"Victims of cinema shootings in Colorado recalled; Aurora attack occurred one year ago" by Dan Elliott | Associated Press, July 21, 2013
AURORA, Colo. — Some recited the names of the dead. Some did good deeds for their neighbors. And some practiced yoga, walked through nature, or simply talked.
Coloradans embraced ways to heal Saturday as they marked the anniversary of the Aurora movie theater massacre with a city-sponsored ‘‘Day of Remembrance.’’
It was one year ago that a gunman opened fire into a packed midnight screening of the Batman film ‘‘The Dark Knight Rises.’’ The rampage lasted less than two minutes but left deep wounds that still ache in Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, spread out across the rolling plains on Denver’s eastern side.
Twelve people died, including a 6-year-old girl. Seventy were hurt, some of them paralyzed. Many others inside the theater and out bear the invisible scars of emotional trauma.
Parents, siblings, and survivors of those slain attended a ceremony of prayer, song, and remembrance outside Aurora’s city hall. Several hundred people — including police, fire personnel, and members of Colorado’s congressional delegation — bowed their heads as the names of dead were read. A small bell tolled after each. The Hinkley High School choir sang ‘‘Amazing Grace.’’
‘‘One year ago, the peace of our community was shattered,’’ Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said. ‘‘We are still seeking justice.’’
‘‘It is important for us to remember that one senseless act does not, cannot, and will not define us as a community,’’ Hogan added. ‘‘This is a story of resilience, not just of Aurora but of humankind.’’
But the event has defined you to the world, just like Columbine or Dallas.
Governor John Hickenlooper told the crowd that many people still struggle with unanswered questions. ‘‘I know I do,’’ Hickenlooper said....
Related: Aurora Borebullshit
Yeah, there are a lot of unanswered questions, but don't let that get in the way of the comfortable conventional myth and media narrative.
James Holmes was arrested outside the theater in the aftermath of the rampage. He has been held since the shooting, charged with murder, attempted murder, and a list other offenses. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Related:
"A judge on Tuesday accepted James Holmes’s plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, setting the stage for a lengthy mental evaluation of the Colorado theater shooting suspect."
Not much being made of the prescription pharmaceuticals by the corporate pre$$.
--more--"
"Colorado theater shooting victims honored; Survivors of Newtown join vigil" by Dan Elliott | Associated Press, July 20, 2013
AURORA, Colo. — ‘‘The time for change is now.’’
The scene was somber, even as gun rights activists stood silently nearby at a counterrally holding signs to rebut the appeals for firearms restrictions.
‘‘We want the families of the victims to know that we are sorry for their loss,’’ said Alicia Perez, an organizer in Colorado with Gun Rights Across America.
Looks like an agent provocateur and friends to me.
Perez went on to say that gun rights supporters simply felt compelled to oppose calls for new gun laws, which they see as an infringement on Second Amendment rights.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group founded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, was a sponsor of Friday’s tribute rally. Perez’s group criticized the association, saying its members were using tragedy for political gain.
That's what controlled-opposition, agenda-pushing protests do.
James Holmes is charged with indiscriminately slaughtering 12 people and injuring 70 others who were quietly watching a Batman movie in Aurora one year ago.
Ever since then I haven't really cared to go to the movies. I'll just wait until it comes on TV.
The California native was a former camp counselor, aspiring neuroscientist with a prestigious federal grant, and a recent arrival in Denver when the crime was committed.
The victims’ advocates kept up their calls Friday for tighter restrictions on gun sales and for universal background checks.
--more--"
Also see: Colo. gun magazine law proceeds after agreement
And while you were disarmed by the failure of gun control in the Senate:
"Sandy Hook families seek gun bills" by Nedra Pickler | Associated Press, June 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — The lobbying visit Tuesday and Wednesday is one of several observances gun control proponents are planning for the half-year anniversary of the Dec. 14 massacre of 20 first-graders and six staff in Newtown, Conn.
I'm tired of spitballing about that agenda-pushing hoax.
And why seal all the evidence?
The Sandy Hook families and other activists are keeping pressure on lawmakers to expand background checks for firearm sales, despite Senate rejection of the measure in April and no indication votes have shifted.
Criminals don't submit to background checks. This is about hassling law-abiding gun owners because this government is afraid of the people.
Gun control advocates also are anticipating further action from President Obama, who said he would do everything he could to stem gun violence even without Congress.
Via a dictate (executive order), no doubt.
The Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank with close ties to the White House, is asking Obama to issue a dozen more executive actions they say are within his power to reduce gun crimes.
Nothing about those in the Constitution, and why would there be? The executive is simply supposed to administer the will of Congress, not defy it. This power has been created by the imperial presidency.
The group has been pushing those measures in meetings with the White House, where point man Vice President Joe Biden declared in an e-mail to supporters Friday, ‘‘This fight is far from over.’’
I know, I know, the fight is never over. That's why I'm still here, and will be until the day I stop drawing breath.
--more--"
Related: Group organizes event to mark Newtown shooting
"Lawmakers quietly resume negotiations on gun control" June 14, 2013
WASHINGTON — The lobbying visit Tuesday and Wednesday is one of several observances gun control proponents are planning for the half-year anniversary of the Dec. 14 massacre of 20 first-graders and six staff in Newtown, Conn.
I'm tired of spitballing about that agenda-pushing hoax.
And why seal all the evidence?
The Sandy Hook families and other activists are keeping pressure on lawmakers to expand background checks for firearm sales, despite Senate rejection of the measure in April and no indication votes have shifted.
Criminals don't submit to background checks. This is about hassling law-abiding gun owners because this government is afraid of the people.
Gun control advocates also are anticipating further action from President Obama, who said he would do everything he could to stem gun violence even without Congress.
Via a dictate (executive order), no doubt.
The Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank with close ties to the White House, is asking Obama to issue a dozen more executive actions they say are within his power to reduce gun crimes.
Nothing about those in the Constitution, and why would there be? The executive is simply supposed to administer the will of Congress, not defy it. This power has been created by the imperial presidency.
The group has been pushing those measures in meetings with the White House, where point man Vice President Joe Biden declared in an e-mail to supporters Friday, ‘‘This fight is far from over.’’
I know, I know, the fight is never over. That's why I'm still here, and will be until the day I stop drawing breath.
--more--"
Related: Group organizes event to mark Newtown shooting
"Lawmakers quietly resume negotiations on gun control" June 14, 2013
WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House renewed their push for gun legislation on Thursday, just months after it was defeated in the Senate, amid delicate talks on a new background-check measure that advocates hope could change enough votes from no to yes.
But those negotiations met a warning from Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, who said he would not accept any bill that is substantially weaker than the one defeated in April.
“The bill that passes the Senate must have background checks and not a watered-down version of background checks,” Reid said in the Capitol, flanked by the families of Newtown, Conn., school shooting victims.
Quiet talks between senators Mark Begich, an Alaska Democrat, and Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican, officially do not exist. Both senators voted no in April, and aides to both deny the existence of negotiations or legislation.
I'm so glad our politicians just flat-out lie to us, aren't you?
I'm so glad our politicians just flat-out lie to us, aren't you?
Other senators, however, are openly acknowledging and encouraging the effort and say the talks are building momentum.
--more--"
So much for the quiet part:
"6 months after Newtown, a push to fight on; Not giving up on tighter gun laws; 6 senators would have to shift votes" by Julia Edwards | Globe Correspondent, June 15, 2013
WASHINGTON —Prospects for a new effort to pass legislation that would require background checks for gun buyers are uncertain, and efforts to restrict assault weapons — an initial aim of some lawmakers — have faded. But Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada said earlier this week he is confident that he can gain the needed votes to pass legislation requiring background checks. The measure fell six votes short of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster earlier this year.
Related: House Close to Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Haven't seen much in my Globe since.
Reid said his team of senators has been “doing well” working with at least two Republicans who previously voted against the measure, but he declined to name them. He said the Senate will vote again when he adds four more to the list.
“Background checks will pass the Senate. It’s only a matter of time,” Reid said.
The measure faces an even steeper climb in the Republican-controlled House. But minority leader Nancy Pelosi of California said she is making “great progress” on getting more signatures to an identical background check bill cosponsored by 181 members.
Boehner doesn't have to bring it up.
“There is life in the House,” Pelosi said. “I think it’s really important to focus on getting as many supporters in the House on the bill so that the senators don’t think they’re taking a political risk . . . on a bill that’s not going to see a light in the House.”
The bill’s backers are counting on appeals from the Newtown families, some of whom spread across Capitol Hill this week to meet with legislators and who also spoke at an emotional press conference.
I'm so sick of having my mind and emotions manipulated by the AmeriKan media and government. Doesn't work anymore.
Jillian Soto, sister of Sandy Hook Elementary teacher Victoria Soto, who died protecting her students, attended a ceremony in Newtown on Friday to remember the victims and the 6,000 people killed by gun violence in the six months since the Sandy Hook shootings.
Related: Group lists Tsarnaev as gun violence victim
No, he's not included. In fact, anyone gunned down by the cops or authority was excluded.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said a vote on the measure will most likely come after Congress returns from summer recess in September....
“Realistically, we are going to need the summer to work out a new compromise,” Murphy said. “An agreement is not eminent.”
Opponents have questioned whether background checks work. Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said when the previous bill was up for debate that “expanded background checks would not have prevented Newtown,” according to the Associated Press. “Criminals do not submit to background checks.”
Reid, meanwhile, has said he will not accept a “watered down” version of the background check bill and expects to introduce a bill nearly identical to the one Senators Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, and Pat Toomey, the Pennsylvania Republican, negotiated before April’s vote....
But the National Rifle Association has begun to place political pressure on Manchin for sponsoring the background check compromise, which may spell trouble for any further efforts to sway on-the-fence senators to sign on to his bill.
Related: The Return of Congress
What's with all the s***-show fooleys taking up so much print?
The NRA once endorsed Manchin, but, according to the Associated Press, plans to spend $100,000 airing an ad in West Virginia over the next two weeks that urges voters to “Tell Senator Manchin to honor his commitment to the Second Amendment.”
Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the moment has passed for persuading conservative members of Congress to vote to expand background checks for gun owners.
“I don’t think there is the pressure out there that they think they can generate. They had their shot,” said Heritage Action for America spokesman Dan Holler. “I don’t think any amount of meetings are going to change that.”
Though Holler couldn’t be sure that “no one would flip,” he said the legislative calendar is too full to bring up gun control again. The Senate is likely to be busy with immigration this summer and will have to address appropriations and the debt ceiling when they return from summer recess....
--more--"
Also see: Not talking of Newtown is cowardice
So much for the quiet part:
"6 months after Newtown, a push to fight on; Not giving up on tighter gun laws; 6 senators would have to shift votes" by Julia Edwards | Globe Correspondent, June 15, 2013
WASHINGTON —Prospects for a new effort to pass legislation that would require background checks for gun buyers are uncertain, and efforts to restrict assault weapons — an initial aim of some lawmakers — have faded. But Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada said earlier this week he is confident that he can gain the needed votes to pass legislation requiring background checks. The measure fell six votes short of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster earlier this year.
Related: House Close to Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Haven't seen much in my Globe since.
Reid said his team of senators has been “doing well” working with at least two Republicans who previously voted against the measure, but he declined to name them. He said the Senate will vote again when he adds four more to the list.
“Background checks will pass the Senate. It’s only a matter of time,” Reid said.
The measure faces an even steeper climb in the Republican-controlled House. But minority leader Nancy Pelosi of California said she is making “great progress” on getting more signatures to an identical background check bill cosponsored by 181 members.
Boehner doesn't have to bring it up.
“There is life in the House,” Pelosi said. “I think it’s really important to focus on getting as many supporters in the House on the bill so that the senators don’t think they’re taking a political risk . . . on a bill that’s not going to see a light in the House.”
The bill’s backers are counting on appeals from the Newtown families, some of whom spread across Capitol Hill this week to meet with legislators and who also spoke at an emotional press conference.
I'm so sick of having my mind and emotions manipulated by the AmeriKan media and government. Doesn't work anymore.
Jillian Soto, sister of Sandy Hook Elementary teacher Victoria Soto, who died protecting her students, attended a ceremony in Newtown on Friday to remember the victims and the 6,000 people killed by gun violence in the six months since the Sandy Hook shootings.
Related: Group lists Tsarnaev as gun violence victim
No, he's not included. In fact, anyone gunned down by the cops or authority was excluded.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said a vote on the measure will most likely come after Congress returns from summer recess in September....
“Realistically, we are going to need the summer to work out a new compromise,” Murphy said. “An agreement is not eminent.”
Opponents have questioned whether background checks work. Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said when the previous bill was up for debate that “expanded background checks would not have prevented Newtown,” according to the Associated Press. “Criminals do not submit to background checks.”
Reid, meanwhile, has said he will not accept a “watered down” version of the background check bill and expects to introduce a bill nearly identical to the one Senators Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, and Pat Toomey, the Pennsylvania Republican, negotiated before April’s vote....
But the National Rifle Association has begun to place political pressure on Manchin for sponsoring the background check compromise, which may spell trouble for any further efforts to sway on-the-fence senators to sign on to his bill.
Related: The Return of Congress
What's with all the s***-show fooleys taking up so much print?
The NRA once endorsed Manchin, but, according to the Associated Press, plans to spend $100,000 airing an ad in West Virginia over the next two weeks that urges voters to “Tell Senator Manchin to honor his commitment to the Second Amendment.”
Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the moment has passed for persuading conservative members of Congress to vote to expand background checks for gun owners.
“I don’t think there is the pressure out there that they think they can generate. They had their shot,” said Heritage Action for America spokesman Dan Holler. “I don’t think any amount of meetings are going to change that.”
Though Holler couldn’t be sure that “no one would flip,” he said the legislative calendar is too full to bring up gun control again. The Senate is likely to be busy with immigration this summer and will have to address appropriations and the debt ceiling when they return from summer recess....
--more--"
Also see: Not talking of Newtown is cowardice
And here is how you disarm those that have a gun, dear readers:
"Martial arts skill trumps gun in Newton road rage conflict" by Deirdre Fernandes | Globe Staff, February 16, 2013
A road-rage rumble that erupted along a quiet Newton street Thursday afternoon pitted one driver carrying a sawed-off handgun against another armed with his championship martial-arts skills.
The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu expert prevailed.
The terrorist prevailed?
The terrorist prevailed?
He put the other driver in a chokehold, landed a couple of strikes to his head, and wrestled the gun away, all before the police arrived, according to court documents.
Police later arrested Byung Jin Kang, a 21-year-old college student from Newton, who is accused of pulling out the revolver and threatening the Jiu-Jitsu-trained driver....
The judge withheld the name of the other driver, described in a Newton police report as the co-owner of a mixed-martial arts school. The two did not know each other, police said. The driver declined to comment when reached by phone Friday.
The confrontation began around 3:40 p.m. when the martial arts instructor made a right turn and pulled out in front of Kang’s car on Dedham Street, according to the police report. He told police that a snow bank blocked his view.
Kang blew his horn, flashed his lights, and continued to follow the driver, the report said.
They pulled over onto a residential side street and got out of their cars.
According to the martial arts instructor, Kang pointed the gun at him and said, “Do you want to go?” He tried to calm Kang down and told him “to put the gun away because he had a wife, and kids and didn’t want to be shot,” the police report states.
The martial arts instructor persuaded Kang to put his gun in his pocket, the report said. Then he charged Kang, pushed him to the ground, and wrapped his arm around his head.
When Kang struggled, the martial arts instructor struck him in the head and grabbed the gun, the report said.
Kang left the gun there, got in his car, and drove away, according to the report. He was stopped by police nearby....
Alice Purple, Kang's lawyer, declined to comment on how Kang allegedly got his gun. MassBay Community College, where Kang is a student, is awaiting a report from the Newton Police Department before making a decision on Kang’s enrollment status, said Jeremy Solomon, a school spokesman.
“A violation of state or federal laws is subject to disciplinary action under the student code of conduct, up to and including expulsion from the college,” Solomon said in an e-mail.
While this case ended without any serious injuries, Lieutenant Bruce Apotheker of the Newton police warned people against charging toward anybody armed with a gun.
Instead, get a good description of the assailant and call the police, Apotheker said, unless your life is in immediate danger.
“Don’t try to be a hero,” Apotheker said. “Don’t try to do something stupid.”
That might be a better idea:
"Liquor store owner in Lawrence scares off robber" by Alyssa A. Botelho | Globe Correspondent, June 04, 2013
When a gun-wielding masked man stepped into his South Union Street store last Sunday night demanding money, Arturo Taveras was ready.
“I crouched behind my counter [and] as soon as I saw him; I jumped behind the [lottery] stand and pointed a gun at his direction,” Taveras said. The would-be robber was spooked and ran from McCann’s Liquors around 10:30 p.m. into the hot, 90-degree night.
Though the masked man remains at large, police and nearby shop owners praised Taveras’s quick thinking....
Good thing he had the gun.
Good thing he had the gun.
Taveras, a licensed gun owner for more than 50 years, said, “I do whatever I need to protect myself, to protect the people, and to protect my business.”
Though Taveras and other store owners say that crime has noticeably declined over the past few years, staying protected remains a constant concern.
Ray Davidson, who works at Camilo’s Barber Shop across the street from McCann’s, said that carrying weapons is “not a custom in the Hispanic community here.” He added that he knows only a few shop owners who keep firearms and that there are other kinds of protection to think about: extra camera surveillance, bright storefront lighting, trigger systems that can alert police, or armed guards who can be hired as back-up for late nights and weekends.
Doesn't prevent anything.
Taveras has not changed his security measures — surveillance cameras and gun at his hip — since the 2011 attack. There have been no robbery attempts since — until Sunday. Police are reviewing surveillance footage from the episode.
Lawrence Police Chief John Romero commended Taveras, saying that as a licensed gun owner with a weapon pointed at him, “Taveras acted within the law, [with] every right to protect himself.”
Neighboring shop owners describe Taveras, who has owned McCann’s since 1999, as a well-loved member of the community.
Vinnie Torres, who also works at Camilo’s Barber Shop, recalled that years back, Taveras opened up his store’s private parking lot for customers of all stores on South Union Street to ease crowding. It remains open for public parking today.
Juan Cepeda, the manager of nearby Union Supermarket, said that Taveras has “always been a good man, a good neighbor with good conversation.”
Davidson and Torres said that Taveras did the right thing....
"SJC rejects challenge to gun licensing law" by Martin Finucane | Globe Staff, June 04, 2013
The state’s highest court has upheld a law that bars people from getting a license to carry a gun if they have ever been adjudicated a juvenile delinquent because of committing a felony.
The Supreme Judicial Court rejected a claim by a man — who has since become a minister, head of a Cambridge school, and a business owner — that the state law infringed on his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as outlined in two new US Supreme Court decisions.
The unanimous 25-page opinion in the case of Mirko Chardin v. Police Commissioner of Boston was written by Justice Francis X. Spina.
“We conclude that [the state law] does not burden conduct that falls with the scope of the Second Amendment,” the Massachusetts court ruled.
“Chardin’s challenge to the statute is unavailing, and Massachusetts may continue to enforce its provisions to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens,” the court said.
--more--"
Wait a minute, let me check my e-mail.
"Illinois enacts nation’s final concealed-gun law" by John O’Connor | Associated Press, July 10, 2013
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois became the last state in the nation to allow public possession of concealed guns as lawmakers rushed Tuesday to finalize a proposal ahead of a federal court’s deadline.
They had to do something, Chicago being the way it is. Time for an occupation.
Both houses of the General Assembly voted to override changes Governor Pat Quinn made to the bill they approved more than a month ago. Some lawmakers feared that failure to pass something would mean virtually unregulated weapons in Chicago, which has endured severe gun violence — including more than 70 shootings, at least 12 of them fatal, during the Independence Day weekend.
That's odd. City government claims gun violence is down.
Quinn has vowed to push for changes to the law.
--more--"
Related:
Sunday Globe Special: Gun Control Confusion
And they didn't clear anything up, either.
I wonder where they are getting all these guns.
I think I'll on demand a movie this afternoon.
"Dark Knight portrays OWS crowd as mindless terrorist zombies
by Dr. E.M. Jones, Press TV
August 15, 2012
As some indication of the intellectual bankruptcy of what passes for conservative commentary these days, Rush Limbaugh accused Dark Knight Rises’ director Christopher Nolan of turning the third and final installment of his Batman trilogy into a covert attack on Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney by naming the film’s villain “Bane.”
Limbaugh claims that Bane the Villain will remind moviegoers that Romney once worked for Bain Capital; these same mindless zombies will then go to the polls in November and re-elect Obama for a second term. Quod Erat Demonstratum, as we used to say in sophomore geometry class.
If Limbaugh had dialed down his ingestion of Oxycontin a bit before heading off to the multiplex, he might have noticed something fairly obvious. Bane is the leader of the Occupy Wall Street revolutionaries in the film. Bane is also the leader of the group which shot up the New York stock exchange and took a bunch of yuppies wearing suspenders off on a mad motorcycle chase before they bounced down the highway. Nolan’s film, in other words, says the exact opposite of what Rush Limbaugh claims.
Not to be outdone by Limbaugh, director Christopher Nolan made even more preposterous statements in his interview with Brian Hiatt in Rolling Stone, when he denied that his film was “intended to convey an anti-Occupy Wall Street message” and went on to insist “that none of his Batman films are intended to be political.” Then as if to insure us that he hadn’t lapsed into a drug-induced psychosis similar to the one Rush Limbaugh exhibited during his foray into film reviewing, Nolan continued by stating unequivocally: “If you’re saying, ‘Have you made a film that’s supposed to be criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement?’ – well, obviously, that’s not true.”
Dumbfounded by Nolan’s effrontery (or mendacity), interviewer Brian Hiatt, stammered, “But the movie certainly suggests that there’s a great danger of populist movements being pushed too far.” To which Nolan responds with even more audacity: “If the populist movement is manipulated by somebody who is evil that surely is a criticism of the evil person. You could also say the conditions the evil person is exploiting are problematic and should be addressed.” Well, yes, you could, but then you would be describing another movie and not Dark Knight Rises, which gives no indication that there is any legitimacy whatsoever to the grievances of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Nolan’s film is nothing if not an overly long, heavy-handed, brutalist defense of the entire cultural Gestalt of Capitalism, including sports (To show the depth of Bane’s depravity, Nolan portrays him disrupting a football game, although to his credit only after the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner. Not even Bane is evil enough to interrupt the national anthem).
In creating Dark Knight Rises, Nolan has given us the quintessential apocalyptic Superhero disaster film. Dark Knight Rises must be a defense of Capitalism because from his point of view Capitalism is the quintessence of America. If Batman wants to defend America, he has to come to the defense of Capitalism because Capitalism embodies the essence of what we are as a people.
Nolan’s homage to the American Military Industrial Complex and Wall Street banksters makes Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will look introspective and nuanced by comparison. In fact, Dark Knight Rising is so over the top in its defense of Capitalism and all its wretched excess that it makes Glenn Beck look like Noam Chomsky by comparison. Beck, you may recall, claimed that “Zuccotti Park smells now like an open sewer with people urinating and defecating in public. . . Let’s just be honest,” he continued, “They’re animals.”
Not to be outdone by the Glenn Becks and the Bill O’Reillys at Fox News, the New York Post claimed that the “the Occupy Wall Street protests have devolved into a shameless display of moral depravity – with shocking (or perhaps not) interviews of protesters claiming to be getting high every day and having sex ‘in a tarp’ and out in plain view.” As if that weren’t bad enough, “creepy thugs have infiltrated the crowd of protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park for Occupy Wall Street.” The Post’s intrepid reporter then discovered “a drug addled fugitive,” who was “wanted for burglary,” and “said some of his hard-partying pals clued him in that the protest was a good place to be fed, get wasted and crash.”
The sex charges were as spurious as the drug charges. If anything, the sexual revolutionaries felt that Occupy Wall Street that had betrayed the sacred cause of sodomy was a “co-optation” because if refused to toe the party line on sexual issues. One of those sexual revolutionaries found OWS “overwhelmingly troubling” because “this movement” showed no interest in “radical feminism/womanism.” “Where,” this indignant feminist wondered, “was Occupy Wall Street even last week when SlutWalk NYC has been in the works for months?”
I say this not just because I was there; I say this because a random Google image search of the protest revealed photo after photo of young protesters holding up signs complaining about how much student loan debt they were burdened with and how impossible it was to find a job after completing the education that put them into debt. The Google search only confirmed what I had seen with my own eyes. If there were one theme than ran throughout the entire protest it was, as one protester claimed on his own home-made sign, that “student debt is slavery.”
Instead of listening to what his young man had to say, the establishment media pulled out all of the stops in demonizing an entire generation with a legitimate grievance. Glenn Beck talked a lot about drugs and sex, but he never got around to mentioning all the signs complaining about debt. These signs were made by young people who had been lied to. The protesters made the mistake of believing what they were told; they had never heard of the word usury; they did not know, as Heinrich Pesch could have told them, that Capitalism is state-sponsored usury, and now they were being treated like criminals because they woke up one morning and realized that they had been tricked into unrepayable debt under the pretext of getting an education.
Now Christopher Nolan, one of their favorite directors, has turned on them as well. If Dark Knight Rises proves anything, it shows that what we call Hollywood and the news media are in fact: one large propaganda ministry whose main job is to justify the privileges of the few by demonizing anyone who raises an objection to the system which is exploiting him. Paul Craig Roberts had something similar to say about the political process, describing it as a system which spends enormous amounts of time, energy, and money to convince the “working poor” that “standing up for America means standing up for bankster bailouts and the military/security complex’s multi-trillion dollar wars.”
For those who are unfamiliar with Batman’s biography, Bruce Wayne is a representative of “the military/security complex” which has given us the “multi-trillion dollar wars” in the Middle East which have bankrupted this country. Because the country is bankrupt it cannot allow students to default on their loans. Hence, the mendacity about what Occupy Wall Street was really about. Hence, the brutality of the crackdown.
Hence, Nolan’s movie, which disguises the fact, as Roberts puts it, that “The US is ruled by a private oligarchy. The government is merely their front. The country’s resources are diverted to the pockets of Wall Street, the military/security complex, and to the service of greater Israel.”
--MORE--"
Wait a minute, let me check my e-mail.
"Illinois enacts nation’s final concealed-gun law" by John O’Connor | Associated Press, July 10, 2013
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois became the last state in the nation to allow public possession of concealed guns as lawmakers rushed Tuesday to finalize a proposal ahead of a federal court’s deadline.
They had to do something, Chicago being the way it is. Time for an occupation.
Both houses of the General Assembly voted to override changes Governor Pat Quinn made to the bill they approved more than a month ago. Some lawmakers feared that failure to pass something would mean virtually unregulated weapons in Chicago, which has endured severe gun violence — including more than 70 shootings, at least 12 of them fatal, during the Independence Day weekend.
That's odd. City government claims gun violence is down.
Quinn has vowed to push for changes to the law.
--more--"
Related:
Sunday Globe Special: Gun Control Confusion
And they didn't clear anything up, either.
I wonder where they are getting all these guns.
I think I'll on demand a movie this afternoon.
"Dark Knight portrays OWS crowd as mindless terrorist zombies
by Dr. E.M. Jones, Press TV
August 15, 2012
As some indication of the intellectual bankruptcy of what passes for conservative commentary these days, Rush Limbaugh accused Dark Knight Rises’ director Christopher Nolan of turning the third and final installment of his Batman trilogy into a covert attack on Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney by naming the film’s villain “Bane.”
Limbaugh claims that Bane the Villain will remind moviegoers that Romney once worked for Bain Capital; these same mindless zombies will then go to the polls in November and re-elect Obama for a second term. Quod Erat Demonstratum, as we used to say in sophomore geometry class.
If Limbaugh had dialed down his ingestion of Oxycontin a bit before heading off to the multiplex, he might have noticed something fairly obvious. Bane is the leader of the Occupy Wall Street revolutionaries in the film. Bane is also the leader of the group which shot up the New York stock exchange and took a bunch of yuppies wearing suspenders off on a mad motorcycle chase before they bounced down the highway. Nolan’s film, in other words, says the exact opposite of what Rush Limbaugh claims.
Not to be outdone by Limbaugh, director Christopher Nolan made even more preposterous statements in his interview with Brian Hiatt in Rolling Stone, when he denied that his film was “intended to convey an anti-Occupy Wall Street message” and went on to insist “that none of his Batman films are intended to be political.” Then as if to insure us that he hadn’t lapsed into a drug-induced psychosis similar to the one Rush Limbaugh exhibited during his foray into film reviewing, Nolan continued by stating unequivocally: “If you’re saying, ‘Have you made a film that’s supposed to be criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement?’ – well, obviously, that’s not true.”
Dumbfounded by Nolan’s effrontery (or mendacity), interviewer Brian Hiatt, stammered, “But the movie certainly suggests that there’s a great danger of populist movements being pushed too far.” To which Nolan responds with even more audacity: “If the populist movement is manipulated by somebody who is evil that surely is a criticism of the evil person. You could also say the conditions the evil person is exploiting are problematic and should be addressed.” Well, yes, you could, but then you would be describing another movie and not Dark Knight Rises, which gives no indication that there is any legitimacy whatsoever to the grievances of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
If there is anything more obvious than Dark Knight Rises’ political bias, it is its unmistakable attack on the Occupy Wall Street movement. The fact that the film favors neither candidate in the upcoming elections is totally irrelevant, primarily because when it comes to any issue of significance there is no difference between the candidates. In completing the Batman trilogy, Nolan has revealed his true political (or, better, economic) colors as a propagandist who goes out of his way to demonize anyone who has any objections to the current political regime.In Dark Knight Rises, Nolan portrays the hapless Occupy Wall Street crowd as mindless terrorist zombies who need to be destroyed by a combination of the military industrial complex, represented by the billionaire Bruce Wayne and Wayne Enterprises and all of his deadly gadgets, and the inept but nonetheless brutal New York City police department.
Nolan’s film is nothing if not an overly long, heavy-handed, brutalist defense of the entire cultural Gestalt of Capitalism, including sports (To show the depth of Bane’s depravity, Nolan portrays him disrupting a football game, although to his credit only after the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner. Not even Bane is evil enough to interrupt the national anthem).
In creating Dark Knight Rises, Nolan has given us the quintessential apocalyptic Superhero disaster film. Dark Knight Rises must be a defense of Capitalism because from his point of view Capitalism is the quintessence of America. If Batman wants to defend America, he has to come to the defense of Capitalism because Capitalism embodies the essence of what we are as a people.
Nolan’s homage to the American Military Industrial Complex and Wall Street banksters makes Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will look introspective and nuanced by comparison. In fact, Dark Knight Rising is so over the top in its defense of Capitalism and all its wretched excess that it makes Glenn Beck look like Noam Chomsky by comparison. Beck, you may recall, claimed that “Zuccotti Park smells now like an open sewer with people urinating and defecating in public. . . Let’s just be honest,” he continued, “They’re animals.”
Not to be outdone by the Glenn Becks and the Bill O’Reillys at Fox News, the New York Post claimed that the “the Occupy Wall Street protests have devolved into a shameless display of moral depravity – with shocking (or perhaps not) interviews of protesters claiming to be getting high every day and having sex ‘in a tarp’ and out in plain view.” As if that weren’t bad enough, “creepy thugs have infiltrated the crowd of protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park for Occupy Wall Street.” The Post’s intrepid reporter then discovered “a drug addled fugitive,” who was “wanted for burglary,” and “said some of his hard-partying pals clued him in that the protest was a good place to be fed, get wasted and crash.”
The sex charges were as spurious as the drug charges. If anything, the sexual revolutionaries felt that Occupy Wall Street that had betrayed the sacred cause of sodomy was a “co-optation” because if refused to toe the party line on sexual issues. One of those sexual revolutionaries found OWS “overwhelmingly troubling” because “this movement” showed no interest in “radical feminism/womanism.” “Where,” this indignant feminist wondered, “was Occupy Wall Street even last week when SlutWalk NYC has been in the works for months?”
Dark Knight Rises is the big-screen version of Glenn Beck and The New York Post. Unlike Glenn Beck, who, to his credit, never claimed that the Occupy Wall Street protesters were terrorists, Nolan equips Bane and his vaguely Russian Asiatic band of thugs with AK-47s and then has them shoot up the New York Stock Exchange in a fantasy that is so over the top it would make Bill O’Reilly blush. Nolan then has Bane incite the 99 percent to rebel against the 1 percent. The Occupy Wall Street mob then rushes up to the upper East Side and evicts the yuppie bankers, suspenders and all, from their posh apartments, throwing their expensive furnishings onto the street and drinking their chablis in what comes across as an unintentionally funny parody of Doctor Zhivago.Bane then liberates all of the prisoners unjustly put in jail by Harvey Dent in a scene that is reminiscent of the storming of the Bastille. The liberated criminals then put the rich on trial and condemn them to death either directly or by “exile” which means walking out onto the frozen East River until they fall through the ice. According to Nolan, this is what we all would have faced if the government had entertained any of the demands of the OWS protesters or if the police had not brutally shut down their protest. No, I am not kidding. No, I am not exaggerating. This is how Nolan’s overheated imagination portrays the hapless, debt-burdened, unemployed graduate students who made up the overwhelming bulk of the Occupy Wall Street crowd, as I saw them with my own eyes in October 2011.
I say this not just because I was there; I say this because a random Google image search of the protest revealed photo after photo of young protesters holding up signs complaining about how much student loan debt they were burdened with and how impossible it was to find a job after completing the education that put them into debt. The Google search only confirmed what I had seen with my own eyes. If there were one theme than ran throughout the entire protest it was, as one protester claimed on his own home-made sign, that “student debt is slavery.”
Instead of listening to what his young man had to say, the establishment media pulled out all of the stops in demonizing an entire generation with a legitimate grievance. Glenn Beck talked a lot about drugs and sex, but he never got around to mentioning all the signs complaining about debt. These signs were made by young people who had been lied to. The protesters made the mistake of believing what they were told; they had never heard of the word usury; they did not know, as Heinrich Pesch could have told them, that Capitalism is state-sponsored usury, and now they were being treated like criminals because they woke up one morning and realized that they had been tricked into unrepayable debt under the pretext of getting an education.
Now Christopher Nolan, one of their favorite directors, has turned on them as well. If Dark Knight Rises proves anything, it shows that what we call Hollywood and the news media are in fact: one large propaganda ministry whose main job is to justify the privileges of the few by demonizing anyone who raises an objection to the system which is exploiting him. Paul Craig Roberts had something similar to say about the political process, describing it as a system which spends enormous amounts of time, energy, and money to convince the “working poor” that “standing up for America means standing up for bankster bailouts and the military/security complex’s multi-trillion dollar wars.”
For those who are unfamiliar with Batman’s biography, Bruce Wayne is a representative of “the military/security complex” which has given us the “multi-trillion dollar wars” in the Middle East which have bankrupted this country. Because the country is bankrupt it cannot allow students to default on their loans. Hence, the mendacity about what Occupy Wall Street was really about. Hence, the brutality of the crackdown.
Hence, Nolan’s movie, which disguises the fact, as Roberts puts it, that “The US is ruled by a private oligarchy. The government is merely their front. The country’s resources are diverted to the pockets of Wall Street, the military/security complex, and to the service of greater Israel.”
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