SPECIAL REPORT from Mack White

I defy anyone to watch this video (above) and give me one good reason why Travis County Deputy Chris Bieze was justified in Tasering a 72-year-old grandmother during a traffic stop.

Yes, she was argumentative. Yes, she failed to comply with the officer’s order. But does this justify use of the Taser?

Originally, Tasers were intended to be used by police only in situations where a gun might otherwise be used–that is, in situations where lives might be in danger. Rule of thumb: If a situation doesn’t require a gun, it shouldn’t require a Taser.

And yet, increasingly, police are using the Taser not in dangerous situations, but simply to enforce compliance.

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In addition to the various folk tales and fairy stories they collected in their publications, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm also collected supposedly true stories of tragedy, such as the infamous Children Play at Hog Killing, from the first edition of their book and dropped from later editions as too grisly. In these types of stories a group of children, usually after witnessing a butcher slaughtering a hog, play a game to reenact the spectacle with the end result being the tragic death of the child playing the role of the pig.

The butcher boy story may or may not be an exaggerated tale based in actual occurrences, as analogs are found in other regions and cultures. But regardless of the butcher boy’s veracity, there are real life tragedies, ones we can read about in our hometown newspapers, that occur often enough to reinforce the importance of these folk stories as cautionary tales. They may even give us some clues to the origins of some of the various prototypical fairy tales that have maintained perennial popularity and invited repeated revisitation and reinterpretation.

The recently reported story of a teenage boy, held captive with chains about his ankles in a perfectly kept suburban home in one of the safest communities in Northern California, tells us as much about the nature of our species and our society as any folk tale. Hollywood couldn’t concoct a more chilling tale. Here is your stereotypical “they looked like a normal happy family” from the schlocky Saturday matinee horror feature, in the flesh. Here is your warning about the dangers that can lurk behind a pretty facade. Here is your wolf in sheep’s clothing, Snow White’s beautiful but poisoned apple, your fallen morning star tempting you with pretty sin. Here is your gingerbread house, with white collar witches inside, waiting to gobble you up and strip away innocence like marrow sucked from a bone.

It seemed like the “in” joke for speakers at the Republican National Convention this evening was “Community Organizer”. Sarah Palin used it to poke fun of Barack Obama’s experience during her acceptance speech this evening. Rudy Giuliani (who miraculously kept his mention of 9/11 down to one instance!) used the “Community Organizer” dig with gusto to attack Obama’s experience and bolster Palin’s so-called “Executive” experience (another catch prhase for the evening).

It should come as no surprise that the Republicans are opposed to community organization. If they are going to keep their base, they have to disable the grass roots apparatus that can get past the media they own and get the word out to the working poor that they are voting against their own economic interest each time they vote Republican. (For an excellent analysis of this, please read Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant. An excellent book.)

It should also come as no surprise that in the run up to the Republican Convention, the police were rounding up and arresting activists and protesters and suspected protesters. Employing classic intimidation methods to discourage potential protests, they rounded people up, charged them with nothing, and released them without returning personal items such as journals, computers, and even a child’s shoes.

Take that community organizers! Nyah!

NLG Attorney explains the series of raids

Organizers gather in the street after being ejected during police searches

Journalist Amy Goodman caught up by overzealous police and arrested while covering protests

And, finally, police confiscate the bus/home and personal belongings of a group of sustainable living hippies… including the dangerous child’s shoes! (But let them keep their dogs and chickens, apparently underestimating and overlooking the potential risk of biological warfare via avian flu.)

Interviews with American soldiers from Iraq.

Reasons to vote for Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Not paid for by the Committee to elect John McCain.

I’ve read about various disagreeable things Glenn Beck has said on his CNN program, but had never seen a clip from the program—did not even know what the man looked like—until last week when Dave vonKleist came to Austin to screen his documentary 9/11 Ripple Effect.

The documentary features an excerpt from the edition of Beck’s show on which Dave was a guest. It was included in the documentary as an example of how the mainstream media never seriously addresses the issues raised by 9/11 researchers, but rather, attempts to discredit the research by associating it with UFOs, tinfoil hats, Bigfoot, ghosts, and the Second Coming of Elvis. And there he was in the clip, Glenn Beck, doing just that, heaping ridicule on his guest, Dave vonKleist, without once asking a serious question.

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