Hunter Thompson ran for Sheriff in Aspen, Colorado in 1970. His campaign posters featured a fist clenching a peyote button. While running on a platform to legalize drugs, he promised that if elected, he wouldn’t do any mescaline while on duty. He clearly spelled out his plan for punishing drug dealers:
It will be the general philosophy of the sheriff’s office that no drug worth taking shall be sold for money. My first act as sheriff will be to install on the sheriff’s lawn a set of stocks to punish dishonest dope dealers.”
Hunter lost the election. Aspen continued its decline into an enclave for the super rich.
Know your rights, for there is something going terribly wrong in the UK at the moment.
The Police have been arresting people on suspicion they may be about to commit a crime. It’s a bit like Minority Reportbut without the psychics.
In the UK you can be arrested if the Police:
have reasonable grounds for suspecting you are about to commit certain offences
In other words, if they think you’re up to something naughty, you’ll get done: or, ‘We’re all criminals now, and it’s only a matter of time before we’re all nicked.’
This was what happened to ex-professor of anthropology Chris Knight last week, when he (and two others) were arrested on suspicion of causing a possible nuisance. The nuisance was a piece of street theater, London, where Knight and others planned to re-enact the beheadings of Royalty.
It is also what happened to Charlie Veitch, a former city banker who was arrested last week on “suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”
The connection between Knight and Veitch was the Royal Wedding, which allowed the Police to arrest anyone they thought might be planning, or, thinking of causing an offense.
But Knight and Veitch were only two of the 70 people arrested in pre-emptive raids of suspected protestors prior to and on the day of the Royal Wedding.
Nearly 100 people were barred from entering Westminster on the day of the wedding.
Now this is where it gets surreal: one demonstrator was arrested for singing ‘We all live in a fascist regime,’ to the tune of “Yellow Submarine”, as the Guardian reported:
About a dozen policemen grabbed the singer, sparking a clash with his colleagues, changing the mood of a small and peaceful gathering as he was handcuffed and bundled away. “He had articles on him to cause criminal damage,” explained Chief Inspector John Dale, to loud protests.
“You just incited a peaceful situation into violence,” shouted a bystander.
Police said they made a total of 52 arrests, which included 13 at Charing Cross railway station, where people were found to have “climbing equipment and anti-monarchy placards”. There was also 21 arrests made during raids of five squats in London on Thursday morning.
Officers also swooped on five people, three of whom were wearing zombie make-up, when they entered a branch of Starbucks on Oxford Street. They were arrested “on suspicion of planning a breach of the peace”.
They were all handcuffed and held in a police van and gave their names as Amy Cutler, 25, Rachel Young, 27, Eric Schultz, 43, Hannah Eisenman-Renyard, and Deborah, 19, an anthropology student at the University of East London.
“We’ve been pre-emptively arrested under suspicion of planning a breach of the peace,” Cutler told the Guardian from the police van. “We went to Starbucks to get a coffee and the police followed us in.”
“We were just dressing up as zombies,” said Amy, who was wearing a “marry me instead” T-shirt. “It is nice to dress up as zombies.”
While the right to peaceful demonstration in the UK is not absolute, it is “a vital part of a democratic society and has a very long and respected tradition in the United Kingdom.” Now with recent legislation brought in to deal with a range of threats, from terrorism to anti-social behavior, there is the a very real possibility that this “respected tradition” is being slowly taken from the British people.
Below Charlie Veitch‘s arrest and interview on ITV News, plus, 3 zombies, who were arrested, tell their story.
More from Charlie Veitch, plus interview with the arrested zombies, after the jump…
Produced by the The Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham and directed by Peter Whitehead Charlie Is My Darling documents the band’s 1965 two city tour of Ireland. A somewhat haphazard affair, the film is none-the-less a fascinating glimpse into the life of The Stones on the road, backstage, performing and getting drunk. It also includes some footage of fans rioting at London’s Royal Albert Hall which was later inserted at Oldham’s behest to make the movie more commercial.
Whitehead directed one of the seminal films about the swinging sixties, Tonite Let’s All Make Love In London, and the exhilarating documentary of the infamous beat poet gathering at Royal Albert Hall, Wholly Communion. After seeing Wholly Communion, Oldham picked Whitehead to direct a freewheeling film that would compete with the success of the Beatle movies. The result was something a bit darker and rougher than anything produced by the Beatles at the time.
Charlie Is My Darling was given its premiere at the Mannheim Film Festival in 1966 when Joseph von Sternberg was Director of the Festival. He said - “When all the other films at this festival are long forgotten, this film will still be watched - as a unique document of its times.”
Filmed over three days in Dublin and Belfast, the film captures the boys in all their pristine and unspoilt pagan energy and satanic glory - soon after the release of their first big single in America - the record which established them there - “I can’t get no satisfaction”.
The passionate stage performances are finally wrecked by fans getting on the stage - the boys have to flee for their lives over railway lines when they arrive in Belfast. Scenes in the dressing room are highlighted by Keith playing acoustic Blues guitar - showing what a master he was on the guitar, and how serious he had always been about Blues music. Interviews with Charlie and Bill are very revealing - but most poignant of all is the interview with Brian Jones in which he discusses his threatened future as a Rolling Stone. Speaking only of ‘time’ and ‘insecurity of his future as a Rolling Stone’, he seemed already unconsciously aware of his fate. Did he not deliberately bring it upon himself?
The film ends with the legendary scenes of Keith and Mick drunk in the hotel ballroom - Keith playing the piano (extremely well!) and Mick doing an accurate and subversive impersonation of Elvis.”
The rights to Charlie Is My Darling and its soundtrack became entangled in legal problems when Allen Klein took over management of The Stones. Klein had a rep for being difficult (which is putting it kindly) when it came to controlling the band’s assets. So the original cut of the film was never released on video. A DVD version was released in England with a soundtrack of generic instrumental pop as background music and is basically unwatchable.
2. Air cover? Obama authorized the raid early Friday morning, but it didn’t take place till nearly 48 hours later. Why? One possible reason is the weather. Look at the past week’s weather report for Islamabad, the nearest major city. It was cloudy until Sunday, and the first clear break in nighttime cloud cover was Monday morning. Danger Room points out, “It’s unlikely the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command would risk sending in a lightly-protected team to face terrorists capable of shooting down helicopters. That means air cover—most likely armed drones or Air Force gunships.” We know from on-the-ground tweets, as well as from the U.S., that the raid took place around 1 a.m. But drone strikes frequently take place at that hour.
3. Capture or kill? The U.S. says it killed Bin Laden because he “resisted” the commandos. But did they try hard to capture him alive? I doubt it. A U.S. official says the government dumped his body at sea quickly because “we don’t want a bunch of people going to [a] shrine” for him. The same logic argued against putting him on trial, which would have made him even more of a martyr.
4. Intel bonus? The U.S. says its team “was on the compound for under 40 minutes.” That includes the entry, the firefight, blowing up its crippled helicopter, and extracting Bin Laden’s corpse. Was that enough time to find and grab anything useful that might further unravel Bin Laden’s network? Probably not, but we won’t know till later.
5. Gitmo vindicated? The U.S. says “detainees” provided the initial information about Bin Laden’s courier, which eventually led to the raid. In its briefing, the Obama White House didn’t specify where those detainees were located. But the Times says more: “Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators.” Without Gitmo, would we have found him?
Read more of What Really Happened in Abbottabad? Eight mysteries about the killing of Osama Bin Laden (Slate)
Americans tonight are united in celebration and gratitude. God bless all the brave men and women in our military and our intelligence services who contributed to carrying out the successful mission to bring Bin Laden to justice and who laid the groundwork over the years to make this victory possible. It’s a testament to the hard work and dedication of these brave Americans who relentlessly hunted down our enemy.
This is a victory for the American people, for the victims who were heartlessly murdered on September 11 and in Al Qaeda’s other numerous attacks, and for all the peace-loving people of the world.
May God bless our troops and our intelligence services, and God bless America!
In another twist on the apparent death of 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden, it turns out that US Special Forces were pretty much helpless to find the world’s most wanted terrorist.
It took one of Jamaica’s most heroic and physically capable dreads, Konfu Dread, to use his “so excellent” kung-fu powers—which he deems “amongst the greatest”—to take down the man who eluded so many leaders and armed forces.
After the jump: all four ass-kicking episodes of the Konfu Dread saga so far!
Here’s an intimate look at the much-beloved Poly Styrene. This BBC documentary from 1978 took me a little while to track down, but here it is in its entirety. Well-directed by Alan Yentob.
Poly was such a extraordinary combination of vulnerability and strength.
Integrating voice-overs of Poly reciting her lyrics with live performance footage and life offstage, Who Is Poly Styrene? is an unusually personal documentary of a young artist grappling with the sudden pop stardom from which she would eventually flee.
Identity
Is the crisis
Can’t you see
Identity identity
When you look in the mirror
Do you see yourself
Do you see yourself
On the t.v. screen
Do you see yourself
In the magazine
When you see yourself
Does it make you scream
When you look in the mirror
Do you smash it quick
Do you take the glass
And slash your wrists
Did you do it for fame
Did you do it in a fit
Did you do it before
You read about it
I probably overuse the words “rarely seen” and “rare” when it comes to sharing stuff on DM but in this case the terms are truly applicable. Up until now, this was not easy to find on the net. Enjoy.
According to Newsday, Osama bin Laden is dead and the U.S. has his body, a person familiar with developments has told the Associated Press.
Update: CNN is confirming that Osama bin Laden is dead. He was killed “in a mansion outside Islamabad along with other family members.”
The news comes eight years to the day that George W. Bush declared “Mission accomplished” in Iraq.
Update: “President Obama said that on Sunday, a small team of U.S. operatives launched a “targeted assault’’ on a multi-million dollar compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad where months of intelligence work had established that Mr. Bin Laden was living. Mr. Bin Laden was killed after a firefight, and the troops took custody of his body.”
It’s OK: The Beach Boys’ 15th Anniversary TV Special aired in 1976 on NBC. It was a weird affair created when Brian Wilson was at the lowest ebb of his struggle with substance abuse and depression. Produced by Lorne Michaels and written by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the show features a barely willing Wilson lured back into the studio and, in a bit that is both funny and sad, onto the beach and a surfboard. As most of us know, Brian was not a surfer and in this clip he’s barely a pedestrian. I have a feeling this may have been therapeutic for Brian.
This man Einstein is an idiot. He obviously hasn’t heard Rush Limbaugh and other “Ditto Heads” on the radio explain the dangers of socialism.
The thought of people working to benefit all of society is a sick joke. People should work to benefit only themselves, that is what Jesus would have wanted.
Einstein has some strange idea that “the individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society.”
The idea that we all depend on each other and that individuals grow and prosper in a compassionate and humane society is totally stupid. We all know that socialism is bad because the rich cannot get fabulously wealthy at the expense of the rest of society.
If the rich can’t get super richer then who is going to buy all of those yachts and mansions?
A society where all prosper is not what America is all about. Leave that to Europe and the rest of the world. America needs to support their super rich by showing we care about their interests above our own. That is what it means to be free.
Einstein is one of those educated idiots Rush has warned us about. Let’s not fall for his brand of economics.
I am really glad I live in a country where nearly all of the wealth has been transferred to the banks and the already super rich. That is what freedom is all about. This guy Einstein doesn’t understand the real world.
The Village Square was a weekly TV series that originated in Charleston, South Carolina and was syndicated all across the USA. It aired every week from 1965-68. The show’s house band The Villagers would cover current top 40 hits while the Village Dancers would Frug and Pony in their ultra-groovy go-go boots
In this video, The Villagers cover “Funky Broadway’ while singer Dana Douglas displays his signature serpentine dance moves. Down South, even the white kids know how to mess that shit around.