U.S. National

SEATTLE, WA. The Seattle federal judge's restraining order banning tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and concussion grenades put Seattle on the cusp of a potential historical turning point. Seattle has had the option to turn away from police violence after the judge's order, making the judge's order banning indiscriminate use of weapons on peaceful protesters a key to such a historic transformation. But the use yesterday of rubber bullets and the brandishing of pepper spray in violation of the judge's order are evidence of police resistance to this change.

The size of the Seattle Police Autonomous Zone or SPAZ increased overnight somewhat, as police tape advanced to eliminate a key vantage point from which to photograph the Black Power fist sculpture.

Largely unreported at this point are the internal battles within Seattle city government for the soul of Seattle, which for the time being seem to have been won by police in defiance of both the federal judge's order and of some of the more conciliatory statements of the mayor.

he 2020 election will be decided by 3 factors: Registration Rolls, Vote by Mail, and Ballot Counting.

How effectively a national grassroots election-protection upheaval can affect them will decide the fate of the Earth.  

THE REGISTRATION ROLLS have been stripped of 16 million or more citizens mostly of youth and color, but many have been re-registered.  

Election Protection (EP) activists must fight to make voter registration as easy and fair as possible, contact and re-register the disenfranchised, confirm the registrations of those who think they’re registered but are not, and register millions of new voters, especially among those who have just marched for racial justice and police reform.

VOTE BY MAIL (VBM) has successfully provided paper ballots in Colorado, Utah, Washington, Oregon & Hawaii. All states have always provided absentee ballots. But the virus could force 2020 VBM totals from 5% overall to 40-80%, overwhelming unprepared counties & states.  

Freelance journalist for PeterbCollins.com

At approximately 5:30 AM Wednesday an advancing phalanx of police brandishing batons and pepper spray canisters enjoined by a federal judge and reportedly using rubber bullets also banned by the same judge, cleared out the the 4 block Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone as well as nearby Cal Anderson park.

Imagine if Adolf Hitler had staged one of his infamous 1930s fascist Nuremberg hate-fests … and the stands were less than full, his speech fell flat, his flawless phalanxes dissolved into chaos, the fighting flags failed to unfurl.  

That’s what just happened to Trump in Tulsa. The implications are Earth-shattering. 

When Hitler staged his ritual witch burnings, the masses were hypnotized. The synchronized film crews, the adoring media, the groveling sycophants, the murderous hate-the-Jew mobs … all were perfectly in place.  

In apocalyptic unison, the Silent Majority (his phrase) panted for Der Führer to Make Germany Great Again (also his phrase). They goose-stepped in precision, all decked out in their fascist finest … the jackboots, the armbands, the billowing banners, the iron formations, the buzzcut hairdos … willing executioners flocking to Stalingrad and Auschwitz. 

There were no empty seats. Every inch of every stadium was packed to the gills.  

The U.S. government was created with the mandate to not establish any state religion or to forbid any religion. There were a couple of ways this could have gone.

Here’s one path that was not taken. The freedom of religion and the separation of religion from the state could have encouraged a widespread understanding of what a crock of malarkey religion all is. If no religion can actually persuade everyone of its claims, if people choose their various and sundry religions based on factors wholly unrelated to persuasive argument, then why not let religion fade away with other myths and superstitions?

Here’s a large part of what actually happened. The freedom of religion created the practice of respecting as beyond question multiple conflicting and contradictory dogmas because each was declared by some person or group to be their religion. The right to believe what you declare it important to you to believe is more widely cherished in the United States than is the right to a decent standard of living.

Over 700 people have now signed

AFTER THE WI-OH-GA PRIMARY FIASCOS:

How to Avert a Fall Coup

Emergency Election Protection 2020
Info-Webinar on Zoom & Facebook Live

This webinar means to provide activists, organizers, citizens with core information on the conduct of the 2020 elections  

Wed., June 17, 3:00 -4:30pm Eastern / noon-1:30 Pacific

600 people have now signed a petition in Charlottesville, Va. at http://bit.ly/cvillepeace

Almost all of the signers are from Charlottesville.

The petition is addressed to the Charlottesville City Council and reads:

We urge you to ban from Charlottesville:
(1) military-style or “warrior” training of police by the U.S. military, any foreign military or police, or any private company,
(2) acquisition by police of any weaponry from the U.S. military;
and to require enhanced training and stronger policies for conflict de-escalation, and limited use of force for law enforcement.

Here are some of the comments people have added when they signed:

I join in with many Black leaders in this community to call for a demilitarization of our police force and the defunding of resources that should be better spent on other public services.

Militarized police encourages brutality and excessive force. We need to go the other way.

Senator Bernie Sanders has finally done something that some of us thought would give his presidential campaign a big boost four years ago, and again this past year. He’s proposed to introduce legislation to move a significant amount of money from militarism to human and environmental needs (or at least human needs; the details aren’t clear, but moving money out of militarism is an environmental need).

Better late than never! Let’s make it happen with an overwhelming show of public support! And let’s make it a first step!

Unless election protection activists rise up, primary election disasters in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Georgia could signal the death of American democracy this fall.

In all three states, gerrymandered Republican legislatures successfully sabotaged attempts to stage free and fair elections. They specifically targeted communities of color with mass disenfranchisement and degrading mistreatment at the polls.

In Wisconsin, attempts to deal with the coronavirus with Vote by Mail and reasonable postponements were aggressively assaulted by legislative fiat and partisan court decisions.

Recognizing the danger of having large numbers of people vote in person, in long lines and crowded conditions, Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, moved the state’s planned primary back to June. Plans were in place to make sure the state’s Vote by Mail systems would function properly, that there was plenty of time to get ballots out to voters and back to the election boards, and that there were sufficient polling stations with enough personnel to handle problems that needed to be solved in person without backups and machine failures.