The Hollywood Liberal

We have another new blogger on The HL. Jennifer Ziemann. She has a column titled “Bread and Roses” that is published in the alternative newspaper “The Beat” www.upstatebeat.com. Jennifer is a writer, painter, mother, survivor of domestic violence and staunch supporter of women’s rights, and is now writing blog posts for the HL

A Nation in Distress:A Moral Call to Action

By Jennifer Lynne Ziemann

One of the greatest social observations of our time is the song “Piggies” by the Beatles:

“In their styes with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking…”

It represents the working middle-class struggle against the establishment, i.e. the capitalists, government for hire, those who wage war away from home for world conquest while refusing to take care of their own people. Although Charles Manson tried to make it his own with blood-filled terror when he committed the Tate-Labianca murders, he was unsuccessful. This song still remains a cry for revolution.

When I first heard this song I was a teenager in the late eighties and my thoughts ran along the lines of anger towards all authority as in “Hell, yeah, down with the Piggies”. Of course then I viewed the song as more of a cry for anarchy and at that age I could really dig that. As I grow older the song comes back to haunt me with thoughts of what can I do, how can I fight this establishment? How do I help preserve democracy? I have come to the realization that you cannot sit idly by and watch democracy fall. In their eyes there’s something lacking, it is called humanity. I decided to create a moral call to action in order to take a stand.

The first thing I will do is fly my American flag upside down, which signifies a nation in distress. No one can argue this stance. While we send our troops to die in an unjust war, Americans are barely surviving natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina, Greensburg, Kansas) across our nation and lacking the support they need to rebuild. People are going without health care. Homelessness runs rampant, and domestic violence is on the rise. I challenge everyone who feels that this nation is in distress to do the same. We should then have a march down Main Street, USA flying our flags upside down.

I will fly my star and stripes at half-mast. Although it is stated that the President of the United States generally makes the decision when a flag should be flown at half-mast, I can no longer allow a man with questionable sanity to make decisions about my patriotism. This country is in mourning, I am in mourning, and my family is in mourning as long as our soldiers continue to die. I pledge that their deaths will not go unnoticed by me. As long as our government continues to provide negligent care for our soldiers when they do come home, this nation is in mourning. As long as my fellow citizens are going hungry in a land of plenty, we are in mourning. As long as we continue to allow the imprisonment and torture of people who have not been given the benefit of innocent until proven guilty, we are in mourning. Do I need to go on?

I will no longer pledge allegiance to a flag that has come to represent the Corporate States of America. A country, A GREAT NATION, cannot be run with visions of profit or global domination. Its resources must be used to better the lives of all of the people who live in it and then shared with the world.

I encourage the removal of our current administration by whatever democratic means necessary. We the people spoke in the Declaration of Independence written in 1776 “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” We the people spoke again in the November, 2006 election
It was clear: end the War, impeach Bush, and preserve the unalienable rights of the people, which are equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The time has come, these unalienable rights are in peril and the power to change the course of history falls upon the People.

I now issue a citizen’s arrest for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

I will go one step further and state that as long as Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, refuses to do what the constituents have asked her to do, then it is necessary and vital in order for a continued democracy that she be removed from power too. I request that the Congress be charged with treason for going against the wishes of the people and harboring enemies of the state: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

It is said that action can be the enemy of thought. If we could just stop…listen…we would hear and understand the task that has been set before us. It is a necessity, an unalienable right to preserve democracy.

Start the revolution, it begins with you.

Down with the Piggies!

I hadn’t heard a word about my 2004 Republican National Convention arrest in almost 6 months. As the 3 year anniversary approaches of August 31, 2004 the day I along with 1500 others protesters at the convention were arrested, mostly for no reason, I finally get some news about the lawsuits that we are imposing against the city. Maybe now the actual trials can begin. I want my money dammit.

City Is Rebuffed on the Release of ’04 Records

NY Times
Excerpt

A federal judge yesterday rejected New York City’s efforts to prevent the release of nearly 2,000 pages of raw intelligence reports and other documents detailing the Police Department’s covert surveillance of protest groups and individual activists before the Republican National Convention in 2004.

In a 20-page ruling, Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV ordered the disclosure of hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups in a huge operation that the police said was needed to head off violence and disruptions at the convention….

The order was the latest development in the long-running case, which posed thorny questions about the free speech rights of protesters and the means used by law enforcement officials to maintain public order.

It appeared that the plaintiffs, who had denounced the police for trampling on the civil liberties of protesters who were fingerprinted and detained at length for minor offenses, had largely won the day, while the city had achieved a more limited objective.

Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents the lead defendants in a barrage of more than 80 lawsuits, said of the judge’s ruling: “He’s given us everything we asked for. He has redacted the names of undercover agents and the particulars of surveillance techniques. We agreed to that. But he has said the city cannot withhold the information it gathered in these operations.”

HLs Take
The wheels of justice grind slowly, but I’m patient…