Five minutes prior to the start of the Keene city council meeting on 2/16, activists stood to sing “Thanks but no Tanks” to the tune of Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World”. Thankfully, no one was threatened with arrest. The vote on the BEARCAT attack tank was put off until the 3/1 meeting.
Thanks to Jason Ditz from Antiwar.com for this piece on the BEARCAT and the opposition in Keene:
Readers may already be familiar with the tiny town of Keene, NH despite its population of some 20,000 people in rural New Hampshire. The town has been a major site for the Free State Project and radio advertisements mentioning Keene are heard regularly when listening to Antiwar Radio on LRN.
You may or may not be familiar with Lenco Industries, a Pittsfield, MA-based company that manufactures heavily armored vehicles for government agencies. But even if you are familiar with both, you might not have imagined that the twain should ever meet.
But the Department of Homeland Security is seeing to it that they have, throwing $285,933 in grant money at the Keene city government to buy what their mayor referred to as “our own tank.” (more…)
Henry Acton of Keene emailed FK via news at freekeene.com with this essay on why you should support the BEARCAT:
Hello my fellow New Hampsters!
I’ve been reading with great interest the debate about the LENCO Bearcat Armored Personnel Carrier. I have decided to support Keene obtaining this fine piece of military hardware. This might surprise some of those of you who know me so I thought I would explain why.
There are two main sets of arguments as to why Keene needs such a beast of a vehicle. (more…)
Here’s the full page flier courtesy of ThanksbutnoTanks.com
From an fully mature adult who was trapped inside Keene High School during today’s insane police-state-on-display overreaction:
Oh no, no movement allowed at all. AND they make the teachers turn off the lights so the kids sat in the dark for three hours. AND in the entire time, there was no information AT ALL shared with the students over the PA until the very end, when they said, and I quote “The suspect has been apprehended”, thus reinforcing the idea that there was ever any danger to begin with.
Personally I’d like to know what he was suspected of, if he was a suspect.
And why he was arrested. And what he was charged with.
And how with a virtual manhunt going on, he was able to walk all the way to the police station without being noticed.
This guy must be a damn ninja.
In the same vein as the Boston police locking down a swath of the city over LED promotional signage, and the locking down of Keene’s downtown over an abandoned backpack full of beer in a city parking garage, the Keene police are at it again with more fearmongering.
What’s the story? Why are multiple state police helicopters in the sky? K9s searching the woods? Cops locking down area schools? A dozen state police cars inbound from Concord?
Some guy stormed out of a domestic incident at five this morning with a rifle and walked into the woods of West Keene.
Yep. A domestic incident, which happens all the time. A guy with a gun – this is New Hampshire! People have guns all over the place, whether openly carried or not.
Once upon a time, kids were able to carry rifles TO school. Now, all it apparently takes is a domestic disagreement to fill the skies and streets with police. What a sad statement about the fear-based society in which we live.
Get a grip.
UPDATE: Here’s an excerpt WKBK’s Dan Mitchell spreading fear on the radio all morning long, including a call from an elderly man with some perspective.
UPDATE: The man has turned himself in at Keene police station “without incident”. Except of course, the incident of a crazy, fearmongering, overreacting police state descending upon West Keene. How much did they spend on helicopter fuel alone, when police admitted up front they had no threats from the man whatsoever?
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