10 years ago tomorrow, March 20th 2003 will mark the 10 year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the united states. At a total cost of 6 trillion dollars and more than 125,000 murdered people in Iraq. The lies and deception of those that got us into that disaster are well documented. The profiteering and incompetence are writ large in a nation that has been segregated by sectarian violence in the wake of another in a long history of imperialist adventures that have left a stain on the conscience of our people. I would like to ask all of those people here tonight and watching at home to spend just a small part of tomorrow thinking about the consequences of allowing liars and war criminals to escape justice. About the consequences of bigotry, by valuing the lives of people of other nations as lesser beings because they have a different skin color or follow a different religion we devalue all life. I was a young man during the Vietnam war when people took to the streets in huge numbers to stop madness of Imperialism. It saddens me that we forgot that tragedy in a single generation. 50 people were killed in bombings just yesterday in Iraq. I would hope that we can learn from this absolute failure as a people to stop bombing first and never asking questions.

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The Mayor thinks I should be ashamed of myself for standing up for my civil rights. Murl Harpham could barely remember his own name but I misidentified the name of a cop and I was pure evil. I corrected that error before proceeding and dismissed my case against the misidentified individual by the way. They claimed we had no community support. Hundreds of people were coming to rallies at Occupy Eureka in October and November. It was police repression that shrank the crowds over time.When a segment of the population held a counter protest we out numbered them 3 to 1. The case has been, "Taken under advisement" and I will hear within the next 30 days. I don't care what the commissioner says in the end. We have already won. We have stood up to an evil repressive regime and said no more. You cannot treat us as serfs we are free people. We have stood together. More then 15 months after the fact people are still coming to support our actions and testify to the wrongs done by the city and by the criminal thieves and killers of the Eureka police department. I am honored to have taken part in the action at Occupy Eureka with comrades such as these. It is the Mayor and the Chief of Police that should hang their heads in shame.
We are not done. Not done fighting this evil regime or fighting for our rights in court. The morning of the 19th of February at 8:30 am Verbena will be proceeding with her civil rights cases. I look forward to seeing you all there.
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE
James Decker.

Two Minutes Then STFU

The Board of Supervisors is still trying to take away civil rights in Humboldt County. They passed an ordinance to restrict freedom of speech and of assembly. They got laughed out of court by a jury when they tried to prosecute people for violating it. Ever since they have been trying to dig out from the hole they find themselves in. Today they enlisted the help of the Human Rights commission to try and justify their ignoring basic civics. If there are 3 doors to a building and I am standing in front of 1 of them I am never going to be impeding your entering the building. The medium is the message. The way I choose to express my free speech is in and of itself free speech. Below the photo are my remarks.


"I think it is a very bad idea to let people that have proven themselves to be incompetent to mess around with the most important documents in our society. Humboldt county has the highest poverty rate and shortest life expectancy in California. So the good news is your shitty little life will be short."

Too old to play full court

"Those that prevent peaceful revolution insure a violent one."

That sentiment has been expressed in the past and it was the late President Kennedy that I see it attributed to most of the time. I put it on a sign at Occupy Eureka and the irony deficient police arrested me.
I have been a little remiss of late in my posting and for that I apologize. The time has been short and I have been tweeting short blurbs and using the dreaded Facebook to communicate. So to that end a little update on the journey.
We turned in our signatures. It was a wild scramble to get 15% of the electorate and I am still not sure we made it. We did get far in excess of 10% so at some point we will be running a campaign to pass it. There is of course the opportunity for the city council to just pass it and to let it start working right away but as it isn't a 1/2 million dollar give away to a rich person I am not holding my breath.
Speaking of the city council I spent Friday afternoon with the mayor. It was a little gathering in small claims court. I am suing the city and several of the thugs of EPD. It was nerve wracking to be in a room with that many evil people for that long. We go at it again on Friday morning. The state has screwed with too many of us for too long. Some one had to stand up and at least get it on the record. We were just a little backwoods outpost of the occupy here behind the Redwood Curtain so you wont see us on Court TV. When the trial is over I will give a full report.
I have court as support twice today and Wednesday as well so it would seem that I have moved Occupy inside the courthouse. Rust never sleeps.

No Cake But We Had a File

We turned in 514 petitions with far in excess of the 2050 signatures we needed to get on the ballot in June.

I want to thank everyone that helped to make this happen. it has been a lot of hard work and there is still a campaign to win but you guys shoulds take a bow.

Benefit Bash

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, fighting for higher wages that is. We took the Party to Arcata for Saturday night as Backwoods Capo And headliner Rooster McClintock Rocked the Veterans Memorial.
Etta was jazzed to go

Bill was there to help with Setting up

Some more of the crew

The Fair Wage Graphics Contest

The Band Arrived

We had a Killer Sunset

People Began to arrive

Even the little ones came out

Backwoods Capo

Dancing to Rooster McClintock

Having some brew

Thanks to The Ink People, Mad River Brewery, PARC, Bien Padre, The Gold Rush, The Veteran's Hall and all the folks that Came out.
A special thanks to Sunset, Gemini and their crew for organizing and cooking the feast.
And last but not least Backwoods Capo and Rooster McClintock for playing so we could kick up our heals.

A Fool's Errand

Utterly awesome photo courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope and our tax dollars in action.
To the Editorial page Eureka Times-Standard,
This is in response to “God's funeral in the heart of darkness,” a My Word by Paul Mann.
Some will call this a fool's errand, comparing tragedies, but I feel the need to put it out into the universe, foolish or not.
The idea of a classroom full of small corpses is horrible to contemplate. "The immutability of evil seen only by coroners and police officers..." as Mr. Mann so eloquently put it. Unfortunately many communities are forced to endure this evil on a regular basis around the world. We as a people in the form of American imperialism are the cause.
In a misguided attempt to feel safe we are on an almost daily basis forcing other mothers and fathers to live that horror. With the same astounding precision that the AR 15 mowed down the victims in Newtown, we blow apart families at weddings and in school yards with unmanned drones and smart weapons. Those grieving families will never see the perpetrator of such evil as the drone operator continues the carnage at some undisclosed remote location.
We live in a society that values certain lives differently. Children in far off lands are blown apart by land mines and we count the profits and dismiss that loss. We support the bombing and starving of children in Gaza, Iraq, Pakistan and Iran calling it economic sanctions needed to keep "US" safe, “fighting them over there so we don't have to over here.” The right says the only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun. They do not realize that the man with the gun is never good. The descent into madness that took Adam into that room with a gun is the same path that we travel as a nation when our fear turns to impotent rage that we vent on the rest of the world.
We have a long history of massacres in the history of our nation. They don't begin in a McDonald's in San Yisidro or even out on the Island that sits in our Bay, but at their roots they have always come from the devaluation of the lives of “others”. To paraphrase the quote, I saw the inconceivable mystery of a nation who knew no restraint. The nation has been at the the murder scene, watching through the lens of the smart bomb nose camera, yet we do not "banish the idolatrous gun culture" of war.
“Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children -- all of them -- safe from harm?” The man that asked this question is the same man that has expanded the use of deadly drone attacks around the world. 176 Pakistani children since 2002 have been killed by drones alone. When we do not look upon All the Children of the
Submitted but as of yet not published by the Times Standard.
Thanks to Verbena Lea for her editing assistance.