ANOTHER VICTORY IN COURT!!!
Thursday, July 21, 2005
According to local Arcata man, Rasta John, the case against him was thrown out of court at the Humboldt County court house on Thursday. He was charged with having cannabis medicine.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
Any more details on why the case was dropped?
Hi there. I just read your informative publication and have a few questions.
Page 1. The Homeless Task Force has been dominated by a "run the bums out of town" atmosphere? Really? Everything I've read, everyone I've talked to, says the task force wants to increase homeless services. So whose opinion are you quoting? I don't see a name attached to this publication, so I guess you're just running a smear campaign. More dirty politics.
Page 2. The last time I checked, disobeying the instructions of a police officer was an arrestable offense. And I read the Eye article you cite. Maybe you counted on your readers not actually doing it. More smear.
Page 3. Milgram experiment. Not related to Arcata whatsoever. Next page.
Page 4. The Standford Prison Experiment. Again, not Arcata.
Page 5. Nazis. Oh, goodness. You have lost it.
Page 6. More Nazis. Why are you infatuated with the Third Reich? Is this a skinhead publication?
Page 7. Letter from Tad. Tad wants a taxpayer funded campground for his admitted lifestyle choice. Huh. I don't feel a need to house and feed Tad. I'll give my money to the situational homeless.
Page 7. FDA advisories. OK, whatever floats your boat.
Page 8. Samoa Pulp Mill news. Interesting that a Plazoid cares about a pulp mill that blows its pollution into Eureka. Whatever.
Page 9. Statement of Non-Violence. I dunno, all your Nazi talk has me thinking you're talking out the back of your head.
Page 10. Definition of anarchism. Of course. That's the deal. Talk and doubletalk to stop The System and throw it into anarchy. That won't work, not even in Arcata.
thank you "Evil" for your comments.
In response to your question about the Homeless Task Force:
Dr. Virgil Davis, member of the HTF, wrote an article for the Arcata Eye in which he actually said that he and others wish to run homeless people out of town. This quote is published on this blogspot.
Dr. Davis has also dominated many task force meetings with talk of moving the Endeavor away from the plaza to get the homeless out of sight.
Mark Leppanen has actually said at a task force meeting that homeless people don't live in "reality," and thus disregards input from "homeless advocates. He corrected himself, stating that "homeless" people need to join the "greater society."
Each meeting is full of examples of the dominating "run the bums out of town" attitude.
Just curious, what ARE you reading? who ARE you talking to?
page 2: Defending the police officer who tasered a non-threatening person, risking the chance of killing him? hmmmm...I wonder how you would respond if it had happened to you or someone you know. I would like to see whatever code or whatever law you think was broken by the victim of this violent assault. And by the way, the Arcata Eye article was cited specifically so that people WOULD check it out.
For an eye-witness account check out:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/05/1740191_comment.php#1741379
page 3: The Milgram experiment - you say that it is not related to Arcata whatsoever? Maybe it takes a little critical thinking to see the connection (but just in case you don't get it, I'll spell it out for ya: The study on OBEDIENCE suggests that attrocities such as those committed by the nazis can happen ANYWHERE!!! So, you see, it is related to EVERYONE).
The same can be said for the Stanford prison experiment.
Did you actually read the pages on these two studies? Please take the time to READ the articles that you comment on before making your comments.
the Early Targets (nazis) page: Your writing suggests that you think that you are above all that, or something. Perhaps you think that the threat of fascism is old news.
Your suggestion that the Plazoid is a nazi publication shows me that you are not actually reading the publication before you comment.
You seem to think that tad is advocating for his own personal campground. tad already has his own squat, and he does not need your dirty tax-payer money.
FDA advisories: Do you think that we are just making this up? Check the websites listed!
Pulp mill: Interesting that you DON'T CARE about irresponsible corporate pollution of our environment. 'nuff said.
Food Not Bombs Non-violence statement: Your criticism lacks substance. Obviously, feeding people is not violent.
Emma Goldman quotes: The System is "anarchy" by your definition - utter chaos and oppresion at home and abroad. The defintion of "Anarchism" put forward by it's advocates is that of new society, free of the oppressions of today.
In reponse to the "evil taxpayer," I will mention that, sure, The Plazoid is different in its presentation insofar as its content covers a scope of issues, not just events as they happen in Arcata. Thus, using examples, such as the experiments and the early victims of nazi germany, the writers offer some kind of analysis and comparison that, frankly, mainstream publications lack. The zine does, however, trust the reader to make the inferences themselves. (Good thing this blogspot exists to help those who may need clarification) Many speakers and writers have been using comparisons between US domestic policies today and those of Nazi Germany in recent forums.(locally notable, last months Greenfuse featured an article by a Humboldt county resident who was a jeewish kid in nazi germany) I was skeptical at first, but after a bit of investigation, I now see what they are talking about. The Plazoid article makes a good point. Homeless people are particularly vulnerable to being picked up by the cops for tenuous reasons.
Your emoted, insult-style retort doesn't really contain many actual points. And, I for one, think that being concerned about toxic emissions the next town over is more than reasonable. There aren't air boundaries in the atmosphere. Also, tax-payers wouldn't necessarily have to pay for anything on a campground. The idea is to create a legal place for the unhoused to sleep without fear of police harassment.
And about Anarchism, let me ask this: Do you want other people making decisions for you? If not, than you may be an anarchist yourself. I personally prefer the Anarchism of Kropotkin, Goldman, and Crimethinc, with the emphasis on mutual aid and the absence of coercion, to the current order of the world: alienation, deception, ecocide, and perpetual war. If you think i am exaggerating, your not paying attention.
One more thing. You seem to defend the cops by saying the "last time you checked" it was an arrestable offense to not obey a cop. Well, don't you see a problem with that? What if a cop was telling you, for no apparent reason, to do something you didn't want to do? Or yelling at you to "come here," for no clear reason? Would you want to be tasered? Should they have the right to do it? My experience with cops, coupled with their well-documented historical role of suppression and brutality informs my stance: they are not to be trusted or obeyed.
I've only read the above 4 comments, not the main posts.
Plazoid, it's been a while since I've visited. Your communication skills have improved (I hope I don't sound arrogant saying that).
I still don't believe that the US is anywhere close to becoming a repressive regime. A WMD attack on US soil, and/or dwindling food supplies due to global warming, and it'll get really nasty. But right now, I just don't see it. If you're part of a disenfranchised group, such as the homeless or mentally ill, from that perspective the culture would seem incredibly oppressive. If you can pass for relatively mainstream, it's not that a bad place to be, these united states.
As for the taser victim. I don't approve of the officer's behavior, or the legality of tasers in that situation. But in fairness, if I remember, he was leaving to avoid receiving a ticket for skateboarding on the plaza. I think the skateboarding law is dumb, and casual use of tazers is despicable. What a wussy cop who needs to tazer somebody who's running away. What, he's too lazy to run after him? How about a camera and take a picture, then pick him up later? But the officer did have a legal right to detain the victim, and he should have stopped.
I echo Fred's question, what's the details in Rasta John's case? Incidentally, I know John, and he knows me.
Hey Hoover, ah I mean evil arcata taxpayer,
when you counted those 2022 words did you count ones like "thehomeless" as one word or two? You really ought to lay off the crack, prozac or both.
love eternal
tad
Thank you Jeff for your continued interest.
In response to "I still don't believe that the US is anywhere close to becoming a repressive regime": and "right now, I just don't see it": I don't think the Germans saw it coming in the 1930's. Check out the "Early Targets" post.
As far as "If you can pass for relatively mainstream, it's not that a bad place to be, these united states": same was true in nazi-occupied Germany.
As for the taser-victim: I don't think that the kid who got tasered was getting a ticket for skateboarding - but I do not know. I did not witness the incident. The police have refused to disclose whether or not Overseer Ed Cashman assaulted the kid, with a deadly weapon, by the way. To me, that is a big issue. Why don't they say that Cashman did nothing wrong? Instead, they have changed their policy, with no reassurance that the police overseer's conduct was propper.
I am not sure that the Cashman had "a legal right to detain the victim," - that would mean that he had reason to suspect that the kid had committed some sort of crime. Also keep in mind that the incident occured on a Saturday night, on the crowded plaza.
As for Rasta John, I have not asked him why his case, the Oppressive State of KKKalifornia vs. Rasta John, was thrown out of court. Perhaps you can find out more and post it on the blogspot. It seems to me, though, that charging Rasta John for having cannabis medicine as if it were a crime is pure foolishness, even harrassment.
My point is that Americans don't yet have a habit of obedience. But
I can't see that there will be any progress in discussion comparing the Nazi Party of pre-WWII Germany with the today's United States, so I invoke Godwin's Law, declare myself victor, and leave the discussion with this website and draw your attention to the discussion with the quote:
Historical Foundations of German Militarism
The German habit of obedience to authority can be traced to the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War which devastated Germany before it ended in 1648. After the war, Germany was split up into hundreds of small principalities ruled by despot princes, who crushed individual liberties, imposed a dark age on German culture, and repressed any striving for democracy. This fragmented Germany continued until the late nineteenth century, when the Germanic state of Prussia took over Germany's destiny.
To Jeff: regarding "Godsin's Law"
Godwin's law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. In addition, it is considered poor form to invoke the law explicitly. Godwin's law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. Many people understand Godwin's law to mean this, although (as is clear from the statement of the law above) this is not the original formulation.
Nevertheless, there is also a widely-recognized codicil that any intentional invocation of Godwin's law for its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
The law's memetic function is not to end discussions (or even to classify them as "old"), but to make participants in a discussion more aware of whether a comparison to nazis or hitler is appropriate, or is simply a rhetorical overreach.
Many people have extended Godwin's law to imply that the invoking of the nazis as a debating tactic (in any argument not directly related to World War II or the Holocaust) automatically loses the argument, simply because the nature of these events is such that any comparison to any event less serious than genocide, ethnic cleansing or extinction is invalid and in poor taste.
Strictly speaking, however, this is not so, since the actual text of Godwin's law does not state that such a reference or comparison makes a discussion "old," or, for that matter, that such a reference or comparison means that a discussion is over.
- from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Sorry kid, no "victory" for you! Let's take a look at the issue that you brought up when comparing contemporary Amerikkkan culture with that of early nazi-occupied Germany: "Habit of Obedience"
Do Americans have a "habit of obedience"? Professor Milgram certainly thought so. Professor Zimbardo (Stanford Prison Experiment) certainly thought so.(See two posts at this same blogspot It seems that the super-wealthy world-dominating corporations have built up their earth-bounding power based on that very same "habit of obedience." All-volunteer military. And police. And prison-wardens. And slaughterhouse workers. Hmmmmm....
Something to think about.
The "Early Targets of nazi persecution" might be a better post to continue this particular train of comment, but you are certainly welcome to continue commenting on this post as well.
Thank you for your continued interest.
WHats up Fred and other Arcata folk. I need to stop by here more often. Thanks for the Headsup on the new issue that came out.
welcome, Michael paul.
I really like the pictures on your website...I wish I knew how to do that, but, alas, I hate using computers, and probably don't have the patience that it requires to learn.
Anyhow, I look forward to reading your comments.
Dear Homeless, I will start charging each one of you 25-30% of your total worth to pay for my Benz. I will be around to collect it because I need a Benz in order to live. Thank you for your time.
The Tax Man.
hee hee hee
Please, just move out of Arcata. You lack basic human respect for others, stop ruining Arcata and Humboldt County. Leave, just leave, stop driving our towns into the ground.
Or better yet, try and pull this shit in Fortuna.
I'm the one who lacks "basic human respect"? please review the posted comments and reconsider.
by the way, I've been to Fortuna. It's nice.
Post a Comment