Government (in the form of police) violence against nonviolent protesters at the Seattle WTO Meetings had many in The Movement questioning the relevance of strict Ghandian Nonviolence in modern street protest. It also changed a lot of my attitude toward Federal and State gun-control laws. I suddenly noticed that all of these laws were about disarming the People, and not the State.

Things got really awkward all of a sudden. Now, I’m really not a violent guy at all. I’ve always believed that war — and situations that drive citizens to take up arms against their government — are an indication of epic failure: ethical failure, cultural failure, moral failure, and spiritual failure. After Seattle, though, I started thinking more about people in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, who are fighting US-backed state/corporate dictatorships and are forced to literally fight the police — and often soldiers — in the streets, often just for the right to gather in the streets to voice their grievances in the first place…and they aren’t necessarily fighting by Gandhi’s rules. I started thinking about the Palestinians, engaged in their resistance against the Israeli occupation of their country… and, they weren’t exactly holding candles and singing kum-bah-yah, either.

Medium-res jpg image, 323k

Continue reading "Who Will Control the Government’s Guns?" »

With President Bubba ensconced in the Oval Office, we saw a quickly-established pattern of failure in domestic policy initiatives followed by dick-wiggling and small-scale military intervention overseas — or some bad-assed “criminal justice” action at home — in an effort to appear “Presidential”. This was especially noticeable in the areas of economic stimulus and the last laughable attempt at health care “reform”.

“Economic Stimulus”, medium-res jpg image, 436k; “Health Care Reform”, medium-res jpg image, 492k; “Housing and Education”, medium-res jpg image, 488k; “Reinventing Government”, medium-res jpg image, 428k; “Job-Creation Program”, medium-res jpg image, 516k; “Low-Income Housing Program”, medium-res jpg image, 464k

Continue reading "Clinton’s (insert failed domestic initiative here)" »