The Truth About Terrorism

By Mark Lipman

This may be uncomfortable to hear, however, if we truly want to solve the problem of terrorism, we have no choice than to reflect honestly about the facts and root causes that have brought it about.  To end terrorism, there must be a process of recognizing the actions that are responsible for it, so that we can arrive at a place of reconciliation, where those motivating forces of anger, fear and hatred no longer control and decide the direction we take as an entire species.

Today, in the aftermath of the bombing of the Boston Marathon, with the renewed debate of terrorism taking hold of our political theatre, it is now more urgent to confront this issue than ever, for in its wake, we as a people have one of two directions with which we can go.  Either one of more danger, insecurity and intolerance, where we rush into cutting even more civil liberties and enhancing the security state – the same course that has led us over the past 12 years to a world that is less safe and less stable; or we can take this as an opportunity to look at where we as a people have fallen off course, and repair the system that has led us to where we are today.

Right now, at this very moment in time, calls are rising up to treat an American citizen – accused of a horrific crime – on U.S. soil, as an enemy combatant – to strip away his civil liberties and prosecute him in a military tribunal, outside of the transparency of our established judicial process.

There are those who say that this person – because of the acts committed, because of the seemingly over-whelming evidence of guilt – does not deserve due process of law – that he falls into a special category.

Oh, but what a slippery slope this course puts us on.

It is urgent, now more than ever, to detach ourselves from the raw emotions of the moment and think deeply about the consequences to which we are leading ourselves.  It is not about a single individual, but rather about who we are as a people.  By setting the precedent of stripping the civil rights away from one person – regardless of how terrible the actions and accusations may be – we open the door for policy that allows the government to justify the taking of civil rights away from all of us.

At this moment, in Massachusetts, legislators are calling to re-instate the death penalty for “certain types of crimes,” which includes the murder of police officers and government officials.  While on the surface this argument can be manipulated to sound like common sense, should it not be pointed out that any such law enacted would be in clear violation of our Constitution, and the 14^th Amendment, in which it clearly states, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws.”?

Should we not remind ourselves that the Constitution, and the Amendments made to it, was written to protect the people and citizenry from the abuses of power by the government, and not the other way around?  By calling for laws that create a tiered system of citizenry, where those employed by the government are above those of common status, it undermines the entire framework of who we are as a people and nation, and is patently un-American.

Instead of using an act of terror as the justification to change who we are, should we not examine what led to that act in the first place, to prevent such a thing from happening again?

There is no condoning the acts of violence.  The murder and maiming of innocent people is deplorable and has no justification.  Yet, as intelligent, moral beings with the capacity of thought, are we not capable of understanding the motives and root causes of those actions, to change what creates these types of acts.

An important question that must be asked is that if the murder of innocent civilians – women and children – by bombs and other devices is a horrible, unacceptable crime here on our streets, is it not also a horrible, unacceptable crime when that bomb explodes on the streets of another country in the form of a military drone strike, killing innocent women and children?

Is not the horror, loss and pain the same for those human beings, as it is for us here at home?  Are we not capable of understanding and feeling their pain as well?

In recent days, we have seen attacks here at home of terrible proportions.  Violent crime is worse than it has ever been, and increasingly it has been perpetrated by those who are barely out of their teens.  What is it that is leading the youth of our nation to commit such actions?  What the politicians say is that it is related to mental health issues.  To this I must agree.

Let us consider that those who are lashing out the most violently were mere children and babies 12 years ago, on 9-11.  Due to the direction in which we were led, and were silently complicit to, the only world they have known is one of war and violence, one of fear and intolerance.  Would it not only make sense that we have an entire generation of youth suffering from post-traumatic stress?

The real danger that we face today is that if we, as a nation, do not seriously address this situation, by accepting the fact that we have been on the wrong course, for over a generation and more – that war has only made this world a more dangerous place – that our only option, for our children and their futures, is to end this permanent state of war in which we have been living.

For too long, we have been pointing at an individual, at a group, and saying to ourselves that “they” did this to us – that “they” hate our freedom.  No one hates freedom.  The very idea is ridiculous.  People, all people, cherish freedom.  What we as human beings hate is slavery and oppression.

The only ones – the only ones – who would ever hate freedom, are the masters at the very top, who enslave the rest of us.  It is they, who are the real terrorists, who are dividing us on lines of race, religion and status, of gender and belief – arming all sides – using every opportunity to tighten our belts, while they keep getting fatter.  It is they, who have gutted our economy and infrastructure with war and greed.  It is they, the major corporations, the arms traders and manufacturers, the banking CEOs and oil executives, who buy off the politicians and policy makers that write the laws, sending our military into foreign countries to plunder the resources of this planet, without any respect for the life, liberty, or property of others, who care nothing for the rights and freedom of those they conquer.  It is they, who profit off of the suffering of all the people on this planet, and warp the conversation and our public policy towards the very hatred, fear and intolerance that fuels the terrorism that they claim to be fighting against.

This is the truth and the source of how we got to where we are today, and if our true goal is to end terrorism – to provide a planet of peace and stability for our children and future generations, then we need to put our war drums aside and work actively towards addressing those root causes.

The first step towards that is to admit to ourselves that yes, we are imperfect beings – we do make, and continue to make, mistakes and from there to work with purpose to make amends and reconciliation, by showing responsibility for the direction we are on – responsibility for our own actions.  In the end, it is not a question about them, but instead a question about us, about who we are, and what we are becoming.

Failed Boardwalk Ordinance Leads to Abuse of Power

By Greta Cobar

As the Beachhead fore-saw in its January 2012 issue, the new Ordinance regulating free speech on Ocean Front Walk (OFW) is not being enforced, and vending is in full swing (http://bit.ly/13dLKrQ). The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) have displayed full power and control over selective enforcement, choosing to ignore vendors of mass-produced items and targeting local performers with tickets and arrests.

On March 20 Solomon the Snake Man, also known as Willie Lee Turner, was arrested on a panhandling charge. The incident was video-tapped by Vivianne Robinson and highly publicized online (http://bit.ly/11Txvne and http://bit.ly/11SkLBd).

The LAPD proceeded to confiscate all of Solomon’s belongings, which they kept even after he posted the $100 bail fee. After performing the same show, in the same spot, for the last twelve years, how much sense does it make for the LAPD to tell him that he cannot do it anymore? And how much sense does it make for the LAPD to confiscate Solomon’s rubber snakes and everything else he used to put on his show? Is the LAPD implying that he should just sit on a street corner or on OFW truly panhandling, mocking the LAPD officers’ charge for taking him to jail?

How easy do you think it is to lose your way of earning an income? And who gives the LAPD that type of power?

All of that while more than half of OFW free speech spots are once again taken by out-of-town vendors, re-selling made-in-China merchandise bought downtown. That was exactly what the new OFW Ordinance, which took effect late January 2012, was supposed to eliminate.

Some of us had our Summer 2011 plans derailed by the city of Los Angeles’s decision to hold dozens of meetings concerning the new OFW ordinance. Although Venetians did not sit back, but instead, like myself, attended each and every one of those meetings during the summer months, input from the community was completely ignored, and once again downtown higher-ups drafted their own version of the legislature.

One of the points that we did not agree with was the punishment proposed and finally provided for in the 2012 Ordinance. All repeat offenses carry misdemeanor charges with possible $1000 fines and six months in jail.

Previous to this latest Ordinance, all offenses were categorized as infractions, not misdemeanors, did not carry a minimum charge and definitely did not have a jail sentence attached to them.

Besides being opposed to the fines and punishments for non-compliance, Venetians also asked that the First Amendment be mentioned in the Ordinance, opposed artists being called “vendors”, and the free speech zone being divided into “designated” spaces, but none of our suggestions were incorporated into the final draft of the Ordinance. Who would have ever thought that free speech could be limited to a marked box?

The back-bone of the Ordinance, stating that all spots are to be occupied on a first-come basis, was a failure from the beginning, as the same people occupy the same spots day in and day out.

All of these legislations created by downtown higher-ups who chose to ignore our outspoken community activists did not make provisions for enforcement. As previously reported by the Beachhead (bit.ly/13dLKrQ), at the Dec. 15 2011 Friends of the Boardwalk meeting Lieutenant Paola Kreefft stated that the LAPD does not have a plan to enforce the new ordinance going into effect at the end of January 2012. Not surprisingly, the LAPD shied away from enforcing the Ordinance, but proved to be blunt when it came to selective enforcement on several instances (http://bit.ly/XKdWuz and http://bit.ly/WZwKZL).

Just in case you are thinking that a new Ordinance needs to be drafted, remember that this is the sixth revision of the Los Angeles Municipal Code 42.15, first introduced in 2004. The previous revision, of 2008, established the lottery system of allocating the 205 designated spaces on OFW. It was deemed unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson in October 2010 on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment.

Although many OFW artists and vendors did not agree with the lottery system of allocating spaces, the very vast majority of them bought into it. Solomon was one of the very few who never joined the lottery system.

Just a few months ago a highly popular online video of an LAPD officer in Venice (http://bit.ly/XjMVMS) abusing his power resulted in public outcry, which led to the ticket being dismissed and the officer being disciplined. The same thing is bound to happen regarding Officer Gonzalez’s arrest of Solomon, which was deemed as abuse of power and selective enforcement not only by the Beachhead, but even by websites that have traditionally been supportive of the LAPD.

Please contact your local police officials to let them know that you are against LAPD engaging in selective enforcement.

The Gun-Control Debate

By Mark Lipman

Finally, a serious debate and the political will for gun control has emerged in this country, and it only took the massacre of a school full of children to do it.

In the wake of the Newtown shooting, President Obama delivered what I consider to be the best speech of his career, where he spoke sincerely about a culture of violence, whose systemic root causes go much deeper than just the regulation of arms, but of a problem that pervades every aspect of our society.

Yes, I fully agree that no one should have the right to carry assault weapons. There is no need for these instruments whose only function is to kill masses of people within a matter of seconds. There is no place for these weapons anywhere on this planet, and least of all in our schoolrooms and city streets.

Yet, this is far from the end of the conversation. They talk about mental illness, how it is spreading, that what we have seen to date is merely the cracks in the pavement, where below huge sinkholes of deep national trauma exist.  Twelve years of war will do that to a people.

And it is all connected, from Guantanamo Bay and other torture chambers, to secret kill lists and drone wars that sterilize murder; war makes us all more violent in subtle and growing ways that go unnoticed until it is too late. When civil war returns to the United States – and we are quickly heading in that direction – it will be the bloodiest carnage in history. We must reverse course with all urgency – and that includes our government.

In a time of economic crisis, with austerity looming at every turn, we are ramping up our police budgets to militarize our local departments with tanks and sound cannons and bat-mobiles – all aimed at the general population, while continually expanding our prison-industrial system, farming out management to for-profit corporations that require maximum return on investment, meaning a body for every bed, so the schools-to-jails, defund-public-services, while criminalizing-the-poor, politics as usual is just as much a part of the underlying problem, as are the armor piercing bullets.

However, to solve this it would mean restructuring our entire society from a war-based economy, to a peace-based economy. Right now, every single congressional district in this country employs workers to build something in support of war, to ensure the war-makers and profiteers are able to maintain a stranglehold on our economy, the direction of this country and our very way of life. We must divest from war and invest in peace.

It is a question of retooling our factories, our government and our frame of mind, and that takes courage.

We must redirect our entire culture and actually say to Hollywood and X-Box that yes, we do have the right to censor your violence, for just as it is illegal to incite a riot, the filth that you are projecting – primarily to the youth of this planet – is a danger to the well-being of our entire civilization.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is where the discussion needs to be going.

Venice Homeless Person Not Guilty – For Erecting a Toilet

By David Busch

I love you.

After a year now of controversial Venice arrests, 12 jurors have found that a homeless person’s “porta-potty” erected here in Venice on Third Ave. near Rose – and which was torn down and destroyed by the LAPD last April – had been a lawful benefit to this community.

I’m David Busch.

And the porta-potty was mine.

The potty, covered with hippy peace signs – and bearing a smiley-faced placard, stating, “Hi, I’m your porta-potty” – had been erected by me as a way to serve all of Venice.

And, like all basic human needs must be – it was free. For I have been given so much to my spirit, I now know this.

I first came here to Venice in 1980 and rented for a couple of years on the boardwalk. I was a diesel mechanic back then – for the city; and today I’m a proud Venice Hippy.

But early this year, after pushing literally hundreds of us “homeless people” and youth travelers several blocks off the people’s Boardwalk from midnight until 5 am each night with the City of L.A.’s  illegal beach closure and with no toilets available until nearly 8 am, I was actually arrested by LAPD – and charged with “creating and maintaining a public nuisance” (P.C. 372), for erecting a much-needed homemade porta-potty behind Digital Domain.

Where up to 120 people – and still without toilets right here in Venice – have been attempting for all this time, to this day, to find themselves a safe spot for nightly shelter in Venice. As the poor, youth travelers, street kids – and we hippies in Venice – long had on the Beach and Boardwalk, before its illegal closure. And with  plenty of room for both us and the thousands of tourists we welcome here, in our own Venice way.

So starting with a tent, I had began collecting donations of soap, cleaning supplies and toiletries; and I soon found myself daily emptying and carefully re-cleaning a bucket, and a toilet seat lid for the porta-potty. Later, a beautiful lady here named Mariska donated a bigger tent. One homeless man, living in his car, donated rolls of toilet paper he bought himself – each week. I kept things washed, and had some water with chlorine for occasional spills.

This setup was in line with procedures outlined in Red Cross emergency manuals.

For months, maintaining this potty further required the hauling of some tightly-sealed 5 gallons buckets for nearly four city blocks, down to the Rose area Beach toilets once they were opened.

But I want you to know, I now know that any of us can do it – and juries will stand with us on this.  And even the hazmat officials who arrested me agreed that our porta-potty beat out the City’s Beach toilets for over-all cleanliness.

At the end of the four day trial, the verdict was handed down in Los Angeles’ LAX/Airport Superior Court on Wednesday, December 19. And in declaring me innocent, this jury had to find that the utility of my  conduct to the  community outweighed any other offense.

Additionally, I was also charged in this trial by LAPD with violating the Los Angeles municipal code LAMC 56.11: leaving or permitting to remain “any article of personal property upon any parkway or sidewalk.” For having, on Third Ave., my homeless shopping-cart wheeled box, which holds my, and other people’s on the streets, possessions.

At trial the jury deliberated for many hours over two days, and after three requests to the Judge for the

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court to clarify the law and testimony, including one  seeking a further explanation of the ordinance, which was denied, the jury, in response, returned its verdict to me on this second charge: “Guilty.” For violating LAMC 56.11.

This is despite the fact that in Los Angeles LAMC 56.11 has been significantly constrained for several years by a Federal injunction, due to a prior homeless lawsuit against this homeless-abusing city: “Lavan v Los Angeles.”  This injunction had specifically been brought to prevent the seizure and destruction of homeless people’s property that is merely left on the sidewalk, and not abandoned, just as I had  maintained in this instance.

But for several years, this injunction has also brought the ire of some vocal, and winey,  LAPD officers here in Los Angeles, who claim that they cannot tell what an imminent threat to public health and safety is. And a bizarre crusade to overturn this law by our current Los Angeles City Attorney, Carmen Trutanich.  And now in Venice, LAPD is using this ordinance to harass the youth hitchhikers here – and lump them all in with us homeless, in violation of their rights to continued coastal access.

And so, strangely, and despite this injunction’s being upheld in a recent 9th Circuit appeal – at my  trial, the judge would not allow jurors to hear about this injunction. And not even a simple proposed, jury instruction that merely would have stated that the charge must be balanced – by all people’s 4th Amendment right to property.

My attorney here in Venice, John Raphling, who has represented me on this, further argued that this  Los Angeles city law is so vague that merely locking one’s bicycle to a pole, or parking one’s car in Venice, on the face of it, violates this crazy ordinance.

Yet housed people aren’t driven from Venice over it.

To me it is so sad to see that our Venice, a community of 42,000, has absolutely no shelter beds now whatsoever; and this, additionally, while our Councilman Bill Rosendahl was recently bombarded by another homeless-hate campaign for his support that we homeless people merely have access to some kind of day-storage facility here.

I ask you, “What good is an equal  ‘Right to Property’ anyway – if we haven’t even a legal place to keep it? Do they make housed people here now carry their houses around on their backs, everywhere they go?”

What will you do when you loose your own house?

So, for standing up for this storage, the City Attorney’s Office demanded at my sentencing – for parking a box on the sidewalk in Venice – that I be entirely banished from Venice for three years.

The honorable Nancy Newman was this trial’s presiding Judge.

Newman, instead, sentenced me to no probation, one day in jail – and time-served for this arrest.

To me, the bottom line of this absurdly wasteful trial was that after three days, and hours and hours of truly bizarre testimony officially presented by LAPD officers, the jury, in cleaning up all this mess – just spoke for all the loving Venetians here.

The LAPD testified that they never saw urination or defecation in any of Venice’s streets, gutters, or alleys – contradicted by testimony and photos, from their own hazardous waste officials, that more than 60 pounds of feces, and urine-deposited matter was collected by them from the streets, sidewalks and alleys around Third Ave.. And these Venice officers insisted that feces contained in a bucket and later dumped down the toilet was supposedly a greater threat to the public than the pounds of feces and urination that they, in fact, had found themselves smeared across Venice’s sidewalks, parking lots, alleys, and streets – and all of which, supposedly, was meant to pick apart my own effort to keep Venice safe.

Venice’s LAPD officers have now been given some new, common-sense orders by their own, highest authority – we the people. Twelve jurors have now instructed LAPD in Venice to open up their eyes, and recognize that even a homemade porta-potty by a homeless person here is far better than urination and defecation anywhere in Venice’s beautiful streets. I hope those that cry for “law and order in Venice” aren’t just hypocrites and will recognize that this is now the law.

Homeless porta-potties, simply and properly maintained, are not a public nuisance – and without something better to meet human need and sanitation – they are a benefit to all in the community.

Finally, I just especially want to thank my Defense Attorney John Raphling, who provided his own services to all of us here in Venice in this matter pro-bono, and is a member of the National Lawyers’ Guild.

Because with this victory, you can bet we all who’ve loved Venice have even more plans. And adequate toilets for Venice are just a start.

To sign a petition demanding more available public toilets, go to change.org and search “Access to toilets is a human right.”

I love you.

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David Busch has recently taken a vow to begin and end all his conversations with I love you.

The Killings in Connecticut

By Mary Getlein

Michael Moore (of Bowling For Columbine) told the story of a crazy man who went to a school and tried to kill some children, but it was in China and he only had a knife. No kids killed that day. The same day as the attack in Connecticut. Twenty children killed by the greed of the NRA. The NRA spent so much money for Republicans to get in office, but didn’t get them in office. The NRA, who have remained silent – in “respect of the mourning of the families”. The NRA, the most powerful gun lobby in the world. Twenty children killed who will never come back. Twenty children of America, living in a beautiful suburb, going to a school that was supposed to be safe.

Now all the other crazies are coming out of the closet. Some total idiot is saying to arm the teachers. Yeah, a horrible act of violence happens, let’s throw some more violence at it.

Michael Moore: “Isn’t eviction a violent act?” “Throwing people out of their homes, isn’t that a violent act?” “Closing down factories and jobs? And cities? Isn’t that a violent act?” “Our country creates wars and keeps them going with the young people of our country, isn’t that a violent act?” “We sell arms to our citizens and arms to other countries, who use them to kill other women’s children, isn’t that a violent act?” “The side effect of war on our soldiers, PTSD and suicide, isn’t that a violent act?”

Pundits on the radio, trying to figure out a way to have gun control – and keep their guns at the same time – propose taking assault weapons off the market, making it illegal to own an assault rifle, like the one the shooter used on those children. Even Senators who love hunting, even they are saying enough is enough.

But there are no guarantees. Three hundred million guns are already out there in gun owners’ hands. How do you make a law retroactive … can you demand people to give up their guns? What about just their assault rifles? You can get an AR15, which is equal to an M16, for $500 to $1,000. Just in time for Christmas! What better way to celebrate Peace on Earth than to buy an assault rifle?

The thing is, the best time to sell them is when they are threatening to take them off the market. The gun factories are manufacturing assault rifles right now, so there were plenty for Christmas shoppers. This guy on the radio was telling the announcer what a “cool” gun it was. She said, “Excuse me, but you are referring to the gun that the shooter used to kill 27 people, including 20 little children.” He tried to backtrack, and said that people would want the assault weapon to protect themselves from being mowed down by a similar murderer as the shooter.

Who do we blame for this? Well, first off, the shooter. Of course we need to have background checks, and change the laws that govern mentally ill people. Meanwhile, one of the first things that have been cut from state and federal budgets is money for mental health facilities. When someone turns 18, they are considered an adult and if they are mentally ill and refuse treatment, there is nothing you can do. You have to wait, in most states, for them to commit a crime before they can be apprehended. A lot of mentally ill people wind up in jail who should be in a mental hospital, getting treatment. If someone is threatening to kill someone, or blow up a school, there should  be a place to get help for that person, before that act is committed. A lot of people are in prison who should be in a mental health facility.

But you can’t get away from the violent world of gun owners. The “gun culture” of the United States. No other country in the world has as many homicides as we have. There is a huge link between gun ownership and gun deaths. Every gun sale should have a background check, but they do not. New gun sales require a background check, but guns sold at gun shows, second hand guns, and guns sold at yard sales are private and are not regulated by the state or federal government.

They should make possession of assault rifles a felony, and gun trafficking a felony.

In studying other countries, they have found the same violence rates, and the same depression rates. The difference? We have more guns. If we enact stricter gun laws, we will have fewer murders.

We are living in a violent country that seems to worship violent acts. The sales of violent video games is through the roof. There are videos that kids watch to re-enact what soldiers do. The children kill people on screen and congratulate themselves. Many movies out there are violent, twisted, stories, involving mass murders. It doesn’t take that much imagination to see the link between watching violent movies and video games and actually doing it in real life. If you are depressed and suicidal and filled with rage, it might look like a good way to “go out”. Who the f knows?

All I know is this is not the kind of world I want to live in. We have let this go on for too long. I lived in Venice during the gang war and it was truly horrible. People in cars would drive by our house and would shoot into the yards. They would come by early in the morning and shoot into apartment buildings. It was absolutely terrifying. We have got to come to an agreement that this is no way to live. It is about gun control, but it’s also about how we treat each other. Right now we are not doing well on either count. Things have to to change.

Sticking to Their Guns

By Jack Neworth

For days after the horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School the National Rifle Association was oddly silent. They even shut down their Facebook page and stopped tweeting. (The NRA “tweets?” How weird does that sound?)

Eventually the NRA announced that in an upcoming press conference it would reveal how they would “contribute meaningfully” to preventing further gun violence. Everyone assumed that finally they would be willing to compromise. Everyone was wrong.

On the same day six of the murdered children were buried, the NRA held its press conference, except no questions were allowed. (The big, bad NRA is afraid of the press?)  Instead, Wayne La Pierre, the NRA’s Executive Vice-President (and chief pitchman) took the podium and gave a lengthy and bewildering interpretation of the Sandy Hook massacre reminiscent of something out of the Twilight Zone.

Self-righteously, La Pierre, whose NRA annual salary is reportedly $1.4 million, identified the villains of Sandy Hook as the shooter, violent video games, “blood-soaked” Hollywood movies, President Obama and fluoride in the water. (Okay, I made up the fluoride part.)  The truth is La Pierre blamed everyone and everything but guns.

The movies La Pierre singled out for blame were American Psycho (2000) and Natural Born Killers (1994), neither exactly current.  As for the video games, La Pierre cited Kindergarten Killers, a game no one had heard of until he mentioned it. With its amateurish cartoon figures, one reviewer said the game was so lame and repetitive that “after five minutes I couldn’t stand any more.”

Given the horror of Sandy Hook, La Pierre was shockingly disconnected. Never once did he mention that the Bushmaster AR-15 with the high capacity magazine used at Sandy Hook is the same weapon used at Aurora, Colorado and used by the D.C. sniper in 2003.

Eerily, only days later the Bushmaster would be the weapon of choice of William Spengler. On Christmas Eve in Webster, N.Y., Spengler, 62, killed himself after murdering two firefighters and wounding two others at a blaze he apparently set to lure them to the scene. (Wayne probably blames it on a video game.)   – Continued on page 10

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La Pierre’s “solution” to gun violence massacring our children is to have every school in America staffed with an armed policeman. This seemingly ignores that at Columbine there were two armed security officers, at Virginia Tech there was a well-staffed campus police department and at Fort Hood, protected by military police.

Apparently, to La Pierre there can never be enough guns. The U.S. represents 5% of the world’s population, but at 300,000,000 guns we account for 50% of the world’s supply. (Should we chant “we’re #1?”)

Not surprisingly, La Pierre’s “press conference” was a PR disaster. Commentators  were shocked by his “tone deafness.” Even Rupert Murdoch’s conservative NY Post ran a headline, “Wayne La Pierre Is The ‘Craziest Man On Earth” and referred to his speech as a “bizarre rant.” (If anything, the Post was too kind.)

But maybe La Pierre is crazy like a fox. He is, after all, a high-priced pitchman for the gun and ammunition industry and baby, business is booming. Fearing changes in gun laws, on this past Black Friday 300,000 guns were sold nationwide. And since Sandy Hook, assault rifles have been selling off the shelves as delighted manufacturers struggle to keep up with orders. (What a country.)

Since 1982 there have been 62 mass murders in the U.S., 10 this year alone. In the past, as people return to their busy lives and the NRA, with its $250 million annual income, continues to fund pro-gun political campaigns, public outrage subsides. But hopefully not this time.

The seeds are already there. In this recent election the much-feared NRA used their typical bully tactics, plowing huge dollars into eight key congressional races. Guess what?  In seven out of eight their candidates lost. (Can you say “the Emperor has no clothes?”) And I’m confident that the grieving but remarkably strong community at Sandy Hook will not let their children or their children’s heroic teachers and principal die in vain.

Real hunters and gun enthusiasts attest that assault weapons have no place in the sport or even self-defense, nor do 30-100 bullet magazines. The irony is that a majority of NRA members are in favor of changing these laws (as was Ronald Reagan) and closing the gun show loophole which allows 40% of all guns to be purchased without background checks.

But as a shill for the weapons and ammo manufacturers, Wayne La Pierre is sticking to his guns. (Pun intended.) The NRA is famous for giving grades to political candidates ranking them as pro or anti-gun.  Grading La Pierre as a human being with a soul I’d have to give him  an “F.” And frankly I’d also like to tell him what he can do with all those assault weapons but this column is rated PG.

(To encourage the new Congress to pass laws to prevent future gun violence, go to www.bradycampaign.org. Jack can be reached at jnsmdp@aol.com.)

What Have They Done to the Rain?

By Mary Getlein

What Have They Done To The Rain? was written by Malvina Reynolds. Malvina’s song was protesting nuclear testing on the people and livestock of Utah in the 1950s. Most of the people and the livestock got cancers, and died. Malvina’s emphasis was on children and families – to protect our world, our planet  from our own greed. Our greed cuts down the old-growth forests. Our greed is killing our children! We sell arms, we sell video games that train young boys how to kill. We kill our children – we feed them horrible food, food that will make them sick and give them life-long diseases. We kill our children – we quickly diagnose them and put them on psycho-tropic drugs, whose side effects might manifest as homicide, suicide, or both.

We kill our children – we lock them up for false charges to ensure we have a huge population of prisoners. California’s cash crop is prisons. California is free-falling right now. They can’t pick up the trash on Venice Beach, but they can put thousands of brown, black and low-income whites in jail. We kill our children. Every one of the corporations related to this is making a “killing” on killing our children.

The real point of Occupy for me is taking off the every day glasses of “I’m ok, screw everybody else.” The notion that if you’re “ok”, then things are really “ok” for the rest of us. They’re not. Unemployment is high, rents are high, people are living in their cars, if they have cars. Poor people are being discriminated against and harassed, while rich people who commit REAL crimes are let off the hook.

Occupy is calling a pig a “pig”. (Sorry to all the real pigs). How many houses do you need? Seriously. How much wealth does one person need, when he can go out in the streets and see people sleeping on the sidewalk? And these are not all young run-aways. A lot of these people are old. They spend their days going to food pantries, or begging on the Boardwalk, and finally going to sleep on the sidewalk at night.

Since when did the notion of having a Third World country inside the United States become a good one? This is a frightening scenario. More and more people living in the street, while the rich people drive around in limos, fly around in helicopters, and generally have  a good time.

So what happens when all the people in the streets get sick? All the people in the streets are stricken by small pox, bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid, measles … Pick one, any one. All are highly contagious diseases and ALL the poor people are sick. Not just a little sick – FRIGHTENING sick, with big huge boils forming all over their bodies. Where their bodies collapse and they die with blood exploding from every orifice. “Highly contagious” – which means everybody gets it. Then what? Then you would see a mass exodus  from wherever the rich people live – oh yeah, they’ll be on the first plane out of here (remember Katrina?). Then all the poor people DIE, then years later, when the government has finally decided it’s safe to go back, they let the rich people back.

I have no problem believing in the real history of this country which was based on greed, taking all the land, killing all the Native Americans, destroying their language, their customs, their belief system.

Today on Reservations there are huge amounts of alcohol and drug abuse. You can’t tell me this is not deliberate. This is deliberate. This is just as deliberate as the amount of liquor stores in South Central L.A. More liquor stores than grocery stores. Genocide! The first thing the Army did when they got out West, was to give liquor to Native Americans. So they got strung out on alcohol. They never had alcohol, or sugar, in their lives until the white armies showed up. When your culture is destroyed, and they give you alcohol – you drink. And watch your culture, your life, go down the tubes.

The psych drugs they give us don’t work. 70% of people taking anti-depressants say they don’t work. We’re basically guinea pigs for their edification, and their profit motive. They have convinced us we need all these drugs, and we have to pay accordingly. It’s  the capitalist system at its best! They are the doctors, your are the patient, and you do what they say. But if these drugs don’t work, or end up killing the patient, all the doctors can say is “I’m sorry.”

If we were healthy, if we didn’t spend most of our lives on the freeway … what kind of life would that be? If you knew your neighbors and talked to them, what kind of life would that be? If you could realize that everything you do has an impact on the planet, and we are losing eco-systems and animals so fast, could we change? Could we hear the cries of other people in our country, can we hear the cries of the poor? Can we hear the cry of the tree that got cut down? Can we hear the cry of the seagulls over the polluted sound? Can we hear anything, except the relentless beating of our hearts, and our own selfish needs?

We have to care again. We have to really love each other, because if we can love each other, maybe we can love someone else. Hating each other is not working. We have to find a common ground, and that is this – we need to help our planet. To survive our time upon the Earth.

We have to have respect for our children and not lock them up at the first offense. Do you really want a future population of young adults to come out into society after spending most of their lives in the prison system? This is a scheme to serve only the rich billionaires who proposed it in the first place. By arresting someone, you automatically condemn them to the criminal caste. Why should anyone care about a criminal? So prisons get away with solitary confinement, overcrowding, and many ways to put your life in danger while you are locked up. This is just an eerie reminder of the way society treated black people in slavery. They viewed them with a dollar sign over their heads . If they treated them halfway decent, it was only to increase their profit margin.

The white owners would rape their female slaves and then sell their own children down the river, to avoid the “disgrace”. The way we sell our own children down the river is buying killer video games and letting our child play them. They desensify in a devastating way, and they basically train your kid in Army situations. Do you want a trained killer, age 14 – at the height of hormonal hatred for their parents – living in your house? Do you really believe violent video games had nothing to do with all those young adolescents  going to school and killing other adolescents?

Now a new way to kill your female adolescent child is opening up – Republicans running for office want to repeal Roe v. Wade. Remove the legality of abortion and open the door to criminal, back-alley abortions for the poor. Many patients who are requesting abortions are in their teens, and already have two or three babies. If  a young mother, living in poverty, requests an abortion, I would say give it to her. And provide her with help with the children she is already raising.

The Republicans are going after women. People want to know why women aren’t fighting back. Maybe women are trying to keep their job in these times of no jobs, or part-time jobs. Unemployment has run out, people can’t pay their rent, they are evicted, and suddenly another family has hit the streets. So yeah, maybe that’s one reason women are not fighting back.

Maybe they are tired. Maybe doing something requires too much energy, when you are raising your daughter’s kids, because your daughter is in jail.

Maybe you are scrambling for a place to live before you lose everything and are left on the curb. When you’re on the curb, it’s pretty hard to fight back.

Maybe you don’t understand what feminism is. I have heard a lot of women say ” I don’t really feel like I’m a feminist, because I have nothing to rebel against. I don’t feel like I’ve ever been discriminated against.” Most of the women saying that were young, full of energy, health  and beauty. But try looking for a job in this job market, when you’re over 60 and you’re not young, cute and healthy. You’re “old”, your back hurts a lot, your hands are starting to swell up with arthritis, and you’re scared. Who is going to hire you? As what? A greeter at WalMart, or the guy who hands your your coffee at McDonald’s? All day on your feet, at age 65, is this what you thought it would be?

Maybe we already know who the enemy is, and we don’t have to go to policy meetings to figure this out. Republican men in $6,000 suits are trying to reduce women to a secret? “Oh, did you hear so and so’s daughter had an abortion?” This is not the question. The question is when are these guys going to get a clue?

They are suffering from the Messiah complex and they actually believe they are working for Christ. What would Jesus do? Well, he always said stuff like love each other, and be kind to each other. Love should be the center of your life. These people are haters and they hate anything they can’t control. They are against reproductive rights for women and have a totalitarian approach to a medical episode in the life of a woman. They should stay out of a woman’s womb. If they hate women, they hate themselves, because they came from a woman. Or is it because they were raised by women, and women were viewed as subservient?

The Republicans need to look over on their side of the street – what have they done to sell the country out?

We are not stupid people. We do not believe the lies and the stupidity coming out of the ruling class. Democrats … Republicans … they’re all the same. Rich men in expensive suits, plotting new ways to dehumanize the planet. And kill your kids.

They don’t care. Remember Katrina? Remember George W. Bush – quite possibly the stupidest President we ever had – drained all the money out of the US budget to pay for two horrible wars? The guy had a big grinning face all the time. George Bush Senior had a great partnership with the Sheiks of Saudi Arabia. After 9/11, when all the planes were grounded, they were given secure passage out of this country (George Bush – Head of the CIA! Get it?)

Remember? Don’t forget your brain while you go vote. Don’t vote for Republicans – because they actually do want to kill your kids. Prison or war, who cares?

The motto of the ruling class has always been “Keep the poor people down.” Which means all of us who ain’t rich, and ain’t on the other side of the line drawn in the sand.

1% or 99%? Which side are you on?

Sister Act … With Murder

By Delores Hanney

I read about it in the National Enquirer: main Mad Man, Jon Hamm, has gone goofy for the Lennon Sisters. He’s acquired all their records and packs an urge to evangelize. Soon, perhaps, one of their era-appropriate songs will find itself in that singular position of honor wherein such period icons as Bob Dylan and the Beatles have already been celebrated, playing behind the credits for one of Mad Men’s episodic chronicles of the deliciously tortuous lifeways of a gaggle of 1960s ad makers.

The Lennon Sisters, you might recall, came to fame as a mid-twentieth century quartet of juvenile songbirds made legendary by their presence on a weekly TV musical-variety program, an entertainment type of considerable popularity during that age. The girls were homegrown products of Venice, California, a fact that astonishes many who consider them too oxymoronically wholesome to have sprung from such notoriously quirked-out soil. But there you have it: Venice has range!

For a generation, The Lawrence Welk Show – inaugural habitat of the sisters’ renown – was a Saturday evening staple epitomized by faux champagne bubbles drifting around like a luminous swarm of migrating butterflies, a heavily German-accented, accordion-playing big band leader-cum-host and a particular predilection for sprightly polka music.

A production of KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, it was broadcast locally from the Aragon Ballroom on the Lick pier in Venice, during its 1951 to 1955 incarnation. Later in ‘55 it went national on ABC, broadcast live from the Hollywood Palladium. In 1971 ABC canceled it; afterwards, till 1982, Welk produced the program himself for viewing on independent stations. With the persistence of gum on one’s shoe, the show is still seen in re-runs.

But back when Dianne Lennon was sixteen, Peggy fourteen, Kathy twelve and Janet nine, Lawrence Welk’s son, Larry, happened to catch them singing at an Elks Club soiree and with a quickness trundled them home to sing for his father. With equal swiftation they became fixtures on The Lawrence Welk Show, debuting on Christmas Eve 1955. “We’ve acted out our lives in stages, with 10,000 people watching,” they testify tunefully on their website regarding growing up so publicly.

Warmly welcomed into the home of massive multitudes each week via television, they also arrived as merchandizing tie-in items, such as storybooks and coloring books, paper dolls and TV trays. In 1956, they would also be carried home in the form of their first hit record, “Tonight You Belong to Me.”

But as in all fairytales there was a dark side – in this case a very dark side.

Chet Young was a certified “dangerously insane” psychopath within whose scrambled brain Peggy Lennon was his “true” wife and mother of his kids; the sisters’ dad was the bad guy who was keeping them apart. For months Young harassed the Lennon family: turning up on their doorstep, stalking, calling, sending letters. The last, unopened before his murder, pictured William Lennon with a gun to his head, beneath which the words “High Noon.”

And at noon on August 12, 1969, Young waylaid Bill Lennon as he left his job at the Venice Golf Club. After arguing briefly, Lennon turned away. Pulling a rifle from a sack, Young shot him in the back then put the gun to his temple and fired again. He escaped in an Oldsmobile Cutlass. Two months later he was found inside the trunk of said Oldsmobile, suicided using the same weapon. As a ghastly final touch he left a note for Peggy asking her to explain to the nonexistent children that he took his life because they couldn’t be together.

The Lennon Sisters quit the Lawrence Welk Show in 1968 and were set to begin their new program, Jimmy Durante Presents: The Lennon Sisters Hour in the fall of 1969, just weeks following the horror of their father’s murder. Undaunted as polar bears on an ice floe, they set aside their personal trauma to gutsily go forth with their commitment but were cancelled after a single season. During the next couple decades they were guests on all manner of TV variety shows, game shows and late night talk shows.

In 1994 they whiffled off to Branson, Missouri, where they assumed their position in the spotlight at The Welk Champagne Theatre for ten years or so. Younger sis Mimi picked up the slack with the retirement of Dianne and Peggy.

Now that Jon Hamm has come out as an avid admirer of the Venice-born sister act, the floodgates could open to whole new gajillions ripe for a hankering after their harmonic convergence.

Everything old is new again.

Skateboarding While Black

By Ronald McKinley

While skateboarding home on a nice, warm summer afternoon, Ronald Weekley, Jr. was beaten and then arrested by LAPD. Not beaten and arrested; there is a difference. The charge was for skateboarding on the wrong side of the street, and resisting arrest. Weekley has a broken nose, fractured cheek, and a concussion.

Several cell phone cameras captured the incident on Saturday, August 18. All the videos were by women who lived in the area. They can be heard speaking to the police.

One woman can be heard saying, “hit him again for the camera” in an effort to stop the police from doing just that. Weekley was prone face down and handcuffed on the lawn in front of his home, with four well-fed cops on his back. One of the officers grabbed Weekley’s hair with his left hand and punched him in the face with his right. One woman said, “That was a bitch-ass move.” Meanwhile other officers, not involved in the beat-down, tried to stop the videoing. Later she said: “ I know this isn’t Orange County, we just want to make sure you don’t kill him.”

The call for documentation could be heard: “video, video, video, video.” There were several cell phones recording. The women were brave, they kept a dialogue going with the police the entire time Weekley was prone on the ground. They were not kind to the police. I would have not been so inclined myself.

The Violent Crime Task Force is whom we have to thank for this mess. I thought they were supposed to stop violent crime. So skateboarding on the wrong side of the street is a violent crime? I guess if you knock over someone’s latte…

At the Venice Neighborhood Council’s August 21 meeting, held at the Westminster Elementary School auditorium, Capt. Brian Johnson, the commander of the pacific division, and Alex Bustamante, the inspector general of the police commission, held a question and answer session in the public safety-LAPD report portion of the meeting. This report includes a monthly Venice crime report and updates on law enforcement issues in Venice.

Johnson spoke on policing constitutionally, a favorite theme of his. He did not know the status of the officers involved in the incident, they could still be on the street. Bustamante spoke about the job of the office of the inspector general, the Professional Standards Bureau quality control for the police department. He also answered questions.

A number of people at this meeting spoke on being humiliated by the LAPD. One woman spoke about five officers stopping her from returning to her home after shopping. One man spoke about his 4^th of July celebration stopped by the police; he said they set up a command post in front of his house. This happened to me some years ago, after the police formed a skirmish line and cleared the whole beach, after a confrontation in the pavilion between the police and graffiti artists.

The August 28 community meeting concerning Weekley, who called himself “present-day Rodney King,” was an intense gathering attended by Johnson, Bustamante, and Mike Bonin from Rosendahl’s office. The policemen who were involved in Weekley’s arrest did not attend any of the meetings or rallies that took place.

Johnson pretended not to know there was racial profiling taking place under his watch. He spoke of Oakwood and was corrected by a woman in attendance, according to whom, “Oakwood is a park, but all of it is Venice. Separating Oakwood from Venice is a ploy to separate blacks from Venice.”

Venice is changing, and not for the better. Money has found Venice. The police answer to the moneyed. Walk down Rose Av. from the boardwalk to Lincoln Blvd. Slowly the people who make Venice, Venice are beaten down.

The place that perfected skateboarding is now making it a crime. I don’t skateboard. I did when I was a teenager; that is when we nailed skates to a board. This is what happens when you don’t vote. Someone who doesn’t know you decides your fate.

Weekley, Jr. was held for six hours before being treated for his injuries. He was told he had to sign a certain document before treatment. I could not find out what this document was.

Weekley, Sr. spoke of a legacy, where young people of all colors could enjoy Venice; where kids could walk, skate and play in their own community without fear.

Now we wait to see if the charges against Weekley, Jr. are dropped. We wait on the use of force report. This investigation could and probably will continue until sometime next year. Peace from the police and enough is enough.

Skateboarding is Not a Crime

By CJ Gronner

There was a rally August 22 for Ronald Weekley, Jr., the kid that was beaten by police August 18th for skateboarding on the wrong side of the street. In Venice, California. That alone should tell you how wrong it is.

How horrifying is it that this can still happen in this day and age! And how inspiring and chill inducing it was to be there this afternoon with a Venice community that CARES, and is demanding action.

Weekley, Jr.’s skater friends were there, his classmates, his neighbors, the news, and people that had never heard of him before this despicable incident, came out in support on a gorgeous Venice afternoon, as cars of strangers drove by and honked their support.

The police line is that the young skater was violating traffic code by skating down the wrong side of the street (who hasn’t?), and then resisting arrest for this blatantly heinous crime (who wouldn’t?!). Then it was somehow decided to have four cops beat him up. In broad daylight. In front of his home that he was skating back to. He has a concussion, a broken cheek, jaw and nose, and frankly, he looked a little like a Picasso painting as he stood in front of the crowd at the rally. For SWB. (“Skateboarding While Black”, as one of the speakers said, and which appears to be so sad, but awfully true. Sorry, but you consider the neighborhood, the kid doing nothing anyone else doesn’t do every day in Venice, and it really does look like his afro was his main problem. Which sickens me just to type). His father said that his son had thought he was going to die. In front of his own home. For SKATING!

Weekley Jr’s very well-spoken and unbelievably calm, considerate father, Ronald Weekley, Sr., addressed the gathered crowd and brought tears to my eyes with his considerate and heart-felt words. He clearly loves his community, and wants kids of ALL colors to skate safely in Venice. He said people have asked what the family wants, and it is simply to have their son’s charges dropped (he had to spend a night in County Jail without visiting a hospital first!), and the police officers that committed the crimes against Weekley, Jr. identified and charged publicly. In other words, JUSTICE. Which IS what we want, and we do want it NOW, as the chant went.

Mr. Weekley, Sr. went on to say that they hold no vengeance, no hate, and they are practicing forgiveness, but “forgiveness in context”. That’s right. He asked for skaters around California (and the World) to join together to combat police oppression, and “Redefine what it means to protect and serve!” That got a round of applause, as did most everything everyone said. When we weren’t crying.

Like I was when Weekley, Jr. took the microphone stand and cried himself as he very softly said, “Don’t be angry at what happened … Just help people that need it.” What a special young man, that he already lives in a place of forgiveness, and is himself moving on to looking how to help others.

Obviously we have a big problem with police using excessive force in this country. It happens far too often to deny it. Now the press has it out that Weekley Jr. had warrants out for traffic misdemeanors  (that almost everyone in Los Angeles has also had), but who cares? Police can’t tell you have warrants by looking at you, and warrants don’t equal beatings, even in our antiquated law books. The Weekleys have retained Benjamin Crump to help them, the same attorney who is handling the Trayvon Martin case. The Nation Of Islam were there today, standing in solidarity in their bow ties, and their spokesman Tony Muhammad reiterated that “This is not about color, this is about justice.”

Reverend Al Sharpton called the family, and let them know that the whole nation is watching Venice now because of this. Venice 2000 and the Venice Neighborhood Council were both represented, and all claimed to be in it “for the long haul.” Police need to be re-trained in cultural sensitivity, and as their Pastor, Horace Alan, of Westminster Baptist said, “We are ALL human beings … and human beings need to be treated better than laws.” Amen.

Weekley, Sr. took the microphone again in closing, and expressed his family’s gratitude for everyone there, for this “Community of HUMAN BEINGS”, and again said all they want is for kids to be FREE to live and play safely in Venice. Everyone wants that. For it to be the police themselves making that NOT the case is abhorrent, and Venice won’t stand for it, I can tell you that. Over-zealous, over-steroided, over-whatever their problem is cops will not be tolerated here. Where skateboarding is definitely NOT a crime.

The press conference wrapped and one of the young skaters started up the Justice chant as Weekley Jr. was surrounded by press wanting more from him.

The chant evolved into “Peace From The Police!” as the group made their way down 6th Street, holding signs that read “Justice 4 Ron!” and the best one, “PEACE for Ron!” To quote everyone there, …. “YEAH!”