Contested Terrain: June 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010

If you are against the wars & live in or near Chelsea pay attention

Chelsea Anti-War Vigil

Tuesday, June 29, 6:00-7:00pm

(northwest corner of 8th Ave and 24th St)

Tuesday, May 18, 2010 marked five years plus two weeks that Chelsea Stands Up Against The War has been taking place each and every Tuesday from 6 until 7 pm at the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and 24th Street

While the news media, the dawn of the 2010 election cycle, the elevation of the Tea Party, pressing issues like finance reform, charter schools, health care, and the criminal oil spill in the Gulf have pushed war from center stage, the importance of resistance to permanent war (the Bush-Obama years) has never been more urgent.

Billions more to be spent, more lives to be lost, families decimated as "progressives" do back-flips trying to justify the escalation under Obama, means that protesting war is needed now more than ever.

Please consider joining us on any Tuesday that you can. We are getting into the summer months where some of our regulars are looking to take some vacation. We need you to help out. Even if you an come by once for just 15 minutes or so it will be a meaningful assist.

You weren't wrong. Going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan made no sense It is a waste of lives and resources. It is no more justifiable with Barack Obama as president then it was when George W. Bush was president. Stop the funding, stop the wars.

People say, "Where is the anti-war movement?" Well part of it is on the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and 24th Street in NYC every Tuesday from 6 until 7 pm.

Join us. You might feel better, I know for sure that we will.

Peace,

Chuck for
Chelsea Neighbors United to End the War

Chelsea Neighbors United To End The War
P.O. Box 821
JAF Station
New York, NY 10116-0821
212-726-1385
http://www.chelseaneighborsunited.org [2]

Friday, June 25, 2010

Petitions are public political acts

In the midst of a series of decisions made by the handmaidens of the corporate oligarchy (otherwise known as the U.S. Supreme Court) that gut what little protection the people have in this country, I find myself actually in agreement with one of their decisions. Which scares me. In Doe v. Reed the court said that the first amendment doesn't guarantee secrecy for people who sign petitions to put referendums on state ballots. This seems blatantly obvious to me. Secretly signing a petition seems like a contradiction in terms. Signing a petitions whatever it is for is essentially a public political act. If you don't want to be associated with a cause or a candidate don't sign the petition. The decision was 9-1 (Clarence Thomas the only dissenter). Several of the homophobes on the court had a difficult time agreeing with the majority. According to the NYT, "Scalito" (Samuel Alito)

whose distaste for disclosure of the particular names at issue in the case was evident at the argument of the case in April, ... argu[ed] that a narrower challenge should succeed.

The reason for his distaste in this case was that it was brought by people who signed the petition that intended to deny gay men and lesbians equal rights by opposing a state domestic partnership law.