Tea Party Visits Occupy Philadelphia (video)

Must see video of the press conference:

On November 27, 2011 the Liberate Philadelphia Tea Partiers held a press conference at the Occupy Philadelphia site. It didn't go well for them. They were joined by the local, conservative radio talk show host, and advocate of torture, Dom Giordano. (He's the man interviewed in the second half of the video linked above. He can be seen defending torture in this video from earlier this year: http://youtu.be/_XNSGzt87Xw?t=1m39s )

Local news coverage of the event: http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/video?id=8446372

James Madison’s Warning: The Enemies to Public Liberty

It’s Veteran’s Day once again. A time to reflect on the fact that if I’d known years ago what I know now I wouldn’t have joined the US Army. Back then I too thought I was doing my part for freedom. “We’ve got to stop the communists,” they said. Now Jihadists supposedly threaten us.  These poor people living so far away aren’t the threat to our liberties. The real threat, the US government, resides here among us. Despite the fact that many in our military think they’re defending freedom by fighting they are in fact doing the opposite. Let’s look at Madison’s words on this subject.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

The fighting may be overseas but the many effects of the war are felt at home too.  It brings out the worst in the government and the people.

War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

It’s bad enough that the economy is in shambles under the crushing weight of the government’s spending, taxes, and debt. The fact that these three things give the government control of the economy and, therefore, blunt the people’s ability to oppose their evil is even worse. Liberty is lost as the government grows and it grows most during war.

 In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people.

Wartime propaganda whipping people into a state of fear leaves them often unable to see the truth behind the government’s power grabs. The meek acceptance of income tax withholding, the Transportation Security Administration’s groping, the Orwellian USA PATRIOT Act’s destruction of the Constitution’s protections, and the turning of the press into the government’s propaganda arm all occurred during war.

…the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war...and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

During the twenty-first century the US has been at war virtually one hundred percent of the time. The cold hearted morality of war becomes ever more entrenched in the people. “Solutions” imposed by force are the norm while voluntary ones are shunned. Civil society shrinks.

All veterans and active duty military I ask you to take another look at what you’re doing or have done. Fighting the wars that enable the government’s repression is not serving the cause of liberty. You serve or served an empire, the antithesis of it. Stop being an enemy of public liberty. Put down your weapons and take up the cause of peace, this is the only way to start to resurrect our long lost liberties.

Patrick Henry's Warning: The Tax-gatherers on the Rampage

This excerpt is from Patrick Henry's greatest speech, "Shall Liberty or Empire Be Sought?"  where he argued against adoption of the Constitution:

In this scheme of energetic government, the people will find two sets of tax-gatherers — the state and the federal sheriffs. This, it seems to me, will produce such dreadful oppression as the people cannot possibly bear. The federal sheriff may commit what oppression, make what distresses, he pleases, and ruin you with impunity; for how are you to tie his hands? Have you any sufficiently decided means of preventing him from sucking your blood by speculations, commissions, and fees? Thus thousands of your people will be most shamefully robbed: our state sheriffs, those unfeeling blood-suckers, have, under the watchful eye of our legislature, committed the most horrid and barbarous ravages on our people. It has required the most constant vigilance of the legislature to keep them from totally ruining the people; a repeated succession of laws has been made to suppress their iniquitous speculations and cruel extortions; and as often has their nefarious ingenuity devised methods of evading the force of those laws: in the struggle they have generally triumphed over the legislature.

It is a fact that lands have been sold for five shillings, which were worth one hundred pounds: if sheriffs, thus immediately under the eye of our state legislature and judiciary, have dared to commit these outrages, what would they not have done if their masters had been at Philadelphia or New York? If they perpetrate the most unwarrantable outrage on your person or property, you cannot get redress on this side of Philadelphia or New York; and how can you get it there? If your domestic avocations could permit you to go thither, there you must appeal to judges sworn to support this Constitution, in opposition to that of any state, and who may also be inclined to favor their own officers. When these harpies are aided by excisemen, who may search, at any time, your houses, and most secret recesses, will the people bear it? If you think so, you differ from me. Where I thought there was a possibility of such mischiefs, I would grant power with a niggardly hand; and here there is a strong probability that these oppressions shall actually happen. I may be told that it is safe to err on that side, because such regulations may be made by Congress as shall restrain these officers, and because laws are made by our representatives, and judged by righteous judges: but, sir, as these regulations may be made, so they may not; and many reasons there are to induce a belief that they will not. I shall therefore be an infidel on that point till the day of my death.

Absolutely prophetic, Patrick Henry knew what a strong national government would do. It is past time for this to end.

Occupy Philadelphia: The Kick That the Left Really Needed

“The kick that the left really needed “ are the words of one of the protesters. These are high hopes that will not be realized. Who are these Occupy Philly people? What do they stand for? Who do they represent? Let’s take a look. In the video below there are two interviews with participants in the Occupy Philadelphia movement and a Karl Marx impersonator that performed there. These are the first three parts of the video after the brief introduction. I recommend watching them before reading on. The second half of the video isn’t as relevant to this article as the first half is and can be viewed later.

For the most part what one sees in these interviews is a complete lack of understanding (deliberate misrepresentation?) of what capitalism is and what it has achieved. Every time it, capitalism, is criticized the criticism is that the government intervenes on behalf of the corporate elite. While this is true it also misses the essential point that capitalism is about markets free from government interference. What they are criticizing is actually the corporatist system that we have today, a system that more closely resembles fascism than anything else.

In the first interview Brandon of Philly Socialists talks about how our economic system is the same capitalist system now as it was two hundred years ago, a rather strange point of view. How can one miss the fact that the vast majority of the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies that we suffer under now was created in the twentieth century? How can one not see the vastly larger share of Gross Domestic Product that the government now absorbs? There were very few regulatory agencies in the early days of the republic, often no central bank, and very low levels of taxation. There were also no Robber Barons and a growing economy based much more on local businesses than today. While not perfect it was better than, and a far cry from, our present corporatism.

Rich, a registered nurse, is in the second interview. He advocates protectionism, an idea long ago debunked. (See “Protectionism and Communism”) More importantly Rich claims that the regulation of the medical profession is an illusion. That it is really the corporate elite that writes the rules for their own benefit and controls the regulators through the political process. Up to that point he’s right, but to claim that this means that there is no regulation and that this represents too little government involvement in health care is way off base. Pro business regulation is still regulation. The government is heavily involved, it’s just not doing what it is supposed to do. This is not a problem that is fixable, this is the nature of the beast. The ruling elites will always control the regulators. The only solution is a free market in health care. That means no government regulation or licensing.

Lastly, we come to the Karl Marx impersonator. He repeated the canard that the problem with the free market is the government intervening on behalf of the elites. In a conversation after his performance he acknowledged that that is not actually a free market but what the crowd thinks it is, therefore, his use of the term free market. An interesting admission. Very enlightening was his praise of the Paris Commune of 1871.  My impression is that this is the model they’re trying to emulate in the Occupy Movement.

All of this leads to a few conclusions about Occupy Philadelphia. Since, fortunately, 99% of the people aren’t socialists what we really have here is the .01% claiming to be the representatives of the majority when in reality they are only helping the 1% that rule over us. They are completely ignorant of economics and, therefore, don’t understand why things are going wrong. They cling to the view that government can be made to work if only…whatever, but it’s not that way. In advocating empowering the government so that it will become the “dictatorship of the proletariat” they only play into the hands of the 1% they claim to oppose. Why is the left always so willing to allow itself to be played? They should know by now that the elites will always control the government.

In the end Occupy Philadelphia only manages to discredit itself by presenting stale old statist ideas that have been proved time and again not to work. I ask them to step aside and let those with real solutions, the advocates of liberty, take the lead.

Darren Wolfe of Focus on Peace Speaks at Agora I/O "Live from Valley Forge" (video)

On September 24 Darren Wolfe  gave a speech titled "The New Peace Movement: Ending the Wars by Uniting all Ideologies Around the Issue that Matters Most" at the second Agora I/O unconference.  

 
Check us out on Facebook too: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=281738058519645

Below is a transcript of the speech:

Thank you Ken, & thank you my fellow liberty minded peace activists both here & online.

Focus on Peace is an inclusive peace movement, one that people of all political persuasions can join in good conscience. The idea has been around for a while, but it has been all rhetoric until now. 

For example, the International Action Center (IAC) had a conference last November named the "Regional ANTIWAR Conference and a National meeting to STOP FBI Repression", they hailed it as "…a discussion of a new kind of unified & inclusive antiwar movement that can challenge the wars abroad and at home". As is usually the case with left wing antiwar organizations this one too comes with their social agenda as part of the package. On their website they state that part of the discussion is to be about "…a massive movement to bring  the war $$, troops, and mercenaries home now, rebuilding our cities, providing jobs, schools and health care that we all have a right to". Bringing the troops and mercenaries home sounds great. It is the part about then using the money saved to finance the government’s spending on social programs the is a problem for the liberty minded. Given these realities the question has to be asked, is this really an inclusive antiwar movement?

No doubt that by now progressive listeners are rolling their eyes wondering how this crazy libertarian can be against spending money on health care and education. This isn’t the time or place to engage in a debate about these subjects, we can do that later after we end the wars. Now is the time to agree to disagree on some things and unite to stop the wars and oppression.

Libertarians are reaching out to the left to stand together for peace. I approached the organizers of the October 16 peace rally in Philadelphia last year at their planning meeting a few days before the event. There I was politely, but firmly, told that they were completely unwilling to change their left wing agenda for future rallies to accommodate other points of view.

Earlier this year there was a meeting in Philly leading up to the big peace rally of April 9^th in NY. There Joe Lombardo of the United National Antiwar Committee specifically said that the anti war movement can not be politically neutral. He said it must take up causes like social justice, the environment,  & the Palestinians in order to be effective.

Then there was the Declare Peace Fair that the Brandywine Peace Community had over the 4^th of July weekend at Independence Hall. There a couple of the hard line socialists stood in front of the Focus on Peace table directly & rudely contradicting our message of unity in the peace movement.

Lastly, there is the strange reference on the One People’s Project website to “crackpot libertarians” latching on to the peace movement to advance their agenda. Hmmm….good thing the left doesn’t do that!

When the left tacks on a social agenda to their antiwar coalitions that others can not endorse they tell us we’re not welcome. We’re not asking any of the organizations and individuals that are part of IAC or similar groups to change their advocacy. Their speakers can advocate all the same things they have before. Same with the signs they carry. All we ask is that the antiwar coalitions themselves be politically neutral so we can all join them in good conscience.

Fortunately, not everyone one the left is against unity. Several Greens, Naderites, & progressive Democrats have said they support a united peace movement. Veronica Nunn of Brooklyn for Peace wrote in an email "I looked at your website and I really like what the group is doing. There are quite a few people that are very turned off by the extreme left approach to peace.".

Joan Wile of Grandmothers Against the War wrote a reply to a comment I made to an article she wrote stating her support for the Focus on Peace concept, “I totally agree, Darren. I get so frustrated when at a rally, for instance, speakers bring up unconnected controversial issues that turn people off who otherwise are dedicated to ending the wars. It's certainly a problem, and I'm appreciative that you brought it up.”

Also, Bob Small, a local Green Party leader wrote on a mailing list:

    One of my Leftist Friends questioned how to bring in

    people from other political persuasions to the

    Anti-war movement because "they don't agree with us

    on other issues". My feeling is that is why the anti-war movement

    has had thirty years of fragmentation, marginalization,

    and dissolution. The last March on Washington

    I attended featured fifteen other issues, including a few I

    disagreed with. That was over five years ago.

    I decided they could stop the war without me.

All of us who think that way need to come together. One obstacle that I’ve run into is people on the left claiming that to achieve peace we have to work on the big picture, which includes social & economy justice. I certainly agree that there is a big picture though it is not the one they talk about. When the left decries the government’s diversion of its resources from human needs to the military it is on to something. War does impoverish us. What the left needs to understand is that a government with the resources to build schools also has the resources to build drones, a government with the resources to build roads also has the resources to build jet fighters, and a government with the power to tax and create money has the resources to pay for the weapons mentioned above and to wage war.

And wage war it will, for as the progressive commentator Randolph Bourne wrote "War Is the Health of the State". Giving the state resources only feeds the war machine. Welfare at home and warfare abroad are just flip sides of the same coin. We can not give the government the tools it needs to wage war and expect it not to do so. I’m not talking about weapons here. It’s not enough to advocate that they not buy weapons. We must take away the tools they use to acquire them. This means that we must end the Federal Reserve System, the income tax, the federal government’s social spending, its regulatory role, and its police powers. Peace will only come when the government is powerless to commit evil acts both at home and abroad.

That’s a libertarian view. I’m not saying that everyone has to agree with it to stand with us against the wars, far from it we welcome people with other political views. All we ask is for the same consideration in return. Imagine the strength of a truly united and inclusive peace movement. We can do it. All it takes is a little tolerance and understanding.

A quick word about Focus on Peace. Our purpose is to have a peace movement that welcomes people of all ideologies, creeds, and beliefs. One that makes everyone feel not only comfortable but a part of the movement. No one should feel that they are endorsing someone else's political agenda when standing up for peace. To this end we have only one focus: ending the wars abroad. Now that the summer is over we will be getting back to our popular sign waves again. Stay tuned for those. More important is that we’re organizing what will hopefully be the first annual Philadelphia Peace Fair, modeled on the annual Brooklyn Peace Fair. There will be exhibitor’s tables, workshops, & well-known speakers, details to be announced soon. The date is Saturday, April 7^th of next year at the Friends Meetinghouse at 4^th & Arch Sts in Philadelphia, don’t miss it. If you or your group would like to take part you can rent a table &/or place an ad in the program. Don’t hesitate to contact me about this. 

There is a sister group with the same goals that deserves to be mentioned. That is Come Home America. Their website is ComeHomeAmerica.US.  The basis of this group is a book titled ComeHomeAmerica.US it’s a compilation of essays resulting from a gathering of unlike-minded people who are nevertheless united in their alarm about the destructive consequences of our country’s runaway militarism. The meeting held in February of last year included people from the right, left and radical center, from progressives and conservatives, and liberals and libertarians. It reflects the views of many Americans that are not represented in the political dialogue in Congress, the White House, or the mainstream media.

This group too deserves your support.

Let me touch on one of the mainstream views of why the US needs to intervene over seas. The idea that the US is fighting defensively overseas to keep the Muslim hoards from taking us over is so ridiculous that it needs no debunking. The idea that we’re promoting democracy is made an obvious lie by just looking at the dictatorships, past & present, that the US supports. Let’s put aside the media clown’s & politician’s babbling. A much more serious reason to intervene around the world is the protection of international trade. The argument is that since the US is dependent on global trade we have to control the seas to assure our continued prosperity. If we don’t control the seas another power that does could cut us off from our overseas markets badly hurting our economy. Certainly there is some logic to this argument.

One advocate of this view is George Friedman, the founder & CEO of Stratfor, which stands for Strategic Forecasting. It is a private global intelligence company giving non-ideological analysis. He wrote a great book earlier this year titled “The Next Decade”, talking about the geopolitical realities in the world for the coming 10 years. While I can’t agree with his pro intervention conclusions, Mr. Friedman makes good points that few Americans are willing to face. The major one being that the US has become an unintended empire. That’s important to bear in mind when talking about controlling the shipping lanes around the world. The great empires have always been about trade as much as about military control, sometimes more so. We’re no different.

To get to debunking the pro empire trade argument, every benefit must be balanced against its cost & the cost of maintaining an empire goes well beyond just the federal govt’s defense budget, which sure is a huge cost greatly slowing our economy, not stimulating it as some claim. Taking our cues from the wisdom of the French Classical Liberal economist Frederic Bastiat  who in his essay “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen” tells us that we have to look deeper than just the obvious that’s right in front of our noses. The benefits of empire would seem to be the trade & relative prosperity that we enjoyed until this recession started. Should I say “End the Fed” now? The cost of empire is also in what is not produced because of the kind of govt it imposes, & the economic & social policies such a govt implements. Earlier I touched on how welfare & warfare go hand in hand. To get the populace to tolerate the cost of empire & support the govt those costs must be hidden & the people must be bought by means of a welfare state. I’d like to add to that the regulatory state. Intervention abroad requires intervention domestically. In order to be strong enough to project power overseas the govt has to tighten its grip domestically if only to acquire the resources to do so, doing many harms in the process. I’m talking about how taxes, regulation, & welfare drain the economy & severely limit growth. Just one example, Social Security, is conservatively estimated to cost us 5% GDP growth every year. Taxes & regulation only add to the destroying of our wealth. When anyone says that losing our overseas markets will make us poorer the answer is to point out that the empire has already done that.

I haven’t even touched on the destruction of our civil liberties under the kind of militarist democracy we live under. We just heard about how the Transportation Security Admin is trampling our rights. Soon you’re going to hear a talk about how the US has become a police state & another talk about opposing curfews so I won’t go into much detail now.  Suffice it to say that what seems obvious to us in the liberty movement isn’t always obvious to the rest. One argument I hear a lot is that we’re way free compared to the way they lived under the Nazis so everything is just fine here. I disagree, we may not be suffering as much as the unfortunates who lived under Hitler’s govt, but that doesn’t mean we have the liberties we should have either. The process should be obvious to all by now, the illusion of liberty must be maintained. It is as Thomas Paine warned in "The Rights of Man":

    …the portion of liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a country more productively than by despotism, and that as the real object of all despotism is revenue, a government so formed obtains more than it could do either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom, and is, therefore on the ground of interest, opposed to both. They account also for the readiness which always appears in such governments for engaging in wars by remarking on the different motives which produced them. In despotic governments wars are the effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become the means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.

One reason I decided to stop picking on the left & move to the mainstream is that we need to expand the peace movement. If it remains a matter of the radical left on one side & the libertarians on another it will keep getting the same dismal results it has up until now. In between these 2 sides is the great middle. You know the famous Joe & Jane Sixpack. Their not radicals. They may be Democrats Republicans, or independents. They may also be anti war, but where have they been able to turn? Until now we’ve left them out of the peace movement. Now, though, with groups like Focus on Peace they have a place to go to engage in peace activism.

Getting back to the intellectual I most love to debunk, George  Friedman, also  in "The Next Decade" states that he passionately wants the American republic to survive the empire it has acquired. Long live the unintended empire! That means the republic is dead though. He rightly points out that the Roman republic was overwhelmed by its empire & doesn’t want to see that happen here. Unfortunately, it has already happened here. We’re not about to have an emperor a la Caesar, but the form of the republic lives on long after the reality of it has died. Patrick Henry told us long ago that we can't be both a republic & an empire at the same time in his speech "Shall Liberty or Empire be Sought?":

    But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire.... Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real balances, in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances? But, sir, "we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble." Would this constitute happiness or secure liberty? I trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever direct their operations to the security of those objects.

Today the world trembles before the American government's might. That includes the Americans themselves who are increasingly victimized by it. Patrick Henry's prophetic words come back to haunt us. I know where I stand when it comes to the question of "Shall Liberty or Empire be Sought?". I say liberty, always & forever! Anyone else here feel that way? Whether you’re on the left or the right join us in standing for liberty by standing with us against the greatest destroyers of it there are, war & empire.

You can check out our website, fopeace.com, for updates on what we’re doing. Those of you here in this room please sign up for our email updates too. Thank you, & let me say goodbye by wishing you all peace & prosperity.

No 9/11 Conspiracy Says Stratfor's George Friedman

Now my friends at Stratfor have gone and done it. In "9/11 and the Successful War"  George Friedman, Stratfor's founder and CEO, writes:

Of course, there are those who believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy carried out by the CIA in order to justify interference in our liberty. But an organization as capable as they believe the CIA is would not need a justification to abridge liberty. That was a lot of work to justify something, and the truly powerful don’t need to justify anything. Nor do they need to leave people who are revealing the truth alive. It is striking that the “doubters” believe 9/11 was created in order to crush American freedoms but that the conspirators are so incompetent they cannot shut down those who have discovered the conspiracy and are telling the world about it. Personally, if I were interested in global domination triggered by a covert act like 9/11, I would silence those revealing my secret. But then I’m not that good at it, and the doubters all have reasons why they are blogging the truth and are not dead or languishing in a concentration camp.


I take this detour for four reasons. First, doubters should not be ignored but answered. Second, unless they are answered, they will be able to say the CIA (or whomever they think did it) needed one attack to achieve its goals. Third, the issue the doubters raise is not the structural integrity of a building but the underlying intent of the CIA in carrying out the attack. The why is everything to them, and it is important to point out that it is their explanation of motive that makes no sense. Finally, I am engaging the doubters here because I enjoy receiving an abundance of emails containing fascinating accusations and the occasional threat.

What we see above is Mr. Friedman focusing on the most extreme 9/11 conspiracy theories, while ignoring the sensible ones, to discredit them all. This author agrees that 9/11 was not a CIA plot. The government didn't have to orchestrate 9/11 they just had to allow it to happen. They take advantage of crises, they don't engineer them. 

Moving on, the government isn't interested in turning the US into another North Korea.  That simple fact explains why the Truthers are still free to blog. It also explains the propaganda efforts to discredit them. (Something Mr. Friedman may know a thing or two about.) The process should be obvious to all, the illusion of liberty must be maintained. It is as Thomas Paine warned in "The Rights of Man":

…the portion of liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a country more productively than by despotism, and that as the real object of all despotism is revenue, a government so formed obtains more than it could do either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom, and is, therefore on the ground of interest, opposed to both. They account also for the readiness which always appears in such governments for engaging in wars by remarking on the different motives which produced them. In despotic governments wars are the effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become the means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.

Since the above has been accomplished this author would have to agree that, unfortunately, it has been a successful war for the elites.  In his book "The Next Decade" Mr. Friedman states that he passionately wants the American republic to survive the empire it has acquired. Long live the unintended empire! That means the republic is dead though. Patrick Henry told us long ago that we can't be both at the same time in his speech "Shall Liberty or Empire be Sought?":

But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire.... Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real balances, in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances? But, sir, "we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble." Would this constitute happiness or secure liberty? I trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever direct their operations to the security of those objects.

Today the world trembles before the American government's might. That includes the Americans themselves who are increasingly victimized by it. Patrick Henry's prophetic words come back to haunt us.

Mr. Friedman says he wants email so please go to Stratfor's website and send him some polite ones. (I'm serious about the emails being polite, no threats or vulgarity they only make the sender look bad anyway.): thttps://www.stratfor.com/contact

Lemonade Freedom Day Interview With Protest Organizer Robert Fernandes

Protesting the shameful closings of children's lemonade stands around the USA, Robert Fernandes organized Lemonade Freedom Day. Protests took place in several cities. In Philadelphia Mr. Fernandes and his family were part of setting up a lemonade stand in Rittenhouse Square in center city. He explains why they're doing this in the video below:

All went smoothly in Philadelphia, the lemonade stand was allowed to operate undisturbed by the authorities. Such was not the case in Washington, DC where three activists were arrested for selling lemonade at the Capitol building:

Hiroshima Day Protest 2011 King of Prussia, PA (video)

The Brandywine Peace Community strikes again, this time protesting against Lockheed Martin building parts for nuclear missiles on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan during World War II. The protest went well with speeches, music, and the use of crime scene tape to block the entrance. The civil disobedience squad was arrested trying to deliver documents to Lockheed Martin.

After the protest I drove around to the spot where the Tea Partiers do their Saturday sign wave to share the message about Focus on Peace, the politically neutral peace movement. Some were receptive and some were hostile. The hostile ones were the most interesting. First, one told me that peace was impossible until the Prince of Peace returns. I suggested that in the mean time we could all do our little part to help make things better. This started him accusing me of being a progressive liberal and then a liar for denying it. After I said he should have an open mind he said that he has a closed one and what was I going to do about it. Some rather aggressive talk from someone waiting for the Prince of Peace.

One of his colleagues asked if I believe in Glenn Beck. When I replied that he was a mixed bag advocating some freedom and some big government ideas this really got them outraged. How dare I not believe in Glenn Beck! Unfortunately, I have no video of the Tea Party people. Hopefully, the narrative is entertaining enough.

Enjoy the video and pictures of the protest at Lockheed Martin:

Police Brutality Protest, West Chester, PA (video)

Braving the one-hundred degree heat, and looking like Brave Heart, Michael Heise lead a group that protested the brutal macing, arrest, & abuse of four young men on July 3 by the West Chester, PA police. He tells the sad story of what happened that night in this video.

All was going fine at the protest until the police stepped in to stop the bullhorning. See it for yourself:

In another video the same cop says that the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to bull horns. He says this at 11:50: http://youtu.be/Nkv_TfzxcvU

Dance Party at Thomas Jefferson's Memorial (video)

 "Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
- Thomas Jefferson

We have also learned that despots prefer timid subjects. In the USA the imperial government desecrates the memory of Thomas Jefferson by insisting that all behave timidly in said place. Words like “solemn” and “reverent” flow from them to describe the atmosphere and behavior they expect at the memorial. Thomas Jefferson would have objected to this. He knew better than to call that liberty.

Thus, when we tried to protest their violently arresting people the week before for silently dancing at the memorial they moved in to stop us. Ultimately, the police prevailed by pushing everyone out of the memorial. Fortunately, no one was hurt or arrested.

While they did allow the demonstration to continue on the steps of the memorial it seemed to this observer that the results were mixed. There was dancing at the memorial and that was a victory for our side, the side of liberty. On the other hand, the government was able to shut down the dancing after a short time and that was a victory for their side, the side of tyranny. No doubt Thomas Jefferson would have been honored at our celebrating liberty as we did at his memorial and dismayed by the police state that caused us to have to do so.

The video says it all:

Adam Kokesh and The International Libertarian, Darren Wolfe

Focus on Peace at The Seventh Annual Brooklyn Peace Fair

The Focus on Peace trip to New York City for The Seventh Annual Brooklyn Peace Fair 2011 was a great success. From our table we got a large number of fliers and other literature out. Our message was well received by most attendees and fellow exhibitors. I was interviewed on camera twice.

Support for Focus on Peace continues to grow. Veronica Nunn of Brooklyn for Peace  wrote in an email "I looked at your website and I really like what the group is doing. There are quite a few people that are very turned off by the extreme left approach to peace.".

Joan Wile of Grandmothers Against the War  wrote a comment to an article she also wrote stating her support for the Focus on Peace concept:

Reply: Focus on Peace -- Drop other Issues

I totally agree, Darren. I get so frustrated when at a rally, for instance, speakers bring up unconnected controversial issues that turn people off who otherwise are dedicated to ending the wars. It's certainly a problem, and I'm appreciative that you brought it up.

by Joan Wile (5 fans, 44 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 48 comments [28 recommended]) on Sunday, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:23:14 PM

http://www.opednews.com/articles/SURPRISE--THERE-IS-TOO-by-Joan-Wile-110417-148.html

A local Green Party leader wrote on a mailing list:

One of my Leftist Friends questioned how to bring in
people from other political persuasions to the
Anti-war movement because "they don't agree with us
on other issues". My feeling is that is why the anti-war movement
has had thirty years of fragmentation, marginalization,
and dissolution. The last March on Washington
I attended featured fifteen other issues, including a few I
disagreed with. That was over five years ago.
I decided they could stop the war without me.

Enjoy the video and pictures of the Peace Fair:

Fedstock II (video)

Once again Philadelphia raised the bar for an End the Fed rally with Fedstock II. Jordan Page played his great music. Yours truly was the first speaker followed by a great line up, Scott Davis, Ernest Hancock, and Adam Kokesh. A big thanks to Mike Salvi, Rob Pepe, the sponsors, and everyone else that worked hard to make Fedstock happen.

Enjoy the video and pictures: