Month: May 2012

May 29, 2012

Veterans of our recent corporate wars make their stand in Chicago and The Wife doesn’t get tased

Because I used so many of The Wife’s pictures, this report is in two parts.
Click here to read Part One
This is Part Two

The cops had moved in and tightened their threatening cordon, hoping to provoke an incident. The corporate media tour bus had scooted away and was nowhere to be seen. The Medal Hurling Ceremony was ready to begin.

Again, looking over all these photos, I wonder over and over what the cops were thinking. Here is an actively deployed paramilitary force, accustomed to obeying orders from command without question, acting in a threatening manner toward our military men and women. Did any of these cops feel ashamed of what they were doing? Do these guys and gals really think our Veterans are The Enemy that needs to be repressed?

I certainly am starting to wonder what will happen after our American society disintegrates into civil war, which I think is a real possibility for the near future. Which side will the cops be on, which side will the Veterans choose? Who will use their weapons training to defend the US Constitution, and who will hire out as gunners for the foreign corporations?

Former Marine Iris Feliciano:
"We No Longer Stand For Their Lies."

First up was former Marine Iris Feliciano, who served in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ms. Feliciano directed her comments to the NATO delegates:

I want to tell the folks behind us, in these enclosed walls, where they build more policies based on lies and fear, that we no longer stand for them. We no longer stand for their lies, their failed policies and these unjust wars. Bring our troops home now and end the war now.

May 29, 2012

The Wife goes to Chicago and attends an important historical event that you didn’t hear about

Because The Wife took so many pictures, this report is in two parts.
This is Part One.
Click here to read Part Two.

The Wife was in Chicago on May 20, a hot humid Sunday, to support some 40 or so Veterans of the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. These brave soldiers had come to America’s heartland to march in formation along the downtown streets. Then, at the end of the march each one of these men and women who had served their country well, or once believed that they had, one by one ripped their own medals from their chests and threw them away in disgust.

US Veterans Marching In Formation On Michigan Avenue In Chicago, May 20, 2012

This ceremony was organized primarily by Veterans For Peace. A long time ago Veterans were represented by organizations like American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, which politically and socially tended to promote militarism. No more. The premier Veteran’s organization of today looks for alternatives to profitable destruction, the typical Veteran of today has graduated from the idea of war.

The Wife had an assignment for the day, to follow the marching Veterans and take as many photos as she could. She came home to Albany with a lot of really good pictures, many of which are a unique record of an important and influential event that was frantically suppressed by the corporate media and by our government. She did good work as a citizen journalist, I want to show you what she saw.

Terrorist Assassin Directs Fellow Suicide Bombers To The Jihad, Note The "Security Barriers"

For the past week the streets of Chicago had been mostly emptied of vehicles because of the Lock Down for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO.) The Lock Down encompassed some five square miles of downtown Chicago, meaning that inside this special zone the Bill of Rights was suspended for the duration of the declaration. In other words, this was a zone of martial law. These Lock Downs, of course, are unconstitutional, but hardly anyone in power cares about the US Constitution anymore.

Now, in case anyone doesn’t know, the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq are being conducted by NATO, not the United States. The USA is merely a part of an international coalition of concerned nations who only want what’s best for the world. Got that? So these important people meeting at the nearby McCormick Center, said to be the largest summit in NATO’s history with delegates from 63 nations, are technically the leaders responsible for sending these US Veterans into war.

The Five Square Mile Lock Down was advertised as a special security zone meant to protect the foreign ministers and heads of state attending the NATO conference from terrorists and assassins. But The Wife reported that she did not see any threatening violent people with weapons other than the cops. There were lots of cops. That’s how powerful people display fear of the public that supports them, by hiding behind walls and throwing cops at the world.

Peace Groups And Justice Groups Rallied Before The Veteran’s March, "Free Bradley Manning" Was Heard Throughout The Day

I expect these Lock Down Zones will become more common, eventually they may extend permanently over all of America’s major population centers. But this particular “temporary” Lock Down Zone attracted a lot of patriotic citizens who converged on Chicago for the week. This convergence of concerned citizens turned into a national conference of liberal patriots who have not given up on their country like the right wingers have.

In public places these patriotic activists played that strange peace dance with the violent cops, asserting their right to demonstrate while the police threatened and intimidated. Between public events, in meeting rooms and church basements around the City the activists met and conferenced and learned from each other. It was a convention without a convention center, the entire City was their venue. The authorities didn’t like that but there was little they could do about it.

Riot Cops At White Vans Dressing In Armor

Did the protests, particularly the Medal Hurling ceremony have a positive effect? Well let’s see. That cabal of rich white northern hemisphere nations called the Group Of Eight, or the G8, was supposed to meet in nearby the same time as NATO but left town in a hurry to avoid the protesters. They ended up meeting in California. As for NATO up the street, President Obama came out of that meeting with a firm promise to start winding down the corporate land wars in Asia. And of course, look all those cops they put on the street. Oh yeah, the big boys got the Veteran’s message loud and clear before they even delivered it.

You see, this Medal Hurling event on the street demonstrated to the leaders of NATO that the men and women who do the actual fighting are becoming tired of dying in their pointless wars. That is the historical reason why the war against Vietnam ended in the early 1970s, the soldiers refused to fight anymore. The high and mighty NATO leaders meeting behind closed doors and deploying threatening cops appear to have good memories. They haven’t yet forgotten the lessons of Vietnam.

As for NATO, this public event raised a long overdue question, why does NATO still exist? NATO was created after World War 2 to promote the military aims of “The West” during the Cold War against the old Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union has been gone for more than two decades, why is NATO today overseeing corporate wars in Asia? And why are Americans dying in those wars?

The Wife, who had arrived in Chicago more than a week earlier, is certainly no veteran but she very much participated in this City-wide activist networking convention. As part of her ongoing work bringing attention to how the extra-legal prosecutions of Muslims are being used to destroy every American’s right to a fair trial, she ran a workshop and sat on several panels and contributed to others. But according to her, the real reason she took the train to Chicago was to visit Sue The Dinosaur at the Field Museum of Natural History:

Sue The Dinosaur Contemplates The Wife And Her Camera

What can I say, she likes dinosaurs. She absolutely had to go look at the biggest and best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex in the world, 42 feet long and 13 feet tall with teeth the size of bananas. At 28 years of age Sue is also the eldest Tyrannosaur known, and was the object of a very expensive privatization controversy back in the 1990s. The Wife was fascinated to learn about FBI interference in the case, she has been wondering if and how the secret police ultimately caused Sue to be brought to Chicago.

The Wife was out in the streets of Chicago early Sunday morning, she said she was terrified that she wouldn’t get enough good pictures and disappoint her horrible husband who was languishing back in Albany. My goodness, she was more afraid of me than the Chicago police. She started the morning by looking for the very front of the procession on Michigan Avenue and discovered what she called “Critical Mass Police:”

Critical Mass: Chicago Bicycle Cops Assembled In Front

A cop she talked to told her tersely, “Every officer in the City is out here this morning.” Looking through her 250 or so photos, I have to say that I have never seen so many tense cops assembled ready for action for no particular reason. Really, the cops were there merely to scare and impress the citizens, there was precious little police work to be done other than routine crowd control.

But after looking over her accounts and listening to her stories, it became clear to me that there really was a compelling reason for all this police overtime pay. The US government and the foreign corporations that own our elected officials desperately wanted to restrict access to public information about the Medal Hurling ceremony. They wanted to keep it as secret as possible from the American people and from the world that American soldiers are tired of fighting.

Indeed, the police cordon successfully kept the news out of the corporate media. Their content providers, you see, were not allowed to wander around and talk to people. They were strictly confined to a tour bus:

Corporate Media Content Providers Imbedded On The Bus

I can never decide if I should laugh or cry when I see such things. The corporate content providers on the bus could only see what the bus operator let them see. After a quick view of the march in progress, the bus was spirited far away from the Medal Hurling ceremony. The last word was that the bus went off to point cameras at some rally of black shirt anarchists, probably hoping those kids could be provoked into doing something crazy that they could exploit.

This is why you most likely didn’t hear about this landmark act of defiance by our Veteran Soldiers. Other than a few citizen journalists, Democracy Now! was the only professional national media to document the Medal Hurling ceremony. This is one more reason why I have such deep contempt for the corporate media and their content providers.

*UPDATE* The bozos on the corporate media bus put out a report for the day that naturally has little connection to what actually happened, but functions as adequate propaganda. Again, this is why I have pure contempt for the Associated Press (AP) monopoly.

The March Begins

I would like to know the compelling law enforcement reason why it was necessary to pay these cops to line the street shoulder to shoulder to separate the people on the sidewalk from the people on the street. There were no crimes being committed that day on the street or on the sidewalk. These cops were sent here to intimidate, to create tension.

The march was tightly surrounded by cops to isolate it as much as possible from the rest of America, and from the world at large. But with so much recording equipment all over the street the cops didn’t dare attack anyone, and the crowd composed mostly of activists were too savvy to get provoked. A strange dance indeed.

Veterans March In Chicago, May 2012

The Veterans marched in a square formation defined by a yellow rope. Various national and local peace groups and justice organizations and of course Occupy Chicago marched with them in solidarity. Labor unions are lately showing up in force more frequently at such events, most prominent at this one were the National Nurses Association and the Chicago Teacher’s Union (CTU.)

The Veterans chanted in parade cadence, “No NATO, no war, we don’t work for you no more.” The Wife was impressed by how they marched in sync, their 40 or so pairs of legs moving in unison. That’s how you know they’re soldiers, I told her. “En Ay Tee Oh, we don’t kill for you no more,” delivered like flat statements of fact. These folks knew exactly what they were doing and why.

Marching inside the yellow rope with the veterans was a contingent of Afghan women representing Afghans For Peace, carrying the flag of Afghanistan. No, they were not wearing burkhas, these exiles living in Canada wore white t-shirts and fashionable formfitting black pants. They were to share the podium with the veterans and later become part of an innovative experiment in international relations.

Afghan Women March Alongside
The US Veterans Inside The Rope

The procession ended at a flatbed trailer at the 100 block of S. Michigan Avenue which was used as a podium for the event. The Vets took the stage along with the Afghan women, both displaying the flags of their respective countries. Former Army Sergeant Alejandro Villatoro, who served in Iraq in 2003 and in Afghanistan in 2011, acted as emcee.

Members of Veterans For Peace who were not there to hurl medals, wearing identifying black shirts, lined the stage in front like bouncers at a rock concert. They did this to keep the police from crowding the stage. Baffled, the cops stalked back and forth while the Veterans For Peace stood firm and refused to be challenged.

Sgt. Villatoro Reads While Police Officers Are Momentarily Baffled By Veterans For Peace Guarding The Podium.

Unable to line up next to the podium, the cops set up a second line in front of the Veterans For Peace. This managed to keep the crowd from watching the action too closely, which is apparently what the cops intended.

Afghan Women For Peace And Veterans For Peace Announce The Beginning Of A Joint Dialogue. Meanwhile The Cops Have Settled Into A Double Line In Front Of The Veterans Guarding The Podium

The Wife got as close as she could. Then she put her little camera on full zoom and on automatic focus, held it high over her head with both hands and snapped away.

Retired US Flag Presented To A Grieving Mother

The US flag was treated with great respect, as is customary among Veterans. This particular flag was “retired” accompanied by the playing of Taps. Then the flag was carefully folded and presented to Mary Kirkland. Her son Derrick had returned from his latest tour of duty in Iraq, and the very next day he hung himself. She later told an interviewer, “He was home, I thought he was safe.”

A Grateful Mother Recognized At Last

At this point The Wife swung her camera over and caught the Veterans waiting to one side for their chance to dispose of the medals that they had earned. Most of them were flashing the traditional peace signal.

Veterans Of Iraq And Afghanistan Show Approval Of Reconciliation

It’s hard for older folks to understand the significance of this event, partly because it has not appeared in any of the corporate information channels that older folks identify with legitimacy. That is, if it didn’t flash across the TV or merit a few lines in a dead tree newspaper then as far as they’re concerned it didn’t happen. Oh but it did happen. Look at how much effort went into suppressing the event.

Shameful Chicago Surveillance Cop Peeping At Our Brave Soldiers As They March

Back in 1971 a group of Vietnam Veterans held a similar Medal Hurling ceremony outside the US Capitol. That event actually made it into what was then called the Mainstream Media, albeit as a negative story. But despite the negative spin the country was informed that the Veterans were tired of the war against Vietnam, I saw the effect this news had on the adults around me.

Soon all those smug people loudly sneering at “hippies” and “peaceniks” protesting that war were stunned into silence. After all, how can you argue with the Vets who got shot at? I’ve never forgotten how the testimony of those soldiers, appearing at protests and events like this, quickly ended knee-jerk support for that particular stupid pointless war.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the corporate media suppressed news of this Medal Hurling ceremony in 2012, and that is why the authorities sent all those cops out in the street to scare away observers like The Wife.

Click here for Part 2 to see the Medal Hurling ceremony.

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May 8, 2012

The regional transit authorities are pushed into doing the right thing, and a local hero goes national

A month or so back my neighborhood made national news, this time for something worth talking about. This outstanding development merited a National Public Radio (NPR) segment that was picked up by local corporate media outlets across the nation and was distributed to print media via the Associated Press (AP.) This is a story that started, and now stops over and over almost in front of my house every single day.

What is this amazing bit of news? It seems that the Capital District Transportation Agency (CDTA,) the regional overseers of bus service for our region, felt compelled by public opinion to break with long tradition and tentatively provide bus service where it was needed the most, on Morton Avenue. And now for the first time we have a useful bus, one that encircles downtown Albany, connects neighborhoods and links to outgoing routes.

According to CDTA the new 100 Mid-City Belt, which was introduced this past November, has been picking up an average of eight new riders per day. Apparently this was completely unexpected. Today the 100 is the single most successful route in the entire regional system. Last I’ve heard the CDTA board members are still in a state of shock.

Commuters Catch The 100 Bus On A Rainy Morning In May, Morton Avenue

With all this positive national publicity about my neighborhood, I decided it’s time I rode the bus just to see where it goes and to say I did it. So on a fine spring morning with the apple blossoms blooming I caught the new bus at the corner of Morton Avenue and South Swan Street just to go for a ride.

I have to admit that I hadn’t ridden a CDTA bus in many years. When I first settled in my house in the mid 1980s I tried to use the nearby available busses. So did The Wife, who at the time was holding down a regular nine to five job out in the suburbs. For me using the bus was a necessity and a habit from having lived in other Cities, while The Wife wanted to ride the bus so that she didn’t have to navigate bad weather in our one vehicle.

Apple Blossoms Blooming At The South Swan And Morton Avenue Bus Stop, April 2012

Eventually we both gave up. The Wife’s half hour driving commute was, at best, an hour and forty five minute public transit nightmare involving three transfers and prolonged exposure to the elements waiting for busses that didn’t necessarily show up. As for me, I was jobbing around at various locations and quickly found that CDTA busses were almost useless for what I needed.

As the years passed bus service in downtown Albany continued to get worse. Routes were eliminated, and more devastatingly the frequency of busses plying these routes were steadily cut back, so that the downtown routes eventually become nearly useless for working commuters. Service became rare and often nonexistent on Sundays, holidays and evenings, and as a result ridership declined.

By the turn of the century people in my neighborhood had become all too aware that CDTA was engaging in a kind of Demolition by Neglect. That is, by deliberately providing lousy bus service which inevitably lost bus riders they could justify the eventual cessation of bus service in downtown Albany altogether. They came close to their goal.

Exiting At The Bottom Of Morton Avenue

I caught the new 100 Mid-City Belt a block from my house at 9:30 on a Monday morning. Since I was playing tourist I didn’t want to get in the way of serious commuters, so I chose what I figured to be the slow time. But even at midmorning the bus was comfortably full.

This was one of the new hybrid busses which are standard on this new route. They use an electric motor to supplement the engine, which uses ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) as now required by law. I’ve been worrying about increased diesel emissions from improved bus service, this pollution shows up as fine black dirt coating the neighborhood buildings and collecting in windowsills. Perhaps these new busses that meet the new standards will mitigate the problem, we’ll see during high summer.

The new busses feel small on the inside, but can actually pack in the bodies. The passengers sit higher in the back than in the front, on the outside you can see the raised roof in the rear. From the low humming that I felt I would guess the engines are back there beneath the floor. My one complaint is that the seats are oddly small, I’m glad I didn’t have to squeeze in next to a fat person.

We rolled down the Morton Avenue hill much more quietly than the old diesel busses did, stopping at every corner that required a stop or pickup. Hearst hack Paul Grondahl, who often lavishly expresses in print his utter contempt for the South End, reported in the Times Union that the 100 bus made only eight stops on its entire route! Later I noticed the CDTA schedule listed arrival times for only eight stops, Grondahl’s laziness explains that foolishness.

Guy With The Motorized Wheelchair Gets On

At the bottom of the hill we dropped off several guys who were “going to work at Green Street” and then we made a left on to South Pearl Street. At the first stop in front of the Department of Motor Vehicles we picked up a fellow in a motorized wheelchair. At the front door the hydraulic lift brought him up smoothly while a mechanical voice advised caution. (Our neighborhood now hears that voice all day long.)

The seats in the very front of the bus are sideways, several people got up from them and moved elsewhere without being asked. Driver 1699, who later wouldn’t let me snap her photo, gladly lifted the three seats on one side so the guy could park there. Then she fastened straps to each corner of the wheelchair and dropped a safety bar. The whole process took about a minute.

We followed South Pearl Street across downtown to North Pearl. Along this narrow corridor there are fewer designated stops, but I didn’t see any of those brand new bus shelters with solar powered lights. This is a smart fiscal idea that I hope shows up along the 100 route. For those who don’t know, putting a solar collector next to your lights is almost magically efficient, after the installation is paid for all electricity used is utterly and completely free of charge and lasts all night long.

The Bus Empties Out

While we were crossing downtown and had finally turned left on Lark Drive the bus was pretty full. But at Whitney Young Medical Center most everyone got off, including the guy in the wheelchair. We continued mostly empty, winding uphill past newer houses and we didn’t pick up anybody until we turned right at Livingston Avenue.

We turned left onto Quail Street and traveled a ways, and soon pulled up to a stop right behind the Linda Norris Auditorium on Central Avenue. This was the end of the line. A CDTA supervisor lady with a clipboard (yes, a dead tree device) engaged the attention of Driver 1699 and everybody had to exit the bus.

Quite a few of us waited out the ten or fifteen minute break, some smoking butts or poking at devices. Several people stalked off to get coffee, as did the driver after the supervisor was gone. But first she shut down the bus, I was happy to note that she didn’t leave it idling as is often done with older diesel busses and trucks. I’ve never understood the compelling justification for that, all I can say is thank you.

Waiting On Quail Street Near Central Avenue

Driver 1699 came back with a coffee and a small bag of goodies and we all got on again. Since I hadn’t bought a $4 day pass I had to pay another $1.50 for the second half of the trip. Tourism can get expensive.

We continued on Quail across Central. At Western Avenue the same guy in the motorized wheelchair got back on! Apparently he had outraced us while we were waiting to get going again. We continued on Quail filling up with passengers again, crossed Madison Avenue and finally turned left at New Scotland Avenue.

Of course we had a big stop at Albany Medical Center, and then turned right onto Holland Avenue making frequent stops. Soon Holland turned into Morton Avenue and here I was getting off where I started, at the corner of South Swan Street. At 10:30 AM the bus was moderately full. The whole trip, including the break, took a little less than an hour. I thanked Driver 1699.

Mr. Willie White On Morton Avenue

It’s important to note that this wonderful new bus didn’t happen by accident, and it sure didn’t happen because of the farseeing benevolence of our public officials, elected or otherwise. I would be remiss and totally lame if I did not give prime credit to dynamic neighborhood activist Willie White, who saw the opportunity and organized effectively around this issue. Mr. White, of course, is the star of the NPR segment. Yet others have fought for decades to create this bus route, but without success.

Back in July 2008 I sat in a meeting where I watched my Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro confront Kristina Younger, who at the time was the Director of Planning at CDTA. Eventually she was promoted to Vice President of Business Development but resigned from CDTA in February. (I took extensive notes of the meeting.)

Ms. Younger was totally dismissive of a bus that ran all the way from the bottom of Morton Avenue up to Albany Medical Center at New Scotland Avenue. Indeed, she loudly repeated the same tired justifications for anti-urban ideology. I realize she was merely conveying the prevailing attitude at CDTA toward my neighborhood… but still.

First. in reply to Dominick’s entirely correct observation that CDTA was serving suburban municipalities at the expense of urban communities like the South End, Ms. Younger proclaimed that the majority of bus riders in dense urban areas are already getting the most service. “I believe you are misaligning a suburban bias to CDTA that does not exist,” she shouted at Dom. Yes shouted, although to be fair Dominick was raising his voice.

Kristina Younger At A Public Meeting Last Year
(Best Photo I Could Find)

That’s not all she said. “CDTA does not have the staff or funding to implement a rerouting plan like you want. Besides,” she added triumphantly, “we can’t implement a bus on Morton Avenue because the revenue is simply not there to justify the expense.”

The Revenue Is Not There. That’s what CEO David Brown of the Capital District YMCA said to us when he shut down our YMCA building on Washington Avenue. That’s what the Postal Corporation bureaucrats sneered at us when they started closing our Albany post offices and told us to drive a half hour or more to their suburbs if we wanted to buy a stamp or mail a package. The phrase is actually code for “You People Are Not Worth The Trouble So Screw You.”

Good Old Dominick Calsolaro

Dominick was giving voice to his constituents, this was the highest level meeting to date between the neighborhood and CDTA. What prompted our request and generated this official rebuff was the recent implementation of the “Walmart Bus,” probably the first new public transit route to serve the South End in at least half a century. Probably more like a century.

A new Walmart had just been built down Route 9W in Selkirk, several miles south of the City of Albany. The problem was that hardly anybody in Selkirk needed Walmart’s low paid exploitative jobs. To this day the majority of people who work at that Walmart live in the South End and most had no reliable way to get back and forth to work. This problem was affecting Walmart’s bottom line.

So Walmart asked CDTA for a bus and instantly they got one. And instantly the new 7 bus became one of the most heavily used. So some of us folks in the neighborhood thought that maybe if we got Albany Medical Center to ask for a bus then CDTA would at least listen.

Kristina Younger was dismissive of the notion. “We’ve been trying to get Albany Med into the transit system,” she told us but so far they had refused. Other hospitals such as St. Peter’s, she told us, were enthusiastic about encouraging their personnel to take public transit, but supposedly Albany Med refused their “outreach.” Ms. Younger suggested that perhaps we who were present could help CDTA talk to Albany Med. Hmph.

"Downtown" Clifton Park, N.Y.

CDTA had big plans, but not for us in the South End. In May of 2009 they acquired a $1 million grant, which they used to implement a new bus on Route 9 in Clifton Park. One year later they reluctantly felt compelled to eliminate this new route. Surprise. It seems that there was no demand for busses in this suburban wasteland, so what were they thinking? The Daily Gazette reported on a CDTA board meeting in September, 2010:

The Route 409 pilot was an effort to increase service in Saratoga County, which has less service than Albany, Schenectady and Rensellaer Counties… The hope was to attract an average of 15 riders per hour, but [CDTA Executive Director Carm] Basile said the actual average has been about two riders. “It just doesn’t appear there is a critical mass in Clifton Park,” he said. However, he said the pilot service has raised awareness in the Clifton Park – Halfmoon area about the availability of public transit, which could lead to success at some point in the future.