On the afternoon of Sunday, March 13, 2005 at approximately 4:45pm, on Venice Boardwalk, opposite the Bistro at Dudley Avenue, John Michel (Dr John, a well-known Venice disabled homeless activist http://www.geocities.com/drjohnmichel) asked Barbara Peck of The Benefit Network (http://www.benefitnetwork.org) to help him pack up his humble display laid out on the pavement in one of the 'designated' areas of the Free Speech Zone. Barbara, who had spent most of the afternoon standing in the Free Speech Zone with a placard (not in a designated area), agreed to help.

As they started to pack up, a police officer approached Dr. John and told him to leave the 'designated area'. John replied that he was already packing up to leave. At this point, another officer, Officer Putnam, approached and requested John's ID. Barbara Peck stayed next to John in order to witness what was happening and to make sure that he was being dealt with fairly by Putnam, who has, in the past, threatened to arrest him, tow his vehicle and confiscate his possessions. Putnam took his time as he jotted down notes in front of the display, during the questioning.

Barbara was still holding her double-sided placard which, on one side, advertized the upcoming March 19 peace rally and, on the other side, said "Stop, Stop, Stop the Lottery". She held the 'Stop the Lottery' side of the placard facing Putnam and continued to stand next to John. Officer Putnam, having finished his interrogation proceeded to the squad car. Thinking that the matter was over, Barbara and John's son, who was standing close by, started to pick up John's things to pack them away. Officer Putnam ordered them to stop, adding: "he (John) is still being detained". So they stopped and waited for Putnam to finish.

Putnam proceeded to bring out a camera and started taking photos. He appeared to be having a problem with the camera or was, perhaps procrastinating, Barbara later reflected. After several minutes of 'fiddling around' he finished what he was doing and put the camera away. He still had not written up a citation for John and appeared to be stalling. While this was going on Barbara continued to stand beside John - with her placard on display.

When he had finished taking the photos, Putnam procrastinated for a few minutes longer then abruptly turned to Barbara and demanded to see her ID. She refused on the grounds that she had done nothing wrong and asked why he needed to see it. Putnam replied that he was going to give her a citation for being in the 'designated area'. Barbara protested that she was there to help John pack up his things and be a witness, the display had nothing to do with her, she added. Putnam demanded again to see her ID and she refused again; at which point he threatened to arrest her if she did not produce the ID. Barbara protested again that she had done nothing wrong but Putnam responded that he was going to cite her for "protesting in a designated area" and he had photos "as evidence". At this point, Barbara Peck chose to show her ID rather than be arrested.

As Putnam started writing the citation for Barbara, he called out to another Officer to start writing a citation against John Michel who, it appears, Putnam had all but forgotten, distracted as he was by Barbara. The second Officer stepped forward and started to write up John's citation.

This is just another episode in an on-going campaign by Los Angeles City (through the LAPD) to crack down on Free Speech protestors rather than identify and eliminate commercial vendors who proliferate on Venice Boardwalk in the Free Speech Zone, in direct violation of the newly-amended Ordinance 42:15.

Both Barbara Peck and John Michel have filed separate complaints against Officer Putnam with LAPD Internal Affairs describing the way in which they were entrapped by Officer Putnam to stay in the 'designated area' (even though they were in the process of leaving), affording him the opportunity to harrass and intimidate.

The entire incident was video taped by Venice Food Not Bombs. The video will be used together with other footage as evidence of LAPD tactics of entrapment, harrassment, intimidation and discrimination against Free Speech protestors on Venice Boardwalk.

Video is power.

Peace Groups Continue
To Miss The Real Issue
Day Of Demonstrations Guaranteed To
Accomplish Absolutely Nothing
By John Kaminski
skylax@comcast.net
3-14-5


"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein


I received an e-mail notice the other day informing me of a worldwide day of protests March 19 to focus public attention on America's neverending massacre of innocent Iraqi civilians and the continuing lies that attempt to justify this needless and shameful carnage.

The e-mail focused on the agenda of the local social event in Sarasota, Florida, and listed speakers, sponsors, activities, locations, and times. Conspicuously absent from this list were reasons.

Nevertheless, I replied to the notice by inquiring if organizers had been adequately briefed on the latest revelations about 9/11, and if they hadn't, I offered to happily volunteer my services. After all, it doesn't take a genius to realize that if 9/11 hadn't happened, the bogus Iraq invasion wouldn't have happened.

And therefore understanding what really happened on 9/11 would significantly improve anyone's perception of the colossal crimes the United States is committing in Iraq (and in a list of beleaguered countries that is now practically endless) - after all, the USA is now waging war on the entire world, and our so-called leaders are not ashamed to admit it.

But I never received a response to my inquiry, because these peace demonstration organizers completely avoid talking about 9/11. They have accepted the government's fantasy explanation about Arab hijackers and the need to conquer Muslim countries, and yet they still insist they are against the Iraq war.

I regard this as a profound psychotic break in the American consciousness. You can't accept the first and advocate the second and still be regarded as either sane or honest.

So in order to properly understand what you are protesting, you must understand why it happened in the first place. But all these trendy yuppies who sport peace buttons only on socially acceptable occasions are in reality confessing their stupidity for all to see if they demonstrate against the Iraq war but don't want to hear anything about 9/11.

How does it come to be that people will admit the government lied about Iraq and Afghanistan, but not admit it lied about 9/11?

And that is exactly the situation with this group called International Answer (and even more perfectly pathological with the pathetic Democratic Party organization named moveon.org).

These groups, which have millions of members, are deliberately designed to be appear to be progressive and peace-loving, but really they are cleverly constructed take the well-meaning concerns of average people and divert them into activities that are guaranteed to fail (because ultimately, the people who create these groups are actually working for the people who are committing the crimes they are protesting).

These are the same cynical clowns who got so many honest people worked up about the integrity of John Kerry, or the calm decisiveness of Howard Dean, and used up a zillion hours of brainpower only to take the fall last November and avoid contemplating the obviously tragic fact that with a little chutzpah that they could have overturned the election based on the crimes that were committed in Ohio and Florida. Only Kerry and Dean convinced them not to even try, further demonstrating why neither should ever have been supported in the first place.

Not that overturning the election would have mattered, because there is only one political party of any consequence in this country - the party of the banks.

You may have attended one of these peace demonstrations in the past. They are moving experiences. Ineffectual, but moving.

There is no doubting the sincerity or ardor of virtually all the participants. As motivated people, they have my admiration. They rail against the evil powers that be in all manner of creative ways, and when the day is done, they all (or, at least those who have not been pepper sprayed by the local Gestapo and thrown in jail) go home happy, delighted that they have expressed their freedom of speech and schmoozed with thousands of like-minded consciences.

Trouble is, as the unprecedented (in size) peace demos immediately prior to Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq so clearly proved, they accomplish exactly nothing.

The powers that be and their pimped media complely ignore them.

The true purpose of a peace demonstration is not to have a good time and go home happy. It is to kindle each other's anger and go home as pissed as possible, ready to follow through with every fiber of your being until the objective of your protest is achieved.

It is safe to say that, since Vietnam, the objective of no major protest in America has ever been achieved, especially since Bush the Dumber took office (and I do mean took).

The disintegration of America's Constitutional protections, the computerized pollution of America's electoral process, the poisoning by food and drug manufacturers of people all over the world, and the neverending robbery of the American people by repeatedly criminal Congressional fiat are just a few of the focuses that would provide more relevant protests.

Those made ill by deliberately poisoned vaccines or depleted uranium ammunition would be two other good reasons.

But seriously, maybe you'd rather wait until one of your relatives - perhaps a son or daughter - succumbs to one of these sadistic scams before you decide to get upset about them.

The real focus of all our protests, all our outrage at every public official we can lay our hands on, should be the greatest crime in American history, which has changed the way our country does business, which has changed, perhaps irrevocably, who we are as a people.

Americans are now known around the world as the torturers, as the sexual perverts who go out of their way to profane the sacredness of life by raping Muslim children and sexually traumatizing Muslim adults. Who are these troops we say we support as they mow down innocent families in Fallujah while they listen to heavy metal music and take drugs to dull their senses? Who are these alien neighbors of ours who refuse to hear this statement, and say "Support Our Troops!" as they close their eyes and drive off to Wal-mart to save a few pennies and destroy their own way of life.

Gee, I wonder in which chapter of Leviticus or Deuteronomy we learned to do that?

Americans are the people who plan on starving the rest the world with this Monsanto seed conspiracy, in which subsistence farmers on every continent will be deprived of their traditional method of survival because the seeds they are now forced to use (in order for their corrupt government functionaries to receive their proper bribes from soulless multinational corporations) cannot reproduce themselves. When their governments are plundered by their own feckless facsimiles of Bush or Clinton, these people will die of starvation. But you won't hear their moans in Wal-mart, at least not for a little while.

Gee, I wonder which smug rabbinical commentary told us it was OK to ignore the death rattles of dying Gentiles?

Americans are the people who didn't protest when their government refused to investigate what happened on 9/11, despite the 3,000 of their countrymen who were crushed in the rubble of deliberately demolished skyscrapers.

Americans accepted the media-spun story that Arabs run by a madman in Afghanistan did it. These fantasy bad guys got the U.S. air defenses to stand down, they got on airplanes without any identification or any record of them getting on, they performed aerobatic maneuvers that could not have been performed by Top Guns, and they defied the laws of physics by knocking down buildings that could not have fallen in ten seconds without the help of considerable explosives. We know that from the building that fell the same way that was not hit by an airliner.

Gee, if we don't care about our own fellow citizens being suddenly buried in concrete by the pervs in Washington, why should we care about dark-skinned Arabs being turned into puddles of blood thousands of miles away?

Americans accepted the lies their leaders told them, first about 9/11, then about Afghanistan, then about Iraq. Most Americans to this day still don't know that the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq were planned before 9/11.

Most Americans don't know that the PNAC report, which yearned for "a new Pearl Harbor" to turn American citizens into enraged warmongers, was written by a high American official who was also an Israeli intelligence agent, Dov Zakheim.

Most Americans don't know that their new head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, is an Israeli intelligence agent.

Most Americans don't know that their new intelligence czar, John Negroponte - he of the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran death squad fiascos - is also Jewish.

Most Americans don't know that all the TV networks are owned by Zionist Jews. Most Americans don't realize that all the major newspapers, like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, are owned by Zionist Jews.

Do you understand that Iraq was no threat to the United States? Do you understand that Iraq was a threat to Israel? Do you understand that American children are killing innocent people and being killed themselves to protect Israel, not the United States?

Or are you one of those lily-livered Yankee dogs so terrified of losing your income or some friends who don't really care about you anyway that you feel compelled to say, "People aren't ready to hear this yet. You have to bring them on slowly to tell them about the problem with Israel."

We're looking at the end of civilization because of the silence of honest Americans over the most important issues of our day, and you're telling me that I have to wait til people get used to the idea we are being totally polluted by the demonic influence of Zionist warmongers, who take their authority from a holy book that says it's OK to kill non-Jews with no penalty because they're animals?

Take a wild guess as to what I have to say to cowards like that - which are the majority of the American people.

The real issue to protest March 19 is not the Iraq war, colossal crime though it is.

The real issue to protest is that George W. Bush and John Kerry are accomplices in the same series of crimes. The real issue is to realize that our country has been sold out from under us, and that Israel, thanks to the neocons, now owns us.

Have you observed how the Palestinians live? Scrambling in their rubble, constantly avoiding bombs and excuses to murder them on a whim. This is the future of America run by the Zionist monsters who control the White House, and most other aspects of your life, as well.

The real issue to protest is that the entire U.S. Congress is guilty of treason for destroying the Bill of Rights to our own Constitution by participating in this charade that there is some terror threat that justifies these police state measures.

The real issue to protest is that al-Qaeda was created by the CIA and the Mossad in a proxy war in Afghanistan and then later at a CIA training camp in the Philippines, and that 9/11 was planned, executed, and then covered up by levels of American society that are actually more powerful than the president, who is only a bobble-head doll fed lies, stimulants and quite possibly little boys (or at least big boys) as a reward for his mindless obedience to his masters with the big money.

But even more than that, the real issue to protest, in the silence of your own ravaged heart, is your own silent complicity in the savage system that kills innocent people every day so that rich Zionist Jew manipulators and their conscienceless Zionist Christian dupes can steal money from YOU.

Just to be clear, these people are Americans, British, and Israelis, and they have no real consciences, which makes them dangerous sociopaths - which is why we have a sociopathic culture that feels no guilt when we kill innocent people overseas. It is no coincidence that this attitude perfectly reflects what is written in the Talmud and the Old Testament. Now that would really be something to protest about.

A peace protest without a serious component investigating the lies about 9/11 and the predatory dominance of Israeli influence on a severely crippled America is like a body without a brain, which I suspect is what many of those protesters on March 19 will be like.

And as the world continues to burn, they'll go home happy that they did something for freedom, when in the reality of this new and ugly police-state world, they will have done nothing of consequence, because they still fail to realize what really happened on 9/11, or who is really controlling them.

_____


John Kaminski's Internet essays can be seen on hundreds of websites around the world. They have been collected into two anthologies, the latest of which is titled "The Perfect Enemy," about how the Zionist-controlled U.S. government created the terrorist group knowns as al-Qaeda. His booklet "The Day America Died: Why You Shouldn't Believe the Officlal Story of What Happened on September 11, 2001" was written especially for those who cling to the government's false explanation of the events of that tragic day. For more information go to http://www.johnkaminski.com/

Thank you John K for your cynical tirade, but when I want to here the pessimistic wailing of the "more intelligent and progressive than thou" crowd I'll tune into marc cooper and the other mo-mos that spend more time harping on the anti-war movement than the demons that perpetuate the atrocities you refer to.

The peace movement does quite a bit--it recruits and educates people on the issues. Your vision seems to be limited, at least when you are at the marches it seems, because there are usually hundreds, if not thousands of people who feel exactly as you do about 9/11, but you don't hear them whining or bashing as you do. So get off your self-righteous ass, unplug the PC and do something worthy for the cause besides bitching...

also see bellingham wa. police harass ''demonstrators''' and let white citizens attack black men and get away with it.i was called a nigger and chased down the street by white people .things have been thrown at me.bellingham police must definitely have klan like contacts.spread this news to all freedom warriors

I would like to make a correction to the first sentence of the second paragraph, as follows:

Officer Putnam was the first to approach John and he did not tell him to leave - he asked for his ID and began questioning him. (BP)

Go here for updates:

http://www.la.indymedia.org/news/2005/05/126023.php