The FBI did do this to the Black Panthers. Fred Hampton, 12.4.69, 4am, dragged him out of bed where he was with his pregnant girlfriend, sleeping. His second in command turned out to have betrayed him. The feds came in shooting, shot him dead, shot people dead, people who were doing no violence to anyone.

I sure didn’t learn about it in school, did you?

If “heads would roll under the cry of racism” we’d have learned about this.

And I really don’t like the “occupy” bashing here in this article. Scott Olsen, 2x Iraq war vet, is part of that movement. Captain Lewis, police captain in Philly, was arrested in uniform at Occupy Wall Street.

For GB’s information, occupy was infiltrated, filled with provocateurs who did violence to make demonstrators look violent, and police believed it, surrounded by people doing violence, cracked down on innocent people’s heads, it was all over the news, GB didn’t you see the pictures of old ladies who were pepper sprayed? Or hogtied and positionally tortured for hours on cold concrete floors, kicked, hit, fired upon with projectiles, thrown into jail? That’s what they did to Occupy, so why are you sitting here saying that movement was ignored? As for black panthers, that was a long time ago, for chrissake.

We are all one tribe, we are all children of this planet, sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, and as long as we set against each other and yell about revolution we will never solve problems—never, ever ever. War does not solve problems, it creates them. It is the opposite of communication. It is not going to save us, not now and not ever. It only leads to more violence.

Violence is a language and an energy that spreads. So is communication. It is the opposite energy, a cousin to music.

Raub knew better than anyone here that people must come together and put their heads together in their own communities. In the real world, real time not virtual. We can yell about our “country” all we want, and yell about how other people are wrong all we want, but look where it’s gotten us.

Peace is patriotic, communication is patriotic, caring enough to slow down and think and really look around us at each other, instead of raging at the machines, that is patriotic.

I’m really proud of Brandon Raub, of Bradley Manning, of Ehren Watada, of Camilo Mejia, of Brandon “Tex” Neely, of Ethan McCord. (And so many others.)

I’m proud of all these men and women who deserve respect and care for their thoughts about freedom, which they signed up to protect. What is that freedom if it’s not the freedom to think and speak?

I’m proud of the Occupy kids and adults and of all the folks who have come out of the woodwork to participate and say to those who make decisions: we need to change some things!!! Those folks helped and fed and gave medical care to all the homeless people and lost souls and yes, unappreciated, wounded vets who the police dumped at their encampments. God only knows how much Occupy saved the taxpayers by taking care of souls for free, but you know this amount was never figured into all the “damage” done by demonstrators that cities like Los Angeles complained about (even though Occupy and private donors offered to completely fix and clean everything that had been altered).

For once at City Hall we had folks gathering and talking about ‘what do we do, what can we do?’ They worked out a thing where you talk one at a time, and in consideration of those sensitive to noise, worked out silent communications via hand gestures, etc. So for a few months last year there was someone at our city halls LISTENING to anyone who needed to get up and talk.

Yes, it was disorganized. No, no news media covered that part of the demonstrations..which were not just demonstrations, but people coming together attempting to figure out what to do about our world, our country, our communities.
All these folks make me so proud and Mr. Beck, they deserve your respect and courtesy as your countrymen, brothers and sisters, peacemakers, communicators, and builders of conversation.

I hope you can hear me.