Put with the master?

A girl was allegedly raped at the encampment of ’60s re-enactors known as Occupy Cleveland. I’m going to treat the story as true, based on current information, because it is consistent with the details, and because anybody down with the cause enough to overnight there would not invent a story damaging to the cause.

It’s those details that I find disturbing:

CLEVELAND, Ohio (CBS Cleveland) – An “Occupy Cleveland” protester tells police she was raped in her tent over the weekend.

Cleveland police are investigating an alleged sexual assault incident Saturday at the “Occupy Cleveland” rally involving a 19-year-old female student from Parma.

According to police reports, the 19-year-old student was instructed by “Occupy Cleveland” personnel to “share a tent with the suspect due to a shortage of tents.” The suspect identified himself as “Leland” to the woman. The woman told police that after she had thought the suspect went to sleep in his own bed, she slept in a sleeping bag provided to her by the rally.

“From Parma” suggests a certain ethnicity. “Leland” suggests a different ethnicity. “Was instructed” implies a certain accepted power-over, at least to the extent of “it’s our tent and sleeping bag; you will do as we say.” Now, normal people would not bunk a strange male and strange female together, even in a shortage of tents.That’s asking for trouble. And it’s clear that the Parma Occupier felt there would be trouble, as she did not retire until she thought that “Leland” was asleep. At that point, most women would have run home to Mommy. I’ve tented chastely with women not my lovers, without touching them (though in those cases there was definitely “wanna’ at work). So I’m not blaming the victim here, except insofar as she did not act on her gut feeling of wrongness…perhaps because she considered that gut feeling to be evidence of her own racism?

My concern has to do with the “personnel” (I thought this movement had no leaders) who put a young girl in a dangerous situation. Why? Were they blinded by their own idealism? Or was this a deliberate psychological operation? Were they trying to reprogram the Parma girl’s sexism and racism by deliberately bunking her with a black man? This would be consistent with the radical egalitarianism of Marxist movements. Was the perp connected to the camp’s authority structure in some way?

There are a lot of questions here, and I’ll be looking for answers.

UPDATE: Hmm, Cleveland girl, not Parma, and attending a school for the learning disabled. And OC’s spokesperson claims they don’t make sleeping assignments. Which doesn’t necessarily say that a different subgang of “they”s might do so, given that “there are no leaders” (bullshit). Or that “Leland” was just a predator who came for this specific purpose, and told her that “the administrators” told him to sleep with her. Apparently OC has a fairly detailed set of rape policies.

Yes, I know that “LD” does not mean “nutter”, but those with one issue often have other issues. The notion stated by the one interviewee that she might have come out deliberately to claim rape is pretty absurd. But we knew from the get-go that the victim was a card or two short of a full deck, because why would somebody put themselves in that situation? I’m still waiting for information that will make this make sense.

An observation on the Heights Observer

On my last trip to the bank, I picked up a copy of the Heights Observer, which reports doings in the quaint suburb of Cleveland Heights (that’s
http://www.heightsobserver.ORG
, thankyouverymuch; nothing commercial here). And doings there are, given that the Heights is just up the hill from University Circle, so the best and brightest live there, not only from convenience, but to avoid the insane government of Cleveland proper and establish their own insane government. And quaint it is. given that they’ve declared themselves a Nuclear-Free City, as if anyone benign would build a reactor there (land is too expensive) or anyone malign would be deterred from exploding a nuclear device by such a law. Politically, the place stands slightly to the right of Berkeley CA.

Anyway. in this week’s issue there is a report by Catherine Podojil on a viewing of Josh Fox’s film Gasland, which is apparently to the anti-fracking movement as Reefer Madness is to the anti-drug movement. (See here, or here, or here.). I say “report” instead of “free campaign ad”, because I’m sure Podojil considers herself a citizen journalist and I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings. But some of the flavor can be captured by this quote: “the process is the gas and oil industry’s latest attempt to extract more money from the earth.” Now, I have never known a well to produce Federal Reserve Notes, or even specie; they produce oil and gas, which are values that are traded for other values through the medium of money (and which Podojil herself surely trades money for). I doubt very seriously that Podojil would write that an organic farmer “extracts money from the earth’, though even considering the inputs necessary, the industry of agriculture is equally extractive, with miles of roots sucking money from the ground (see what I just did there?). Apparently money is a bad thing, and perhaps Podojil should abjure it; I understand there are still grates free downtown.

Unlike the nuclear movement, the local opposition to fracking is not academic; miraculously, there are still gas wells in Cleveland Heights (Some on the Oakwood property, subject of a more sympathetic public movement). The nation won’t go into energy-starvation from the lack of hydrocarbons from Cleveland Heights.  but those who own the mineral rights might rightly have an opinion. Likewise, my problem with the Oakwood development (which, as a development, is totally stupid, and will either fail spectacularly and/or cause failure elsewhere) is that the folks making the waves don’t own the land, and yet think they have a say. But that’s business as usual in the former Republic of America.

RIP Cleveland Food Co-op

Apparently the Cleveland Food Co-op has been closed for 2 weeks, and the Plain Dealer is finally writing about its demise after 43 years…which should tell you something. I was an owner-member (not a worker). I didn’t buy much there, or often…bulk food mostly, or marked-down cafe food for lunch, or the occasional Rice Dream bar. And over the years I saw the shelves get emptier and the prices get higher. I don’t think I’ve been there this calendar year. While a few of their business decisions didn’t help (the ill-fated 2nd storefront), the main issue was that capitalist natural food stores outcompeted the communist natural food store. When I can get lower prices and better selection elsewhere, minus the ecological and political sanctimony, why shouldn’t I go there? And if I’m shopping on the basis of politics, John Mackey’s are a lot closer to mine than those of Bob Avakian. Plus there’s the matter of location. Students and a few Cleveland Heighters rolling down the hill don’t have the spending power of Shaker or Beachwood…which is why Whole Foods and Trader Joes are there. Nature’s Bin holds down the inner-ring-suburb segment well, though hiring the mentally handicapped (The Co-op had them too, though in their cases the cognitive disability was intentional.) so there was little reason for the store. I do feel sorry for the handful of True Believers…maybe they can dig up an empty lot and produce some food unsullied by commercial interests … and find out just how hard it is to be a Worker of the World.

I am surrounded by fools

It hurts too effing much to blog.

Cleveland Councilpoof Joe Simperman, at the behest of Mayor Jackson, introduced bills to make Cleveland into a cheap imitation of NYC by banning trans fats and most public smoking. “The goal is to change the culture.” he said. Well, that he is, but to what end? “”That we have to ban smoking in a cemetery should tell you something,” Cimperman said.”  It tells me that when people are faced with their own mortality, they want pleasure and comfort, since this is our only go-around. And that the dead, unlike Joey Simperman, will leave you in peace. Apparently, other people’s bad health costs too much…and God forbid we should make people pay for their own bad health choices, because, after all, health care is a right, because in a state of nature the Doctor Fairy automagickally appears and heals us. Given that people are leaving states where they run your life in favor of states where they don’t, you’d think Joey would want to make the city more attractive. In Windham Township, where I fled to from Cleveland, if one of the trustees suggested such a thing, the roofers and the chicken farmers would have the materials to be persuasive.

Then there was that whole big Koran burning deal. Relatively sane adults were arguing that Terry Jones had somehow “made” Afghanis riot and kill Westerners and that he shouldn’t have been allowed to do that. I get more cogent arguments on moral responsibility from my 8 year old cheese-sucker granddaughter.

And last night’s farce in Wisconsin. I have friends claiming that they won they stole the election fair and square. Well, what kind of victory was that? If this was a referendum on collective-bargaining reform, then fully half the voters are against it. If government worker collective bargaining is a “right”. then something like 5% of the electorate was swayed by that argument. If there’d been a referendum on something that clearly WAS a rights violation…say a vote on a Final Solution to the Negro Problem… you’d be lucky to get 5% for it.

Are my wife and I the only sane beings on the planet? Seems that way, sometimes.

 

The wimp to the north of me

Jennifer, the trollop lobbyist with whom the dishonorable Mr. Steve LaTourette is cohabiting under color of law (being married to Susan in the eyes of God and his constituents), must wonder what made her take up with a eunuch. Faced with a vote to defund NPR, really the lowest-hanging fruit possible in the current budget battle, he turned tail and ran. I don’t know what caused his RINO stampede; maybe the Magliozzi Brothers made some offhand comments about kneecaps and tire irons. But given that the current budget crisis is going to require real suffering from almost everyone, anything he doesn’t take from suburban liberals will need to be taken from the poor and elderly. Or, more likely, he’ll do nothing until the entire economy collapses on top of the poor and elderly, killing them.

The only way to recover any respect in the matter is to offer up David Freddoso’s proposed amendment to Jim McGovern’s proposal to strip Fox News of all federal adversing; Freddoso would strip EVERY media outlet of federal advertising.  Otherwise, I’ll have to do some legwork in Geauga next year during primary season.

All over but the Sumter

I’ve been depressed the last several days. It seems like the social fabric is falling apart already…and times are still good. I’m the alien on Facebook. 60 Tea Partiers vs. 1000 union members in Canton. Mitch Daniels showing himself as a punk coward. Talk of a general strike, to toy with the lives of the poor and unfortunate. Talk of >$200 oil. Talk of the Pres__ent training mob leaders this summer.

It’s not about wages. That’s Team Blue’s game. Who am I to say that somebody makes “too much money”? Teachers are well-paid everywhere, union or no. It’s been claimed that if they were paid babysitter wages for each of those kids, they’d be making more. But I don’t begrudge them. I understand why the state can’t pay though; I suspect that STRS hasn’t been any better managed than Social Security. And we can’t talk about “fair wages” in an area where they can’t be ascertained because market forces are not at work, because of access restriction through licensure, and because public employees elect their own management. That’s the real issue here. The kids have Dad’s wallet, and not only are they going to set their own allowance, but they’ve got an allowance for all their friends too.

And what about this “right” to collectively bargain? Where’d that come from? If a “collective” imposes itself on a deal between two people in a state of nature, that collective is a MOB. Now, if homie wants to play that, OK, but there are a lot more workers in the private sector…and these days they have a lot less to lose. Sure, in a state of nature, a bunch of guys could see the boss and say, “We’ll all only work for this much”. And the boss could say, “No sale”, and hire others, and they’d go elsewhere, assuming they aren’t a mob.  Or are they discussing a legal “right” (privilege) that didn’t exist until the 1960s? If rights are so crucial, why is it that the same political party that the unions have designated as their bargaining agent is so cavalier about other rights, like the rights to private property, self defense, religion, travel, search and seizure, among others? At the very least, they’ve been around longer, and one can make a better case for them being intrinsic to the nature of man.

And they’re complaining about old books and computers. OK, the textbook industry is a huge scam, especially at the collegiate level. The canon of Western art music doesn’t change every three years, so why should the Norton Anthology? But at the lower level, there are so many approval hoops to jump through. Whey can’t we have open source textbooks? They could have alternative chapters to choose from, and could either be read online, or printed through Lulu, and they would still be cheaper than what the big publishers peddle…and probably more interesting. And if in fact teachers don’t have the supplies to properly do their jobs, why isn’t that a matter for collective bargaining? Or is it one of the things they throw in as a chip, to be discarded the first day?

The  Pres__ent is sending in Organizing for American goods to stir the pot. And everyone has to take a side, it seems. Civil War II is here, and it’s not state against state or even race against race, but neighbor against neighbor. And when the shooting starts, as it will, they’ll drive the conservatives out of Cleveland Heights just as liberals will suddenly feel unwelcome in Windham. Then the invasions begin.

If I were a principal in Wisconsin

…and I had so many teachers out that I had to close school, it would happen at most for one day, while I developed a lesson plan. The next day, anyone whose teacher didn’t show would go into the gym for an assembly. We’d have a teach-in about the bill, the true nature of labor unions and their relationship to both Communism and violence, with lots of films and music. We’d make it fun, and we’d do it again and again, until the teachers came back…who would then have to answer questions from their students. Is that propaganda? Yes, but so is most history/”social studies” taught in school. Is it likely to happen, given that administrators are part of the system? No. But if you’re a principal in Ohio, you’d best get ready, because it’s coming here. For that matter, the Tea Party could prepare such a teach-in, and arrange space in some church, so that when school was cancelled, working parents would have some place to daycare their kids. This would take courage, as other bureaucrats would probably call the place an illegal unlicensed day care. But it’s worth discussing and trying to implement.

Just in case you wanted to go full Wisconsin re SB5

101.24 Powers of each house compelling attendance.

Upon a call of either house, if a quorum of members is not present, or a member is absent, the members present may direct the sergeant at arms or, if there is no sergeant at arms of such house, any other person to compel the attendance of absentees. If, on a call of either house, the members present refuse to excuse an absentee, he shall not be entitled to compensation during his absence and shall be liable for expenses incurred in procuring his attendance, which shall be deducted from his salary.

Effective Date: 10-01-1953

No word that I can find on abandonment of office or extradition of members. I would say though, since the ORC is silent, that if the office is vacant for a month without official leave, that the governor (or the legislature, if a quorum could be raised) should be able to declare the office vacant and schedule a special election. That’s what I’d do… and then let the missing legislators explain when they re-run for their offices (as you know they would) why they’ve wasted mililons of dollars on an election.

Citizen Quick goes to Columbus

There’s been a large union presence at the State House over SB5, the bill to reform labor negotiation for public employees, and it was planned to crescendo into yesterday, which was when “pro” testimony was to end and “anti” begin. Since we didn’t want our public safety forces to think that they didn’t have a boss, the Tea Party decided it would show up as well. One of the antis told one of the dead tree journals that they wanted to turn Columbus into Cairo. I thought, “Bring it on!  Normal citizens flooding the streets to depose a long-entrenched kleptocracy? What’s not to like?”

So, since I had comp time coming and nothing I had to do specifically, I was up at 3 damn 30 to board one of 2 busses at 5 to go down to Cowtown to screw my public university colleagues over assemble and petition for redress of grievances. The idea was to get there early and get in. We were going to wear red shirts to distinguish ourselves from the purple SEIUs and yellow CWAs. This was the first major tactical blunder. I’m not sure, given the state of the art of this movement, that it could have been avoided. But email messages said to wear red, and why. Those communications are by their nature not secure. If there was a color numbering system, as in “Wear color 3″ without explaining why, it might work. Or, since somebody provided a ton of red t-shirts in the event anyway, one could just assemble large numbers of T-shirts of various shades, and distribute them on the busses. In the event, the unions brought in boxes of red “No on 5″ shirts, and put them on once they were in the building. Since we were vastly outnumbered, red became “their” color. Worse, the press reported today that the unions were wearing red because “not all of them were Democrats”, and I heard it on Fox Radio and NPR, so it must be true. The adoption of the red state/blue state symbology by the conservative movement will yet prove to be one of its major own-goals. A machiavellian mind might assume that the MSM chose those colors in election reporting to dilute the original symbology and associations of red (which probably should have joined brown and black on the list of impermissible shirt colors). At the end of the day, while gathering to board the busses, we saw a group of ours, and Rusty asked, “Are they real red or fake red?”, so which I replied, “if they’re fake red, they’re real Reds.”

The second blunder concerned access. We were gathering at the front door of the Capitol, and the antis marched in, in lines 2-3 wide, from either side of the building. I have to admit, it was impressive, especially with the cops and firemen in full dress uniform. They stopped on the flanks, and leaders were handing out something, and some of us thought, “Oh great, are they actually paying street people cash to do this?” But no, it was evidently a seating pass. And then they marched in the doors. Granted, they had to pass through our gauntlet, which couldn’t have been happy-making. But they were in, and we weren’t. I had thought that we had screwed the pooch by staying outside instead of going in. But I heard later that they wouldn’t let us in, that they weren’t letting people in without the seating passes. So…how’d they get the seating passes, and why didn’t we get any? Here they are, going in:

But it was a brave show up front. There was a sound system playing classical music, which I thought was a wonderful touch. I had guessed our side at 300, but Tom Zawistowski said there were 600 of us. If so, the antis were in the thousands, as we were outnumbered 3 or 4 to 1. They had a couple of people milling within us, including this fat young woman who wouldn’t quit shouting. I didn’t bring a camera. Rusty did, but the batteries didn’t last long, and she took too many shots of the McKinley statues and not enough of the crowd. Our guys were being encouraged to take video rather than stills. We had a little rally up front by the sidewalk with guys from Americans for Prosperity and the Buckeye Institute. Then we went in.

Here’s a pic from early on (a number of busses came later). Rusty will bitch because she isn’t in it, but I don’t want a target on her back.

They weren’t letting us into the observation room, as it was full to the gills with people shouting and chanting. We were also told that anyone displaying signs in the building would be thrown out. There wasn’t much to do, and we had to pee anyway, so we found the bathrooms. Eventually we made our way into a melee of antis, and we saw some of ours above the crowd, at the top of the stairs, so we went to join them. They had developed their own sign replacement. holding up their palms with fingers separated for “Five”, and it was really annoying the antis. I suggested that we be careful that the palm was straight outward and the forearm perpendicular, so that they didn’t confuse it with a Nazi salute, though a Nazi salute to the police would have a piquant symbolism all its own. So we did that and chanted awhile. I was trying to get “The people united will never be defeated” going (chant, not the song) but nobody joined me…I guess throwing a commie chant back at the unions was a bridge too far. I also had a nice chat with somebody from Cincy…apparently the Portage Tea Part has godlike status in Ohio, thanks to Tom Zawistowski, who is in fact a tactical genius. He doesn’t think of everything…nobody can. But what he does think up is golden. Eventually, we were chased off the top of the stairs by a state trooper. I asked the trooper (once I was down), “Excuse me sir, I have one question: we were told coming in that if we displayed signs, we would be thrown out. Why haven’t all those people been thrown out?” His eyes narrowed; I think he realized that there were only two possible answers to that, and neither was good. So he picked the least dishonorable alternative, and said, “There’s only one of me. Do you want to go down there and throw them out?” Having been told that mob rules were in fact in force, I suggested entering the throng and pulling out our signs, but was dissuaded, even though I pointed out “This Tea Party ain’t no tea party.” When we were down on the floor, a group of children came to the top of the stairs looking down. Hmmm, was this a previously scheduled visit, or was this a case of, “Let’s look at the bad guys trying to take Teacher’s money”? There’s no way to know.

That all got old, so we left the building and tried to find some legislative offices in another building. We got the wrong one, so we went wandering the streets. We spent some time in a Catholic bookstore before going into a Mexican restaurant for lunch (we just beat the crowd). After that, things thinned out in the observation room, so we got to hear the tail end of the pro-5 testimony. We went into the basement and visited the museum (the words of Frank Lausche’s State of the State address on the teleprompter down there were particularly pertinent to the matter at hand), delivered something to Capri Cafaro’s office upstairs (she was down filling in for one of the committee members in the hearing), came down to hear cheering at the anti testimony, and went out to catch our bus.

The trip home got delayed by a detour. Police had stopped a van on 71 for a routine traffic violation, and found a mobile meth lab in the back. So they closed down that stretch of 71 until the HazMat team could get there. This put us about 45 minutes behind, getting us at the dropoff point at 6:15. We did dinner at Cracker Barrel, then another organizational meeting (details omitted for operational security) then home at 9:15 to do chores and hit the sack.

Tom was more sanguine about results than I was. It was important to be there as a witness, I think. We learned a great deal about tactics. And certainly the media noticed the Tea Party was out. “Activists” are not used to any kind of organized opposition, and maybe finally seeing some was message enough.

Toss ‘em into Boston Harbor and start over

There is wailing and gnashing of teeth over at Denninger’s over the Tea Party supported candidates who supported the PATRIOT Act renewal, including some local Rethuglican louses (not mine, thanks in part to Jim TrafiCANT splitting the conservative vote) But what I don’t get is anyone expecting  COL. Allan West to do otherwise. An Army officer can be expected to defend freedom against a national security claim about like a guy with “Rev.” in front of his name can be trusted to oppose blue laws.