TO MY FALLEN BROTHER...........................
Current mood: nostalgic
PREFACE: This was written completely "OFF THE CUFF" and straight from the heart.... It is, and shall remain unedited,
Many people knew him as Peter...I knew him as "Scott Reeder" ( a nickname I gave him, due in part to his uncanny resemblance in music and style to former Kyuss bassist Scott Reeder)....Peter was a true brother, a kindred spirit, and co-conspiritor in music and life. I cannot even begin, or think how to, express my condolences and sadness over what has happend over the past weekend. Though we didn't convene as often as I'd like to have, Peter expressed nothing but warmth, kindness, and an overabundance of life everytime I had the pleasure of sharing his much appreciated company. Always anxious to give me a big hug, and a kiss on the forehead, along with a beer and a thoroughly enjoyable conversation with every encounter, Peter was a true inspiration to myself, and countless others. My deepest thoughts, prayers, and sentiments go out to Peter's friends, bandmates, family, and other loved ones.......
It's extremely hard for me to even about, or even think about it for that matter, so I suppose, in closing the only think I can think to express is a big "THANK YOU!!!" .........for I feel humbled, and priviledged to even be one of this profilic man's friends. Thank you for everything, my brother, for you shall be dearly missed, forever remembered in my heart, and the hearts of others...and most of all, never forgotten by any of the souls you haved touched with your love of life, and love of music.
I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU, BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOVE AND RESPECT, - Robert Cravey May 19th, year of VIII
I'll finish this one'a these daze............slightly edited, though it kindof resembles one big run-on sentance in some places.......................(originally started in 12/2006)
" Oh shit,man" I thought to myself.....The room was slowly filling with dust, and smoke, along with all kinds of broodishly weird characters. This was about to get bad...We were riding the train of halucination known as the mushroom trip, and there was no conductor in sight..........
Perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself...Maybe I should backtrack...To where this whole journey began...
It was a slightly damp, excruciatingly cold Wednesday evening, when my long time friend Adam picked me up. We set off to an establishment in Norman called Bison Witches under the guise of cheap beer and good times. We arrived to find that the cheap beer aspect was a bit of a wash...much to my dismay. A short time later, we found ourselves nestled knee deep in the hole in the wall known as Bill And Dee's...Surrounded by cheap drink, and even cheaper people. These aren't your normal folk either, these are the kind of people you'd expect to find at a swapmeat,or possibly a monster truck race. Crazy, incestuous, carnie like people with little regard for the common good. Believe it or not, these individuals are quite good to surround yourself with on a night like this; They seem to remind you that there's always something more...something a little left of the margins...something so shockingly bizzare and real, that you wouldn't be suprised to wake up in the decrepit bathroom of a sleazy motel with a toe missing after an evening on the town with them. The bar excursion was short lived, however, for we were short on funds, and on patience.
With the stars of inebrehation in our eyes we retreated to Adam's abode to partake in excess, and jovial festivities....This much, we were at least gauranteed to find. Several hours and beverages later, I found myself partaking in smokable accessories, and watching Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, snaking into an enjoyable, rotten cornucopia of relaxing, mind altering bliss. This evening served as the catalyst of what would be a depraved five day journey of the weird. A journey not unlike some other ones I've written about, but in some ways completely different; I was speeding down the curves of a parodox. I found myself coming to on Thursday in an unaware, nearly catatonic world of exhaustion and confusion. Before I even had time to realize this, I was being fed right back to the beast that had disgustidly spit me out the night before. Another friend of mine, April, picked me up, and we proceeded to another tavern in Norman known as Mr.Bills. This was my first time in this particular place, but I can safely say it won't be my last. Several strangers were friendly enough to buy my friend&I drinks through out the night, so many, in fact, that it made me wonder....Did they know of my mission? Were they on to me? Last Call finally reared it's ugly head, and as we were about to make a stealth-like exit, some beer breathed heathen informed us of an afterparty. "What the hell" I thought. "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing" was the first phrase that came to mind....and I can assure you, friend, we did. Upon arriving at the party, I could instantly feel something in the air...for, this was no normal night of annihilation..this was a collective effort to push the envelope! We were surrounded by intellects, and psychotics...and there was no telling them apart. "oooooh no,ooooooooh god no" I thought, as I urinated on the poor house owner's front porch..."Not another one of these!! No sir! Fuck you! Cancel that check right away!"...Fortunately, out of the several directions this shindig could have gone, it turned out much to everyone's delight. Cheers, and beers were shared by all, so much, that the better part of this party is still a lost blur, somewhere in my already overdrawn memory banks. The few points I do remember are being pulled into the mud, literally, by some drunken female party goer whom I was assisting.
AMERICA IS NO LONGER FREE by Paul Lehto, Attorney at Law
Habeas corpus -- it's your most fundamental legal right, your right to go to a court and get an order requiring the government to prove that it is holding you in prison with proper legal authority to do so. Without that right, one necessarily lives in a dictatorship. President Bush today on October 17, 2006 signed a bill repealing that law, meaning that the administration need not comply or show compliance with law any more with regard to who goes to prison or Gitmo.
While it supposedly applies just to terrorism cases, that doesn't prevent it from ending the rule of law in the United States for our newly all-powerful Executive. This is true not just because terrorism is construed so broadly in the prohibition of "material support" for terrorism (which by the way has already been held to include a lawyer's press release on behalf of a terrorist client) but because the administration NEED NOT PROVE IT'S REALLY TERRORISM because they don't need to answer to any court in the land at any time.
Even "Justice" Scalia wrote in the Hamdan case that "the very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive." That very core of liberty died on October 17, 2006 with the signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and its elimination of habeas corpus.
Oh yeah, it also legalized torture wholesale. While misleadingly purporting to prohibit a few forms, upon full analysis it prohibits none. But who's going to know since your relatives won't be able to find out where you are anyway, right? Habeas corpus ("produce the body") was not supposed to mean habeas corpses. Habeas corpus started as soon as human beings had the yearning to breathe free of the abuses of unchecked power of a king, aristocrat or lord, starting around the year 1215. We now have a pre-1215 mentality, all because of fear of some primitive and violent guys living in caves somewhere. Many of us are not intimidated.
Yet the same day as the signing of this Military Commissions Act of 2006, a lawyer following her ethical duty to represent her client and ill with breast cancer was sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison for the simple act of issuing a press release on behalf of a terrorist client in prison, which was judged "materially aiding" terrorism. (Such press releases for unpopular clients are hardly ever printed verbatim in any respect by newspapers, yet the allegation was that there could be a coded communication in the press release and there was a no-communication order in effect.) While this terrorist is a genuine terrorist, there's nothing in the law that distinguishes between representing serious terrorists and representing "innocent terrorists" (if there is such a thing) or minor ones, but in any case, remember, they don't need to comply with habeas and show that you are guilty anyway! At most, they just think to themselves "this guy's a terrorist" and you disappear into the torture chamber with no right to be heard from, even indirectly through your lawyer, which you have no enforceable right to anyway.
Even public opinion will likely not catch up with this because people will just disappear and who knows, maybe the missing person just went off on a lark or a fugue to start a new life, right?
Consequently, on October 17, 2006 freedom died in the United States of America . We now live in a dictatorship. We live in a dictatorship even if you think George W. Bush will be a wise and beneficent king or dictator. It is defined as the possession of absolute power as opposed to checks and balances.
In the Keith Olbermann commentary at the first youtube link below; I agree with Professor Turley (Constitutional Law) that people "really have no idea how significant this is." Turley says we now have an "absolute ruler" which is really just another way of saying dictatorship. He's not kidding. I'm not kidding.
I'll be releasing an extended (and devastating, early readers say) critical piece on this within 48 hours, but in the meantime and after that please consider the importance of this issue is at a WHOLE OTHER LEVEL. It's not an "issue" that we form polite activist groups to respond to.
The Executive Branch now has full discretion to imprison anybody they want to without charge or trial or bail and there will be nothing anybody can do except beg the King. I.e. there's no rule of law applicable to the administration. EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN LAW was essentially repealed, because the administration need not prove to anybody that it has complied with the law by indefinitely detaining you, your relative or anyone else.
Keith Olbermann's commentary, with Professor Jonathan Turley
The only thing I don't agree with Turley on is this: There is not a giant Yawn, there are a lot of people shocked, many crying, millions disturbed, millions more waking up. It's always hard to be among the first to know and to wait for the rest of the country to catch up, but somebody has to be in that position. Let's not, because we are among the first millions to wake up, send out the message that getting the American dream back is relatively hopeless based on the Yawn seemingly heard today. After all, there is no media echo besides Olbermann to get the word out and reinforce it. But there will be. I also disagree with Turley's approach, even as he makes strongly worded comments that are nevertheless scholarly and restrained in tone and volume, because it's inappropriate and (if you believe in Constitutional rights) not unlike talking in a similar dispassionate tone when a masked man walks into your local elementary school with automatic weapons drawn.
For a more appropriate tone, here's another two minute video below that was filmed right before this bill was signed but it nevertheless applies to this situation, and gives advice on what to do when "they come for your freedom." Paul Revere said "the Redcoats are coming". Today, "the Redcoats already came."
These situation of legalizing torture and eliminating habeas corpus is WAY WAY WAY "out there" in terms of extreme. Bush and his administration are incredibly isolated now, seeking to legalize the very things we prosecuted ourselves in WWII like waterboarding. If I hear anyone even IMPLY that we live in a free country, the correction will be swift. WE DO NOT LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY ANY MORE. PERIOD.
The hopeful note is this: We can recognize how incredibly isolated both in the world and in our own country this Administration is, and we can turn away, and withdraw any remaining support and respect. But, if we react just in fear, whether fear of Gitmo or fear of torture or fear of terrorists, the dark curtain of dictatorship will descend further and their power will consolidate. In the end, Americans will not be denied freedom in a struggle for freedom on their own soil.
"Freedom is Under Attack" -- Rollins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6...h? v=6waWS0Y3Ubc (f-bomb warning, but appropriate IMHO in this context)
Paul Lehto Attorney at Law lehtolawyer@gmail.com
Permission granted to distribute in full with attribution. ---------------------------
ACTION ALERT: Blackwell purged Ohio Voter Rolls Oct 1st.- Vote Early. by KStreetProjector Wed Oct 18, 2006
Then, one insider, probably an extremist, but certainly very close to Mr. Ken Mehlman abruptly stopped the conversation. He told table that it was impossible they would lose either house. He also predicts an Ohio GOP sweep.
He informed the group that over the last year, in four critical states the GOP needs to hold huge purges of the voter rolls have just been finished.
The insider did not say which four states, but did say Ohio was among them.
His claim was a new Diebold voter registry system had been installed over the last year. The last week of July and the first week of August a "test run" was made of the systems ability to purge ineligable voters. The purge generated names and test letters sent out to 1.2 million Ohio addresses with a focus on University's, Apartment addresses with high turnover. He claims they made the letters seem just functionary, but they have an action component to avoid being purged from the rolls.
much more at: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonl...10/18/85915/ 109 -------------------------------
Scott Ritter on "Target Iran The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change"
Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter: "The path that the United States is currently embarked on regarding Iran is a path that will inevitably lead to war. Such a course of action will make even the historical mistake we made in Iraq pale by comparison."
Well-Timed Scandal Implication Pushing 9/11 Able-Danger Whistle Blower Weldon Out of House Rep. said info on Atta before 9/11 went un-reported in "a clear and unequivocal cover-up"
Exit Habeas Corpus, Enter Night and Fog Kurt Nimmo | October 18 2006
As if to confirm that Republicans are indeed a fascist rabble, consider their uniform silence in regard to the military commissions bill, otherwise known as the monstrosity that ate the Constitution, specifically Article 1, Section 9, dealing with habeas corpus.
Republicans, who are primarily neocons, that is to say fascist authoritarians, consider themselves patriots, and yet almost to the man and a few women they have not said a word about the evisceration of habeas corpus, once considered such an elemental liberty it was the only one enumerated in the original text of the Constitution.
Olbermann: The Day Habeas Corpus Died http://www.infowars.com/ articles...corpus_died.htm --------------------------------
Government Targets American Bloggers As Enemy Propagandists Military, Homeland Security, Bush White House strategy sharpen knives against anyone critical of the "war on terror"
Recent scientific polls that show around 84% don't believe the government's explanation behind 9/11 and others confirming the fact that support for the war in Iraq is at an all time low have led the Bush administration to sharpen their knives against the new breed of perceived "enemy propagandists," bloggers, journalists and online activists who dissent against the "war on terror."
As Raw Story reports , CENTCOM announced earlier this year that a team of employees would be "[engaging] bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information."
nostalgic
