GAY MEN AND SMOKING, by Robert Halfhill

I wrote this email about why Gays smoke in much highr percentages than other groups
for my Lavender Greens discussion group. I think that this is the main reaon for Gay
men's higher smoking rate, although, as far as I know, no one else has proposed this
theory. I agree for the most part with your article in the July 9, 2004 LAVENDER,
although I would assign a much different weight to the importance of the reasons you give
for Gay men's higher smoking rates.
Robert Halfhill
Although some people have asked how the the proposed indoor smoking ban is a GLBTI issue,
other minority groups who have suffered disproportionately from this society's promotion
of cigarette smoking have clealy understood how it is an African American, Hispanic, etc
issue. Since the percentage of Gay men who smoke and thereby suffer the harmful effects is
much higher than it is the general population, it is clearly a GLBTI issue for the same
reason. I would like to propose a reason why Gays have been influenced to take up smoking
at a higher percentage than most other groups by advertising. I am not aware of this
reason being discussed by anyone else. Advertising has typically portrayed amoking as
macho in men. Even after being exposed to a steady drum beat of this advertisin in
childhood and adolescence, most people are not so stupid as to CONSCIOUSLY think that they
can make themselves macho by starting to smoke. But the subliminal impression has been
created in the back of peoples' minds that smoking is macho. Heterosexual men have been
given the subliminal impression through years of steady advertising that "if you
start to smoke, you will be this macho man and have these beautiful women." In Gay
men, the subliminal impression that has been created that "If you start to smoke, you
can be this macho man and have these handsome macho men." So far, these subliminal
effects seem exactly the same. So how is the effect greater on Gay men? Although the
heterosexual adolescent has been given the subliminal impression that he can BE this
handsome, macho man and HAVE these beautiful women by starting to smoke, he is not
sexually attracted to the handsome, macho man he has been given the subliminal impression
that he can BE; being handsome and macho is only a MEANS to obtaining the beautiful
women, which, assuming he is 100% heterosexual, is the only thing he is sexually attracted
to. The Gay adolescent is attracted and excited by BOTH the handsome macho, man hs has
been given the subliminal impression he can BE by smoking but also the handsome, macho man
he has been given the subliminal impression he can HAVE by smoking. As I said, few people
are actually stupid enough to think this consciously. But that is the subliminal
impression in the back of the mind that years of exposure to advertising has created, and
Gay men get a double whammy! In fact, by being both sexually attracted to what he has been
given the subliminal impression that he can BE and HAVE, a cycle of escalating a mutual
reinforcement of the two effects may have been created which more than doubles the effect.
I propose this as the reason why smoking rates among Gay men are equal to what they were
among heterosexual men back in the 1950's, before the Surgeon General's report. I will
leave it to people who belong to the L,B,T,and I portions of the GLBTI communities to
develop this theory for their own cases.
Robert Halfhill rhalfhill@juno.com

DESTROYING THE GAINS OF 2000 IN 2004

DESTROYING THE GAINS OF 2000 IN 2004
(This is a reply to a post by Michael Bonanno on OpEdnews. Bonanno had compared people in the United States supporting John Kerry as the lesser evil to Bush with Germans in 1932 supporting Hindenburg as the lesser evil to Hitler.)

I'm glad that you point out that supporting the Democrats as the
lesser evil is comparable to the citizens of Germany electing
Hindenburg in 1932 as the lesser evil to Hitler. Ralph Nader was
indeed the progressive alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.
But "safe states" David Cobb with his stategy of only making a
serious attempt to campaign in states where there was no chance of
his throwing the election to the Republicans was merely a retread of
the liberal strategy of supporting the Democrats as the lesser evil.
His vice presidential running mate Pat LaMarche, is on record as
saying she wasn't even going to vote for herself unless the polls
predicted Kerry would win 70% of the vote in her state. Those Greens
who cave in under the pressure of the liberals hysterical accusations
that "You got Bush elected!" destroyed much of the progress towards
an independent third party achieved in 2000 and it is still an open
question whether their caving in will lead to the demise of the Green
Party.
Robert Halfhill Green Party member and Nader supporter

by rhalfhill (0 articles, 1 comments) on Thursday, January 4, 2007 at
1:03:52 AM

RELIGIOUS NUTS OF NO USE AGAINST BUSH

RELIGIOUS NUTS OF NO USE AGAINST BUSH, by Robert Halfhill(This was a comment I made about a post of OpEdnews.)
While I agree with your opposition to Bush, I find your use of religion and BIBLE prophecy appalling. Not only do you believe in the BIBLE, and therefore presumedly God, but you show the same kind of belief in BIBLE prophecy as the rapture cultists you criticize, equating mythological beasts in Revelation with various contemporary persons, organizations, classes, etc.In the first place, you have not a shred of evidence that there is a God beyond the Universe Who created it. The widespread argument that there has to be a God because the Universe has to have a cause and only God can provide that cause fails as a proof because, if everything must have a cause, God would need a Super God to cause Him or Her and the Super God would need a Super, Super God Who would need a Super, Super, Super... No matter how far you regress towards infinity, your have not reached a solution to how the Universe was caused.If your belief in God is based on faith, then if you can believe things on faith, without reason, then why not believe in Naziism, or Al Quaida, or Jim Jones, etc. If you make a "leap of faith," it is a matter of chance where your leap takes you and who knows what evil cult you will land on.I find it appalling that you with a doctorate and an M.D. in psychiatry not only resorts to religion as a rationale for your opposition to Bush but you even resort to the FUNDAMENTALIST RELIGION in the same Bible prophecy that the rapture cultists depend on.

RELIGIOUS NUTS OF NO USE AGAINST BUSH BY ROBERT HALFHILL
(The above post provoked a heated comment to which I replied below.)
Fred F, the soundness of my position on religion does not depend on whether you could or couldn't care less about my views on your religious beliefs. It depends on the validity of the reasons I gave for my position.Incidentally, your statement that you "could care less" is a grammatical error because it shows an error in logic. The only way you COULDN'T care less is if the amount you cared was zero. If you COULD care less, that can only be because the amount of your caring can be lessened, which means that it is greater than zero.But grammatical quibles aside, the critique of your belief in "a higher power" is the same as my critique of a belief in God. You have not a shred of evidence for the existence of this "higher power," and if your belief in this higher power is based on faith instead of reason, you are without any means of evaluating the beliefs you are landing on. You are jumping out at random and you are far more likely to land on something like Nazism, or Al Quaida or Jim Jones that something benign.
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GET OVER A COUP?

January 26, 2007
Star Tribune
425 Portland Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55488
Although Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said of the Court's
halting the
recount of the Florida vote in 2000, "It's water over the deck -- Get
over it," the equivalent of a military coup is not the sort of thing
that anyone should get over. There is no difference between five
Supreme Court Justices ordering us to stop counting the vote and five
generals carrying out a coup and ordering us to stop counting the
vote. For the first time in U.S. history, an election was ordered
halted and an openly illegal government was installed.
Although the Supreme Court halted the recount on the ground of
egual protection because the different Florida counties had different
standards for counting disputed ballots --"Counting somebody else's
dimpled chad and not counting my dimpled chad is not giving equal
protection of the law," Scalia argued -- the Supreme Court had seen
no reason to intervene on this ground in any election since the
founding of the Republic, even though not only the different counties
but even the different states had different standards for conducting
elections and counting ballots. And in a misleadingly titled headline
"In partial recount, Bush wins, review finds," the November 12, 2001
STAR TRIBUNE reporting on the long promised media recount, informed
us that under four out of six possible methods of conducting the
recount, Gore won. And these four methods of recounting were the
only ones in which there were consistent methods of recounting the
disputed ballots, including the dimpled chads. And this does not
even take account of the fact that Florida outsourced the purging of
its voter rolls of convicted felons to private companies. The low
bidders who won the contract were, of course, the ones who cut
corners by only compiling lists of those who had been CHARGED with
felonies without checking whether they had been CONVICTED. Because
of this, as in the days of whites only voting during segregation,
many Black citizens were systematically disenfranchised.
And in addition to all this, yesterday's STAR TRIBUNE of January
25, 2007 reported that two election officials in Ohio's most populous
county, Cuyahoga, had been convicted of rigging the 2004 election.
Ohio, for instance, was one of the states that allegedly
changed to Bush over the post midnight hours, although the exit polls
had predicted a Kerry win. Exit polls, incidentally, are precisely
the means the United Nations uses to detect whether elections had
been stolen in places like Serbia, Georgia, and the Ukraine. The
laws of statistics do not change at the U.S. border. The
American news media cheered on the Serbian people when they took to
the streets when Milosevic tried to steal the Serbian elections. But
the Serbian people, as well as the people in all the other countries
where there were "color" revolutions, have suffered under both
Fascist and Stalinist tyrannies and know from experience how
unpleasant life can be under unelected, illegal governments. Let us
hope that the American people will not have to learn from the same
bitter experience before they realize that they have both the right
and the duty to take back their government.
The STAR TRIBUNE has allowed virtually no mention of the stolen
elections of 2000 and 2004 into your pages. You will probably not
allow this mention in either. But be warned! You and the rest
of the establishment keep on like this and the majority of Americans
will
eventually view their "elections" in the same way the citizens of the
former Soviet Union viewed theirs.
Robert Halfhill rhalfhill@juno.com



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FUTILITY OF SELF DEFEATING LIBERALISM

FUTILITY OF SELF DEFEATING LIBERALISM By Robert Halfhill
(The following is a post written on the uhcan-mn discussion list, the dicussion list of an organization whose purpose is to obtain single payer health care, a system of universal health care in which the government pays health care providers out of tax revenues. This is the health care system in place in Canada and every other modern industrial society except the United States. A liberal had written in to say that single payer health care is unrealistic since the "all powerful insurance industry" would oppose it, politicians could not "just wave a magic wand" and bring it about, and quoted Hiliary Clinton's argument that we must "first have consensus" before we propose it. Another more radical poster urged that we tell the Democrats we would not vote for them unless they came through on a nuumber of minimal demands.) Because I have been struggling to keep my head above a tsunami of emails, I very rarely get around to checking up on my uhcan-mn messages. But tonight I have gotten around to it and I feel that I can add some new contributions to this discussion. First, if we can never introduce a proposal for single payer health care because the "all powerful" health insurance industry will fight it, how do you expect to obtain even the slightest improvements in the health care mess? If you are mesmerized under the illusion that your opposition is "all powerful" and can veto anything you propose, then you can never make any progress. It would not be possible to depict more vividly the futile, self defeating mental bind that liberalism is locked in. Single payer WILL be adopted if enough people get fed up with what we have now and DEMAND it. Second, therefore, instead of politicians silencing themselves because "they can not wave a magic wand" and bring single payer about, the kind of politician who is of any use to us will try to argue and convince more people of the need for single payer in the knowledge that the health care mess we have now will eventually enable them to convince enough people. Third, what does Hiliary mean when she says we must first have consensus for single payer and other proposals before we propose them. Let us be fair and assume that she does not mean 100% of the people must be for something before we can come out for it. Still, she is saying the 60%, 70%, 80%, or even 90% of the people must be for something before we can open our mouth and even advocate for it! Any politician who is of any use to use will not wait until 60-90% of people are for something before advocating for it. This is another example of the futile, self defeating nature of liberalism. This is not exactly an example of leadership if you are too timid to support something unless 60-90% of people are already for it. Another example is Ms. Clinton's vacillation on the Iraq War. People voted for the Democrats last year because around 70% of them are now against the war in Iraq and want it ended. They did not vote for the Democrats to elect someone who merely wants to put a cap on the present number of troops so that the present level of deaths and disabling injuries can continue. They did not vote for someone who refuses to even repudiate her original vote to invade Iraq! Finally, the suggestion has been made that we tell the Democrats we will not vote for them unless they make a real fight for single payer, an end to the Iraq War, etc. Why must we content ourselves with not voting at all when we can vote for a third party? The old liberal objection is that a third party cannot win and that we'll be "throwing our vote away." Even if this were true, voting for a third party cannot possibly be as futile as not voting at all. And, more importantly, the only reason a third party cannot win is that most of us won't vote for it. If enough of us vote for it, it CAN and WILL win. In fact, people who have devoted their efforts to fighting for single payer and against the Iraq War, not to mention a host of other issues, are going to have to ask themselves why they are voting for the Democrats if they are not going to do anything to implement what people voted for them to implement? You talk about "throwing your vote away;" voting for Democrats who won't do what you voted for them to achieve is REALLY throwing your vote away! And some have said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing that didn't work over and over again while expecting different results. The Nader campaign and the Green Party in 2000 provided the best chance of a critical mass of people breaking out of the two party strait jacket. Unfortunately, the Greens caved in under the pressure of hoards of liberals and Democrats hysterical accusations of "You elected Bush!" and refused to endorse Nader and instead endorsed a "safe states" candidate in 2004 who advocated a covert form of lesser evil support for the Democrats by only making a serious effort to campaign in states where there was no chance he could throw the election to the Republicans. But in spite of their wimping out in 2004, the Green Party still represents the best chance of a critical mass of people breaking out of the two party strait jacket. No other of the many third parties around shows an equal chance off leading people out of the two party duopoly. So I recommend that people who have been wasting their vote on the Democrats vote for the Green Party instead. I am assuming, of course, that the Green Party can be pulled back from its wimp out of 2000 and return to the independent challenge it mounted in 2004. And this is where those of you who have not only been wasting your vote on the Democrats but wasting your time, money and energies by working inside the Democratic Party. Those of us who have been opposing the present dysfunctional misleadership of the Green Party need your help. Instead join the Green Party and expend your efforts there. The tactic of trying to improve things by supporting the Democrats as the lesser evil has led to a steady rightward drift of the political climate in this country so that many people now will be surprised to learn that the President who told Planned Parenthood that as woman ought not to be denied access to family planning because of her economic circumstance was RICHARD NIXON! The news media reported in 2004 that the Democrat's standard bearer, John Kerry, was actually to the right of Richard Nixon. So stop doing over and over again what has led you to THIS. The Green Party still represents the best existing chance of a break from two party futility and if enough of you help and pitch in, the Green Party can be pulled back from its wimp out of 2004 and become a party that will actually do what you vote for it to do. Robert Halfhill
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WHY THE ANTI WAR MOVEMENT SHUT DOWN IN 2003

This was written in response to article about the antiwar movement
in the Progressive Calendar by Fran Shor and R.M. Mendenhall.
Robert Halfhill http://webmailb.juno.com/webmail/new/8?folder=Sent&msgNum=0000l900:0015kGJ500000_7x&block=1&fromPage=&isMailSearch=no&msgNature=all&msgStatus=all&count=1172431389&rteSupported=1&content=central#
A MAJOR REASON WHY THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT SHUT DOWN IN 2003
Worldwide, there were an estimated fifteen million people in the
streets protesting the Iraq war in 2003. Then suddenly there were no
more mass demonstrations.
Why? Because everybody took time off to campaign for Kerry. The
illusion held by most people was that if we could just get Kerry and
the other Democrats elected, they would end the war. Part of this
illusion also was the belief that the election of Democrats, who were
thought to be against the war, was a more direct and effective way of
stopping the war than "just protesting in the streets."
Yet Kerry was on record as saying that he would have been for
invading Iraq EVEN IF he had known there were no weapons of mass
destruction hidden there and that he would send more troops "if the
generals asked for them." Polls taken at the time revealed that most
of Kerry's supporters believed that he was against the Iraq war. The
illusion that the Democrats were the lesser evil, that the only
viable option was the Democrats and the Republicans, and that
reasonable, pragmatic people would not "elect Bush" "by wasting their
vote" on some ideal third party resulting in people JUST ASSUMING
that Kerry and the Democrats were against the Iraq war without
checking the facts which were otherwise.
It should be a no brainer that you cannot fight against the Iraq
war by supporting a candidate who said he would have been for
invading even if he had known there were no weapons of mass
destruction hidden there and that he would send even more troops "if
the generals asked for them."
The ruling class in this country has very cleverly arranged for
winner take all elections so that political activity tends to be
bipolar, gravitating towards two large parties, and even more
cleverly arranged for one party to be slightly to the left and
marginally less evil than the other party on most issues. The
electorate being confronted by these two political colossi and the
difficulty of any third party holding together long enough to reap
any electoral reward by winning a significant number of
gubernatorial, Congressional and Presidential elections overwhelms
most of the electorate with the illusion that they can only choose
between the lesser of two evils.
Historian Mark Lause, in his history of third parties in this
country, has documented that every third party since 1869 has died
out once it started supporting Democrats as the lesser evil. But to
only go back to the 1940's, the Wagner Labor Relations Act had been
passed by Congress after the depression, the rise of the CIO, etc had
convinced the ruling class that they had better permit some
concessions or reforms or they would loose everything in a
revolution. But in the later 1940's, after the mass movements of the
thirties had died down, Congress passed the Taft
Hartley Act which has been primarily responsible for the steady
decline of the labor movement up to the present. The majority of
Democrats voted for Taft Hartley, so it would have passed even if all
the Republicans had been magically removed from Congress. And in
1992 and
1996, I suppose we can all consider ourselves fortunate that Bush,
Sr. or Dole didn't defeat Clinton. Why if Bush or Dole had won, they
would have ended welfare as we know it! Prior to Clinton, ending
welfare had been considered one of the most reactionary proposals of
the right wing. And the first Gulf War, although started by Bush,
Sr., was continued by Clinton as was the trade embargo on Iraq which
led, according to U.N. estimates, to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi
children.
Further shut downs of antiwar activity will happen as long as the
majority of
anti war activists cling to the illusion that the solution to the
problem is supporting Democrats as the lesser evil. And as the
experience of 2003-7 demon states, once you have shut down a mass
movement, you cannot just bring it back, immediately, on command, as
if you were turning on a faucet or flipping a switch.
Robert Halfhill http://webmailb.juno.com/webmail/new/8?folder=Sent&msgNum=0000l900:0015kGJ500000_7x&block=1&fromPage=&isMailSearch=no&msgNature=all&msgStatus=all&count=1172431389&rteSupported=1&content=central#
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RED LAVENDER INSURGENT: WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE EVER LEARN?

RED LAVENDER INSURGENT: WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE EVER LEARN?

WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE EVER LEARN?

The following post is a comment on an article in OpEd News that bemoaned the fact that people who voted for the Democrats expecting impeachment and an end to the Iraq war did not get what they voted for.

WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE EVER LEARN?
By Robert Halfhill
Yes, the American people voted for the Democrats hoping they would
impeach Bush and get out of Iraq. Now, the Democratic Senate Majority
Leader, Nancy Pelosi, tells us that "impeachment is off the table."
And despite the power to approve or disapprove any war expenditures,
which has been in the Constitution since it came into effect in 1787
and the first federal government was set up, Congress, which is now
under Democratic control, is agonizing over a sense of Congress
resolution which will not have any effect. Despite all the sound and
fury, with Republicans and conservative Democrats predicting that any
ineffectual and non binding resolution will endanger the troops, and
all the political manevering around amendments and authors of
different resolutions combining their resolutions, the result when
all the tumult and turmoil has passed will be the Iraq War continuing
unimpeded.
If Antiwar and Impeachment activists cannot achieve their goals
through the Democrats, its time you considered voting for a third
party. And stop being brought up short by the argument that voting
for a third party will lead to even more evil since it will cause the
lesser evil Democrats to lose and put the Greater evil Republicans
back in power. The Democrats know that as long as both liberals and
radicals have announced publicly that they are supporting the
Democrats as the lesser evil, the Democrats can safely afford to
become even more evil because liberals and radicals have announced
that they don't have any place else to go. Then the Republicans can
safely afford to move even further to the right and even more evil.
And the Democrats know that they can safely follow the Republicans
even further to the right BECAUSE YOU HAVE ADMITTED THAT YOU DON'T
HAVE ANY PLACE ELSE TO GO.
If you are on a run-a-way train speeding towards the edge of a cliff,
leaving the Republican front car and crowding into the Democratic
rear car is not an effective strategy for survival. And don't say a
third party will not be supported by a majority of the voters
because, if the majority of the voters decide to support a third
party, the third party will have majority support. And that is your
job; you need to be agitating to persuade people concerning the
bankruptcy of the Democratic Party instead of the equivalent of
urging the majority of voters to take refuge in the rear car of a run-
a-way train.
Remember that a third party can prevail even in our winner take all
electoral system. The Republicans were once an upstart third party
before they replaced the Whig Party.
At present, the Green Party represent the best chance of a break with
the two party duopoly, sdspite its disastrous refusal to endors Ralph
Nader in 2004 and its equally disastrous retreat to endorsing safe
states David Cobb and his covert lesser evil support of the Democrats
by only making a serious attempt to campaign in states where there
was no chance he would throw the election to the Republicans. His
running mate, Pat LeMarch came out for a REALLY safe states policy
when she said that she would not even vote for herself unless the
polls predicted that Kerry would win 70% of the vote in her state.
You must be ready for increasingly strident predictions of doom as
you move towards breaking with the Democrats. Already, OpEd has
published another attack on Ralph Nader as the Democrat's
disappointment with respect to impeachment and ending the Iraq war
has led to increased fears that the voters may break with the
Democrats. You can expect more of the same in the same way an
overprotective parent retchets up the stidency and hysteria of his or
her warnings of doom whenever their offspring shows the slightest
sign of self assertion and indpendence.
http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com/ (SITE NOW BANNED ON AOL)
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WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE EVER LEARN?

The following post is a comment on an article in OpEd News that bemoaned the fact that people who voted for the Democrats expecting impeachment and an end to the Iraq war did not get what they voted for.

WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE EVER LEARN?
By Robert Halfhill
Yes, the American people voted for the Democrats hoping they would
impeach Bush and get out of Iraq. Now, the Democratic Senate Majority
Leader, Nancy Pelosi, tells us that "impeachment is off the table."
And despite the power to approve or disapprove any war expenditures,
which has been in the Constitution since it came into effect in 1787
and the first federal government was set up, Congress, which is now
under Democratic control, is agonizing over a sense of Congress
resolution which will not have any effect. Despite all the sound and
fury, with Republicans and conservative Democrats predicting that any
ineffectual and non binding resolution will endanger the troops, and
all the political manevering around amendments and authors of
different resolutions combining their resolutions, the result when
all the tumult and turmoil has passed will be the Iraq War continuing
unimpeded.
If Antiwar and Impeachment activists cannot achieve their goals
through the Democrats, its time you considered voting for a third
party. And stop being brought up short by the argument that voting
for a third party will lead to even more evil since it will cause the
lesser evil Democrats to lose and put the Greater evil Republicans
back in power. The Democrats know that as long as both liberals and
radicals have announced publicly that they are supporting the
Democrats as the lesser evil, the Democrats can safely afford to
become even more evil because liberals and radicals have announced
that they don't have any place else to go. Then the Republicans can
safely afford to move even further to the right and even more evil.
And the Democrats know that they can safely follow the Republicans
even further to the right BECAUSE YOU HAVE ADMITTED THAT YOU DON'T
HAVE ANY PLACE ELSE TO GO.
If you are on a run-a-way train speeding towards the edge of a cliff,
leaving the Republican front car and crowding into the Democratic
rear car is not an effective strategy for survival. And don't say a
third party will not be supported by a majority of the voters
because, if the majority of the voters decide to support a third
party, the third party will have majority support. And that is your
job; you need to be agitating to persuade people concerning the
bankruptcy of the Democratic Party instead of the equivalent of
urging the majority of voters to take refuge in the rear car of a run-
a-way train.
Remember that a third party can prevail even in our winner take all
electoral system. The Republicans were once an upstart third party
before they replaced the Whig Party.
At present, the Green Party represent the best chance of a break with
the two party duopoly, sdspite its disastrous refusal to endors Ralph
Nader in 2004 and its equally disastrous retreat to endorsing safe
states David Cobb and his covert lesser evil support of the Democrats
by only making a serious attempt to campaign in states where there
was no chance he would throw the election to the Republicans. His
running mate, Pat LeMarch came out for a REALLY safe states policy
when she said that she would not even vote for herself unless the
polls predicted that Kerry would win 70% of the vote in her state.
You must be ready for increasingly strident predictions of doom as
you move towards breaking with the Democrats. Already, OpEd has
published another attack on Ralph Nader as the Democrat's
disappointment with respect to impeachment and ending the Iraq war
has led to increased fears that the voters may break with the
Democrats. You can expect more of the same in the same way an
overprotective parent retchets up the stidency and hysteria of his or
her warnings of doom whenever their offspring shows the slightest
sign of self assertion and indpendence.
http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com (SITE NOW BANNED ON AOL)
*Write AOL to complain, here: aolaccessibility@aol.com, or call 1-
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RED LAVENDER INSURGENT

RED LAVENDER INSURGENT

DON SAMUELS, NORTH HIGH AND DEAN ZIMMERMANN

What follows is a post on the Minneapolis Issues List commenting on a post by Tamir Nolley attacking Don Samuels for his statement on burning down North High School. As of my posting this blog, my post has not yet appeared on the Minneapolis Issue List. Most likely, His Excellency, David I (David Bauer) as part of his totalitarian policing of the Issues List has not allowed this post through.
David Bauer, as the Moderator, actually Dictator, of the Minneapolis Issues List, has squelched much of the potential of e-democracy. He suspended this author for two weeks for posting information on the demonstration against George Bush on his appearance this summer at a fundraiser for Michelle Bachmann in Minnetonka because of Bauers orders against posting non Minneapolis issues on the list. By Bauer's arbitrary DICTAT, if Bush had appeared on the Minneapollis side of Emerald Avenue, it would be permissible to post about it on the Minneapolis Issues List. But is Bush were to appear on the other side of Emerald, posting about it would be verboten. Bush's appearance while outside the Minneapolis City limits, was still within the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan area and most of the participants in the demonstration were probably from the two inner cities. In fact, the largest contingent of the demonstraters were undoubtedly from Minneapolis.
But this does not prevent King David I from continuing his choleric threats of suspensions and expulsions thundering down from the Moderator's Throne. Until enough people on the list demand his unseating, his Jehovian threats will no doubt continue.
DON SAMUELS, NORTH HIGH AND DEAN ZIMMERMANN
By Robert Halfhill


I addition to Don Samuels saying "I am an Alfa (sic - should be
alpha) male," "We need to reevaluate out tolerance towards Gay and
Lesbian workers," "The only use for a library book is to block a
bullet or to throw at someone, and "Burn North High School down,"
Tamir Nolley (in a post to the Minneapolis Issues List) forgot to
mention Samuels "admonition" when the City Council
was discussing whether to retain certain provisions protecting the
rights of protesters in the contract for the Republican national
convention in Minneapolis something to the effect of we have to
remember that they control whether the convention comes here.
Perhaps this was just part of his opinions about the dangers of free
speech and the first amendment.
What list members need to remember is that THIS is what we got
after the Democratic Party had the ward boundaries changed in the the
post midnight hours of the night and threw Natalie Johnson Lee into
the same ward as Don Samuels. The ward boundaries did not throw any
incumbent City Council members into the same ward when the STAR
TRIBUNE first published a map of the redrawn ward boundaries. These
were presented as what had been decided for the required
reappointment. But the next day, we learned that the boundaries had
been redrawn.
This was done by the DFL in an attempt to eliminate the upstart
Green Party that had the temerity to win some of THEIR City Council
seats. An in future contests between the Green Party and the DFL,
Minneapolis voters should remember that it was the DFL who saddled
us with THIS instead of Natalie Johnson Lee on the City Council.
It was this same DFL who threw sixth ward Councilmember Dean
Zimmermann into the same ward with another Councilmember. But this
was not enough for the Republican and Democratic government who
arranged a sting so they could show pictures of Dean Zimmermann
accepting cash from a neighborhood developer. The cash was not a
contribution to Zimmermann personally but, instead, a contribution to
the legal expenses of the lawsuit against the redistricting.
Zimmermann had told several friends that he had received the money
for the lawsuit and these friends were prepared to testify at his
trial. However, federal Judge Ann Montgomery, who when she was a
Hennepin County Judge, had acquitted Richard Prof after he threatened
a group of Gay and Lesbian demonstraters, who were protesting a
recent incident of Gay bashing, with a baseball bat and later threw
an egg at them, ruled that the testimony that Dean had told them he
received the money for the lawsuit was inadmissible in the trial
because it was "hearsay." Hearsay, for example, means that you or I
could not testify that someone had committed a murder because we read
about it in a newspaper or someone had told us. Only people with
direct knowledge because of being eyewitnesses or the defendant later
telling them would be allowed to testify. However, if a witness told
someone that he had seen the defendant commit the murder and later
said at the trial that he had not seen the defendant do it, the
person who had earlier been told by the witness that he had seen the
defendant commit the murder could
testify in court about his direct knowledge about what the witness
had committing the murder.
Similarly, Dean's friends should have been allowed to testify
about Dean telling them he had received the money for the lawsuit,
although they would not have been permitted to testify about Dean
receiving the money unless they had been eyewitnesses.
And Judge Montgomery, whose bias is as evident as her ignorance of
the law, sentenced Dean Zimmermann to three years, although other
City Councilmembers, Joe Biernat and Brian Herron, who had actually
taken bribes, had only received a year in prison. And making her
bias more evident for all to see, Judge Montgomery twisted the knife
in for an extra turn by refusing to let Dean serve his sentence in a
Dakota prison where family and friends could more easily visit him,
but instead specified that he serve his sentence in a Colorado prison.
Robert Halfhill Loring Park
http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com (SITE NOW BANNED ON AOL)
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http://RedLavenderInsurgent.blogspot.com