Zebra 3 Report by Joe Anybody
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Police Try To Shut Down Portland Videotogopher
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Joe Anybody - films the cops and get ticket - who is the criminal here
Topic: MEDIA

Cops - Cameras - Independent Media

The follow post by me is found along with some good comments on Portland Independent Media

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/373979.shtml

Cops - Cameras - Independent Media (3/27/08)

After my camera was illegally removed from my hand
And after the two innocent citizens were done being hassled
I start walking to the police station to talk to his supervisor

Just minutes ago I was standing 35 feet away just documenting what was happening on a public street in my home town
The cop let the 2 men go and then took my camera and gave me a receipt. Not much of explanation was given if any and that pissed me off. I was going to talk to their supervisor right now 

I was about a block from the station central office
The same two cops in one car  pull up along th curb and ask me if I am heading to the station ...I tell them "yes"

The one cop says "meet me in the lobby"
I did
It took 20 min
He comes out and gives me my camera back (and the tape)
And a citation
ORS 165.540
Court on 4/22

When I called my Lawyer he was "very interested"
When the news hit the ACLU .... they too said "Joe, please contact us we are very interested in what you have on film"
When Corporate news comes a knocking this should get interesting

Meanwhile I think I have a story for some of the local Independent newspapers here

The right of the people to hold the police accountable is paramount
This is strong arming me into "going away"
The right of the press and the rights for journalism is under attack

This is a big stupid move to try and suppress the people who are concerned about peace and justice
This is a slap to the constitution and to police accountability
This is stab at making journalist feel intimidated and to discourage the media from getting involved

Joe Anybody doesn't like anybody taking his camera
I am glad I got it all on film
Watch it here on BlipTV
Please circulate this video

 http://joeanybody.blip.tv/#784444

So my fellow Z3 Readers ...after seeing this mess of the first amendment take place when watching my video... who looks like they were the ones being uncivil and acting like an ass, bully, and trouble maker?

.....and who looks like they are committing any crime? The two men? Me filming from 35 yards away? Or the cops who may or may not have a "Good Reason" to be doing what they are doing in this video?

I for one didn't like the cops hassling those men, in fact I wonder if racial profiling was happening?

 And I for one don't like to see cops push people in their chest looking to provoke trouble. I think the cop says two times something about "Do you want to get knocked on your ass?"

I for one do not like to be cited for a crime when I didn't commit one.

I don't like the cops stealing My camera and playing games with a serious journalist, such as I myself.

I also don't appreciate the intimidation from the police on the media or free honest citizens.

I do not like to be violated when I am exercising my 1st amendment right. The freedom Of The Press is Under Attack!

Damn the torpedo's.

 

 


Posted by Joe Anybody at 5:37 PM PDT
Updated: Saturday, 29 March 2008 5:54 PM PDT
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
Cops take camera from Joe Anybody & issue Citation
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Joe Anybody and the 1st Amendment
Topic: MEDIA
Joe Anybody iam@joe-anybody.com

 The Following post was by me on
Portland Indy Media
There are comments on this Indy Media post
which you can read here
___________________________________________________
 
This is all good information
I am in contact with a lawyer who is very interested

I captured it all on film... from them stopping the citizens to walking up to me and taking my camera
(which I got back by going down to the station)(they met me in the lobby & gave it back ... with the citation)

When I was filming one of the two (police suspects/citizens) who I was filming immediately said loudly 2 time "Look office your are being filmed" thus one could assume the police knew I was filming secretly I was in plain view this happened around 10th and Jefferson about 7pm

I will be pleading not guilty and will be looking into the other aspects this issue raises with my Lawyers
It seems the cop I filmed was involved in previous "video tape" which shows him shoot rubber bullets at protesters in 02

He may "have it out" for journalist who are filming?

I think there is a law that excludes parades and protests in that one is not required to "announce your recording audio" ...(so I was informed over the phone by a lawyer)

But this wasn't a protest..... so its different in that respect

The fact that all parties were aware I was filming and it is on film that "they knew" may give me some room ...
I was 10 yards at first..... then moved back to 25 -30 yards
I was never told to move back away or turn it off

When the cops talk together you cant hear what they say
I will be posting the video here ...and was advised by my attorney that it was OK to post it

I will be hoping for some community support

I feel the seriousness of this .... but I have not done anything wrong
I work for Peace and Justice
I am not looking for trouble ...but am being assertive and making the choice to be brave enough to step forward

I feel confident that my motives for Independent Journalism, civil rights, solidarity, and government accountability will be honored and respected.
I want honest police, honest journalism, and an open government that respects civil rights and human rights

My court day is 4/22

Video coming soon

Posted by Joe Anybody at 4:30 PM PDT
Updated: Wednesday, 26 March 2008 5:42 PM PDT
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Greg Palast has a short article for you Z3 Report Readers
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: God Damn America
Topic: FAILURE by the GOVERNMENT

[Sunday, March 23, 2008, Forest City, PA ]

This is reprinted from an email I recieved from greg palast

GOD DAMN AMERICA – ESPECIALLY PENNSYLVANIA
By Greg Palast


The kids were snoozing so I drove along the back roads skirting the Lackawanna River on a dawn hunt for black coffee and a newspaper.

I think even Norman Rockwell would have found this place too sticky sweet, too postcard:  the weathered barns, the fallow fields perfectly snow-frosted; red, white and blue flags already up on the clapboard farmhouses and the white-washed church in the valley already full for Easter prayers.

At a gas station, I scored the paper and coffee, spilled some on the front page – the closest thing I’ve got to a religious ritual – then parked in front of a row of insanely pretty salt-box houses shining like mad teeth on the river bank.   
One was missing a pick-up in the driveway; its screen door was left half-open, and there was a letter taped to the window.  The Sheriff’s Notice of eviction.  Another foreclosure.

God damn America.

I know that’s what Obama’s spiritual guide would say.  

But why?  It seems likes He’s already done a pretty good job of damning these United States.  

And He seems to have really taken it out on this corner of Pennsylvania.  

The gargantuan Bethlehem steel works have dwindled to a few robot-operated mills controlled from Mumbai, India. The only remainders of nearby Carbondale’s mining industry are in display cases at the ageing Coal Inn.  But you could still get out by selling your home to ski tourists from New York – until this year when mortgage markets turned cancerous. 

That leaves Forest City’s one industry, lumbering – which we can kiss goodbye since a recent ruling by the NAFTA board which allows the import of cheap Canadian wood.

Some local kid has made the paper having been thrown, helmet first, into the volcano called Iraq.  The Scranton Times-Tribune, two pages after the photo of a priest blessing a bowl of who knows what, noted that three soldiers killed in yesterday’s bombing are, “pushing the death toll in the five-year conflict to nearly 4,000” – which is true if you don’t count Iraqi dead.  But Someone must be counting them.  (From way up in heaven, I wonder if we look like a nation of Christians – or an empire of Romans.)

Phil Ochs, before he killed himself, wrote,

“This is a land full of power and glory,
        Beauty that words cannot recall.
    But her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom.
        Her glory shall rest on us all.”


Whatever.     It’s a difficult place to be an atheist, in this America, surfeited as it is on every vista with signs of His overwhelming grace and His exasperated wrath.  It’s as if the Lord Himself is just as confused and frustrated and disappointed as the rest of us by blessings so abused.

There’s one consolation.  He has apparently granted Pennsylvanians the privilege, come April 22, of choosing which Democrat will lose in November.  

Which may not mean much to Sandy Ryder on whom the spirit of Easter has landed like a ton of bricks.  Sandy, says the flyer tacked up at the Bingham diner, was, “Recently diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer.”  She’s a,  “Single mother of two – Tony and Brandon – and Grandmother of one – Jason.”

And there they were in a photocopied portrait, the earnest elder son and little Jason to her right, the young slacker (Tony?  Brandon?) slouched to her left.   The town’s hawking a benefit for Sandy, $10 at the door, “including Food and Beverage” and a “Chinese auction.”

(I’ll bet Al Qaeda could pick up some recruits here – if Osama would offer health insurance.)

Whatever. This is, after all, Holy Week, which marks the anniversary of the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, the day the giant oil corporation soaked 1,200 miles of Alaska’s coast with crude sludge. March 24 marks 19 years since the grounding and 19 years since Exxon’s promise to compensate the ruined fishermen. You should watch the 19-year-old video-tape of Exxon’s man in Alaska. I especially like the part where
he tells the fishermen, “You have had some good luck – and you don’t realize it."

I know some of the fishermen on the TV footage, like the Anderson family, Eyak Natives. I can tell you, the Eyak don’t feel so lucky, still waiting for the Supreme Court to act on Exxon’s latest stall on payment. They’ve seen plenty of Sheriff’s Notices these past 19 years.

So Happy Easter.

George Bush tells us he’s, “feeling just fine.”  And we should be glad for him, I suppose.   

Bush ends his most belligerent speeches by saying, “God bless America.”  

So, why hasn’t He?

Maybe you can tell us, Mr. President:  Why hasn’t He?


Posted by Joe Anybody at 6:40 PM PDT
Updated: Wednesday, 26 March 2008 4:31 PM PDT
NADER tells Democrates "Your time has passed"
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Ralph Nader for President "TROOPS HOME NOW"
Topic: POLITICS

Ralph Nader for President 2008  

 

What do -

Code Pink

Move On

The Nation

The Progressive

In These Times

And the liberal intelligentsia have in common?

They all see clearly that the Democrats will not get us out of Iraq.

They all see clearly that the Democrats will not crack down on corporate crime.

They all see clearly that the Democrats will not support a single payer national health insurance system.

They all see clearly that the Democrats will not cut the bloated, wasteful military budget.

And yet, they refuse to stand up to the Democrats and say - out!

Get out!

Get out now!

We are going to start new.

You are a corrupt party.

And your time has passed.

Time to build something new.

Instead, the liberal intelligentsia continues to hope.

Against hope.

That Clinton.

Or Obama.

Will stand up to the military corporations and their bloated, wasteful military budget.

Even though they know deep down that they will not.

Even in the face of 4,000 Americans dead.

And more than a million Iraqis dead.

And tens of thousands wounded.

They refuse to abandon hope in a corrupt party.

The Democratic Party is gone.

And the liberal intelligentsia is gone.

Yet, as we have seen over the past two months.

Tens of millions of Americans are ready for change.

To move past the two parties.

Toward something new.

And that is what Nader/Gonzalez is about.

Step by step, we are getting on ballots all across the country.

In New Mexico, our volunteers are well on their way to getting Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot.

 

 

 


Posted by Joe Anybody at 11:43 AM PDT
Friday, 21 March 2008
Fuck The Corporate Media _ Student Walkout Protest Interview
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Joe Anybody tells Corporate camera news-crew "This war is your fault"
Topic: PROTEST!
FUCK CORPORATE MEDIA21.Mar.2008 00:26

Joe Anybody iam@joe-anybody.com

When the corp tv walked up to me today at the KId walkout march...I was standing on a corner where the cops just got done grabbing a kid for some minor reason. With my goggles on and and face covered (due to being maced yesterday) with a camera they thought they had a story of "He you look like you know what going on here"

OH i told them in a rambling non stop way what I thought was going on
not sure if my camera was on ..I still havent seen all my videos yet
But I blamed them (Corporate Media) for this war and mess we are in now ..told them they have been sitting on their asses for 5 years
i said they fucked this up by not reporting the real news
I yelled at them for ..."me having to buy a camera and do their fucking job"
I angerly loudly said "You fuckers I have over 200 videos on the INTERNET and you never show up and report the truth in any of them...I need to do what your not doing ...............
shit I dont know what came over me ...i let em have my 2 cents worth ......
Doubt that will make the news (Ch 2)
I looked up and the horse cops were all staring at me as I walked away ....
The two news people stood there staring at me dumbfounded!

FUCK THE CORPORATE MEDIA..... they come out for some sugar cube reporting / spin
Fuck them ...thats how come we are in this mess in the first place

Thank God For Portland Indy Media and "other independent news sources"

**********************
AND WAIT TILL YOU SEE MY 2 HOUR VIDEO OF 1 to 2 THOUSAND KIDS MARCHING FOR PEACE
SEE THE COPS GET MEAN WITH JAY WALKERS ...SEE THE KIDS ROCK THE FUCIN HOUSE
THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR !!! There line went for blocks and blocks
THESE KIDS ALL WERE PEACEFUL AND MADE JOE ANYBODY "SUPER PROUD"
I WAS ECSTATIC TO SEE THIS ..... IT WAS *GREAT*
(CEPT THE COPS BEING MEAN)

YOU WONT FRICKING BELIEVE THESE KIDS ...300 hundred "MY ass!!"

.....THE LINE OF KIDS WENT FROM BURNSIDE TO TO MAIN STREET

DAMN CORPORATE MEDIA !!!
********************
Here is the First Video Link

And more video coming real soon


Posted by Joe Anybody at 2:02 AM PDT
Updated: Friday, 21 March 2008 5:42 AM PDT
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Semantic Web - A new way of surfing the Internet?
Mood:  cheeky
Now Playing: Organizing the Internet. - By using "Twine" ?
Topic: MEDIA

Hung Up On the Semantic (Web)

(Gadgets, Discoveries) Permanent link

Web Visualization

The jumbled mess that is the internet has a certain charm. Masses of confusing information and useless web pages sit neatly along side important sites, with Google standing as one of the only ways to tell them apart. Google is still the top dog in organizing the web, but the internet has evolved since the company began 12 years ago (that’s about 90 in web years). In fact, Tim Berners-Lee, who’s credited with inventing the World Wide Web, told the Times Online that he believes Google will be “superseded” by the Semantic Web.

Instead of simply focusing on web pages, the Semantic Web would, in theory, organize all kinds of information from bank statements to maps to photos to medical research studies. In a video for Technology Review, Berners-Lee talks about how Semantic Web technology could help doctors compare different kinds of medical data, combining the information with nutrition data or seemingly unrelated data like air travel patterns, illuminating trends and information that could literally save lives.

For now, much of the promise of the Semantic Web has yet to be realized, but companies are busy preparing to take advantage of the new technology. The latest incarnation is a website called Twine, created by Radar Networks, currently in private beta testing. CNet News reports that the company has raised $18 million in two stages to implement the technology.

Right now, Twine looks a lot like Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking sites. Users create a profile, upload a picture, and connect with other users on the site. The company hopes that users will soon begin dumping massive amounts of emails, research data, and other work-related information into the site, so that people will begin to make sense of the information in new ways.

The difference between Twine and MySpace, Facebook, or other social networking sites is that “a social network that is about who you know, Twine is more about what you know,” Radar Networks founder Nova Spivack told CNet News. If the Semantic Web works as well as Spivack and Berners-Lee hope it will, people will soon start to know a lot more.

Bennett Gordon

Image by Noah Sussman, licensed under Creative Commons.

Just for fun, here’s a very cool video about organizing the web:


Posted by Joe Anybody at 6:24 PM PDT
Monday, 17 March 2008
M - 15 Peace March PORTLAND
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: Sucessful Peace March - And a Grannies Special Video
Topic: PROTEST!

The Portland Peace March was successful and was positive

There were no clashes nor any reports of "police abuse"

I have about 3 hours worth of video from the event that should be on-line by the end of the week here (3/21/08)

I will be adding it to my website and YouTube-&-Google as well up on www.PDXpeace.org  and www.Portland.Indymedia.org

I will have a heading under my videos titled

 "" M15 ""

 For all the video's I will have from the March 15 event in Portland Ore

----------------------------     Meanwhile    ----------------------------------

Stay tuned ....  I just spent the past 24 hours working on a video called

"Seriously Pissed Off Grannies 2007"

I have a completed "quick-rushed-copy" finished and it will be used in a presentation tonight. I really rushed it an d will be going back over it in the real near future to dial it in better. I didn't have the time I wanted to in order to make this as professional as possible.

I will be posting "what I got so far" in regards to the Grannies 2007 ....but expect to see it "modified" in the weeks to come.

I also have a project on the burner of a special Grannies Video with music provided by one of the Seriously Pissed Off Grannies daughters..... now that one is gonna be "special"


Posted by Joe Anybody at 1:29 PM PDT
Updated: Monday, 17 March 2008 1:45 PM PDT
Thursday, 13 March 2008
WINTER SOLIDER
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: streaming LIVE video from Washington DC
Topic: WAR

Live telecast on the BIG SCREEN at

Portland State University:

Winter Soldier II. Iraq/Afghanistan
veterans will testify giving an accurate account
of what is really happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is information you won't find in the mainstream media.

THURSDAY, MARCH 13: 4 P.M. - 6 P.M.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14: 6 A.M. - 5:30 P.M.
SATURDAY, MARCH 15: 6 A.M. - 5:30 P.M.


Also on Portland Cable Access TV:
Fri. 3/14 Channel 23: 6 a.m.-9 a.m. and 10 a.m.- noon

and

On Channel 11 at 7 p.m. Jim Lockhart discussion
Sat. 3/15: Channel 23: 6 a.m.-10 a.m.


Veterans of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts will give public testimony and share the eyewitness stories that have been censored from the American public about the true human cost of these occupations. Spread the word about this historic and profoundly significant four day event - and please join us for live internet telecast presentations of testimony and panels.

In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

In 1971, a courageous group of veterans exposed the criminal nature of the Vietnam War in an event called Winter Soldier. Once again, we will demand that the voices of veterans are heard.

Once again, we are fighting for the soul of our country. We will demonstrate our patriotism by speaking out with honor and integrity instead of blindly following failed policy. Winter Soldier is a difficult but essential service to our country.

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will feature testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.

The four-day event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans' health benefits and support.


Posted by Joe Anybody at 11:37 AM PDT
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
person of interest? in the 2001 anthrax attacks and one reporter refuses to talk
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Media reporter told to give up source
Topic: MEDIA
I ran across this article today ...not sure what day it came out.
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/03/12/us-reporter-gets-last-minute-stay-from-hefty-contempt-fines/ 
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
US Reporter Gets Last Minute Stay From Hefty Contempt Fines

A former reporter for USAToday newspaper who was ordered to pay hefty fines starting at midnight Tuesday for refusing to name confidential sources for a story, has been granted a stay, court sources said.

“It is ordered that the motion for a stay pending appeal be granted,” a clerk at the US court of appeals in Washington told AFP, reading from the order.

“Appellant has satisfied the stringent standards required for a stay pending appeal,” the clerk read, hours before the first payment of 500 dollars (325 euros) was due.

Reporter Toni Locy was last week ordered by US District Court Judge Reggie Walton to pay a daily fine of 500 dollars, rising in steps to 5,000 dollars, for refusing to name the sources for a story she wrote about Steven Hatfill, the former army bioweapons scientist named a “person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

The judge also ordered that Locy pay the fines with no help from her employer, friends, family or even anonymous supporters.

Gannett, the parent company of USAToday, on Monday filed a motion with the court of appeals for an emergency stay of the contempt citation, and a coalition of about two dozen media companies and non-profit journalism organizations also filed an ‘amicus brief’ in support of Locy the same day.

Hatfill, meanwhile, filed a response on Tuesday, seeking to bar the stay.

The former army scientist was named a “person of interest” by investigating authorities in the United States after anthrax-laced letters were sent to several lawmakers and television offices in October 2001.

Five people, including two post office workers in Washington, died of anthrax inhalation.

In the original complaint Hatfill filed against Locy in August 2003, he alleged that “the Justice Department had violated the Privacy Act by making unauthorized disclosures about him to the news media — that is, by intentionally ‘leaking’ investigative information,” his response to the motion for a stay said.

Locy has said in court that she could not remember all her sources, and was ordered to pay the rising fines, on her own, until such time as she did name them.

She also faced prison if she failed to name the confidential sources by early April.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Gregg Leslie, the legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said of the rising fines imposed on Locy, and the judge’s order that she pay them on her own.

“The only authority the judge tried to base it on were cases that had to do with whether a lawyer who was found in contempt of court could have a client reimburse him. So we think he based it on a pretty poor precedent and, yes, there isn’t anything like it in any other contempt case,” Leslie told AFP.

“It is troubling that courts are going to allow this kind of examination of a reporter’s work product,” he added.

Locy, who is currently a professor of journalism at West Virginia University, said she was delighted to be given a stay and would now “let the appellate process play out.”

No date has been set for the appeal hearing.


Posted by Joe Anybody at 11:15 PM PDT
Updated: Wednesday, 12 March 2008 11:17 PM PDT
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Winter Solider - in Washington DC (3 days) Watch it - LIVE STREAMING
Mood:  crushed out
Now Playing: Iraq Veterans Against War
Topic: WAR

PLEAS PASS THIS INFORMATION TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW

 

Thanks Z3 Readers,

from

joe-anybody

 

From March 14th to 16th, Pacifica Radio will suspend regular programming to broadcast the historic Winter Soldier gathering in Washington, DC. The three day live broadcast will be co-hosted by Aaron Glantz and former Army medic and KPFA Morning Show host Aimee Allison.

A live web-stream of the broadcast will be available through the

 War Comes Home  

as well as at

 KPFA.org

-

http://warcomeshome.org/wintersoldier2008

What's Winter Soldier

In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Aaron Hughes
Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicised incidents of U.S. brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples", as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of "an increasingly bloody occupation."

"What's going on is were trying to create a space for veterans to speak out and change the rhetoric around the war from these politicians with these ideologies that have no real experience on the ground," said Aaron Hughes, a former member of the Illinois National Guard who spent a year running convoys in Iraq. "There are human beings on both sides. There are not just numbers. That's what missing in our culture. This was has been statistics, it's been rhetoic, and it's not personal. But for the American soldiers who've served there it is personal and for the Iraqi people who live there it's personal. That's why our testimony is important."

"The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don't abide by the rule of law, we don't respect international treaties, so when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity," argues former U.S. Army Sergeant Logan Laituri, who served a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 before being discharged as a conscientious objector.

Mejia
Laituri explains that precedent of lawlessness makes itself felt in the rules of engagement handed down by commanders to soldiers on the front lines. When he was stationed in Samarra, for example, he said one of his fellow soldiers shot an unarmed man while he walked down the street.

"The problem is that that soldier was not committing a crime as you might call it because the rules of engagement were very clear that no one was supposed to be walking down the street," he said. "But I have a problem with that. You can't tell a family to leave everything they know so you can bomb the shit out of their house or their city. So while he definitely has protection under the law, I don't think that legitimates that type of violence."

The veterans also want to stress the similarities between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The exact same units that are getting the exact same training and the exact same orders are getting sent to both Iraq and Afghanistan," explains Perry O'brien, a former US Army Medic who became a conscientious objector after his tour in Afghanistan. "What we're seeing is a lot of similarities between practices in both countries and both are equally criminal."

"Something that I personally witnessed and that I'm going to be submitting testimony on is the use of civilian corpses for medical practice," he added. "When a patient would die we would hear over the PA system we would hear an announcement through the clinc saying 'Who wants to learn how to do a chest tube?' or 'Who wants to know what a human heart looks like?' Rather than giving the proper treatment of the dead, the body would become a cadaver for medical practice with no consent from the victim."

Winter Soldier is modeled on a similar event held by Vietnam Veterans 37 years ago.

In 1971, over 100 members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with fellow citizens. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions.

John Kerry
Among those in attendance was 27-year-old Navy Lieutenant John Kerry, who had served on a Swift Boat in Vietnam. Three months after the hearings, Nicosia notes, Kerry took his case to Congress and spoke before a jammed Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Television cameras lined the walls, and veterans packed the seats.

"Many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia," Kerry told the committee, describing the events of the Winter Soldier gathering.

"It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do."

In one of the most famous antiwar speeches of the era, Kerry concluded: "Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be - and these are his words - 'the first president to lose a war'. We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War can prove similarly historic – especially in encouraging an increase in the amount of GI Resistance against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This event is going to empower soldiers to follow their conscience whaterver that means for them," says Camilo Mejia, the Chair of the Board of Iraq Veterans Against the War. "The kinds of things we're talking about are non-partisan. They're non-political. They have to do with human being trapped in this atrocity producing situation."


Posted by Joe Anybody at 2:51 PM PST

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