Ed. note: Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a tireless advocate for peace everywhere, especially in the Middle East, posted this at his Human Rights Web. Since it discusses precisely 40 years of time, I have cross posted it here. KK

 

Those who planned the 1967 "six day war" (Al-Naksa in Arabic) 40 years ago and we the people who lived there could not foresee its ramifications on lives of Israelis and Palestinians let alone Americans and Iraqis today.

 

I was a 10-year old kid growing up in the Shepherd's field at the time the occupation began and my memories of the initial onslaught are vivid. After I immigrated to the US in 1979, I still go almost every year and still maintain residency there. I saw it get worse and worse every year from 1967 (and I dread my trip this summer).

 

What can be said after 40 years of illegal occupation, after over 250,000 Israeli Jewish colonial settlers in the West Bank, after over 18,000 of our homes demolished, after causing massive economic dislocation (unemployment is at twice what it was for Americans during the Great depression), after over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners now in Israeli jails, after over 10,000 fellow Palestinian civilians killed?

 

What can be said after the remaining Palestinians are squeezed into shrinking ghettos after much of their best lands was confiscated? Should we focus on the price the occupiers also paid (especially since the introduction of the phenomenon of suicide bombings 10 years ago)?

 

Should we focus on the price the world has paid including the unfolding tragedy in Iraq (and now the Israel lobby is pushing for a war on Iran)? How about the over $1 trillion that Israel cost the US in these 40 years?

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The Cool Justice Report has been following the slimy trail of Enfield's Democrat Mayor Patrick Tallarita, who is currently under investigation by the State's Attorney's Office for potential political corruption.

 

Just moments ago, Andy Thibault and Jim Brewer sent this one out:

BREAKING NEWS: Enfield Witness Intimidated

Tallarita Goes Berserk
At Shaw’s Supermarket;

Mayor Screams In Checkout Line
And Flips The Bird In Front Of Children
As He Threatens Witness
In Political Corruption Probe

The craziest part of the story is not the fact that Mayor Tallarita issued fighting words in front of children, or that the grocery store manager has it all on surveillance tape - no, the loopiest sentence to me is that Tallarita won't be running for re-election because he may be up for a job in Congressman Joe Courtney's office.

 

Tallarita was Courtney's campaign treasurer, which was probably in title only, as it is unlikely that Tallarita did anything more than sign off on the complex campign finance reports that detail the $2.45 million Courtney raised. In March of 2006, Tallarita gave $200 to Courtney's campaign, according to Opensecrets.org.

 

In this aspect, it seems the Democrats are no different from the Republicans in protecting their own. Tallarita is also a long time state employee.

 

He is the Director of Facilities Operations for the Connecticut Department of Labor. The job pays about $99,000 annually, and according to the job description, Tallarita needs "Two (2) years' experience in a managerial capacity in leasing, acquisition or management of property."

 

Aside from knowledge about land use agreements, the job also requires "considerable interpersonal skills; considerable oral and written communication skills."

 

One wonders which of those skills were on display when Tallarita went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs at the grocery store checkout.

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Connecticut has a friend in Alabama. According to an AP story (via Huffington Post) the Alabama Dept. of Homeland Security had a website labeling as terrorists environmentalists, gay rights workers and anti-war groups.

 

The website has been taken down, but who wants to bet that the lists go on, even they are not publicly accessible? The AP noted that the site will return, sans specific identifications of groups. Most importantly, though:

 

The site included the groups under a description of what it called "single-issue" terrorists. That group includes people who feel they are trying to create a better world, the Web site said. It said that in some communities, law enforcement officers consider certain single issue groups to be a threat.

Single issue? End the War on Drugs? Watch out, you may be Hezbollah. Seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Might as well be in Al Qaida.

 

And, this latest report begs the question: how many other state homeland security departments are doing this?

 

And not to sound like a raging paranoid freak, but at what point do they start rounding up the people on the lists wholesale and detaining them? Why else collect lists?

 

This is the problem with the post-9/11 world created by Bush-Cheney Co. - everyone who doesn't think like them is suspect, from U.S. Attorneys with stellar records to pacifist activists seeking social justice.

 

While 2009 can't come soon enough, has our culture passed the point of returning to a republic? I feel like we have been invaded by the Nazis.

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What I have to say, my attorney pretty much wrote out in a short complaint, filed May 24, 2007 in U.S. District Court in New Haven. I'm really looking forward to what a jury thinks about what occurred on Jan. 3, 2007.

 

Christine Stuart over at CTNewsjunkie has the only news story on it to date (which leads to the question: does the mainstream media have short memories, are they overworked, or is it not newsworthy?). CTLocalpolitics has an interesting discussion as well.

 

Judge Stefan R. Underhill will preside over the federal case, and here's the full text of the complaint.

 

1. This is an action for false arrest, unreasonable bond and denial of the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of the press and due process of law arising under the First, Fourth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
2. Jurisdiction of this court is invoked under the provisions of Sections 1331, 1343(3), 1367(a) and 2201(a) of Title 28 and, 42 U.S.C. Section 1983.
3. The plaintiff, Kenneth Krayeske, was at all times relevant to this action an adult resident of the State of Connecticut.
4. The defendant City of Hartford is a municipal corporation organized and operating under the laws of the State of Connecticut. It is a final policymaker for the Hartford Police Department.
5. Defendant Jeff Antuna was at all times relevant to this action, and he remains, a police officer employed by the City of Hartford. He is sued in his individual capacity only.
6. Defendant Andrew Weaver was at all times relevant to this action, and he remains, a police officer employed by the City of Hartford. He is sued in his individual capacity only.
7. Defendant Andrew Hawkens was at all times relevant to this action a law enforcement officer employed by the Connecticut State Police. He is sued in his individual capacity only.
8. John Doe was at all times relevant to this action a law enforcement officer acting under color of law. His true identity is unknown at this point. He is sued in his individual capacity.
9. Each defendant was acting under color of law at all times relevant to this action..
10. On the afternoon of January 3, 2007, Mr. Krayeske, who is a free-lance journalist and photographer, was taking photographs of Gov. Jodi Rell as the governor marched in her inaugural parade.
11. Mr. Krayeske had previously served as campaign manager for a rival of the governor’s, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Clifford Wallace Thornton, Jr.. In that role, the plaintiff had been critical of the governor and her policies.
12. Prior to the inaugural parade, a member of the Connecticut State Police informed Hartford police officers that Mr. Krayeske was among a group of political activists who posed a possible threat to the governor. There was neither justification nor excuse for classifying Mr. Krayeske as a threat. Photographs of these activists were circulated among members of the Hartford Police Department.
13. The classification of political activists as possible threats to the governor violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
14. Rather than challenge the illegal classification of political activists as possible threats to the governor, the City of Hartford adopted this classification and characterization of select political activists. But for this adoption, there would have been no reason to single out Mr. Krayeske for arrest and detention.
15. As Mr. Krayeske stood taking photographs of the governor, Defendant Antuna recognized him from a photograph and placed him under arrest. The plaintiff was charged with breach of peace and interfering with a police officer.
16. The arrest of the plaintiff was unsupported by probable cause.
17. Prior to his arrest, Mr. Krayeske had written about the inauguration in an ironic tone, informing readers that “[T]ickets to see the Fairy Godmother turn herself into Cinderella are only $150.” Mr. Krayeske expressed dissent about the governor’s priorities.
18. After Mr. Krayeske was arrested, Defendant Weaver read him his Miranda rights and asked the plaintiff the following: “If we let you go now, will you be going to the inaugural ball tonight?” Mr. Krayeske answered that he did not intend to go to the ball.
19. Thereafter, Defendants Weaver, Antuna and John Doe, whose identity is at this time unknown, conspired together to impose an unreasonable bond intended to prevent Mr. Krayeske from being released from custody while the governor’s inaugural ball was taking place. Bond was set in the amount of $75,000 and was not reduced to a promise to appear until after the inaugural ball had ended.
20. Defendant Hawkens also requested a high bond, leaving word with the Hartford Police Department that he was to be notified at the “Connecticut State Police at 550-1033" if Mr. Krayeske were released from custody before 8 p.m.
21. The unreasonable bond resulted in Mr. Krayeske’s detention for more than 12 hours.
22. The criminal charges against the defendant were dismissed without the defendant’s tendering consideration of any kind.
23. The manner in which Mr. Krayeske was placed upon a list led to his warrantless and unjustified arrest, resulting in a deprivation of his liberty interest as protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
24. Mr. Krayeske was arrested in substantial part because he had engaged in protected speech critical of the governor in violation of his rights under the First Amendment.
25. Mr. Krayeske was subjected to a false arrest.
26. Mr. Krayeske was held on an unreasonable bond intended solely to prevent him from appearing at the governor’s inaugural ball.
27. The acts of each individually named defendant were intentional and were inspired by malice.
28. As a direct and proximate result of the acts and omissions complained of herein, the plaintiff suffered fear, anxiety, loss of reputation, loss of liberty and the deprivation of the Constitutional rights herein described.
WHEREFORE, the plaintiff claims damages as follows:
1. Compensatory damages;
2. Punitive damages;
3. A declaratory ruling the municipal police departments may not compile and maintain lists of political activists;
4. Injunctive relief requiring the City of Hartford to destroy any lists in its possession of political activists;
5. Attorney’s fees and costs, arising under 42 U.S.C. 1988.

Ed. note: Bisbort was concerned that no one else in the state would publish this. I have great respect for Kathy O'Connell's vast repertoire of knowledge, and long ago I adopted her motto of journalism in the headline. KK

 

The last time I saw her, three months ago, she was in despair, having been forced by a change of circumstances — a Jane Austen-like locution she'd have appreciated — to leave the state she loved, Connecticut.

 

It was obvious, at this coffee encounter, a semi-regular event since Kathy O'Connell left the Advocate more than six years ago, that more than just despair was at work. She was divesting herself of worldly goods, giving away 30+ years' worth of videos, books and albums that she'd accumulated, a mound of cultural diversion that would house a small library all by itself.

 

To me, she gave all of her lavishly inscribed copies of books by William Manchester, a friend of hers from her days at the Middletown Press. She knew I revered Manchester, believed him to be one of the few American giants of letters, up there with Edmund Wilson and Joseph Mitchell in my pantheon, and she had come close on a couple of occasions of convincing the stroke-addled but proud ex-Marine to give such a longtime fan an audience at his Middletown home.

 

I had this fantasy that we would instantly bond, this great man and I, and that he would then let me ghost-write the third volume of his Winston Churchill biography, a gig that went to some other lucky but (of course!) fully undeserving freelancer.

 

About the Manchester books, I told Kathy, "I can't keep these. I'll just hold them until you get settled," partly to play into the delusion that she was not as bad off as we were pretending. Only a year or two older than I, she was barely ambulatory without a cane, she had colds she couldn't shake, her body trembled and her mind wandered like an ancient aunt's.

 

Again forced by a change of circumstances, Kathy was having to drive all the way to Birmingham, Alabama from her longtime rented home in Portland, Ct., to live with her 92-year-old mother. As the joke goes, the mother had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

 

I didn't know it was Kathy who was about to step on that banana peel, but it did not exactly surprise me to learn that she did. Kathy O'Connell, longtime Connecticut journalism critic, columnist and writer, died this past Sunday, May 13. So sad, so much talent, so much more to give.

 

I prefer to remember the better angels of Kathy's complicated character, the person who energetically came to the Advocate after her beloved Press was bought by a newspaper chain. The one who, without complaining, took the job as a receptionist, what some of her stature might deem too far a fall from grace to accept.

 

The one who had lived and worked in a group home with Mitch Snyder in Washington, D.C., rubbed shoulders with the Berrigan brothers and did good deeds for the homeless masses, in the process probably saving a number of lives.

 

She eventually left the Advocate and took a job at the Meriden Record-Journal, where she won several awards for her semi-regular columns and reviews. She was kind to my son, who loved her stories about her youth in Philadelphia, and lavished him with little carefully chosen presents. She was a good person, deep inside all that lifetime's worth of hurt. She will be missed by her readers and her friends.

 

R.I.P. K.O.

 

At Hartford’s first mayoral debate Tuesday May 15 none of the seven candidates challenging incumbent Mayor Eddie Perez seemed to emerge from the pack. The debate, which was somewhat civil aside from the cat calls from Perez supporters, offered some insight into why so many candidates had emerged to challenge Perez.

 

The first question of the night for all the candidates was: “What is your vision for Hartford?”

 

Republican candidate, J. Stan McCauley, said “everyone in this room knows what’s wrong.” In order to fix the problems in Hartford “you have to bring people together.” The other six Democratic candidates including state Rep. Art Feltman, Rep. Minnie Gonzalez, I. Charles Mathews, Raul Dejesus, Frank Barrows, and Rev. Patrice Smith said similar things about how their vision for the city is a shared vision.

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