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Pen Points
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Stop Homophobic Prison Guards
Over the last couple of days they transferred two of them out. Today they transferred the remaining 4! Ron is left alone; guards will now be able to ticket and harass him in any way they want with no one to witness their actions. He is staying in his room afraid to go out. Other inmates egged on by guards have threatened him with the use of physical force. It's a dangerous situation for him. He's scared. Write to him: Ron Rousseau #171281 Carson City Correctional Facility PO Box 5000 Carson City, MI 48811 Write to the Warden: Warden Kurt Jones Carson City Correctional Facility PO Box 5000 Carson City, MI 48811 Send copies to Michigan's Attorney General and encourage her to respond to the Triangle Foundation's request for a meeting: Jennifer M. Granholm Attorney Generals Office G. Mennen Williams Building 7th floor 525 W. Ottawa St Lansing, MI 48909 fax: 517.373.3042 Thank you, David Forbush Globalization Protester a Hooligan
Tucker speaks of "...the methods of non-violent civil disobedience." News flash: hurling weighty metal fire-extinguishers is not "non-violent civil disobedience." It is a violent, potentially murderous act of assault. Police officers, and anyone else, have the right to defend themselves against assault with a deadly weapon. Protests against globalization, while a valid act of political demonstration, have so far not captured the imagination of the world as did the antiwar Sixties protests Tucker mentions, for a very good reason. Because the protestors do not act like responsible, intelligent, committed people who will work responsibly to advance their goal. Instead, the world sees looters and vandals, hooligans and wild-eyed foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics, disrupting and destroying otherwise peaceful cities. Not too many people are in favor of such behavior! Much of Tucker's anti-globalization rant is so much "blah blah blah" from the now-discredited Green Party's tired and hackneyed platform. There has been no fresh thinking, by Tucker and his compatriots, for more than thirty years on this issue. Worst of all, he is parroting, perhaps unknowingly, the hoary cant of the Bolsheviks -- that capitalism is intrinsically evil; that corporations exist only to exploit the common man; that Labor and Capital are inexorable enemies. Poppycock!
The interests of Labor and Capital are not opposed. They are identical! Profit is profit for all. Consumers are provided with the goods and services they desire -- and both Labor and Capital are consumers themselves. Labor is provided with wages made possible by Capital. Capital comes in, and capital flows out. Excess profit can be, and is, used for the betterment of disadvantaged persons and nations. Did the G-8 protestors donate more than $100 million to the global fight against AIDS, as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Microsoft) did? Let's can the pre-packaged rhetoric, and look at this whole situation dispassionately. Globalization has already happened. It cannot, and should not, be rolled back. Violent demonstrations replete with vandalism and vicious mob behavior will certainly win the protestors no friends or allies. Instead they will only result in more promising young lives snuffed out in a silly and wrongheaded quest, trying to undo globalization without understanding the good that will come of it for every citizen of the Earth! Ted Snyder Tampa Doesn't Deserve the Olympics
Instead of being innocent till proven guilty, Tampa makes sure everyone is treated as a criminal first until proven otherwise. Such is reflected in the city's denial of our lst Amendment Rights, police abuse and false arrest at Legends Field when we were protesting Bush's stealing of this election with his brother Jeb in Florida, including many violations in this county. It's reflected in 'Spy Cameras' violating everyone's privacy rights while putting out the image of Tampa as the Crime Capital of the Planet that requires such extreme measures. It's reflected in anti-gay and lesbian politics so that when a policewoman is killed in the line of duty recently, her lover cannot get her pension. It's reflected in an anti-sexual witch hunt with massive arrests for dancers who do not perform 6 feet from their customers. This is absurdity, that consenting adults have no rights. In this insanely lousy climate of bad news from a city with no class, and 'police-state' politics, we must urge the IOC not to give Tampa any considerations for the Olympics till they clean up its messes on all fronts. In addition Florida's Stolen Election requires a federal investigation on the denial of our sacred right to vote that has allowed an ILLEGITIMATE resident in the White House who is warring on the American people and this planet, while isolating the U.S. from the rest of the world with broken treaties and broken promises.
Yours Faithfully, |
Ron Rousseau 
Carlo Guiliani: Murdered by police in Genoa, Italy during G8 Summit 
Activist Bob Kunst 
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