Tag: Ohio

Ohio Food Co-op Swat Team Raid Trial This Week

UPDATE: this trial has now been postponed until after the first of the year. I will be covering it then.

Miep

John and Jackie Stower run the Manna Storehouse in LaGrange, Ohio. Last December their organic food coop and homeschool were raided by a SWAT team, who invaded their home with guns drawn, held them and their family captive for six hours, and confiscated a large amount of food. No charges were ever filed. The Buckeye Institute is helping the Stowers sue the The Lorain County General Health District, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and the Ohio Department of Agriculture. The trial will open October 8 and 9 at 8:30 am.

#%&* the Republican Party

I meant to go to sleep 2+ hours ago, I really did. But failing that, I thought I’d check the latest news on the tubes, and boy was that ever a mistake. I read about 6th the Circuit court decision to challenge 600k+ new registrations, and now I am WIDE FREAKIN’ AWAKE pissed off. Feel free to follow along on a near 2 am ramble and rant….

F%&* the GOP

Oh, every two years, predictably, they go on and on about the sanctity of the right to vote, and how evil Democratic allied groups are perpetrating voter fraud on an unsuspecting populace by registering all sorts of (OMIGOSH) people to vote, conveniently glossing over the fact that most of the people thus registered are poor, or minority, in their rush to judgment over the relatively few suspect registrations. Every two years, predictably, there’s an outcry over a group called ACORN, which inevitably pays some less than scrupulous persons to gather new voter registrations, and said persons get lazy, or bored, or just stupid, and sign up Mickey Mouse to cast a ballot.

It’s Time

If there’s one thing that should have been learned by the Democratic Party over the last thirty or so years, it’s that running against the base is a recipe for failure in elections.  This lesson, however, has been repeatedly ignored by most of the party’s politicians.  When one goes over the electoral cycles since 1980, it’s clear that the DLC’s “run-to-the-right” ploy has never actually won an election.

“But,” you tell me, “Bill Clinton won in 1992 and 1996.”  This ignores the fact that independent candidate H. Ross Perot pulled enough votes away from the Republican nominees those years to swing the elections in the Democrat’s favor.

After Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, the party was unable to win it back until public disgust with the GOP had grown to such proportions that their defeat in 2006 was inevitable.  Since winning back the Legislature, however, Democrats have for the most part continued to piss away any chance they might have had for shoring up their victory and securing a lasting majority.  They’ve kept funding the illegal occupation of Iraq, have continued to rubber stamp the shrub’s dismantling of the Constitution–even going so far as to protect him from impeachment for high crimes including treason, and basically let down the public on every issue of importance.

Barack Obama isn’t even trying to win vital states such as Ohio; in the heart of the state’s Democratic stronghold, the campaign hasn’t even bothered to set up telephones for phone-banking–volunteers have to use their own devices to call voters.  Furthermore, instead of going after frequently voting Democrats, Obama has his people reaching out to Republicans, most of whom have stated flat out that they have no intention of voting for him.  I know this through several Democratic volunteers who’ve put their efforts into Obama’s campaign.  They are the eyewitnesses on the ground.

There’s a reason Ohio’s GOP voters did not deign to put J. Kenneth Blackwell in the governor’s mansion: he’s technically black.  It didn’t matter to them that he supported every bug-eyed insane policy and social position they did; his skin color was darker than theirs, so he could not be allowed to become governor.  That Obama insists on trying to reach the still-strong bigot bloc, forsaking his own party’s base in the process, is absolute stupidity.  He’s going to blow it for us again, just as John Kerry and Al Gore did before him.  McCain will cheat his way to the dictatorship created by the shrub and his gargoyle, all because Obama wants to “play it safe” by running to appease the very wealthy.

How long shall Progressives continue to hold on to the fantasy that we can somehow reform the party from within?  Yesterday I happened upon a diary at you-know-where that states flat out what I’m sure a majority of Americans are thinking: that it is foolishness to continue remaining a registered Democrat as long as the party’s conservative wing controls it.  And make no mistake, Obama is very much part of that conservative wing despite whatever denials his followers choose to engage in.

Sooner or later the Progressive base of the Democratic Party has got to wake up and realize that it is pointless to remain with people who always denounce, marginalize, and campaign against its interests.  One might say that now is not the time to dump the Democratic Party, that there is too much at stake.  To that I say that it’s never going to be the “right time,” because there’s always going to be “too much at stake.”  Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said:

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach. We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer.

And:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

I agree with the Kos diarist: it’s time for the Progressive base of the Democratic Party to face the unpleasant truth that we cannot and should not continue to waste our energies trying to reform from within a political party that long ago decided it wants to be something that runs contrary to everything we stand for.  The stakes are indeed high, but we have to ask ourselves if it’s worth another four to eight years of frustration as we watch our beloved country and our world fall further in the hellish pits of fascism and ruin.  If Democrats as a whole will not represent Progressives, then we need to break away and form our own party so that our movement has genuine representation.  If nothing else, it will send Democrats a wakeup call: they cannot continue to dismiss and ignore their party’s base with impunity.

Police Brutality against Longest Walkers in Ohio (Updated 2x)

2 nd Update:

Thanks to Meteor Blades for finding this photo!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Imagine beginning to walk from San Francisco in order to raise awareness about American Indian concerns in a good way and having walked over 2,400 miles since February; but then, you get to Ohio where eight police cars come swooping at you while one does the blocking. Suddenly, an officer comes and reaches into the window, grabbing the wheel.


Source

COLUMBUS Ohio – Unprovoked Columbus, Ohio police, attacked Long Walkers, by first pointing a taser at the head of Michael Lane and then forcing Luv the Mezenger to the ground and handcuffing him.

The Longest Walk Northern Route was walking this prayer through Columbus on Monday, June 2, when squad cars and arrest wagons arrived. Without discussion of the purpose of the prayer walk, or even verify that the Ohio Department of Transportation had been notified of the prayer walk, police attacked the walkers.

Attention NEOhio Kossack/Docudharmists!

If you’re a kossack, and live within 100 miles of Cleveland, Ohio, then this diary is for you.

(and if you’re not, feel free to go visit the original diary and rec. it anyway, so those of us who are within that area can see it!)

Another good reason to rec this over there: Wouldn’t it be nice to see a non-Primary race diary on the Big-O rec list? 😉

Jump with me…

Ohio Superdelegates Power Play?

Via The Politico By: Josephine Hearn and Amie Parnes and Josh Kraushaar :

Brent Larkin whines about Dennis Kucinich’s victory in the Ohio primary.

Brent Larkin pretends to manage the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. He and most of the upper-level staff have had it in for the Progressive Democrat ever since the Muny Light battle in the 1970s, when the banks and newspapers were pressuring then-mayor Dennis Kucinich to sell the municipal power company to a privately-owned rival. He refused, and the banks retaliated by sending Cleveland into default on its debts. The business interests decided to punish the mayor by trying to remove him from office via recall election. That effort failed, but Kucinich was voted out in the next regular election cycle. But rather than remain in political oblivion, Kucinich came back and has since gone on to become the Ohio 10th Congressional District’s representative.

The Plain Dealer helped get a DINO by the name of Joe Cimperman to run against Kucinich this year in the primary. The problem was that three other candidates also decided to get in on the action. So despite having roughly $500,000 to $1,000,000 on hand, Cimperman lost. It didn’t help that Cimperman ran a fundamentally stupid campaign, which argued that a sitting elected official shouldn’t waste taxpayer time and money running for another political office. Why is this stupid? Cimperman is currently a sitting elected official — on Cleveland City Council. He also doesn’t even live in the district.

Anyway, this morning Larkin posted a whinefest on Cleveland.com following Kucinich’s victory in the primary last night.  So I made a video to go along with the audio file.  Enjoy.

Dennis Kucinich Wins Renomination in OH-10!

Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic Congressman from Ohio’s 10th district, won renomination last night.

My vote in Ohio’s primary.

I just returned from voting in Ohio’s primary.  I cast my ballot for Dennis Kucinich, as my choice for both the presidency and the 10th Congressional District’s representative.  And thus my conscience is clean.

I know, I know.  “You just wasted your vote,” many of you shall say.  To that I give you this simple response:  Horse shit.  The only votes wasted, dear readers, are those not cast and those cast for a candidate who doesn’t represent you.  Anyone who tells you differently is either lying to you, or doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

These are not things I write lightly.  I know quite well that what I’ve just typed shall piss off a number of people.  The truth, however, was never designed to make people happy.

Primaries are precisely the time when we as voters are supposed to stand up and vote our beliefs.  Why in God’s name would anyone vote for someone who doesn’t represent him?  “Pragmatism”?  That’s a bullshit excuse, one designed to justify keeping the status quo intact.  And for far too long, far too many Democrats have succumbed to that argument.  We voted “pragmatically” in 2004, cast our ballots for a candidate who wasn’t worth the toilet bowl he shat into, and what did it get us?  Nothing, except four more years of crap raining down upon our country.  Four more years of craven capitulation — two of them under a Democratic Congress — to a boy tyrant who in a sane world would have been removed from office and convicted of treason during the first year of his reign.

Neither Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama have earned so much as a single Democratic vote.  But for the desperation of Americans to elect anyone other than a Republican, the adulation and scorn of the corporate media, and the humongous egos of the two prima donnas themselves, they are the candidates we have been saddled with in this primary season.

There is an admonition against allowing the “perfect” to be the enemy of the “good”.  But really, how many people do you know who ask for or expect perfect?  I and everyone I know is fully aware that nothing and no one is perfect.  All we want are good policy and good representatives.  Yet each and every election cycle, we’re forced to accept the mediocre and the downright bad.

It doesn’t, and shouldn’t, have to be that way.  However you intend to vote in the general election, is this or is it not the time to vote your beliefs — to cast your ballot for the presidential candidate who represents you?  Not Big Business, not the DLC, but you.  Mr. and Ms. Average American.  To hand your ballot to someone who doesn’t represent you is to surrender it to the status quo, to send a message that, no matter how much you may complain about the way things are, you’re perfectly content to leave it as is.

That isn’t democracy, ladies and gentlemen.  It’s a monarchical system, one in which the will of the public is subjected to the greed and ambition of a political minority whose interests are to keep you beaten down and in service to the economic elite.  And I don’t know about you ladies and gentlemen, but I refuse to give in to that bullshit.  Politicians are supposed to work for us, to be our voices in the halls of power.  We are not supposed to subject our interests and political beliefs to those we employ.

Maybe your state’s primary or caucus has already been held.  Maybe it’s today, or has yet to be held.  For those of you who fall into the latter categories,ask yourselves if it isn’t worth it to challenge this fucked up system by voting for the candidate who represents you, just to see what would happen.

Dennis Kucinich: Thanks!!!

As if it even needs to be said, our thanks should be going out to Dennis Kucinich! For standing up for Single Payer Not-for-Profit Health Care for all. For calling on the withdrawl from NAFTA. For standing against the war and occupation in Iraq, and not voting to fund this catastrophe. And for standing up to Dick Cheney and W by calling for their impeachment.

Progressive Blogosphere Challenge: Help Dennis Kucinich Keep His Congressional Seat! w/poll

For those of you who’ve already donated to Dennis’ congressional campaign, thanks!  We know he’s one of the leading progressive voices in Congress, and it would be a shame to lose his voice in the House.

 

Talkin’ Toxic Trash: Hillary, Jackson Stephens & WTI

It only seems fair that if Hillary wants to dig through Obama’s trash that her early years should come under scrutiny as well.

It’s well know that she was involved with WalMart.  How many people know about the Clinton connections to another Arkansas corporatist that is far dirtier than WalMart?

Let’s take a look at Waste Technologies Incorporated (WTI), Jackson Stephens and Hillary/Bill Clinton.

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