Occupy Tucson needs your help!

Make some calls!  NOW!   This is from the Facebook Wall:

OccupyTucson needs your help! TPD is utilizing a strategy of financial attrition to kill the movement by issuing criminal citations to occupiers in the who stay in the park past 10:30pm. This citation carries a potential sentence of up to a $1000 fine, up to 6 months in jail, and up to 3 years probation. They are bleeding this movement financially instead of using pepper spray and batons. We need you all to take action now! Below is the link with the phone numbers and email addresses of each of the members of Tucson city council. Call them and demand that TPD stop it's war of financial attrition against OccupyTucson.


Regina Romero - city council Ward 1
Phone: (520) 791-4040 Email: ward1@tucsonaz.gov


Karin Uhlich - Vice Mayor and city council Ward III Phone: (520) 791-4711 ward3@tucsonaz.gov ---


Shirley Scott - city council Ward IV
Phone: (520) 791-3199 E-Mail: ward4@tucsonaz.gov


Steve Kozachik - city council Ward VI
Phone: (520) 791-4601 E-Mail: ward6@tucsonaz.gov


Mayor Bob Walkup
Phone: (520) 791-4201 mayor1@tucsonaz.gov

 Also:  There is a march to City Council starting at 4:30 from Armory Park today if I read the post correctly.

The City Council Meeting does begin this afternoon at 5:30 p.m.!
The City Council meets here:  Mayor and Council Chambers, City Hall, 255 W. Alameda, Downtown Tucson

I have linked the image above to the Occupy Tucson site, even though I have been unable to get it to load. 

Remember

I once had a little white on black button from the Holocaust Museum in D.C. that simply said, "remember."  My husband borrowed it, and I never saw it again.  Somehow that is fitting.  Things don't last.  Things vanish.  But memories are different.  We keep them and review them in grief, and for comfort, until they are worn smooth into polished icons of remembrance. 

We got the call from my step-daughter early that day; we didn't have hours, days or weeks of worry.  She was a lovely and quite intelligent young woman, only 25, who worked in lower Manhattan, not all that far from the WTC,  and lived in Brooklyn.  She was okay.  Her building had been evacuated and she was going to have to walk back to Brooklyn that day.  Our younger daughter was in 6th grade and the school called because they were concerned about her.  She seemed to grasp the enormity of the attacks and was emotionally devastated and raw unlike many of her peers who just did not quite get it.  She'd been to the WTC the previous month, August 2001, with her dad, my husband, when he stopped in to see a broker. We didn't know it then but she would spend 7th grade in Arlington, VA with classmates who lost parents in the attack on the Pentagon.   I spent years disseminating real information about the Iraq War that most folks now grudgingly recognize as truth, and during those years many despised me, called me a traitor, and threatened me and my family.  It has been a hard 10 years. 


I wrote, globally, about the initial thoughts I had on the blog/site I ran at the time called Late Boomers.  The three articles I wrote that were "about" the attacks on the U.S. can be read, in the same format in which they appeared then, at:


Boomers Unique Take on Patriotism and Military Service



A Lifetime of Violence: Terrorism, Rates of Information Flow and Baby Boomers



Art, Angst, and Zeitgeist



And I expressed myself through poetry, bad though it was, which was accepted for the Poets Against the War Website .

There was this site, and before that another site, where I chronicled and pondered the journey from 9/11 onward. 



And of course there was a wrap up (for me anyway) of the impact 9/11 had on my life that I posted to BlogHer.com after bin Laden was killed this past Spring: On Realizing I Was Impacted by Terrorism.



I have been feeling numb this past week.  Perhaps because of the approaching anniversary.  Anniversaries of sad events always get to me even if I don't consciously remember them.  This year I have had to add another sad connection to 9/11.  This year, on January 8th, Tucson lost a little girl whose 10th Birthday anniversary is tomorrow. 


Please, let's try to build peace, kindness, and a loving human family. 

Bitching About "Right to Work" Abuse and the Erosion of Human Rights

I am trying to be more positive.  I'm failing.


I was fired without warning in early December by a small, woman-owned business at which I'd worked for 2 and a half years.  I filed for unemployment and was denied because the business owner said I had willfully acted in a way harmful to the business.  I appealed that finding and spent way too much time during December and January thinking about the upcoming hearing.  I won.  But I truly liked working where I did, liked the people I worked with, and learned a great deal from the boss about running a small business.  I thought she has also learned a great deal from me about computers, graphics, security, and social networking.  I was paid close minimum wage for front desk work as she called it, though I did computer, website, and marketing work for her.   She used another person who was also worked front desk as a bookkeeper and payroll clerk.  Welcome to a Right to Work State.  Low wages.  No worker rights.  It is amazing I won my case at all in this state.  It was obvious to the judge that the owner was just trying to keep her unemployment rates low and that she put the words on the form that would deny me benefits as I looked for another job even though they were not true.

Bosses in Right to Work States come to expect employees to be subservient.  At least that is my experience.  People run their businesses on part time labor avoiding benefits.  Employees who expect to be treated with respect as equals are weeded out early on.  I hope the people of Wisconsin preserve the rights of workers in that state, through recall elections,  and all across the nation where there are still pockets of union labor.  Because I wanted to write, and build my own brand, I have worked at part-time jobs in gyms, antique stores, and small local service businesses over the last several years.   Business owners and managers have insulted me when talking to my husband,  have reprimanded me because I apparently did not jump high enough when asked,  and had my character questioned in legal documents by a boss trying to insure that her unemployment insurance payments stayed at the lowest possible by never having anyone collect unemployment insurance. 

Not so long ago. 

I'm so sickened by the abuse of employees that small employers get away with in "right to work" states, and the complete disregard of ethics and law by large corporations.  I left a professional position because of a sexually inappropriate statement that was supposed to be a condolence made by a new boss when my brother passed away.   It involved things the boss wanted to do with a woman from a certain ethnic group before he died.  It takes so much time energy and money to fight difficult to document infringement on worker rights in states where an employer can fire you for any reason at any time. In those instances your only recourse in a "right to work" state is to leave the job.   I'm not certain into what area of erosion of individual human rights I should put my energy.  There are so many in this culture of abuse.    


I have been a peace activist for years and I watched the Bush admin dismantle citizen rights: this year I'm watching the Koch brothers assault the principles of collective action.  And I am buoyed up by the Arab world standing up to monarchy and dictators, only to learn a female journalist was sexually assaulted after Mubarak stepped down and a right wing nut job woman radio host in this country says she should have known better than to be there.  Pence, a congressman from Indiana where I lived for 30 years led an assault on women' control over their own bodies.  Children are being gunned down in my city. 


It is very difficult to be positive with the erosion of basic human rights on so many fronts.  

Fragments of ... This Week

Blogging Tips and Tricks

There are "tricks" used in the blogging community to simplify, prompt, and facilitate frequent blogging.  One of these is Wordless Wednesdays.  I haven't done wordless anything as yet, because I do not have a good camera to capture the sort of images that I love to hunt.  Never have.  Silly really because we are not poor.  But there is always a larger need for the $400 or so buckeroos that the camera I want costs.

Fragment Fridays is something I just learned about.... so I guess that is what this post is.  It may be something I repeat.   It sounds good to me as it takes time, lots of time, to string my thoughts together sometimes.  Now I will just post them on Fridays! The first mention of them I could quickly find from a Google search is from the same person, Mrs. 4444, pronounced Mrs. Fours,  who wrote a post today that I read because she follows me, and I now follow her, on BlogHer. 

Writing Equipment

Right now I need a new laptop.  I'm a writer.  I've authored only a few things but I've written tens of thousands of things:  letters, essays, poems, stories, nonfiction, some fiction, blogs, email,  journals.  I write all the time.  I've written all my adult life, all my teen life, and a bit before.  I bought an electric typewriter when I was 16.  I've used Apples or Macs since the early 80s.  I have a great desktop computer with a huge screen (for graphics) that I purchased with some of the small inheritance I received when we sold Mom's farm house, paid her debts, and split the remainder 5 ways.  Now my MacBook laptop from 2007 has died and I'm on an older laptop of my daughter's an iBook that would randomly not recognize the keyboard and type gibberish, which I've kluged into working for a while, cross your fingers, but that has melted power cords like lunchtime grilled cheese sandwiches for its entire working life and currently has pink duct tape holing the power cord together.  I have to have a portable computer of some sort that is reliable before BlogHer. 

Unemployment

I've been unemployed for the last 7 months.  I need to go to BlogHer in early August as my writing career, low to no pay though it is at times, hinges on this network of savvy women writers and entrepreneurs.    Fortunately,  I can drive to San Diego where the conference is this year, after I get a cruise control issue on my car fixed.  Damn, these effing uber elite greedy sons and daughters of fascist ruling families that are tanking our economy for a few more coins in their off shore bank vaults.  My husband has worked so damn hard his entire life and his work is for the benefit of human kind, and the rewards just haven't come monetarily. Huge corporations will benefit after his patents expire, but they are just biding their time.  While they have all the rights of people, they are immortal and can wait to profit from any given scientist's labors.


The Last Shuttle Flight


I'm sad.  I'm watching the very last shuttle launch as I write.  T minus 31 seconds. Pause.  Then 10, 9, 8, 7,  6....   Lift-off.  WTF,  I'm tearing up.  I'm crying.  What happened to My America?  Where did it go?  Why did the conservatives want to kill it?   My Uncle Carl worked for NASA.  I remember the Challenger disaster clearly.... I was living on Sylvia Street in West Lafayette when I saw that horrible Y of smoke and debris.  But there are good memories too,  I will always treasure getting into Edwards AFB as a VIP for the first test of the on board computers when the shuttle still reached the sky piggy-backed on a Boeing 727 to then coast in and land on a dry lake bed at Edwards with my uncle and three friends in the late 1970s.  I grew up believing that I and America could do anything... largely because of the space program that put men on the moon.  The development of our space program has been given over privatization. 

It is July 8th

Today is July 8th.  Six months ago my life changed.  I'm a Tucsonan.  January 8th is forever etched into our hearts, minds, and memories. Why?  I still don't understand why.  A man obviously in need of mental health care killed and wounded many people on that day because he was not on medication nor receiving the counseling or environmental setting he needed.  Why?  To my mind at least it is because  Republican Presidents have led the way to dismantling every social service that was put in place between the 1930s and the 1960s.  It has taken them since the time of Nixon's presidency to now to do it, but the SOBs are so good at lying, making alliances with people for the short term, that will eventually f*ck those partners, but benefit  Big R Big Bigness in the long run.

Blogger and Wrap Up

I'm still not sure about this new interface that Blogger dropped on us.  I think I like it. 

These were all supposed to be fragments, but somehow I think there is an undercurrent of a theme here.  Maybe? 

Flores Family Murders, The January Murders, The Extreme Right, and How They Relate

Christina Taylor Green

While I am glad that justice seems to be the result of the all the trials of all those charged and now found guilty of the murder of Raul "Junior" Flores and his little 9 year old daughter, Brisenia Flores, in May of 2009, I'm still tremendously saddened by the deaths and the overall situation in Arizona that led to the deaths of two little girls in Arizona.   One little girl died in May of 2009 in a vile multiple murder and another died in January of 2009 when a mentally ill man committed mass murder and attempted murder in his attempt to assassinate Representative Gabrielle Giffords. 


The article in today's Tucson paper, Arivaca man convicted in two slayings: Gaxiola behind home invasion, '09 murder of father, daughter, provides a good overview of the basics of the horrific multiple murders and attempted murder.  I am not sure that people who have not lived near the U.S. - Mexico border can really appreciate the convoluted, bizarre, and totally senseless "issues" that combine to create  life and death realities every day in the county in which I have lived for 22 years.  

I cannot but help draw comparisons between the battle that is being waged on the America people today largely by the Republican Conservative Corporatist consortium and the ideological battle that took place before WWII.  The isolationist political demands of the conservatives, except for support of Israel, while calling for ever lessening restrictions on mega-corporations and that are  global multi-national entities disguised as American Companies that enjoy constitutional person-hood status smacks of the nearly successful Republican call for America to support the spread of Fascism and Nazism by major "respected" Americans such as Prescott Bush, Charles Lindburgh, and Henry Ford.

If you will review your history you will find that the repeal of the Neutrality Act that allowed the U.S. to support the Allies was passed bit by bit, slowly, slowly, slowly over several years, and even when our ships were sunk there was still a significant call for isolationism (see the Senate Vote on Neutrality Act article on this page) that would allow persons such as Prescott Bush to continue trading with Germany, an enemy that was attacking our properties.) The divisions in our government today hearken back to the divisions then, the massive nature of wars that are raging, and the depressed economic climate all chill me to the bone due to the similarity with which the Right (Reich?) is parroting the mass marketing of Fascism, isolation, and hatred of "the other" to the American public that was done in the 20s, 30s, and very early 40s by good ol' boy Republicans. 

I'm digressing majorly here, but I'm so angry I just I cannot concentrate.

Two murders of little children in Pima County involve to varying degrees, to the best of my knowledge both do not each directly involve all of other the following issues, but the drug war, immigration, education, and mental health all factor into the murders.

I'm so heart sick right now with wondering how many other little children are being harmed at this moment due to hate and fear that feed:

•  immigration and border issues, how many little children are having their lives exposed to the danger and destabilization of living in a drug corridor that would be far less dangerous if marijuana was rescheduled away from Schedule I, or prohibition was lifted, 
• economic consideration such as if work was available above minimum wage (if you are lucky) in so-called Right to Work States such as Arizona, 
• erosion of social and medical rights such as if mental health services being unavailable at no or low cost to all those that needed it, 
• and increasing ignorance that would diminish if education was funded, valued, and encouraged rather than being undermined by corporations that don't support education through taxes in the areas where they employ parents as well as by the fundamentalist right that hopes to eradicate public schools.  

Now before anyone gets his or her panties or briefs in a knot my last point about the eradication of public schools is based upon this quote: "One day, I hope in the next ten years, I trust that we will have more Christian day schools than there are public schools. I hope I will live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools.The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" and is from
America Can Be Saved!  1979.  Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Sword of the Lord Publishers. Pages: 52-53).

Oh, and he sentencing for the murders has not yet been decided.  That is all I can say so far about Albert Robert Gaxiola who has been found guilty of two murders and one attempted murder,  who was related to the mother who was shot, who recruited Forde her Nazi comrade.  The whole thing is so disgusting, senseless, and evil that I probably won't write much more about it here or on BlogHer.com where in my occasional postings I have tried to increase awareness about what goes on in Tucson when it comes to the right wing and violence in our wonderful Old Pueblo.

Boortz Calls for Violence on the Same Day Giffords Leaves Hospital and Arivaca Family Murder Trial Continues

I don't do a lot of cross-posting on my blogs, but today I have to.  I have tried to write an entry several times today.  Several situations are swirling around in my brain space,  and they all involve violence and public complicity in that violence.

Ed Schultz gets pulled from the air for a week for using the word slut.  Neal Boortz, major Right Wing radio personality, calls for his listeners to arm themselves and kill "thugs," a thinly disguised term for young brown or black men, and women, in the streets of Atlanta, and I hear no outcry from the right to control their own.   Where the hell is the rage when Beck or other Fox "news" people regularly allude to violence against our political figures. 

Gabby Giffords, my Representative to Congress, was able to go home with her husband for the first time in over 5 months since the attempted assassination of her, the life altering injuries of several others and the death of 6 Tucson  by a very disturbed man that I still believe, as I wrote shortly after the shooting, was impacted and influenced by a culture of hate that is one of a number of subtexts and dialogs that run through my beloved Tucson.  There was a call for civility that was anchored in Tucson.  That call is still being broadcast from Tucson.  If you don't believe me, just read Ashley Burroughs post on BlogHer today who doesn't candy coat a dern thing (can you use the word dern without tooting?) and still remains a positive, constructive person and a force for good.   She and her Big Guy chose to live in Tucson because they picked up on all the wonderful sub texts that far outnumber the negative ones in the Old Pueblo.

The trial of the third person charged in the Flores family murders is also going on here in Tucson.  Some things that have not been clear before in the two trials of the non-locals who arranged the murders of a family to finance more hate crimes.   This third person was known to the family.  As much as I cannot understand how anyone can shoot a child, the pure evil of killing a child of a family you know is beyond my ability to even describe.  There was something under the surface of the daily lives of these people that never should have been there.  Smuggling pot across the border.  Why is it illegal?  Why do we not just let people grown a couple pot plants? There would be very little market for illegal marijuana smuggling then and much of my figurative backyard would not be littered with the bodies of people drawn into the lure of "easy" money from the Mexican Cartels.  If we had Fair Trade, living wages, and corporate regulation there would not be mass migrations of economic refugees to attract the hateful attention of people competing with the economic refuges.  I don't like the Pulp Fiction feeling that I sometimes get that something has been going on nearby and recently -- you can find that feeling here in Tucson. 

So I guess I should just say that, living in a city where people have been shot en masse recently,  I'm more jumpy about violent speech than the average person, and I want the people of America to take responsibility for what they say, do, and listen to.  If you don't speak up then you are just as guilty of any violence that stems from whatever you remained silent about as the actual perpetrator.  We are a democratic republic, yes, but that does not come free.  I'm quite frankly tired of "I don't want to get involved" types enabling hate speech.

On Realizing I Was Impacted by Terrorism

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the last 12-24 hours of world event news.

The bombing of the Pentagon and WTC Twin Towers changed the course of my life n very significant ways.  While I was initially worried about my step-daughter who was at work a few blocks away from the WTC in NYC.  We heard from her fairly soon after the plane strikes and knew she was ok.  We knew people who worked in the WTC who got out, although we did not know for a while if they were safe but they were.  They worked on the 23rd floor.  But that was it for direct impact on my life. Like most of the nation I was connected to the events of that day primarily through media coverage.

Indirect impact that day was far more significant for me.  My sixth grader was so upset by the attacks that the school called me to ask how I wanted them to proceed with her.   She had visited the WTC the previous month with her dad and knew the place and scale of what was happening in a way that most kids from Tucson could not. 

I had worked for several years as the head of the security section at a major anthropological museum.  I received training in cultural property protection coordinated by the Smithsonian and partially funded by the Getty.  My thoughts were about evacuation routes, responders, and infrastructure and the magnitude of what was transpiring.  Then like everyone else I mourned.  Then I watched the whole world reach out to us and our leadership at that time choose how to react to that embrace of good will.

In October of 2001, a month after the attacks, my husband was contacted by the head of the section at the National Science Foundation, with whom he had a fair amount of contact during the first 15 years of his professional career.  That gentleman told him they were having absolutely no one express interest in starting a rotation the following summer in 2002.  They had slots they could not fill. The NSF brings academic and scientific professionals from various research areas to Arlington, VA  to rotate through the Foundation for a year or two so evaluations of research proposals are headed up by people actively involved in the research area within which the proposal falls.

Unlike most academics, my husband had done a stint in the military after the draft was eliminated and before he finished his education.  We are progressives and we are very patriotic.  We decided it was our duty to help keep part of the cycle of scientific inquiry in our country going after the attacks.  It was the least we could do.  So we uprooted our family over the protests of our preteen daughter, who bemoaned that she would absolutely die if we took her away from her friends, and moved across the country to the Ballston area a couple of miles or so away from the Pentagon in a lovely little neighborhood just off Highway 50.  Our daughter went to school that next year with kids whose parents had been killed in the Pentagon attack.  It was a good year for us in all regards but financial.  We went into debt with the moves and inability to rent our home in Tucson for the whole time, and the extra expense of living in a costly city.  It was life-changing.

I expected surgical strikes and undercover ops would take out the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden within a year or so from the time of the attacks.  I did not expect the vast constriction of our rights as Americans nor did I expect the blatant misdirection of our precious resources and lives in war toward a land, against a people, and despot who had absolutely nothing to do with the heinous attacks on the U.S. on Septemberr 11, 2001.  

Living just outside the Beltway made me aware of politics in, for me, a very new way.  We didn't have a television that year, but we did have internet, radio, and newspapers.  I watched a group of women vigil in front of the Whitehouse, starting in November of 2002, against the invasion of Iraq that the Bush administration seemed hell bent on accomplishing no matter what.  I watched huge, absolutely HUGE, anti-war marches in the winter receive practically no news coverage.  I began to join  in those peace marches in February and March of 2003.  I marched with CODEPINK,  in their first march, on International Women's Day, March 8, 2003. 

We had been attacked, our land and people assaulted and killed, I allowed my family's entire life to be upturned so that in some small way terror would not win by disrupting our country's way of life.  I knew there were countless Americans who had made far larger changes to their lives and offered up sacrifices of their lives to serve our country, so I didn't think much about what our little family had done until our administration insulted and in many ways desecrated the memory of all those who died in the attacks on our country and in the initial attacks in Afghanistan by focusing our country's energies and sacrifices in a political and economic vendetta against Iraq.  Wrapping my home in plastic and sealing it with duct tape just isn't my way.  I wrote about it email lists and friends.  I blogged about it a bit.  I had to do more.  My way is to react consciously and purposively.  My father taught me that.  We have civic responsibilities and they are precious. 

Back in Arizona  in April of 2004,  I joined together with a few other women and began to bring the PINK message of peace to Arizona through CODEPINK Women for Peace actions.  I liked the spontaneous, truly grassroots, and positively focused organic,  interconnected nature of the links between individual women that made us respected by the peace and justice community and detested and vilified by the far right wing.   I felt my actions were patriotic and proudly still feel so.  

Since that time, I have had my patriotism questioned, had my life threatened, been called reprehensible names, and had my resolve and heart hardened.   I've given up time with my daughter as she grew up so that I might return to D.C. with other women to press the peace and justice message forward and keep it visible so that no one would forget that our country is about plurality and diverse belief systems working together for democratic principles.    I was removed from Senate Committee meetings on May 17, 2006 when I could not contain myself and shouted out, "Liar" to Rumsfeld as he ended a report to Armed Services Committee.  I helped start the house in D.C. that grew into an "official" Pink House that housed women from around the country for a week or two when they could travel to D.C. in order to let officials know there were and are other views in the country that did not support our men and women being killed and our country being bankrupted and our constitution violated. 

Even when I had briefly moved back to Indiana to take care of my mother so that she might leave this world in her own home of 60 plus years I managed to bring a bit of PINK to Fort Wayne to brighten the peace message that has been a constant in that agrarian and blue collar part of the world through the message of Church of the Brethren, Mennonite and Amish faiths as well as the progressive political community.

It is from this lens through which I have to view the death of Osama bin Laden.  I wasn't filled with joy when I heard the news of his death.  Neither was I sad.  I've become very measured in my response to war.  I am on discussion lists where almost every day I read about the deaths of young children from drone attacks.  I hate war.  I hate violent death.  I hate what we do to each other.  As I wrote in a rather inarticulate post shortly after I learned of bin Laden's death, my husband I opened a bottle of wine and toasted.  The toast was, "May our troops come home soon." 

I was trying to not make my response to this into a political statement.  But everything we do has political impact.  We make political choices in everything we do, even if we do not consciously understand or want to think about that.  I mean that.  The most important thing I have brought into my conscious life since I joined with the efforts of thousands of other women in the U.S. and around the world who work for peace is that every little thing we do, say, or think has consequence. 

Mother's Day is coming this weekend.  It seems like a good time to remember the call of Julia Ward Howe, yes the same person who wrote the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, when she wrote another document in 1870 when she issued her:

Mother's Day Proclamation for Peace

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

This week I will reflect on where I should aim my efforts in the next 10 years.  These last 10 years were not a concrete block of time for me until last night.  I have been putting all my efforts into starting a business these last few months.  Everything somehow changed again in the last couple of days.    This week I will reflect on these past few years and where my next 10 years of effort in this world might be placed.  I need to do this.  Until I sat down this morning to write my reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden that our President announced last night, I didn't really grasp how much my life has been directed by actions and reactions to things that this man set in motion.  I'm pretty sure I met extremists who worked with bin Laden when I worked at the University Library here in Tucson.  I first worked in current periodicals where international newspapers were available.  This was during the time when Al Qaeda in the U.S. was head quartered here.  An islamic cleric was murdered here during that time.  Later when I worked at a museum here I became aware of FBI agents specifically using our buildings for terrorist related training exercises.  More was going on around me in my daily life than I ever dreamed.  These things have impact.  We cannot ever know all the impact single actions may take, but we can know they are vast and immeasurable.

I need a week, I'm giving myself until Mother's Day, to contemplate the past ten years and the next ten years.  What are you doing differently this week?



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I also published this as a member post on the BlogHer network. 

Tucson, Al Qaeda and Connections - Real and Imagined

Tucson has connections to too many weirdos.  Tonight while zipping through Bin Laden references, I found this reference that reminded me of the whole unfortunate connection between Al Qaeda and Tucson.  Some folks don't know, but I can't imagine how they have missed it.  The Islamic Center of Tucson was an Al Qaeda HQ if not THE Al Qaeda HQ in the U.S. in the early 1990s. 

Jihad Watch references a reprint of Arizona Was Home to bin Laden ''Sleeper Cell'' by Dennis Wagner and Tom Zoellner.  The Arizona Republic.  September 28, 2001.

* Wadih El-Hage, a former Tucson resident and bin Laden lieutenant, was imprisoned in connection with the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania. Years earlier, he engineered the purchase of a military surplus jet from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and may have had a role in the assassination of the leader of a controversial Islamic sect in Tucson in 1990.
* Unnamed "henchmen" to bin Laden, who reportedly attempted to buy a Boeing 727 jetliner in Arizona just six months before the Sept. 11 hijackings. A law enforcement official told the New York Post the men had "kicked the tires" of some used airplanes in Denver and Tucson, but ultimately did not make a purchase.

Other sources write about Fort Huachuca as a 2007 target of joint jihadi and cartel operations.

Fort Huachuca, the nation’s largest intelligence training center, changed security measures in May after being warned that Islamist terrorists, with the aid of Mexican drug cartels, were planning an attack on the facility.

They were here.  The air bases and training programs attracted Al Qaeda extremists.  The problem I have with reporting on this is that many other factors, including the U of A, as well as climate similarities, attracted lots of non-extremist, regular old people and families who happen to be Muslim.

The ICT is being focused on by the creeping sharia wing nuts.  This is hate speech pure and simple.  Tucson is better than this.  Just because a small group of people did something in Tucson does not mean that we are filled with terrorist sleeper cells.  Maybe we have some,  but they would surely be smarter than to associate themselves with ICT. 

I hope we can be bigger than the small minds that want to blame the wrong people.  Let's be civil and also aware of how we can promote sanity and safety.  

In the days while the country focuses on the fatal completion of  a 10 year hunt for bin Laden, please remember that while Tucson is forever linked to a national tragedy at the beginning of this century,  Tucson has shown itself to be better than to hate the "other"as so many neighboring areas pride themselves for doing. 

Two Down and One (Child Murderer) Trial to Go

I am a bit of a cynic when it comes to Arizona justice or any justice in any state that prides itself on stupidity, but living in such states seems to be my lot in life.  Indiana and Arizona have both had more than is any one state's right to stupid judicial actions.  Indiana rounded off pi in in a House Committee, but fortunately did not allow it to become law.  Both states kill people for killing people though they both are "Christian" run states that I'm sure subscribe to the Ten Commandments including the one that goes, "Thou shall not kill." 

I grew up in Indiana and remember getting in my first politically charged "discussion" on a school bus in November 1964 the morning after Johnson won the election over Goldwater.  I had to be all of 7 years old, but I remember it clearly.   The oldest sister, who had to be all of 9 or 10 years old,  of a family on my bus route looked as though a family member had died when I brought up the election.  I later came to understand that the parents in the family were ultra conservative and attended The Church of the Nazarene in the town that was the county seat just south of the township grade school we attended. 


I was never a 9 year old in Arizona. I've only lived here for a few decades.  I am however the mother of a native Arizonan, and she was a nine year old here, once upon a time.  I was a Girl Scout Leader to a group of 9 year old girls.  I was a Sunday School Teacher to a class with 9 year old girls in it. 

The faces of these girls I have known and in several cases come to love are the ones who flash before me when I also pull up the class photo mental image of Brisenia Flores.  I still cry every time I think of her asking Shawna Forde, Jason Eugene Bush, and Albert Robert Gaxiola why they shot her parents and of her then begging for her own life.  Things like this are not supposed to happen to 9 year old girls.  Tucson knows all too well that 9 year-olds can die from the heinous actions of deranged people.  But the facts of this case push even this understanding beyond what a saddened Tucson can believe.  This falls into the same league as sexual predators who torture and kill children.   This falls into the category of pure evil. 


How could we as a community have allowed such vile predators to reside in and do such harm to our community?  I will never understand this.  I know people were talking about connections between Minutemen militias and the extremely violent right wing rhetoric that routinely, at least weekly from my understanding, came to our streets in the last 10 years.  Recruiters were connected to drug traffickers.  Police refused to come to respond to calls for assistance when there were assaults at demonstrations.  Individuals burned flags and tried to bait surrounding crowds into violence.  The weaving of fringe groups into the daily life of our community must have numbed our outrage when groups of people from outside of our community descended upon our area to create a police state mentality in our backyards.  Why did and do we tolerate people who have no business here who supposedly guard a border from people who are for the most part guilty only of not looking like them. 

Could we have done more?  Of course we could have.  The portent of violence was there.  Suspected serial killers and mentally unstable individuals were allowed to play soldier with real guns where I live and where so many of the nine year old girls I have loved, lived. 


This isn't right.


I'm not sure that killing individuals who are disturbed enough to carry out such atrocities is any better than what the accused and convicted did.  But I am in the minority, supposedly,  just as I was when I expressed concern years ago about the influx of militia types into our county.  So two of the three people on trial for the murders of Bresenia Flores and her young papa, Raul Flores, have been convicted of murder and sentenced to die by lethal injection.  One trial remains. 


Killing these people will not ease my conscience of the persistent doubt that perhaps there was more that we could have done, that I should have tried to do more to wake people up to what was and is happening at the edges of our community.  The deaths from our ignorance seem destined to climb and include Shawna Forde, Jason Eugene Bush and probably Albert Robert Gaxiola, also accused in the murders, who goes on trial June 1st.  

I'm sure I will write more then.  

A Concert To Benefit the Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding

Benefit

It is very, very difficult to try to talk about anything good associated with the January 8th assassination attempt on U. S. House of Representative Member, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords that left six dead and 13 physically wounded.  Countless Tucson families and citizens and all the networks all these people touched were also emotionally changed, and indeed the very community itself was injured, for when a community member is hurt, the community itself is injured.  And Tucson is a community.  We are the biggest small town in America.  We are healing, but the perception of our community, our dear Old Pueblo, is forever changed.  When talking heads use the word Tucson now they are referring to a few seconds of violence, the act of a madman, that attempted to change the vibe (We talk that way here.) of Tucson.  It isn't going to happen;  Tucson will be more like Tucson than ever in the coming weeks, months and years.  Not all communities could attract such a diverse and positive musical outreach and support network as Tucson has in  the Benefit Concert featuring Jackson Browne, Alice Cooper for the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona's Fund for Civility, Respect, and Understanding.

Click to go to ticket site. 

  

Lineup

There is an amazingly diverse line up and it is perfect.  These are all performers who have a reason to be here other than just for a pro bono feather in their service caps.   Zelisko has been promoting shows in Arizona since 1974.  Jackson Browne has had Arizona connections for a long, long time.  And I mean that in the best of all possible ways.  In the '90s I traveled up to the Verde Valley Music Festival that happened every year during the first weekend in October until 2001 when air traffic came to a roaring halt mid-September.  Alice Cooper, has lived in Phoenix/Scottsdale most of his life (even when he was Vincent Damon Furnier, and you know, I can see him as a "Vinnie") and his Christian faith certainly aligns with the cause of this concert.  Calexico IS Tucson in so many ways. Ozomatli used to play Tucson a bunch and it will be good to have them break their boycott of Arizona and show the rest of the country that Tucson doesn't deserve to be boycotted for the things Phoenix does.  Welcome back! I've seen Crosby and Nash in Tucson before, usually with another guy often linked with them.   I've seen Keb 'Mo play in Tucson,  Lofgren plays through Tucson too,  Roger Clyne is from Tempe and a third generation Arizonan, Joel Rafael wrote "This Is My Country" that was covered by Crosby and Nash and included in the Barry Levinson documentary, "Poliwood." You may remember Sam Moore from "Sam and Dave."  Milton 'Quiltman' Sahme has worked as a composer and vocalist on soundtracks & occasionally tours with John Trudell. Jerry Riopelle lives in Scottsdale and is probably best known for producing music.  And Dar Williams, what can I say about her except that as one of the very small minority of women performers in this line up she will have no problem representing anything and everything you may want or need to have reflected in this show --as she is a singer and songwriter who can present viewpoints and essences of being with amazingly deft nuance and skill.   And speaking of smarts and talent, Jennifer Warnes, is well a music legend even if you don't recognize her name at first.  She has won Oscars and Grammy Awards for songs you know all the words to, but Jennifer is perfect for this concert because as she says about music, "I'm more interested in how close we can get through the music."

Tucson

Tucson so deserves to have great musicians play here and I think with this concert it is clear that Tucson has been exempted from the boycott of Arizona over the discriminatory 1070 law.  Instead of boycotting Tucson I think people from far and wide should inundate Arizona and talk to the people of state.  Come and support non-right wing, non-politico artisans and businesses  that are a far more fair representation of us than the big corporate money and religious minorities that control the politics of this state.   If you have not heard, some of us are so adamant about the distinction between us and the rest of Arizona that we want to secede from Arizona and become the 51st state. For more info just check out the Start Our State movement.  

Secession has absolutely nothing to do with January 8th.  But I just loved Fitz's cartoon and he is a great guy and didn't deserve the muzzling his corporate media boss gave him when they demanded he apologize for speaking to reporters as a private citizen when he happened to be in that parking lot that infamous Saturday morning.  But hey if you want to keep your job you have to do things that make you cringe at times. 

Ok, back to Tucson, we Tucsonans really try to be civil and peaceably live together.  We are a University town, we are one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in North America.  We are artists, writers, musicians, hikers, birders, and we have given rise to many  political families as well.  People who come to Tucson, even if they move on through it, are touched by it.  

Women participate in politics here, we won the right to vote in 1912 here in Arizona.   Look at Gabby Giffords, a Democrat who won a hard fought battle for what had been a Republican seat.  Look at all the women who came out to talk to Gabby that Saturday.  And by the way if you have not read Suzi Hileman's blog, The Burrow, the civic minded and loving neighbor of Christina-Taylor Green, The Burrow,  I highly recommend that you do.  It is inspiring.  It is very Tucson.  Hileman chose to live here in Tucson because it is such a great place. 

Oh we need this concert, just like we needed the UMC vigil that lasted for weeks and helped us to meet and heal and pray, and like we needed the uplifting words of our President here in our town.   The shootings come back into the news this Wednesday, two days from now,  when a court date is set for the shooter and our wounds will hurt all over again, but this concert will help all of us to heal and will provide significant assistance to all those directly hurt by that madman's actions and tools.   

Capitalist Hippies of the World Unite!

Went to see Moonalice at The Hut on 4th Avenue Saturday Night.  Damn good musicians, damn fine crowd and damn the torpedos, full speed ahead  social marketing experiment! Okay, to read much further you will have to acknowledge that not all baby boomers are evil nor are they all they all socio-tech illiterates.  Unlike the Saturday Night Live overview of a week ago insinuated, these boomers do not need anyone to tell them what iTunes is.  And speaking of SNL, a former/occasional/whatever Moonalice member was a the SNL bandleader for quite a while. These boomers have been turning on amps, tuning in their audiences, and dropping out tunes with the likes of Jefferson Starship, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia.... and on the way were investing in Google and Facebook early on, and are most generously gifting Wikipedia on a grand scale.

The power of the boomers (who are currently peaking at age 54 - height of the baby boom was 1957) may well only now be coming into season as the Late Boomers, roughly those born 1956 to 1964, who were the neglected largest half of the boom, we are talking temporal halves here, ok?   But this same group was also the subject of a book called Generation X. So the age group, cohort so to speak, are likely to be major players who are only now coming into second careers or early retirement.

Here I'm reminded of The Who's, Won't Get Fooled Again. The late boomers came of age and entered adulthood as rock shattered into plethora of proto-genres, as they began trying to find a foothold in an economy that  thwarted them at every turn.  The yuppies of the "me" generation were not so much greedy as simply far more aware of what the purveyors and power brokers of the last days of the 20th Century's "bigger is better" mindset does to individuals.  Heck and gosh, they'd been living with it all their lives: never enough desks in the classroom for them, marketing targeted at them from the cradle on, eco-disasters as a part of life, wars up close and personal on the teevee every night ... all these and much, much more created the mindset of the last half of the baby boom.  Pardon them for being a bit cynically and skeptically in your face about it.

The hippie ideology of the first half of the baby boom, leading edge boomers, is melding with the tactical knowledge of the late boomers. Age allows the collapsing of these distinct cohorts into a generation for the first time in their lives though the rest of the World has referred to them as a unified group since at least the late 1970s when the term "Baby Boomers" began to be used.

All this was realignment of cultural semiotics was made "perfectly clear," to borrow a "Tricky Dick" phrase, last evening when I watched, listened, and danced to the music of Moonalice [each member  listed with one of their more famous gigs;  Roger McNamee (T. Rowe Price,) Ann McNamee (Flying Other Brothers), Pete Sears (Jefferson Starship,) Barry Sless (David Nelson Band,) John Molo (Bruce Hornsby and the Range)] and the last couple days of research didn't hurt either.  Blogging note:  Research is good.  Action note: The revolution can be finished and podcasted, if not televised if the late boomers and early boomers combine forces for the good of human kind.  Rock, all sizes and shapes of it,  is our soundtrack! Okay back to the intriguing business aspects of Moonalice.

Roger McNamee is creating a different (as in "and now for something completely different") model of music making, performing, recording and playing that is a far more cooperative venture than anything the music industry would have ever tolerated.  This is good.  New types of organization require resources and advocates with influence.  McNamee is commenting on the corporate system itself, and, since he is an acknowledged master of at least some components of that system, and in the end this is one of the reasons I am intrigued by Moonalice.  While the musical ability of all the members will bowl you over whether or not you've had a bowl, the core of a revolution is contained within the marketing and relationship of all the participants to the ideology.  This new music model is build on relationship -- and that is more than just buying a ticket to watch or listen at some huge arena.

Shawna Forde Found Guilty of the Murders of Brisenia Flores and Her Father

I don't like to use the names of crazies who commit murder, but in this case I am choosing to use the name of one of three  people charged with with a nine year old girl in southern Arizona.  The little girl, Brisenia, was nine when Shawna Forde masterminded the home invasion robberies of drop or stash houses near the Mexico - U.S. border south of Tucson, in Pima County, in 2009 in order to finance border militia operations.  The problem is that Brisenia's home wasn't a drop or stash house according to the evidence and the invasion turned into a double homicide.

The first of three trials for her and her father's murders ended just after noon today, February 14,2011.  Shawna Forde has been found guilty of first degree murder of both 9-year old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul.  Arizona does have the death penalty.  Sentencing of Ms. Forde will take place separately.

Two more trials of men accused in the murders have yet to take place.

Brisenia's mother identified Ms. Forde as one of the three people who broke into her house and killed her family in 2009.  There were also recordings of Forde's phone conversations and one of the father's rings was in her possession after the murders.  Apparently these things were enough for the predominantly female jury to find Forde guilty for planning and ordering the murders even though she did not fire the weapons.

The Minutemen, a border militia group, has splintered since Forde helped found the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps.  Forde, has been called unstable by this group, and she later founded another group , the Minutemen American Defense, of which one of the others charged in the slayings is National Operations Coordinator as well as being associated with Aryan Nation.   The Minutemen Project disavows affiliation with Ms. Forde.

The border militia groups deny being vigilante but at least some of the members of some of the groups  show the disregard of law as well as disregard of the rights of certain ethnic groups.  These actions of disrespect that are central to border vigilantism. 

Murder of 9 Year Old Arizona Girl Goes to Trial

While there is much debate about using the names of crazies who commit mass murder, in this case I am choosing not to use the names of three people associated with the border militia movement who stand accused of killing a nine year old girl in Southern Arizona.  The little girl who was gunned down was named  Brisenia Flores.   Brisenia Flores!  Brisenia Flores!!   Brisenia Flores!!!

Not the name you were expecting?  


I am aghast that Brisenia's name isn't on the tongue of every mother in this country.  A child, a little girl filled with promise, hope, and potential was gunned down in her home along with her father in a home invasion in Arivaca, AZ in 2009.  Her mother is alive only because she played dead after being shot, called 911, and shot one of the intruders after they returned.

The trial in her murder has started and we hear (as in national talking head coverage) nothing of it?  Why?  The violent nature of life on the border may or may not have had anything to do with the now infamous January 8th attempted political assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others, 6 of whom died. People want to believe that.  But this trial certainly portrays a violent and obviously mentally deranged group of individuals who are very much part of life in Pima County, Arizona.

Do we hear nothing because there is no debate possible about motive?  Is the obvious motive one that no one in the U.S. media wants to look at?   Is it because a white woman appears to be behind the murders?  Is it because the little girl and her daddy who were brutally executed in their home had darker skin than the people who murdered them? 

The least coarse and provocative account of the shooting and arrests I can find to inform you, accurately, about the whole gruesome occurrence is from February 4 on All Things Considered by NPR. 

The trial is in recess until mid-week and is still in the jury selection and instruction phase of the trial process.  Arizona Daily Star reported on January 25th about the opening arguments.  The Daily Star reported on January 17th about the intricacies of the case and likely arguments to be used by both sides.   

The Strength of a Woman in Tucson

This morning I read two blog posts by a Tucson blogger, a member of the BlogHer Network, and a survivor of recent shootings.  Suzi Hileman, who writes The Burrow under the blogonym, Ashleigh Burroughs, is a new heroine of mine.  She writes about walking through the vigil garden at UMC on Sunday evening with her husband, and by law enforcement.  The garden was created for her and for the 19 others that were hurt or killed on January 8th.  She writes with a grace and strength that I can only describe as exceptional.

The first post of hers I read was written on Sunday. It was moving.  The second was written on Monday and it is inspirational.  It is as powerful of a piece of writing as I have read.  That she is able to write just over a week after being shot multiple times by a madman is beyond amazing. 

Many folks, myself included, allow the bumps in life to disturb them more than is necessary.  Our absolutely wimpy nature is made clear when we compare ourselves to this woman.  First she has written consistently for two years and built up a following and received recognition for the quality of her blog in that time.  That is an achievement.  Now as a survivor of a shooting that was an attempt at a political assassination, as the woman who was holding hands with little girl, Christine Green, as she was murdered by the madman, as the wife of a man who spoke eloquently and rationally about a vile act of a disturbed mind, she speaks calmly and with a clarity of a person who is either being guided by the divine if that exists, or who somehow has a gift to be able to see hopeful, blossoming patterns of what might be and guide us to them through this maze of absurdity that is now. 

In the midst of all this, there is also the fact that her personal life now connects to her writing life.  They were separate.  I put the two together when I was looking at a list of survivors and victims and saw no Ashleigh there.  Then I realized the wounds described by Ashleigh's daughter on the blog were the wounds described by the media as those of Suzi Hileman.  On top of everything else inflicted upon her and stolen from her, her anonymity was gone, she had been outed.  Fate saw fit to have the real woman behind the great blog emerge.  We cannot know why.  I hope she continues to blog, but it is not something that would be fair to ask of her.  If she continues to blog, it will be a gift. 

There are such treasures of people all around us.  People with gifts.  Angels Unaware so to speak.  I am adding Suzi to my list of comforts: places, thoughts, friends, readings, songs and poetry to which I can go, think, talk, read, listen when I need to find peace within myself.  Genuine voice.  Voice that takes me to a place in which I can find comfort. Real voices that know oh so much more than they ever wished to know.  Voice from which I can learn. 

I also feel tremendous sadness for Suzi.  As a person who has come to a point in life where she can give and speak from a point of wisdom, she is not to be envied.  Wisdom gathers knowledge into us through sadness, trauma, and loss.  Wisdom is the balance that comes with perspective showing beginnings and endings, full circles, and fearful beauty of birth and death.  Wisdom is nothing I would wish on anyone.  For those who have reached its sun and shadows I am most grateful when they share bits of what they have come to know, but it is nothing for which I could ever ask.  It is too personal.  It is a gift.   

Thank you Suzi. 

Polarization and Hate Speech from Elected Officials, Talking Heads, and Each and Every Citizen Impacts Each and Every One of Us

I write this for myself as much as for my friends who are readers and wondering what my take as a Tucsonan is on the horrors of yesterday.

My heart aches.  My eyes tear up on and off throughout the day.  Could I have done more to decrease the culture of hate and violence that has torn our nation apart and killed members of my community? I have to say that, "Yes, I could have done more."

No, no one killed was a personal friend of mine, but being an occasional participant in local political gatherings, being one of Gabby's District 8 constituents, and being an activist with a peace group who has made many trips to D.C. to participate in peace messaging to House and Senate members and office staff, I had met and interacted with several of the injured and killed.

After I returned from Indiana in 2007,  where I cared for my mother during the last months of her 92 year long life, I greatly decreased the frequency of my activist activities, that had began in 2003 and continued through early 2007, for several reasons.

1)  I was tired, exhausted.
2)  I had to find a job to pay off the significant debt I incurred caring for my mother because there is no good end of life health care in the U.S.
3) The escalation of violence in Tucson against peace activists by "counter demonstrators" continued during my absence and also during that time the Tucson Police Dept had stopped responding to requests for help from peace demonstrators outside weekly protests in front of a recruiting center when assaults by "counter demonstrators" occurred.  These "counter demonstrators dressed in military uniformed and had personally threatened me previously.  I was somewhat relieved when I found out I had to work on the morning when this vigil is held and this shames me.
4) I set off on a path to increase my inner peace and personal health.
5) I decided to focus on national level actions that spoke to me.
6) I selfishly felt the likelihood of personal injury to myself was much greater in Arizona than personal injury in the U.S. Capitol activism.

Had I been more vocal, and more articulate,  about the growing undercurrent in the atmosphere of hate and violence here in Tucson, that IS a real and palpable presence by the way, could I have nudged a thing or occurrence here or there that might have somehow changed something?   I absolutely believe that it is no accident that this horrible attempted assassination, and the related murders and shootings, which so many on the left were afraid would happen, happened in Tucson.  Many people in Tucson and across the country had voiced concern about  just such a thing happening after images and speech suggesting violence became routine parts of political campaigns.  Many feel that this horror happened here in the rabidly out of control Fundamentalist Mormon & Christian and Republican controlled state of Arizona because the atmosphere here helped a very disturbed young man feel it was acceptable to attempt to assassinate a Congresswoman.

No, I don't feel personally responsible for any one thing, but I do feel there is some possibility that I could have done something more to help change the atmosphere; I know we all, each and every one of us, have impact on others far beyond what we will ever know.  My favorite movie is It's a Wonderful Life, not only because I'm a sap, but because this story so beautifully shows the inadvertent and indirect, but significant, impact we not only have on those we love or interact with on a daily basis, but on those whose lives only tangentially brush our lives.

I am upset that health care in Arizona has devolved to such a degree that individuals who are known to be potentially violent and dangerous are not getting needed mental health care and are able to buy weaponry and carry out murders and assassination attempts.

I am grateful that the anti-education machine in the AZ government has been unable to completely strip the University of Arizona and the University Medical Center of funding for the only Trauma Center in Southern Arizona.  Without this, many more people, including Gabby would have probably died.

I am sickened that guns can be carried and concealed practically anywhere in the State of Arizona.  I can't imagine what the upcoming redistricting in Arizona will do to the remaining and already irrationally fragmented political districts.  The ability of liberal areas to have any meaningful self-governance have been politically silenced in the state as is evidenced by Tucson and other liberal Arizona enclaves division in egregious gerrymandering that will probably only get worse this year.

I am quite upset by statements made by various elected officials in Arizona who have called for "moving on"  from this tragedy within hours of the shooting, by Senator Kyl's statement that condemns Sheriff Dupnik rather than a statement decrying the violence.  This reversion to political speak within hours of a mass murder in their jurisdictions unfortunately illustrates the disconnect these officials have from the real world.  These leaders should apologize, at the very least, for such callous behavior when a city, state, and indeed, a nation are in mourning.  I am upset that Boehner has chosen to focus on protecting House Members and their staff when half the dead were simple innocent constituent civilians--we don't just need to increase security.  We need to increase civility.

Jesse Kelly's ad on the Pima County Republican website in early June 2010

I unfortunately continue to be outraged by folks on the political right who say the left wanted this to happen for some perverse reason.  By we progressives saying we were afraid something like this would happen when gunsights or target icons were placed over congressional districts in campaign materials and websites, or when Gabby's opponent had an automatic weapon shooting fest to remove Gabby from office does not mean that we wanted it to happen.  As I think you can see by this ad image, the implications of this vitriolic language was over the top and could have even unconsciously influenced the gunman.

The best thing the political right and or left can do right now is to apologize for anything they may have said or done,  or that was said or done on their behalf, that in any way helped to create an atmosphere that allowed or incited this mass shooting and murder to happen.

We all have to tone it down.  But to deny responsibility is childish.  We all create our world.  We must all take responsibility for it.  The people who were killed or injured were human, no more, no less.

Huge Turnout at Phoenix Healthcare Rally Outside Obama's VFW Address

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As I posted earlier in the day, I was at the demonstration outside the VFW gathering where Obama spoke today. I was also near these kooks who were carrying weapons. A few pieces of information that I haven't seen mentioned in the media reports although the Maddow video above does briefly show the donkey hanging in effigy.

The people carrying the guns were parading their weaponry through the "other" side crowds. The intention of the police and permitters and such were clearly focused on keeping the opposing factions apart on opposite sides of the street. What I've not seen mentioned is how the person carrying the lynched stuffed animal had hateful notes pinned to the stuffed toy, marched directly into the opposing demonstrators and attempted to instigate confrontation and conflict and were quickly (within 5 minutes) joined by the guys with assault weapons. There were very clear provocateurs who were there at the rally to stir up trouble. I should also mention that the guns that were holstered on legs were within a foot or so of small children, in strollers next to their slightly older toddler siblings who were within grab range of the and at the very same level as the weapons.

Talking to people who are active in progressive politics and demonstrations in the Phoenix area I heard from a couple different individuals that these guys often show up, attempt to intimidate and are close supporters of Joe Arpaio. This association between extremely conservative police factions, the self proclaimed minute men and "freepers" in the Phoenix to U.S. Mexican border area is an area of great concern to me. I wrote about it 3 years ago when I was threatened by a "counter" demonstrator outside a military recruitment office -- this man told me that I was a traitor and would have been hanged to death in other times. The the threat and attempted intimidation was clear... not all of these times were necessarily in the past.

A brave soul has been valiantly continuing to stand, often alone, in an anti-recruitment protest at least that occurs at least one a week for years, before and after, the incidents I witnessed 3 years ago. This woman protester (in her late 70s) has been harassed and threatened by an individual from Tucson gun toting, Freeper thugs who "counter protest" at the recruitment center and had to go back to court a second time, from what I understand ( I need to interview her and others who attended the court hearing to cover this significant story that has had absolutely zero attention from "journalists" in the Tucson area) to keep this thuggish person and his threats and legal harassment away from her. It has taken years to even get the courts to acknowledge that there is targeted personal harassment and intimidation of regular citizens - little old ladies in fact - by thugs within the vigilante border guard/Joe Arpaio's posse/cocaine trafficking military recruiters/"Freeper" network. There is systematic assault and intimidation of the exercise of free speech by progressives in the central and southern Arizona region.

The police in Phoenix seemed far more neutral than the police in Tucson have seemed from my experience. I've been called on to private property by Tucson cops who then proceeded to cite me for trespassing. I've had police show up at my home's door and have them inform my terrified daughter they could arrest me any time they chose. Military - police - vigilante - wacko connections should be investigated.

There are radical right groups in AZ who are dangerous. Assault weapons and provocateurs are a dangerous combination. Perhaps you remember Timothy McVey and his Kingman connections?


I think this is enough for now.