I’m following the links to blogger comments tonight on Cindey Sheehan’s arrest. She was removed from the gallery and arrested because of what she was wearing. (An anti-war t-shirt she refused to cover.)
Dr. Violet Socks at reclusive leftist says, “that *is* the state of the union.
Ah! Lovely name, Dr. Socks! I will be visiting you to get better acquainted.
Our small town weekly newspaper published an advertisement this week which told employers who hire illegal workers, “this is your last warning.” An Internet search for the group responsible for the ad took me to this web site www.sovereigntycolorado.com which begins playing the national anthem when I open up the page.
In Broken Heartland: The rise of America’s Rural Ghetto, (pub. in 1990), Osha Gray Davidson discusses the growth of hate groups in rural areas.
Although the scores of far-right groups that honeycomb rural areas are only loosely knit together, most of them share a Byzantine philosophy that combines ‘constitutional fundamentalism’ with a religious movement based on racist throught called ‘Christian Identity.’They *refuse to recognize any government authority higher than the county sheriff (’posse comitatus’ is Latin for ‘power of the county’). They *believe that they alone are the true American patriots, and believe *the framers of the Constitution envisioned a ‘Christian Republic’ instead of a Democracy. (more…)
Human Rights Award Recipient, Teresa Grady, Sentenced in Federal Court
Teresa Grady, 40, will be receiving a special human rights award tomorrow, Jan 28, in Ithaca, NY, but won’t be able to attend the ceremony in person — she was taken into custody today to serve four months in federal prison. Grady is one of the St. Patrick’s Four and was sentenced for her participation in a symbolic act of non-violent civil disobedience at a military recruiting station outside of Ithaca on March 17, 2003, two days before the invasion of Iraq. Grady was also fined $150 for a contempt of court charge and ordered to pay a quarter of the $958 restitution.
We must have had better teachers out in our prairie town in the 1950s and 1960s. I remember listening in social studies classes to teachers who discussed freedom and democracy in the United States – the qualities that made us great – and who in the same breath reminded us of the fragility of democracy. (more…)
Sometimes I envision the whole middle of the United States without farms and towns in it. Everyone is crowded along the coasts with a couple of oasis cities in between. Driving from San Francisco to Denver is one thing — but taking off from Denver to cross the wild plains that are full of buffalo and squatters and nomadic tribes who live in VW buses sporting solar panels and who sometimes attempt to stop travelers, just like an old fashioned stage coach robbery — that gets pretty interesting (more…)