PoliticalAction.com Blog

Thursday, April 11, 4:00pm, Say No to U.S. Intervention in Venezuela Elections! in front of the Federal Building (6 & Market), to march to the Clothespin at 15 & Market

The people of Venezuela will honor the last will of President Chavez by overwhelmingly voting this coming April 14 for Nicolas Maduro for President. The Venezuelan people clearly remain committed to the process of fundamental change in their country, no matter what. We are confident that the roots of the Bolivarian Revolution will remain strong and grow.

But the death of our dear President Hugo Chavez will be used by US imperialism and the elite oligarchy in Venezuela to carry out aggressive plans to destabilize the revolutionary process in Venezuela. We must send a strong message to Washington right away: we are organizing our voices of solidarity with the Venezuelan people and demand no intervention during this coming election in Venezuela.

Thursday, April 11, 7:00pm, COMMUNITY FORUM: “Being White in Philly – In Solidarity With African Resistance! Uhuru Solidarity Center 3733 Lancaster Ave, West Phila – #10 Trolley

Not in Philly? Can’t make the event? Tune in LIVE via “Reparations in Action” Livestream!

White people can take a stand in solidarity with the right of African people to overturn the conditions in their community and have control over their lives & resources!

Featuring Diop Olugbala, President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, Danita Bates, School District of Phila parent and community activist, and speakers from the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and the African People’s Education & Defense Fund.

Also, join us for the “African Resistance Now” community meetings every Sunday at 4 pm at the Uhuru Solidarity Center 3733 Lancaster Ave, West Phila – #10 Trolley.

Uhuru Solidarity Movement is an organization of white people and other allies working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party, organizing in our communities to support the African liberation movement. We unite that reparations are due and participate in “Reparations in Action” work. Learn more about how you can be part of this growing movement in support of genuine solidarity – not charity!

uhurusolidarity.org • 215-387-0919 • philly@uhurusolidarity.org

Thursday, April 11, 10am Let’s Demand Tin Man Tom Propose a Fair Tax System!, the bus leaves from 846 N. Broad St.

Join Fight for Philly on Thursday, April 11th to protest Governor Corbett’s new tax proposal. Like all his policies, the governor’s proposal will only benefit his big business friends and corporate fat cats. Meanwhile, regular folks are seeing cuts to education, health care, general assistance, and other crucial services. We need to bring this fight straight to the state capitol and demand Tin Man Tom propose a tax system that is fair for all Pennsylvanians.

Unfortunately, the governor won’t be there himself. Why not? He’ll be on a South American trip with his big business cronies. Seems obvious whose voices he values, huh?

The bus is leaving from the Fight for Philly office at 10 am sharp. RSVP at (267)850-0891! Seats are going fast!

Saturday, April 13, 1:00PM-4:30PM, First Community Conversation: Protecting Temporary Workers’ Rights, United Communities in SE Philadelphia, 2029 S 8th St in Philly. Lunch will be provided.

We are looking for a diverse group of participants, temp agency workers to service providers and activists. While we will be inviting those in the immigrant and refugee world, we are also hoping to attract American born workers and their supports. We see this as a chance to bridge ethnic and cultural divisions to come together over a shared concern. Please share this invitation!!

A few different organizations (Philaposh, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, Dept of Labor) are putting together an event this weekend: Temp Agency Workers Rights dialogue. It will be a community conversation, meaning that at the event we will form small groups and create an environment in which temp workers are able to exchange their personal experiences to raise awareness about their working conditions, and eventually take measures to improve them.

Saturday, April 13, 7:00pm, Writer’s Read, A-Space Anarchist Community Center 4722 Baltimore Avenue.

We will be having our second Writers Read spoken word event in our monthly series. This month’s theme is “Healing”. During the first part of the event, we will have April’s Featured Readers: Kate Soule, Elijah Pryor, Lora & Jeanine, Clarissa Rogers, Jo-Ann Rogan, G. Ragovin, and Erika Bell. After the featured readers, we will hold an Open Mic. We welcome readers of poetry, essays, fiction, theory, politics, journalism, synopsis’ of PhD thesis’…. If you’d like to sign up on facebook, please let us know and we’ll sign you up.

There will be refreshments but feel free to bring something to share, BYOB is OK

Sunday, April 14, 2013, 11:00am Work Party at the Peace Park, 24th and Bolton.

Hey all! Philly Food Forests will be out at the Peace Park the 14th of April enriching the soil and getting seedlings in the ground! If we have enough helpers we can even get some potato towers started.

Bring grub and your fork/bowl/spoon, Bring something for the free store, Bring gloves and your big hearts and minds. Never played in the dirt before? No worries! There’s lots of people of different levels of experience, and everyone can do this.

Sunday, April 14, 4:30p.m. Brandywine Peace Community Monthly Potluck Supper*/Program, 2nd Sunday of the month, University Lutheran Church 3637 Chestnut St., Phila., PA

*bring main dish, salad, or dessert to share 4:30 p.m. Potluck Supper; 5:30 p.m. Program

American Autumn (rescheduled showing). Area public premier of the first feature-length documentary on the Occupy movement. Fast-paced, fact-filled. Filmed during the earliest days of the phenomenon that was Occupy. New York, Boston, Wash., D.C. American Autumn features footage of numerous actions, confrontations, and comments by Medea Benjamin, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, and Cornel West. Directed by Dennis Trainer, Jr. 2012, 78 mins.

Mon., April 15, 7:30a.m. – 9am, Protest Military Spending! THIS Tax Day, , 69th Street Terminal, Upper Darby, PA 19082

Join us on Tax Day, Monday, April 15 at SEPTA’s 69th Terminal 7:30-9:00 am, as we remind Monday morning commuters about the enormity of U.S. military (Pentagon) spending and the price our communities pay for militarism and war. On Tax Day, join with people around the country and the world in the Global Day Against Military Spending, http://demilitarize.org/

Sponsored by: Brandywine Peace Community, Main Line Peace Action, PA Progressive Democrats of America, and the Peace Center of Delaware County.

For more information visit: Events at www.brandywinepeace.com or http://mainlinepeaceaction.blogspot.com/ or call (610) 544-1818 or 484-380-2222

April 17th, 6 pm (Dinner served at 5:30pm), Stand Up for Our Schools PCAPS General Assembly, SEIU District 1201 Hall, 455 N. 5th Street, Philadelphia (Near Spring Garden Station).

Come to the PCAPS General Assembly… We are calling on all parents, students, teachers and community activists committed to fighting for our public schools to come together to think, plan, and help decide our next steps.

Events listed here include Occupy Philly related events as well as other social justice events. For more updates be sure to check the Occupy Philadelphia Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/OccupyPhiladelphia. Your support is greatly appreciated!

John Shanahan is a licensed practicing engineer, member of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and co-founder of Inland Empire 9/11 Truth. The following is an open letter to the city of Pomona, CA regarding the case of Mohammed Abdullah.

June 11, 2009

City of Pomona, City Manager’s Office
Linda Lowry, City Manager
City of Pomona
505 South Garey Avenue
Pomona, CA 91766

Subject: An Open Letter
Restraining Order filed against Mohammed Abdullah by City Attorney’s Office, Arnold M. Alvarez-Glasman

Dear Linda Lowry,

As a result of various emails that I have received in the past week, I have been made aware of the subject case. I understand that this case will be heard in Pomona Superior Court at 8AM tomorrow.

I have viewed various videos of Mr. Abdullah that are available on the internet. I have never met Mr. Abdullah and most importantly, never discussed with him any issues which I believe to be important before writing a letter such as this one. In one of these videos, Mr. Abdullah describes himself as an African-American; it has never been clear to me whether Mr. Abdullah is trying to set himself apart from people like myself. It is very clear to me, however, that at this time in our young country’s existence, we need more people who will think of themselves as Americans and not hyphenated-Americans. At another point in the video, Mr. Abdullah discusses how he changed his name to a Muslim name (after he converted to the Muslim religion) and abandoned his “slave” name. The interviewer does not follow up with the obvious question that if he had a “slave” name, was he actually a slave? If so, on what plantation did he perform his slave services? I have been told by various people who have expertise and knowledge of various religions that it is written in one of the core Muslim documents (Koran?) that this “religion of peace” actually calls for the death of non-believers of the Muslim faith. I have no idea how Mr. Abdullah justifies his membership in this religion. I believe that it is important to add that I have met a number of Muslims (several of them are my engineering clients) and I have never felt my life to be in danger when I am in their presence. The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that most Muslims are probably decent people, who, like many Christians, believe in certain fundamentals of their professed religion and ignore other precepts.

I have expressed the above reservations only because Mr. Abdullah publicly discussed them in his videos. The purpose of this letter, however, is to strongly support the positive activities in which Mr. Abdullah has been engaged on the streets of Pomona in his commendable attempts to overcome the most insidious vice of most Americans of any religion – IGNORANCE!

Just so that you understand the main point of my letter to you, Linda Lowry, I am convinced that we are all in the process of losing our country; the country that your parents gave to you and the country that my parents gave to me. Many people with blinders over their eyes simply don’t want to admit the written evidence on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations that relates how George Bush, Vicente Fox (President of Mexico) and Steve Harper (Prime Minister of Canada) met several times between March and May of 2005 to set up what is called the North American Union. This is a melding of the 3 countries in which the internal boundaries will be de-emphasized and the external borders of all 3 countries combined would be treated as sacrosanct. The 15 page document is called, “Building a North American Community”. They scheduled completion by 2010.

I have read through various portions of the temporary restraining order issued to Mr. Abdullah. The portions of this restraining order were made public in one of the emails that I received from a fellow 9-11 truther. It is my understanding that the wording of the restraining order was prepared by the City Attorney’s office for the City of Pomona. The City Attorney’s office was probably directed to do so by the police department, under the leadership of the Acting Police Chief, David Keetle. According to the City of Pomona website, the City Attorney is Arnold M. Alvarez.

The quotation below is supposedly from the restraining order and I have found it to be extremely offensive on a number of levels:

“During the last several months defendant has lectures (sic) passersby over the wrongful acts of the U.S. government and the war in Iraq.”

Does Mr. Alvarez actually contend that there is some moral justification for the war in Iraq? If so, what is it? I will not within this letter attempt to spend several pages reviewing all of the lies used by George Bush in order to justify the March, 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Is Mr. Alvarez so naive and ignorant as to NOT believe that rape and torture are part of any war? Has Mr. Alvarez never heard of the Rape of Nanking? Is Mr. Alvarez completely unaware of the torture of various German Nazi officers during the International Military Tribunal after WW2 so as to obtain testimony that would buttress the story of the Jewish Holocaust?

Mr. Alvarez has used the term irrational behavior to describe the actions of Mr. Abdullah. Does Mr. Alvarez have access to a dictionary? Does he not know the definition of the word “irrational”? The actions and statements made by Mr. Abdullah, on the surface, appear to be very rational and logical. Mr. Abdullah has determined by his own reasoning, investigation and thought processes that there is no valid reason for the war in Iraq. After coming to that conclusion (correctly, in my opinion), Mr. Abdullah has taken positive high-profile steps to make this information as public as possible to as many as possible of the generally, dumbed-down sheeple who pass by his soapbox in the City of Pomona. How could anyone possibly apply the word irrational to these actions?

Mr. Alvarez has also used the word “offensive” to describe Mr. Abdullah’s speech. What is the matter with the City Attorney for the City of Pomona?! Doesn’t Mr. Alvarez know that the first freedom, freedom of speech, as given in the First Amendment (total of 5 freedoms) of the Constitution was enacted to protect that very type of speech. The most offensive type of speech (without being obscene) occurs when people in government (generally powerful people) are being criticized. There is no need to protect nice speech or complimentary speech or backslapping speech or other accolades. I don’t know exactly what Mr. Alvarez’s knowledge is of the Constitution, but judging from the wording he used in this restraining order, it might need improvement. An excellent website can be obtained (many resources) by performing a browser search on the “Institute on the Constitution” (Mike Peroutka, former Presidential contender in 2004). If Mr. Alvarez really still thinks that certain speech is unlawful that offends people because it criticizes the government , he should become familiar with the Federalist Papers and just as importantly, the Anti-Federalist Papers. I am having a difficult time believing that an attorney representing a large city as Pomona could show so much ignorance of the background to the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

Since we are discussing offensive speech that is critical of the government especially as it relates to government policy in promoting unjustified foreign wars, I would like Mr. Alvarez and everyone reading this letter to consider the Vietnam War. It has been more than 30 years since the fall of Saigon and various books have been written and LBJ’s phone tapes have become public, but I still don’t believe that most people in this country will admit that over 58,000 of my American contemporaries as well as several million Vietnamese and Cambodians all died for a LIE! Before Mr. Alvarez sends the Pomona police to Rancho Cucamonga to issue a “letter-writing restraining order” to me, Linda, please ask Mr. Alvarez to consider reading a book. The book was written in 1984 by James Stockdale. James Stockdale was a US Navy fighter pilot who was assigned to the Gulf of Tonkin. The book is entitled “In Love and War”. Part of Stockdale’s mission included flying over a portion of the Gulf on August 2 and August 4, 1964 in response to requests from 2 US warships, USS Turner Joy and USS Maddox. On August 2 he engaged the fleeing North Korean torpedo boats who had attacked the US ships because of an earlier provocation of the US Navy (admitted by LBJ in his tapes released in 2000). On August 4 he responded to another emergency call from the 2 destroyers and spent about an hour flying low over the area watching the destroyers fire at an enemy that was NOT there. Mr. Stockdale spent the first chapter of the aforementioned book detailing the above incidents. The audio tapes of LBJ released in 2000 (for his library) clearly indicate that, as a minimum, it was the US Navy ships that were conducting “aggressive” operations at that time and LBJ acknowledged on the tapes, with a chuckle, that this undoubtedly resulted in the attack on August 2. Most people in this country who were alive and functioning on August 5, 1964 continue to wallow in their ignorance and believe LBJ’s national speech on that date when he exclaimed “We’ve been attacked!”.

I could go on in my attempt to provide offensive speech for the benefit of the Pomona police department and Mr. Alvarez by destroying other canards involving the “surprise” attack on Pearl Harbor, the “surprise” invasion by the North Koreans of South Korea in 1950, a false flag plan known as Operation Northwoods that involved the destruction of commercial airliners with passengers, blowing up US ships, covert attacks on Trinidad-Tobago with much loss of American lives all in an attempt to blame Castro and justify military action to remove him from power, the direct involvement of the FBI in a sting operation that resulted in the 1993 explosion of the World Trade Center WTC1 tower, the internal bombs inside the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that caused the damage to the building and loss of life all of which were blamed on Timothy McVey and Terry Nichols in 1995 as well as the original Persian Gulf War in 1991 in which Saddam Hussein was suckered into attacking Kuwait so that our government would have reason to engage in military activities in the Middle East.

It would good if Acting Police Chief David Keetle were much more aware and knowledgeable of the U.S. Constitution. I have checked with various government sources within the State of California (San Bernardino Board of Supervisors and San Bernardino County Sheriff) and it is provable that all police officers and government officials in California take an oath of office that requires them to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America”. The problem that I have found is that most police officers and deputy sheriffs are not aware of the oath that they have sworn when they became part of the law enforcement community. If they are not knowledgeable of the U.S. Constitution and the first ten amendments (Bill of Rights), how can they possibly have the correct opinion of law enforcement on simple issues as freedom of speech which is the subject of this letter? How could they possibly understand that when they participate in DUI checkpoints and/or cite drivers solely for seat belt violations, they are actually engaging in the destruction of the 4th amendment to the US Constitution? If a police officer thinks that his main job is simply the enforcement of laws as dictated to him by others, what will his reaction be when the federal government declares martial law? As I have asked various police officers when I have been stopped for minor traffic violations in the past 5 years, which way will their guns be pointed when the big event comes? On an optimistic note, will the local police point their guns at the tyrants of the federal government in order to “protect and defend” the civilian population against the imposition of the one world government?

Acting Police Chief David Keetle should be aware that over the past 8-10 years especially, we have come closer and closer to losing our country to the globalists who are promulgating the one world government. It is extremely important for the sovereignty of our country that our local sheriffs and police start doing some investigation of their own and start paying attention to what is happening on a daily basis. One good way for Chief Keetle’s police to start doing this would be to visit the website, www.oath-keepers.blogspot.com. This is a growing website of people involved with law enforcement and military. They have taken a 10 statement oath:

(1) We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people. (2) We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people. (3) We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal. (4) We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state. (5) We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty. (6) We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps. (7) We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext. (8) We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on US soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control”. (9) We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies. (10) We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

It is quite well known that it is the Pomona mayor and the city council that ultimately directs the police department and the city attorney’s office takes its orders from both of these groups.

I am asking and hoping that the mayor and the city council will review the content of this letter and consider changing its policy regarding basic freedoms within Pomona to be more in line with the US Constitution. The idea that people like Mohammed Abdullah would be prosecuted instead of being thanked for their patriotic efforts involving the exposing of the militaristic, empire-building, slaughtering-of-human-life activities in foreign countries being conducted by our government shows exactly how upside-down things are within Pomona and probably most other cities.

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely yours,

John F. Shanahan
9581 Business Center Drive, Suite J
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730
email: jfshanahan@earthlink.net
Member: Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth, www.ae911truth.org
Co-founder: Inland Empire for 9-11 Truth, www.911truthie.com

Distribution by city manager’s office to the following:
Elliott Rothman-Mayor
Danielle Soto-District 1
Freddie Rodriguez-District 2
Cristina Carrizosa-District 3
Paula Lantz-District 4
Tim Saunders-District 5
Stephen Atchley-District 6
Acting Police Chief David Keetle
City Attorney-Arnold M. Alvarez-Glasman