TO MOVE FORWARD Trump Protests Need To Stop Giving A Platform To Haters, Murderers & Abusers

The Women's March On DC and throughout the country on January 21st, 2017 was a huge success. Estimates of up to 4 million people marched in various cities and towns to protest against the most egregious Trump Administration policies and promised practices. Like the Bernie Sanders' huge rallies and movement of last year, for this important work to move forward, these events and protests need to stop giving a platform to hateful people, murderers and sexual abusers. Ironically, people who epitomize exactly what most are protesting against.

Not that these recent People's movements are harbingers of allowing such people platforms, for these variety of leeches have plagued modern movements for decades. Organizer's ignorance about them can only account for a fraction of the time they secure on a platform. Too often, their pasts/presents apparently are simply ignored for whatever reasons. Here are three examples of people who need to have their access to platforms at protests and events against the Trump Administration removed.

(Protesters in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, January 21st, 2017 - Fair Use)

Micah Rhodes, a co-leader of Portland's (Oregon) Resistance, was recently accused of sexually abusing a teen boy and girl. What makes this more astounding was that even though he was a co-leader at numerous marches and rallies, he had previous sexual assault history and is a registered sex offender. The linked article explains why this history was likely unknown due to the conviction happening in juvenile court.

Donna Hylton, a featured speaker at the Women's March In DC, is a convicted felon who took part in the kidnapping, torturing, sodomizing and murder of an old man. Yes, you should probably read that again, slowly. She asked for a large ransom, even though her and her co-felons had already killed the man, Thomas Vigliarole. This information comes from an article in Psychology Today published in July, 1995. Hylton was sentenced to 25 years in 1985. Today, she is apparently a professional victim...

(Donna Hylton at the Women's March in DC. Photo by Getty Images under Fair Use)

Linda Sarsour, a well-known activist and also a well-known spew spout of hatred, was a co-chair of the Women's March On DC! This so-called supporter of women's rights actually attacked via Twitter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, activist, author and survivor of female genital mutilation. Here is her 2011 quote. Horrible.

Needless to say, people like the ones described and exposed above, should not be allowed a platform at any rallies, protests or marches. Their mere presence not only seriously undermines the movement's goals but gives easy fodder for Republican and right-wing detractors and Trump Administration apologists.

Of Popes And Blind Eyes

There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky. Now that I found out I know I can cry.
- John Lennon


The arrival of Pope Francis to the United States this month has caused the country to go absolutely ape shit. The major television networks might as well rebrand their initials thusly: American Broadcasting Catholics, National Broadcasting Catholics, Catholic Broadcasting System, Catholic News Network and Fatima Over Xenophobia.

Throughout it's history, the United States of America has routinely turned the blind eye, even if it means strained neck muscles. A classic example of turning the blind eye is the amazing number of our very own saintly Presidents who owned slaves! A history class blind eye. Yet, the Pope's visit may expose this blind eye as the festering puss hole it really is.

Leading the blind eye brigade (with more and more frequency as this century of horror continues) are people who otherwise identify themselves as progressives and/or free thinkers. Did the Catholic Church suddenly come out for abortion rights? Did the Pope marry a stadium full of same-sex couples? Well, one would think so as the country turns that blind eye to the obvious hatred of the Catholic Church toward gays and women in these cases alone. Hello? Even evangelical Republicans are pissing their pants because President Obama has invoked the names of Jesus, Lord and dammit, God, more times in the last 48 hours than the top ten Republican candidates have in the last four months combined. On top of that, John Boehner must be bawling his eyes out, chain smoking cigarettes and downing pints of booze because everyone has turned a blind eye to the fact that he was the one who invited the Pope to speak before Congress in the first place.

A couple of Pope Francis' more overt actions while in the United States include a canonizing and riding around in a Fiat. I guess Fiat needed some serious god-like intervention rebranding. Ever checked the history of Fiat? Do so, it is quite illuminating. The word fiat itself might also be something worth looking into, because, well, the Pope.

More egregious is the canonizing of Father Junipero Serra, or in Catholic Church parlance, the guy is now a Saint. Serra, working for the ever popular Inquisition, arrived in Mexico in 1749 and it wasn't long before he settled up north near present day Monterey, California. He established missions so he and his sadists could covert natives he said were guilty of, "...the most detestable and horrible crimes of sorcery, witchcraft and devil worship." Guilty of torture and murder is a saintly pursuit of course and defenders have actually used language to excuse the priest's savagery by claiming all the native peoples were voluntarily led to the word. To top it off, Serra has been rebranded as well, he now has been, in a Church/Orwellian revisionism, labeled "evangelizer of the West" by Pope Francis. Native Americans have used different and certainly more accurate descriptions such as "monster" and "for the pope to accord sainthood is such an obscene gesture on the part of the Catholic Church." It's all turning one big blind eye to old and new atrocities.

Lest we forget, Argentina's "Dirty War", propagated by a military dictatorship in the 1970s and early 1980s. Supported of course by the United States Government because of, well, communism! There's some question of then Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio's (now Pope Francis) involvement in helping the dictators round up "undesirables". But, where there is white smoke there's a Pope.

I implore the few remaining actual progressives and/or free thinkers to rise up and open their blind eyes. When some critical thought is applied, President Obama and Pope Francis are a perfect match, perhaps made in heaven as it were. Obama was ordained with the Nobel Peace Prize and has wage the Endless Wars which continue to kill thousands of civilians every year. He has openly bragged about extra-judicially murdering American citizens and kisses the asses of corporate America and the military/industrial complex. But, because he tosses out a few bromides about climate change, health care and the war on women he is drooled over by the blind eye left. Is it just too difficult to reconcile images of burned, crushed children with the peace president? Is it simply a road not traveled because once trod upon there is never going back to that misperceived comfort of constantly turning a blind eye?

One thing, beyond mindless Pope fawning and massive turning of the blind eye, is that there will be NO press coverage of dissenting viewpoints. No long interviews with agnostics or atheists will be condoned or allowed. I only hope that the constant turning of the blind eye has not led us so far down the slippery slope that we can not as a country ever climb back up.

(Obama meets the Pope at a military airport and they laugh and laugh how people still haven't figured out they're Bankster puppets. Image from Getty Images under Fair Use.)

 

OCCUPY PORTLAND - Day 1 - new video documentary

It was certainly an interesting day in the annuals of marches in Portland. The crowd, which I estimated to be near 10,000 at one point, was, how can I say, cordial. Of course, as you will see in this short documentary, there are many underlying causes to bring out an overnight camp out in downtown Portland. I mean, Portland! Home of the sit-lie ordinance among others, and here the mayor let's them stay overnight, but gotta be out of there by 9am! What will happen next? What do you think? Portland has not seen a mass occupation of property in a long, long time.

So far, as of Day 5, Occupy Portland continues to occupy two downtown parks. The Portland Marathon went off without a hitch, despite some shrill interweb postings predetermining what the protesters would do to their marathon. The police are now trying to get Main St. between the parks reopened.

I hope you enjoy and share this video.

http://youtu.be/hVjTpOAOZwk

WALL STREET PROTESTS "NEWS BLACKOUT" DISINFORMATION ON FACEBOOK

I am beginning to wonder if people and some of my friends on Facebook have lost the ability to conduct a simple google search. The current example comes in the form of: "Media Blackout of Wall Street Protests" and the like. It appears all one has to do after posting such a provocative headline is to link to sites like Al-Jazeera or any so-called left-wing blog or whatever and PRESTO, instant (and in this case needless) controversy about the evil MSM.

And this image comes to us from the decidedly MSM outlet CNBC.