Rev. Magdalen's Blog

Conspiracy: Anonymous, Occupy Wall Street, and "Bob"

2011-12-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

Some people think there's a similarity between the Church of the SubGenius and the Anonymous Hive, but although both are obscure internet communities that sometimes have real-life member meet-ups, the philosophies behind them are very different. No two SubGenii are the same (if any two are too similar, one must go!) while members of Anonymous all wear the same mask, use the same logo, and strive to lose their individuality in a hivemind.

Anonymous follows "V" from the graphic novel/movie "V" for Vendetta. SubGenii follow the teachings of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, mythical salesman and UFO contactee. Anons strive to have no names, be faceless replaceable units. SubGenii take on extra names, and extravagant descriptive titles to distinguish themselves and brag.

Although some SubGenii vocally support Occupy Wall Street, it is the brainchild of Anonymous, who had been planning "Operation Empire State Rebellion" long before AdBusters thought up the catchier "Occupy!" brand name for the franchise encampments idea.

Many have asked what motivates Occupiers, since they don't have a clear set of goals they're fighting to achieve. What could possibly make so many people so passionate and determined to disrupt travel and commerce, regardless of the harm they cause other people, racking up lengthy arrest records without even knowing what victory would look like? Why Occupy?

The short answer is, conspiracy theories. Observing the tweet streams, videos, blogs, and fliers of OWS, it seems clear Occupiers don't offer their own solutions to the problems they complain about because they are under the impression the only thing lacking in our nation is political will. The US government (and whoever is believed by Occupiers to really control it) could somehow fix the economy, environment, and foreign policy, if it really wanted to, so all that's needed is to put a lot of pressure on the true culprits, to force their hands and make them do good instead of evil. Then, peace and prosperity for everyone will naturally follow. No logistical, monetary, or safety concerns figure into Anonymous/OWS plans; it's all about making the "ruling elites" choose to do good instead of evil, by any means necessary.

SubGenius philosophy talks about a vast Conspiracy too. It does seem sometimes like things couldn't possibly be this bad without someone having acted with deliberate malice. Global climate change, income inequality, smog, pollution, species dying out, seemingly endless wars, wild market speculation, unjustified prohibitions, these things can seem like a plot, and many internet conspiracy theorists weave colorful explanations that tie it all together in a neat package explaining who to blame for all the world's ills. They usually just pick whoever they personally hate most, or choose from historical "bad guys" favored by previous people who agreed the world must be run by secret evil cabals, or go with what the voices in their heads advise.

A key SubGenius teaching is that although it may seem like there's a secret cabal coordinating everything, the horrible, real truth is that there is no one at the wheel. There are countless factions, industries, corporations, political parties, churches, movements, you name it, and they are all trying to get their own needs and goals met, constrained by varying levels of commitment to legal or moral concerns. No one group controls everything, so there's no particular set of people you could hold accountable and force to put things right in the world. There is a Conspiracy of Mediocrity, the result of billions of people worldwide cutting corners, being careless or heartless, greedy or close-minded, in a complex interconnected web of commerce and society. There is no cabal.

If we want change, we have to first figure out exactly what it is that we want. Then we have to tell other people why it's such a good idea, and convince them, one by one, group by group, to agree. By congressional bills or a constitutional convention, we have to put our solutions in place using the voting system, which is subject to some manipulation, but not enough to thwart the true will of 99% if they all showed up.

Then we have to hope our solutions work like our theories say they should. Unintended consequences can be devastating. That doesn't mean no one should try to fix anything, just that they should carefully think through what they attempt. Suddenly raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, for example, could force many small businesses to close. Eliminating all immigration quotas at once could flood the labor market, making unemployment even worse. These are the kind of things Occupy should have figured out before they took to the streets to demand public attention.

I love freaky camping, drum circles, and having groovy times with awesome creative people, and it sounds like there was an element of that at OWS camps. But it's because I love those things that I know that to keep camps sustainable, there have to be clear camp rules, like, number one, camp at a campsite. You will need clean drinking water, hand & utensil washing stations, sanitary facilities, and protection from the elements, or you will get sick, and that sickness could spread to an entire city.

Other camp rules include not destroying parts of the Earth set aside as protected green space. If everyone just destroyed grassy land whenever they wanted to camp, the environmental impact would be extremely harmful. Next, keep track of who is in your camp, and make sure they're okay every day. Call police if there's theft, rape, or fighting going on, and keep your tents separated with clear paths so that cops or EMTs could make their way through the encampment quickly in an emergency, or so that people could quickly escape if fire broke out. Make sure no one spends two days dead in a tent because nobody knew they were in there.

I think it would be an awesome idea for people to overcome political apathy by setting up camps at actual campsites, where anyone with a tent would be welcome to stay, meet others, and discuss the issues of our times. You could even have a cozy central fire that people could warm themselves around as they talk about our options as a nation. You could use a real stage and ditch the creepy People's Mic, which makes it difficult for speakers to make complex, nuanced points, and for listeners to devote their full attention to listening and thinking over what's said, instead of worrying about repeating correctly.

Of course, such camps could never take the place of internet coordination and meetings, where people from all over the country could make proposals, share opinions, and vote on what the movement should strive for, but physical camps would be a nice enrichment, and a spectacle that would draw attention. Even if camps were outside the cities, livestream would bring their message to the world. If the streams showed reasonable people in orderly, legal camps having serious policy discussions, that would likely win a lot of support and change conversations on the right and left, like an interactive reality show for thinking, patriotic people.

It's truly a shame that OWS chose instead to create spectacles of force, declaring they were going to deliberately disrupt the free travel of their fellow citizens, and seize public lands indefinitely, attacking the very foundation of an ordered society so necessary to making rights available to all. By insisting that it would take force to move them, they created a situation that inevitably led to force.

Those parks and streets do not belong to OWS, they're everyone's, and anyone seizing or blocking them must be removed sooner or later, by force if necessary. OWS knew that. They counted on it. OWS wanted to create pictures and videos that looked like 1968, but since there's no pressing issue like the military draft, they had to make do with indignantly spouting "anarchist philosophy" jargon to explain why they shouldn't have to explain why they're in the street or what would make them go back home.

In my opinion, as a SubGenius Reverend, that is what we call Slack Vampirism, people amusing themselves, even holding dance parties, at the expense of other people's pain. Thousands of citizens in dozens of cities have been trapped in their cars on roads, sometimes for hours, their right of way completely violated by people aiming to deliberately disrupt the city's travel.

It's bad enough when daily incompetence or an accident delays people, a group doing it on purpose, just to get attention for their signs, is really too much to expect people to accept. There is no First Amendment right to do that; it is shamefully selfish behavior, as is setting up your private dwelling in public parks. That is not what parks are for. The entire point of having a "commons" is that that land cannot be anybody's private house, it's for all to share. Seizing it for yourself to live on, then damaging it, is stealing from the public, and it is not "peaceable assembly" no matter how much yoga or dubstep rave you do there.

Occupy Wall Street: The 1st Amendment is NOT Your Permit

2011-12-02T20:27:00.000-08:00

For two months now, many Occupiers and their supporters have repeated "The First Amendment is our permit!" to explain why they reject applying for parade or camping permits for their demonstrations, instead marching into busy streets with no warning, and camping in parks for as long as they wish without following any health or fire codes.

Occupiers believe that all local laws and regulations are "trumped" by the 1st Amendment, and therefore anyone who tries to break up their camps or clear their marches from streets is conspiring to deny them something they are entitled to by the highest law in the land.

Occupier beliefs lead to conspiracy theories

This belief in a constitutional right to block traffic and camp in parks is the root cause of the recent dissension over Naomi Wolf's virally popular article accusing the federal government of directing a crackdown on Occupy camps in an attempt to crush the movement. Ms. Wolf speculates that Congress has a motive to silence OWS, because Occupiers recently began expressing anger over some Congressional financial trading that is legal, but widely viewed as unethical.

Essentially Ms. Wolf believes Congress feels so threatened by the potential loss of this trading revenue that they abused their oversight authority and usurped executive branch power to give direct orders to a law enforcement agency for the purpose of silencing the free speech of American citizens.

This is quite a shocking and serious allegation from Ms. Wolf, and AlterNet's Joshua Holland stood up for basic journalistic integrity by pointing out that Ms. Wolf has absolutely no evidence to support her theory, aside from reports that federal law enforcement agencies gave advice to local city police on the latest "best practices" for dealing with crowds. Mr. Holland pointed out that this type of advice and consulting happens all the time in law enforcement, and is not evidence that anyone in Congress or any other part of the federal government had an ulterior motive of any kind.

This debate went on for another round of articles by Ms. Wolf and Mr. Holland amid a general firestorm of blogs weighing in for one side or the other.

Reader reactions to Mr. Holland's original article demonstrate the widespread belief among Occupy supporters that OWS's actions are not crimes, but are expressive conduct protected by the 1st Amendment. Since Occupiers truly believe they are not doing anything legally wrong, their only explanation for cities closing down their camps is a conspiracy to silence their message.

Occupy supporters replying to Holland's article genuinely did not care whether DHS merely advised local police on best practices or unscrupulously commanded local police to act for a greedy ulterior motive, because they reject the very idea that any law enforcement at any level has a valid legal right to clear camps or stop Occupiers from blocking streets.

Is Occupation a right?

There is more to the Constitution than just one amendment. OWS can't claim protection from one part of the document but ignore the rest of it. Article III is just as valid as the 1st Amendment, and it says:

"The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."

This means that we do not interpret laws on our own, then band together with those who self-affiliate with our view, and proceed to act as if our consensus interpretation of law were the legally-binding opinion on it. Instead, we appoint judges, experts whose job is to interpret laws impartially, and we are all bound by their decisions equally.

We're free to change the laws anytime we like, just by voting in people who support our proposed changes, and we can even change the Constitution either through Congress or directly by Constitutional Convention, but for the existing laws at any time it is the judges who decide what the law means. In the case of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has absolute authority on interpretation.

What does SCOTUS say about the activities that Occupy Wall Street groups have engaged in nationwide? It turns out this is not the first time anyone has thought of these tactics, and there is a long series of opinions from the Supreme Court about exactly the kinds of activities OWS claims are its constitutional right.

Blocking traffic and entrances

In 1965 the landmark free speech case Cox v. Louisiana overturned a civil rights protester's conviction because the law that he was accused of violating was unfairly vague. This upheld the important principle that local permit and traffic laws must be fair and specific, so everyone can understand exactly what is and isn't permitted on the streets.

The decision also affirmed the principle that disrupting the lives of others is not in any way protected by the 1st Amendment, no matter how much protesters feel that would be expedient for their cause.

Here's what SCOTUS has to say about the idea that the 1st Amendment is your permit to march wherever and whenever you feel like, ignoring local laws:

The rights of free speech and assembly, while fundamental in our democratic society, still do not mean that everyone with opinions or beliefs to express may address a group at any public place and at any time. The constitutional guarantee of liberty implies the existence of an organized society maintaining public order, without which liberty itself would be lost in the excesses of anarchy. The control of travel on the streets is a clear example of governmental responsibility to insure this necessary order. A restriction in that relation, designed to promote the public convenience in the interest of all, and not susceptible to abuses of discriminatory application, cannot be disregarded by the attempted exercise of some civil right which, in other circumstances, would be entitled to protection. One would not be justified in ignoring the familiar red light because this was thought to be a means of social protest. Nor could one, contrary to traffic regulations, insist upon a street meeting in the middle of Times Square at the rush hour as a form of freedom of speech or assembly. Governmental authorities have the duty and responsibility to keep their streets open and available for movement. A group of demonstrators could not insist upon the right to cordon off a street, or entrance to a public or private building, and allow no one to pass who did not agree to listen to their exhortations. See Lovell v. Griffin, supra, at 303 U. S. 451; Cox v. New Hampshire, supra, at 312 U. S. 574; Schneider v. State, supra, at 308 U. S. 160-161;Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 310 U. S. 306-307; Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490; Poulos v. New Hampshire, supra, at 345 U. S. 405-408; see also Edwards v. South Carolina, supra, at 372 U. S. 236.

[emphasis mine]

Okay, blocking streets and buildings is right out. What about camping?

SCOTUS settled this in 1984 with Clark v. Community for Creative Nonviolence. This case quoted a definition of camping as digging holes, erecting structures, placing bedding on the ground, storing personal items, cooking, and generally using an area for living accommodations, all of which Occupiers are clearly doing at their camps.

The Court found that since these activities damage parks and prevent other people from using the shared space as it was intended to be used, it is constitutionally acceptable to ban camping in a park, as long as the rule is the same for everyone who wants to camp:

Damage to the parks, as well as their partial inaccessibility to other members of the public, can as easily result from camping by demonstrators as by nondemonstrators. In neither case must the Government tolerate it. All those who would resort to the parks must abide by otherwise valid rules for their use, just as they must observe the traffic laws, sanitation regulations, and laws to preserve the public peace. This is no more than a reaffirmation that reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions on expression are constitutionally acceptable.

[emphasis mine]

Occupiers claim a precedent

Occupiers justify their behavior by citing a case which they claim proves that camping in parks is a protected right. In 2000 a federal district court ruled in Metropolitan Council, Inc. v Safir that "symbolic sleeping" was a protected form of expression.

How similar is symbolic sleeping to Occupy Wall Street's tent cities? Not very. Here's what Metropolitan protesters asked for a permit to do:

The vigil participants will lie side by side, perpendicular to the apartment building on this block, covering no more than half of each sidewalk's width. The sidewalk along East End Avenue is sixteen feet wide; the sidewalk along 88th Street is fifteen feet wide. The protesters have agreed to occupy only 7.5 feet of each sidewalk's width. The protesters will thus leave clear for pedestrian use about half the width of each sidewalk (8.5 feet of width along the East End Avenue side, and 7.5 feet of width along the 88th Street side). The length of the area to be covered by the bodies will not exceed 75 feet (three feet per person). Plaintiff will not block either of the entrances to the apartment building, entrances that are located approximately 60 feet north of the intersection and 170 feet to its west. Plaintiff will regulate the conduct of vigil participants by providing event marshals who will ensure that participants stay within the designated space, coordinate their activities, and respond to any emergencies. During the vigil, its purpose will be communicated by signs and printed literature.

[emphasis mine]

The protesters in Metropolitan acknowledged that their protest had no right to disrupt the lives of others by even blocking a sidewalk, let alone a road or an entire park. They acknowledged the right of the city to issue permits in the first place, instead of claiming such permits are unconstitutional.

Because of this basic respect for other citizens' rights, and for the social order necessary to make rights available to everyone, the protesters in Metropolitan won and got permission to do their symbolic sleeping demonstration, which was limited by the permit to a specific time frame. This is nothing like the Occupiers, who block streets, stores, bridges, and ports, refuse to disperse when asked by authorities, and say they will continue their actions indefinitely, or until someone forces them to stop.

Were Occupiers misled about the law?

Occupiers originally acknowledged that the type of activity protected by Metropolitan, taking up no more than half a sidewalk without erecting structures or using park space, was all they had a right to do. The original "US Day of Rage" flyer clearly warned participants that symbolic sleeping was the limit of legal activity, and that the type of tent cities which eventually emerged in Zuccotti Park and elsewhere were not protected as "symbolic sleeping."

However, this flyer also contains the seeds of the current Occupier rejection of all "time, place, and manner" restrictions as unconstitutional. The flyer asserts that our current government, in its entirety, is completely corrupt, and thus illegitimate, and that Occupiers are exercising the powers asserted by the American Founders to throw off a tyrannical government:

If the NYPD kettle or blockades every PUBLIC street in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, or the Bronx, they only reveal what we at US Day of Rage already know: Our government is corrupt, its powers are in the hands of treasonous and tyrannical forces, and, together, WE THE PEOPLE will prevail.
The American Revolution is alive and well. It's a group of non-violent citizen nobodies who believe in the radical notion that Americans have a right to freedom of speech and the right to peaceable assembly, in deed the right to engage in politics through free and fair elections unsullied by disloyal, incompetent, and wasteful special interests that are destroying our democratic republic and preying on the resources and spirits of citizens.

[emphasis in the original]

Left's Tea Party? Or live-action roleplay gone horribly awry?

I have to wonder how many Liberal pundits who've been championing OWS ever read that original USDOR flyer, which was one of the main promotional statements for recruiting the first Occupiers over the internet, before any mainstream news or progressive organizations picked up the story.

Perhaps if political analysts had read the flyer, they wouldn't be at such a loss to understand why OWS won't move on from the "camping phase," or why Occupiers think DHS advising city police on how to deal with an unruly crowd is just as diabolical as Wolf's theory of Rep. Peter King abusing his oversight in order to command DHS agents to protect his private gravy train by "silencing the movement."

Occupiers aren't just mad about the economy, they also see themselves as asserting the sovereign people's right to overthrow tyranny, and thus as justified to act outside the framework of laws that other protesters have to follow. That idea is never going to win the hearts and minds of centrists, moderates, or reality-based people of any kind. The idea of fighting an overarching, all-powerful conspiracy and forcibly "taking back America" for "real Americans" or "the 99%" is just as creepy a fantasy scenario coming from the far left as it is from the far right, and it has no place in our political discourse.

Occupy Wall Street: Inconvenience is the Point

2011-11-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

When confronted with the fact that the Occupy protests are violating the rights of other people to freely travel, enjoy the public parks, and do their jobs, Occupiers often answer that disruption and inconveniencing others is the point of the protest, as exemplified by one commenter at the San Francisco Chronicle, who said "Inconvenience is the entire point, because otherwise no one listens and no one CARES!"

This is not an isolated viewpoint, it is repeated by many in the Occupy movement whenever seriously challenged on their illegal and disruptive methods. One supporter, a union leader, has called for "more militancy" of blocking bridges and occupying banks. A protest sign that went viral reads "Sorry for the inconvenience/we are trying to change the world." Countless tweets enthusiastically repeat the idea, like this one, stating again that "the point of protest" is to inconvenience other people, and this one stating that inconvenience is the protesters' "weapon," justified because they don't have a "$100k lobbyist" (despite the fact that with over $500k in the bank they could afford five such lobbyists).

This idea is deeply disturbing. The First Amendment includes the word "peaceably" specifically to exclude behavior that disturbs the peace or violates other people's rights. Disrupting the lives of others is in no way a peaceable protest or protected by the First Amendment, yet this idea is spreading like wildfire through the Occupy community, justifying more and more violence and property destruction like that seen in Oakland this week. What started as a group that claimed the First Amendment gave them the right to seize property and block travel is fast becoming a group that openly declares disruption is the entire point of their assembly.

Many Occupiers insist that "the First Amendment is their permit," claiming all Supreme Court interpretations of that Amendment are invalid, and only the words of the Constitution, as interpreted by themselves, apply to them. If so, then by their own logic they are violating that permit by protesting the banking industry, while the Amendment only covers protest against the government.

The fact that in the modern era people often assemble to protest against corporations, instead of the government, is an expansion of the basic right in the Constitution, allowed by the evolving understanding of free speech that has built up over the years as the Supreme Court has weighed in with interpretations. You cannot claim the expanded right to protest a corporation instead of the government while ignoring all the other interpretations made by the Supreme Court, which firmly state that time, place, and manner restrictions, like those forbidding camping, are reasonable and not violations of the right to free speech.

But forget morality and the law, let's look at the effectiveness of causing disruption. The Occupier quoted above stated that this disruption is necessary to make people "listen" and "care." Violating their rights certainly does make people notice you, but does it make them care? This is the point where Occupy and reality part ways, as Occupiers swallow the idea that by hurting people you can force them to agree with you. It's as if Occupiers are hoping to harness the Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages become psychologically attached to the thugs who hold them hostage. In some cases this appears to be working, as Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland reversed her decision to end the Oakland encampment after negative press, and now seeks to do whatever it takes to allow the encampment to continue, even offering to move the campers to a more permanent camp, presumably at the city's expense.

Attempting to induce Stockholm Syndrome may work on someone like Quan, who apparently considers positive press more important than her duty as an elected official, but the overall American character is deeply devoted to the ideal of not negotiating with terrorists. In cities held hostage to the Occupy camps, citizens are not starting to identify with their Occupiers, they are growing more vocal in their determination to restore law and order. Comments in USA Today, a non-partisan newspaper popular with the "silent majority" of Middle America, are overwhelmingly opposed to the disruptive tactics of the Occupy groups. The violence in Oakland has only intensified this sentiment, and more disruptions will do the same.

It is not possible to convince Americans that your cause is noble by disrupting their daily lives, though it may succeed at getting you in the news. Occupiers, both the pacifist and black bloc wings, are agreed on the strategy of inconveniencing others. Their only disagreement is how much disruption they should cause. But while Occupiers squabble over this among themselves, the rest of America is not impressed by this new idea that "inconvenience is the point of protest." It's nothing more than a narcissistic pretext for bullying, and nobody is buying it.

Occupy Wall Street: A Dangerous Precedent

2011-10-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

Many cities have allowed Occupy groups to violate laws, because the mayors and city councils have nostalgia for the sixties, see themselves as civil rights activists and feel sympathetic to this particular cause, whatever they see the Occupy cause as being, since there are no official platforms or goals for the movement.

The whole point of having laws, instead of the whims of kings, is that they apply equally to the people we like and the people we don't like. Many people have brought up my previous custody case, assuming that since I made "freaky" artwork, I must support Occupy. My case is a perfect example of a judge not applying the law equally, choosing a favorite based on his personal preference. Giving special privileges to Occupiers is every bit as unfair as using my artwork against me was. Let's look at what might come of the precedent set by the Occupy movement.

The Tea Party is now planning to sue cities, to obtain refunds for the fees they were required to pay to get permits for previous rallies. They say they plan to stage rallies in the future, at which they expect to be treated the same as Occupy gatherings: no permits required, no time limits, and a right to block traffic whenever and wherever they wish. The Tea Party has every right to do this. Treating Occupy differently from every other group that's ever held a rally is a violation of the 14th Amendment, and is discrimination. If the Tea Party follows through and takes their case to court, they will likely win, and cities will either be found guilty of discriminatory preference for one group or required to allow all other groups the same privileges as Occupiers, or both.

The Westboro Baptist Church loves lawsuits. They are no doubt eagerly watching to see how this plays out, and if the Tea Party wins its case, you can expect that they will take full advantage of the new legal precedent set by the Occupy movement. WBC follows the letter of the law while they harass soldiers' funerals, and scream "God hates fags!" at travelers. When they know they have legal protection to block streets and seize parks, they will do that too. If you don't mind being hours late to your destination now, because you agree with "the cause," how will you feel when it's because of a street-blocking group shouting that you're going to hell because America doesn't execute gay people?

Because of the privileges shown to Occupy, we may soon live in a world where when you plan a trip, you will have to take into account groups blocking streets randomly. There will be no app to help you route your trip around the road obstruction, because the groups choose what streets to block on the spur of the moment, while marching. Any given park may be seized by a group at any time, and once seized you can basically write off that park forever, because the groups seizing them consider them their permanent homes and have no intention of leaving. Dysentery, cholera, and other diseases caused by overcrowding and poor sanitation will become routine facts of life, as these groups insist on living in unsafe conditions, washing their utensils in buckets filled from local restaurants' bathroom taps, eating food prepared over tins of Sterno instead of full heat, and then mingling with the general population.

The simple pleasure of driving down to the local park for a cookout or game of Frisbee will be gone. It will be up to your local activists groups, not your city's laws, whether or not you can do that. Meanwhile you'll still be asked to pay taxes for the upkeep of these roads and parks, which you will not be able to use. White Power, NAMBLA, Communist Party USA, John Birch Society, the KKK, Hell's Angels, and religious extremists of all types will all have the power to decide where you can and cannot travel. And it will all be completely legal, because of the precedent set by the Occupy movement.

Before you jump on the bandwagon of support for this group, think through the consequences of what you're supporting. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If it's ok for Occupy to violate the law, every other group, even the nastiest, will also be allowed to violate laws the same way, or else we'll live in a world where those in favor with the powerful will be allowed to do things that those out of favor are not allowed to do, a discriminatory hell. Instead of skin color, privilege will be determined by the content of the sign you hold, with "righthinking" people given power to violate the rights of everyone else.

Occupy Wall Street: A Revolution, Not a Protest, In Their Own Words

2011-10-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

It's reasonable for people to insist on proof, especially for extraordinary claims, such as that people who say to media that they're merely doing peaceful protest in the style of Martin Luther King, are actually fomenting revolution.

That's why I created this Storify, showing explicitly, in their own words, that a large number of people participating in Occupy Wall Street indeed see it as a revolution, an attempt to overthrow the current governments of not only the United States, but all governments globally, as shown by their use of the #globalrevolution hashtag.

I did not put these people up to saying these things, these are their own words freely tweeted. Read what they have to say and then make up your own mind as to whether the illegal camping and marching of people who support a literal revolution, bloodless coup or not, should continue to be tolerated in our cities.

The Ethics of Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-23T07:23:00.000-07:00

The purpose of peaceful protest is to point out some kind of wrongdoing, some situation that needs to be remedied. If protesters themselves commit ethical violations during the course of their protest, they lose all credibility. How can the public consider protesters good judges of ethics, fit to point out what is and is not a wrongdoing, if the protesters cannot conduct themselves ethically during their protest?

As I blogged about previously, peaceful protest, the attempt to raise public awareness about grievances in a free society, is governed by different rules than revolutions. People waging revolutionary wars often need to do things that would be immoral in a peaceful protest, like taking up arms and seizing land to house troops on. If Occupy Wall Street is truly a peaceful protest, then it can't use revolutionary justifications for its behavior, and must restrain itself to legitimate tactics of peaceful protest in order to have credibility in pointing out wrongdoing in the system.

Does the Occupy movement have ethical credibility? Looking at the question both morally and legally, there are some clear historical precedents to help us judge the legitimacy of the movement as a force for social justice.

Legality and morality are separate issues that aren't always completely in sync. Civil disobedience refers to acts which are illegal, but still ethical. One historical example is when Dr. Martin Luther King organized protests that violated unjust segregation laws. The goal of the protest was to show that the laws were unjust and that the actions of the arrested protesters should not have been illegal. No one else's rights were violated in Dr. King's protests, and the protesters submitted willingly to arrest, acknowledging that although their actions were morally right, they were still illegal, and the state had a right to arrest them.

A different type of civil disobedience was shown in a recent protest against the Keystone XL pipeline, popularized by Daryl Hannah. These protesters blocked a sidewalk in front of the White House, then submitted to arrest, in order to create a media spectacle. The pipeline protesters were not trying to prove that the law against blocking sidewalks is an unjust law, they broke that law solely to draw media attention to their environmental cause. Because the law they broke wasn't unjust, they couldn't use the same ethical justification as Dr. King. Instead, they made sure that their violation of the admittedly fair law was purely symbolic, conducted in a safe manner respecting the social order, without genuinely violating anyone else's rights, just a token of disobedience.

The pipeline protesters sat in organized rows, symbolically "blocking" the sidewalk, but still leaving plenty of actual space for other people to pass, and being orderly enough that they could hear police instructions in the event of an emergency. They did not resist arrest, or characterize their arrests as unfair "attacks" against them. Because of this respect for other people's rights, and respect for the social order, the pipeline protesters' civil disobedience was still moral, even though the law that was broken was not an unjust one.

Illegal Occupier encampments and marches match neither of these well-known civil disobedience types. The laws that are being broken by Occupiers are not unjust. Camping, public health and traffic laws are completely fair, reasonable, and necessary to protect the rights and safety of all citizens, so Occupiers can't claim an "unjust law" justification for disobedience.

Occupiers' disobedience is also not just a symbolic token of lawbreaking with no real damage or danger. They physically use their massed bodies and personal possessions to completely block other people from traveling or using parks, and have done so on a daily basis for well over a month, with the intention of continuing to do so indefinitely. During their marches Occupiers are often so loud and disorderly that marchers in the back are not even aware of it when police interact with those in the front, and if an emergency arose there would be no way to relay vital safety messages to everyone.

OWS actions have many innocent victims. Travelers on the Brooklyn Bridge, and on other streets and bridges in Occupied cities, have been stranded, often for hours at a time. Thousands of people all over the country have been prevented from getting to work, picking up their kids, getting food, or otherwise going where they needed to go. In Boston, Occupiers' refusal to break camp meant several festivals were canceled, including a children's Pumpkin Patch Festival and a food drive for the needy. The illegal OWS camping and marching harm the general public as a whole, but especially children, who are most disappointed by not being able to use a park, most frightened when their parents are several hours late to pick them up, and most disturbed by exposure to screaming, disorderly crowds of adults acting without restraint.

Does the Constitution offer protection for these OWS activities? The Supreme Court has ruled that illegal camping is not constitutionally protected, and that park authorities have a duty to protect the integrity of the parks entrusted to them by the public. In every Occupation where people are camping in non-camping parks, their use of park grounds as living accommodations damages the parks and violates the rights of other people to freely use the space. Park rules against camping fall squarely in the category of reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions governing free speech, and do not violate the 1st Amendment, since protesters have the options of simply using one of the many available camping parks, if camping is vital to their free expression, or using non-camping parks to speak in as long as they do not attempt to set up living accommodations there.

Some Occupations have received special, temporary waivers from authorities to camp in non-camping areas, which raises a different set of ethical issues. Authorities charged with enforcing laws have a right to use their discretion in deciding which broken laws to prosecute. A traffic officer might decide to let a speeding driver off with a warning, or might choose to issue a ticket. This is a judgment call authorities are empowered to make, allowing them to react flexibly in preserving the social order and keeping the peace in their jurisdiction. Sometimes, for one reason or another, enforcing a law would cost the taxpayers more trouble than it would be worth, so lawbreakers get a pass.

The fact that some authorities have chosen to use their discretion to temporarily allow illegally camped Occupations to remain, in violation of laws and the rights of other citizens, does not mean that the Occupations are legal, or that they are ethical. This discretionary leniency can rightfully be revoked at any time, based on the authorities' evolving understanding of what will best serve the public. The Occupiers' violations of other people's rights remains unethical even if no legal charges are ever filed.

In America, the 14th Amendment requires that everyone receive equal protection under the law. If all previous protest groups have been required to obtain permits to march, obey camping laws, and limit their protests to a set timeframe, it would be a violation of the 14th Amendment for authorities to grant Occupiers special privileges exempting them from these requirements. Contrary to the Occupiers' complaints that authorities are violating the 1st Amendment by enforcing camping laws, it's actually Occupiers who are asking authorities to violate the 14th Amendment and give them privileges not available to other groups.

It's possible that activist groups who play by the rules and obey the law would be within their rights to sue Occupied cities for discrimination if city officials give privileges to Occupiers that were not given to anyone else. Then again, cities might be able to make a counterargument that since OWS has openly broadcast appeals for followers to obstruct police, saying they "won't allow" police to enforce the law, and since their physical protests are supported by cyber attacks on police databases, Occupiers are not in the same category of group as peaceful protesters, but are instead a type of organized gang, requiring different law enforcement approaches than those used for peaceful protest. These are questions courts and lawyers will have to sort out in the future.

At the moment, all we can be certain of is that in light of their numerous ethical violations and refusal to respect the social order necessary for rights to be available to everyone, Occupiers have no credible claim to being judges of wrongdoing. It is hypocritical for OWS to demand that banks or government officials volunteer to be more saintly than the law requires, while Occupiers themselves refuse to obey reasonable and fair laws, recklessly causing harm to their fellow citizens, damaging public property, and demanding unequal treatment under the law. Their message, should they ever articulate a specific one, is irrelevant. Why should we take public policy advice from people who consistently violate other people's rights? Who cares what bullies think?

Occupy Wall Street: Revolutionaries or Protesters?

2011-10-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

After every incident resulting in arrests, Wall Street Occupiers are quick to repeat that they are "peaceful protesters." They constantly reference the First Amendment and the civil rights movement. Yet they also compare themselves to Tahrir Square and the French Revolution. A common Occupier "snappy comeback" to concerns about the group's lawless methods is, "America's Founders did much more extreme acts." Well, yes. America's Founders were fighting a revolutionary war, to overthrow their government. Different rules apply in that situation than in peaceful protest.

The Founders believed that in order for revolutionaries to be legitimate, they must represent a majority of the people, and they must exhaust all methods available within the system first. It is not something to be done lightly, as Jefferson emphasized in the Declaration of Independence. "No taxation without representation [voting rights]" was the slogan of America's Founders justifying their war. If they had had voting rights empowering them to change the laws they objected to, they would not have claimed a right to start a revolution. If they had not had the majority on their side, they would not have succeeded in it.

In any war, seizing territory and setting up encampments on it is crucial. Your troops need somewhere to stay, and the more disputed territory you claim, the closer you are to winning the war. Commandeering streets and bridges, so that you control the flow of traffic in a city, is vital. Attempting to evade or escape being arrested by the enemy is not only sensible, but honorable. Property destruction is a valid tactic to deplete the enemy's supply lines. Secrecy and deception is also legitimate in war; it's wise to make the enemy think you're doing one thing, while you're really doing something completely different, so your attacks will have the element of surprise. Even propaganda is tolerated in times of war, with each side trying to make itself look like the winner, to sway general opinion.

None of those tactics are appropriate for peaceful protest. The whole point of creating a government of, by, and for the people was to ensure that no future revolutions would need to be fought in the streets, and no tactics like those would be necessary. The ballot box gives Americans all the power we need to change anything, including completely eliminating or amending our Constitution if enough people agree. You're perfectly free to speak out and advocate for the changes you want, in writing, in public performances, on TV, radio, internet, whatever medium you want, as long as you don't infringe other people's rights, or endanger the public in the course of your speech.

Currently claiming to speak for 99% of Americans, Occupation organizers US Day of Rage have been trying to gain support since March, and planned to announce a demonstration once they had 50,000 followers on Twitter. By July, they still had less than 6,000 followers, a devastating failure to prove even 1% of the public agree with them.

The original US Day of Rage flyer calling for the Occupation asserts that the current government is "treasonous" and "tyrannical" and therefore it's justified for people to invoke their sovereign right to overthrow it. No proof of this treason is offered by the Occupiers, nor any proof that they tried to legally redress their grievances and were met with tyranny.

The past month has not clarified things any further, as Occupiers have no platform, policy goals, or acknowledged leadership, only releasing a Declaration mimicking Jefferson's style, but lacking his detailed justifications, instead making a blanket accusation that "corporations" caused the current financial crisis and "They" deliberately caused various grievances. If this is a revolution, it's failed to justify its existence on any level.

We can also see from the original USDOR flyer that Occupiers' current tactics are not what was originally advertised to the public. What was billed as a peaceful, law-abiding sidewalk demonstration has become a set of encampments that seize public-use parks for their own private lodgings, not just in NYC but in many other cities, conducting loud, disruptive marches to block vital infrastructure whenever the group chooses to. If this were war, that bait-and-switch between the advertised tactics and the ones actually used would be a clever ruse that succeeded in temporarily capturing territory. If it's meant to be peaceful protest, it has crossed the line into violating the rights of the public to use our public parks and streets.

Being angry isn't enough to solve our problems. There's no one segment of society we could just get rid of to magically fix things. Yes, Wall Street traders and banks capitalized on a bubble by recklessly investing, but it was Congress who legalized that recklessness, and it's losing our industrial base to overseas manufacturing that left a lot of people lacking good jobs, causing them to default on mortgages, which made the reckless trades fail. There's a lot of blame to go around, and getting out of this mess will require research, thoughtful analysis, long, boring, chart-filled proposals, and cooperation between political parties.

Occupiers need to decide, are they opting out of that process of reason, debate, and finding compromises, and instead waging war against the rest of us in an effort, even if it remains largely nonviolent, to overthrow our current system of government? Or are they peaceful protesters seeking only the right to speak and have their message heard, so we can consider their input before making choices at the voting booth? You can't claim the mantle of Gandhi while using the tactics of war.

Occupy Wall Street: A Liberal Dissent

2011-10-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

I am a Liberal, and I do not support Occupy Wall Street. Many Liberal pundits are putting pressure on all Liberals to embrace this movement, but there are several reasons why I cannot agree. Let's examine the facts of what the Occupiers have said and done, before rushing to support them:

The First Amendment

Occupy Wall Street protesters have uniformly refused to apply for permits for their demonstrations, or to obey police orders to disperse, claiming the First Amendment gives them a right to free speech wherever and whenever they choose. Of course there are decades of legal precedent showing that the First Amendment is interpreted by courts to mean that people exercising free speech must take into account the manner, place, and time of their speech, to avoid violating the rights of others or creating an unsafe situation. The famous example is, "You cannot shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater."

By Occupy Wall Street's logic, you could walk into a gun shop and grab whatever guns you want, because the Second Amendment gives you a right to own a gun. Having a right to do something doesn't absolve you of the need to work out the logistics of exercising that right, to make sure you're respecting others' rights and keeping things safe for everyone. Police go through extensive training to recognize unsafe situations. If their judgment is that your "impromptu march" is creating an unsafe situation and needs to be dispersed, you must respect that and obey them. You have the right to disagree later in court, not by fighting the police in the street.

Civil Disobedience

When called out on the illegality of refusing to disperse, violating health codes, and blocking streets and bridges, Occupiers often refer to America's rich history of civil disobedience. It's true, in this country we respect people's rights to nonviolently break a law for a cause, and consider it a valid tactic for raising awareness. However, true civil disobedience requires those who practice it to willingly submit to arrest, to acknowledge that the issue must be fought in a court of law, not with violence in the streets. This has not been the behavior of Occupiers, who scream at police, try to "unarrest" members being arrested, and who struggle, go limp, or run away when it's time to be arrested for the cause.

Civil disobedience must also be freely chosen by the participants. There is at least one proven example of leaders in the front of an OWS march refusing to relay the message to the back that they could leave the area without any charges filed. NYPD video proves that this warning was given, but those in front shouted so that those in back couldn't hear it, even though they had all been trained for two weeks in the "People's Mic" technique for relaying messages to large crowds.

Many of those arrested on Brooklyn Bridge were convinced that police tricked them into being there, and had no idea that they had a chance to leave with no charges. Several hundred people were not charged, because police were aware those people did not hear the warning, but who was it that made sure they didn't hear it? DailyKos examined this incident in detail, speculating about the identities of those who shouted down the warning to leave, but Occupy Wall Street has not made any internal inquiries or procedural changes to ensure this does not happen again by requiring the People's Mic to relay police messages, so everyone can freely choose whether they want to be arrested or not.

Comparing the behavior of Occupy Wall Street with the Tar Sands protesters at the White House is telling. Daryl Hannah spectacularly raised awareness for her cause when she submitted to arrest for refusing to move from a sidewalk in front of the White House. Her group took care not to block the travel rights of others while disobeying police orders to move. Ms. Hannah put her hands behind her back for cuffs with a smile. She did not scream at or struggle with the police. She knew the police were just doing their jobs, and that she deserved arrest for refusing to move, instead of asserting the "sovereign" rights of the American people as a justification to break laws and not be arrested for it. She paid her fine and went on to give interviews that brought national attention to the proposed tar sands legislation.

When the Occupiers form large groups that block streets and bridges, chanting "Our streets!" and "Take the bridge," they are violating the rights of ordinary citizens who have a right to travel on the roads their taxes pay for. The streets are for everyone to use; they don't belong to any one group, even if that group claims that they speak for "99%" of Americans. Travelers on the Brooklyn Bridge were stuck for two hours because of the marching Occupiers, who showed no sympathy for those who may have been trying to get to a hospital, pick up their kids, or be on time for a job they desperately need to feed their families. This is clearly beyond the realm of civil disobedience into simple mob rule, and it is not what democracy looks like.

General Assembly: Leaderless Consensus Organization

Many people are impressed by the Occupiers' choice of anarchist-based General Assemblies rather than traditional decision-making models. They see it as an innovative new technique, much like "crowdsourcing," that could become the new standard model for activist groups. However, this technique is not new; it is the method Anarchist activists feel all governments should operate by, and they have been using it in their communes and gatherings for years.

In many ways, the "Occupation of Zuccotti Park" is just a marketing tool for this particular type of Anarchist decision-making process. Protesters do not need to sleep in the park to defend it from armed attack, as those who slept in Egypt's Tahrir Square did. The purpose of forming a micro village in Zuccotti Park is to demonstrate that this Anarchist model can be successful at sustaining a community.

Devotion to this demonstration of the Anarchist model has led Occupiers to steadfastly ignore the increasing health risks caused by their refusal to allow the park to be sanitized by its owners, and from continuing to live in such close proximity without proper sanitary facilities on site. This refusal to acknowledge basic facts of science does not speak well for the group's overall grasp of reality, and poses a real health risk for the entire city, especially during flu season, as visitors mingle with those living in unsafe conditions, then go back to the wider community, carrying viruses with them.

Has the Occupation of the park proven the success of the GA model? It has indeed created a community which has subdivided into various committees, for food, trash removal, security, music, etc, to provide for the needs of the occupiers. However, it has completely failed to come up with a set of realistic demands or goals for the movement, releasing only declarations of grievances, and tentative demands that display shocking lack of awareness about how the world really works. Occupiers propose a demand for the forgiveness of all debts, for example, without explaining how that could be done without causing a devastating crash that would destroy the world's economy.

The Occupation of Zuccotti Park is not self-sustaining. It is supported by a steady flow of donations from the outside world, so it is not proof that the anarchist GA model creates self-sustaining communities. There is no sympathetic group of space aliens who would support us with donations if the entire world turned to this model of organization. Goods and services must still come from somewhere, and without laws regulating their creation, and government enforcement of those laws, we get sweatshops, quack doctors, and unsafe products.

What works for a small group does not necessarily scale to 300 million people. It is impossible for all 300 million Americans to come to 100% consensus on any issue, because we're simply too diverse and large a population. No matter what the issue is, at least a portion of the population will disagree on any proposed solution. This is why we agree to live by majority rule, because we could never possibly please everyone completely.

No Need for a Goal

Initially, every critic of the Occupy movement pointed out that it has no goal, nothing specific that it would like to achieve. Lately this has been spun by OWS supporters as a false criticism. They claim that simply continuing to occupy the park is a valid goal, that providing a place to gather to talk about grievances (despite the existence of an internet that would be much more efficient for that purpose) is a valid goal, or that valid goals will emerge through the GA process over time. This has been applauded by many pundits as innovative and evidence of new emerging paradigms, but I have to agree with my friend who said "The Emperor has no clothes."

If the President himself, flanked by all the Rothschilds, Bloombergs, and Dimons, appeared at Zuccotti Park, hands in the air, and said, "You win, we'll do whatever you want, just tell us what will satisfy you," OWS would have to say "We'll get back to you when our online voting is concluded and the votes ratified by GA consensus." Without an answer to "What would make you go home again?" this is protest for protest's sake. Without specific goals, there's no way to tell when you've won, and you have no justification for demanding media attention and political support until you have them.

People have a right to know exactly what they would be supporting by joining this group. "Support us now and we'll tell you what you supported later," is not logical or fair. "We'll tell you what our demands are once we're more powerful" is downright sinister.

Does Occupy Wall Street deserve Liberal support?

Given these facts, I cannot support Occupy Wall Street. I am a Liberal, and believe in using the government as a tool to regulate markets so products are safe and wages are fair, keeping the government out of our bedrooms and gardens, and defending the right to dissent, but I cannot defend a movement that does not use true civil disobedience and instead engages in mob rule tactics and deception, all for no real reason except to advertise the model village they created to prove that anarchist thought can succeed in governing a small group.

There are legitimate groups pursuing rational goals of financial reform, without resorting to open lawlessness, seizing private property, resisting arrest, or tricking supporters into being arrested. They want to create change within our existing system of government, not replace it with the anarchist consensus model. I support those legitimate groups, because they are what democracy really looks like.

Neda's Day Vigil

2010-06-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

Building continues at Entre Nous Island, including work on our memorial Path of Honor for victims of oppression. The first memorial we built was to Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death was captured on cell phone video and seen by millions around the world, one year ago on June 20, 2009.

People from all over the world can come together in a virtual space at this memorial to light a candle and hold it in memory of Neda, as several did today to honor the one-year anniversary of her death. In the building nearby, visitors can view the HBO documentary For Neda, as well as many musical tributes to this young woman whose death shocked the whole world.

If you've tried Second Life before and found it too slow, you may want to give the latest 2.1 Alpha viewer a try, it has greatly increased speed and stability. Once you've logged in to second life, simply paste this SLurl into your Viewer address bar, and you will be teleported to the memorial: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Entre%20Nous/190/158/30

Together we can help show the world that Neda will never be forgotten.

New Second Life Projects Underway!

2010-06-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

After a great response to our June 12 solidarity protest for prisoners of conscience in Iran, part of the worldwide day of action coordinated by United4Iran, I'm excited to report that we'll be able to maintain and build Entre Nous Island in Second Life as a space for the #iranelection community and all other supporters of human rights!

Some new projects we're beginning are a Path of Honor, a walking path that spans the entire island with memorial displays honoring and remembering those who've had their lives destroyed by violations of their human rights, both those martyred like Neda and those unjustly imprisoned for their beliefs like the 7 Baha'i leaders whose unfair trial recently concluded.

Check back for more pictures as the creation progresses!

Neda's Memorial at Entre Nous Island

We are also working on a space for collaborative news aggregating and tweeting, so visitors can comment on the live tweet stream, research new information for the community, and comment and exchange ideas in real-time chat. Pictures and more info coming soon!

Baha'i Pavilion

Baha'i Pavilion Interior View

Having trouble accessing Second Life? Be sure you have the latest version of the official Linden Lab viewer; new versions are released regularly that may fix some common bugs. However, if your computer simply doesn't have the graphics power to run the program, soon we will be integrating basic realtime text chat from IRC and Twitter into the chat stream at the Island, so even those who can't be there in 3D can communicate back and forth with those who are.

Also, exciting news is buzzing that Linden Lab will soon be unveiling a new web-based browser that should make the world accessible to almost everyone! Whenever you get there, however you view it, by text or web plugin or in the full standalone viewer, Entre Nous Island will be there standing firm for human rights!

Next Generation Virtual Protest: 22 Khordad at 3D Virtual Evin

2010-06-10T05:36:00.001-07:00

I apologize for such a long gap between posts, but I have been deeply focused on helping put together a new way to show support for the Green Movement and prisoners of conscience in Iran, and all others worldwide who are struggling for their human and civil rights. I invite everyone to visit a new 3D immersive social networking environment for human rights activism: Entre Nous Island in Second Life.

Entre Nous Island

Entre Nous Island is the brainchild of #IranElection tweeter Sephir0t, who was inspired to take the concept of virtual protest to the next level of interactive virtual reality. In Second Life, users control a totally customizable 3D avatar in a realistic space, and interact with other users from all over the world. You can explore the environment by walking, using vehicles from bikes to boats and beyond, or simply flying effortlessly.

Beach at Entre Nous Island

On the Island, you can chat in real time by either text or voice, and trade links, notes, pictures, or custom in-world creations limited only by the imagination. From within the world, individuals can view and interact with websites, send and receive tweets, and communicate through in-world chats. Groups can watch movies and slideshows together, listen to and comment on an audio stream in real time, and experience a powerful sense of connectedness with others from all around the world.

Entre Nous Community Amphitheater

Excited by these possibilities, Sephir0t and I began investigating the potentials of Second Life in March 2010. We discovered a thriving community of activists for many causes who provide a very positive and welcoming network for anyone committed to human rights. Benefiting from the wisdom of these experienced Second Life activists, we realized the only way to ensure a secure and stable environment for our community was to purchase an "island," a piece of virtual land that can be completely controlled by the group to prevent any would-be "griefing," or attempts to disturb events. No thuggery will be tolerated at Entre Nous, though all are welcome to come and exchange ideas respectfully.

Campfire Chat Area

Entre Nous Island is a virtual space for raising awareness of human rights, and everyone committed to the cause is invited to participate in the ongoing creation of the space, working together to build an evolving symbol of support for all who fight for their human rights.

At our Virtual Evin Action Center, we stand in symbolic solidarity with the families of political prisoners in Iran who gather before the real-life prison in Tehran every day, hoping for the release of their family members imprisoned for protesting, blogging, and other expressions of free speech.

Virtual Evin Action Center

Inside the action center, you can browse the latest news on Iran, read the real time Twitter feed, learn how to help spread awareness, or watch full-length documentaries and YouTube videos.

Entre Nous Island will be holding an all-day event at the Virtual Evin Action Center on June 12, 2010 / 22 Khordad, 1389 in solidarity with activists in more than 80 cities worldwide participating in the Global Day of Action coordinated by United4Iran.

Virtual Evin: Interactive Video Center

Getting started in Second Life is easy and free, though it does take some time to acclimate to the 3D environment and become familiar with navigating it. Begin by downloading the latest Viewer 2 browser at http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/ then just create a name, choose a starter avatar, and sign in.

After learning basic movement controls at a Welcome Island, you can come straight to Entre Nous Island by clicking this Second Life URL (or "SLurl"): Entre Nous or pasting this link into your Viewer 2 browser address bar: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Entre%20Nous/164/172/30 Feel free to enter the action center or take your time and explore the rest of the island. You can enjoy the scenery, strike up a conversation with other visitors, or browse the media collection inside Virtual Evin, including a live stream of E-Persian Radio.

Virtual Evin Interior: Interactive Web Panels

During the all-day June 12/22 Khordad solidarity event, visitors will be welcome to light virtual candles, share their experiences and hopes with the group, listen to live calls from Tehran on the radio, view documentaries and music videos, and more. Experienced Second Life users will be on hand to assist new users with any difficulties in a safe and caring environment, so don't be afraid to take the plunge into 3D and join us at Entre Nous.

*****UPDATE ON JUNE 12 ALL-DAY SOLIDARITY PROTEST******

As part of the United4Iran coordinated Global Day of Action, on June 12, Entre Nous Island will be highlighting the situation of a particular prisoner of conscience: Shiva Nazar Ahari. You can read more about her here.

Some photos highlighting our preparations for the rally:

On June 12, activists worldwide will wear masks of prisoner faces for solidarity

Click the interactive poster in-world to participate in the Postcard Campaign

Right-click to take a copy of the Welcome Pack for a rally shirt, mask & memorial candle

Can't wait to see you there!

Democracy IS a Specific Goal

2010-03-03T23:14:00.000-08:00

Everyone who pays attention to the evolving Green Movement in Iran realizes that the brave individuals on the ground in Iran will decide their own course. They have never been led or influenced by what Western pundits think, but Western pundits have to keep spouting something or else they'd lose their punditry jobs, so as long as they're going to keep at it, I figure I might as well share my thoughts too.

Chaharshanbeh-soori Poster by Onlymehdi

It seems almost every newspaper or network has its own pet pundit complaining that the Greens are not asking for definite, concrete goals. The way I see it, the Green Movement is asking for Democracy, and that is a specific goal. Although people may debate over exact details of the democratic ideal, the basics are pretty simple, especially for a people starting from scratch after just sending a dictator off to the Hague.

Iranians want to decide for themselves what their government will be like. And they don't want to be rushed or pressured while they do it either. All these media hosts hounding one prominent Green after another to define exactly what Free Iran will look like are missing the point. Free Iran will look like whatever comes out of a long, thorough, logical, open democratic process where the Iranian people can fully debate and determine exactly what it is the majority of them want.

The Iranian people are determined to get their free choices (this time for real) come hell or high water, so the question to ponder is more about what should Khamenei's next steps be if he wants to survive, rather than what should the Green Movement worry about. If Khamenei continues to stand in their way, I don't know what might happen to him. If he wants to be remembered by history as something better than a monster, I suggest that he order the following three things immediately:

General Amnesty for all prisoners of conscience, immediately freeing them, exonerating their records, and paying compensation for abuse
Free Demonstrations permitted for all groups, protected from all harm by security forces, and open to international media without interference of any kind (free juice optional)
National Referendum observed by the United Nations to determine whether the majority of Iranians want to continue with velayat-e faqih or call a convention for a new constitution

Let the people out of prison, let the people speak to the world, and let the people vote freely. Khamenei's best option for sheer self-preservation is clearly to allow these three things, and then retire gracefully and swiftly to a non-extradition country if and when the vote shows his people no longer want him. Will he make the smart choice? Well, he hasn't so far, but only time will tell.

Quitting is Not an Option

2010-01-16T21:24:00.000-08:00

22 Bahman Poster Gallery

Recently there's been much debate over "What are the Green Movement's chances of success?" and a few Western activists are asking themselves, "Should I go on trying? Is this all worthwhile?" I think the real question is "Can the Green Movement afford to quit?"

Maintaining the status quo or returning to pre-election conditions are not options. The current Regime remaining in power indefinitely is also not an option. Things are going to change drastically, one way or another.

Government by velayat-e faqih is a system destined to fail because there are no checks and balances, so it will inevitably lead to corruption sooner or later, and corruption is only tolerated by a population for so long before they overthrow the corrupt. Unchecked dictators eventually go too far, steal too much, kill too many, and the people simply refuse to stand for it any longer. Iran may or may not be at that point yet, but it is the certain outcome of this method of government.

Those who invested their hearts and minds into backing velayat-e faqih are like cult followers who can't bear to admit that their leader has misguided them. People in that psychological situation are extremely unlikely to agree to any changes in the worldview they've set their heart on. It's just too damaging to the ego to admit that you did such extreme things, threw out a shah, killed all those people (my god, all those people!) for something that was never, ever going to work. It's unthinkable, so they subconsciously choose not to think about it, and it is not likely that any amount of persuasion will ever alter that state of mind.

The IRI has been tolerated thus far by other nations because, although it has been hostile and belligerent to an entire hemisphere, declaring open enmity to vast sections of the planet for the crimes of "arrogance" and "imperialism," nobody thought it would last. And it hasn't. Thirty years is the blink of an eye in terms of nations. It's one generation, and that's all it took for the population of Iran to break the spell and realize this system can't work. The world waits now with anticipation and hope for the rise of true democracy from this new generation.

I think they're sure to succeed, but even if the Greens did fail, the IRI's time is up. Even if the people had not risen up, that would still be so. The machinery of war is gearing up worldwide. As someone who fights for peace, I look for the signs, and they have been building for some time. The patience of the world powers for the lawlessness of the IRI is coming to an end. No more will they tolerate the funding of terrorists, the threatening of neighbor states, the inflammatory rhetoric and declarations of hostility, the kidnapping, the torture, the rape. No more.

George Bush and his cronies actually wanted to invade Iran long ago for reasons of pure plunder, so at this point BushCo probably set things up so it would be easier for the US to invade than to not do so. I have no facts to back that up, I'm just going by how ruthless operators operate. They fix things. They get their money. If they know they might not be in the right place at the right time, they arrange it so the person who will be there is pressured to decide the way they want. If you realize BushCo's main goal was Iran all along, their two "foolish" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suddenly look like extremely slow pincer movements to box in the real quarry.

Thankfully we have a president in office now who is not completely motivated by oil profits, so he may choose to dismantle that elaborate Neocon plan and pursue diplomacy with all his might, but because of the cult mindset of the IRI leaders, they will not be interested in cooperation. They will never cease from their goal of developing highly enriched uranium, and the world at some point in the near future will collectively decide that is too dangerous to be allowed.

If someone is telling you one minute they're incredibly devoted to a religion, and then the next minute they're violating every principle of that religion in a naked bid to stay in power at all costs, you can't trust their word that they're not going to build a bomb. The fact that the IRI leaders think nobody notices their hypocrisy is further proof that they are living in a cult-induced fantasy, completely oblivious to the rapidly disappearing patience of the rest of the world, and such delusional people having vast quantities of enriched uranium is very dangerous for everyone.

The mullahs aren't stopping, and the IRGC aren't stopping, and the worried leaders of the rest of the world aren't stopping. The only path out of this situation that doesn't involve massive bloodshed is the Green path, so I hope like hell they're not stopping either, and I think the least we Western supporters can do from the comfort of our computer desks is stay with them to the end, whatever that turns out to be.

Gods and Dictators

2010-01-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raylopez/

CC BY 2.0

In some belief systems, people will tolerate a lot from a god. If a god orders people to go to war, they go. If certain people must be tortured, killed, or exiled by order of the god, it is done without question. The people do this out of fear for their personal safety, not wanting to be the next ones to anger the god, but also out of a sense of true duty and morality. They believe that the god made them in the first place. The god owns his people the way you would own dolls you made out of clay. If you choose to smash your dolls, who are they to complain?

However, a religion that's all smashing and being owned for no reason is usually quickly abandoned by people encountering a slightly upgraded version, the idea of a good god, one that, although he still has the right to, never would randomly smash his dolls, because he cares for them and loves them very much. This type of god wishes he could never smash any of them, but sometimes he has to because they deserve it, or because it's important for the unfolding of great historical events in a majestic tapestry of human advancement.

This introduces a lot of practical problems into society. Now you can still kill people, but they have to be duly designated combatants or lawfully condemned convicts. Although some people must still be rounded up and punished, you have to treat them humanely while you are imprisoning them. You can confine them and prevent them from having free access to those they love and long to be with, but it's no longer okay to torture them or starve them or let them die of medical neglect. Beating them to death in the street is right out.

That's obviously better, but still doesn't explain random natural disasters or the existence of evil people. Great earthquakes, fires, and floods tear the hearts out of millions of good people, and evil people make a hurricane of bullets and batons even where weather is fair. If the god loves his creations so much, why does he let these things happen to them?

Despite the vast libraries devoted to this topic, it really comes back to the same answer as before. If the god is what's really alive, and the people are just creations, then it doesn't matter what happens to the people. Although we may find it distasteful that the god would choose to tell such abominable stories of torture and pain with his dolls, we have no right to question his mysterious ways, which must be somehow for the best in the long run, because the god can see things that his creations can't. Some religions add a little flourish, that there is something really real inside the dolls that escapes and lives on when the doll is broken and smashed, so again it doesn't matter what happens on Earth.

But that doesn't match how people feel. Inside, each person knows they are really alive and not a clay doll. In fact, each person is only sure that he or she is really alive, really experiencing the universe. We see all these other creatures rambling about, but we really only know ourselves for sure. Each one of us has a unique viewpoint, a memory of a life lived on this world that is the only one like it in all the universe, and can never be replaced or copied. Isn't that worth something? Surely that is not the description of a mere doll. Surely it matters very much if that precious memory is cut short or twisted into a nightmare of pain and injustice.

I don't know what the answer is to the problem of evil, but I know it's not that people don't matter. Maybe the answer is, as some have said, "Evil exists because we let it." When it comes to dictators who abuse people because they say a god told them to do it, they can only get away with that for as long as the majority of the people believe they really do speak for the god. This means the dictator has to maintain an aura of holiness at all times. If he allows any admission that he is a human being like everybody else, and was not, in fact, imbued by the god with infallibility, then all his previous decisions are up for debate. And some of them were very, very nasty indeed. If the god didn't order those things, then the dictator is a bad, bad man. This realization dawns on the people, and that's the end of that dictator.

World's Shortest Response to the Leveretts

2010-01-10T06:51:00.000-08:00

Recently in The New York Times Hillary Mann and Flynt Leverett had some questions about Iran's Green Movement:

First, what does this opposition want?

Marg bar dictator. It's pretty clear on the vids, maybe try using headphones if you can't hear it. Could be time for a hearing aid.

Second, who leads it?

You'll find out when it's safe for them to reveal themselves.

Third, through what process will this opposition displace the government in Tehran?

Wait and see. They're the experts.

[These questions were also answered in great detail by other people but I feel short answers are more suited to people of the Leveretts' mental caliber.]

An Outsider's Perspective on the "Message to Iranians Abroad"

2010-01-05T21:38:00.000-08:00

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CC BY 2.0

Shortly after the recent Mousavi statement containing his five-point plan for national unity, another message appeared on Mousavi's official facebook page. A sobering open letter from Ezzatollah Sahabi titled "A Message to the Iranians Abroad" with the subtitle "Let us not forget our historic experiences" quickly made the rounds of the internet, creating a bit of controversy as some readers felt chastened by the wise words of an elder reformist statesman calling for slow and gradual change within the Islamic Republic system, and others felt angry at what they perceived to be a condemnation of their goals and a defeatist attitude not in tune with public sentiment.

The man who wrote this message is a die-hard reform activist who has spent his share of time in the horrific secret prisons of the Regime. He has the right to command respect for his words. And he has a daughter who was arrested during the Ashura protests on December 28, 2009.

Haleh Sahabi's arrest may only merit one line in the Wall Street Journal, but to her father, who knows from firsthand experience what happens to women in the Regime's houses of torture, it must be the most important thing in the world right now. What man would not do anything, say anything, to protect his daughter from the worst abuses of the Evin guards? Haleh was also arrested last August and has only been out of prison a few months; how can a father stand to see his daughter subjected again to the same abuses she was just beginning to recover from? When Mousavi's nephew has been assassinated, and Shirin Ebadi's sister arrested, are we really to believe that, unconnected to his daughter's arrest, Mr. Sahabi wrote his message urging the world to accept the permanence of the Islamic Republic out of his own free will, spontaneously moved by love for Khamenei?

As an outsider, I look at the videos coming across YouTube, read the news, blogs, comments and facebook notes, and listen to the satellite radio stations. I see and hear whatever gets through the filters and makes it to popular awareness, garbled as that may be. When I look at all this evidence, with all due respect, I have to say I do not see a violent or misguided group of people who need to be corrected in any way. I see steadfast people, resolute in their goals, who know what they want.

They want to get rid of the government they've got now, and start over fair and square with something new to be determined by a free vote. Maybe a new Islamic Republic will win that vote, maybe it won't. Those who feel velayat-e faqih is really best will have their chance to say so like everybody else. But whatever is chosen will be chosen by the people, who are not children or lost souls needing the rule of any kind of dictator. They will decide for themselves.

It is not possible to achieve these goals by tweaking or reforming the current system, because it contains an inherent flaw. Once velayat-e faqih is chosen, there's no way out of it. Any suggestion that it might be a good idea to have a national referendum, constitutional convention, or vote of confidence is simply vetoed by the Supreme Leader. That is not an acceptable system for people to live under; they must have the legal ability to change government systems anytime they wish through a free and fair vote. Anything less than that is simply not workable for humans, who will assert their sovereign right to change governments whether or not it is legalized by the current government, whenever oppression becomes too much to bear.

Attempting to work within the system will also never work because the ruling elites who cause the people's suffering don't do it out of error. They do it on purpose, to get and stay rich and powerful. Khomeini himself wasn't like that, living an austere life dedicated to his version of Islam, but such true-believer charismatic gurus are like magnets to hangers-on who only want to exploit people's belief in them. We see it all the time in America, where any charlatan with some exotic props and a good patter can attract at least a few hundred followers even by peddling the most shameful lies. Among those followers there are always some who don't believe a word of it, but are ready and willing to make a profit off the beliefs of others. Powerful speakers who have a true spiritual message they really believe in are like pure gold to these types, who don't believe the message but see the potential for vast wealth and power.

For the past 20 years since the death of Khomeini, it is those cynical profiteering types who have gained and consolidated complete control over the Iranian government and economy, and they have siphoned off an enormous fortune that should belong to the people of Iran, while stifling free market competition and entrepreneurship among the same people they rob. This has not gone unnoticed by the proud descendants of Cyrus the Great, who are not used to being in the position of serfs, and who now identify more closely with that historical experience than those of the past 30 years.

Unrest has been going on in Iran ever since the revolution, and this cycle of brutal repression has been repeated many times [PDF]. But this time, the world is watching. This time the Regime is not able to solve its "Green Problem" quietly, the old-fashioned way. We outsiders hear the names of every person who is killed, and we mourn them and write letters to the UN about them. We pressure our governments to stop doing business with their killers. We will not go away. We want to see these brave people who have been striving so hard for so long finally make it to victory. After all, they're only asking for what all of us in the West take for granted every day.

Peace is Profitable

2010-01-04T00:11:00.000-08:00

Some people say that the US government, corrupted as it is by global corporate agendas, secretly wants to prop up the Khamenei regime because the US somehow profits from Iran being a fascist rentier state that can't produce all its own needs and has to sell oil to buy imports. I disagree. Just because some corporations may currently be profiting off that situation, that doesn't mean it's the most profitable arrangement. Corporations are always on the lookout for ways to improve the market.

Surely the entire US business community recognizes that right now America could really use a new, rich friend suddenly in the market for high-quality upscale consumer goods and fashions! When the mullahs and IRGC stop skimming off the top of the Iranian economy and forbidding people to buy the products they really want, I bet average Iranians would be happy to take up some of the slack in the American economy that our own hardships are causing. New customers means more profits and more jobs, so Americans can get back on their feet.

But the profits don't stop there; a US business relationship with Free Iran wold have sustainable long-term benefits for both countries. Iran is a gorgeous place that would be an ideal tourist destination for everyone from nature-lovers and students of art and history, to those who just love to shop and have fun. There are traditional Iranian craftspeople who hand-make unique items of art that can't be replicated anywhere else, and Americans will always want to come watch the artisans work and buy the finished products. It's an outsourcing-proof industry built into the Iranian economy, and all that's required is national friendship for it to reach its full potential.

At the same time, American heavy industry can provide the technical skills and raw materials to help Iran get up to speed with a 21st Century infrastructure, so that the benefits of education and a modern standard of living can be extended to all Iranians, while providing good manufacturing jobs for hard-working Americans. After the recent stock market fiasco, it's clear to all but a few that the idea of endless profits derived simply from trading pieces of paper back and forth was a ridiculous pipe dream, and America needs to get back to its roots as an industrial powerhouse with high-paying jobs for skilled industrial workers.

It is true that there is one group that profits from continuing enmity between Iran and the USA: the military-industrial complex. However, all the other industries, which form the backbone of American prosperity, flourish under peace and wither under war, and although the M/I complex has managed to gain a strong foothold in American policy, I have confidence that when all the other corporate interests find their own profits in these desperate times so clearly lie in the other direction, they will collectively overwhelm the voices of their warmongering colleagues and insist on fostering peace with Iran and support for the Iranian people's movement toward openness and democracy.

Mousavi's Ashura Statement: A Hail Mary Pass for National Unity

2010-01-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

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CC BY 2.0

This is my humble opinion on Mousavi's latest statement, which is available in Persian and English on his Facebook site.

It seems to me that this message is written with a "frame" that gives us insight into how to interpret the main body of the statement. The first and final paragraphs of the message seem more pointed than the rest, and I think it is there that we find a key to understanding the whole statement.

Mousavi writes both these framing paragraphs largely in passive voice, allowing him to indicate that certain actions have taken place in certain ways that may not have been wise, without actually laying blame at anyone's feet. Because of this we have to use inference to determine who the people are that would be involved in these actions.

The first sentence of the message after the opening invocation is, "It was constantly told to me and [my] friends that if we don’t issue any statements, people would not take to the streets and would quit their protests and demands, and peace would return to the country." This sentence is very interesting because of who is absent in it. Mousavi, his friends, and the people are the only figures directly placed in the sentence, yet the action lets us know there must be some people doing the telling. In fact there must be a lot of them because this telling is going on "constantly." Mousavi avoids describing who has been chastising him, but it's also unclear who he is now complaining about it to.

Mousavi is addressing the general reader, of course, but the point of describing other people in passive construction in an open letter is to subtly get a message across to one or more people who would be "in the know" enough to understand exactly who you mean without the need to name names. Hardline mullahs and secular leaders from many areas of Iranian society have no doubt been pressuring Mousavi to stop calling demonstrations since June, but who could Mousavi turn to about that? The people are already aware that they plan to go out on the streets regardless of Mousavi's silence, so who is Mousavi trying to convince that his words are not the source of the demonstrations?

The idea that Mousavi has one particular reader in mind is reinforced when he goes on to state how he disagreed with the people pressuring him into silence. Mousavi barely touches on this, as if to merely remind his reader of long-familiar past debates that were already hashed out at great length. This indicates the intended reader is someone privy to closed-door discussions at the top levels of Iranian politics, who doesn't need a recap of all that.

The body of the message appeals to this particular reader as if to a judge, laying out a case that, just as Mousavi had predicted, his ceasing to call people to demonstrations did not prevent massive crowds from coming onto the streets on Ashura. Mousavi gives thorough evidence that he followed the laws of Islam, did all that was asked of him, silenced his call for protest, and still the crowds came out. He was right, and those who had been pressuring him were wrong, and he wants someone in particular to know that.

Mousavi then goes on to poetically and specifically describe the current state of Iran and explain the alternative steps he thinks are the right ones to begin achieving the goal of restoring peace to the country, since silencing him didn't work. That part has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere, so I will just highlight that Mousavi refers to the current national situation as like a flooded river full of silt, and his five proposed actions as like fresh rivulets flowing into the stream to clear it.

Then in a short paragraph following his five points, Mousavi once again seems to pointedly address a particular reader. With neat symmetry, the very last sentence of the entire message is, "And the last word is that all these suggestions can be executed with wisdom, insight and good will and without the need for treaties, negotiations, and political deal makings." This is another very interesting sentence. Though once again using passive voice without naming names, things have deteriorated from a situation of general verbal chastisement to "treaties, negotiations, and political deal makings."

"Treaties" in particular is a telling word, as it implies a cessation of hostilities. With the assassination of Mousavi's nephew on Ashura, it's not really a stretch to think this might not be just a poetic turn of phrase, but more of a mafia kind of deal. One that might be negotiated as, "Put out a statement withdrawing your claim to have won the election, so the people stop protesting, and we won't kill your wife or daughter next." Whether or not that was ever explicitly said to Mousavi by anyone, some might see the assassination of the closest person to a son Mousavi has, his sister's son, as a nonverbal message to that effect.

It is worth noting that this new statement does not include any reference to Mousavi's earlier demands for an investigation into election fraud, and conservative politician Mohsen Rezaei apparently interprets the statement as a withdrawal of the election fraud claim. Although Mousavi declares he is ready to die himself as a martyr for the cause, what man would put his family at risk of further mafia-style hits?

Seemingly disgusted with whoever these would-be negotiators and treaty-makers are, whatever their demands might be, Mousavi dismisses that kind of thuggish back-room deal-making, and appeals to a higher authority. He calls out to someone who has "wisdom, insight, and good will" to hear his evidence, understand that there is nothing he can do to stop the Green Movement, and call for an end to violence and the beginning of real changes that could truly restore peace to the land. The world waits to see if the message gets through to the right person, and if that person has a change of heart in time to prevent further tragedy.

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

Many people wonder, "What do SubGeniuses do about Christmas?" The answer is, "Whatever they wanna do, shuh!"

Of course there is an official SubGenius holiday during this festive time of year, X-istlessnessmess, a movable feast whose date varies according to different sources. X-istlessnessmess commemorates the mess that is the doleful state of the SubGenii as they endure life on Earth in a state of X-istlessness, still unable to enjoy the X-ist pleasure saucer technology promised by J.R. "Bob" Dobbs for all dues-paying members. When the X-ist pleasure saucer fleet eventually arrives, this holiday will become X-istmas and will be celebrated every day from then onward.

Many SubGenii also celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Yalda, Yule, Kwanzaa, Solstice, etc. In fact most SubGenii actively research on the internet to find NEW holidays they can start celebrating in an effort to book the entire "holiday period" completely full of Slack. A holiday where you exchange gifts, eat feasts, and use a whole lot of glitter is not one to be ignored!

Although some fundamentalist loudmouths try to paint Christmas as a Christian holiday being attacked by secularism, this is in fact simply a misunderstanding. Nobody is trying to change Christian Christmas at all. That's a religious holiday with traditions and meanings laid out by various Christian churches, and it's nobody's business but theirs what it means to them. However, Christmas is more than just a Christian holiday.

Christmas is a secular United States federal holiday that just happens to take place on the same day as the Christian holiday of the same name. The United States federal holiday is open to be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of religion, and the traditional meaning of this day is that it is when businesses close, workers exchange gifts, and the sum of the value of the gifts is tallied up so we can determine whether or not it was a good year for the economy. It is also traditionally a time when Coca-Cola releases special advertisements, and networks play certain culturally revered animations.

Secular Christmas is awesome! Happy Gift Man Santa brings presents overnight! A boring old pine tree, inexplicably brought into the house, is transformed into a glittering object of wonderment, and then overnight a bare patch of floor becomes a treasure trove of glorious new prizes! Some random guy came in and gave you all this stuff just because you were good all year!

These secular festivities are every bit as worthy of respect as their religious counterparts. They inspire us to dream and encourage us to plan to delight others. The Christmas surprise lets us experience the natural miracle of transcendence that some see in a crucifix, but others see even in the chrysalis of a butterfly. Sudden, amazing, wonderful changes that you could never predict happen all the time in this world, and Secular Christmas reminds us of that. Merry Christmas!

Cross-Dressing for Freedom: We are All Majid!

2009-12-11T22:36:00.000-08:00

All photos from Iranian.com protest gallery

Most people are probably aware of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's infamous comment that there are no homosexuals in Iran. Some know the darker truth behind that statement: homosexuals in Iran must submit to forced gender reassignment or be executed. An offshoot of this brutal policy is that it is actually illegal for men to wear the "hijab" or headscarf, the gender-identifying garment for women. I presume costume-party hi-jinks with men stuffing the largest bras they can find and prancing off in an evening gown for a night of good-natured ribbing are right out.

But when you're a charismatic student leader like Majid Tavakoli, who gave a fiery speech to a crowd of 1,500 at Monday's Student Day uprising, and you're running for your life from Iran's notoriously brutal security forces, you wear whatever you can find that might help you escape, even a hijab. Anybody would. That's why the Iranian regime's recent plot to ruin Tavakoli's "street cred" among Iranian youth by displaying the mug shot of him arrested in drag, has backfired and actually created a worldwide wave of support fueled by YouTube and blogs.

A call has gone out over the internet to all men who support the Green Movement to "become Majid" by taking a photo of themselves wearing a headscarf, the forbidden garment the regime thought would shame Majid Tavakoli forever. This regime is so out of touch with the modern population of Iran they actually thought they could ruin a person's reputation with one scrap of cloth draped over his head. Instead, a wave of young men inside Iran and all over the world are switching their social networking avatars to their "woman pictures" in solidarity.

If you support human rights in Iran, or even just an end to discriminatory forced-clothing laws in general, let the Iranian regime know it's hip to hijab! It's easy and free to support this cause. Simply find a piece of cloth, preferably green, large enough to drape over your head (previous submissions have included towels, blankets and sheets). Then, drape it over your head and take your picture (cellphone or webcam quality photo is fine). Email your picture to jj@iranian.com to submit it to the Iranian.com online gallery, and don't forget to share the link with your friends, who no doubt will want to see the picture anyway. With the power of the Internet to bring people together, this is one dictatorial plot we can thwart using only cell phones and household linens!

A Bittersweet Baby Step Toward Justice for Native Americans

2009-12-11T02:38:00.000-08:00

By: Rachel Bevilacqua
Library of Congress photo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/
CC BY 2.0

On December 8, 2009, a lawsuit that had been in litigation for 13 years finally ended with the largest settlement of its type in history, $3.4 billion. Cobell v. Salazar was over at last. Many in the media raced to paint it as a groundbreaking move for reconciliation of Native American human rights and tribal rights issues, but a deeper look casts doubts on that rosy assessment.

Since 1996, nearly 500,000 plaintiffs have been asking for compensation for the devastating effects of the 1887 General Allotment Act, or Dawes Act, passed as part of an ongoing United States policy of "Americanizing" Native Americans. Concerned with promoting the values of "real Americans" even back then, Republicans in Congress succeeded in privatizing tribal common lands. Each qualifying tribe member was allotted ownership of a 40- to 160-acre parcel, and the extra tribal land left after allotment was simply sold off to the highest bidder.

Too bad if anyone in the tribe had been subsistence hunting and fishing on those unallocated lands or had a religious or cultural connection to them; the federal government determined those lands were superfluous to the new and improved tribal identity as property owners and shareholders.

The Cobell settlement will attempt to make up for this blatant cultural imperialism, and subsequent federal mismanagement of tribal funds, by spending $1.4 billion in direct compensation for plaintiffs and $2 billion to buy back tribal land sold off after privatization, hopefully letting tribes use their land for the collective benefit of all members as they did before the cultural "improvements" were made. However, as President Obama stated, this is merely one step toward repairing the damage done by a Victorian-era Congress obsessed with imposing its own worldview on the Native population.

How helpful is this step? An estimated 90 million acres of tribal land were lost in the aftermath of the Dawes Act. The settlement hopes to be able to recover approximately 4 million acres. According to Ms. Cobell's website, most plaintiffs can expect to receive about $1,500. A nice little surprise windfall. A bauble of compensation, hard won, to atone for a deliberate plan to eliminate hundreds of unique and vibrant traditional ways of life.

The significance of this decision depends on Washington's next steps in taking responsibility for settling America's debts, and paying meaningful restitution for the frauds and failed social experiments that have harmed so many for so long. This decision was an historic achievement, but as Ms. Cobell stated, it's "a bittersweet victory, at best."

Stand Up for Iranian Protesters at the UN

2009-12-10T00:52:00.000-08:00

By: Rachel Bevilacqua
Photo by bettyx1138 on Flickr
CC BY 2.0

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the disputed president of Iran, addressed the United Nations in late September, Green Movement supporters and members of the Iranian Diaspora came from all over the world to the Green NY rally to show their solidarity with the protesters in Iran struggling to establish true democracy answerable to the people through fair elections.

It's time to turn the Big Apple green again as the Solidarity Committee for the Advancement of Democracy in Iran (SCADI) has announced a new rally this weekend to raise awareness of the Green Movement and express its demands for the Iranian government to free all political prisoners, allow new elections and freedom of speech, and end the brutal treatment of prisoners in the Iranian justice system.

Political prisoners in Iran have been subjected to beatings, torture, and, as alleged by reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, even rape sanctioned by prison authorities. The Green Movement is determined to continue protests until this type of atrocity comes to an end.

Please show the Green Movement that they do not stand alone. Come to the UN at Dag Hammarsskjold Plaza, First Ave. and 47th St., Manhattan, New York from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, December 12 and let the Iranian Greens know we hear them and our hearts are with them.

If you can't make it, you can still help by spreading the word. Share this rally's facebook Cause with your friends and encourage them to pass it on. Those of us who live in countries where we're free to protest nonviolently without risking death or worse owe it to the Green Movement to raise our Green banners high and speak out against the human rights abuses taking place in Iran.

Iran's Green Protesters Rise Again

2009-12-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

By:Rachel Bevilacqua
Photo by Getty Images
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhashemi/ CC BY 2.0

Last summer millions of people all across the world became swept up in the story of Iran's Green Movement filling the streets of Tehran to protest the June 12, 2009 disputed election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With severe restrictions on journalists, many people joined Twitter for the first time just to follow one of the few sources of unfiltered news out of Iran, and turned their avatar icons green in support for the protesters.

As the regime became more brutal in its response, and the months went by without a 1979-style escalation into larger and larger protests, many pundits concluded the movement had been "quashed," as Time Magazine recently wrote. It must have been quite a shock to them to find large-scale protests breaking out once again on December 7, "16 Azar" in the Persian calendar, or "Student Day," a holiday which memorializes the deaths of three peaceful student protesters, brutally killed in 1953 by the then-Shah of Iran for protesting a visit by Richard Nixon.

This Student Day, the Green Movement continued its strategy of erupting from seeming dormancy to take over official holidays in massive displays of peaceful solidarity to demonstrate that they have not forgotten, and they will not go away. Committed to nonviolence, the Greens are composed of people from all ages and walks of life. Their numbers are hard to estimate because in addition to the able-bodied people out on the streets, it's previously been reported by livebloggers on the ground that those who can't join the protests often open the doors of their homes for protesters to find refuge during violent clashes. There is no way to tell how many Iranians secretly support the Green Movement.

Despite a brutal crackdown by the Basiji militiamen described by the Washington Post, protests continued on for a second day, and even a third, according to YouTube channels that have hundreds of protest videos captured by cell phones. More large-scale protests are planned for December 18, the start of Islamic month Moharram and beyond, but smaller university-based protests may well continue every day until then.

If you only watch one December 7 protest video, make it this one showing students tearing down a massive iron gate that security forces had locked them behind to prevent them from joining with others in protest. When you see it, you'll realize there's nothing "quashed" about these people.

Free Iran: The Time is Now

2009-12-06T03:09:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Rachel Bevilacqua

This time tomorrow, the streets of Tehran will be filled once again with Green Movement protesters committed to nonviolence in the face of certain brutality. Students will go to sleep tonight not knowing if Ayatollah Khamenei's private army, the Revolutionary Guard, will trap them inside their universities tomorrow to prevent them from joining street demonstrations. Mothers will go to sleep tonight not knowing if this is the last night their children will be safe at home.

Why do they do it? Why keep on fighting after innocent, peaceful demonstrators like Neda were shot down in cold blood, and hundreds of others have been "vanished away" into the darkest recesses of the medieval Regime prison system, to be tortured, raped, and even killed, or allowed to die through medical neglect? Why go on?

The Green Movement fights on because their victory is inevitable. They are the overwhelming majority, and they fight for the noble cause of taking back their birthright to free speech, free assembly, and free thought. An old saying goes, "Whenever people fight for Justice, they are never outnumbered, because there is Another who stands with them." Maybe that Other is the collective consciousness of the planet, as we scan the net for information, waiting and thinking of those risking their lives. Maybe it's a real deity who can intervene for Justice. I don't know, but I know that history tells us people fighting to free their own land from oppressors always win in the end.

Iran News Now has an excellent analysis, "Why the Green Movement Will Prevail," in which the author states:

Let’s be clear about something right here and right now: the movement that is called the Green Movement in Iran, is the Iranian people! The Green Movement belongs to all Iranians who stand for fundamental human rights and dignity. The Green Movement, at is core, wants the same thing that all free peoples have: freedom, dignity, respect and representative government. It is not ideological. It is at its heart, a civil rights movement.

This is so important for the world to understand, that this is about more than just an election. This is about the rights of the Iranian people to exercise their basic freedoms. For 30 years the Regime propped up a facade of being an "Islamic Republic," and being at least in part answerable to its people. The June protests, and the brutal crackdown that followed, shattered that facade, and caused the Green Movement to spring up, as Iran News Now goes on to explain:

Via the social networks, telephone, e-mail and other means, people communicated this phenomenon back to the ground level in Iran, and via broadcasts from the outside captured by satellite dishes on the rooftops of homes, people in Iran saw what was being done to them, saw their own people out in masses in the streets, saw that the world is aware of what is going on and realized their shared collective rage. This led to the realization that millions of them shared collective values and vision. This was the birth of the Green Movement. The entity became self-aware, but it did so in every single person who took any action in opposition to the repressive regime, however small. Everyone took part in they own ways, inside and outside of Iran, and their cumulative efforts was a gut punch to the regime.

That collective realization, and the power it brought to the Iranian people, shattering the illusion that each of them was alone in wanting change, is what formed the Green Movement and what will carry it through to victory. As you go about your daily life, please spare a moment to think of these brave people, choosing to use nonviolence in the face of the utmost brutality, standing up for the rights that people in the West take for granted. The story of Iran isn't about nukes. It's about the people.

Happy Repeal Day!! Time to End Prohibition AGAIN!!

2009-12-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

On this anniversary of the Repeal of the Prohibition against alcohol, many people can't help wondering when it will be time to repeal our nation's current Prohibition and allow our adult citizens the right to choose for themselves what they would like to ingest, with no government coming between them and their bodies. Back in the Reagan Era, our nation was caught up in a frenzy. I was just a kid when Nancy Reagan appeared on Diff'rent Strokes to reveal her brilliant anti-drug strategy, "Just say no."

Soon all my favorite TV friends were getting with the program, even Punky Brewster! Police started coming to our school to tell us about this plague that was taking over America, and how we had to do our part to stop it.

It's been a long time since those clothes were in style, and the ideas in these videos are equally outdated. Drug abuse is a huge problem for our nation, but it's a public health problem, not a criminal one, just like alcoholism was back in the days when a wave of fanaticism took over the United States and caused us to ban all alcohol, even though some of our Founding Fathers were brewers!

Every day we pour a vast treasure of taxpayer money into the effort to identify, prosecute, and jail countless people whose only crime was selling their fellow Americans products they wanted to buy. Without a victim, there can be no crime. Our Founders never envisioned a nation with police actively investigating citizens, with no complaint from any accuser, for the imaginary crime of harming "the State".

Meanwhile, in Central and South America, and even within our own cities, violent gangs have sprung up to supply the market that will always exist for the mind-altering substances, which many adults enjoy responsibly. The lives saved by repealing drug prohibition and ending gang violence would far outweigh any self-induced drug-related deaths that might result from legal drug use. When poppies, hemp, and coca are grown legally by free entrepreneurs, rather than produced by violent thugs as a stepping stone to brutal power, adults could enjoy recreational use of whatever they feel would help them pursue happiness, without supporting real violent criminals.

Marijuana, or cannabis, in particular could flip from being a huge national problem that sucks our state treasuries dry with the expense of investigating and incarcerating people, to being a cash crop that could pull people out of poverty. It is so easy to grow, even in confined spaces, that many living in our inner cities, supported by benefits programs, could easily become professional horticulturalists running their own businesses and paying into the treasury instead!

These dire economic times are our best reverse our current drug Prohibition and start providing jobs, new business opportunities, and a huge savings to the taxpayer. We simply can't afford the cult of "Just say no" any longer. Too much has been spent, and too many lives have been ruined pursuing the imaginary goal of keeping all Americans sober (except on alcohol of course). But don't take my word for it, visit the site of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, where police officers and prominent individuals from all over the world explain in greater detail why we need to end prohibition now!