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Like everyone in the world who doesn’t watch Fox News, I feel all white racists in Missouri should all be killed. However, there is just one small argument against it….
Massive non-violent protest is so much more effective….
To effectively protest, two things have to occur….
A) It has to be massive. Gigantic… Huge…. involving the heart-strings of hundreds of millions.
B) It has to be at a higher rung on the moral ladder than its opposite…
Both planks have to be in effect for the demonstrations to change policy…..
There are considerable examples demonstrating this: One: the Arab Spring. The size was there, and the freedom of the movement enthused populations more than the oppression of the status quo. Another was Ukraine. The oppression of one administration was balanced against the freedom of a new one. However in both cases, as it became apparent that the reality was replacing one oppressive system with another one, the enthusiasm dampened.
The opposite example demonstrates the need for numbers. Occupy was full of enthusiastic people. But though it had strong passive sympathy for its message against the one percent, it never generated the massive demonstrations needed on the scale of the Arab Spring….
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What will happen over the fallout of these two (examples of power able to act outside the law with impunity using a Grand Jury process as long as the victim is black), will depend solely upon whether you (and everyone else) goes to a protest demonstration this weekend… One is being held somewhere near you….
If very few show up (if you do not show up), then rightfully, this is not a real issue…. It is a fake one being broadcast by a few highly concerned individuals over the yawns of many…. But … If you do show up, and everyone else follows you to the demonstration, only then change is possible…
Democracy demands your involvement. The only reason you have freedom today as we speak, is because your bloodline, or your neighbor’s bloodline, chose to get involved in the sticky, messy ordeal of defending what was right… It is the only way change ever occurs. If you choose to not get involved: then hell with democracy… Might as well live under tyrants…
I am going to try and make the case why you need to change you plans and show up in front of the Newark Municipal Building at 220 South Main St. Newark, DE at 5 pm….
There will be a candlelight vigil to demonstrate against the potential installation of the Newark Power Plant.
I should probably start by saying if you live anywhere in Northern Delaware or South New Jersey, this may be the most important event controlling you life for the rest of its time here on earth.
This decision affects every breath of air you will take. This decision will decide how healthy your old age will be. This decision will decide how long your children will live. This decision will decide whether your pets live and die, cancer free…
There are very few things we actually get to weigh in on that have such a profound impact upon our existence…. Politics come and go, and usually don’t kill us. Jobs come and go and usually don’t kill us. In-laws come and go and usually don’t kill us.
But chemicals, many of them radioactive, kill us… There is undeniable proof that they do…. Despite attempts to wash them under our stream of consciousness, while we are distracted by other things, they enter our body’s cells, change the genetic makeup, and those cells then start producing cancerous versions of their new genetic makeup….
The only way to prevent that process is to never start it.
The power plant burns natural gas. That natural gas contains elements from the earth. Most elements are poisonous to life. Arsenic, Radon, Lead, Uranium, will be sucked in every breath you take…
Enough scaring you. Just wanted to tell you why this was important.
Many things in life we have no control over. Our boss tells us to go to Delaware we go to Delaware. We have a child, we accept how it comes out. A chemical plant dumped residue into the ground before we were born, we live around it.
It is rare when we have a chance to change our life. We have one chance and that is tonight.
The City of Newark must change the zoning underneath that power plant for it to be built. They are deciding now. They want to do the right decision. Just like you, if you were in their place, would also want to do the right decision.
If they hear from the Governor, the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, the Labor Unions of the Building Trades, the state’s own DNREC, and hear nothing from you, their decision will be obvious. Just like yours would be in that position. Look at all these people you would say, who need this to go forward and look at all the good going forward would do. And look how only a very few people care about stopping it. Obviously if I jump in front of the flying bus, for the sake of a handful of people, i’m getting run over……
But jumping in front of a bus to keep it from wallowing through a gigantic crowd of people is different ballgame. Instead of being the “disruptor” of progress, you have become the “Protector” of “the people.” All of us would like to be known as the protector of the people, and so would those elected to govern Newark.
We just have to give them the reason they need. We have to show up. If we don’t show up tonight…. , the power plant gets built. Toxic chemicals start falling on our lawns, cars and pets,
If we suffer the complete inconvenience to our schedules and do show, and show up in large enough numbers, we will stop the zone change and thereby stop the power plant….
WE need more than 10, 20, 30, or 40…. We need 1000’s … If you don’t show, it won’t happen…. If you do show, it may still happen, but you could say, that when Newark needed its finest to show, you were there…..
And win or lose, that is what is most important about being an activist…. Showing that it matters to you….
You may choose to slough if off with “oh, it’s raining. it’s cold. it’s flu- season”….. but fast forward to 10 years hence, you lying almost dead hooked up to monitors so the staff knows whether they can shuck your corpse out to replace you with another body,….
You could have been home, holding your grandkids, making them dinner, reading them books, if you had only showed up tonight, 5pm on S. Main Street (Old Elkton Road) in Newark to show those fine people on Newark’s City Council, that yes, this is important to you….
It is tonight. Change your plans and go…..
It is clearer now that the biggest benefactors for the NSA spying were commercial enterprises. The Obama administration went along with the Bush plan and accelerated it, primarily to give American companies a heads up, and keep jobs here. It worked too.
One can’t argue with success. But one can find how American businesses were co-opted to assist the NSA. From the Guardian, the following, allegedly from Snowden himself.
• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;
• Microsoft also worked with the FBI’s Data Intercept Unit to “understand” potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;
• In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;
• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a “team sport”.
it is revealing that the beneficiaries of the Patriot Act and probably one of the reasons it has been intact long after terrorism faded offshore, are the exact same who are suing each other left and right, using the anti-piracy laws as their barrage. It appears that laws are not for people anymore; they are for corporations. It is corporations who want the US to fund listening posts for every American word and sentence.
The only way to fix that, is to divide the corporations Teddy-Roosevelt-style, thereby giving We, the People a little more clout. …
it is probably time to discuss this.
For years we have quietly known and accepted the negatives of having an NSA. Things like we need it for our protection, or it makes things safer, tended to overide our fears that they know too much already, and I can’t do anything in private anymore…
We accepted that as progress.
However, when you have an organization so secret, that members of Congress are shocked to find out what it is doing, that no one knows who is authorizing who gets spied upon and what, that when brought before the courts for overstepping the Constitution, it can’t be prosecuted because a) it operates under “secret” laws, b) with “secret operations”, c) authorized by “secret courts” …. it is time to shut the entire operation down.
Why do we have the NSA when we have the CIA and the FBI. The FBI covers domestic spying. The CIA covers international spying. So, unless we find out that there are aliens and the NSA is really running the world while we think otherwise, then it probably ought to go.
I find it interesting that those on the far right, and those on the far left are the most outraged by this disclosure. We’ve been stating that news on this blog after the story was broken back in 2007-8 and not one press person cared. I supposed the AP Story opened their eyes this time. Struggling to put a finger on why, I came up with the theory primarily by looking at Congress, that it is the libertarians on left and right who are against, and the conformist, primarily in the center who are acceptive. So this gives us a split where the bottom third and the top third of the political body are opposed to the middle third… If you look at Congress that is exactly how it splits up. Moderates are pro domestic spying, the libertarians are not.
Probably similar is the theory that those beholden to corporate interests are pro-spying, after all, that is normal in the corporate environment; interoffice spying is not limited by any judicial system because it is deemed to be private. Those aghast, tend to fight corporate intrusion from their original political perspective, either left of right.
What the NSA does, watch everything to discern what is happening to increase its chances of survival, is not new. Intelligence has been the secret success of many an empire. Knowing what someone will do before they do it, is pretty comfortable in a world where in a day, we probably pass within 10 feet of 10,000 people (that includes inside our vehicles).
That is what all governments with the capacity, do. The biggest argument against it, is that it is un-American. Sure we have the “ability” to do it, but do we have the restraint, not to…
America has always been ruled by restraint. When Washington was entreated to be the King, he restrained and said no. When the heads of Europe all bet that Washington would invent a method to stay in power, he restrained, and government turned over peacefully. When the US was left in charge of a broken Europe, it put it back together and went home. The only country to invade another and give it back willingly to its original owners.
We had a scare in Boston a while back. Did the NSA protect us then? It’s a secret, no one knows. In Newtown 26 bodies littered the floor of an elementary school. Did the NSA protect us then? When a gunman burst into Aurora firing into the audience, did the NSA protect us then? When Gabby Gifford took a bullet, where was the NSA? Did the NSA protect us then?
That is the point. We are always in danger. But our personal lives are more at risk if our private information should fall into a competitors hands, than being victim of a terrorist. In Boston just 2 people died. In Newton 26. But each and every one of us, is at risk that selective information from ones past, can be used in secret to smear each and every one of us, should it fall into the wrong hands.
What would happen if we shut the entire agency known as the NSA down? A big nothing. They overstepped. It is not knee-jerking anger to respond “Shut them down right now!” It it calm, cool reasoning tipping the balance, that points out simply that is the right way to go.
Today is School Board Elections…Polls are open 10-8… If anyone is sponsored by Markell or Rodell or RTTT or WSFS, don’t vote for them.. If anyone is sponsored by DSEA, they are on the students side. They are safe.
So go out and vote like a goat… Be… B-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-D
Image Courtesy of Mitt Romney, Debate Number Two.
Jockstrap….
I just couldn’t help but notice he supports almost every Johnson. (Even ones with Swiss spellings… Johansen ….)
Lol…
Nothing…….
If someone downloads a Hollywood movie or television series…. is that a loss of profit for a Movie studio?
They would like you to think so…
But most people download movies because they do not have the money to otherwise spend.
Therefore, they would never buy that product …. If it were not available, they would just do without…..
Today, everyone has access to a computer. There is no market for movies copyied on CD and sold on the black market. There is no money in downloaded movies. They are worthless entities…
What the availability of downloaded movies actually do, is to effectively market that product.
How often have you been in a group of strangers with time to kill and get stuck searching cable for a movie?
Do you trust the reviews, obviously slanted so you pick their product, or do you listen to other people and pick one that they have seen and say is good?
You know that answer.
One day soon it will be proven. The reason profits of movies studios and the entertainment industries are up, is because of the ability to “globally” upload movies on the internet…. More people now (or did) have access to “Hollywood” across this globe than ever before… Theoretically, even if one out of ten viewers later buys the product after testing it, that is a boon for movie moguls. Don’t ever think anyone in the Third World will buy without first testing.
Without such glowing reviews from our peers, when it comes to fluffy entertainment, …. we will prefer to spend our hard money on more worthwhile causes.
As a concerned citizen, I am beginning to accept that a boycott of Hollywood until charges against MegaUpload are dismissed … is exactly the precise action that is needed…..
After all, “Hollywood Jobs are at stake.”…..
Right click to open full image… Pictograph Courtesy of Viral..
So, can someone tell me again, why we shouldn’t tax the rich, and instead, balance the budget on the backs of everyone else?…….
I seem to be missing that little detail where that all makes sense……
kavips 