In response to Wesley Ellis’s Aug. 1 Street Roots letter, I, too, have been unrelentingly messed with by bicycle cop Dobson. With power comes responsibility. This lawnmower man, it seems, is drunk with his power of the badge and shield.
Once he decides your presence downtown is not needed, he will do whatever it takes to drive you out through tying you up in court with frivolous tickets, intimidation, name calling (shaming), or filing false information, such as putting down "transient" when you give him your address.
I make music, the universal language. People stop and come together as sisters and brothers in peace when music is played on the street. It’s one of our universal freedoms, that being of expression. In officer Dobson’s narrow, petty tiny little cop world, harmony, love and togetherness through the charms and wiles of music is an attack on his America. Isn’t it time for psychos like him to be reeled in and reassigned, here in Portland, the land of the free and the home of the weird and wonderous? If this campaign is successful downtown, maybe your neighborhood will be next.
How scary is that?
The recent arrest of 7 alleged terrorists in Miami brings up many questions regarding the way the operation was carried out, and whether or not the charges are even legitimate. To begin with, I think it was a carefully orchestrated public relations power play by the Bush administration to fabricate a national security crisis situation in an attempt to convince the American people that he’s on top of things (and boy is he on top of things).
Never, to my recollection, has an American president possessed such an impenetrable and almost fool-proof security apparatus. Bush is so firmly entrenched in power, dug in so deep, that it’s frightening. Also, he’s imposing his will on the people in this country, and the rest of the world, with virtual impunity. It’s absolutely disgraceful. No wonder so many Third World nations hate what we stand for.
Think about it, he’s already deployed National Guard units to help secure our southern border. That manuever was as close as it gets to declaring martial law where the military maintains order, instead of just the police. If the Bush administration imposes martial law on a broader scale, in other parts of the U.S., not just along the border, he would not have to leave office in 2008.
All of this talk about potential presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Al Gore, Condeleezza Rice, etc., is nothing but speculation. President George Bush is very much enjoying being the most powerful man in the world, and might not be willing to give up the degree of control that he currently commands. If we feel that he needs to go, we need to start taking measures now, to ensure that that happens, or it may become too late to do anything about it.