plutocrats to drive wages down into the slave zone.

There isn't anything FOR this, Blue!, short of all out war... against the RIGHT enemy.

☛ 99 said... WE NEED MALCOLM AND WE NEED HIM BADLY.

☛ 99 said... We need Crazy Horse and Spotted Eagle and Sitting Bull and Chief Joseph DESPERATELY.

☛ 99 said... Nobody seems to GET why I keep posting images of heroes.

☛ Blue! said... 99, those heroes were great for their time. Malcolm in 1962 was very different from Malcolm in 1965. Crazy Horse, Spotted Eagle, Sitting Bull etc. were great men... but ultimately their efforts failed.

I haven't read all of your replies yet, I'm sort of working from the bottom up. I need to say though that I'm speaking of a new paradigm... something that hasn't been tried before. Peace and Love as a tactic... and no I'm not talking about giving a plutocrat a hug.

I'm speaking of melding with others of like mind, others pursuing peace and love and becoming an irresistible force a new thought force... There have never ever been times such as these for us, desperate times call for desperate measures, not measures that have been used for centuries. Violent struggle isn't the only way to true freedom and liberty... it's all I'm saying. You can give me hundreds of examples of violent struggle, but that doesn't mean that's what called for today.

new thought = new results

I enjoy reading your site 99... you put outstanding information out there. But our exchange here has done nothing but demonstrate to me that action with anger as its basis is doomed to fail. We need well thought out, cool as the other side of the pillow, calculated ways to express peaceful revolution. There is more than one way to be in this world, more than one way to win.

The violent struggles you reference were dramatic and mythical... but guess what... they still led us to this present moment. Maybe a revolution of peace will make the present circumstances unthinkable for human beings ever again. It's about breaking our mental chains 99 as much as it's about breaking the physical chains.

I have seen the enemy and he is us... (Pogo comic strip circa mid-60s)

Let's break the reciprocal nature of violent struggle... and start reciprocating some love... for ourselves and our enemies.

Call me crazy if you want... but I'm that desperate to live another way. Sorry I won't be joining a rifle toting freedom movements, I won't because succeed or fail my son, nephews and those of my friends will have to do the same at some time or another. I'd rather leave a new of struggle... overcoming the inner fears and standing strong in peace and love.

I'll be here as long as you will have me 99... and I'll be talking peace and love principles. I believe wholeheartedly in them... and soon when I'm stronger I will trust them implicitly.

"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." —Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Peace 99... and I mean that....

☛ 99 said... You are welcome here, always.

You do NOT seem to be able to get to that higher thought level you keep mentioning. You do NOT seem to realize that I want what you want, that I want to make a world where this is not necessary. You do NOT seem to grok that you're just talking pie in the sky, UNLESS you mean you are fully willing to have most of the world population ground to pulp under the plutocratic boot heel while you are developing this mystical victory of love over fear and greed. And I keep TRYING to tell you that the fascists HAVE ALREADY CONQUERED OUR RESISTANCE WITHOUT FIGHTING! It's somewhere hereinabove. Which MEANS that OUR only choice is to massively overcome their supreme excellence.

I'm well conversant with the Art of War... PRECISELY because I revile it and want it to stop forever. Why do you think I held out so long trying to turn the sick mentalities of so many putzes yonder?

You don't seem to grok that I am radically well-versed in nonviolence and can tell at a glance when it is true nonviolence and when it is pusillanimity CALLING itself nonviolence. TRUE nonviolence does not avoid violence, and it does not sit back an pontificate about it while the planet burns down around its ears!

IT IS FAR TOO LATE FOR YOUR COSMIC SHIFT IN HUMAN AFFAIRS! That takes many, many generations AND WE DON'T HAVE THEM!

WE HAVE TO WORK WITH WHAT WE'VE GOT!

Nobody wants instability and blood in the streets, but HOW MANY WILL RUE THE LACK OF THEM while being cut down by storm troopers for being homeless, or trying to escape a natural disaster, or TRYING TO EAT?

WE ARE GOING INTO AGONIES THAT WILL MAKE THE GREAT DEPRESSION LOOK LIKE A PARTY.

There isn't any doubt about that anymore. Everything I've been saying and linking should be telling you that.

☛ 99 said... AND IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT THE INDIANS LOST!

THEY FOUGHT!

They would have won if it were JUST wasichu, but there were hundreds of thousands of invading settlers, all under the sway of the death cult wasichu, which gave wasichu the unbeatable advantage.

Those chiefs knew all this and they knew the odds and they fought for LIFE and LIVING THINGS anyway.

AND THEY ARE THE ONES WE REVERE TODAY. The pigs who mowed them down are written down in ignominy forever. THE INDIANS FOUGHT, EVEN WITH THE ODDS STACKED AGAINST THEM, BECAUSE THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP TRUE HUMANITY ALIVE ON INTO THE FUTURE IS TO NEVER KNUCKLE UNDER TO WASICHU.

The Lakotah Nation is LITERALLY starving RIGHT NOW and YET they do not cede it to wasichu. Drunk and demoralized as they have become, the indians are STILL the paragons of true humanity in America.

You need to drop yer brainwashing!

☛ Blue! said... 99, in a nutshell all I'm saying is why fight a battle we can't win? Isn't that insane?

Using a different mindset with a different focus maybe, just maybe we'll have a different outcome. Focus on each other... take care of each other and it matters not what plutocrats do.

Disengage from the plutocrats by not needing what they offer and we'll begin to starve them. Plutocrats will transform out of need. How could that happen? ...well I read that only 11% need to disengage from the present system to bring it to it's knees...
But again I say... going out in a blaze of glory serves what purpose if it ultimately changes nothing?

While confounding the present system with actions they're unprepared for or can't intellectually understand will be our strength... They think we need them, let's show them that we don't need them... that we're perfectly willing to care for and feed each other outside of their fascist system.

11% is our critical mass... if 11% isn't enough then we'll go for 15%... then 20%. Whatever it takes to bring this system to its knees.

New thoughts open up new vistas...

Grabbing a rifle and taking to the streets is so 20th century...

☛ 99 said... You must have been making this comment while I was posting my last one.

Do you realize how many platitudes you are using in your comments? How many prefab excuses?

I don't think you realize that we can't get the system to its knees by starving them. They have starved us. They have control of every means we might have used to keep them from starving us. Even the wealthy can be immediately stripped to nothing and thrown out if they cross them. People are SO desperate for work, for any kind of paycheck, any way to keep themselves and their families happening, the NWO can work them like marionettes.

If people don't stand up and fight, EVEN IF WE LOSE, there won't be any stopping these fucks for centuries, maybe millennia, maybe not until humans are extinct.

☛ 99 said... I know you THINK you are advocating for peace and love, but I'm telling you that you need to open yer mind wider to see REAL peace and love, or you are only fiddling while Rome burns.

☛ Blue! said... 99... this is where I spent last weekend.

HERE

...I do presentations and workshops regularly exposing the thieving banking cartels and military industrial complex to people who otherwise wouldn't have been exposed to such information.

I'm hardly fiddling 99... Actually you know very little about me or what I'm doing... and I find it highly presumptuous of you to believe that unless one is rifle ready cannon fodder then it's meaningless.

Seems you're the one stuck in a box 99...let's lay off the value judgements and talk ideas...

K ?

☛ 99 said... I'm heavily in favor of taking care of each other, and we better be catching the ones dropping before they get cleared from the face of the earth. No way to starve the plutocrats unless people are willing to abandon their cars and homes and internet and cell phones and go out and make their own hunter/gatherer and farming communities... RIGHT NOW. Eight by ten color glossy of that action, oh yeah. I wish.

And, I'm glad to learn you go out into the world and spread the word! That is WAY hip. But not very effective thus far, whot? I should better have put it that it AMOUNTS to fiddling while Rome burns... and especially now you've told me you actually get OUT there with this stuff. That is great.... just not enough to save the world from this.

Yer a fine one to talk about keeping to ideas when you do shit like call me "myopic" and a worshipper at the alter of guns, etc. Are you using all these slogans in your talks?

And where do I elevate "rifle ready cannon fodder"?

Have you ever read Dōgen's Do Not Do Anything Evil essay? You can find it in Rational Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary. If you read this carefully enough, often enough, deeply enough, you come to realize the true meaning of the command:

Stop doing and perform!

Blogging and speaking tours fall under the category of "doing"... at least except insofar as some illumination of fundamental reality or essential performance may be occurring. I don't flatter myself that my blogging is a drop in that ocean, but it's definitely half of one.

And no. Not K. If you're going to continue to use all these low debate tricks on me—maybe on yourself too, and probably on your audiences as well—I'm not going to stop beating you over the head to try to crack open your skull. My only purpose here is that.

The old Zen dudes called it lopping off the head, but I feel like calling it cracking open skulls in this instance.

☛ Blue! said... 99, I'm what we call in the African community an elder; which means I should be teaching. Your seeming maniacal focus on armed resistance and terming anything else as impotent and trivial does suggests myopia... at my age picking up a rifle and taking to the streets is screwball insanity, for one I know better than that now and secondly it's suicidal.

I don't know or care about 'debating tricks' you need to knock off the ad hominem stuff (okay that trick I'm aware of).

The glory and drama of armed struggle against unwinnable odds is Hollywood shit; this isn't 300... it's real life... real life where the conscious among us can effect real change. What you're speaking of isn't change at all... it's same old, same old human endeavor that's centuries old.

At the risk of being numbingly repetitive... new ideas and new actions bring about new results. The old ways led us to this present moment.

I'm done 99... we've danced around this maypole too long... I'm committed to my way and you yours...

☛ 99 said... I guess the "anger" is on the other foot and the "resolve" has also traded places.

The indian wars were not Hollywood. I have been at pains to present that.

And, while they indeed lost those wars, they won many battles by hacking at wasichu's hubris.

The bottom line does NOT change. Your new thinking is PERFECT for a society that wishes to support it, to train it into their children and enforce it over the mass media.

The mass media belongs to wasichu. They will halt this effort before it gets out of the church basements and school gyms. And the people committed to this effort—barring leadership by a Gandhi or a King WHO CAN STAY ALIVE—won't stop having to drive their cars, won't stop wanting to live in their houses with heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. They won't stop buying clothes. They won't stop eating corporate food. THEY WON'T DO IT!

THEY CAN'T. There's no support system for it. No feasible alternative for most of them. They CAN'T starve the NWO. What shards of what used to be known as "middle class" there are left are too terrified of losing their jobs to help starve the beast.

And I'm not advocating shootouts in the streets unless masses can be gotten to do it... ALL over the world. But I think intelligent targeting could work quite nicely, especially if armed. I'm not EVEN advocating that so much as I am advocating for the Constitution and for everyone's right to make their government as afraid of them as possible. PLUS, screaming my head off for the JUDGMENTAL peaceniks—in direct contrast with real peaceniks—to STFU about their gun and misspelled sign toting brothers and sisters. THEY HAVE NO RIGHT AND NO GROUNDS.

There's a freight train bearing down on you and you're acting as though we have generations to turn this around. We could have only weeks. Once the clamp is all the way down, you are a productive corporate slave or you are in a camp or dead. They aren't going to let the starving hordes gather to turn back the genocidal greed with love.

You have to learn the difference between what you are convinced you are doing, and what you are doing; between your convictions and their workability in the conditions. OR you can join Kevin Zeese's gravy train of nonprofits for "activists" [aka people whose conviction is, at bottom, making a living at activism theater], join in with other utterly pointless GREAT ideas about making changes inside a culture that won't even BE this culture over the long haul it would take to get there.

You do NOT seem to get that America isn't America anymore, and it is on the cusp of not even SEEMING Americanish anymore. This NWO is about bringing back feudalism for real, AND YOU KNOW DAMN WELL PEOPLE'S STOMACHS WILL PREVENT THEM FROM FIGHTING IT.

I don't think you know damn well that all this wonderful stuff you advocate will have no platform, no society in which to grow into what you seek. It might already be gone... but it CERTAINLY will be gone LONG before it can take hold.

It's true that if EVERYBODY just ignores them, right now, stops paying taxes, stops submitting to their PATRIOT Act crap, mows down the TSA at airports, stops paying traffic fines, takes all their money out of banks, start importing doctors and drugs, the works, that would set them back a looooong way, but not stop them. IF WE ABOLISH MONEY, THEY'RE FINISHED. But, Blue, all that has to happen IMMEDIATELY.

☛ Blue! said... There is a story circulating that back in the late 90's a Venezuelan indigenous jungle tribe was granted sovereign autonomy by the Venezuelan government...reporters rushed out to the jungle to get the tribe's reaction.

When asked what they thought about Venezuela granting them their autonomy the tribal elder asked..."What's a Venezuela"?

They had no idea that a Venezuela even existed... they didn't win their autonomy by armed conflict or any conflict at all... they simply grooved along doing their thing and taking care of their own.

That's just one example...

99 you're accusing me of anger when I'm not angry...you're making up and assigning me positions I never stated or took. You're not being fair or rational here. But it's fitting for one whose sole idea about the times we live in is grab your guns.

I'll walk my walk... you'll walk yours... I think mine will be a more pleasant stroll, dare I say more meaningful.

☛ Bluebear2 said... Wow....

☛ 99 said... 99 said... LOL

☛ 99 said... Oh! You nailed me here: "one whose sole idea about the times we live in is grab your guns".... I better run right off, get naked, paint my face and pretend I never heard of America....

☛ Bluebear2 said... Sounds like fun....

☛ 99 said... You know what! I was thinking the SAME thing while I was writing it!

☛ 99 said... Canadians have more guns per capita than we do, and radically lower gun violence. Switzerland MANDATES a gun for every citizen, including training in how to properly use it. Go find Michael Moore's excellent documentary on guns... Bowling for Columbine. He covers extensively how the availability of guns thing has no correlation with gun violence. And, if I am not mistaken, even Naomi Klein admits that the prelude to closing down a society is disarming its citizens.

So. In the matter of guns, for all the reasons I have stated, and all the work that has been done on the matter, I have had to grow a pair, had to open my slammed-shut mind to allow as how that old saw about guns not killing people is DIRT TRUE, and even more lives and quantum agony can be saved by the use of them by decent people, true humans AND in such a world where fatsos and thugs can take everything away from you at whim, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TELLING PEOPLE THEY CAN'T HAVE WHATEVER MEANS OF SELF-DEFENSE THEY DEEM APPROPRIATE.

You asked earlier why I don't want cities being able to pass gun control laws. It's not right and it's unconstitutional and it's a fucking fascists-in-denial idea of liberalism. I hate always to be asking you to cut out so much time to learn about things, but you REALLY should take out a couple hours to listen carefully to Derrick Jensen.

☛ Blue! said... 99, Bluebear's reaction has shown that this convo has careened off the rails...

My simple statement that I repeated several times here is that any local government or state even HAS THE RIGHT TO REGULATE GUNS as they see fit... The government (SCOTUS) has taken that right from localities... that can't be a good thing.

I've also agreed that guns for anything more than home protection are useless. Again you've seemed to have assigned to me a position that I never stated or taken.

You seem to think our guns will be protection against a government domestic or foreign that decides to come against us, I wholehearted disagree because those entities have much more technological hardware than we could even imagine... I feel there are other options besides that, I've spelled those out here.

I understand the necessity to protect one's family and home... I however don't understand or agree with the notion that our guns are our sole protection against a government that doesn't need troops on the ground to subdue it's population... in that case guns will only be effective in civil war (against one's neighbor's). That's what the soulless plutocrats know and are creating as we speak. Citizen vs citizen...deconstruct the economy, ruin the currency let the citizens war with each other and when the time is right they'll swoop in and clean up the mess and declare they're saviors who averted a disaster.

Yes I believe your position is short sighted, you seem to focus on fighting them in a game they've rigged... My focus is on higher values... If we were to take a stance they haven't prepared for and can't comprehend, disengage from their system and confound them. I think humanity will have learned a new thing in the process and rise higher in it's existence... Yours will only continue the same old paradigm and we'll be fighting for our freedom again down the road. A neverending cycle.

Anyone that chooses to read back this thread will see I've been consistent in my position... you 99 have railed all over the place with ridicule and derision of what I think.

Guns won't save us... it's that simple. I'm done again. Although I will check back to see if you've twisted my position into something ridiculous. Deal with what I say 99... not how you can turned into something ludicrous.

Peace

☛ 99 said... One by one:

My simple statement that I repeated several times here is that any local government or state even HAS THE RIGHT TO REGULATE GUNS as they see fit...The government (SCOTUS) has taken that right from localities...that can't be a good thing.

The CONSTITUTION states that! Because some have twisted THAT to get rid of guns, doesn't make it a lawful right in the United States. For some reason I'm thinking of that Clint Eastwood blockbuster, "Unforgiven", where he and his buddy are gunfighters and they come to a town where no guns are allowed.

I understand the necessity to protect one's family and home...I however don't understand or agree with the notion that our guns are our sole protection against a government that doesn't need troops on the ground to subdue it's population...

It happens that guns have been just about our sole protection, but the Constitution gives us the lawful right to bear ARMS... so it's conceivable we could do better balance-of-power-wise, but even if not, insofar as they don't use their drones and they come to your door, you are, or can be about evenly matched... which is probably why they're so into lobbing grenades ahead of themselves now... but, since no one is leaping up to PROSECUTE them for it... we're stuck needing to grenade-proof our homes.

in that case guns will only be effective in civil war (against one's neighbor's).

I agree that the Democratic Fascists and the Republican Fascists are trying pretty hard to start a Civil War. One of their MAIN tools is this bottomless fight by the "left" [what a laugh] to unwrite the 2nd Amendment, and, worse, to insult the living snot out of anyone who sees the wisdom in it, whether or not they personally choose to bear arms.

That's also a BIG leap to say this makes them ONLY good for civil war. When a population is so disadvantaged against their government, they have only numbers and/or strategy on their side, and I can't explain to you where the guns are so important to the strategists without it sounding like I'm some kind of terrorist. You have a good head, use it.

That's what the soulless plutocrats know and are creating as we speak. Citizen vs citizen...deconstruct the economy, ruin the currency let the citizens war with each other and when the time is right they'll swope in and clean up the mess and declare they're saviors who averted a disaster.

WHY DO YOU THINK I SCREAM AT PEOPLE'S DIVISIVE LANGUAGE? WHY DO YOU THINK I HAVE BEGGED THE JACKASSES OF BLOGISTAN TO QUIT SENSATIONALIZING THE LIVING SNOT OUT OF EVERY WEDGE ISSUE? WHY DO YOU THINK I QUIT HELPING BRAD FRIEDMAN?

It is precisely because of THIS.

But you are loaded for bear on THIS wedge issue, Blue! If this civil war scenario is what you wish to PREVENT, you will shut yer insulting yap about it. Man up! Drop yer mental conditioning. Lose the lifetime of agonizing over the senseless deaths from gun violence. Quit avoiding the REAL killers, the humans doing the killing and the society that brings them to it.

WE make this world. WE have let sociopaths take it over because we didn't want to be bothered with that stuff. It has turned the inner cities into places of such violence and subhumanity that decent people have dreamt of shooting them off world, but each one of those bullet holes was really aimed at everyone. I don't say that means there's no personal responsibility, but I do understand.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH! And since no one woke up to use resolve where it would do the most good, NOW it's going to take FORCE. The only good thing about this OBSCENE state of affairs is there is a glimmer of a possibility it will FINALLY wake people up to the real enemy, and give them the determination to USE that force. [And don't give me the "new" peace and love paradigm, I stuck daisies in too many gun barrels decades ago. THEY BUY OFF PEACE AND LOVE. Works like a charm. Been there, done that, the t-shirt has disintegrated.]

Yes I believe your position is short sighted

You're wrong.

you seem to focus on fighting them in a game they've rigged...

You have to use the materials at hand. Not my fault we've let them rig it, while wasting ALL this time fighting people more our own size on the streets and on the tubes INSTEAD of the enemy. It isn't as though I haven't been bellowing about this to everyone for a very long time.

My focus is on higher values...

Bully. So is mine. So are a lot of people's. We have to drag our focus from that to WHAT IS ACTUAL.

If we were to take a stance they haven't prepared for and can't comprehend, disengage from their system and confound them. I think humanity will have learned a new thing in the process and rise higher in it's existence...

They are NOT prepared for massive, MASSIVE, uprising, no matter how well-equipped to put it down they are. It would bring their whole thing to a halt instanter if they did put it down.

"The smartest thing the Nazi's did was to make it so that every step of the way they made it so it was in the Jews' rational best interest to not resist. ... I'll tell you something very interesting, which is that the Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a higher rate of survival than those who went along. The Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a higher rate of survival than those who went along. The Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a higher rate of survival than those who went along." [quoth Derrick Jensen]

Yours will only continue the same old paradigm and we'll be fighting for our freedom again down the road. A neverending cycle.

Fallacy. NOTHING about what I advocate continues the dominant paradigm. We may or may NOT be fighting again down the line... IF there is a down the line for any living things. This never ending cycle business is EVIDENCE you do NOT grok the imperatives.

Again, I beseech you to listen to to that Derrick Jensen lecture. Not only does he make mincemeat of your position, but he's SUPREMELY clear on why you should be GIDDY with love to learn how wrong you are.

Anyone that chooses to read back this thread will see I've been consistent in my position... you 99 have railed all over the place with ridicule and derision of what I think.

I have been mirroring your insults, hoping to shock you into realizing they ARE insults, thinking my expression of love and solidarity with you before would help you see that I'm not some harridan who's gone native on you here, but someone staying consistent with her solidarity, trying to drag you out of a DANGEROUS mind set. It is dangerous because it won't ever address the threat to all life blooming right now... might if this threat would wait some generations... and dangerous because you are furiously fueling the civil war you so wish to avoid.

Guns won't save us...it's that simple.

Just EXACTLY like guns don't kill people. People kill people. And if people are killing massive numbers of people AND the planet, they MUST be stopped. Not generations from now. NOW. Anyone who loves humanity, loves living things, loves the earth, loves their family and friends, will do what it takes to stop them NOW. A truly nonviolent person would NEVER brook this destruction while still living and breathing. They would get straight to the heart of the matter and make it stop. If the perps make it so force has to be used, force is used. If the perps make it so that force must be violent, that force is violent.

Nonviolence is HALTING the violence, is self-defense, EVEN when it has to go out from its home to snuff the violence, even when the violence requires violence to halt it.

A nonviolent guy breaking up a fight to the death rarely can just say "halt!" to be effective. He has to, at the least, manhandle combatants, and he DOES it, BECAUSE he's nonviolent.

☛ Blue! said... 2nd Amendment: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Seems state and local governments are the "well regulated" part of that amendment. The SCOTUS just trumped state and local government's "well regulating" firearms.

In 1919 the 18th amendment was repealed (prohibition) yet there are 100's of dry counties in America. Seems Chicago or any other city should be able to ban HANDGUN ownership if they deem it necessary for the common peace. Chicago didn't ban firearms...they banned HANDGUNS which have killed thousands, no 10's of thousands over the years in that city.

As for the rest of your screed 99...you're still assigning to me positions I never took, using loaded language to antagonize (like I'm agonizing over this) and stuff like that. If there's any agony 99 it's me agonizingly trying to convey a point without you becoming defensive and unglued Jeesus!

My main points...

1. states and cities should be able to regulate HANDGUNS as they see fit, your Clint Eastwood Unforgiven example is a movie 99, not real world. Movies are those things where one "suspends disbelief"...you need to remember that.

2. Guns won't save us from government tyranny, not anymore. They only serve to give people a false sense of security that they're on guard against a rampaging government. The government can now subdue this country from a bunker buried in a mountain somewhere...Hell they could just destroy the dollar and let all of you gun nuts go at it... and then vacuum up the mess when it's all over. Your gun won't stop a government intent on fascist dictatorship.

99 this is your wedge issue not mine... I stated my opinion and you've been hopping mad about that ever since... earth to 99... we don't agree about this... let it the hell go.

And for the record I NEVER said I was 'non-violent. I work for peace, I'm not a pacifist. I know what kind of world we live in...and I'm working to raise it's consciousness before I leave. You seem to feel that everyone should think like you do or something is wrong with them.

Everything else you wrote bears little resemblance to anything I wrote or said...

I'm probably done commenting on your blog 99...Seems you only want people to mirror your thoughts and feelings...not actually express what they're really thinking.

Have a nice life Agent 99.

☛ Blue! said... Also...

99 you accused me of "insulting" you. That was the last straw with me. Just because I said something you didn't like doesn't mean it's an insult.

That's why I'm done here...either someone falls in line with 99's program or she's "insulted".

This is hardly a place for the free exchange and critique of ideas...Not if your ideas don't match the host's.

☛ 99 said... Any time you want to come back, you are welcome.

Seems Blue! is taking advantage of the supposed ambiguity of the wording of the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Maybe you will pardon me for stating that if someone with no bias in any direction looks at this amendment, the meaning is crystal clear. Before we had a standing army, it was felt that citizens should bear arms and drill together to keep in shape for the defense of the nation, but they also injected the word "free" in the security of the State, showing that a free State was the imperative. People argue over the commas. It is obvious that the framers intended to keep both the ability to defend the State and for it to remain a free one, and it was written before we had every government agency armed to the teeth and militarized police forces and the megalithic military we have today. STILL, these militate toward an unfree State, and so the blessing of this wording, commas and all, is that our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Blue! has idiotically let his idea of the terms shift a bit to back himself up. "State" means the entirety of the United States, and "well regulated" means ORGANIZED, some semblance of a command structure in the militia, not government permits and regulations. Duh. That is PLAIN. Had they not put "free" into that sentence, and the entirety of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and everything they stood for hadn't been ABOUT freedom, then, yes, we could read it Blue!'s way.

Blue! wouldn't be reading it this way if he were not committed to infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It's as simple as that. You can't read anything through the filter of your own biases or you can't READ... or HEAR. Stuff that seemingly makes no sense suddenly is clear as a bell when you stop trying to make of it what you make of it and just read it or just hear it. This is the entire problem with trying to keep the Constitution happening. People, including Justices, use their bias-filtered "understanding" to change its meaning to their advantage.

As I mentioned in our exchange, I'm thinking Blue! must be seriously elder or he'd remember we did the peace and love antidote to war pigs back in the sixties... remember shoving daisies down gun barrels aimed at us... before they bought most of us off.

I'm thinking he must be that seriously elder also, because I have taken the brunt of old guys' knee-jerk reactions to certain stimuli, and shock that you should be offended by being patronized and your points being called seriousness-diminishing things. He seems genuinely vexed that I would take offense at his words and tone and oft-repeated insistence that he's thinking on a higher plane than I am, or the people who keep and bear arms do. He seems to be utterly disregarding our freedom. I'm thinking "progressivism" is just about turning us into well-regulated, in HIS sense of the term, androids.

But most of all I'm thinking it because he seems so sure there's anything approximating the kind of time left to accomplish these darling ends... like Bill Moyers with an old friend groping for reasons to be optimistic about the prospects of liberalism. I want them too. But I am unwilling to sit around and dream up preposterous excuses to make do as reasons for optimism. That is suicidal. That is GENOCIDAL. Look around. I know we better fucking well have King Arthur ruling the world by next week or there will be NO chance of real reasons for optimism for a minimum of many generations, IF even we have that long left on earth.

I would feel outright depression over my friend seeming so sure I'm "committed to armed struggle"... not having the insight to see where HE is projecting stuff onto me and that I am mirroring him FOR him... if there were time to be depressed... if this whole long, dead serious, SILLY thread would do ANYTHING to turn things around. I would feel depressed over the apparent loss of a friend from having chosen to uphold the real for his sake over abandoning it for the sake of maintaining agreeable interaction. He has shown in the past a willingness to consider that he is wrong, or given lip service to it, anyway, and so maybe he will cool off and proceed more thoughtfully whenever he comes up against this wedge issue again.

I know he stated it isn't one, but that's just silly. "Guns, God and Gays" is a damn slogan EVERYONE has heard, even if they don't use it. So. He's not a dope. He's just mad.




.