Well over one hundred freedom-loving people gathered on Saturday in Keene’s Central Square to protest both Keene’s mask mandate and “His Excellency’s” recent “orders” mandating groups over 100 to wear masks, or else. There were some great speeches including former law enforcement officer Dan LeClair – running for NH Senate District 10 – who struck at the root, saying, “It’s about government taking away our right to decide for ourselves what we should do with our own bodies…there is nothing greater than an individual’s right to freedom.”
It’s worth noting that this event took place after “His Excellency” Chris Sununu “ordered” any scheduled event over 100 people to have face masks, or else the event organizers will be hit with misdemeanor charges, and we definitely hit over 100 people. One count near its peak had 120. Big thanks to 8.3L organizer David Lheureux for putting it together.
We figure you were about sixteen-and-a-half when you passed away on Monday. I don’t need to tell you about the immense number of people whose lives you touched over those years. You were there and you had that experience, conscious for every moment, until your final day. What you may not know, is the impact you had on the world – because you were good. I wanted to tell you why you were so special.
Did you know we may never have met if it weren’t for the sad death of a puppy? My partner Jackie and I adopted a very young Pit Bull mix puppy from the Humane Society in Florida, where you’re from as well. She was only a couple of weeks old and surely she’d have been as sweet as you, as being a Pit Bull doesn’t mean she’d have been a bad dog. But tragically she died within a couple of weeks. Turns out her whole litter was missing organs, purportedly due to inbreeding, and she was the last of them to die. It was sad, but that door closing quickly led to you being brought into my life.
I’m not a dog expert. Maybe some dogs are really born bad, but I’d be willing to be that a bad dog is usually thanks to a bad owner. Not necessarily that the owner is purposefully abusive, but perhaps just ignorant, not realizing the consequences their actions or inaction might have on their dog. Perhaps they also underestimate animal intelligence. I always presumed you understood me and that you were smart. You never disappointed me.
Photo from September 2004 – you were about six months old.
When I got you in 2004 I did some research into dog training methods. I came across the “no free lunch” method and it felt right. Dogs need to be in a hierarchy – they are a pack animal. The “no free lunch” method is all about establishing the dog’s position as beneath the humans and rewarding it with love for its good behavior. Unlike independent-minded humans, a dog needs to be able to find its place and be comfortable there. In your case, you were directly beneath humans and on top of the pack of dogs, ever the alpha.
“No Free Lunch” is simple and effective. Anytime you wanted something, you had to give me something first. When you sat, I said “good sit”, and praised you. I gave you love and attention – not food, as some do when attempting to train their dog. So, any opportunity I had, I’d employ “no free lunch”. If you wanted to go outside, I’d ask you to sit first. Same thing when we’d come back inside the house. If we were playing with a toy or something, I might ask you to sit before giving it back to you. We quickly expanded to a multitude of things you could do in order to get what you wanted.
I figured you were smart, so anything you did that I named with “good” in front of it, I presumed you remembered the word and its associated act the very first time I spoke it. I don’t think you ever disappointed that expectation. Of course, just because I said “no free lunch” is simple doesn’t mean its always easy. You definitely pushed the envelope to see what you could get away with. You’d act like you didn’t know what I’d said, doing the wrong thing, on purpose. I remember the times when I’d already successfully taught you several commands and you’d run through your whole inventory of tricks – EXCEPT the one I asked you to do, expecting I was going to give you what you wanted. You were frequently testing me. Training a dog with the “no free lunch” method, in my experience, requires significant discipline on the part of the trainer. You were trying to beat me at the game and I had to hold firm on not giving you the thing you wanted, no matter how adorable you were.
Eventually, you were performing multiple tricks on command in order to do special things, like receive a meal. You could sit, stand, roll over, wait, come, lay down, roll over, bow, give kisses, speak, shake right, shake left, look, back up, and probably some more I don’t recall off the top of my head. At some point, you realized that you were well fed and you weren’t going to run out of food, so we moved to an open bowl where we just kept adding to it daily and you decided how much to eat and when.
Renee Spinella and Jazzy on the UCC Rainbow Bench!
You were indeed quite beautiful. You regularly received compliments from total strangers who frequently commented that you had an unusually expressive face and raved about how pretty you were. You had collected a large number of fans including neighbors, libertarian activists, people in the area lucky enough to encounter you, and even people on the internet who watched you on the Free Talk Live Jazzycam during our nightly radio shows. You mostly slept through the shows, but hey, talk radio’s not for everyone. Free Keene blogger Garret Ean even named you Keene’s #1 Dog Activist and you deserved it. You were regularly my secret weapon to get hundreds of Keene State College students every year to accept CopBlock know-your-rights flyers. You participated in and helped bring attention the United Church of Christ’s rainbow bench situation, were a regular attendee of the Porcupine Freedom Festival and Forkfest, the official greeter at Keenevention, and of course were at my side through countless instances of freedom activism and beyond.
Even more impressive was that bulk of your amazing activism & outreach career came in your senior years, since you didn’t move back in with me until you were 10. When Jackie and I broke up in 2006, after being with you and training you for those first two years, I chose to let you go. They say if you love something, let it go. I love you and I loved her, and I’d always rather a breakup go as smoothly as as possible, so I made the choice to let Jackie have you. As it turned out, she was unable to take care of you immediately, so we got to spend another six months together, until Jackie was finally ready, then I sadly gave you to her. That happened to be right around the time when I moved to New Hampshire as part of the NH Freedom Migration. (more…)
David Lheureux wasn’t expecting to be a protest leader, however he couldn’t ignore our freedoms slipping away and decided he was going to do something about it. This Spring, the self-described “gearhead” created “8.3L”, or “Eight Point Three Leader”, named after a six-wheel military truck used to pull big trailers. I spoke with Lheureux by phone this morning and asked him about the vehicular mascot. He told me, “Engine heart of vehicle, we need to think about our hearts and what’s driving us.”
As he created the group, the medical authoritarian state began to rise and along with it came mask mandates being passed across the country and now beginning to crop up even in supposed “live free or die” New Hampshire. This week, Keene’s city gang bosses are expected to vote Thursday night on a proposed mask mandate targeting business owners with fines.
It’s also a symbol of obedience and fear.
Lheureux’s event, set for Central Square 11a-4p on Saturday August 15th, will be going on regardless of the Keene council’s vote on the issue. We know from the BEARCAT debacle that they don’t actually care about rights or what people want. Expected speakers at the event include the two gubernatorial candidates who are taking on tyrant-king Chris Sununu in the primary, Karen Testerman, and Keene’s own “Nobody“!
While positioned by its proponents as pro-health, the face mask is actually anti-human. Combined with so-called “social distancing” – which is anything but social – the masks prevent people from making the most human of connections with others – being able to see facial expressions.
Sadly, large numbers of Americans have fallen right in line and begun wearing them as their corporate overlords have been demanding. Most aren’t willing to lose a job in a protest over a work uniform, understandably. However, because the corporations are working hand-in-hand with the state to propagate obedience, the seeming ubiquity of the masks leads more people to comply, if not for fear of receiving a threat from a uniformed government gang member, then certainly because of the immense societal pressure from fearful peers and neighbors. Some of whom are so scared of COVID – which has killed a very small percentage of people – they will yell at or even physically attack non-mask-wearing free people.
We need more businesses like this.
Worse, some have even politicized the issue and conveniently ignore that the mandates and lockdowns come from both Democrat and Republican government goons. I don’t care what politicians and their pet doctors say – they are liars and they are always seeking more power. 2020 has been a banner year for the power-seekers thus far. They’ve successfully locked down swaths of the population, deployed checkpoints and armed, masked gangsters in the streets, destroyed countless businesses with their insane restrictions, and are now telling people what they have to wear. It’s tragic.
Good morning from Roger’s Campground! If you’ve been reading Free Keene over the last week you’ve seen some excellent Forkfest/Porcfest video blogs from Derrick J. I’ve been so busy, it’s been hard to find time to do much of anything besides record my daily talk radio show and hang out with people here at Roger’s during Porcfest/Forkfest 2020.
This year, the Free State Project made the wise choice to decentralize the event. Gone are the unpopular vendor fees and any control the FSP had previously taken over the campground as they scaled back Porcfest 2020 to a minimal number of speakers and a geographic area of only the pavilion and bowl area of Roger’s Campground.
Soapbox Idol at Porcfest 2020
A pervasive myth about Porcfest is that it needs big named speakers to attract a large audience. This year proved that is not the case as very few speakers were present and yet the attendance seemed similar to last year, which had way more speakers. One regular vendor said this year was his best year out of the 5-6 he’s done and the Porcfest vendor organizer Shawn Grissom said his sales were on par with last year.
Clearly, Porcfest attendees preferred the hands-off, decentralized method of organizing and this year had a laid back vibe. It was fun to be able to broadcast from the event for the first time in four years. Or, since Porcfest was in a very specific part of the campground this year, was I instead broadcasting instead from Forkfest?
Some, like Free Keene’s Derrick J Freeman, say that Forkfest 2020 began on June 22nd this year, instead of the popularly promoted June 29th. His rationale was that Forkfest was originally created to protest Porcfest’s organizational missteps and he felt that with the decentralization this year that Porcfest had returned to its optimal form, so he and Steven Zeiler of Anypay announced they’d be having their annual dance party on June 26th during the Porcfest week of Forkfest.
Space Disco @ Forkfest 2020
However, that’s just his opinion. Forkfest is a totally decentralized libertarian camping festival. There are no organizers and no board of directors. Not everyone agrees that Forkfest started on June 22nd. Others believe it is starting today, June 29th. Originally, those who attended in 2019 had no idea that Porcfest would be decentralizing control of their event, so Forkfesters were expecting that Forkfest would be a separate week entirely and had come to some level of consensus that the forked event should happen the week after Porcfest in 2020 instead of the week before, which is how it had been done since its premiere in 2017.
The FSP made their decentralization plans for Porcfest known in mid-May, only several weeks in advance of the two events. As a result, some people – me included – decided that Forkfest is now a two-week long event and Porcfest is an event that happens during the first week. Longtime attendee Jay Noone has collectively called both events the “New Hampshire Freedom Festival”. Admittedly, the range of opinions has created some confusion, but regardless a good time is likely to be had whether you attend one week or both or part of each. You decide what defines Forkfest.
Forkfest 2020 Early Tent Party
Is two weeks too much for most people? Probably, based on the large number of people who left the park Sunday June 28th, which was the final day of Porcfest. However, other people are just showing up now for what they planned was going to be the only week of Forkfest 2020, June 29th through July 5th.
Sunday evening/night had some new arrivals join us for lots of hanging out with dozens still present on the campground as well as multiple venues staying open including a few food vendors and Colin’s large party tent which featured a bar and busy poker table. We’ll see how the rest of the week pans out for the fourth-annual Forkfest as it builds towards a hopefully epic Saturday night on Independence Day which will feature both a fireworks show and a concert featuring a new band, “FUD”, featuring Aria DiMezzo, Captain Kickass, and Michael Gordon.
Early 2nd Week Forkfest 2020 Hangout
It’s too early to say what’s going to happen and we have no ticket sales from which to base any expectations, as Forkfest has no tickets. To attend, you just come to Roger’s Campground during the appropriate dates and connect with other freedom-loving folks. You can also create whatever event you’d like to have people attend. The experience you have at Forkfest is up to you. You can learn more about the event and get connected with other attendees via the Telegram chat and Forkfest forum via the unofficial website, Forkfest.party.
Please do come on up this week until July 5th to Forkfest 2020 and meet a bunch of other liberty-loving people hanging out together in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. Bring along your favorite form of money like cryptocurrency or Goldbacks as many vendors and individuals accept multiple payment methods. See you soon!
Massive Crowd at Black Lives Matter Protest in Manchester, NH
In response to the latest national police murder in Minneapolis, well over a thousand people gathered on Saturday May 30th at Manchester, NH’s Veterans Park to protest the continuing injustice against not just blacks, but the entire human race by the authoritarian state.
Manchester’s event remained peaceful and no agents provocateur made themselves known. The Black Lives Matter Manchester event was at least double the size of the largest Reopen NH protests in Concord. Unlike the Reopen events in Concord, where police didn’t even drive by, Manchester police were all over the area in this case. However, rather than interfere with the rally, they closed off a few streets to traffic, and that’s about all I saw them doing besides watching. Of course, Manchester police are known for being some of the worst, violent cops in all of New Hampshire. In this case however, they were strongly outnumbered, which always changes how police behave.
I was able to spread a large stack of Foundation for New Hampshire Independence fliers to the attendees, and most responses to the idea of secession were positive! Whether at a righty or lefty rally, the idea of leaving the United States is favorably received here in the Shire. Maybe that time is coming with all the unrest spreading across the land. Here’s are video highlights of the event:
On Sunday, Keene’s Hope Chapel held service outdoors despite “HIS EXCELLENCY” “governor” Chris Sununu’s “orders” banning over ten people from being in the same place together. Thankfully, police ignored the event and everyone had a good time. This video features pastor Joe Mabe’s excellent, pro-freedom, and pro-love sermon:
For the full video of the entire service from start-to-finish you can watch this video.
