Explosive Expressions (Entries tagged as protesting)

Protestin' and packin' ??

nospam@example.com (Jason Frisvold) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:33:32 -0400

Seriously, are you people insane? Yes, you have every right to carry a weapon, assuming you have the necessary licenses. You absolutely have the right, and I fully support that right. But standing outside of a venue where the President of the United States is speaking, carrying firearms, including assault rifles, while protesting against the president is just antagonistic and irresponsible.

Think about this for a minute. The leader of our nation, who was elected by the people, is speaking in your area. You decide to go protest against him. And as part of that protest, you decide to bring along a weapon? What message are you trying to send? If he doesn't cow to your protests, you'll kill him? Are we that uncivilized?

Bringing a firearm, or a weapon at all, to a venue like this, where there are plenty of security officers, is just asking for trouble. First, you'll be targeted immediately. If anything happens, regardless of whether you're involved, you'll be first on the list of people they look at. Second, you're going to end up reducing the effectiveness of the security forces present. Why? Because you have a visible weapon and have automatically been ratcheted up the list of people that are considered possible dangers. In the end, this means security forces will constantly be watching you, reducing the amount of time spent on watching the crowd as a whole. Again, regardless of whether this is what you intend or not, you are an immediate threat, already identified.

And, even if you do have your head on straight, which I'm not quite sure of right now, you have brought a weapon into a venue with lots of other people. What's preventing someone else from taking your weapon and using it? And before you point out the hordes of police and other security personnel, realize that they are trained for these situations, whereas you are likely not.

You have every right to carry a weapon, and I fully support you. But please use your head. Let's not cause more problems than we have already. Antagonizing behavior like this will likely end up with the government thinking more about gun control, which I'm sure you're completely against.

Continued violence in Iran

nospam@example.com (Jason Frisvold) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:20:10 -0400

Today saw more violence and protesting across Iran. Reports pour in from various sources about more arrests, beatings, and deaths. Watching the twitter posts fly by is incredible. If you are at all interested in this, I urge you to check out Twitter and follow some of the folks I mentioned in my previous post.

From what I'm able to put together thus far, it sounds like the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Moussavi, has been a huge favorite in Iran. Polls done by CNN and others indicated that Moussavi seemed to have greater support than the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to a recent tweet by Raymond Jahan, the opposition leader had actually won, but the results were modified.

"CONFIRMED again: Mousavi got call election night, was told he won, next day they switch results 2 Ahmadi's favor #gr88"

There are also rumors, likely true, that government workers were ordered to vote for Ahmadinejad or risk losing their jobs, imprisonment, etc. As was seen in Russia and other areas in the past, this is a great motivator and often results in the oppressive government remaining in power.

My heart goes out to all those who have lost loved ones in Iran and I hope they are able to bring some sort of peaceful end to this. Ultimately, though, my gut tells me that if the people in Iran truly want peace and freedom, there's a long, bloody revolution ahead.

Fighting for Freedom ...

nospam@example.com (Jason Frisvold) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:54:06 -0400

There is some pretty insane shit happening in the middle east right now. Iran held elections for president on Friday, claiming a democratic process. As it turns out, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election. There has been a general outcry of disbelief and many claims of vote tampering. There are reports of rioting, demonstrating, and many reports of abuse, including shots at one demonstration. It seems, however, that there is also a lot of censorship going on as the Iranian government strives to put down the riots and demonstrations while downplaying the whole event to the rest of the world.

Twitter and the internet at large seems to be playing a big part in this, however, as various people in Iran use whatever means possible to get the news out. Twitter in particular is being used to pass around open proxies, usable by those in Iran to get unfiltered access to the Internet at large. Other users are using Twitter as a means to report on the current happenings inside of Iran. Two users I've come across are Change For Iran and persiankiwi. Of the two, persiankiwi seems to be the one most up to date at the moment. Change for Iran mentioned going to a rally a few hours ago and that there was a danger in doing so. They have yet to update since then, so I'm a bit concerned about their safety.

From the reports I've been hearing, it seems that most of the violence is due to the government forces in the street trying to stop the demonstrations. I'm sure there's rioting as well, which should be brought to an end, but peaceful demonstrations are being broken up by police in riot gear tossing tear gas and beating citizens with batons. In some situations, the demonstrators are fighting back, in others they are trying to stop the fighting peacefully. Overall, it seems to be a bad situation and I hope some sense of sanity can be restored soon.

For more pictures of the what's going on, check out The Big Picture.

Teabagging... In my town?

nospam@example.com (Jason Frisvold) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:55:34 -0400

Initially, I found this teabagging thing to be pretty funny. I mean, far be it from me to say you don't have the right to protest. Hell, if you want to get out there and protest wearing white socks, or jump up and down about having to obey gravity, then by all means, don't let me stop you. So while I may ridicule the movement, I definitely believe in their right to have an opinion.

I did no, however, expect to drive home this afternoon and see them throwing one of these tea parties, right here in my town. Though, after thinking about it, maybe it isn't quite as surprising. Let me explain.

I live in a relatively small town. It's a nice area, moderately decent housing, low crime, and decent proximity to local markets. We even have a Walmart, go us. However, I wouldn't exactly categorize the area as high class. Middle class, maybe, definitely leaning towards lower middle class. Incomes are on the low end, with many residents on welfare and receiving food stamps. While some of the people in this area are educated, I'd wager that less than 50% have a college education. Overall, it's a typical small town in rural America.

After looking at what kind of town I live in, you may also find yourself amazed that people are out there protesting raised taxes. The only taxes raised at this point are taxes on those making $250,000 or more per year. And those aren't tax raises, but rather an expiration of the tax cuts that Bush put in place. There are very few people around here who can claim to have been able to take advantage of those cuts, and I doubt very much that they'll be out there protesting, especially in the rain. In fact, if you look out across the country at all of the protestors, the only ones who are possibly making that much will be the news people covering the news, and even then, only if they're the high powered anchors. So why are these people out protesting?

I'll hazard a guess as to why. Fear. The economy is in a tailspin, jobs are scarce, and people are looking for someone to blame. Blaming Wall Street has quelled them for a time, but now they want more. Wall Street is more of an abstract idea and it's tough to stay focused on. Obama, though, is a single person, and in the most powerful office in America. Obviously he has the power to fix things, and since he hasn't done it already, then he's obviously planning to make it worse. He's out to tax everyone to death so that only the rich are left! Obviously!

Seriously, though, taxes suck. They do! I hate taxes. I hate paying taxes over and over and over again. I pay sales tax, local tax, county tax, state tax, federal tax, school tax, school real estate tax, county real estate tax, and there are probably others I'm missing. At the end of the day, I spend more time paying taxes than anything else! I'd much rather keep all my money and spend it the way I want to. However, I'm also well aware that the government needs money to function. They provide the roads I drive my car on, the schools I send my kids to, the protection to live in a country like the USA, and more. To do all this they need staff, who like to get paid too. In short, they need to collect taxes in order to have the money to function.

So what's with all of this tax talk? Is there a legitimate reason to be upset? Are we missing something that the tea baggers aren't? Well, yes and no. Obama has a fairly large agenda, detailing healthcare reform, clean energy, tax reform, and more. These things all cost money, and that money has to come from somewhere. So, in a way, these people could be protesting what's to come, rather than what has already happened. Though, I'm not sure they see it that way.

One thing can be said, though. Times have obviously changed. When, in the last 8 years, have you seen a demonstration of this size, or any real size at all. Especially a demonstration against the government? You can bet that any such demonstration would have been declared illegal, or a threat to security, or some other nonsense. People would be arrested and gatherings would be disbanded. Need examples? How about all those people arrested at the Bush rallies when he was running for re-election? Now, go read Little Brother.. Yeah. That's where we were headed under Bush. I'm happy Obama's here, and while I don't always agree with what he's doing, overall, I support him. How about we demonstrate against something that actually affects us, rather than being lackies for the upper class.