I'm smelling controlled opposition!
"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men.... They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government."
Somehow the ma$$ media always miss that message amongst the division they sow:
"Protesters snarl morning commute on I-93 near Boston; Commuters fume as highways are blocked; 29 in movement arrested" by Peter Schworm, Laura Crimaldi and John R. Ellement, Globe Staff January 15, 2015
Protesters affiliated with the activist group Black Lives Matter carried out their most audacious and disruptive demonstration yet in the Boston area Thursday, blocking the largest highway into the city, snarling rush-hour traffic, and stopping an ambulance in its tracks.
In a pair of coordinated surprise actions that angered commuters, the protesters formed human barricades on Interstate 93 north of the city in Medford, and south, in Milton. Some put barrels filled with concrete on the highway and chained themselves to them. Twenty-nine protesters were arrested.
Would you convict a driver who rammed them?
The well-organized protests were carried out on Martin Luther King’s birthday by activists calling attention to the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police in Missouri and New York.
Hmmmmmmmmm.
“There cannot be any tolerance for this,” said Colonel Timothy Alben, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police. At a morning news conference, Alben blamed protesters for “endangering people’s lives” and delaying ambulances rushing to hospitals.
That made a lot of people angry and gave the protests a bad name, so how does that help the cause?
**************
Most of the protesters were in their 20s, though a few were in their 40s. Among them were people who listed their occupations as a librarian at Harvard University, a makeup artist, and self-employed music producer, court records show.
“The disregard for the safety and welfare of innocent citizens that this action manifests is shocking,” said Michael Morrissey, district attorney in Norfolk County.
Protesters defended their actions as a necessary call for change....
Maybe, but....
--more--"
"Highway protesters had brushes with the law; Many blocking I-93 on Thursday were part of the Occupy effort" by Peter Schworm, Sean P. Murphy and Evan Allen, Globe Staff January 16, 2015
On Thursday morning, William Connolly joined the group of protesters who blocked Boston-bound traffic on Interstate 93, chaining themselves to heavy barrels spread across the highway and ignoring pleas to move. It was not the first time he has played a prominent role in a public disruption.
Three years ago, Connolly, part of a large group that tried to shout down speakers at a Tea Party rally on the Boston Common, attempted to throw a vial that appeared to be filled with blood at a speaker, according to a police report. Police prevented him from throwing the vial, and arrested him for disturbing a public assembly. His arrest caused his group “to become riotous,” police said.
Oh, look, an AGENT PROVOCATEUR!
Like Connolly, a 26-year-old from Hanson, the protesters who shut down the largest highway into the city on Thursday are well-versed in political activism. They comprise a diverse group of people in their 20s united by an aggressive support of progressive and radical causes. Many have ties to the Occupy Boston movement, police said.
And the Globe would only highlight them if they were controlled opposition, so.....
**************
On Friday, individual protesters declined to discuss what they hoped to accomplish by shutting down the highway at the height of the morning commute.
I think I know.
But in a statement, the group said it had acted in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, which in recent weeks has rallied against the killings of unarmed black men by white police officers.
That has all been turned into a race issue when we are all under threat of boot or worse.
“Police in Ferguson are not bad apples — the whole system, Boston included, is rotten to the core,” they wrote, in a reference to Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager who was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.
I don't disagree with that.
In the statement, provided to the Globe by protesters who were arrested, the group described themselves as “a non-black group of Pan-Asians, Latinos, and white people, some of whom are queer and transgender.”
Look at that crowd (the end gives away the agenda-pushing aspect to the whole thing).
“We hold ourselves accountable, as non-black people, to turn up and disrupt business as usual,” they wrote. “Today, our nonviolent direct action is a manifestation of our long-term commitment to confronting our nation’s racist power structure.”
How about the cla$$ that dominates? Where are ya?
Police said the demonstrations in Milton and Medford were well organized and obviously coordinated. However, police said, the Medford protesters did not appear to be well acquainted. The human chain they formed with pipe and fasteners is a common protest technique known as a “sleeping dragon,” they said.
There was apparently no discussion on social media about the protests beforehand, and police said they had no advance warning.
That's probably why; they know everything is being monitored, and I see from my hits the monitors don't like me anymore.
Another protester arrested in Milton, 24-year-old Nicole Sullivan of Somerville, was arrested in 2011 after she and others allegedly refused to obey police orders to disperse near the Occupy Boston protest site in downtown Boston, court records show. She was one of 141 people arrested that day. Charges against Sullivan were later dropped and she paid a $50 civil fine, court records show.
In Jamaica Plain, the father of one of the protesters, 28-year-old Noah McKenna, described his son as someone who has a strong sense of social justice and is trying to do the right thing.
**********
Amid public anger over the protests, two Massachusetts lawmakers have filed bills to toughen penalties for trespassing on state highways....
Ooooooh! Definitely a controlled operation now!
Colleen Garry, a Dracut Democrat, said “This is not about freedom of speech.”
Yeah, you can be fired from your job now if memory serves correctly.
Looks like free speech in Massachusetts will soon be a thing of the past, as it will be everywhere.
--more--"
"Activists spar with Ferguson mayor, police chief at Harvard" by Nicole Dungca, Globe Staff January 18, 2015
CAMBRIDGE — Activists sparred Saturday with the mayor and police chief of Ferguson, Mo., during a Harvard Law School event exploring, among other topics, the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man killed by one of the city’s police officers in August.
The event, sponsored by the school’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute For Race and Justice, came after decisions not to indict police officers in the deaths of Brown and another unarmed black man, Eric Garner, in New York City. The grand jury decisions have sparked waves of protests across the country in recent months, including ones that snarled traffic into Boston on Interstate 93 Thursday morning in the name of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Both Ferguson protesters and prominent Ferguson officials were speakers during one of the event’s panels, which quickly turned emotional and tense.
At one point, Justin Hansford, a law professor at St. Louis University, asked both Ferguson Mayor James Knowles and Police Chief Thomas Jackson when they would resign. Brown’s death spurred protests in Ferguson, where the police also came under criticism for their response to the demonstrations, including the use of tear gas.
I think Kaminski might help clear up some confusion her.
Both officials said they planned to stay on.
“The problem is that Ferguson is my community, and it doesn’t cease to be my community if I quit and dump this problem in somebody else’s lap,” said Jackson.
Knowles and Jackson talked about steps the city and its police force are taking after Brown’s death and the protests, saying officials were convening a civilian oversight board for the police.
But panelist Derecka Purnell, a Harvard Law School student who protested in Missouri, said she was uncomfortable sitting next to people “who are responsible for the guns that were pointed in my face.”
Leah Gunning Francis, an associate dean at the Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, insisted on Saturday that society needed to regard the lives of black men to be as important as those of white men, one of the key themes of the Black Lives Matter protests that have gained prominence.
I value all lives as important, including all those minorities being murdered in drone missile strikes by the black president.
“We have to restore the humanity of young black men,” she said.
Maybe some of them will start acting like them then.
When Dave Spence, a prominent businessman from St. Louis, told the audience Ferguson was not a “dysfunctional place,” activist Paul Muhammad said he had to interject.
“I respect your perspective, but we do all understand that being black in white America and white in white America, we have two different realities,” he said.
I don't disagree, but that doesn't justify this attempt at division. Even King was bringing people together!
Muhammad continued, saying officers killing unarmed black men is a problem far from exclusive to Ferguson.
Gabriel Baez, the nephew of Eric Garner, also spoke during the event, saying he had attended to help prevent such deaths in the future.
“The problem of police brutality is real; it’s going on in every major city,” Baez said.
No argument here (I'm stunned the Globe didn't report on it).
Former state senator Dianne Wilkerson, who spent time in prison for accepting bribes, moderated one of the panels.
Are you kidding?
Referring to the anger expressed toward protesters after they blocked I-93 Thursday, she said the inconvenience caused on the highway was part of the point.
“How do you damn protesters on Martin Luther King’s birthday?” she asked. “The whole purpose of protesting is to get you to pay attention, to get your attention.”
And these ones are approved by authority, so they are good.
The panels followed a screening of “Saving St. Louis,” a documentary by Boston native Andre Norman about his attempts to help a struggling high school and its surrounding community in Missouri.
Norman, a Dorchester native who served 14 years in prison for armed robbery, spent time in St. Louis in 2011 and 2012 to help the city’s Roosevelt High School.
Norman said the discussion of Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter protest was appropriate on the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He said he gathered the panelists to get people talking about solutions for the community.
I think not.
“I’m just hoping the protests stay long enough and strong enough until we get a solution,” Norman said.
If supported by authority they will; otherwise, their skulls will be cracked and they will be cleared out like three years ago.
--more--"
Oooh, angry man pointing at bottom.
Continuing the march:
"Road to justice goes through Ferguson, activists say" by Alan Scher Zagier, Associated Press January 19, 2015
FERGUSON, Mo. — Leading black members of Congress took to a church pulpit in Ferguson on Sunday to trace a direct link from Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy to the fight for criminal justice reform after recent fatal police shootings across the nation.
Related: The New Civil Rights Movement
********
In Selma, Ala., on Sunday, Oprah Winfrey and stars of the movie ‘‘Selma’’ joined a march in honor of King’s birthday. Winfrey is a producer of the movie and portrays civil rights activist Annie Lee Cooper.
‘‘Selma’’ director Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo, who plays King in the movie, took part in a daylong event to commemorate King’s leadership of the civil rights movement. King led three voting-rights marches from the rural Alabama town to the state capital of Montgomery.
‘‘Selma’’ tells the story of a three-month period in 1965 as King led the struggle in the face of violent opposition.
The timing of the release with everything else means this is all an orchestrated propaganda campaign.
*******************
The Congressional Black Caucus’s chairman, Representative G.K. Butterfield, a North Carolina Democrat, said the group planned to push for broad reforms, such as expanded police use of body cameras and independent investigations of fatal police shootings.
He called the prolonged protests over recent deaths — including Brown, Eric Garner in New York and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland — a ‘‘turning point in race relations.’’ Garner died after being put in a chokehold by a New York City police officer during an arrest for allegedly selling cigarettes, while Rice was shot in a park while holding a pellet gun.
Protests have been ongoing in and around the St. Louis suburb since Brown’s fatal shooting in August, though protesters have largely shifted their focus to changing laws in Washington and Missouri.
On the day before the federal holiday honoring King, Butterfield hailed the late civil rights leader’s efforts to push for passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the subject of the Selma film.
Representative, Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana, echoed his colleagues’ references. ‘‘Ferguson is the new Selma.’’
At the New York Historical Society on Sunday, the youngest person to take part in the 1965 Selma march said she still has the scars inflicted by police with attack dogs. Lynda Blackmon Lowery was 15 at the time. Lowery, who still lives in Selma, is the author of the memoir ‘‘Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom.’’
MTV said it will take the color out of its programming Monday to encourage people to talk about what race means in their lives. It will be the first time in the history of the 34-year-old network that it has aired its programs in black and white.
The move is meant to promote #TheTalk initiative, encouraging viewers to discuss race with friends and family.
Related:
"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men.... They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government."
That's not being discussed by the government honoring him.
--more--"
Speaking of 15:
"‘Fight for $15’ intensifies campaign for low-wage workers" by Katie Johnston, Globe Staff January 14, 2015
The “Fight for $15” movement is broadening its battle plan to help low-wage workers.
I give up on the war-promoting agenda-pu$her constantly framing issues in this way, especially after they tell us on the other hand how the economy is all of us together and a win for everyone!
Local workers’ rights groups have mapped out a yearlong campaign, planning demonstrations at different work sites on the 15th of every month and distributing informational pamphlets at businesses and in neighborhoods. Their goal is to build public support for a “living wage” of $15 an hour, more than the minimum wage in any state but widely seen by worker advocates as the amount people need to pay for housing, food, and other expenses.
The first action of the year will take place Thursday, the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., at the Terminal C chapel at Logan Airport, where workers have been protesting low wages paid by subcontractors and are fighting for a union.
“We’re hoping to inspire more workers to step up,” said Russ Davis, executive director of the workers’ rights group Massachusetts Jobs With Justice, a founding member of what has become known as the #WageAction coalition.
“People need to know that they’re not alone,’’ Davis said. “There’s a strategy, there’s a vision, there’s a possibility of change . . . But we’re also hoping to build public support and awareness that these issues are happening in our communities.”
The movement began as an uprising of New York fast food workers in late 2012, with assistance from unions and labor groups, and spread to other industries, creating a wave of demonstrations across the country.
Uprising of.... in$urgents?
Related: The Lo$$es at Weight Watchers
Can I get some $alt for those fries?
Now the #WageAction coalition, with members from about 50 unions, workers’ rights groups, and immigrant organizations, is thinking more strategically.
Monthly protests will rotate among industries, highlighting the pay and working conditions of airport workers, fast-food employees, home health aides, domestic workers, and taxi drivers, among others.
The coalition also plans to create a series of online videos and print cards and pamphlets about workers’ rights, wage theft, and information about how to join the movement. The materials, which will be printed in multiple languages, can be discreetly left in tip jars and slipped to workers across counters.
Advocates also plan to take a door-to-door campaign beyond low-income neighborhoods to wealthy areas as well in an attempt to educate people who may employ a nanny or a housecleaner, for instance, about the impact low wages have on people’s lives.
Call the cops.
Frankie Cook, a personal care assistant in Dorchester, works full time caring for an autistic client in her home. But $13.38 an hour is not enough for Cook, 28, to support herself and her two children. She gets rental assistance, food stamps, and is applying for help paying for heat, but still has to choose which bills will go unpaid each month. Cook got involved in the “Fight for $15” movement last summer and plans to attend every rally she can.
“It’s a community thing,” she said. “The same way I know $15 an hour will help my household, I’m sure it will help the airport workers as well. I don’t work at the airport, but I know we have similar struggles.”
Organizers hope their efforts will ultimately put pressure on legislators, voters, and employers to raise wages. The needle has started to move slightly over the past few years. More than 20 states are increasing their minimum wage rates this year, the most ever, and several major companies have announced wage hikes for their workforces.
Yeah, the raises are coming, yup.
This week, the health insurer Aetna Inc. announced that it was boosting the minimum pay of its employees to $16 an hour.
In Massachusetts, the minimum wage rose to $9 an hour on Jan. 1 and will increase to $11 an hour by 2017, effectively giving a raise to about 20 percent of the workforce, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.
Still not enough to keep up with rising costs, but, you know....
In an age when unions are declining, a creative approach like #WageAction’s is necessary to help workers on the bottom rungs of the economy, said Susan Moir, director of the Labor Resource Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Are they?
Related: As temp sector grew, so did appeal of union
After a while you tune out the mixed me$$ages of the propaganda pre$$.
The Occupy movement kicked things off, she said, focusing the public’s attention on the issue of growing income inequality. The “Fight for $15” demonstrations followed Occupy’s lead and put a face on the minimum-wage workforce — half of whom are over the age of 25.
Oh, now they are heroes, huh?
Raising wages requires the kind of resources and persistence that #WageAction is putting forth, Moir said. But, she cautioned, “It’s going to take a real cultural change. Cultural change is very slow.”
Unless you are a manager using false flags and fear to advance the agenda of war and tyranny. Then it goes real fast.
--more--"
"Protesters try to reclaim King’s legacy in another era" by Tanzina Vega, New York Times January 18, 2015
Related:
"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men.... They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government."
How you gonna do that?
NEW YORK — On the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, protesters mobilized by the shooting deaths of young blacks and outraged about racial inequality are evoking his work, denouncing what they say is an attempt to sanitize his message, and using the hashtag #ReclaimMLK hoping to rekindle a new movement for social change.
I've been doing that for eight years.
The website Ferguson Action, for instance, which has been a focal point for information on protests and activism in the aftermath of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., says King’s “radical, principled, and uncompromising” vision should be a model for protest for our time.
Now the Globe is promoting a protest website!
The iconic images of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. come from an era when he was confronting legalized discrimination, and communication tools included mimeographed fliers and the holy grail of a network television report. Protesters today cite myriad ills embedded in the economy and culture and spread their messages instantly through websites, Twitter hashtags, and text messages.
I almost sense some nostalgic remorse and longing there. That is why we are being treated to all the false flag terror around free speech right now. To silence the truth-tellers of the Internet.
And at a time of widespread social unrest over race and inequality, the King holiday on Monday is highlighting both the power of King’s vision, brought to the public again in the film “Selma,” and the enormous difficulties of forging a movement along similar lines.
Can't do it, might as well give up.
Nonetheless, today’s protesters are embracing King’s spirit and the tactics of his era with a sense of commitment that has not existed, perhaps, for decades.
“We’re in the business of disrupting white supremacy,” said Wazi Davis, 23, a student at San Francisco State University, who has helped organize protests in the Bay Area. “We look toward historical tactics. The Montgomery bus boycott, the sit-ins — those tactics were all about disruption.”
They just gave away their controlled-oppo$ition hand!!
There are only two kinds of $upremacy in AmeriKa that one should be concerned about.
What is far less clear is whether today’s protesters have the ability, or even the intention, to build an organized movement capable of creating social change.
David J. Garrow, a historian and the author of “Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” said the impromptu protests that had erupted in recent months were not comparable to the strategies used by civil rights groups of the 1960s, which had clear goals such as winning the right to vote or the right to eat at a segregated lunch counter.
“You could call it rebellious, or you could call it irrational,” Garrow said of the new wave of protests. “There has not been a rational analysis in how does A and B advance your policy change X and Y?”
Garrow compared the protesters to those of Occupy Wall Street.
“Occupy had a staying power of, what, six months?” Garrow said. “Three years later, is there any remaining footprint from Occupy? Not that I’m aware of.”
Related:
"The typical US household saw its net worth actually decline 1.2 percent from 2010 to 2013.... Incomes for the highest-earning 1 percent of Americans soared 31 percent from 2009 through 2012.... And after
30 years of skyrocketing income inequality, the top 1 percent now
control a bigger share of wealth than they have since FDR, [and] not
only are the rich getting richer — they’re getting taxed less, too."
That's after they took it into the political arena as they were told!
Related: Globe Embraces Occupy Wall Street
At least it worked somewhere.
After the deaths of Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., and others, protests have included angry marches and mass “die-ins” in streets and public buildings. They have grown to include actions like “Black Brunch,” in which protesters have confronted white diners in upscale restaurants.
Really? First I've seen of it in the Globe -- and the last!!
On Thursday, several dozen people shut down a major highway carrying suburbanites into Boston by attaching themselves to 1,200-pound drums filled with concrete and standing in the middle of Interstate 93.
Yeah, we know about those provocateurs.
Many, even those who are sympathetic, say today’s protesters run the risk of alienating people rather than persuading them through their tactics. But the protesters say civil disobedience and disruption were also at the heart of King’s vision.
Yup. They have alienated me.
“We really feel that King’s legacy has been clouded by efforts to soften and sanitize that legacy,” said Mervyn Marcano, a Ferguson Action spokesman.
And focus it all on race rather than poverty and war (the reasons he was killed; it's okay to divide, that serves the ma$ters, but once you decide to go beyond race and unite.... X).
It is not only the new wave of protesters that is linking last year’s police shootings to this year’s holiday. At many of the official commemorations — breakfasts and worship services around the country — speakers are expected to talk about Ferguson. And the issue has made its way into much of the conversation about the holiday.
Related:
"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men.... They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government."
Has that entered the conversation?
For example, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day statement from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, declared, “Continuing tensions and violence in our communities remind us that although significant progress has been made in erasing the stain of racism and the cycle of related violence, we still have much work to do.”
Unlike the clear goals of the civil rights era, the protesters today mostly cite broader goals, such as ending discrimination, combating inequality, and ending the killing of young blacks by the police. Others say they want to confront racism, curb gentrification, and reduce the incarceration of people of color.
Many see themselves as building a new movement that goes well beyond what some called the “respectability politics” of civil rights leaders such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, powerful figures such as Oprah Winfrey, and politicians such as President Obama.
Al is far from respectable. Must be why he has a TV show.
“We don’t need people shifting the blame to poor black and brown communities for these tragedies,” said Daniel Camacho, 24, a divinity student from Long Island, who has participated in some of the protests in New York. “I’ve heard enough people complain about sagging pants, gangster music, fatherlessness, black-on-black crime. Who’s focusing on holding the American state, the police, fully accountable?”
How long have I been blogging after protests failed?
Some older blacks are sympathetic but skeptical.
In an interview with People magazine, Winfrey said that while it was “wonderful” to see protests across the country, “What I’m looking for is some kind of leadership to come out of this to say, ‘This is what we want. This is what has to change, and these are the steps that we need to take to make these changes, and this is what we’re willing to do to get it.’ ”
Speaking of shifting blame and new leadership:
Cosby had a ‘wonderful time’ in return to stage
With baggage in tow, Bill Cosby set to perform in Boston
Celebrity news: Model who says Bill Cosby sexually abused her meets with police
Who cares?
"The door is firmly shut to Bill Cosby’s return to NBC, the network’s top entertainment executive said over the weekend. ‘‘That’s safe to say,’’ NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt said Friday when asked if the network would ever again do a project with Cosby, who 30 years ago was the sitcom king with the network’s ‘‘The Cosby Show.’’ NBC’s decision to sever ties with the 77-year-old comedian comes in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual assault against him, two lawsuits, and a complaint to Los Angeles police last week from a woman who says the comedian sexually abused her in 2008. During a question and answer session with the Television Critics Association, Greenblatt was asked to say precisely what number of accusers is seen as critical mass. Greenblatt’s reply: ‘‘Fifteen, yes, two, no.’’ (AP)."
I think the Cos is a victim of a smear campaign because he stepped on certain toes.
--more--"
They have turned MLK in a cartoon and a nightmare.
Never any mention of the COINTELPRO program or FBI spying on King during all that time, either. Isn't that very interesting in light of today's data collection by authorities?
And that is an issue that doesn't divide us at all! We are all -- race, gender, gay -- subject to spying. Agenda-pushing propaganda pre$$ pushes those issues that do divide us, though.
Nor was their discussion regarding all the questions and inconsistencies surrounding his assassination.
Time to get on the bus:
"Protest shuts down two San Francisco transit stations, leads to arrests" Associated Press January 17, 2015
SAN FRANCISCO — Demonstrators shut down two San Francisco transit stations Friday morning and two people were arrested during a protest to bring attention to what they say are unfair charges against 14 activists accused of blocking rail service two months ago.
Bay Area Rapid Transit spokeswoman Alicia Trost said the Montgomery and Embarcadero stations reopened after a few hours.
Roughly 200 activists tried to overtake the system to protest what they call police brutality and pressure prosecutors to drop charges against 14 people arrested during a November demonstration tied to a police killing in Ferguson, Mo.
Trost said the activists banged spoons on the platform pillars and a few people tried to block train doors. A man who kicked a train car window and a woman who blocked a door were arrested, Trost said.
Activists say the Friday protests aimed to pressure prosecutors to drop charges against those accused of halting BART service by chaining themselves to trains in late November.
--more--"
Look where they dropped me off:
"Walsh urges improved racial ties; Cites Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision in service at Boston temple" by Melissa Hanson, Globe Correspondent January 17, 2015
Telling an assembly of nearly 1,000 people that Boston and other cities still have a long way to go to improve race and class relations, Mayor Martin J. Walsh spoke during a service at Temple Israel on Friday dedicated to the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
It's more than self-centered at this point, it's supremacist. Even the king must kiss their ring.
Walsh, who took the pulpit at the Shabbat service after singing and a sermon, told the crowd that they all must keep working toward reconciliation and redemption.
What kind of music was it?
“This is the kind of service Dr. King used himself,” said Walsh, reminding guests that King spoke at Temple Israel’s former location on Commonwealth Avenue 50 years ago. “He warned that the world had become a neighborhood, but not a brotherhood.
“It starts by talking to each other openly,” said Walsh, who hopes to convene a citywide conversation on social justice issues. “Our resilience comes down to how we relate to each other.”
I wonder what King would have had to say about Israel's 65-year occupation of Palestine.
Related: Israel’s apologists and the Martin Luther King Jr. hoax
You want to talk about that, Marty?
The mayor invited those in the crowd to speak to him, citing his open-door policy.
“If there is injustice, I want to hear about it,” he said.
The mayor also praised the temple for its strong stance on social justice.
“Time and time again, this temple has led the way,” Walsh said. “You are a model of the religious community in Boston.” Following a standing ovation, the service continued.
I think I'm going to be sick!
“Mayor Walsh, your powerful words will continue to echo through our hearts,” said Rabbi Matthew Soffer.
Families embraced during prayer, singing loudly and happily. During one song, tambourines and maracas were handed out so guests could shake them.
One family, who had been singing and swaying, said they were glad they came to the service, which also included various other religious leaders.
John Strecker, 43, of Brookline, said he was unaware of King’s deep connection to Boston. His wife, Gabriella, was impressed by the size of the crowd, which she said is normally about 50 people on a Friday evening.
“I always really love when all of the different religions and religious leaders come together,” said Gabriella, 44. “To have a political leader on top of that. . . . It was really nice.”
(Blog editor just shakes his head. I'm so sick of religion in any form now)
Her son Joseph Bullock, 12, enjoyed the ceremony but quickly crossed the hall for food and Israeli dancing when the ceremony was over.
Throughout the service, rabbis and guests read excepts from King’s speeches, and praised his work and influence during the civil rights movement.
“That’s the path I invite everyone today to follow,” Walsh said during his speech. “Whether in your congregations or on the streets, speak up.”
This as governments across the world are clamping down on free speech due to false flag terror.
"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men.... They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government."
Is that what you meant by speaking up, Marty?
--more--"
Usurping the man's legacy is disgusting.
Related:
“I’m tired of the media broadcasting lies that dehumanize police,” said Tom Duggan, the event’s coordinator, in an interview. “They are not thugs out to abuse power. They protect us.” Duggan, the president and publisher of the Valley Patriot Newspaper and a North Andover resident, said he hoped his rally would serve as a counter to recent protests over police shootings."
Yeah, the poor cops.
Where are we going, folks?
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
The usurpers and misusers of the good Doctor's message to create division has become offensive to me, and were he alive today the wealthy inequality that has developed since he died would surely have killed him.
As I noted yesterday, war policy is never brought into the reports and that is what I'm looking for here:
"Protests and pleas mark MLK Day in Boston; Demonstrators call for police restraint, justice in the courts" by Peter Schworm, Todd Wallack and Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff January 20, 2015
Hundreds of marchers flooded downtown Boston on Monday to honor the slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and to call for justice after several unarmed black people died in encounters with police across the nation.
The peaceful protesters wound through Beacon Hill shouting “black lives matter” and carrying signs saying “jail killer cops” and “the new Jim Crow must go.” Dozens of Boston police officers accompanied the march; a spokesman said police made no arrests.
The protest was among a wave of demonstrations across America that injected new urgency into the national holiday honoring the nation’s preeminent civil rights leader. Marchers called for restraint by police in using deadly force and fairness in the justice system to hold police — and others — accountable for the deaths.
A national holiday for a man they killed.
At one point in the Boston march, the protesters stopped and lay down on Charles Street as if they were dead. A hush fell, and an organizer called the names of the dead into the cold air: Trayvon Martin, a teen killed by a self-styled neighborhood watchman. And the others, killed by police: Danroy “DJ” Henry Jr., Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice, age 12.
Related: My Fire Has Gone Out For the Boston Globe
How many outright lies is enough before you see the agenda-pushing pos for what it is?
Also see: Woman dies in snowmobile crash on trail
Ice a factor in crash that kills 2 drivers
After the names were read, an organizer shouted into a megaphone, “It is our duty to fight for freedom! It is our duty to win!”
Marchers said they were frustrated by the police shootings and the failure of the court systems to hold them accountable.
In Florida, a jury acquitted George Zimmerman in July 2013 in the shooting death of Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old in a hoodie who had just bought candy at a local store.
Never mind that Martin assaulted him to kick off the whole thing. That's what research will show if you do the investigation. He was thug, but with all things distorted in the ma$$ media....
Related: ‘‘Look at those kids out there with their hoodies. We’re only seeing the start of the problem. There are lots of little Coulibalys.’’
Maybe that's what Zimmerman saw; then he would be a hero. Heck, if he were cop he'd have been cleared with no charges.
Also see: George Zimmerman charged with assault against girlfriend
In New York, grand juries declined to indict police officers in the 2010 police shooting of Easton college student Danroy Henry Jr., 20, and the death of Eric Garner, 43, who died in July of last year after a police officer put him in a chokehold and he repeatedly pleaded, “I can’t breathe.”
Related: Justice Delayed is Hope For Henry’s
And in Missouri, a grand jury declined to pursue charges in the August death of Michael Brown, shot by a Ferguson police officer who said he acted in self-defense. After the shooting, the city of Ferguson erupted in protests that spread nationwide.
Turns out Brown was a thief and he reached for the gun. But, you know, don't let that stop you from believing the propaganda narrative.
In November, Cleveland police shot and killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy, after they said he reached for a gun that turned out to be a toy. Soon afterward, Tanisha Anderson, a 37-year-old mentally ill woman, died after being restrained by Cleveland police.
Made that determination in all of 2 seconds after hopping out the car?
See: Cleveland Cops Left Kid to Die
Where's the outrage?
Police say they try to use restraint, but sometimes have to defend themselves in dangerous confrontations with suspects. Nationwide, 121 US law enforcement officers died in the line of duty last year.
Just last month, two New York police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were shot and killed by a troubled man who had also expressed anger about police shootings. The man then committed suicide.
And once again the debate has been turned.
In Boston, the marchers said the deaths of Garner, Brown, and others inspired them to take to the streets. Demonstrators started at the Old State House and ended at the new State House near Boston Common.
“It’s Martin Luther King Day, and they are shooting black people,” said Steve Savage, 56, from Needham as he prepared to march Monday. “Police are using deadly force in situations where they don’t have to.”
Right!
Dondre Taylor-Stewart, a 20-year-old student at Emerson College, expressed broader concerns about racism toward blacks in American society.
“It can be anywhere. It can be in the prisons, in the school system. It’s everywhere,” he said. “It’s very pervasive. And because it’s so pervasive and so subtle, it is hard to pinpoint what the issues are. . . . We are here to attack the system.”
Idiot dupe or agenda pusher.
Monday’s march was organized by several groups, including Total Blackout For Reform and Coalition Against Police Violence. The Boston chapter of the International Socialist Organization also publicized the march.
“Those who participated in today’s march were well behaved and respectful of their surroundings,” said police spokesman James Kenneally.
Last week in Boston, some protesters faced criticism when an ambulance had to be diverted after protesters attached themselves to cement-filled barrels on the northbound and southbound sides of Interstate 93, blocking traffic.
The march capped a day of events to honor King’s legacy as an activist, scholar, and Nobel laureate, as well as King’s ties to Boston, where he earned a Ph.D. in theology from Boston University in 1955.
King was shot and killed on April 4, 1968, in Memphis. He was 39 years old.
Not much talk of the inconsistencies regarding his killing because if one "conspiracy theory" can be proved valid, it's King's killing.
Monday, almost 47 years later, people from all walks of life celebrated King’s legacy, from scholars gathering at Boston University, which maintains a collection of his letters and manuscripts, to the mix of Baby Boomers and young college students that demonstrated on the streets of Boston.
At Boston’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast, the nation’s longest-running event held in King’s honor, keynote speaker Topper Carew called for a renewed commitment to King’s vision, saying “love and hate cannot exist in the same place.”
“We must eradicate racism,” said Carew, an architect and civil rights advocate, at the breakfast in the Boston Convention Center. “We must never yield to it.”
At the breakfast, Governor Charlie Baker quoted King’s famous words, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“We all have work to do,” Baker said. “Let’s remember that.”
Sonia Chang-Diaz, a state senator from Boston, praised those who have protested the killings of unarmed black men in Missouri and New York City, describing them as a “new generation of activists coming to the fore.”
“They have already made a difference,” she said at the event.
In a rousing speech that received a standing ovation, US Senator Edward J. Markey said the American Dream remains out of reach for too many people, and that deep racial disparities persist.
“We have more work to do,” he said.
In a recorded video message, US Senator Elizabeth Warren pledged to continue the “fight for full equality.”
Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston attended the breakfast and a later event at Faneuil Hall, where he and others paid tribute to King. He noted that 2015 is the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights legislation.
“He went to school here, he preached here, he learned here,” Walsh said of King, adding, “This year we will hold a special commemoration of his memory. We will hold a conversation about our community.”
“We are here today to hail a dreamer, and to continue his work,” Beverly Morgan-Welch, executive director of Boston’s Museum of African American History, a co-sponsor of the event at Faneuil Hall. “Because we are not yet done.”
Charles C. Yancey, one of the Boston councilors who attended, said after the event at Faneuil Hall he hoped King’s memory would lead to real change.
“We are here not only to celebrate the legacy of MLK, but also to refocus our efforts to achieve the goals he had when he was alive,” Yancey said. “There is a lot of work to be done in Boston.”
All these political cla$$ pooh-bays make me sick.
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"Obama’s views on race anchored on US capacity to change" by Steven Mufson, Washington Post January 20, 2015
WASHINGTON — During racially tense moments that have beset the nation recently, many Americans have longed for President Obama to display some of the passion and soaring rhetoric that made the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who would have turned 86 last week, a civil rights legend.
But the messages of restraint Obama has given in response to outcry over police violence are the same ones he has been dispensing for decades, echoes of thoughts he has had since he was a young community organizer in Chicago.
His central tenets: Don’t give in to anger and violence, work to improve not destroy the legal system, and accept that change will come and things are getting better, albeit more slowly than many would like.
As he signs another drone strike after consulting his kill list.
Though Obama’s views have evolved on issues such as gay marriage and national security during his six years in office, his views on race have remained remarkably consistent, and recent events appear to have affirmed rather than altered those views.
The president is likely to touch on race again on Tuesday in his State of the Union address, and if so, he will probably acknowledge that on race, as on the economy, a ‘‘resurgent America’’ has made great pro-gress but still requires greater inclusiveness.
I won't be watching that package of public relations lies.
Rather than making pressing demands for economic justice like those that defined King’s crusade, Obama will make a pitch for a tax package....
That is going nowhere.
Yet nearly 47 years after the assassination of the civil rights leader, the nation and the president are still struggling with issues of race and discrimination.
In 2009, Obama replaced a bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office with one of King, but a study by University of Pennsylvania researcher Daniel Gillion found that Obama talked about race less in his first two years of office than any Democratic president at least since John F. Kennedy.
‘‘They share the gift of oratory,’’ James Campbell, an American history professor at Stanford University, said of King and Obama, ‘‘but one of the things that made King’s oratory so indelible is that it never had to be put against the grain of [a strong movement].’’
Whereas King rode a crest of growing black anger and channeled it into peaceful civil disobedience, Obama came of age as the civil rights movement splintered and dissipated, even as a new generation, Obama’s, moved to leverage its many successes.
King’s speeches in the 1960s were clarion calls for justice, action, and civil disobedience. Obama, especially as people feared the possibility of riots in cities across the country, has sounded calls for restraint, lawful demonstrations, commissions of inquiry, and slow, steady progress toward reform.
King fought and won rights — civil rights and voting rights — and led the way for black political leaders, mayors, and congressmen; Obama has tried to figure out how to use those rights as a political leader who happens to be black.
In the case of the fatal police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., he could not simply condemn the system; he sits on top of that system.
And he tortured some folks.
‘‘It’s important to recognize, as painful as these incidents are, we can’t equate what is happening now to what was happening 50 years ago,’’ Obama said during an interview on BET....
Because it's worse in some ways.
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"Biden says minority communities, police need to heal" Associated Press January 20, 2015
WILMINGTON, Del. — Vice President Joe Biden said Monday that communities around the country need to work to bridge the separation between police and the residents they serve.
Speaking at a breakfast honoring slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., Biden said minority communities and police departments need to build relationships of trust....
Biden devoted his 27-minute speech to the tension between police and minorities in some communities around the country after the deaths of two unarmed black men in encounters with white officers in Missouri and New York City this summer.
The deaths touched off protests and a national debate over police conduct.
Tensions escalated after two New York City police officers were fatally shot last month by a man who suggested in online posts that he was retaliating for the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York. The gunman, who was black, then committed suicide.
‘‘Men often hate each other because they fear each other,’’ Biden said, quoting King. ‘‘They fear each other because they do not know each other. They do not know each other because they cannot communicate, and they cannot communicate because they are separated.’’
‘‘We have to bridge that separation ... particularly today between police and the community that exists in some places.’’
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Related: Assassination Attempt Made on Biden
"Activists across country recall message and methods of King" by Kate Brumback, Associated Press January 20, 2015
ATLANTA — Speakers honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at his spiritual home in Atlanta repeated the same message on his national holiday Monday: We’ve come a long way, but there is still much to be done to fulfill King’s dream.
King tributes came against a backdrop of recent national protests over the deaths of unarmed black men and youths at the hands of the police around the United States. And scattered protests flared anew Monday: Several dozen demonstrators blocked traffic while marching in Cleveland and protests also were reported in St. Louis and Seattle. Dozens of protesters were detained after blocking a bridge in San Mateo, Calif., authorities there said.
In Atlanta, King’s daughter, the Rev. Bernice King said they should heed her father’s message of nonviolence.
‘‘We cannot act unless we understand what Dr. King taught us. He taught us that we still have a choice to make: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation,’’ she said. ‘‘I challenge you to work with us as we help this nation choose nonviolence.’’
That's as close as they come to any antiwar sentiment.
The courage and sacrifice of the civil rights activists of the 1950s and 1960s provide a model for those seeking to effect change today, she added. ‘‘I cannot help but remember many women and men who have been gunned down, not by a bad police force but by some bad actors in a police force,’’ she said.
Unfortunately, it is the system that is rotten.
President Obama sought to focus on the next generation. In Washington, Obama and his wife, Michelle, went with one of their daughters, Malia, to a site for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington to paint murals and assemble ‘‘literacy kits’’ to help youngsters improve their reading and writing skills.
The print that the Globe web butchered with its update:
"Commemorative events and service projects were organized around the country to celebrate King's life and legacy. In cities nationwide, demonstrators also used the occasion to protest persistent inequality.
"We look at the yellow crime scene tape that is wrapped around America right now," said Alabama State University President Gwendolyn Boyd, delivering the keynote address at Ebenezer Baptist. "We know we still have a lot of work to do."
Boyd, who repeatedly brought the crowd to its feet with roars of applause, gave numerous examples to illustrate the changes since King's death, including the election of Obama, the country's first black president. But she also said now is not the time to rest or to be quiet.
Actually, it may be because I am feeling really rotten this morning.
A day after he joined other actors from the movie "Selma" and hundreds of others in Alabama for a march to Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, where civil rights protesters were beaten and tear-gassed in 1965, actor David Oyelowo said during the commemoration in Atlanta that playing King was a heavy burden to bear. He cried as he talked about putting himself in King's place.
Mathilde Mukantabana, Rwandan ambassador to the U.S., said in Atlanta that her country, which was torn apart by violence and genocide, serves as a shining example of the power of King's message.
"Martin Luther King's philosophy became our roadmap to reconciliation and peace," she said."
As the wars rage!!
What was added:
Protesters in California, many of them students at Stanford University, blocked the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, forcing westbound lanes to close for more than an hour Monday night, authorities said. The California Highway Patrol said numerous protesters were in custody and dozens could be seen being loaded into vans and taken off the bridge.
Related:
"The dispute between West Coast dockworkers and their employers didn’t take a day off for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The two sides have been trying to negotiate a new contract for months, and cargo movements have slowed. On Monday, the operators of terminals at ports where dockworkers load and unload ocean-going ships ordered slimmed-down work crews. A spokesman said container ships would not be worked at 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle because crews must clear yards that are already congested with containers. The union says it’s being unfairly punished; employers say dockworkers are purposely slowing work to gain bargaining leverage."
Were he alive today I bet that would have been the place where MLK spent the day.
The Northeast Ohio Media Group reported about 60 people gathered Monday at a recreation center where a Cleveland police officer fatally shot the 12-year-old. Their march ended at the city’s public square and police told the group some arrests were made.
In Seattle, authorities reported a handful of arrests after dozens of people who were chanting ‘‘black lives matter’’ disrupted traffic in Seattle, blocking part of a state highway and interstate off-ramps. Seattle officials advised motorists to take alternate routes when one side of a key state route was temporarily blocked.
Elsewhere, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that two dozen protesters interrupted a King event at Harris-Stowe State University, leading to angry confrontations with students outside a campus auditorium. Police kept watch, but no arrests were reported.
In Philadelphia, activists pressed for several causes: greater police accountability, more education funding, and a higher minimum wage. In Denver some held up signs about the recent black deaths, as tens of thousands, including cowboys on horseback, made it one of that city’s biggest MLK Day turnouts in years.
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Same thing at the theaters:
"‘American Sniper’ astounds with $105.3m over holiday weekend" by Jake Coyle, Associated Press January 20, 2015
NEW YORK — Clint Eastwood’s R-rated Iraq War drama ‘‘American Sniper’’ opened in January like a superhero movie in July, taking in a record $105.3 million over the Martin Luther King Jr. four-day weekend.
The film’s unprecedented success obliterated forecasts and set numerous box-office records. It easily surpassed ‘‘Avatar’’ for the biggest January weekend ever.
:-(
Related: Why AmeriKans Hate Avatar
War propaganda goes over well with the war pre$$.
The resounding wide-release opening is also tops for the 84-year-old Eastwood, whose previous best weekend was the $29.5 million wide release of 2009’s ‘‘Gran Torino. And it, in one weekend, gives the Oscar best-picture race something it was lacking: a big ol’ box-office hit.
‘‘American Sniper, nominated for six Academy Awards, immediately becomes the top grosser of the best-picture nominees....
Which means it will win the Oscar like the "Hurt Locker" did.
Isn't Eastwood the guy who fought Barak Obama was a chair?
This was actually the third week of release for ‘‘American Sniper,’’ which played in just a handful of theaters for two weeks. That slow release pattern helped stoke demand for the film, in which Bradley Cooper stars as Navy SEAL marksman Chris Kyle.
More effective than the Interview psyop promotion.
‘‘It’s become a cultural phenomenon,’’ said Dan Fellman, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. ‘‘The movie reached an audience that’s very hard to tap into. In both red and blue states, small and large cities, tiny towns — everywhere.’’
I'm not going to see it.
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Going into the weekend, optimistic predictions for ‘‘American Sniper’’ were closer to $50 million, which still would have been an enormous success, particularly considering how little appetite audiences have had for movies about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We are a pro-war nation -- we are told by the pro-war pre$$ -- but we hate war movies?
‘‘This was maybe the most underestimated film of all time, considering that it did about twice what estimates predicted,’’ said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office firm Rentrak. ‘‘This just doesn’t happen.’’
But the film was warmly embraced by conservatives, which Fellman said was a ‘‘huge’’ factor. The audience, which was 57 percent male, gave it an A+ CinemaScore. Dergarabedian said ‘‘American Sniper’’ resonated with audiences craving a celebration of valor, courage, and patriotism.
Oh, this is gross.
‘‘American Sniper,’’ once pegged for release in late 2015, was moved up to qualify for this year’s Oscars. After Eastwood’s other 2014 release, ‘‘Jersey Boys,’’ struggled in its June release, totaling $47 million, ‘‘American Sniper’’ — a $58 million co-production between Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow — was tossed into this year’s Christmas mix.
The remarkable success of ‘‘American Sniper’’ didn’t appear to hurt the business of other releases; however, Michael Mann’s cyber-thriller ‘‘Blackhat,’’ starring Chris Hemsworth, flopped. Made for about $70 million by Legendary Pictures for distributor Universal Pictures, ‘‘Blackhat’’ bombed with just $4.4 million.
In its fourth weekend of release, the civil rights drama ‘‘Selma’’ took in $11.5 million on the holiday weekend that honors its protagonist, King. The film landed two Oscar nominations on Thursday, including best picture, but the snubbing of its star, David Oyelowo, and director, Ava DuVernay, drew widespread outrage.
Must be the Jewish supremacism that rules Hollywood, but you are not supposed to talk about such things.
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Anybody got a problem with that?
