Member Name: Agent Traveller
Date: August 3, 2000
Email Address: travlr23@iwon.com
Sect:Discordian
Other News
Echoes of Philadelphia
Peaceful, So Far
Commentary by Traveller
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's true, it's true : Both sides are a part of YOUR downfall as an individual. Either you support one liar or another. Or, you can support Neither. Support the people. Support Miriad. But do not support liars and charlatans.
This truth might be hard to accept. The "democrats" and the "republicans" are the same Side, and have been since the beginning. That you have beleived either side is irrelevant now. Their only purpose was to keep the nation divided, and thus, conquered. A divided nation, who cannot find the transcendental solution to the problem, can be easily controlled by the government. Unless, of course, they stand up, instead of sitting in their media-feedback living-rooms soaking up pre-produced news and television shows, believing in the reality of the media presented to them, that these people are really honest about their trying to help the Earth instead of raping it...
How could we have been so gullible? The founding fathers of this country were Masons, who were guided by men dressed all in black, handing them mysterious symbols in the night. The constitution is a magickal document, surely, because it was only signed by those people 223 years ago, and not Me. If I did not
sign the constitution of the United States or any other nation, or the UN charter, why should it have any law or say-so over me?
Washington DC is nothing more than a magickal place, where fictional opinions are written down in order to allow police, the knights of this order, the Fraternal Orders, specifically... This order was built to keep you in your place. No going out after dark, there's a curfew. No sex of any unatuhorized kind... you will be shot on site if you do not come quietly. Our flashing lights and our guns prove that we are more than human...
Or would that be less than human? People of barbaric proportions only need to control other people. Enlightened people do not act this way. The Government is an unenlightened body of barbarism, in which people are paid off to do large companies' bidding, which, if gone unchecked, threatens the safety of our ecology.
What we need is an Enlightened Government. A governing body of Ascended Masters. Or at least spiritual - not Dogmatic - leaders.
Instead, what we have is a nation full of people who cannot stand up to their government, to the leaders which are corrupt, or else their 'revolution' be arrested, their bail be set unusually high, and their freedom which they are trying to protect, be taken away. A sacrifice at the cost of the regime? Why not simply say the regime simply never existed. What about the people who say they do not believe in the government? Are they not shot down like a bunch of militias? What is the solution to this problem?
It cannot be violence, for violent revolutions, it seems, only birth violent nations. Violent nations will snuff themselves, if not also everyone around them out. Our diversity has worked well for us, but now the media has reminded us time and time again that we are 'violent' with its looks back on the World Wars, which should be forgotten for all their atrocities, on either side. War accomplishes death. A sacrifice at the cost of the regime?
What are WE trying to accomplish here at Miriad? Enlightenment before internship? Enlightenment and peace and harmony before Death... Simplicity of life instead of complex economics to baffle and confuse the common man, who is at the mercy of organizations like the WTO, the G7 and even Wall Street. We look for the solutions to the problems that an ignorant race of brutes has wrought. Amen Brother.
LINKS
Peaceful Demonstrators
Oppose Oil Company
Submitted by Agent Traveller
More protesting reported, coped and commented on by the Traveller
Hundreds of protesters marched to the site of the Democratic National Convention today, calling Al Gore and George W. Bush a pair of oily politicians.
Several hundred people, mostly in their 20s, chanted slogans against Occidental Petroleum and Gore’s investment in the company. They said Occidental is drilling on lands belonging to U’Wa Indians in Colombia. Though they focused their ire on Democratic presidential candidate Gore as the party’s convention begins, some protesters carried signs bashing Republican nominee Bush. Demonstrators say both politicians are controlled by big oil companies.
Gore’s father served on Occidental’s board, owned stock in the company and served as chief executive of a subsidiary before his death last December. His stock holdings passed to his family.
Singer Bonnie Raitt is giving a concert for the protesters in support of the U’Wa cause. With actors Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon and Alicia Silverstone, she sent an open letter to Gore this morning, telling the self-proclaimed environmentalist candidate that “many of us have supported your candidacy because we were drawn to you by a shared sense of concern for the earth. What you do on this issue now will not only be of critical importance but a question of integrity.”
Police are taking a laid-back attitude toward the protest. They’re dressed in regular uniform, not riot gear. Some of the protesters have actually stopped and had long conversations with police. And legal observers dressed in neon hats are on hand, documenting everything they see.
Occidental’s headquarters in Los Angeles has been virtually shut down today, said two Occidental employees who didn’t want to give their names. Few people were at work at the headquarters, and officials are “not available for comment on anything,” according to an employee at the company’s Washington, D.C., office.
Several other rallies are planned for today, the biggest one leading up to a concert by anti-corporate hard-rock band Rage Against the Machine at 6 p.m. PT. (See related story.)
The aftermath of the Republican convention in Philadelphia was also on protesters’ minds. Hundreds of people were arrested at the convention, some during a melee between protesters and police, others during what protesters said was a crackdown on peaceful protest organizers. Many were kept in jail for days and claim they were mistreated by police.
John Sellers, director of the Ruckus Society, was arrested while walking down the street talking on his cell phone, protesters in Philadelphia said. He was kept in jail for six days and only got out after police marked down his $1 million bail for seven misdemeanor charges to $100,000.
“Having just spent six days in the Philadelphia prison system with [protesters], I can assure you that they are nonviolent people of conscience,” he said.
So far there’s only been one arrest in Los Angeles. A 20-year-old Utah man, Sean Diener, dumped tons of horse manure outside the DNC hotel headquarters on Saturday, police said. Diener was dressed in a pig suit when he made the drop, and said he was trying to bring attention to the plight of animals killed for food. The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals paid his bail of $1,500. Diener spent seven hours in custody, said he was treated well by the police, and got out in time to attend another rally on Sunday.
In the biggest event so far, some 4,000 demonstrators took to the streets Sunday to protest the scheduled execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer.
The protest march culminated in a late-afternoon rally across from the Staples Center convention site, where the four-day nominating convention was set to get underway today.
Demonstrators chanted “Free Mumia!” and waved signs that read “Stop the Execution!” and “End the Racist Death Penalty!” as hundreds of Los Angeles police officers looked on.
“We’re out here because an innocent man and innocent people are dying,” said Ali Hassn, 22, of Pomona, Calif. “And we will take it to any means that need to happen in order to see these people free — and that might mean violence.”
But at the first major protest of the week, Hassn and others remained true to protest leaders’ promises of staging only non-violent demonstrations — much to the delight of the Los Angeles Police Department.
“They have a cause they want to get out to the public and I don’t have a problem with that … as long as they do it peacefully,” said Sgt. Chris Casey. “[If] this is the way the Democratic convention goes for the next week, we’ll be happy.”
go here
ABCNEWS.com’s Carter Yang and ABC Radio’s Steffan Tubbs contributed to this report.
© Respective rights to quotes, pictures