The text below was sent to me at pete@copblock.org. It previously been sent to a number of individuals – all with email extensions of “ci.keene.nh.us” and to area media.
The author begins the message:
This is to let you know effective IMMEDIATELY our group of citizens intends to force the City of Keene and its employees to comply with federal and state laws that up until this point have been willfully ignored by high ranking officials of the City of Keene.
It’s shared here as it’s relevant to many here in Keene. I defaulted to redacting the name of the person who sent it to me, out of respect for their privacy.
It has been over three years since the face-fracturing beating of Christopher Micklovich by four off duty Manchester police officers, and today it was announced that there was ultimately an admission of culpability from the city. For $200,000, a federal civil rights lawsuit was withdrawn by the plaintiff, with city risk manager Harry Ntapalis revealing that the case was settled privately and was paid off in May of last year. The Union Leader has the story.
The Attorney General’s distasteful exoneration of the four officers, as well as the killing of James Breton in front of his daughter in May of 2011 was what inspired a police accountability rally at the former MPD station house on June 4 of that year. The demonstration against police violence became a demonstration of petty police violence, as around a dozen cameras were confiscated and eight people were kidnapped for offenses such as chalking, standing near chalk, and not following illegal orders fast enough. The Chalking 8 incident only proved the protesters’ point.
How Micklovich’s search for justice in his case snaked through the law enforcement bureaucracy before being resolved by the city further illustrates how detached from responsibility individuals in law enforcement are. Taxpayers are the source of both police salaries and plaintiff payoffs, yet legal immunity shields those tax recipients who are directly culpable from any restitution obligation.
Peace News Now is a 5-minute video and podcast that also airs on LRN.FM. It covers the day’s news in the world of Peaceful Resistance. If you’re not already subscribed, I recommend you do so by clicking here. Enjoy!
On Tuesday, March 5, Dr. David Breman, Senior Pastor at Christian Life Fellowship Church in Swanzey, verbally berated two individuals who were Robin Hooding. I believe he, as a pastor, acted in a manner that is less than Christ-like, so I decided to email him my thoughts.
Below is the entire exchange (unedited): (more…)
Yesterday Truthdig and today Dandelion Salad published an article by Christopher Hedges, who was present at Ft Meade during the hearing in which Bradley Manning delivered his first public statement. Journalist Alexa O’Brien has transcribed Manning’s statement which is also published at Dandelion Salad. Below is Hedges’ entry We Are Bradley Manning:
I was in a military courtroom at Fort Meade in Maryland on Thursday as Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted giving classified government documents to WikiLeaks. The hundreds of thousands of leaked documents exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as government misconduct. A statement that Manning made to the court was a powerful and moving treatise on the importance of placing conscience above personal safety, the necessity of sacrificing careers and liberty for the public good, and the moral imperative of carrying out acts of defiance. Manning will surely pay with many years—perhaps his entire life—in prison. But we too will pay. The war against Bradley Manning is a war against us all.
This trial is not simply the prosecution of a 25-year-old soldier who had the temerity to report to the outside world the indiscriminate slaughter, war crimes, torture and abuse that are carried out by our government and our occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a concerted effort by the security and surveillance state to extinguish what is left of a free press, one that has the constitutional right to expose crimes by those in power. The lonely individuals who take personal risks so that the public can know the truth—the Daniel Ellsbergs, the Ron Ridenhours, the Deep Throats and the Bradley Mannings—are from now on to be charged with “aiding the enemy.” All those within the system who publicly reveal facts that challenge the official narrative will be imprisoned, as was John Kiriakou, the former CIA analyst who for exposing the U.S. government’s use of torture began serving a 30-month prison term the day Manning read his statement. There is a word for states that create these kinds of information vacuums: totalitarian. (more…)
Following the publication of Aqua Keene Parking Force, another video featuring similar graphic design has appeared on the Fr33manTVraw youtube channel. In this episode, Slavoj Žižek and Charlie Rose discuss the monstrosity of the Stalin regime in historical context. Zizek analyzes the suicidal nature of Stalinism and the implosion of the top-heavy, bureaucratic Central Committee.
The text below was sent to me at pete@copblock.org. It previously been sent to a number of individuals – all with email extensions of “ci.keene.nh.us” and to area media.
