See if you can spot the difference between when white folks demonstrate peacefully and when black folks demonstrate peacefully

When white folks do it, more often than not they're doing to uphold white supremacy, when black folks do it, they're doing it to expand freedom and civil rights to more people.

Old white people know what's best for black folks in Baltimore

"They just need to calm down and do what the police tell them.  I do, and I never have any problems."

"Those thugs need Jesus, right wing Jesus.  You know, the one who hates gays and loves private enterprise."

"If they'd get a job and stay away from white women, things would be fine."

"Yes, I want those muscle bound taut hard bodied men with huge bulges to stay away from me, especially when I'm naked and fresh out of the shower, which is usually around 9 in the morning.  I'm at 836 Oakland, so make sure all you good looking horny young black men stay away from me and my house, wink wink."

"Are they banging on about racism again?  Isn't letting them have a black president enough?  Fuck, we let them have the NBA too.  They need to stop whining."

"I say we mix them all a nice martini or give them a swig of malt liquor and they go their to vacation homes to calm down."

"I suppose we could stop treating them as second class citizens and reinvest in their communities. Hahahahaha, I nearly said the shit with a straight face."

"Stop bothering me, I'm binge watching Fringe on Netflix."

The more things change, the more they stay the same

 From a mid '60's copy of Mad Magazine:

99% Y U SO Surprised?

• It baffles me that people are so shocked that the police have been so vicious in clearing up our pitiful little pockets of dissent. What shocks me is that they allowed it to go on for this long before they decided to act. And the other thing that shocks me is that people still believe the police are around to protect and to serve the public, they aren't. The police are here to protect and serve corporations and banks.
• Why is anyone surprised that a man who is in the top 0ne percent is attacking the people who are in the 99%? Frank Miller is at the top of the economic food chain, he's not mega or super rich, but he's well off. Why would he not mock, belittle, and attack those who aren't? I expect they'll deify him soon on Fox Noise.
• The prime minister of Greece calls for a popular vote on austerity and then before he gets to do it, he's sacked. The IMF, the World Bank, and the corporations who benefit from austerity measures will not allow the rabble like us to vote their plans for us.
  
• Young people on the dole in England are being forced to work for hugely profitable corporations for no pay, if they don't they'll be cut off from any assistance. Indentured servitude, it's back. Debtors prisons can't be far behind.
• The powers that be in Washington DC want to stop us from using the internet to spread our discontent and our videos about how they and the cops are fucking us. So they cry that internet piracy is out of control and it must be stopped, and of course in doing so all our forms of protest and linkage with one another are conveniently now outlawed under that anti piracy legislation.
  

Welcome to police state America.

Welcome to third world America.

Welcome to the dictatorship of corporate America.

Obama is not your friend. He's enabling all this shit.

You have only one option: STOP OBEYING AND START OCCUPYING.

They won't win unless we let them.

Occupy Johnson City

Last Saturday under cool clear October skies over 200 of us took the streets of my town to show our support of the Occupy Wall Street movement and to decry corporate greed and the politicians who are nothing more than corporate stooges. As is often the case in this conservative area of east TN the conservatives hate it when we progressives take to the streets and they call us all sorts of names and make misleading slurs against us. So just who were we at the march?
We were the clever old folks.

The adorable babies and their mothers.

A leprechaun who refused to tell me where his pot of gold was. And no, I did not taste him to see if he was 'magically delicious.'

We were the smart funny people who mixed pop culture with popular outrage.

We were the employed.

The cute gals with enigmatic smiles.

We were the bearded guys with pithy signs.

Teachers and students.

Clever sign makers.

Corporate media toadies who did not like it at all when I loudly reminded anyone within ear shot that the corporate media is part of the problem. And she especially didn't like it when I kept photo bombing her when her camera was rolling.

We were the tired.

The sign coordinated.

The gals with polite signs that enjoined you to engage in the process.

The people who make cleverly worded and symbolized signs.

Mask wearers who sparked one older fellow to remark that wearing masks was illegal. I asked where he heard that 'fact' and he told me he read it in the paper. I then told him that I read in the paper that the 'Occupy' movement protests were a bad thing that was hurting the feelings of big business.

We were the sign accessorizers.

We were also dog lovers, elderly, veterans, female, male, gay, straight, young, old, employed, unemployed, able bodied, disabled, smart, sweet, brash, enthusiastic, laid back, black, white, brown, natives, immigrants, Yankees, southerners, hard working, lazy, loud, quiet, in other words, we were everyman and woman.

The response we got to our march was great, only three people cursed at us, one guy told me to fuck off when he got stuck at a red light when the cops held up traffic for us. Our local police did a spectacular job of assisting us, much to the chagrin of some of the local conservatives who had expected the cops to bust our heads with night sticks and to coat us with pepper spray. Overwhelmingly people who drove past us gave us the thumbs up and honked in support of the cause. All in all it was a great day to use our rights of free speech and assembly. It was great that so many in our area came out to protest corporate greed and the politicians who enable corporate elites.

I am proud of all who came out through out the day and to those who supported us. Now, we just need to keep this ball rolling until we knock down those that would keep us down and hold our movement back.

Onwards! Upwards!

Smashing success

Our Occupy Johnson City demonstration was a smashing success. I'll do a more in-depth post about it tomorrow. I'm still buzzing over the many folks from my town came out to take a stand and the many folks who saw us and gave us a thumbs up or honked in support of our cause.

Takin' it to the streets!

It's Occupy Johnson City day! I'll be there and I'll have my camera with me. Expect a full report later.

Protest, hells yeah!

Sign of the times

This is my sign for the Occupy Johnson City rally that's going down this Saturday.

Hey Oliver Willis...

...I'm curious, do you think this old guy should dress a little nicer while at Occupy Wall Street? Or should him and his dirty dope smokin' pals go home and shower up and let Obama and the rest of the corporate stooges in the Democratic party do their thing?

Public dissent

This past Saturday was a great day to hold a public protest against the legal fiction that corporations are people. A local fellow organized what he billed as 'The Rally For The Humans' and since I love a good public protest I went gladly.

What started out as an overcast cool morning gave way to a sunny and warm afternoon. Which was nice because it brought out all sorts of folks to our event.

This gal was serious and mysterious with her sign. I liked the sign of the guy behind her, the riff on the flag of the corporate states of America.

I got to meet a friend from the blog and Facebook world that I hadn't met in person yet. That's her with the big smile. She's cute as a button in real life. And very nice too.

The signs with the fewest words are the best, they drive home the message of the protest in such a great way.

This little dude is a friend of mine and I loved his sign that featured a riff on one of my favorite knock knock jokes. His mom and sister came to the event as well.

Speaking of that little dude's mother, that's her with a great sign right there.

I liked the fact that this guy dressed up for the protest and that his sign had such a biting sense of humor to it. Well done guy!

No local protest would be complete with out this little lady, our buddy Snad.

This gal had loads of sass and was dishing it out to anyone and everyone. I liked her a lot.

Very clever signs.

This couple heard about our rally and they drove up from Oak Ridge, which is about 110 miles away from my fair city. We also had people from South Carolina in addition to all the other regional folks who attended our protest.

One of the local corporate owned media outlets did a decent story on our event, which is a step up from the horrible stories they did on our rally to support teachers and other public employees a few months back. So all in all I think our event was a success because we got lots of attention and we raised consciousnesses about this issue. And it's always good to show folks in this area that there are liberals and progressives who aren't afraid to speak their minds and take to the streets when necessary.

There's a short video on our rally on You Tube. Click here to see it.

And the last word on the days events goes to hipster dude:

"I was against corporate person-hood before it was cool, so PBR me bitch."

Done

We had over 100 people come out to protest the legal fiction that corporations are people yesterday.

I'll post more about the demonstration tomorrow. And I'll share more pictures too.

Takin' it to the streets

I'll be attending an anti corporate personhood rally here in my lovely town later today. I'll be carrying this sign:

I'll have more pictures and a full report on the Rally For the Humans tomorrow. In the mean time, keep calm and protest on.

"Union forever, defending our rights. Down with the blackleg, all workers unite!"

This past Thursday around 3:00 PM I posted a note on Facebook to see if anyone was interested in having a pro teacher, pro union, pro working people demonstration here in Johnson City on Saturday afternoon. I wanted to do this to show people around here that not all of us support the union busting teabaggers who hate government and working people. I also wanted to do it to show support for and to build on the the great stuff the citizens of Wisconsin are doing in Madison. A few minutes after I posted the note a bunch of my friends said they'd be willing to hit the streets with me and would I make a Facebook event to be shared with their friends, so I did that as well.

Much to my astonishment people started signing up left and right for the demonstration. I figured we'd get maybe 30 people, by Friday afternoon we were over 50. I was over the moon, because you see, this area I live in is one of the most politically conservative areas of the country and the media around here likes to only give the side of the majority in all things so only the side of the conservatives gets out there and people think that that's all there is in this area.

So, happy with the thought of 50 people showing up I took off Saturday morning to make my way to the protest site. Then something miraculous happened. Something amazing. Something so fucking unbelievable, that I still have a hard time believing it. When I got out of the car and got my signs out, there were already people there. The demonstration started at noon and by the time 12:30 rolled around we had over a hundred people show up to support our cause. By the time the clock hit 1:00 PM, we were over 150 strong. By the time all was said and done, we had over 200 people show up to support unions, working people, and our beleaguered teaching professionals. 200 people in an area that is supposedly only amenable to conservative causes. Over 200 people in an area that would not elect Jesus Christ to office if he ran on the Democratic party ticket.

I was, and still am amazed. And I am humbled and gratified by the support we got, not only from the folks who stood out with signs and those who waved and held flags, but also by those who showed their support when driving by.

Our teachers here are facing the same kind of union busting thuggery as those in Wisconsin are. And our legislature, who's Republican members will only listen to those who voted for them, wants to do away with the requirement that teachers in this state be licensed, which is a clear ploy to pack the schools with their friends and cronies who will do the bidding of the teabaggers who want to whitewash history, destroy the move to teach critical thinking, and to make intelligent design dominant over evolution in the science classrooms. Teachers, who make so little, are being beaten up by people who refuse to tax the wealthy or big business to pay for our schools. Politicians in TN use teachers and unions as a punching bag and we're fucking tired of it. So our demonstration yesterday was our way of telling them that we're not going to stand for it anymore.

We're going to fight back. When Wal Mart gets tax breaks and our teachers get their right to collectively bargain taken away from them, then we say we've had enough. When the rich get obscenely richer and our kids get less and less because teachers get less and less, then it's time to make a change. This is our moment, our line in the sand. We choose our battle here. We are now in the fight to save what's left of the middle class, to fight for the working poor. And that's what today's demonstration was about.

Here' some photos I took at our demonstration, which by the was was on the front page of Raw Story (Warning, the TV report on our demonstration in that link is pretty shitty. In fact, all the TV coverage of our demonstration was crap, they all tried to make it look like the event was a protest, it wasn't it was in support of not in protest of teachers and unions. They tried to make it seem the teabaggers who showed up to protest us were as numerous as us, they were not, we had over 200, they had a dozen at best. The tried to make the facts fit their pre conceived corporate story line and therefore their reports sucked.):

This gal was one of the first people at the demonstration and she stayed through the whole thing.

My friend and fellow blogger Rev. John Shuck was at our rabble rousing demonstration. He was our token heretic.

This as my friend Celeste's first demonstration!

My young friend and neighbor K was the youth MVP of the day because he brought his homemade sign and two boxes of Girl Scout cookies.

Recognize this hottie? It's my friend Terri who's also in my graphic novel Hip Deep, Mountain High.

Drink in the cleverness.

Our side had the best looking gals.

Did I mention we had a bunch of great looking gals on our side? I did? Oh, okay then...

This fella's sign was sad because it was true.

We had our share of slackers in our group too. This young boy ate a doughnut while his sister pranced around barefoot. Damn socialists...

Here's a shot of the dozen or so teabaggers who showed up to show how much they hated teachers, unions, the USA, apple pie, your mom, and the flag.

My favorite sign of the day.

Another great sign held by another great demonstrator.

Post modern humor, it's your friend.

We took a page right out of the right wing's playbook by playing the religion card,

wrapping ourselves in the flag,

and using child labor to drive home our point.

All in all, our demonstration was a huge success and even if I have to say it, I'm now two for two on putting together well attended progressive/liberal demonstrations because I was after all on the team who organized the biggest anti war protest this area had seen in decades. So, I'm just putting this out there, don't fuck with me or I'll whip up a protest on your ass and you'll never be the same after me and my minions get done with you.

Non violent constructive demonstrations, hell yeah.

You can see all the photos I took of the demonstration by clicking here.