Saturday, January 15, 2011
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Monday, January 03, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
The Truth About Nixon and Kissinger and Ending the War in Vietnam; Politics teaches us lessons
In a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives on May 26, 1994, Congressman Pete Stark observed,
Mr. Speaker, I speak today about the murderous actions of the late former President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger in the early 1970's.
The Nixon administration, elected with a pledge of having a secret plan to end the Vietnam War, took credit in the 1972 elections for the withdrawal from Vietnam and the wind down of the war. The just-published HALDEMAN DIARIES, however, reveal that the withdrawal was delayed for raw, gross political reasons--to look better in the 1972 elections. . . .
Each day that we delayed our withdrawal, American servicemen died needlessly. Kissinger advised against early withdrawal for election reasons in December of 1970. According to Department of Defense statistics, 2,412 men died in 1971, another 767 in 1972, and 65 more in 1973. In total, 3,244 men died while the withdrawal was delayed for the purposes of ensuring the re-election of Richard Nixon and the sinecure of Henry Kissinger.
One hundred and forty slabs of stone carry the names of 58,191 dead servicemen at the Vietnam Memorial. If Nixon and Kissinger had considered the lives of their fellow Americans instead of their own political victories, 7 stones would not have been needed. The next time you visit the Wall, think about it--1 out of every 20 names would not be there if we had pulled out quickly and decisively when
Kissinger first discussed it. One out of every 20 names is there to help win an election for CREEP. The blood of 3,244 servicemen is an enormous burden on the soul to take to your grave. (88:E1116-1117)
Mr. Speaker, I speak today about the murderous actions of the late former President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger in the early 1970's.
The Nixon administration, elected with a pledge of having a secret plan to end the Vietnam War, took credit in the 1972 elections for the withdrawal from Vietnam and the wind down of the war. The just-published HALDEMAN DIARIES, however, reveal that the withdrawal was delayed for raw, gross political reasons--to look better in the 1972 elections. . . .
Each day that we delayed our withdrawal, American servicemen died needlessly. Kissinger advised against early withdrawal for election reasons in December of 1970. According to Department of Defense statistics, 2,412 men died in 1971, another 767 in 1972, and 65 more in 1973. In total, 3,244 men died while the withdrawal was delayed for the purposes of ensuring the re-election of Richard Nixon and the sinecure of Henry Kissinger.
One hundred and forty slabs of stone carry the names of 58,191 dead servicemen at the Vietnam Memorial. If Nixon and Kissinger had considered the lives of their fellow Americans instead of their own political victories, 7 stones would not have been needed. The next time you visit the Wall, think about it--1 out of every 20 names would not be there if we had pulled out quickly and decisively when
Kissinger first discussed it. One out of every 20 names is there to help win an election for CREEP. The blood of 3,244 servicemen is an enormous burden on the soul to take to your grave. (88:E1116-1117)
in fact, Big Brother...is watching u and I ...and everyone else...everyday...
"Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications." As Arkin and Priest document today, there are few safeguards on how all this data is used and abused.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The Washington Post's Award Winning Article on our unexplored huge national homeland security network
this is a clear astounding in scope national news story that makes it clear, local and state law enforcement agencies are involved directly in gathering information on us citizens every day, across the entire spectrum of us citizens activities...
its an amazing series and it doesn't even itself, pretend to know where this huge military private contractor highly coordinated state to state, state to local and state/local to national homeland security network either begins or ...ends...
its so large, that there isn't even a clear knowledge of who and what are all the pieces except those clearly known to the federal govt' homeland security and military command structures...
its an amazing series and it doesn't even itself, pretend to know where this huge military private contractor highly coordinated state to state, state to local and state/local to national homeland security network either begins or ...ends...
its so large, that there isn't even a clear knowledge of who and what are all the pieces except those clearly known to the federal govt' homeland security and military command structures...
Monday, December 20, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Executive Director of Midwest Center Elected to Executive Board of Local Branch of NAACP
It is an honor that I was able to run and to receive the support of the local members of the Steubenville Branch of the NAACP in our most recent election.
I'm looking forward to working with the members, the newly elected President Michael McIntyre and the Executive Committee and all members across the district to help build on the historical relevance of the NAACP in southeastern Ohio.
Knowing that the NAACP is open to persons of all races, nationalities and backgrounds, this is a very special honor and one that I will try my best to undertake with purpose and commitment with the view to fulfill the mission and goals of the broad National NAACP efforts on a wide variety of issues as they impact both our region and that of the State of Ohio and around the nation;
its time to roll up the sleeves and get to work building on the strong advocacy of those who have served in recent times faithfully on behalf of those who want to see a fair and equitable society and to have those of color and those of all backgrounds, especially the poor treated better in our region.
So, soon, and very soon, we aim to make a noise here in the local branch of the NAACP and we aim also to be effective; one cannot be genuine nor successful in the field of civil rights, without doing both ...
I'm looking forward to working with the members, the newly elected President Michael McIntyre and the Executive Committee and all members across the district to help build on the historical relevance of the NAACP in southeastern Ohio.
Knowing that the NAACP is open to persons of all races, nationalities and backgrounds, this is a very special honor and one that I will try my best to undertake with purpose and commitment with the view to fulfill the mission and goals of the broad National NAACP efforts on a wide variety of issues as they impact both our region and that of the State of Ohio and around the nation;
its time to roll up the sleeves and get to work building on the strong advocacy of those who have served in recent times faithfully on behalf of those who want to see a fair and equitable society and to have those of color and those of all backgrounds, especially the poor treated better in our region.
So, soon, and very soon, we aim to make a noise here in the local branch of the NAACP and we aim also to be effective; one cannot be genuine nor successful in the field of civil rights, without doing both ...
Monday, November 22, 2010
Kenneth Krecken filed a motion inside of Youngstown Ohio's Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in December of 09 and attempted to have a restraining order granted against me. After a very intense one hour hearing in which Mr. Olivito and the Court cross examined Krecken and his now wife, Rosa Krecken and then filed his own counter motion for a restraining order, the same Court, less than five weeks later, dismissed the original Krecken motion for a restraining order, noting that it wasn't supported by the evidence and that Mr. Krecken as Mr. Olivito's motion indicated, contained its own serious basis for Krecken to be found as having assaulted not just Mr. Olivito but his only son's mother on numerious occasions while placing the minor son in harms way on any number of domestic incidents
Krecken is my young son's step father, who lives n Boardman Ohio was arrested in two thousand and five for domestic violence.
This arrest resulted from a brutal drunken assault and beating with a lamp, an instrumentalty, of his then girlfriend [and my only sons mother] Rosa Lee @ HER OWN mothers home in Boardman, Ohio.
My then three year old son witnessed this beating and serious assault upon his mother ACCORDING to the actual police arrest record filed with the Mahoning County Court system by the local police. The beating was reported in a now apparently sealed or hidden arrest report which detailed how Rosa Lee was found wearing very little, weeping outside in her own backyard, very scared, in the mid-December 05 freezing winter cold.
Krecken was found by the responding police after speaking with Ms. Lee, inside the house, yelling and so drunk according to the report, that the officers noted the assailant was completely disabled. Krecken admitted his drinking three bottles of wine and several beers just prior to his multiple strike beat down of his then live in girlfriend in front of my son at HER mother's house.
Of course, as in Rome, in Mahoning County, and Boardman in particular, nothing much happened to this guy and the local prosecutor dismissed this serious domestic violence incident and related charge a few weeks later without any further investigation or follow up.
No follow up investigation; no police or state prosecutor's decision to 'go it alone' as Ohio law provide against a very serious set of domestic and felonious assault allegations. There was also no presentation for more than mere misdemeanor assault, nor for felonious assault since an instrument was used in the malicious beat down, which prompted his live in girlfriend to flee for her life out of her own mother's home, wearing very little into the winter night cold, as indicated in the evening's arrest records and police incident report.
But remember, this is Mahoning County and money talks and connections matter. Recently, even the court records of Krecken's arrest for this serious assault were apparently sealed. [This seems to be common practice for this local white bad boy.]
Even better, I as the young son's natural parent and father, involved then in a contested and seriously controversial custody dispute with the Mom, was NEVER TOLD or even informed by anyone, any official at any time, despite my having an active law practice in the very county itself, at the time; much less the mother or the OFFICIALS in Boardman nor at the Mahoning County Court system, in Boardman at any time,
Nothing was stated to a then active and high profile member [and father of the said minor son] of the local Mahoning County Bar Assocation by any judicial or police officer or clerk or other officials about the serious danger posed and the exposed risk to my very young son by this live in boyfriend of my son's mother. This report was duly buried and this incident was covered up by everyone inside the Mahoning Court system, even as I was practicing law inside of the same, with a very high profile set of federal civil rights claims which were the subject of over 80 local news articles.
In fact, only a few weeks later, after this serious wintery beat down of Mom, at her house, this same man and mother would gain FULL custodial rights inside a Mahoning County Juvenile Court hearing, before Magistrate Sam Amendolara in a hearing wherein I was not even present to contest the same due to a "problem with notice".
i.e. a secretive hearing held inside Mahoning County's very secretive Juvenile Court proceedings granted, after a full year and half of contested arguments and guardian ad litem complete involvement but complete failure to issue a full report to the Court at any time...prior to this award...my son to be allowed and mandated to live within this very same hostile drunken dysfunctional and seriously dangerous active alcholic
live in circumstance and living arrangement.
[I.E. this very court, ignored or was NEVER informed by any official, much less the boardman police or prosecutor's office and/or anyone else, and/or choose to ignore the same, and placed my son into direct serious hostile living in boyfriend environment within WEEKS OF THIS STEP FATHER" BRUTAL DRUNKEN BEATING OF MY SON"S MOTHER WHILE MY SON WITNESSED THE SAME ACCORDING TO THE MAHONING COUNTY/BOARDMAN OHIO OFFICIAL POLICE REPORT of the Krecken domestic violence arrest, which occured just a month prior to the custody being awarded to the mother, who continued to live in with this same man for the next three years and endured many such ,beatings, assaults, drunken assaults and raging all directly done in front of my three, four, five and six year old son, continuing down till the presesnt.]
What is truly tragic for my son is the Kenneth Krecken drunken drama ordeal continued on replete with several more wife beatings and raging reckless drunkenness, some of which became subject to further police calls to the residence and neighbor's calls, which continued on from there in Dec 2005, to further seriously disturb and agitate my very young son for the next Five years,
Thanks to the ever attentive local Magistrate, at the Mahoning County Juvenile Court and the ever attentive and watchful and very concerned Boardman police Dept and related local officials at Mahoning County Court in Boardman.
In 2007, reality met with the Courts and Mahoning County officials cover up of these terrible drunken rages and beatings and domestic indicents and a very young son's life came as close as any natural parent would ever not wish to ever dream a nightmare, that could ever be experienced, short of losing that child.
But this was no mere nightmare or dark imaginary tale or fantasy. It was St Patty's day, 2007, a date which will haunt me for the remainder of my days quite literally.
Boardman police were again called to the Krecken residence, to the new improved Krecken residence in fact, just months after their then recent wedding bliss [achieved by krecken with my young son in attendance, coerced ? ]
This particular night, in March of 2007, my son called me several times, from inside a locked bedroom wherein he was making the calls while located within his very closet. He wasn't crying but he was seriously under pressure and coercion and significant duress.
His mother would later join him inside the locked bedroom, telling anyone listening she was so afraid she was going to die that evening, that she was weeping out loud.
Soon the police were engaged in a open contact call and the local boardman police set up a live feed and perimeter around the new Krecken residence as i was driving at breakneck speeds up Route 11 ...to get to him.
What was the result of all this high end life affecting drama [especially the intense duress for a six year old son]?
Absolutely nothing. No arrests, no even an entry was made. No contact with krecken and No interivew with my son that evenign whatsoever. It was unexcusable conduct by the local police for such a serious set of circumstances and call from a six year old locked with his mother inside his own bedroom,w/ her crying and weeping loudly that she was going to be killed that evening.
The Boardman Police, who were on a continuous live feed with dad and his witness during a very high intensty and very very stressfilled evening, were convinced by "mom" to not enter the house because she had told them, "nothing was wrong" and it was "only a problem creaetd by her ex"...
Such is the professsionalism and the thoroughness of the Boardman finest inside a very real and complex domestic call. It was as if they didn't care whatsoever if there were dead bodies to be found in the house, especially one of a six year old who had made three distinct repeated phone calls from wthin his own bedroom starting at seven in the evening lasting on the last one, for over 40 minutes, all ear witnessed by several competent independent adult witnesses and even a retired judicial officer of Ohio, Grandfather.
All this despite repeated phone calls by a very scared and crying mom from inside a locked child's bedroom with one very drunken raging thing just outside the door...
What would come of a later filed motion with the court to get at what happened, filed by the father in the local Juvenile court?
Absolutely nothing. Again, zero, zip, nada. The criminal conduct of one serious out of control addictive manic depressive raging alcholic was greated with warmth and "sensitivity" and even welcome open arms by the local Boardman school and police. Instead, the target became not the criminal conduct of the step parent with a past, but rather, of course, the one truly concerned and very upset and seriously anxious natural father of Joshua Olivito who filed a motion for temporary custody in view of what happened on St. Paddy's day, 2007.
In fact, the lawyer for the mom and step dad would turn that evenings events around and make it appear the father was simply acting out and was simply "engaging in false behavior"...
It was later determined this defense lawyer not only was in serious conflict with the father, but was actually a part of the Mahoning County Bar associations earlier ethical investigation which had culminated in Mr. Olivito's law license being targeted by this very same Bar Association several years before his son was almost killed by a crazed drunken step father who...was actually awarded by the Boardman police for his...stand up behavior...
and the mother and step father were further allowed to maintain their crazy custody over this same child, due the very odd if not bizarre justice system of Mahoning County Ohio and its fn bizarre local police who can't quite determine when domestic violence by threat of death is in force and effect.
So is the continuing tale of what my very minor child has had to endure, directly due to the antics of one very serious angry and dangerious drunken step father, Kenneth Krecken and the complete condoning and cover up by the local Boardman police of his out of control seriously disturbring domestic violence cycle, which has the mother deeply emeshed in both its intensity and its depth....
Krecken is my young son's step father, who lives n Boardman Ohio was arrested in two thousand and five for domestic violence.
This arrest resulted from a brutal drunken assault and beating with a lamp, an instrumentalty, of his then girlfriend [and my only sons mother] Rosa Lee @ HER OWN mothers home in Boardman, Ohio.
My then three year old son witnessed this beating and serious assault upon his mother ACCORDING to the actual police arrest record filed with the Mahoning County Court system by the local police. The beating was reported in a now apparently sealed or hidden arrest report which detailed how Rosa Lee was found wearing very little, weeping outside in her own backyard, very scared, in the mid-December 05 freezing winter cold.
Krecken was found by the responding police after speaking with Ms. Lee, inside the house, yelling and so drunk according to the report, that the officers noted the assailant was completely disabled. Krecken admitted his drinking three bottles of wine and several beers just prior to his multiple strike beat down of his then live in girlfriend in front of my son at HER mother's house.
Of course, as in Rome, in Mahoning County, and Boardman in particular, nothing much happened to this guy and the local prosecutor dismissed this serious domestic violence incident and related charge a few weeks later without any further investigation or follow up.
No follow up investigation; no police or state prosecutor's decision to 'go it alone' as Ohio law provide against a very serious set of domestic and felonious assault allegations. There was also no presentation for more than mere misdemeanor assault, nor for felonious assault since an instrument was used in the malicious beat down, which prompted his live in girlfriend to flee for her life out of her own mother's home, wearing very little into the winter night cold, as indicated in the evening's arrest records and police incident report.
But remember, this is Mahoning County and money talks and connections matter. Recently, even the court records of Krecken's arrest for this serious assault were apparently sealed. [This seems to be common practice for this local white bad boy.]
Even better, I as the young son's natural parent and father, involved then in a contested and seriously controversial custody dispute with the Mom, was NEVER TOLD or even informed by anyone, any official at any time, despite my having an active law practice in the very county itself, at the time; much less the mother or the OFFICIALS in Boardman nor at the Mahoning County Court system, in Boardman at any time,
Nothing was stated to a then active and high profile member [and father of the said minor son] of the local Mahoning County Bar Assocation by any judicial or police officer or clerk or other officials about the serious danger posed and the exposed risk to my very young son by this live in boyfriend of my son's mother. This report was duly buried and this incident was covered up by everyone inside the Mahoning Court system, even as I was practicing law inside of the same, with a very high profile set of federal civil rights claims which were the subject of over 80 local news articles.
In fact, only a few weeks later, after this serious wintery beat down of Mom, at her house, this same man and mother would gain FULL custodial rights inside a Mahoning County Juvenile Court hearing, before Magistrate Sam Amendolara in a hearing wherein I was not even present to contest the same due to a "problem with notice".
i.e. a secretive hearing held inside Mahoning County's very secretive Juvenile Court proceedings granted, after a full year and half of contested arguments and guardian ad litem complete involvement but complete failure to issue a full report to the Court at any time...prior to this award...my son to be allowed and mandated to live within this very same hostile drunken dysfunctional and seriously dangerous active alcholic
live in circumstance and living arrangement.
[I.E. this very court, ignored or was NEVER informed by any official, much less the boardman police or prosecutor's office and/or anyone else, and/or choose to ignore the same, and placed my son into direct serious hostile living in boyfriend environment within WEEKS OF THIS STEP FATHER" BRUTAL DRUNKEN BEATING OF MY SON"S MOTHER WHILE MY SON WITNESSED THE SAME ACCORDING TO THE MAHONING COUNTY/BOARDMAN OHIO OFFICIAL POLICE REPORT of the Krecken domestic violence arrest, which occured just a month prior to the custody being awarded to the mother, who continued to live in with this same man for the next three years and endured many such ,beatings, assaults, drunken assaults and raging all directly done in front of my three, four, five and six year old son, continuing down till the presesnt.]
What is truly tragic for my son is the Kenneth Krecken drunken drama ordeal continued on replete with several more wife beatings and raging reckless drunkenness, some of which became subject to further police calls to the residence and neighbor's calls, which continued on from there in Dec 2005, to further seriously disturb and agitate my very young son for the next Five years,
Thanks to the ever attentive local Magistrate, at the Mahoning County Juvenile Court and the ever attentive and watchful and very concerned Boardman police Dept and related local officials at Mahoning County Court in Boardman.
In 2007, reality met with the Courts and Mahoning County officials cover up of these terrible drunken rages and beatings and domestic indicents and a very young son's life came as close as any natural parent would ever not wish to ever dream a nightmare, that could ever be experienced, short of losing that child.
But this was no mere nightmare or dark imaginary tale or fantasy. It was St Patty's day, 2007, a date which will haunt me for the remainder of my days quite literally.
Boardman police were again called to the Krecken residence, to the new improved Krecken residence in fact, just months after their then recent wedding bliss [achieved by krecken with my young son in attendance, coerced ? ]
This particular night, in March of 2007, my son called me several times, from inside a locked bedroom wherein he was making the calls while located within his very closet. He wasn't crying but he was seriously under pressure and coercion and significant duress.
His mother would later join him inside the locked bedroom, telling anyone listening she was so afraid she was going to die that evening, that she was weeping out loud.
Soon the police were engaged in a open contact call and the local boardman police set up a live feed and perimeter around the new Krecken residence as i was driving at breakneck speeds up Route 11 ...to get to him.
What was the result of all this high end life affecting drama [especially the intense duress for a six year old son]?
Absolutely nothing. No arrests, no even an entry was made. No contact with krecken and No interivew with my son that evenign whatsoever. It was unexcusable conduct by the local police for such a serious set of circumstances and call from a six year old locked with his mother inside his own bedroom,w/ her crying and weeping loudly that she was going to be killed that evening.
The Boardman Police, who were on a continuous live feed with dad and his witness during a very high intensty and very very stressfilled evening, were convinced by "mom" to not enter the house because she had told them, "nothing was wrong" and it was "only a problem creaetd by her ex"...
Such is the professsionalism and the thoroughness of the Boardman finest inside a very real and complex domestic call. It was as if they didn't care whatsoever if there were dead bodies to be found in the house, especially one of a six year old who had made three distinct repeated phone calls from wthin his own bedroom starting at seven in the evening lasting on the last one, for over 40 minutes, all ear witnessed by several competent independent adult witnesses and even a retired judicial officer of Ohio, Grandfather.
All this despite repeated phone calls by a very scared and crying mom from inside a locked child's bedroom with one very drunken raging thing just outside the door...
What would come of a later filed motion with the court to get at what happened, filed by the father in the local Juvenile court?
Absolutely nothing. Again, zero, zip, nada. The criminal conduct of one serious out of control addictive manic depressive raging alcholic was greated with warmth and "sensitivity" and even welcome open arms by the local Boardman school and police. Instead, the target became not the criminal conduct of the step parent with a past, but rather, of course, the one truly concerned and very upset and seriously anxious natural father of Joshua Olivito who filed a motion for temporary custody in view of what happened on St. Paddy's day, 2007.
In fact, the lawyer for the mom and step dad would turn that evenings events around and make it appear the father was simply acting out and was simply "engaging in false behavior"...
It was later determined this defense lawyer not only was in serious conflict with the father, but was actually a part of the Mahoning County Bar associations earlier ethical investigation which had culminated in Mr. Olivito's law license being targeted by this very same Bar Association several years before his son was almost killed by a crazed drunken step father who...was actually awarded by the Boardman police for his...stand up behavior...
and the mother and step father were further allowed to maintain their crazy custody over this same child, due the very odd if not bizarre justice system of Mahoning County Ohio and its fn bizarre local police who can't quite determine when domestic violence by threat of death is in force and effect.
So is the continuing tale of what my very minor child has had to endure, directly due to the antics of one very serious angry and dangerious drunken step father, Kenneth Krecken and the complete condoning and cover up by the local Boardman police of his out of control seriously disturbring domestic violence cycle, which has the mother deeply emeshed in both its intensity and its depth....
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Truth About Richard Olivito's Ability to Practice Law As Per Seventh District Court of Appeals: Reversal of Lower Court's Mental Health Order
The Seventh District Court of Appeals is not an easy court to either practice before nor
necessarily win over to one's side of a high legal argument w/o doing one's
serious homework. Yet this is precisely what Attorney Richard A. Olivito
has done several times when his case's have appeared in front of the Mahoning
County Based regional court of appeals located in Youngstown, Ohio.
The State v. Williams case is just such a case that denotes what type of work
the court has recognized for Mr. Olivito's efforts and this is in addition to other
cases which have been decided in favor of the legal arguments presented mainly
by Mr. Richard Olivito before the same Seventh District Court of Appeals for
the past decade or more, prior to his recent issues w/ the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Please read the case as linked at the right of this article in the links spot and see
a lawyer's how hard work on a relatively minor but signficiant local legal case makes
a lawyer proud and helps to change a community and a municipal court's rulings in
relation to real live clients and helps define an entire municipal courts' policy inside
a significant metropolitan region.
At the same time this same decision made just prior to the time that several disciplinary
counsel have challenged Mr. Olivito over bespeaks a totally different view and account of the efforts of at least one set of lawyers...the state discipilnary counsel and those local disciplinary counsel for the very same county wherein the Seventh District Court of Appeals resides....as to whether or not Richard Olivito is capable of competently representing the public and his clients
either by criminal appointment and /or inside his numerous civil rights litigation claims.
The fact that his work can both presentserious propositions of law and result in making a difference with legal merit for various clients and other related issues before courts w/ direct personal knowledge of his work speaks to the very issues that so recklessly being
tossed about and promoted by some very negative lawyers who work for the
state's disciplinary system.
What is behind this obvious comparison between what state and local governmental bar association lawyers are claiming are the problems w/ Mr. Olivito's practice and what
actual real courts have decided, including courts of appeals decisions like the Williams case demonstrate is something that goes to the both the heart of the issue presently before the
Ohio Supreme Court in relation to Mr. Olivito's ablity to practice law and yet in some ways, is well beyond this present posting
But it also stands in part, for the proposition that there just possibly may be an agenda for why such serious mis representations promoted and generated by governmental lawyers on behalf of largely vested special interests are being bantered about inside various modes of legal briefs and made-to-order special ethics board's "orders" which in turn are causing entire high courts like the Supreme Court of Ohio to take an extreme position in regards to a solo lawyer like Richard Olivito who happens to know a thing or two about fundamental constitutional rights within the special field of law called Section 1983 litigation where he has not been afraid
to speak out about the same issues strongly on behalf of his clients impacted civil rights.
Read and see what the difference between what Ms. Brown has presented inside her one sided self interested and extremely biased and unsupported legal brief about Mr. Richard Olivito's competence and what Mr. Olivito's legal abilties are and what a real genuine court of law says through an actual in court legal appellate argument he is capable of presenting on behalf of true and geniune real clients and people of Ohio. Even the highest court of the entire Youngstown
Court system would seem to disagree the kinds of things said about Mr. Olivito and his ability
to practice on behalf of clients within the region and across the state, as many of his actual
clients realize.
The Seventh District Court's opinion here linked at the initial sidebar, states in clear language:
"The record also reflects that the mental health evaluation would serve no purpose to the contempt that occurred here. If he submits to the evaluation, he stil must serve the sentence in jail. It is an order to submit to an evaluation, not counseling. Thus, it has no rehabilitative, restorative, or even punitive effect, as sentencing is designed to achieve.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the record of this case or evident in the court's findings demonstrating that a mental health evaluation is relevant or proper.
The record does not reflect a history or indication of mental health issues. The presentence investigation mentions nothing about mental health issues and opines that appellant is in good health. Accordingly, based on the record here, this court hereby deletes the portion of the sentence ordering appellant to submit to a mental health evaluation."
This is the actual language of the real higher court of appeals decision that was reached a year prior to the State Disciplinary Counsel's attempt to do the very same thing
This appellate decision was handed down after a full briefed and argued appeal, which included an oral argument on the issue as well as year long appeal which was taken by myself against the lower Youngstown Municipal Court's attempt to place me in jail for thirty days for a failure to obtain a "mental health evaulation" . (noting the irony of a court that said in order to "help" me they thought a heavy handed 30 jail sentence done in public, was the proper way to "coerce" me into seeking such help!)
I actually did serve a day in jail on this sentence and was taken to jail, in a suit, in leg irons and hancuffs, in full view of the local media and many local lawyers. It was a circus and a local deputy who escorted me out of the court room in leg irons, told me he has NEVER in thirty years of assisting in that court room, seen any thing like the way I was treated.
necessarily win over to one's side of a high legal argument w/o doing one's
serious homework. Yet this is precisely what Attorney Richard A. Olivito
has done several times when his case's have appeared in front of the Mahoning
County Based regional court of appeals located in Youngstown, Ohio.
The State v. Williams case is just such a case that denotes what type of work
the court has recognized for Mr. Olivito's efforts and this is in addition to other
cases which have been decided in favor of the legal arguments presented mainly
by Mr. Richard Olivito before the same Seventh District Court of Appeals for
the past decade or more, prior to his recent issues w/ the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Please read the case as linked at the right of this article in the links spot and see
a lawyer's how hard work on a relatively minor but signficiant local legal case makes
a lawyer proud and helps to change a community and a municipal court's rulings in
relation to real live clients and helps define an entire municipal courts' policy inside
a significant metropolitan region.
At the same time this same decision made just prior to the time that several disciplinary
counsel have challenged Mr. Olivito over bespeaks a totally different view and account of the efforts of at least one set of lawyers...the state discipilnary counsel and those local disciplinary counsel for the very same county wherein the Seventh District Court of Appeals resides....as to whether or not Richard Olivito is capable of competently representing the public and his clients
either by criminal appointment and /or inside his numerous civil rights litigation claims.
The fact that his work can both presentserious propositions of law and result in making a difference with legal merit for various clients and other related issues before courts w/ direct personal knowledge of his work speaks to the very issues that so recklessly being
tossed about and promoted by some very negative lawyers who work for the
state's disciplinary system.
What is behind this obvious comparison between what state and local governmental bar association lawyers are claiming are the problems w/ Mr. Olivito's practice and what
actual real courts have decided, including courts of appeals decisions like the Williams case demonstrate is something that goes to the both the heart of the issue presently before the
Ohio Supreme Court in relation to Mr. Olivito's ablity to practice law and yet in some ways, is well beyond this present posting
But it also stands in part, for the proposition that there just possibly may be an agenda for why such serious mis representations promoted and generated by governmental lawyers on behalf of largely vested special interests are being bantered about inside various modes of legal briefs and made-to-order special ethics board's "orders" which in turn are causing entire high courts like the Supreme Court of Ohio to take an extreme position in regards to a solo lawyer like Richard Olivito who happens to know a thing or two about fundamental constitutional rights within the special field of law called Section 1983 litigation where he has not been afraid
to speak out about the same issues strongly on behalf of his clients impacted civil rights.
Read and see what the difference between what Ms. Brown has presented inside her one sided self interested and extremely biased and unsupported legal brief about Mr. Richard Olivito's competence and what Mr. Olivito's legal abilties are and what a real genuine court of law says through an actual in court legal appellate argument he is capable of presenting on behalf of true and geniune real clients and people of Ohio. Even the highest court of the entire Youngstown
Court system would seem to disagree the kinds of things said about Mr. Olivito and his ability
to practice on behalf of clients within the region and across the state, as many of his actual
clients realize.
The Seventh District Court's opinion here linked at the initial sidebar, states in clear language:
"The record also reflects that the mental health evaluation would serve no purpose to the contempt that occurred here. If he submits to the evaluation, he stil must serve the sentence in jail. It is an order to submit to an evaluation, not counseling. Thus, it has no rehabilitative, restorative, or even punitive effect, as sentencing is designed to achieve.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the record of this case or evident in the court's findings demonstrating that a mental health evaluation is relevant or proper.
The record does not reflect a history or indication of mental health issues. The presentence investigation mentions nothing about mental health issues and opines that appellant is in good health. Accordingly, based on the record here, this court hereby deletes the portion of the sentence ordering appellant to submit to a mental health evaluation."
This is the actual language of the real higher court of appeals decision that was reached a year prior to the State Disciplinary Counsel's attempt to do the very same thing
This appellate decision was handed down after a full briefed and argued appeal, which included an oral argument on the issue as well as year long appeal which was taken by myself against the lower Youngstown Municipal Court's attempt to place me in jail for thirty days for a failure to obtain a "mental health evaulation" . (noting the irony of a court that said in order to "help" me they thought a heavy handed 30 jail sentence done in public, was the proper way to "coerce" me into seeking such help!)
I actually did serve a day in jail on this sentence and was taken to jail, in a suit, in leg irons and hancuffs, in full view of the local media and many local lawyers. It was a circus and a local deputy who escorted me out of the court room in leg irons, told me he has NEVER in thirty years of assisting in that court room, seen any thing like the way I was treated.
Thankfully, there is a very independent thinking and apolitical enough court of appeals, that saved me from much of the harshness of what happened in the good judge Millich's courtroom in March of 2004.
Curiously, the respected Seventh District Court of Appeals, which resides in Youngstown itself, was very familiar w/ my legal work and abilities,
knew not only was there "no basis in the record" for such a order, but there
simply never was such evidence to create this false light issue about my mental health whatsoever.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
460 Billion Dollars, Mingo Jct, A Great Film and Angela Jolie's Lifespan
Congress gave its approval for an additional 460 billion to Bush's nice little war
and Hallliburton /KBR will only get richer despite its record breaking fraudulent contracts
and we in the Ohio Valley and in places like this across Ohio and the midwest, continue to
become Mingo Jct.
What is Mingo Jct? Its the town where the opening scenes of the Deer Hunter movie
was filmed and the infamous bar/pool table shooting scene was filmed w/ actors Robert Dinero
and Angelo Jolie's father among others.
Its also the ugly 'living' example, if living can describe a word about the dead, and how
southeastern Ohio and many small towns people, in a different but not too distant past,
paid a price during another bad western misguided war of adventurism in another era, about
what Vietnam did to many in such area, was a tragedy on the level that the Oscar winning film
captured on film as few others could before or since.
However, back to reality and back to the real town called Mingo Jct, in this era and what we
find now is this time such a similar serious national imperialistic war has basically ended this
town's existence as a once thriving, if not locally proud blue collar struggling economic
center of a border County mill town of over 75 yrs old, closely situated along the banks of the
Ohio river where every main street business and bar, save one or two are shuttered and/or
measured in the number of broken windows among its basic mainstreet buildings,
which help create the image of something out of a war torn shell of a former steel proud
downtown and local once vibrant area.
Not everything present has to do with the recent War in Iraq. The decline began decades ago.
But the sheer expenditures on the war in Iraq make literally no sense to the towns people and
families of those who have memories that date back to when Meryl Streep, Robert Dinero,
Christopher Walkin, Angela Jolie's dad and many others demonstrated their early Oscar level
acting talents on the big screen while staying at times among the homes of those families within
and often then were walking down the now defunct main street, of this same city just some
thirty years ago.
What happened here started long before Bush took the Whitehouse, but the last eight years
have decapitated or better stated, placed the coupd grace' on whatever hopes such small proud
mill towns across Ohio's eastern boarders like Mingo were clinging to for themselves. Long term
Republican rule inside our state only promoted serious declines for our region.
While Ohio's largest cities have held their own, mainly by infrastructure and local business
spending, many of Ohio's smaller cities have falled not only on hard times, but have actually
almost completely collapsed, literally failing to operate on any relevant social, economic
or cultural centers of a once proud modern american industrial history.
Taking a walk or simply driving through such cities, is an experience out of an almost surreal
landscape, especially if one has any personal ties or memories of this once extremely labor
intensive region.
Its not that people of the area still don't have a still strong work ethic and have by some
miracle managed to find a way to survive amazingly among the measureable decrease in their
respective towns and cities mainstreets, but its simply symbolic of an american era that has not
only all too quickly faded but somehow has completely been obliterated in less than a generation
since Angela Jolie has grown up to become a tabloid cover girl.
Its literally not only sad and tragic to see what has become of many of Ohio's smaller towns
and cities as functioning centers of once vital local economies but its beyond moral to speak in
the name of spending 450 billion dollars on the operational theatre of the Iraqi wars and having
to do "development initiatives" inside a sand driven culture and nation, but one which is so far
away from the Ohio River towns which now themselves not only need millions to just get
back to what they were before the recent steep decline inside Ohio in the past 10 years, but just
to begin to sense they are even part of any social or economic progress of a nation even capable
of expending this type of funding on a 'small war'...6,o00 miles away from Ohio.
The sheer stark differential in seeing one's own regional decline amidst a community which
gave so much to this country's industrial and infrastructural and even former world war
development by literally providing the very elements upon which that steel based growth
occured, is beyond one's own imagination. the scene reminds one of the ghost towns that littered
the west after the gold rush or after the railroads by passed a given community in the last
western frontier.
Its hard to believe this is east of Chicago by five hundred miles and yet it looks like some part
of southern montana or the dusk bowl of Oklahoma and Nebraska of almost acentury later.
What changed this landscape and what caused this delince? There is some local blame
undoubtedly for the same. However, much of the macro economics has to do with the national
industrial and economic policy of the United States itself.
Now, its sinister to suggest that these same remaining older generations have to live in and
amidst a dead and dying local culture and mainstreet which is literally boarded up like an old
crack house, across the entire small town and city mainstreets, and yet watch on our brand new
HD digital television cable news stations our present congress and president give hundreds of
billions of dollars to supposedly "save" a foreign nation or two for "democractic interests".
Even The Deer Hunter could not capture the emptiness of the meaning of such a misguided
war any better that to promise democracy in a culture which resisted the same for over a
thousand years. Not even Diniro driving deep into the nightlife to try to save a friend from the
culture of corruption in Saigon, could better display the true meaning of what war does to
individuals from small towns in the midwest than that of the stories coming out of Iraq today.
To say these present billions are "for our troops" is as about as cynical as it is immoral to
those small towns where most of these troops derive from across our country.
Its certinaly not being spent for the troops hometowns economies from where they mainly
derive. And if such soldiers today are lucky enough to come home without post trauma wound
or a real serious physical handicap, or in a body bag, like some modern day Diniro, to find
life changed, they will indeed, come home to the same dour, dying small towns with no real local
economy and which resemble in large measure, in certain respects, some of those war towns
and areas they have just fought within.
For those who merely were film auteurs in one's youth, inspired by a friend's obtaining an
extra part on the set of the Deer Hunter, today, hearing of these expenditures, its like living
within somekind of real life rod serling major production or sequence.
One can not imagine what a billion dollars is if one comes from this region of Ohio. Yet to
hear of 450 billion going to defense military contractors and then as one turns off the news and
drives ten mintues from the front porch of one's parent's home and takes a dark and foreboding
ride thru the same opening scene of the Deer Hunter's mainstreet of Mingo Jct, where one
cannot find a single operating business, for its entire length, save the last remaining tavern
or two, which stubbornly remains open at the still same operating but diminished yet surviving
steel mill gate , that was capured on film w/ Diniro forty years ago, such is a very surreal
experience for any sentient being.
It isn't that the people of Mingo and surrounding area are any less human, any less layered
than today, than those depicted in the Deer Hunter in the after math of yet another war brought
to us by Brown and Root from Texas. We however, thought that such major hollywood films
had in fact taught America and our present generation and its leaders that such western
adventurism had real serious consequences on real, geniune american lives from areas found
along the small towns of the midwest and our country.
This is a lesson that has been forgotten, if ever contemplated or even understood.
What is sad, its not just the people and the individuals that are still sacrificing themselves for a
misguided major national mistaken militaristic policy but its the fact that these among us, at the
congressional level can allow such a significant portion of our american fabric of small town
america to fall into outright decay and become engaged in their own homeland death cycle
fight, as is occuring within entire regions as they dissapate into abject poverty and social
decline, as if these parts of america matter less to them and were but pieces of a capitalistic
nightmare gone bad for these same proud regions, who have sacrificed their labors and poured
their sons and daughters blood in the name of american patriotism more than many other places
and yet today...are simply both forgotten and considered as expendible parts of the economic
"transformation" and inevitable "dislocation" of america's recent domestic and foreign policy
and its grostesque expenditures.
The symbolism of this stark reality is bigger than life and is something that needs to be made
visible and known to the nation if not the world
When a nation spends the kinds of billions on a foreign adventure and says its going to have to
spend billions more on development of those nations' it has destroyed with its misguigded
military adventurism, is it speaking rationally and reasonably when it does so, as if it show
casing something to the outside world that it itself has hidden to its own?
Is Mingo Jct and all the small towns of american who have experienced such serious delines in
recent era, been actually written off? The answer lies in the outward appearances of the cities
and towns and in the way the politicians both local, state and federal give lip service to the
notion that such areas are "ripe for a rebound" or "turnaround" but everyone knows they are
more likely ripe for their burial into the lost memory of a bygone era of a former recent but
lost american industrialism.
Its nothing short of an epoch historical change in the heartland. Yet, the billions spent in Iraq
are but a cold silent slap in the face and witness to the true immoral nature of yet another
seriously misguided expensive "little" modern American war. Its a shameful act of brazen
military spending when so many places in eastern Ohio are so desperately seeking merely to
find a way to literally survive as a corporate/social entity.
Nothing needs to be further stated about whether or not this war is to come to an end, when
one visits this entire region along Ohio's eastern border cities and towns.
If we spend billions to rebulild Iraq, as we seem to be committed to as the aggressor into that
nation's interior, then what is to come of Ohio's border's towns and cities?
What if any national committment to spend billions on rebuidling these areas of our own
nation is going to be committed to the families and individuals and towns and cities which have
simply given so much they are literally used up and worn down and completely ground down
into a fine dust, as if the mill itself, has now devoured even the life of the very cities they have
operated near to for four or five generations ?
It is almost beyond description to capture the ethos of hearing the nightly news reports of
how another 60 billion is going to be spent on this war, and yet to have lived long enought to
witness the serious decline of Ohio's infrastructure of many of its smaller towns, like those
along the eastern border from along Lake Erie itself, in the northeastern portion of Ohio like
Conneaut down thru Jefferson onto Warren, and Struthers on thru to Toronto, Steubenville
and Mingo Jct and Bellaire and beyond. Its a vast region
This governmental indifference breeds regional depression, citizen disdain and strong
antigovernmental sentiment, along with a geniune cynicism of America's present political
direction and even our institutions and our leader's continued vague promises.
One begins to also sense there is a serious irrational disconnect occuring inside our
congressional appropriations and the real world of real american individual and family life.
The same serious disconnect represents the precise size of the moral deficiency of the cost of
doing war as a major nation, against the interests of a small nation which otherwise had no
intention of attacking our country and no ability to do so.
Its simply not only irrational but is something that is completely devasting to any true
meaningful purpose and sense of even some geniune patriotric pride of doing what is right for
america as fellow americans.
If we allow such border cities and towns to literally fall into the river of our darkest dreams
and wasted expenditures of yet another new generation's gravely mistaken militarism, we will
not be having such a discussion in another twenty years. Instead, its far more likely whether
there will be even any such cities or towns that exist to save or to call home or perhaps, make
an award winning epic era/war film within.
To some, this is fine. To many its just another era passing and to many who never have seen
much less the contribution these areas have given to the nation, and to those who control the
purse strings of this war machine it matters very little.
But to those who as teenagers watched Meryl Streep and Robert Diniro do something on
film that we knew we were going to remember for the rest of our lives, and watched them doing
it from the very environment of an area like Mingo Jct, it won't be just these regions which
will have lost something immeasurable but our very American experience itself will be seriously
dinimished, if not irrationally disregarded and made poorer.
All of America will suffer if one region is allowed to sink into such oblivion. What will replace
it? More plastic and larger metro regions? Greater militiary power? Regional influence among
the Arab nations? Perhaps. A safer democracy? Perhaps not.
But at what true moral cost to the nation? At what significant price will the lives of such
communities be allowed to disappear, like those of the Indian nations which once proudly lived
in these same parts along the Ohio, like the tribes for which this very city was named?
While we spend the lifeblood of another generation in the sands of the mideast and the wealth
of our nation is wasted on the dessert sand towns and cities of a region, our forefathers never
dreamed that their sons and daughters hard earned savings and taxes were to pay for
such elite adventures into unimaginable lands requiring gross overwhelming amounts, to the
grave detriment of providing any possible hope for an economic miracle coming to these same
hard working and once proud regions who have provided the very lifeblood of a nation.
Our country is now is so eager to forget eastern Ohio completely from the Lake to the River
and the powerful military regional, economic and present political influences of this nation are
poised to discard this part of Ohio and the entire valleys that once made this nation so strong.
Nonetheless, before it completely dies off, they will be courting once again, very soon, like one
dates the corpse's bride, our regional swing votes and there will be those who are willing to sell
the vulnerable for a nice small but handsome, personal profit.
All the same may happen without a serious consequence. But a nation which forgets such a
culture and region as substantive and signficant as entire eastern half of Ohio and surrounding
valleys, this, so soon, even with completely arrogance and indifference, will be a society that
will itself, possess little if any actual soul.
Such a nation may not be fit actually to inhabit, whatever material successes if may later
acheive. Such a nation itself, may not long survive, if its 'expenditures' on such immoral wars,
becomes but a conduit for providing elites such disproportionate amounts of capital and
taxpayer dollars to the complete exlusion of doing anything remotely on scale to its own
challenged and even dying communities and towns....
Only the leadership in high places in Columbus and in Washington, and particuarly in
Congress from these regions can make any difference and make their region's people's voices
and serious dire straits, literally, heard.
Only the area itself, can perhaps make the case against further decline and exploitation.
The question is, are our present leaders capable of doing so even when they come to Ohio
to help determine their own political career's and our nation's destiny from our critical
bellweather state. Are we going to again sell ourselves cheaply like the girls do on
the dark abandoned sixth street of Steubenville?
Will we rise to the challenge and demand more of our leaders and our government than this?
This is the real issue and like the need for serious regional development and funding itself,
all remains as dark and dimly lit as a political possiblity as does mainstreet, tonight, in Mingo
Jct itself.
Perhaps, again, as did Streep, Diniro and Angela' dad, do we need again search for our friends
among the ruins of yet another american foreign policy disaster before, time runs completely out
on our better memories of a better time, among all of us, not just in our personal lives but in our
region and perhaps, even in our nation's life. Perhaps, we can by some miracle find the way
back to regional standing and solid ground and with it, lift this nation once again to a new and
different place past yet another serious national misadventure into a strange foreign land
where we do not belong and a president lied to get us to not only go there but to remain.
We need to stop the literally insane, over heated, no holds barred funding of this bizarre
military effort and start investing in boarder long suffering towns and communities which once
made this nation gain its true strength and character and broad standing in the world. We do
not need another president or state leader of any political party demanding our loyalty at the
ballot box and then promptly forgetting us when it comes to economic and social development.
The era of remaining silent but compliant ought to be over and must come to an end;
a new day of accountability even from among some of the poorest regions of our state, [as
poor as they never were ever before, even before Angela Jolie's dad was filming with his
fellow actor's epic period drama about Vietnam and our troubled modern perchant for
getting involved in foreign wars and regional disputes causing not only economic but terrific
human and personal losses as well] has arrived. It is time to watch the Deer Hunter again
and realize we are our neighbor's keeper and we are indeed, involved in a serious mistake
overseas again, as a nation thirty to forty years later and its unnecessarily causing this nation
and our state, if not our political leaders to bleed our small towns' lives and hopes to death,
literally.
We must end this war and we must put away the sword now and elect leaders who do not
espouse more billions in spending for any more regaional conflicts, except of course those for
which are occuring inside the heartland of America; where they all still continue to come and
seek, even in our hardest and most dark of times, our region's swing voter margins for their
personal political benefit.
Lets make it clear; our support means true assistance in return and not merely our suppliant
obedience to any one party line or political personality cult among the state or national
representatives or the leaders we decide to elect to high office today.
Its time to get over our fears of being rejected politically....in our region, because, in a word,
we have been already....just take a drive w/ me tonight to where the guys in the movie scene I
most recall, played pool and sang along w/Sinatra, at Welsch's, (now boarded up), near the south
gate, and see if you would not agree....there is no time to waste.
We must as citizen's protest this multi-billion dollar bleed. We must as persons who grew
up in this historic Valley and region, stand up.
If we do not speak or act up now, our children will not have any town or region left to
remember or for their generation to realize something of value was portrayed inside
such a region as ours once and it was truly uniquely American... as Diniro and all those
artist themselves, came to realize and understand personally over thirty years ago.
If we can not understand this, then our entire region is doomed to be as wasted as are the
billions being spent in Iraq today, by our present government in D.C. We must make a noise
even if its as we lay bleeding and dying from the wounds of our friends and some enemies
in high places.
and Hallliburton /KBR will only get richer despite its record breaking fraudulent contracts
and we in the Ohio Valley and in places like this across Ohio and the midwest, continue to
become Mingo Jct.
What is Mingo Jct? Its the town where the opening scenes of the Deer Hunter movie
was filmed and the infamous bar/pool table shooting scene was filmed w/ actors Robert Dinero
and Angelo Jolie's father among others.
Its also the ugly 'living' example, if living can describe a word about the dead, and how
southeastern Ohio and many small towns people, in a different but not too distant past,
paid a price during another bad western misguided war of adventurism in another era, about
what Vietnam did to many in such area, was a tragedy on the level that the Oscar winning film
captured on film as few others could before or since.
However, back to reality and back to the real town called Mingo Jct, in this era and what we
find now is this time such a similar serious national imperialistic war has basically ended this
town's existence as a once thriving, if not locally proud blue collar struggling economic
center of a border County mill town of over 75 yrs old, closely situated along the banks of the
Ohio river where every main street business and bar, save one or two are shuttered and/or
measured in the number of broken windows among its basic mainstreet buildings,
which help create the image of something out of a war torn shell of a former steel proud
downtown and local once vibrant area.
Not everything present has to do with the recent War in Iraq. The decline began decades ago.
But the sheer expenditures on the war in Iraq make literally no sense to the towns people and
families of those who have memories that date back to when Meryl Streep, Robert Dinero,
Christopher Walkin, Angela Jolie's dad and many others demonstrated their early Oscar level
acting talents on the big screen while staying at times among the homes of those families within
and often then were walking down the now defunct main street, of this same city just some
thirty years ago.
What happened here started long before Bush took the Whitehouse, but the last eight years
have decapitated or better stated, placed the coupd grace' on whatever hopes such small proud
mill towns across Ohio's eastern boarders like Mingo were clinging to for themselves. Long term
Republican rule inside our state only promoted serious declines for our region.
While Ohio's largest cities have held their own, mainly by infrastructure and local business
spending, many of Ohio's smaller cities have falled not only on hard times, but have actually
almost completely collapsed, literally failing to operate on any relevant social, economic
or cultural centers of a once proud modern american industrial history.
Taking a walk or simply driving through such cities, is an experience out of an almost surreal
landscape, especially if one has any personal ties or memories of this once extremely labor
intensive region.
Its not that people of the area still don't have a still strong work ethic and have by some
miracle managed to find a way to survive amazingly among the measureable decrease in their
respective towns and cities mainstreets, but its simply symbolic of an american era that has not
only all too quickly faded but somehow has completely been obliterated in less than a generation
since Angela Jolie has grown up to become a tabloid cover girl.
Its literally not only sad and tragic to see what has become of many of Ohio's smaller towns
and cities as functioning centers of once vital local economies but its beyond moral to speak in
the name of spending 450 billion dollars on the operational theatre of the Iraqi wars and having
to do "development initiatives" inside a sand driven culture and nation, but one which is so far
away from the Ohio River towns which now themselves not only need millions to just get
back to what they were before the recent steep decline inside Ohio in the past 10 years, but just
to begin to sense they are even part of any social or economic progress of a nation even capable
of expending this type of funding on a 'small war'...6,o00 miles away from Ohio.
The sheer stark differential in seeing one's own regional decline amidst a community which
gave so much to this country's industrial and infrastructural and even former world war
development by literally providing the very elements upon which that steel based growth
occured, is beyond one's own imagination. the scene reminds one of the ghost towns that littered
the west after the gold rush or after the railroads by passed a given community in the last
western frontier.
Its hard to believe this is east of Chicago by five hundred miles and yet it looks like some part
of southern montana or the dusk bowl of Oklahoma and Nebraska of almost acentury later.
What changed this landscape and what caused this delince? There is some local blame
undoubtedly for the same. However, much of the macro economics has to do with the national
industrial and economic policy of the United States itself.
Now, its sinister to suggest that these same remaining older generations have to live in and
amidst a dead and dying local culture and mainstreet which is literally boarded up like an old
crack house, across the entire small town and city mainstreets, and yet watch on our brand new
HD digital television cable news stations our present congress and president give hundreds of
billions of dollars to supposedly "save" a foreign nation or two for "democractic interests".
Even The Deer Hunter could not capture the emptiness of the meaning of such a misguided
war any better that to promise democracy in a culture which resisted the same for over a
thousand years. Not even Diniro driving deep into the nightlife to try to save a friend from the
culture of corruption in Saigon, could better display the true meaning of what war does to
individuals from small towns in the midwest than that of the stories coming out of Iraq today.
To say these present billions are "for our troops" is as about as cynical as it is immoral to
those small towns where most of these troops derive from across our country.
Its certinaly not being spent for the troops hometowns economies from where they mainly
derive. And if such soldiers today are lucky enough to come home without post trauma wound
or a real serious physical handicap, or in a body bag, like some modern day Diniro, to find
life changed, they will indeed, come home to the same dour, dying small towns with no real local
economy and which resemble in large measure, in certain respects, some of those war towns
and areas they have just fought within.
For those who merely were film auteurs in one's youth, inspired by a friend's obtaining an
extra part on the set of the Deer Hunter, today, hearing of these expenditures, its like living
within somekind of real life rod serling major production or sequence.
One can not imagine what a billion dollars is if one comes from this region of Ohio. Yet to
hear of 450 billion going to defense military contractors and then as one turns off the news and
drives ten mintues from the front porch of one's parent's home and takes a dark and foreboding
ride thru the same opening scene of the Deer Hunter's mainstreet of Mingo Jct, where one
cannot find a single operating business, for its entire length, save the last remaining tavern
or two, which stubbornly remains open at the still same operating but diminished yet surviving
steel mill gate , that was capured on film w/ Diniro forty years ago, such is a very surreal
experience for any sentient being.
It isn't that the people of Mingo and surrounding area are any less human, any less layered
than today, than those depicted in the Deer Hunter in the after math of yet another war brought
to us by Brown and Root from Texas. We however, thought that such major hollywood films
had in fact taught America and our present generation and its leaders that such western
adventurism had real serious consequences on real, geniune american lives from areas found
along the small towns of the midwest and our country.
This is a lesson that has been forgotten, if ever contemplated or even understood.
What is sad, its not just the people and the individuals that are still sacrificing themselves for a
misguided major national mistaken militaristic policy but its the fact that these among us, at the
congressional level can allow such a significant portion of our american fabric of small town
america to fall into outright decay and become engaged in their own homeland death cycle
fight, as is occuring within entire regions as they dissapate into abject poverty and social
decline, as if these parts of america matter less to them and were but pieces of a capitalistic
nightmare gone bad for these same proud regions, who have sacrificed their labors and poured
their sons and daughters blood in the name of american patriotism more than many other places
and yet today...are simply both forgotten and considered as expendible parts of the economic
"transformation" and inevitable "dislocation" of america's recent domestic and foreign policy
and its grostesque expenditures.
The symbolism of this stark reality is bigger than life and is something that needs to be made
visible and known to the nation if not the world
When a nation spends the kinds of billions on a foreign adventure and says its going to have to
spend billions more on development of those nations' it has destroyed with its misguigded
military adventurism, is it speaking rationally and reasonably when it does so, as if it show
casing something to the outside world that it itself has hidden to its own?
Is Mingo Jct and all the small towns of american who have experienced such serious delines in
recent era, been actually written off? The answer lies in the outward appearances of the cities
and towns and in the way the politicians both local, state and federal give lip service to the
notion that such areas are "ripe for a rebound" or "turnaround" but everyone knows they are
more likely ripe for their burial into the lost memory of a bygone era of a former recent but
lost american industrialism.
Its nothing short of an epoch historical change in the heartland. Yet, the billions spent in Iraq
are but a cold silent slap in the face and witness to the true immoral nature of yet another
seriously misguided expensive "little" modern American war. Its a shameful act of brazen
military spending when so many places in eastern Ohio are so desperately seeking merely to
find a way to literally survive as a corporate/social entity.
Nothing needs to be further stated about whether or not this war is to come to an end, when
one visits this entire region along Ohio's eastern border cities and towns.
If we spend billions to rebulild Iraq, as we seem to be committed to as the aggressor into that
nation's interior, then what is to come of Ohio's border's towns and cities?
What if any national committment to spend billions on rebuidling these areas of our own
nation is going to be committed to the families and individuals and towns and cities which have
simply given so much they are literally used up and worn down and completely ground down
into a fine dust, as if the mill itself, has now devoured even the life of the very cities they have
operated near to for four or five generations ?
It is almost beyond description to capture the ethos of hearing the nightly news reports of
how another 60 billion is going to be spent on this war, and yet to have lived long enought to
witness the serious decline of Ohio's infrastructure of many of its smaller towns, like those
along the eastern border from along Lake Erie itself, in the northeastern portion of Ohio like
Conneaut down thru Jefferson onto Warren, and Struthers on thru to Toronto, Steubenville
and Mingo Jct and Bellaire and beyond. Its a vast region
This governmental indifference breeds regional depression, citizen disdain and strong
antigovernmental sentiment, along with a geniune cynicism of America's present political
direction and even our institutions and our leader's continued vague promises.
One begins to also sense there is a serious irrational disconnect occuring inside our
congressional appropriations and the real world of real american individual and family life.
The same serious disconnect represents the precise size of the moral deficiency of the cost of
doing war as a major nation, against the interests of a small nation which otherwise had no
intention of attacking our country and no ability to do so.
Its simply not only irrational but is something that is completely devasting to any true
meaningful purpose and sense of even some geniune patriotric pride of doing what is right for
america as fellow americans.
If we allow such border cities and towns to literally fall into the river of our darkest dreams
and wasted expenditures of yet another new generation's gravely mistaken militarism, we will
not be having such a discussion in another twenty years. Instead, its far more likely whether
there will be even any such cities or towns that exist to save or to call home or perhaps, make
an award winning epic era/war film within.
To some, this is fine. To many its just another era passing and to many who never have seen
much less the contribution these areas have given to the nation, and to those who control the
purse strings of this war machine it matters very little.
But to those who as teenagers watched Meryl Streep and Robert Diniro do something on
film that we knew we were going to remember for the rest of our lives, and watched them doing
it from the very environment of an area like Mingo Jct, it won't be just these regions which
will have lost something immeasurable but our very American experience itself will be seriously
dinimished, if not irrationally disregarded and made poorer.
All of America will suffer if one region is allowed to sink into such oblivion. What will replace
it? More plastic and larger metro regions? Greater militiary power? Regional influence among
the Arab nations? Perhaps. A safer democracy? Perhaps not.
But at what true moral cost to the nation? At what significant price will the lives of such
communities be allowed to disappear, like those of the Indian nations which once proudly lived
in these same parts along the Ohio, like the tribes for which this very city was named?
While we spend the lifeblood of another generation in the sands of the mideast and the wealth
of our nation is wasted on the dessert sand towns and cities of a region, our forefathers never
dreamed that their sons and daughters hard earned savings and taxes were to pay for
such elite adventures into unimaginable lands requiring gross overwhelming amounts, to the
grave detriment of providing any possible hope for an economic miracle coming to these same
hard working and once proud regions who have provided the very lifeblood of a nation.
Our country is now is so eager to forget eastern Ohio completely from the Lake to the River
and the powerful military regional, economic and present political influences of this nation are
poised to discard this part of Ohio and the entire valleys that once made this nation so strong.
Nonetheless, before it completely dies off, they will be courting once again, very soon, like one
dates the corpse's bride, our regional swing votes and there will be those who are willing to sell
the vulnerable for a nice small but handsome, personal profit.
All the same may happen without a serious consequence. But a nation which forgets such a
culture and region as substantive and signficant as entire eastern half of Ohio and surrounding
valleys, this, so soon, even with completely arrogance and indifference, will be a society that
will itself, possess little if any actual soul.
Such a nation may not be fit actually to inhabit, whatever material successes if may later
acheive. Such a nation itself, may not long survive, if its 'expenditures' on such immoral wars,
becomes but a conduit for providing elites such disproportionate amounts of capital and
taxpayer dollars to the complete exlusion of doing anything remotely on scale to its own
challenged and even dying communities and towns....
Only the leadership in high places in Columbus and in Washington, and particuarly in
Congress from these regions can make any difference and make their region's people's voices
and serious dire straits, literally, heard.
Only the area itself, can perhaps make the case against further decline and exploitation.
The question is, are our present leaders capable of doing so even when they come to Ohio
to help determine their own political career's and our nation's destiny from our critical
bellweather state. Are we going to again sell ourselves cheaply like the girls do on
the dark abandoned sixth street of Steubenville?
Will we rise to the challenge and demand more of our leaders and our government than this?
This is the real issue and like the need for serious regional development and funding itself,
all remains as dark and dimly lit as a political possiblity as does mainstreet, tonight, in Mingo
Jct itself.
Perhaps, again, as did Streep, Diniro and Angela' dad, do we need again search for our friends
among the ruins of yet another american foreign policy disaster before, time runs completely out
on our better memories of a better time, among all of us, not just in our personal lives but in our
region and perhaps, even in our nation's life. Perhaps, we can by some miracle find the way
back to regional standing and solid ground and with it, lift this nation once again to a new and
different place past yet another serious national misadventure into a strange foreign land
where we do not belong and a president lied to get us to not only go there but to remain.
We need to stop the literally insane, over heated, no holds barred funding of this bizarre
military effort and start investing in boarder long suffering towns and communities which once
made this nation gain its true strength and character and broad standing in the world. We do
not need another president or state leader of any political party demanding our loyalty at the
ballot box and then promptly forgetting us when it comes to economic and social development.
The era of remaining silent but compliant ought to be over and must come to an end;
a new day of accountability even from among some of the poorest regions of our state, [as
poor as they never were ever before, even before Angela Jolie's dad was filming with his
fellow actor's epic period drama about Vietnam and our troubled modern perchant for
getting involved in foreign wars and regional disputes causing not only economic but terrific
human and personal losses as well] has arrived. It is time to watch the Deer Hunter again
and realize we are our neighbor's keeper and we are indeed, involved in a serious mistake
overseas again, as a nation thirty to forty years later and its unnecessarily causing this nation
and our state, if not our political leaders to bleed our small towns' lives and hopes to death,
literally.
We must end this war and we must put away the sword now and elect leaders who do not
espouse more billions in spending for any more regaional conflicts, except of course those for
which are occuring inside the heartland of America; where they all still continue to come and
seek, even in our hardest and most dark of times, our region's swing voter margins for their
personal political benefit.
Lets make it clear; our support means true assistance in return and not merely our suppliant
obedience to any one party line or political personality cult among the state or national
representatives or the leaders we decide to elect to high office today.
Its time to get over our fears of being rejected politically....in our region, because, in a word,
we have been already....just take a drive w/ me tonight to where the guys in the movie scene I
most recall, played pool and sang along w/Sinatra, at Welsch's, (now boarded up), near the south
gate, and see if you would not agree....there is no time to waste.
We must as citizen's protest this multi-billion dollar bleed. We must as persons who grew
up in this historic Valley and region, stand up.
If we do not speak or act up now, our children will not have any town or region left to
remember or for their generation to realize something of value was portrayed inside
such a region as ours once and it was truly uniquely American... as Diniro and all those
artist themselves, came to realize and understand personally over thirty years ago.
If we can not understand this, then our entire region is doomed to be as wasted as are the
billions being spent in Iraq today, by our present government in D.C. We must make a noise
even if its as we lay bleeding and dying from the wounds of our friends and some enemies
in high places.
Friday, August 24, 2007
More Grisly Details of The Fascist States of America: Verizon NSA and Your Privacy
Telecom Firms Helped With Government's Warrantless Wiretaps
By Ellen NakashimaWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, August 24, 2007; Page D03
The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that telecommunications companies assisted the government's warrantless surveillance program and were being sued as a result, an admission some legal experts say could complicate the government's bid to halt numerous lawsuits challenging the program's legality.
"[U]nder the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us," Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said in an interview with the El Paso Times published Wednesday.
Mike McConnell's statements could help plaintiffs in lawsuits against telecommunications companies. (By Alex Wong -- Getty Images For Meet The Press)
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His statement could help plaintiffs in dozens of lawsuits against the telecom companies, which allege that the companies participated in a wiretapping program that violated Americans' privacy rights, former Justice Department officials said. Warrantless surveillance began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was placed under supervision of a special court in January.
An appeals court in San Francisco is weighing the government's argument that these cases should be thrown out on the grounds that the subject matter is a "state secret" and that its disclosure would jeopardize national security.
The government has repeatedly asserted that any relationship between the telecommunications firms and the National Security Agency's spy program is classified. The firms' alleged cooperation and other details of the program, government lawyers have argued, are so sensitive that they cannot be disclosed. The government has argued the lawsuits against the telecom firms must be dismissed.
"[D]isclosure of the information covered by this [state secrets] privilege assertion reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States," McConnell said in a sworn affidavit filed in a federal court in San Francisco in May.
David Kris, a former Justice Department official in Republican and Democratic administrations, said McConnell's admission makes it difficult to argue that the phone companies' cooperation with the government is a state secret. "It's going to be tough to continue to call it 'alleged' when he's just admitted it," Kris said.
Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for McConnell, declined to comment, as did spokesmen for AT&T and Verizon.
A challenge for the plaintiffs is to make a case using only public facts, said Kris, co-author of a new book, "National Security Investigations and Prosecutions." McConnell has just added to "the list of publicly available facts that are no longer state secrets," increasing the plaintiffs' chances that their cases can proceed, Kris said.
McConnell's statement "does serious damage to the government's state secrets claims that are at the heart of its defenses," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology and an expert on state secrets privilege.
In his interview, McConnell also said that open discussion on matters such as these "means that some Americans are going to die."
But Bruce Fein, an associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, said that McConnell's disclosure shows that "an important element of a program can be discussed publicly and openly without endangering the nation."
Fein noted that in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon argued national security would be harmed if the Church Committee permitted hearings on government surveillance of civilians. "These Cassandran cries that the earth is going to fall every time you have a discussion simply are not borne out by the facts," he said.
McConnell also said telecom firms should have immunity from lawsuits.
"If you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies," he said. The Bush administration has urged Congress to pass a law granting immunity to the telecom companies.
By Ellen NakashimaWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, August 24, 2007; Page D03
The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that telecommunications companies assisted the government's warrantless surveillance program and were being sued as a result, an admission some legal experts say could complicate the government's bid to halt numerous lawsuits challenging the program's legality.
"[U]nder the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us," Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said in an interview with the El Paso Times published Wednesday.
Mike McConnell's statements could help plaintiffs in lawsuits against telecommunications companies. (By Alex Wong -- Getty Images For Meet The Press)
var technorati = new Technorati() ; technorati.setProperty('url','http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/08/23/AR2007082302056_Technorati.html') ; technorati.article = new item('Telecom Firms Helped With Government\'s Warrantless Wiretaps','http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/08/23/AR2007082302056.html','The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that telecommunications companies assisted the government\'s warrantless surveillance program and were being sued as a result, an admission some legal experts say could complicate the government\'s bid to halt numerous lawsuits challenging the...','Ellen Nakashima') ;document.write( technorati.getDisplaySidebar() );
Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
The Ag - News Summary - News in Brief - TIME
Full List of Blogs (8 links) »
Most Blogged About Articles
On washingtonpost.com On the web
His statement could help plaintiffs in dozens of lawsuits against the telecom companies, which allege that the companies participated in a wiretapping program that violated Americans' privacy rights, former Justice Department officials said. Warrantless surveillance began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was placed under supervision of a special court in January.
An appeals court in San Francisco is weighing the government's argument that these cases should be thrown out on the grounds that the subject matter is a "state secret" and that its disclosure would jeopardize national security.
The government has repeatedly asserted that any relationship between the telecommunications firms and the National Security Agency's spy program is classified. The firms' alleged cooperation and other details of the program, government lawyers have argued, are so sensitive that they cannot be disclosed. The government has argued the lawsuits against the telecom firms must be dismissed.
"[D]isclosure of the information covered by this [state secrets] privilege assertion reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States," McConnell said in a sworn affidavit filed in a federal court in San Francisco in May.
David Kris, a former Justice Department official in Republican and Democratic administrations, said McConnell's admission makes it difficult to argue that the phone companies' cooperation with the government is a state secret. "It's going to be tough to continue to call it 'alleged' when he's just admitted it," Kris said.
Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for McConnell, declined to comment, as did spokesmen for AT&T and Verizon.
A challenge for the plaintiffs is to make a case using only public facts, said Kris, co-author of a new book, "National Security Investigations and Prosecutions." McConnell has just added to "the list of publicly available facts that are no longer state secrets," increasing the plaintiffs' chances that their cases can proceed, Kris said.
McConnell's statement "does serious damage to the government's state secrets claims that are at the heart of its defenses," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology and an expert on state secrets privilege.
In his interview, McConnell also said that open discussion on matters such as these "means that some Americans are going to die."
But Bruce Fein, an associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, said that McConnell's disclosure shows that "an important element of a program can be discussed publicly and openly without endangering the nation."
Fein noted that in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon argued national security would be harmed if the Church Committee permitted hearings on government surveillance of civilians. "These Cassandran cries that the earth is going to fall every time you have a discussion simply are not borne out by the facts," he said.
McConnell also said telecom firms should have immunity from lawsuits.
"If you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies," he said. The Bush administration has urged Congress to pass a law granting immunity to the telecom companies.
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