Grill to Chill

I was wondering about the indexing of blogs so when I went to blogpulse I found that this was one of the most frequently linked to blogs. "Veeery interesting" as Artie Johnson's character on Laugh-In used to say...and not at all stupid.

My own experience is trivial in comparison to a visit from the Secret Service. But... it is of the same ilk.

The Army is using the Police as local henchmen to suppress Indy Media. That is my story and I'm sticking to it.

On May 20th there was a Stand Up Against Predatory Military Recruiters Day.

That's the day that local police showed up at my door (I wasn't home) to inform me they "could arrest me if anyone pressed charges." Apparently someone was terribly upset about the temporary posting of alternative media around town. The police saw this as important enough to send a squad car to my home. Hmmm.... if I remember correctly, and I'm pretty sure I do... when my house was broken into through a window and robbed, the police acted like it was no big deal. When a rock was thrown through my car's rear window the police were too busy to come and take the report. But this purported use of marking chalk spray to temporarily publish a street message and the posting of a sign with tape, not wheat paste, over a recruiting station window merits a visit to my house and a discussion details of my supposed actions with my minor daughter. This is in a town with serious violent crime occuring 24/7.

The cops were doing nothing but attempting to intimidate "activists" -- middle aged women wearing pink.

The Army Recruiters had called the police on me a few days before that. I became really pissed off, incensed, when my minor daughter received an offer for a free gym bag in the mail from U.S. Army Recruiting. My mamma lion protecting her cub instinctual nature took over. I couldn't figure out what the call number to get her removed from the list was (it isn't easy to find) so I marched down to the nearest Army Recruiting Station (there are many in my town) and demanded to know how to get my daughter's name off of their recruiting list. I asked for the number. And yes I was almost shaking with rage. They argued and belittled and told me I could get the number easily. I gave up talking to one guy who only wanted to argue and went across the room to ask another guy to please get me the number. This time three other guys stood in a circle around me while another stood in the doorway of the recruiting center and attempted to intimidate me into leaving. They never asked me to leave. I repeated that I would leave when they gave me the number and I sat down and folded my arms to wait for the information. At this point the initial person I spoke to told his buddy that he thought it was time to call 911. They all sort of smiled and agreed, and went through the motions of placing the call. I left after asking the second man I had spoken to in the office if he was still getting the number for me. He said no. I left.

So that is two times that the local recruiters have used the local cops as their goon squad of which I am personally aware.


Yes. We live in a police state.

But this isn't news to me. The first inkling I personally had that liberty existed only as long as you stayed under the radar screen happened in 1974 when an FBI agent showed up at a group I'd been asked to join by a teacher. This youth group met at the City Hall in an overflow court room. The agent showed up before the meeting and chatted up the teacher and wrangled an invitation to attend the meeting. The agent then spent the next hour grilling me about munitions. I was a 15 year old farm girl... who apparently knew someone who knew someone who was in the SDS. What a bunch of B.S.!

Grill to chill: Intimidation to suppress individual freedom of expression.