|
Post by Jay Berner on Apr 3, 2004 9:20:58 GMT -5
--------------------------------------------------------------------
DNC Preliminary Security Plan Puts Protesters Almost Out Of Sight Updated: February 20, 2004
(Boston-AP) -- If you voice your complaints about issues, but no one can hear you -- is it a protest?
A preliminary security plan for this summer's Democratic National Convention in Boston would limit protesters to a small patch of land virtually out of sight of the FleetCenter, where the delegates will gather to nominate a presidential candidate.
However a lawyers group and civil libertarians say the area bounded by North Washington Street, train tracks and a parking lot is too far away and too small. The land could hold about 400 protesters, when thousands are expected for the July convention.
Officials from the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union will meet with Boston police to try and change the preliminary plan.
A spokeswoman for the Boston police said that while no final decisions have been made, the department is committed to accommodating protesters. --------------------------------- Note from Jay:
On my desk at work is a sticky-note with the phone number of Sgt. Somebodyoranother of the Boston Police Department's DNC Intelligence Group. I called her several times, but only got an answering machine. If I ever get a live person, I'm going to explain that I'm going to be a protester and that I plan to ignore the "Free Speech Zone" and get as close as possible to the Fleet Center with my sign and my bullhorn (it's one of those cheesy toys, but it's still louder than I can shout.) Then I'm going to ask what I'll be charged with if I'm arrested, and what the bail is likely to be.
|
|
|
Post by calabi-yau on Apr 3, 2004 10:11:09 GMT -5
Note from Jay: ...Then I'm going to ask what I'll be charged with if I'm arrested, and what the bail is likely to be. If you finally reach her, tape your conversation. Who knows if you don't need it later in a court of law. (No wonder I don't feel like reading anymore. Watching the new American reality unfold defies any fiction plot ever written)
|
|
|
Post by Moses on Apr 5, 2004 22:32:04 GMT -5
A friend of mine keeps saying that she is more and more convinced that the Democratic Party is just the second head of the same monster-- whatever and whoever it is that is behind this-- clearly neo-cons. Bush is just the other head. Kerry will carry out the fascist agenda.
I anticipate he will declare compulsory National Service, to include selective service registration of females, and a draft and forced labor by 2005.
|
|
|
Post by Jay Berner on Apr 6, 2004 18:52:55 GMT -5
I've got to fly to our corporate HQ in Anaheim on the 19th to undergo my formal "training"...and of course I'm worried - probably unecessarily - that I might be on the No-Fly list, or that one of the other 7 Jay Berners that live in America is on it.
|
|
|
Post by Moses on Apr 6, 2004 18:55:57 GMT -5
That is really really bad, when we are afraid to travel in our own country, for fear our freedom and livelihood can be arbitrarilly taken away.
The really horrible truth is, that fascism is in place here, and there is 100% certainty that the next President will be a Fascist.
|
|
|
Post by Jay Berner on Apr 6, 2004 19:08:10 GMT -5
"No wonder I don't feel like reading anymore. Watching the new American reality unfold defies any fiction plot ever written."
I keep remembering a book from my distant youth which, according to my foggy recollection, predicted a great deal of all the current events that're scaring the piss out of me: The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner. Amazon.com's review of it follows:
"An enduring classic, this book offers a dramatic and prophetic look at the potential consequences of the escalating destruction of Earth. In this nightmare society, air pollution is so bad that gas masks are commonplace. Infant mortality is up, and everyone seems to suffer from some form of ailment. The water is polluted, and only the poor drink from the tap. The government is ineffectual, and corporate interests scramble to make a profit from water purifiers, gas masks, and organic foods. Environmentalist Austin Train is on the run. The Trainites, environmental activists and sometime terrorists, want him to lead their movement. The government wants him in jail, or preferably, executed. The media wants a circus. Everyone has a plan for Train, but Train has a plan of his own. This suspenseful science fiction drama is now available to a new generation of enthusiasts."
Personally, I remember it as a scary, scary, scary, all-too-likely environmental disaster story (most of which is coming to pass) with some science fiction thrown in. A sad, but great ending, too.
Maybe I'll go to the library and look that one up again.
|
|
|
Post by Moses on Apr 6, 2004 19:21:13 GMT -5
Yes. Ever since people saw that the election was fixed (which was before the fix in Florida) it has been like living a science fiction nightmare. And it just escalates daily. And the corruption of our so-called leaders that we formerly had faith in-- the daily discovery of betrayal -- its a nightmare.
Since you have the guts to read the book-- can you tell us about it?
|
|
|
Post by Jay Berner on Apr 6, 2004 19:28:31 GMT -5
I think I'm serious about starting the New Democrat Party. How hard can it be? All I have to do is figure out where to register and pay some diddly little administration fee, right? I can do that.
I'm going to start a thread devoted to this.
|
|
|
Post by Jay Berner on Apr 6, 2004 20:48:02 GMT -5
CAUTION!
I'M ABOUT TO BLOW THE ENDING OF THE SHEEP LOOK UP BY JOHN BRUNNER! It's a good book, so take my advice and skip this post and get the book. It's spooky, especially since parts of it have steadily been coming true. What's worse, if things keep going the way they're going, it's hard to see any outcome other than the one Brunner crushes you with. So skip this post and go read the book.
On the other hand, if you have more important things to do than go track down and read an old, obscure sci-fi book, scroll down. Y | | V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Turn back... It's a good book. Show some self-restraint and don't read this. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Last Chance! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bearing in mind that it's been about 24 years since I read the book - - -
He foretold the rise of expensive organic foods, gas masks, oxygen dispensers, the popularity and necessity of bottled water, climate change, widespread extinctions, the emptying of the oceans, energy crises, superpowerful corporations running whatever parts of the show they wanted to, high concentrations of extreme overpopulation, intolerable social pressures, and the inevitable political and economic collapse. Woven through all the environmental woe are numerous science-fictiony themes like artificial intelligence, first contact with an extraterrestrial, new age fads, and I think he was the first one to predict Goths (by name, even!) which not even the old deathrockers could have done, and we were there when they happened!
So all the yit hits the fan at the same time, pretty much like I'm petrified it will in real life, and things look incredibly bleak. An artificial intelligence designed to be a giga-genius is given the task of solving the world's problems, and it works frantically while everything melts down. People get desperate and go crazy and start killing eath other all over the place, in droves. At the climactic end, after going through trillions and trillions of possible scenarios, the artificial intelligence announces that the only possible scenario that will work is for 99% of humanity to kill each other, and that's exactly what everybody is doing as the book ends.
|
|
|
Post by Moses on Apr 6, 2004 21:53:02 GMT -5
bummer.
I can see it happening too, with the toxic hatred that Bush and his neo-con propagandists have injected into our nation. I am referring to their Julius Streichers: Limbaugh et al.
Couldn' t the nano giga intell figure out a way to get rid of them?
|
|
|
Post by Moses on Apr 6, 2004 21:54:21 GMT -5
What is a deathrocker? Is that heavy metal or something?
|
|
|
Post by dev0ra on Apr 7, 2004 4:24:22 GMT -5
(No wonder I don't feel like reading anymore. Watching the new American reality unfold defies any fiction plot ever written) d**n. You mean I'm not the only one? I thot it was just me. So true. You just can't make up the crap going on for real today in Amerikkka. Can't even begin to compete.
|
|
|
Post by dev0ra on Apr 7, 2004 4:34:01 GMT -5
I think I'm serious about starting the New Democrat Party. How hard can it be? All I have to do is figure out where to register and pay some diddly little administration fee, right? I can do that. Go fer it. Lemme know when it's formed and I'll be one of your "charter members." btw... I voted "no" in the poll. Not because I'm against the idea, but rather, because I'm against the name. I think it's important that we TOTALLY disassociate ourselves from the Democratic Party. Might I suggest using the label they have been so determined to disassociate themselves from? "THE LIBERAL PARTY" or how about "THE PROGRESSIVE LIBERALS." ;D PS: Silly question, I know, but what will our platform be? PSS: A crazy thought. Since many of us recognize that the Green Party's platform is pretty much what the democrats used to stand for, and that the Green party is very vibrant and GROWING... would it be too crazy an idea to just merge with them? If approached intelligently, I am sure they would welcome us with open arms... Then again, I have heard concerns that the republicans have infiltrated them, just as they have our own party (DLC, ABB, etc). I don't know if this is true or not. Mostly just rumour and innuendo, I think. Just thot I'd throw the idea out there. After all, it would be easier than reinventing the wheel.
|
|
|
Post by Moses on Apr 7, 2004 10:49:12 GMT -5
The trouble is, the neo-con Democrats have co-opted all the names. They have dozens of faux "progressive" groups that are fronts for the neo-con agenda, and are meant to whip people who consider themselves "progressive" while redefining "progressive" as being about very marginal issues.
Likewise "liberal".
The thing to think about is this: what if you were to discover that, say, the CIA established the political spectrum itself, planted operatives in each political spectrum, and then orchestrated the "debate"?
That is a useful paradigm with which to understand how bogus the political spectrum is, and how it is necessary to free oneself from it altogether.
|
|
|
Post by dev0ra on Apr 7, 2004 11:49:29 GMT -5
The trouble is, the neo-con Democrats have co-opted all the names. They have dozens of faux "progressive" groups that are fronts for the neo-con agenda, and are meant to whip people who consider themselves "progressive" while redefining "progressive" as being about very marginal issues. Likewise "liberal". The thing to think about is this: what if you were to discover that, say, the CIA established the political spectrum itself, planted operatives in each political spectrum, and then orchestrated the "debate"? That is a useful paradigm with which to understand how bogus the political spectrum is, and how it is necessary to free oneself from it altogether. Well, then my question is are you saying forget about political parties in general? I just want to be clear on this. As for what the democrats have done to the term Liberal," it seems to me they have allowed it to become a four-letter word. My idea in using it for the new party was to reclaim it, give it back it's original meaning. Make it a term we can all be proud to call ourselves again.
|
|