Mood: lyrical
Now Playing: Liberty - Police Stae - Searches - Homeland Security Wants You
Topic: CIVIL RIGHTS
Zebra 3 Report by Joe Anybody
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Pat-downs by TSA at --> Bus Stops? <-- VIPER
Mood: lyrical Now Playing: Liberty - Police Stae - Searches - Homeland Security Wants You Topic: CIVIL RIGHTS
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 6:00 AM PST
Updated: Tuesday, 30 November 2010 12:31 PM PST
Monday, 29 November 2010
HOPE is ...and HOPE is not ...
Mood: d'oh Now Playing: Hope is not trusting in the ultimate goodness of Barack Obama, who, like Herod of old, sold out his people. Topic: HUMANITY By Chris Hedges 11/30/10 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hope_in_the_21st_century_20101128/ Real Hope Is About Doing Something
On Dec. 16 I will join Daniel Ellsberg, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern and several military veteran activists outside the White House to protest the futile and endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of us will, after our rally in Lafayette Park, attempt to chain ourselves to the fence outside the White House. It is a pretty good bet we will all spend a night in jail. Hope, from now on, will look like this. Hope is not trusting in the ultimate goodness of Barack Obama, who, like Herod of old, sold out his people. It is not having a positive attitude or pretending that happy thoughts and false optimism will make the world better. Hope is not about chanting packaged campaign slogans or trusting in the better nature of the Democratic Party. Hope does not mean that our protests will suddenly awaken the dead consciences, the atrophied souls, of the plutocrats running Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil or the government. Hope does not mean we will halt the firing in Afghanistan of the next Hellfire missile, whose explosive blast sucks the oxygen out of the air and leaves the dead, including children, scattered like limp rag dolls on the ground. Hope does not mean we will reform Wall Street swindlers and speculators, or halt the pillaging of our economy as we print $600 billion in new money with the desperation of all collapsing states. Hope does not mean that the nation’s ministers and rabbis, who know the words of the great Hebrew prophets, will leave their houses of worship to practice the religious beliefs they preach. Most clerics like fine, abstract words about justice and full collection plates, but know little of real hope. Hope knows that unless we physically defy government control we are complicit in the violence of the state. All who resist keep hope alive. All who succumb to fear, despair and apathy become enemies of hope. They become, in their passivity, agents of injustice. If the enemies of hope are finally victorious, the poison of violence will become not only the language of power but the language of opposition. And those who resist with nonviolence are in times like these the thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration. Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. Hope does not come with the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is an action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and the more potent hope becomes. Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope does not believe in force. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on us all. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope’s power and it is why it can never finally be defeated. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face. Hope is not for the practical and the sophisticated, the cynics and the complacent, the defeated and the fearful. Hope is what the corporate state, which saturates our airwaves with lies, seeks to obliterate. Hope is what our corporate overlords are determined to crush. Be afraid, they tell us. Surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe from terror. Don’t resist. Embrace the alienation of our cheerful conformity. Buy our products. Without them you are worthless. Become our brands. Do not look up from your electronic hallucinations to think. No. Above all do not think. Obey. W.H. Auden wrote:
The powerful do not understand hope. Hope is not part of their vocabulary. They speak in the cold, dead words of national security, global markets, electoral strategy, staying on message, image and money. The powerful protect their own. They divide the world into the damned and the blessed, the patriots and the enemy, the rich and the poor. They insist that extinguishing lives in foreign wars or in our prison complexes is a form of human progress. They cannot see that the suffering of a child in Gaza or a child in the blighted pockets of Washington, D.C., diminishes and impoverishes us all. They are deaf, dumb and blind to hope. Those addicted to power, blinded by self-exaltation, cannot decipher the words of hope any more than most of us can decipher hieroglyphics. Hope to Wall Street bankers and politicians, to the masters of war and commerce, is not practical. It is gibberish. It means nothing. I cannot promise you fine weather or an easy time. I cannot assure you that thousands will converge on Lafayette Park in solidarity. I cannot pretend that being handcuffed is pleasant. I cannot say that anyone in Congress or the White House, anyone in the boardrooms of the corporations that cannibalize our nation, will be moved by pity to act for the common good. I cannot tell you these wars will end or the hungry will be fed. I cannot say that justice will roll down like a mighty wave and restore our nation to sanity. But I can say this: If we resist and carry out acts, no matter how small, of open defiance, hope will not be extinguished. If all we accomplish is to assure a grieving mother in Baghdad or Afghanistan, a young man or woman crippled physically and emotionally by the hammer blows of war, that he or she is not alone, our resistance will be successful. Hope cannot be sustained if it cannot be seen. Any act of rebellion, any physical defiance of those who make war, of those who perpetuate corporate greed and are responsible for state crimes, anything that seeks to draw the good to the good, nourishes our souls and holds out the possibility that we can touch and transform the souls of others. Hope affirms that which we must affirm. And every act that imparts hope is a victory in itself. Also from Auden:
Chris Hedges is Truthdig columnist and a senior fellow at The Nation Institute. His newest book is “Death of the Liberal Class.” More information on the Dec. 16 protest can be found at www.stopthesewars.org.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 10:41 AM PST
Updated: Tuesday, 30 November 2010 12:32 PM PST
Saturday, 27 November 2010
TSA - New Jersey Legislators Take on the TSA
Mood: loud Now Playing: TSA - Gets a push back from New Jersey Legislators Topic: TSA THIS IS WRONG
Meanwhile Justice (below) kicks in (slighly) TSA FAILURE - New Jersey Legislators Take on the TSA This is what a revolution looks like . Next we need these representative to start getting fluoride, aspartame and mercury out of our kids bodies ! Please visit the original video to support them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H9HNE...
Portland Oregon 11/24/10 PDX - TSA protest: 3 Videos are posted here from the PORTLAND protest http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2010/11/403926.shtml
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 4:16 PM PST
Updated: Tuesday, 30 November 2010 2:13 PM PST
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Plowshares and Trident Nukes - 5 protester activist are in the courtroom
Mood: not sure Now Playing: Disarm Now Plowshares were in court again (Nov 2010) Topic: WAR
11.23.10
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 10:24 AM PST
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Grassroots Organizing - 11 Rules for Radicals written in 1971
Mood: happy Now Playing: Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky Topic: SMILE SMILE SMILE
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 11:06 PM PST
Friday, 19 November 2010
A win for a 43 day SIT IN for a School Library (repost)
Mood: lyrical Now Playing: Parents in a low-income Chicago neighborhood endured a 43-day sit-in to get a library for their children. Topic: PROTEST! A Sit-In Success StoryParents in a low-income Chicago neighborhood endured a 43-day sit-in to get a library for their children.Whittier Elementary School is a lot like other public schools in low-income areas of Chicago. Located in the Mexican immigrant neighborhood of Pilsen, it lacks many basic resources that parents and students in wealthier districts take for granted: buildings that aren’t crumbling, cafeterias rather than hallways where students can eat lunch, a library. In other ways, Whittier stands apart from other schools in the city. Students’ parents—many of whom are undocumented—just completed a 43-day occupation of a fieldhouse on school grounds, facing down police and threats of deportation to demand that the Chicago Public Schools reverse an order for the building’s demolition and provide their children with a library. And they won. Protecting La CasitaWhittier parents have long been engaged in their children's educations. For seven years, a group made up mostly of students’ mothers has been organizing community meetings, talking with other parents, and pressuring local politicians to give more funding and attention to the things they say their school lacks. Their hub is a small fieldhouse they call “La Casita,” the little house, on school grounds near a parking lot. Last year the parents achieved a breakthrough when alderman Danny Solis approved $1.4 million in tax increment financing (TIF) funds for the school. Whittier was still in need of major repairs, and still lacked a library, but the mothers thought they had scored a victory. But in November 2009, as they examined an itemized budget of the TIF money they thought would improve their children’s education, they noticed that CPS had made a peculiar allotment of $356,000—to demolish La Casita and create a soccer field that would be shared with a nearby private school. The money for which the parents had fought was now being used to destroy their community center. CPS administration claimed the building was dilapidated, too damaged to feasibly be repaired. But the parents disagreed, claiming that the money for demolition of La Casita was far more than it would take to fix it. Despite the parents’ complaints, administration officials would not budge. (Later, the parents were dismayed to learn that CPS had planned to demolish the building prior to conducting an assessment. They hired an independent assessor who said the building was fundamentally sound, in need mostly of work on the roof.) Stymied by official channels, the parents decided there was only one way to prevent the razing of their community center: refuse to leave it. 43 daysOne of those parents is Anastacia Hernandez, She is a mother of three—two Whittier alums and one current Whittier fourth grader—who has lived in the neighborhood for more than two decades. Born in Michoacan, Mexico, she immigrated to the U.S. in 1989, and has never lived anywhere other than Pilsen. She became involved with other mothers at the school after a neighborhood activist invited her to a meeting; a few years later, she sitting in the field house, refusing to leave unless CPS officials called off the demolition and built a library. On September 16, Anastacia, and about ten other parents entered La Casita in defiance of CPS’s condemnation order. They said they wouldn’t leave until citywide administrators agreed to rescind the order and build them a library. Word traveled quickly around the city—both to supportive activists in Pilsen and beyond, and to the Chicago Police Department. “I’ll never forget when I looked out the window and we were surrounded by police,” Anastacia told me, in Spanish. “I felt like I was in a war.” For hours, there was a tense standoff between the parents inside La Casita and the police outside. When the CPD announced that immigration authorities would be called and everyone would be arrested, half the parents occupying the building left, fearing deportation or jeopardizing their tenuous immigration status. Anastacia stayed. In the midst of the chaos, she says she paused, considering what was happening. “I asked myself why we had to suffer so much, simply because we want a library for our children,” she recalled. She began praying. The large crowd of supporters gathered outside realized that the numbers were on their side—and that the police would likely be hesitant to drag a group of mothers out of their community center and arrest them in front of news cameras—and began jumping the fence, rushing past the police line to join the protesters in La Casita. With no other choices, the police left. So began a 43-day standoff at Whittier, with parents sitting tight in the field house, joined by hundreds of community members. Police would return regularly to La Casita, but did little. On October 4, CPS cut off heat to the building, only to spark a public outcry that led to a unanimous city council resolution demanding it be turned back on. “Why can’t my kids have what other kids have?”Anastacia told me about the sit-in as we sat around the kitchen table of another protester—Araceli Gonzalez, affectionately known as “Cheli,” a 46-year-old mother of three current and former Whittier students who has lived in Pilsen for decades. Her small, second-floor apartment is a few blocks from the school. The walls are covered with glossy 8x10s of her children and her recently born grandchild; hand-drawn pictures, along with school notices, cover the entire fridge. As her daughter Daniela, 10, and her son Ricardo, 14, played Monopoly in their room, she and Anastacia sat in front of a large bowl of leftover Halloween candy, explaining the sit-in. Cheli says she was only "moderately" involved at La Casita before she occupied it for 43 days. "I honestly have no idea how I got so involved," she says with a grin that acknowledged the statement's slight absurdity. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Cheli moved here with her parents when she was 11. Her often late and early hours as a teller at a bank to the west of the neighborhood prevented her from being as involved as Anastacia, but she has long been outraged at the condition of her children's school. Once the sit-in began, however, her life became La Casita: she spent almost every night there, going to work on little sleep; her teenage son cooked meals for her before football practice; she kept a change of clothes in her car so she could leave directly from Whittier to work. One day, a demolition crew showed up, and a slight scuffle ensued between the crew and the protesters. Cheli was at work, but her 10-year-old daughter Daniela was at the field house. In the confusion, Daniela was pushed. When Cheli heard about the incident, she went into a panic. “Daniela was crying, I was crying, I was saying I was sorry over and over,” she remembered. “I felt so guilty, like I put her there. She could’ve been at home.” Daniela wasn’t hurt, but the incident shook Cheli up. Soon after, it enraged her. “It’s ridiculous what we have to go through for our kids. And why?” she asked. “I wasn’t born here, but I took the test. I became a citizen. I did what they wanted. Now, I pay taxes. I follow the law. Why can’t my kids have what other kids have? Is it because we’re brown? Do I have to move somewhere else and pay $2000 in rent?” Cheli called her daughter to the kitchen from her Monopoly game. Daniela had given an impressive interview on Democracy Now! from inside the field house a few weeks earlier that would have made a press secretary proud; as she shyly walked in the kitchen, avoiding eye contact in what appeared to be Hannah Montana pajamas, she again looked like a fifth grader. When I mentioned I had seen her on TV, she blushed. Strength and success During the occupation, as CPS dragged their feet on coming to an agreement, the parents decided they did not want to wait any longer for a decision on the library. They would make their own, there in La Casita. Book donations quickly poured in from around the world, and before long, La Casita had an impressively stocked library. After almost a month and a half of negotiations with CPS administrators, including CEO Ron Huberman, the mothers finally got what they had been fighting for: a commitment, in writing, that La Casita would not be torn down, and that Whittier would get a library. The mothers were—and are—wary of CPS going back on its promises, but on the 43rd day of the occupation, they declared victory. The bold action of a sit-in had forced one of the largest school districts in the country to cave on every single major demand. Today, the mothers are still meeting with administrators, negotiating and ironing out details. Parents have begun meeting in the field house again, although CPS officials still classified the building as structurally unsound, preventing children from entering. But on the whole, the battle has been won. Both women said their fight for La Casita had changed them profoundly. “I realized how strong we were,” said Ana. “And now my kids know, too, that they can fight, and they can win.” Cheli agreed. “At 46 years old, I am a completely different person. And I’m so glad.” The women discussed how the future library would make them “the happiest people in the world.” And they thought of the other 146 schools in the city lacking libraries. “I want parents whose kids don’t have a library to fight for one,” said Cheli. “Look at us: We won everything we wanted.” Micah Uetricht wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Micah is a staff writer for the Chicago web magazine GapersBlock.com, and is a frequent contributor to In These Times and WorkingInTheseTimes.com. He lives in Chicago, and can be reached at micah [dot] uetricht [at] gmail [dot] com.
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 10:29 PM PST
"american kills" - Suicide the numbers are rising ....
Mood: incredulous Now Playing: MILITARY SUICIDE MURRAL Topic: WAR sebastian errazuriz: american kills 'american kills' installation 'american kills' by chilean-born new york based artist sebastian errazuriz is a public installation showcasing the suicide rates of US soldiers. after searching on official war sites on the internet, he accidentally found out that 2 times more american soldiers had died in 2009 by committing suicide than those killed during that same year in the war in iraq; an alarming comparison that errazuriz had personally never read or heard about before. according to the artist, a first google search showed only reports of media alarm about suicide rates, but the information was always comfortably presented divided into months and generally separated by statistics from the army, navy or air-force. 'when I first found the overall statistics summed the 304 suicides by US soldiers during 2009, I was shocked. I tried to find a number to compare that statistic. to my surprise the suicide statistic doubled the total of 149 US soldiers that had died in the iraq war during 2009 and equaled the number of soldiers killed in afghanistan.' - SR errazuriz's first instinct was to post the statistic on facebook, dumbfounded by the lack of response and interest, he bought can of black paint and decided to 'post' the news in the real world on his own wall outside his studio in brooklyn. equipped with a ladder, he marked a black strip for every dead soldier, until both the suicide rates and war rates occupied the entire wall and were registered as a single image. 'the counting of dead soldiers outside my studio was long and surprisingly eerie; it was hard to forget that every brush stroke was a soldier who had died the previous year. a lot of people stopped to read the mural and were immediately impressed by the reality portrayed. most of them seemed quite shocked and approached me to ask if what I was painting was real. I tried to explain that I simply wished to create a physical image that could capture people's imagination, creating awareness of the current numbers in death, war and the infinite discrepancy between the resources and energies destined to fight and protect soldiers at war versus the energies invested in protecting their mental health and stability.'- SR
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 4:52 PM PST
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
TSA (sick) Full Body Scanners - Or I will grope you with my creepy hands
Mood: on fire Now Playing: PERVERTS! Topic: CIVIL RIGHTS
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 9:21 PM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 17 November 2010 9:22 PM PST
Homeland Security and TSA and nakid pictures and Civil Rights violations
Mood: down Now Playing: Tell DHS to stop using BODY SCANNERS Topic: CIVIL RIGHTS My comment is the first 2 paragraphs the rest is from the ACLU's website that has the letter all ready written, you dont have to add anything. I did. Let me preface this letter with "I'm ashamed of how far off the beaten path of reality we have gone" regarding all these airport TSA search procedures and now the body scanners. This is all getting slightly twisted, perverse, and un necessary and uncalled for. As I mentioned "I'm ashamed". There is no "good enough reason" to have the Government acting like this, in "total" disregard for "freedom, privacy, and liberty". What have we become, and why are 'you allowing it' to go this far into degrading our civil rights, intergrety and honor? Have we as a country lost all respect for our constitution and for our citizens own unalienable Rights, Dignity and Privacy? You have said that "Advanced Imaging Technology" scanners are "safe, efficient, and protect passenger privacy." But, the truth is that the GAO and experts have raised serious questions about the effectiveness of these machines and whether they could possibly justify the invasion of privacy involved. Authorities at DHS say you can opt out of the naked scan. But doing so will subject you to new and highly invasive manual searches of your body, including your intimate parts by TSA officers. In addition, DHS has claimed the right to search and seize the laptops and other electronic devices of international travelers. Never before have customs officers been able to routinely pour through a lifetime's worth of letters, photographs, purchase records and other data without any basis for suspicion. ----------------------- Below is the email I received from the ACLU on this subject: -----------------------
Unfortunately, you can also expect another hassle at the airport this year. 70 airports around the country are now using controversial body scanners—also known as "naked scanners." These machines use low-dose radiation to produce strikingly graphic images of passengers' bodies, essentially taking a naked picture as passengers pass through security checkpoints. Yes, authorities at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) say you can opt out of the naked scan. But doing so will subject you to new and highly invasive manual searches of your body, including your breasts, buttocks and inner thighs. All of us have a right to travel without such crude invasions of our privacy. Tell DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to put in place security measures that respect passengers' privacy rights. http://tiny.cc/s6p5g
There's already an outcry building over all of these new searches. In fact, travelers and the ACLU have pushed back before against invasive screening, and the TSA quietly retreated back to a lighter touch. But if we want to stop these invasive practices, we've got to put our voices together. Tell DHS to rein in these invasive, out-of-control searches and to implement security measures that ensure passenger privacy. http://tiny.cc/s6p5g The ACLU has prepared a useful guide to help you navigate your options at the airport. It details ways to protect your privacy during air travel. It also describes how to file official complaints about any TSA trouble you encounter. View it here. If you think your rights have been violated while you're traveling, please let us know about it. Just fill out this form online to share your story. You shouldn't have to check your rights when you check your luggage. With the holiday travel season fast approaching, we need to make sure that security measures are in place that actually make us more secure without compromising passenger privacy. Please write Secretary Napolitano today. Thanks for speaking out, ACLU
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 9:05 PM PST
Standing Up to the TSA - Protest the TSA in Portland on November 24 2010
Mood: energetic Now Playing: PROTESTING THE TSA - Homeland Security Airport Civil Rights Infringments 11.24.10 Topic: PROTEST! Warning: . Because of the new TSA "enhanced security" measures, we are now having to transmit words that we would never have used before in decent conversations. "Why do we have to go through all of this?" Standing Up to the TSA By Becky Akers View all 16 articles by Becky Akers Published 11/17/10 Don't Fly Almost overnight, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has gone from national joke to national nightmare. Passengers used to laugh when screeners so inept they missed 60-75% of the fake bombs undercover investigators smuggled past them nonetheless proclaimed themselves gods. No one's laughing now, though, as the TSA ogles us with carcinogenic technology and sexually assaults anyone who objects. Over 300 of the agency's "naked" scanners lurk in 60-some airports nationwide, with more on the way; eventually, the agency will irradiate every passenger on every flight. These gizmos peer through clothing to photograph bodies in graphic detail. The TSA makes much of offering a "choice": if you dislike posing nude for the government, its perverts will grope you instead -- "prob[ing]," "prodding" and pushing "up your thighs and between your legs until we meet resistance" (and they don't mean a slap in the face). You also suffer this indignity, even if you submit to the scan, should it reveal "anomalies" such as piercings or prostheses. Are you still flying? Why? For your own protection and that of your children, for liberty's sake, stay on the ground until Congress abolishes the TSA. No destination on earth or convenience in reaching it, no vacation, Thanksgiving dinner, meeting or sales trip, is worth the degradation the TSA is dishing out. Its new "pat down procedures ... allow security officers to touch passengers of the same gender in sensitive areas such as the breasts and genitals..." These attacks have been "likened to ‘foreplay' pat-downs ... [screeners are] using the new front-of-the-hand, slide-down screening technique for ... over-the-clothes searches of passengers' breast and genital areas." Such mass mauling is unprecedented. No regime anywhere at any time, however totalitarian or brutal, has ever routinely denuded and molested citizens. Don't underestimate the trauma of such aggression nor succumb to the TSA's bland assurances that a screener "of the same gender" will paw you. We're talking sexual assault here, not a few moments of discomfort you'll quickly forget. Feelings of rage and helplessness, depression and worthlessness, can plague victims for months. Most pilots are veterans of the Air Force; they're pretty tough cookies who may even have survived combat. Yet one of them "experienced a frisking [from the TSA] that has left him unable to function as a crewmember. Words used to describe the incident include ‘rape' and ‘sexual molestation,' and in the aftermath of trying to recover this pilot has literally vomited in his own driveway while contemplating going back to work and facing the possibility of a similar encounter with the TSA." It's one thing for a predator to force your submission at gunpoint; it's another to voluntarily enter an airport and endure the TSA's onslaught. Knowing that you could have avoided it entirely but instead cooperated with your assailants and even paid them to violate you will cripple you with despair. Meanwhile, a former cop points out that the TSA no longer inflicts "pat-downs" but something far worse: "A ‘pat-down' search by definition is ‘a frisk or external feeling of the outer garments of an individual for weapons only. ... anyone who watches cop shows knows what a pat-down search is. The words are part of the American lexicon, and the public's image of a pat-down search by police is something that isn't all that bad." Shame on us that we didn't consider it "all that bad" for the TSA to defy the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unreasonable," warrantless searches, though previously with the "backs of their hands." The cop continues: "... In police work, [the TSA's current method is] called a custody search [and] includes everything short of a cavity search. The TSA needs to be honest about what they're doing. It's not nice to lie to the American people." Ah, but lying is the TSA's forte. Despite the hundreds of passengers wailing about molestation, despite the videotapes popping up on the internet to document their stories, despite infuriated pilots' unions and flight attendants' lawsuits, the agency blithely denies what millions have witnessed: "there is no fondling, squeezing, groping, or any sort of sexual assault taking place at airports," asserts its website. "You have a professional workforce carrying out procedures they were trained to perform to keep aviation security safe." Imagine if they trying to keep aviation security dangerous. The TSA lies about everything, all the time. But it surpasses even its own astounding record of deception when it comes to naked scanners. For starters, it implies it foisted them on us to counteract the Underwear Bomber. Yet it was already testing them years before Umar Farouk Abdullmutallab oh-so-conveniently emasculated himself. Indeed, as long ago as 2006, the agency was touting porno-scanners as "likely future replacements for the metal detectors now in use." Nor will these contraptions stay in airports. Cops may already be peering through your curtains and bathrobe with portable versions. But perhaps the TSA's biggest whoppers whitewash the hazards to our health from the two technologies with which it strips us. Experts in medicine, biochemistry, and biophysics warn that one, backscatter X-ray, concentrates in the skin rather than diffusing through the body as medical radiation does; therefore, the dose you receive is shockingly high -- far higher than the government admits. Dr. Jeff Zervas, a surgeon in Montevideo, Minnesota, told me, "As far as living tissue is concerned, the less exposure to ionizing radiation, the better. Zero is best." Dr. Zervas also worried about the TSA's legendary incompetence: "What happens, for example, if some clown leaves the machine on, and a passenger's standing in the field? And who calibrates these things? I wouldn't trust a bureaucrat or anyone else without a stake in its safety to do it properly." Dr. David Caskey, a cardiologist who was also teaching at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans when we spoke, seconded that: "In the medical industry we try as hard as possible to avoid even the smallest dose of radiation. Here you will be subjected to a rather significant amount. The result can and will be an increase in cataract formation, thyroid cancer, bone marrow suppression, etc." He was especially concerned for female passengers. "Even low level radiation can adversely affect a woman's ovaries. There's the potential for later birth defects. That risk increases if the woman is pregnant in the first trimester when she would likely be unaware of the pregnancy." Millimeter waves may be even worse. No one knows their exact effects on human flesh, but one study concludes that they "unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. ... a new generation of cameras are set to appear that not only record [millimeter] waves but also bombard us with them..."
You might suppose that bureaucrats who constantly prate about protecting us would fret over the consequences of irradiating two million passengers per day, day after day. Nope. Instead, they insist against all evidence that the "technologyis safe and meets national health and safety standards. ... the radiation doses for the individuals being screened, operators, and bystanders were well below the dose limits specified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ... Advanced imaging technology screening is safe for all passengers, including children, pregnant women, and individuals with medical implants." As you value your life, as you value liberty, don't fly. We must boycott aviation until the TSA dies. Nor should we settle for a mere suspension of the agency's ogling and groping. Our goal is nothing less than the TSA's complete abolition; so long as it survives, it will await its chance -- or create one -- to molest us again. Another "terrorist" attack, and we'll fight this same battle. Indeed, we already did, in 2004: TSA was manhandling passengers then, too, though only women and above the waist. Its excuse? Two airliners had crashed within moments of one another in Russia that August. A Chechan woman had boarded each flight, and though the wreckage was so scattered authorities on the scene could not determine what caused the disasters, the TSA pronounced the ladies rebels who'd obviously hidden bombs in their bosoms. Hence, Americans screeners would molest female passengers. TSA got away with this for three months before the public's outrage forced it to desist. But this time must be the last. This time we stay on the ground until Congress disbands the TSA. Let's evict politicians and bureaucrats from aviation's security so that experts who understand the industry can design systems as unobtrusive and effective as those securing our homes, email accounts, cars. But don't waste your time begging Congress. Why bother after it went deaf to our cries on the bail-out and Obamacare? Hit its corporate cronies instead. Given the incest between the Feds and Big Business, boycotts are probably our most effective tactic. The American colonists tried one just before the Revolution exploded: under their "non-importation agreement," Patriots refused to buy British goods. Much of the despotism afflicting the colonies was due to mercantilism, to the government's favoring wealthy and influential merchants at everyone else's expense. Sound familiar? Just as the British East India Company benefitted from subsidies, the granting of monopolies, and protective laws, so do airlines today. But when the colonists refused to play their role as consumers, the whole rotten mess collapsed. So don't fly, or at least don't buy any more tickets until the airlines and allied industries press Congress to abolish the TSA. Educate your family and friends; infrequent travelers may not know of the TSA's newest, literal grab for power. If your job requires travel, talk to your boss about alternatives. Tell him how much productivity the TSA sucks from the American economy, that his interests, too, require this vile agency to disappear. Ask if you can "meet" with clients via teleconferences or iChat. If you're already holding tickets for the upcoming holidays, demand a refund and tell the airline why. Advise it you won't fly again until TSA is dismantled. If you absolutely must fly -- if you'll lose your job otherwise or the airline refuses you a refund (remember: the point of the boycott is to hurt the airlines' bottom line, not hand them free money for no services) -- prepare yourself mentally. Determine the point beyond which you will not permit the TSA to proceed -- "if he touches my thigh, if he seems headed below my waist" -- and leave when that seems imminent. Ergo, pack lightly or not at all so you don't worry about a checked bag continuing to Des Moines while you head home. Reports conflict about what happens to those who cut short the TSA's fun. The Ninth District Court of Appeals ruled in 2007 that once your bag hits the conveyor belt at the checkpoint, you may not depart: in effect, you become the TSA's prisoner. In practice, screeners may permit you to escape without much fuss, or they may "detain" you, threaten, browbeat and intimidate you, call the cops, or "escort" you from the airport. While grounded, write the CEO's of airlines, hotels, and tourist attractions that you'll patronize them only when the TSA vanishes. Cut up your frequent-flyer card and include it in your letter to the airlines; let hotels know how often you once travelled and how you'd love to do so again. Folks already using these tactics have succeeded so wildly that "executives from the travel industry, including online travel sites, theme parks and hotels" demanded a meeting with "Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and [TSA chief John] Pistole [last] Friday to discuss their concerns that security is crimping travel. ‘We have received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from travellers vowing to stop flying,' said Geoff Freeman, an executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association ... " You can also join groups like wewon'tfly.com and National Opt-Out Day. But these organizations object to the TSA's current insults rather than the agency itself. That's not only short-sighted, it betrays a profound ignorance of government's nature -- which the TSA is working overtime to reveal. Stripped of its marble monuments and fluttering flags, the State exposes its utter evil each time a screener torments a toddler or "groin-checks" another citizen. As the TSA denudes us, government is nakedly on display. PROTEST TSA and HOMELAND (In)SECURITY Portland, OR Nov. 24, Noon - 1:30pm Speak Out! We need sign holders to join us in our protest of the unconstitutional TSA/Homeland Security policy? These shake downs at airports are not about "security". It is about CONTROL! If it is not stopped, it will lead to more humiliation in more areas of our communities.... malls, theaters, restaurants, offices, banks, schools, etc. We must stop this infringement of our 4th Amendment rights to be secure in our persons and effects, against unreasonable searches. Please join us in this 1-1/2 hour protest and stand up for freedom! Mark your calendar! Date: November 24 Time: Noon to 1:30pm (thereabouts) Where: At Lombard St. and Airport Way overpass (near PDX airport) Bring: Very large signs condemning the humiliating pat-downs and carcinogenic and porn x-rays; also condemning TSA, Homeland Security Agency and Patriot Act that started all this infringement of our rights. Please RSVP, so that we can have a head count. Also, contact your U.S. Reps and demand and to TSA, close up Homeland Security and abolish the Patriot Act. See note below. Thanks. Suzanne Brownlow "Why do we have to go through all of this?"
Posted by Joe Anybody
at 10:31 AM PST
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