Law states you can not protect your own land

http://animals.change.org/blog/view/trespassing_hunters_kill_people_violate_rights_and_still_get_protection

Well, isn't this just lovely. Men out looking for bears to kill in northern Pennsylvania trespassed on another gun owner's land on Tuesday, and sometime after the latter man confronted the hunters, there was a shoot-out. The 63-year-old landowner (for the record, I hate this word and concept, but that's another matter entirely) is dead. And the 23-year-old who was on the other end of the shoot-out was injured.
Violence breeds violence. It's a lot easier to kill your fellow humans when you're already in the habit of killing -- and when you're toting around lethal weapons for the purpose of killing.
And what else can result from hunters defiantly trespassing in their search for animals to kill? The property owners who try to stop them, even just verbally, can be arrested under hunter harassment laws. And no, I'm not kidding.
If you've never heard the story of what happened to attorney Jan Haagensen several years ago -- also a Pennsylvania resident -- I recommend you listen to the interviews she did with activist Anthony Marr about her continuing battles: part 1 is here and consists of a summary by Anthony, and part 2 is here and features Jan's firsthand accounts (also click the "more info" link in the sidebar on the right).
In short, Jan has dealt with trespassing hunters on her property for years, with police refusing to respond to her calls about the matter, and after those years of hunters trespassing on her property, intimidating her and her family, and even endangering them, an arrest was finally made: of Jan. For daring to approach trespassers on her land and demand that they stop hunting there, she was charged with violating the state's hunter harassment law. After a long and expensive legal process, including convictions, Jan was eventually cleared of all charges. But now, the trick is getting unconstitutional laws such as the one that led to Jan's arrest overturned. Again, I recommend checking out the earlier-mentioned interview. See also the summary and amicus brief from the ACLU in support of Jan here.
Laws such as the hunter harassment statutes in place all around the United States are set up to reinforce and protect violent, patriarchal systems. Those with the societal power and the inclinations to kill their fellow animals and oppress their fellow humans are given added power by these laws, which simultaneously strip those not in positions of power of their rights -- even their rights to something as supposedly inviolable as free speech. It comes down to this: If you support and perpetuate violence, you are not only allowed to keep doing that, but even encouraged and emboldened to keep doing that, without challenge. If you oppose violence, you are stripped of your right to even speak up against it or protect the victims of it. This is the nation we live in.

Carly Fiorina: Job Killer

Brave New Films, the documentary film company behind a series of damaging anti-McCain viral videos in the 2008 presidential campaign, has put its sights on Carly Fiorina, the Republican candidate for Senate in California.



Full Article Here: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/documentary-film-company-takes-on-fiorina/?hp

Dwight Was Right

Published on Thursday, September 30, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

by Michael Moore

So...it turns out President Eisenhower wasn't making up all that stuff about the military-industrial complex.

That's what you'll conclude if you read Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's War. (You can read excerpts of it here, here and here.) You thought you voted for change when you cast a ballot for Barack Obama? Um, not when it comes to America occupying countries that don't begin with a "U" and an "S."

In fact, after you read Woodward's book, you'll split a gut every time you hear a politician or a government teacher talk about "civilian control over the military." The only people really making the decisions about America's wars are across the river from Washington in the Pentagon. They wear uniforms. They have lots of weapons they bought from the corporations they will work for when they retire.

For everyone who supported Obama in 2008, it's reassuring to find out he understands we have to get out of Afghanistan. But for everyone who's worried about Obama in 2010, it's scary to find out that what he thinks should be done may not actually matter. And that's because he's not willing to stand up to the people who actually run this country.

And here's the part I don't even want to write -- and none of you really want to consider:
It matters not whom we elect. The Pentagon and the military contractors call the shots. The title "Commander in Chief" is ceremonial, like "Employee of the Month" at your local Burger King.

Everything you need to know can be found in just two paragraphs from Obama's War. Here's the scene: Obama is meeting with his National Security Council staff on the Saturday after Thanksgiving last year.

He's getting ready to give a big speech announcing his new strategy for Afghanistan. Except...the strategy isn't set yet. The military has presented him with just one option: escalation. But at the last minute, Obama tells everyone, hold up -- the door to a plan for withdrawal isn't closed.
The brass isn't having it:

"Mr. President," [Army Col. John Tien] said, "I don't see how you can defy your military chain here. We kind of are where we are. Because if you tell General McChrystal, 'I got your assessment, got your resource constructs, but I've chosen to do something else,' you're going to probably have to replace him. You can't tell him, 'Just do it my way, thanks for your hard work.' And then where does that stop?"

 The colonel did not have to elaborate. His implication was that not only McChrystal but the entire military high command might go in an unprecedented toppling -- Gates; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command. Perhaps no president could weather that, especially a 48-year-old with four years in the U.S. Senate and 10 months as commander in chief.

And, well, the rest is history. Three days later Obama announced the escalation at West Point. And he became our newest war president.

But here's the question Woodward doesn't answer: Why, exactly, can't a president weather ending a war, even if he has to fire all his generals to do it? It's right there in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution: The President's in charge of the military. And so is Congress: the army can't just march over to the Treasury Department and steal the money for wars. Article I, Section 9 says Congress has to appropriate it.

In the real world, though, the Constitution's just a piece of paper. In the real world, a President who fired his top military in order to stop a war would be ruined before you could say "bloodless coup." The Washington Post (filled with ads from Boeing and Northrop Grumman) would scream about how he was the reincarnation of Neville Chamberlain. Fox and CNN (filled with "experts" who work for think tanks funded by Raytheon and General Dynamics) would say he was a girly-man who had to be impeached.

And Congress (which experienced its own escalation in lobbying from defense contractors just as the Afghanistan escalation was being decided) might well do it. (By the way, if you want to listen to Lyndon Johnson talk in 1964 about how he might be impeached if he didn't follow the military-industrial complex's orders and escalate the war in Vietnam, just go here.)

So here's your assignment for tonight: Watch Eisenhower's famous farewell speech. And then start thinking about how we can tame this beast. The Soviet Union had its own military-industrial complex, which is one reason they got into Afghanistan...which is one reason there's no more Soviet Union. It happened to them.

Don't think it can happen to us?

 

Michael Moore is an activist, author, and filmmaker.  See more of his work at his website MichaelMoore.com