http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Vestal Fri, 24 May 2013 22:00:08 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Vestal Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:25:42 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8a5_1354240124 RustyNail They were the glamour girls on James Bond's arm, the vestal virgins in Up Pompeii, and the girls-next-door in Man About The House. They were the vampire victims dispatched in the first reel of Hammer Horrors. And they were the Carry On dolly birds, guaranteed to elicit a 'Phwooar' from Sid James. They were Crumpet! And this is their story. Tony Livesey sets out to rescue Crumpet from the condescension of history. Recalling his own childhood, growing up in front of the TV in a Burnley terrace, Tony takes us on a trip through three decades of popular culture. How did our thirty year fascination with Crumpet come about - and why did it end? What does it say about the unique British sense of humour - and about our changing attitude to sex? With contributions from Honor Blackman, Ingrid Pitt, Madeline Smith, Hill's Angel Sue Upton, Leslie Philips and Wendy Richards, and with cultural commentators like Dylan Jones... http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8a5_1354240124 RustyNail Crumpet! A Very British Sex Symbol British,carry on,james bond,up pompeii,man about the house,vampires,hammer house of horror,sid james,burnley,humour,lol,documentary Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:28:10 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e06_1315595916 WSNFLD By the CNN Wire Staff September 9, 2011 12:32 p.m. EDT West Pittston, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Authorities in eastern Pennsylvania surveyed the damage Friday caused by near-historic flooding as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee soaked the region for another day. "Potentially thousands of homes" have been affected, Luzerne County Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla told CNN. The tropical moisture brought floodwaters that left at least three people dead, caused widespread damage and prompted police and the National Guard to patrol neighborhoods in an effort to ward off looters. On Thursday, President Barack Obama signed emergency declarations for Pennsylvania and neighboring New York, making federal resources available to respond to the flooding and its aftermath. The flood-engorged Susquehanna River crested early Friday in some Pennsylvanian and New York cities, while other communities braced for still-higher water levels. n Luzerne County, in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, between 65,000 and 70,000 people were ordered to leave their homes as the Susquehanna rose above flood stage, according to Emergency Management Coordinator Stephen Bekanich. The Susquehanna appeared to crest at 38.83 feet at Wilkes-Barre at 1:45 a.m. Flood stage there is 22 feet, according to the National Weather Service. The valley has a levee system that tops out at 41 feet, according to Drew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Wilkes-Barre mayor's office. McLaughlin and other officials were examining the levees. "We're closely monitoring, and it seems they are holding steady," he said. A river gate near the Market Street Bridge was leaking late Thursday, but sandbags and other repairs were keeping it in check, with some minor street flooding in the area, according to McLaughlin. "It's pretty much a ghost town," McLaughlin said from south downtown, adding that residents appeared to heed the call to leave. Other Luzerne County communities not protected by the system were not so fortunate. Heavy flooding was reported in West Pittston, Harding and Plymouth Township. "At this point, we haven't been able to assess that (flooding and damage) because the water is so high," Bekanich said. Plymouth Township resident Francis Federici was forced to leave his home, which sat in 5-foot floodwater. "On a normal day, we love it here," he said. "There's nobody around us. We have a beautiful yard. We were fixing our home up." "The rise of the river is so tremendous, we put out a request to volunteers to assist in sandbagging operations," Bekanich said. Shelter space for 4,100 was rapidly being filled, and the county was looking for more space, Commissioner Petrilla told CNN. The area from Ithaca to Syracuse to Utica, in New York, and from Wilkes-Barre, to Scranton, to Monticello, in Pennsylvania, continued to experience major to record flooding, CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen said. A 71-year-old man died Wednesday night in Derry Township, Pennsylvania, as he was bailing water out of the basement of his home and the walls of the structure caved in, said Chief Patrick O'Rourke of Derry Township Police. A second person drowned early Thursday near Brickerville in Lancaster County, CNN affiliate WGAL-TV reported. A third person died about 4:30 a.m. Thursday in North Lebanon Township, Pennsylvania, police said. A motorist became stranded in high water and was outside the vehicle when struck by another vehicle, which then left the scene. The suspect and that vehicle were found, authorities said. Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, had received an incredible 15.37 inches of rainfall associated with Lee. At least six other communities had rainfall totals exceeding 10 inches. P&J Pizza, which escaped flooding, did a brisk business Thursday because so many residents couldn't use their kitchens, said employee Sarah Bellia. "It's very sad," said Mike Butera, a resident of West Pittston whose home was overtaken by floodwater. "It's just amazing how much water can appear out of nowhere." Many recalled the flooding caused by Hurricane Agnes in 1972. That storm dumped as much as 18 inches of rain on the area in two days, destroying more than 68,000 homes and 3,000 businesses and leaving 220,000 Pennsylvanians homeless. In Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, CNN iReporter Nick Bohacz said flooded roads prevented him from getting to work. Bohacz, who sent in several photos of the flooding, said he saw a line of people outside a hardware store waiting for supplies. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and other towns won't see a river crest until later Friday. The rising Susquehanna and Chenango rivers were also triggering evacuations in upstate New York, where evacuation orders were issued for portions of Binghamton and the towns of Conklin, Endicott, Johnson City, Union and Vestal, according to CNN affiliate YNN-TV. Numerous cities and counties declared a state of emergency. Video from Johnson City showed a flooded shopping mall and a football field with water nearly up to its goalposts. "This is a major flooding situation," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference. "This is nothing to trifle with." He said he believes flooding will reach historic levels. "By the time it looks that bad, you won't be able to leave," he said. Water was coming over the floodwalls in Binghamton, county spokeswoman Colleen Wagner said. About 15,000 people were ordered to evacuate, and about 1,400 were in shelters, she said. State officials sent in food and water. A number of boat rescues have taken place, she said, but she did not know how many. The Susquehanna later Thursday crested at 25.71 feet. Broome County Emergency Services Director Brett Chellis urged people in the evacuation areas to leave and not return for now. Water was topping flood walls in Union and Vestal as well as Binghamton, he said. In Otego, New York, about 50 miles northeast of Binghamton, CNN iReporter Don Wyckoff captured footage of water cascading down a road. Wyckoff said he was stunned after watching neighbors and family members lose their homes to the floodwaters. "You are seeing the tiny mill creek rip out culvert pipes and tearing away roads," he said. "We never thought we would see this again. It happened in 2006, but it is worse now." In Oneonta, on the Susquehanna upstream of Binghamton, Police Chief Gary O'Neill said some roads were washed out and parks flooded, but the water appeared to be receding. On the down side, water was flooding the chief's home in Binghamton. Mandatory evacuations were also in place for low-lying areas near Schenectady, New York, YNN said. In neighboring Montgomery County, authorities closed all roads and county buildings, saying only emergency vehicles would be allowed to travel. The New York State Thruway Authority opened and closed several roads and ramps. In Maryland, areas near Baltimore were also affected. High water blocked dozens of roads in Baltimore County, according to CNN affiliate WMAR-TV. In Anne Arundel County, Maryland, crews found a 49-year-old man in floodwaters, CNN affiliate WBL reported. The man died at a hospital. The circumstances of his death were not clear Thursday evening. Port Deposit, Maryland, about 45 miles northeast of Baltimore along the Susquehanna, ordered an evacuation of the town's 800 residents by 8 p.m. Thursday. The Prince George's County, Maryland, Fire and EMS Department said it was responding to numerous emergency calls, and nearly two dozen people had been rescued or helped by firefighters and the department's swift-water team. Because the system is slow-moving, "I'm afraid it's going to get worse before it gets better," CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano said. Several rounds of heavy rain are in store for much of the region the next couple of days, with an additional 2 to 4 inches forecast -- and higher amounts in isolated areas, according to the National Weather Service. The rain comes on top of the heavy precipitation that has fallen in the region from Irene. What's left of Lee stalled across the central Appalachian Mountains and has since drifted into Indiana. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e06_1315595916 WSNFLD Official: Potentially Thousands of Homes Affected by Flooding tropical storm, Lee, massive flooding, Susquehanna river, disaster, Emergency declarations, New York, Pensylvania, CNN, News Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:28:21 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=39e_1279944559 HydrogenEconomy yes, against corrupt Democrats as you probably imagined... http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/athens-seiber.htm The Battle of Athens by Lones Seiber The American Heritage Magazine The GIs came home to find that a political machine had taken over their Tennessee county. What they did about it astounded the nation. In McMinn County, Tennessee, in the early 1940s, the question was not if you farmed, but where you farmed. Athens, the county seat, lay between Knoxville and Chattanooga along U.S. Highway 11, which wound its way through eastern Tennessee. This was the meeting place for farmers from all the surrounding communities. Traveling along narrow roads planted with signs urging them to "See Rock City" and "Get Right with God," they would gather on Saturdays beneath the courthouse elms to discuss politics and crops. There were barely seven thousand people in Athens, and many of its streets were still unpaved. The two "big" cities some fifty miles away had not yet begun their inevitable expansion, and the farmers' lives were simple and essentially unaffected by what they would have called the "modern world." Many of them were without electricity. The land, their families, religion, politics, and the war dominated their talk and thoughts. They learned about God from the family Bible and in tiny chapels along yellow-dust roads. Their newspaper, the Daily Post-Athenian, told them something of politics and war, but since it chose to avoid intrigue or scandal, a story that smacked of both could be found only in the conversations of the folks who milled about the courthouse lawn on Saturdays. Since the Civil War, political offices in McMinn County had gone to the Republicans, but in the 1930s Tennessee began to fall under the control of Democratic bosses. To the west, in Shelby County, E.H. Crump, the Memphis mayor who had been ousted during his term for failing to enforce Prohibition, fathered what would become the state's most powerful political machine. Crump eventually controlled most of Tennessee along with the governor's office and a United States senator. In eastern Tennessee local and regional machines developed, which, lacking the sophistication and power of a Crump, relied on intimidation and violence to control their constituents. In 1936 the system descended upon McMinn County in the person of one Paul Cantrell, the Democratic candidate for sheriff. Cantrell, who came from a family of money and influence in nearby Etowah, tied his campaign closely to the popularity of the Roosevelt administration and rode FDR's coattails to victory over his Republican opponent. Fraud was suspected-to this day many Athens citizens firmly believe that ballot boxes were swapped-but there was no proof. Over the following months and years, however, those who questioned the election would see their suspicions vindicated. The laws of Tennessee provided an opportunity for the unscrupulous to prosper. The sheriff and his deputies received a fee for every person they booked, incarcerated, and released; the more human transactions, the more money they got. A voucher signed by the sheriff was all that was needed to collect the money from the courthouse. Deputies routinely boarded buses passing through and dragged sleepy-eyed passengers to the jail to pay their $16.50 fine for drunkenness, whether they were guilty or not. Arrests ran as high as 115 per weekend. The fee system was profitable, but record-keeping was required, and the money could be traced. It was less troublesome to collect kickbacks for allowing roadhouses to operate openly. Cooperative owners would point out influential patrons. They were not bothered, but the rest were subject to shakedowns. Prostitution, liquor, and gambling grew so prevalent that it became common knowledge in Tennessee that Athens was "wide open." Encouraged by his initial success, Cantrell began what would become a tenyear reign as the king of McMinn politics. In subsequent elections, ballot boxes were collected from the precincts and the results tabulated in secret at McMinn County Jail in Athens. Opposition poll watchers were labeled as troublemakers and ejected from precinct houses. The 1940 election sent George Woods, a plump and affable Etowah crony of Cantrell, to the state legislature. Woods promptly introduced "An Act to Redistrict McMinn County." It reduced the number of voting precincts from twenty-three to twelve and cut down the number of justices of the peace from fourteen to seven. Of these seven, four were openly Cantrell men. When Gov. Prentice Cooper signed Woods's bill into law on February 15, 1941, effective Republican opposition died in McMinn County. McMinn County Court, which was still dominated by Republicans, directed the county to purchase voting machines. The Cantrell Democrats countered by having Woods get a bill passed in Nashville abolishing the court and then selling the machines to "save the county money." Department of Justice records show investigations of electoral fraud in McMinn County in 1940, 1942, and 1944 -all without resolution. During the Civil War, deep from within secessionist territory, McMinn County had sided with the Union; in 1898 she had declared war on Spain two weeks before Washington got around to it. How could Cantrell have such undisputed control over a county noted for its independent and cantankerous spirit? One answer lies in the Second World War: 3,526 young men, or about 10 percent of McMinn's population, went off to fight. Most of those left behind-older and perhaps more timid-contributed to the Cantrell machine's growth by remaining silent. Still, as the war dragged on, people began to tell each other, "Wait until the GIs get back-things will be different." In the summer of 1945 veterans began returning home; by 1946 the streets of Athens overflowed with uniforms. The Cantrell forces were not worried. The more GIs they arrested," one vet recalled, "the more they beat up, the madder we got." Bill White recalled coming home from overseas with mustering-out pay in his pocket: "There were several beer joints and honky-tonks around Athens; we were pretty wild; we started having trouble with the law enforcement at that time because they started making a habit of picking up GIs and fining them heavily for most anything-they were kind of making a racket out of it. "After long hard years of service-most of us were hard-core veterans of World War II-we were used to drinking our liquor and our beer without being molested. When these things happened, the GIs got madder-the more GIs they arrested, the more they beat up, the madder we got ..." At last the veterans chose to use the most basic right of the democracy for which they had gone to war: the right to vote. In the early months of 1946 they decided in secret meetings to field a slate of their own candidates for the August elections. In May they formed a nonpartisan political party. As the election approached, there were few overt signs of impending trouble, although to the citizens of McMinn County it was apparent that something had to happen: there was too much at stake on both sides. The Daily Post-Athenian was characteristically silent. The most significant news item appeared on election eve, July 31,1946, at the bottom of page one: VFW members in neighboring Blount County said that four hundred and fifty veterans were ready to respond to any need in McMinn County. Above this was a report that Tony Pierce had killed a muskrat in his front yard. The veterans fielded candidates for five offices, but interest centered on the race for sheriff between Knox Henry, who had served in the North African campaign, and Paul Cantrell. Since the 1936 election Cantrell had gone on to the legislature as state senator and installed Pat Mansfield as sheriff of McMinn County. A big, jovial sometime engineer for the Louisville & Nashville, Mansfield had done very nicely for himself during his term of office: his four years as sheriff had netted him an estimated $104,000. But now, in 1946, Cantrell was running for sheriff and Mansfield for state senator. In the final week a flurry of advertisements appeared in the Post-Athenian; Cantrell enumerated the accomplishments of the Democratic party; Mansfield denied that two men arrested on July 30 with a shipment of liquor were deputies, even though they admitted they were and had been delivering "election whiskey"; downtown merchants announced that all stores would be closed on Election Day to give employees a chance to vote, although this had not been necessary in previous elections (the merchants were perhaps following the example of the mayor of Athens, Paul Walker, who would be vacationing on Election Day); Cantrell warned that the veterans had printed sample ballots with the intention of stuffing ballot boxes; the veterans offered a one-thousand-dollar reward for verifiable information about election fraud and repeated a slogan that for weeks had sounded again and again from their carmounted loudspeakers: YOUR VOTE WILL BE COUNTED AS CAST. Two days before the election the GIs ran an advertisement in the Post-Athenian: "These young men fought and won a war for good government. They know what it takes and what it means to have a clean government-and they are energetic enough, honest enough and intelligent enough to give us good, clean government." A couple of pages farther on, the Democrats had their say: "Look at the facts-and you will vote for the Democratic ticket. The campaign fight is as old as the hills-it is the story of the outs wanting back in." The next day, the paper reported that veterans from Blount County had offered to come help watch the polls. Mansfield began building an army of his own. "It has come to my attention," he announced, "that certain elements intend to create a disturbance at and around the polls. ... In order to see that law and order is maintained ... I will have several hundred deputies patrolling the county." He hired all of them from outside the county, some from out of state. They would crowd inside every voting precinct. And they would be armed. August 1, 1946: Election Day found voters lined up early in the largest turnout in local history. Joining them were some three hundred of Sheriff Mansfield's special deputies. Trouble began early. At 9:30 A.M. Walter Ellis, a legally appointed GI representative at the first precinct in the courthouse, was arrested and jailed for protesting irregularities. Sirens wailed throughout the morning, and police cruisers were seen speeding toward the jail. GIs began gathering on Washington Street outside L. L. Shaefer's jewelry store, which served as an office for their campaign manager, Jim Buttram, who had seen action in Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy. Above the door a sign read: "Phone 787, Jim Buttram," the number to which voters were to report election fraud. Only after prolonged pounding did a harried Buttram cautiously open the door to his comrades. As more than two hundred GIs filled the small store, the somber mood of their leader told them they were in trouble. He showed them copies of two telegrams dated July 22: one he had addressed to Gov. Jim McCord, Nashville, Tennessee; the other to Att. Gen. Tom Clark, Washington, D.C. They requested assistance to ensure a fair election. Neither had been answered. Otto Kennedy, not an ex-GI himself but a political adviser to the veterans, entered the office and announced that Cantrell had posted armed guards at each precinct. They all knew that this move was in preparation for the 4:00 P.M. poll closings when the ballot boxes would be moved to the jail for counting. A small group of the veterans demanded an armed mobilization and called for a leader. Buttram declined. So did Kennedy, but he offered the rear of his Essankay Garage and Tire Shop across the street as a meeting hall. The group crossed the street, held a meeting, and agreed that those who did not have weapons should get them and return as quickly as possible. By 3:00 P.M. most were back at the Essankay and most were armed. At about this time, Tom Gillespie, an elderly black farmer from Union Road, stepped inside the eleventh-precinct polling place in the Athens Water Works on Jackson Street. Windy Wise, a Cantrell guard, told Gillespie, "*****, you can't vote here." When Tom protested, Wise struck him with brass knuckles. Gillespie dropped his ballot and ran for the door. Wise pulled a pistol and shot him in the back as he reached the sidewalk. The crowd began to demand the lives of the captives; some veterans agreed. The first shot of the day brought crowds streaming up Jackson from the courthouse. Sheriff Mansfield's cruiser turned off College Street and screeched to a halt in front of the Water Works, and deputies loaded the bleeding Gillespie into the car. Mansfield ordered the precinct closed, posted four deputies outside to guard the Water Works, and then took Gillespie to jail. A dozen veterans from the Essankay started up Jackson toward the Water Works. They were unarmed. During the confusion following the shooting, the two GI poll watchers, Ed Vestal and Charles Scott, had been seized and held hostage inside the Water Works by Wise and another Cantrell deputy, Karl Neil. When the veterans reached the Water Works, the crowd began taunting the armed guards. As Wise and Neil stood at a window watching the angry throng outside, Vestal and Scott plunged through the plate-glass windows and ran bleeding for the protection of the crowd. Wise stepped through the broken glass, waving his pistol; several veterans rushed forward but were quickly pulled back to safety. One of them shouted, "Let's go get our guns!" and they left for the Essankay. In the meantime Chief Deputy Boe Dunn had his men form a cordon from the building to his cruiser, and the ballot box was carried out to the car. Wise told Dunn about the GIs' threat; the chief deputy ordered two of his men to GI headquarters to arrest those whom Wise could identify. The rest of the deputies piled into the cruiser, which sped back toward the jail. When the two deputies reached the GI headquarters, they were disarmed and taken prisoner; so were two others sent later as reinforcements. A crowd began to gather outside; three more deputies came with pistols drawn, only to be pummeled and dragged inside. The crowd began to demand the lives of the captives; some of the veterans agreed. This talk alarmed Otto Kennedy, and he left, vowing to have no part in murder. The crowd began to disperse, and most of the GIs left; soon a small nucleus of veterans was alone with seven hostages. The veterans took the hostages to the woods, ten miles out of town, beat them, and shackled them to trees. A polling place for the twelfth precinct had been set up in the back of the Dixie Cafe, across Hornsby Alley from the jail, and it was commanded by Minus Wilburn for Cantrell. Bob Hairrell and Leslie Dooley, who had lost an arm in North Africa, were assigned as the Gl poll watchers. Throughout the day they had observed Wilburn letting minors vote and handing cash to adult voters. At 3:45 P.M., when Wilburn attempted to allow a young woman to vote despite the fact that she had no poll-tax receipt and that her name did not appear on the registration list, Hairrell's patience gave out. As Wilburn reached to deposit the ballot, Hairrell grabbed his wrist. Wilburn slapped him across the head with a blackjack and kicked him in the face as he fell to the floor. Then he closed the precinct, ordered Hornsby Alley blocked at both ends, and, with a procession of guards, crossed the lawn to the jail with the ballot box and the GIs as captives. The Cantrell forces had calculated that if they could control the first, eleventh and twelfth precincts in Athens and the one in Etowah, the election was theirs. The ballot boxes from the Water Works (the eleventh) and the Dixie Cafe (the twelfth) were safely in the jail. The voting place for the first precinct, the courthouse, was barricaded by deputies who held four GIs hostage, and Paul Cantrell himself had Etowah under control. By 6:00 P.M. it seemed to be over. GI headquarters was deserted, and unhappy crowds moved quietly along the streets. Another election had been stolen, and nothing could be done about it. At the Strand Movie Theater across from the courthouse, the marquee read: "Coming Soon: Gunning for Vengeance." Bill White, who had fought in the Pacific while still in his teens and come home an ex-sergeant, had gotten angrier as the day wore on. At two in the afternoon he had harangued the group of veterans in the Essankay, saying: "You call yourselves GIs-you go over there and fight for three and four years-you come back and you let a bunch of draft dodgers who stayed here where it was safe, and you were making it safe for them, push you around. ... If you people don't stop this, and now is the time and place, you people wouldn't make a pimple on a fighting GI's ass. Get guns..." In the early evening White went to get the guns himself. He sent two GIs to get a truck and, with a few other veterans, perhaps a dozen, he headed for the National Guard armory. There, he said in a 1969 interview, he "broke down the armory doors and took all the rifles, two Thompson sub-machine guns, and all the ammunition we could carry, loaded it up in the two-ton truck and went back to GI headquarters and passed out seventy high-powered rifles and two bandoleers of ammunition with each one." By 9:00 P.M. Paul Cantrell, Pat Mansfield, State Rep. George Woods, who was also a member of the election commission, and about fifty deputies were locked inside the jail and going through the ballot boxes. The presence of Mansfield and Woods meant that a majority of the election commission was on hand, so the tallies could be certified and validated on the spot. More deputies were still barricaded in the courthouse, but along the streets none were to be seen. If the Cantrell forces had been a bit more wary, they might have spotted some shadows slipping up the embankment directly across the street from the jail. Opinion differs on exactly how the challenge was issued. White says he was the one to call it out: "Would you damn bastards bring those damn ballot boxes out here or we are going to set siege against the jail and blow it down!" Moments later the night exploded in automatic weapons fire punctuated by shotgun blasts. "I fired the first shot," White claimed, "then everybody started shooting from our side." A deputy ran for the jail. "I shot him; he wheeled and fell inside of the jail." Bullets ricocheted up and down White Street. "I shot a second man; his leg flew out from under him, and he crawled under a car." The veterans bombarded the jail for hours, but Cantrell and his accomplices, secure behind the red-brick walls, refused to surrender. As the uncertain battle dragged past midnight, the GIs began to have some uneasy second thoughts. They knew that they had violated local, state, and federal laws that night, and if Cantrell was not routed before his rescuers arrived, they might spend the rest of their lives in prison. Rumors compounded their fears: "The National Guard is on the way!" "The state troopers are here!" "Birch Biggs and his gang are coming!" (Biggs ran Polk County more ruthlessly than Cantrell ran McMinn.) If the veterans had known the truth, they would have been less apprehensive. George Woods had telephoned Biggs earlier that night for help. Biggs was not there, but his son, Broughton, took the call. His answer: "Do you think I'm crazy?" Woods then slipped out of town. The veterans were eager to end the battle. Some of them made Molotov cocktails, others went to the county supply house for dynamite. The gasoline bombs proved ineffective, but at 2:30 A.M. the dynamite arrived. At about this time an ambulance pulled around to the north side of the jail. Assuming it was for the evacuation of the wounded, the veterans let it pass. Two men jumped in, but then, instead of returning to the hospital, the ambulance sped north out of town. The men were Paul Cantrell and Pat Mansfield. At 2:48 A.M. the first dynamite was tossed toward the jail; it landed under Boe Dunn's cruiser, and the explosion flipped the vehicle over on its top, leaving its wheels spinning. Three more bundles of dynamite were thrown almost simultaneously; one landed on the jail porch roof, another under Mansfield's car, and the third struck the jail wall. The explosions rattled windows throughout the town; leaves fell from the trees, debris scattered for blocks, and the jailhouse porch jumped off its foundation. The deputies barricaded in the courthouse a block away rushed onto the balcony, eager to surrender. The jail's defenders staggered from their ruined stronghold and handed the ballot boxes over to the veterans. With the Cantrell forces conquered, ten years of suppressed rage exploded. The townspeople set upon the captured deputies and, but for the GIs, probably would have killed them all. Minus Wilburn, a particularly unpopular deputy, had his throat slashed; Biscuit Farris, Cantrell's prison superintendent, had his jaw shattered by a bullet; and Windy Wise was kicked and beaten senseless. Joined by a number of their fellows, the GIs cleared the jail of the rioters and locked up their prisoners for the night. At dawn the veterans slipped from the jail, made their way through the detritus of the battle, and dispersed into what they hoped would be anonymity. Miraculously there had been no deaths. But on August 2 a page-one headline in The New York Times wrongly trumpeted the news: TENNESSEE SHERIFF is SLAIN IN PRIMARY DAY VIOLENCE. All day long reporters with cameras and notebooks poured into town to photograph, question, analyze, and write. And every newcomer passed the sign on Highway 11: WELCOME TO ATHENS "The Friendly City" The "victory" of the veterans that night in August 1946 appeared, at first, to have settled nothing. The national press was almost unanimous in condemning the action of the GIs. In an editorial perhaps best reflecting the ambivalence of a startled nation, The New York Times concluded: "Corruption, when and where it exists, demands reform, and even in the most corrupt and boss-ridden communities, there are peaceful means by which reform can be achieved. But there is no substitute, in a democracy, for orderly process." The syndicated columnist Robert C. Ruark commented: "There is very little difference, essentially, between a vigilante and a member of a lynch mob, and if we are seeking an answer to crooked politics, the one that the Athens boys just propounded sure ain't it." Commonweal cautiously compared the battle to the American Revolution, then went on to say that "nothing could be more dangerous both for our liberties and our welfare than the making of the McMinn County Revolution into a habit." In the early days of August 1946 a power vacuum existed in McMinn County that easily could have spawned anarchy. Armed GIs patrolled streets that were still tense with rumors of a Mansfield army poised to reclaim Athens. Hundreds of men were issued permits to carry weapons, and machine guns on rooftops guarded the approaches to town. Several times groups of veterans rushed to barricade roads and occasionally they terrorized innocent travelers in their attempt to thwart an invasion that never came. On August 4 Pat Mansfield telegraphed his resignation as sheriff of McMinn County to Governor McCord and requested that Knox Henry fill his unexpired term, which would end on September 1. Henry was appointed immediately, and the next day State Rep. George Woods returned to the county under GI protection to convene the election commission and certify the election. A cheer rang out in the courthouse when Woods rose as the canvass ended and announced that Knox Henry was elected sheriff by a vote of 2,175 to 1,270. After their victory, GIs with machine guns waited for a Cantrell counterattack. On August 11, 1946, the five GIs elected to office in McMinn announced that they would return to the county all fees in excess of five thousand dollars. Elsewhere in Tennessee, E. H. Crump and his machine were finally on the way out, with the election of Gov. Gordon Browning and a young United States senator, Estes Kefauver. For a full year afterward the national press seized upon the most insignificant news from Athens as evidence of the veterans' "lawlessness." There was, indeed, remarkably little criminal prosecution in the wake of that violent night. Only one man had charges brought against him: Windy Wise, the deputy who shot the old black farmer, Tom Gillespie, drew a sentence of one to three years. As for the larger results of the Athens rebellion, the GIs universally hailed the return of the "independent vote" to the community and the election of "fine people" to lead it. The national press continued to show interest in what had happened (the best, if incomplete, account of it at the time was a Harper's article by Theodore White). Finally, on the first anniversary of the violent election, the Times reported, "Today it appears that this political coalition of World War II veterans for direct action in community affairs, which many at the time regarded as a factor likely to develop nationally in the postwar period, was purely local phenomenon in which veteran participation was incidental." With this epilogue the press turned away from tiny Athens. Knox Henry served two terms as sheriff of McMinn County and was succeeded by Otto Kennedy. Paul Cantrell, after seeking temporary asylum in Chattanooga, returned to Etowah and continued to operate the bank there with his brothers. They are all dead now, as is Jim Buttram. Otto Kennedy still lives in Athens. Pat Mansfield returned secretly to Athens on August 8, 1946, to resign his membership on the election commission. He met with Otto Kennedy for two hours, apparently with no ill feeling on either side, and then announced: "I'm through with politics for good. It'll sure mess you up sometimes. I'm going back to railroading." Athens has not changed that much in forty years. There is a new courthouse, an imposing structure that is too large for its site. The old one burned down during renovations in 1964. Farmers no longer gather on the square; there is no place for them. An effort at downtown renovation can only be described as timid, a cautious imitation of similar projects in the larger cities. They have a new jail, an austere building that seems to embody the adage that crime does not pay. The Daily Post-Athenian is alive and well and still comfortably middle-of-the-road. In the mid-fifties Athens was isolated by a new highway that intercepts Highway 11 south of Niota and rejoins it at Riceville. Along it a new Athens grew, a town of McDonald's, Kawasaki, and Pizza Hut. If you ask people along the street about the election of August 1946, they will point up White Street and mumble something vague about a shoot-out. There are no signs or monuments to commemorate the event; people have forgotten or do not wish to remember. But the graying manager of a local store, a friendly sort and so gentle with his grandchildren, squeezed off round after round at the jail that night. And the driver snoozing behind the wheel of his cab, not really caring whether he catches a fare or not, helped wrap and toss the deadly bundles of dynamite that sailed through the night air. You can bet they remember. A native Tennessean, Lones Selber was seven at the time of the events he describes here. He watched the battle from the corner of White and Washington streets. The editors wish to thank Thomas J. Baker, Jr., whose study of the McMinn County political machine provided valuable additional information. === http://gaspee.org/Haley.html GaspeeVirtual Archives RHODE ISLAND - REVOLUTIONARY WAR: THE GASPEE AFFAIR From: The Old Stone Bank History of Rhode Island; Vol. Ill; by John Williams Haley; Published by the Providence Institution for Savings, 1939. Distributed by Rhode Island Development Council One of the most colorful incidents in the history of Rhode Island was the Gaspee affair. With all the boldness that distinguished the Boston Tea Party, a group of indignant and courageous citizens took matters into their own hands and deliberately ended a scourge that had long been the source of great irritation. In the year 1772 the English government decided to enforce the revenue laws that heretofore had not been backed up with force. For years vessels had been stationed In Newport harbor for the purpose of enforcing the existing revenue laws, but it remained for the Gaspee to stir up the bitter hatred of the colonists The Gaspee was an armed schooner commanded by Lieutenant Dudingston, an insolent, overbearing individual. His great delight in life was to make existence miserable for Rhode Island craft, large and small. Up and down the bay he sailed, hailing boats and terrorizing their occupants. If vessels that were hailed did not stop immediately, a shot was fired across their bows as a warning of what might be expected if they did not wait to be searched. The Gaspee became such a terror that small boats hesitated to attempt the passage from one town to another. After making a hurried search of the vessels boarded, Dudingston would usually find some discrepancy in the payment of proper duties to the government, whereupon he would bring charges against the ship owners. It was only a short time after the offensive operations of the Gaspee had begun that letters of protest were sent to her commander by the Governor of Rhode Island. Insolent answers by Dudingston only served to increase the smoldering fires of public indignation. Finally, Admiral Montagu, the Commander of the British fleet, wrote to the Governor, ordering him not to interfere with the operations of the Gaspee in any way. The Admiral's letter was even more insolent in tone than Lieutenant Dudingston's had been. During the course of this correspondence between the Governor and the British commanders, the Rhode Island people longed to serve the Gaspee in the same way that the citizens of Newport had treated a disagreeable guest in its waters. On June 9th, 1772, Capt. Thomas Lindsay set out from the harbor of Newport intending to come up Providence. He expected that the Gaspee would catch sight of him and that he would very probably be stopped and his cargo searched, but he made up his mind not to allow this if he could help it. With all his sails spread he headed out of the harbor and started on his way. Just as he expected, he had not gone far before the Gaspee appeared in pursuit. The customary shot was fired across his bow, as a warning for him to stop, but without paying any attention to this the gallant Captain kept on his way. For several miles there was a hot pursuit, but it was a long chase and the packet was hard to overtake. About seven miles below Providence the shore runs out in a long spit of land called Namquid Point (now known as Gaspee Point). The little packet sailed round this point leaning far over in the brisk wind. In the hopes of overtaking her the Gaspee tried a short cut across the shallow place, but the water was even shallower than her Commander had thought, and to the rage of the Commander and Crew, she went aground. There was considerable running and shouting on board of her; orders were given and followed out in haste, but they were of no use. The Gaspee lay there in the hot summer sunlight, leaning over more and more as the hours passed by and the tide ebbed. It was soon quite evident that her chance to catch the packet was gone and that she would have to stay where she was until high tide, and that would not be until 3 o'clock next morning. Captain Lindsay sailed leisurely on to Providence, arriving about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and went straight to the home of Mr. John Brown, who was a close friend of his. He related his experiences of the day and described the helpless plight of the English schooner. The news spread fast and it did not take the citizens of Providence long to decide that now was the chance to rid themselves of their hated tormentor. About two hours after sunset that same evening, the roll of a drum sounded In the streets and the voice of a man was heard calling out in a loud tone, "The Gaspee is run aground off Namquid Point and cannot float before 3:00 o'clock tomorrow morning. Those people who feel disposed to go and destroy that troublesome vessel are invited to repair to Mr. James Sabin's house this evening." There was plenty of enthusiasm over the suggestion and before 9:00 o'clock that evening a large company of men had gathered in a room of Mr. Sabin's house. This house was an Inn that stood at the corner of what is now South Main and Planet Streets, just opposite Fenner's Wharf. The men who gathered for this venture came armed with guns, pistols, swords and clubs. Those who owned no arms themselves borrowed from their neighbors. Bullets were scarce, so a fire was lighted in the great fireplace and lead was hurriedly melted and poured into bullet molds. By 10:00 o'clock everything was ready. The men filled eight large longboats that had been moored at Fenner's Wharf. The oar locks and oars were carefully muffled and the expedition set out. Captain Whipple was put in command. Down they went through the darkness past Fox Point, around Field's Point and so on toward where the Gaspee lay. They approached very close to the schooner before the watch on deck discovered their presence. Then his cry rang out and brought the Commander and his sleepy crew to the deck. After a brief exchange of demands and oaths the men in the boats began the attack. A few shots were fired injuring one or two of the Gaspee crew, and in a few minutes a vicious hand-to-hand fight was under way. The attackers soon got the upper hand, made prisoners of the Commander and crew, and quickly transported them over to the Warwick shore, where they were put into the hands of willing assistants. After this was done the boats returned to where the Gaspee lay and she was set on fire. Silently the Providence men rested on their oars and watched the flames as they leaped from one end of the deck to the other and up through the sails and rigging. Suddenly their boats were shaken by the dull roar of an explosion. A mass of burning wood and rigging was shot high above the schooner and fell back into the water with a great splash. Bits of burning wood were thrown through the air, even as far as where the longboats lay. The powder in the Gaspee had exploded, blowing her to bits. Nothing was now left but the floating wreckage and a part of the hull. The night's work was finished and the Gaspee was destroyed. Very quietly the longboats were rowed to town. The men who were in them separated and returned, each to his own home. The strange thing is that the authorities who wished to punish these men for burning the schooner never were able to find out who they were. Almost everyone in town must have known, but no one would tell. Governor Wanton offered a reward of $500 for any information as to who they were. The King of England offered $5,000 reward for the leader of the expedition and .$2,500 for the arrest of any of the men who had been with him, but no one could be bribed or frightened Into betraying the patriots who had delivered their Colony from the hated Gaspee. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=39e_1279944559 HydrogenEconomy 2 examples of American armed insurrection against tyrannical government. athens,gaspee,armed,insurrection,tyrannical,government Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:38:53 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f5d_1261528675 bobaganoush A vile horde of darkness lays siege to Castle Battledom as the nefarious Christopher delivers the vestal Axe to the conniving Zeldoron. With his kingdom in grave peril, King Mace finally rises to confront the abomination named Snigglebiscuits. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f5d_1261528675 bobaganoush Scream Engine IV: Episode 13 (final episode) scream, engine, iv, animation, cartoon, epic Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:42:33 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ec_1260142239 bellava Both apartment-mates felt Al-Zahrani put them down for their religious beliefs -- both are Christians, 3 Muslim students say they tried to avoid Al-Zahrani The two apartment-mates of a man charged with stabbing a Binghamton University professor to death said Abdulsalam S. Al-Zahrani was argumentative, confrontational and threatened one of them in the three weeks they shared a first-floor unit on Main Street in Binghamton. Souleymane Sakho and Luis Pena, both post-graduate students at BU, said despite Al-Zahrani's troublesome behavior, the Saudi national never said say anything to them about anthropology professor emeritus Richard T. Antoun, who was stabbed around 1:40 p.m. Friday inside Science Building 1 and later pronounced dead at Wilson Regional Medical Center in Johnson City. Al-Zahrani, 46, was charged early Saturday with second-degree murder, according to Broome County District Attorney Gerald F. Mollen. "There is no indication of religious or ethnic motivation," said Mollen in a printed statement Saturday. Al-Zahrani claimed to be a Muslim, according to his apartment-mates. But he had no affiliation with the local mosque, said Kasim Kopuz, imam at the Islamic Organization of the Southern Tier in Johnson City. "When law enforcement showed us a picture, none of us knew him," said Kopuz. "This person was not involved in regular prayers at our mosque." Antoun frequently attended programs at the local mosque, said Kopuz. Mollen didn't reveal a motive for the stabbing, but said Al-Zahrani and Antoun knew each other through the defendant's post-graduate anthropology study. According to the school's Web site, Al-Zahrani was a graduate student in the anthropology department working on a doctoral thesis, "Sacred Voice, Profane Sight: The Senses, Cosmology, and Epistemology in Early Arabic Culture." Al-Zahrani, Sakho and Pena became roommates about three weeks ago when their landlord rented a vacant bedroom in their unit to Al-Zahrani -- a common arrangement in the student housing building. Sakho and Pena said Al-Zahrani was confrontational as soon as he moved into the bedroom nearest the kitchen of the three-room unit. When he asked Al-Zahrani why he bummed a cigarette when he had a full pack in his bedroom, Sakho said Al-Zahrani threatened him. "He came out of his room, he had a knife. He asked me whether I was afraid of death," said Sakho. Al-Zahrani walked away, which upset Sakho. "I told him, 'Don't ask me the question if you don't want to hear my answer,'" said Sakho during an interview Saturday in the apartment. Pena recalled what he described as one of Al-Zahrani's random outbursts. "He was sitting on the sofa and just blurted out 'I just feel like destroying the world,'" said Pena, 22. "He seemed like someone that's calm, but he could flip in a second." Sakho said Al-Zahrani claimed some students were spying on him and he was being persecuted because he was Muslim. Both apartment-mates felt Al-Zahrani put them down for their religious beliefs -- both are Christians. Pena said Al-Zahrani laughed at him for wearing a religious symbol around his neck. "What do you got there? I want one, and then he'd laugh," Sakho recalled. Sakho's last recollection of Al-Zahrani was around 1 a.m. Friday when he knocked on his bedroom door and asked if he was afraid to come out. "I told him, 'Afraid of what?'" said Sakho. "When I open the door, he's walking back to his room. I said, "What's up?'" Saklo said Al-Zahrani simply walked through the living room and down the hallway into his bedroom. The stabbing was a surprise to both men, they said. Sakho found out what happened when police arrived at the apartment around 7:30 p.m. Friday. Pena said he saw Al-Zahrani on campus at mid-morning Friday. He didn't learn of the incident until he got to the apartment around 8:30 p.m. Friday, even though he had been on campus most of the day. He knew of a stabbing, but not that Al-Zahrani allegedly had been involved. Both men said police searched the apartment until 1 p.m. Saturday -- nearly 18 hours after they had arrived. Al-Zahrani's room was locked and police took the key, they said. Al-Zahrani was arraigned Saturday before Justice Joseph Meagher in Town of Vestal court and remanded to the Broome County Jail without bail. Mollen's statement said the defendant "intentionally caused the death" by stabbing Antoun. No other arrests are expected. Mollen said he didn't know if Al-Zahrani had an attorney. Various law enforcement agencies were involved in the investigation, including Binghamton University police, New York State police, Johnson City police, Binghamton police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Broome County District Attorney's Office. 3 Muslim students say they tried to avoid Al-Zahrani Encounters with accused killer Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani led several local Muslims to take steps to avoid him when they saw him on campus or elsewhere in the community. Al-Zahrani, the man accused of fatally stabbing Binghamton University Professor Richard Antoun on campus Friday, had accused fellow Middle Eastern students of following him, answering a greeting of peace with an obscene insult, and disparaging a local mosque, according to three students interviewed Saturday night. "Tell these students not to follow me," Awni Qasaimeh, a Jordanian studying for his doctorate in industrial and systems engineering, said Al-Zahrani told him last week. "Do not make me trouble." Qasaimeh said Al-Zahrani mentioned three students by name, causing Qasaimeh to wonder if Al-Zahrani might want to harm the students. To Qasaimeh, Al-Zahrani did not behave like a Muslim because he smoked tobacco during Ramadan and failed to attend Friday prayer services. Al-Zahrani faces a murder charge in the death of Antoun, an emeritus professor of anthropology. He was stabbed with a knife in an office area of BU's Science I building. Mohammad Hamasha, another doctoral student from Jordan, recalled an encounter with Al-Zahrani on a bus in Johnson City a year ago. Hamasha said he addressed Al-Zahrani with a traditional Muslim greeting meaning "peace be upon you." He said Al-Zahrani responded, "you are the brother of a (expletive)." Hamasha was saddened this weekend to learn that tragedy had connected Al-Zahrani and Antoun. "He (Antoun) had come to my country," said Hamasha, who recalled the professor speaking at Yarmouk University in Jordan. "He had made a very good impression" on people with whom he spoke. Though Al-Zahrani claimed to be Muslim, the students said, a true follower of the religion would not have harmed a professor or have spoken as Al-Zahrani did. Kasim Kopuz, imam of the Islamic Association of the Southern Tier, said association members were not familiar with Al-Zahrani. One student was offended by a comment Al-Zahrani made to him about a year ago. "He insulted Islam, my religion, which is a good religion," said Samer Salameh, a master's degree candidate, who said Al-Zahrani used the phrase 'garbage in Johnson City' in an apparent reference to a local mosque. "That is not acting like a Muslim." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ec_1260142239 bellava Man charged with killing Binghamton University professor threatened roomates Al-Zahrani murder binghamton university antoun Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:34:08 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3a8_1260116533 bellava VESTAL, N.Y. (WIVB) - A student is in custody on Saturday, accused of attacking a professor at Binghamton University. Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani is the graduate student charged in the murder of his professor. It happened at Binghamton University at about 1:40 p.m. on Friday afternoon. Police said 77 year old Richard Antoun was in his campus office when he was stabbed with a knife four times. A freshman, who is from East Aurora, describes the campus by phone. "It's a lot more subdued. I think everybody's a lot more careful when they're walking outside." Al-Zahrani was an anthropology student majoring in Middle Eastern studies. Witnesses explain that campus police tackled him to the floor in the Science Building, the scene of the stabbing. "I was completely astonished. I was not only scared but absolutely shocked to hear that somebody on campus had actually gotten stabbed." It was the same reaction we heard from students at UB. Kristen Mazurkiewicz, a junior at UB said, "That seems pretty serious. I really wonder why the student was so upset at his professor. Was he just really stressed out from school because this is finals week or around that time?" Kristen doesn't excuse the stabbing and thinks it's something that can happen anywhere. But campus officials from UB told News 4 that students should feel safe. UB Police have emergency response plans in place for scenarios like the one in Binghamton. That's in addition to other security measures, like security cameras and an alert system. Daniel Bishop believes he feels protected. He's a first year graduate student at UB. "I don't know what runs through a student's mind when he thinks that somehow killing a professor is gonna solve some problems," he remarked. It's the question everyone is asking and we may never know the answer. This is the second deadly attack in Broome County in eight months and among a list of troubling events to take place there. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3a8_1260116533 bellava Campus in shock over professor's murder Campus in shock over professor's murder Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:34:31 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2ce_1222122871 UmarthePashtun While the whole world focuses on so called Islamic 'terroism' keep in mind that christian terrorism exists to. and has a bloody history longer than Islams. Christian terrorism is religious terrorism by those whose motivations are rooted in their interpretations of Christianity. From the viewpoint of the terrorist, Christian scripture and theology provide justification for violent political activities. Christian terrorist organizations Anti-abortion terrorists Abortion clinics have been frequent targets of violence. Christian anti-abortion terrorists and terrorist organizations include the Army of God, The Lambs of Christ, Clayton Waagner, Mike Bray, James Kopp, Paul Jennings Hill and Eric Robert Rudolph. Transnational groups Christian Identity Christian Identity is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology that asserts North European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God's chosen people. Christian Identity includes such Christian terrorist groups as The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA), Phineas Priesthood and the Oklahoma Constitutional Militia, also known as the Universal Church of God. Christian Identity is also related to other groups such as Aryan Nations, Aryan Republican Army (ARA) and the Patriots Council. Christian Identity has been associated with terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph, who carried out a series of bombings across the southern United States, which killed three people and injured at least 150 others, because he violently opposed abortion and homosexuality as contrary to Christian doctrine. His mother spent time with Nord Davis, a Christian Identity ideologue who wrote propaganda claiming that the world was controlled by Jews, and which advocated killing gays and those who engaged in mixed-race relationships. Rudolph's sister-in-law claimed that he was a member of the sect, but Rudolph himself claims to have only been a member of a Christian Identity church for six months because he was dating the daughter of Identity Pastor Dan Gayman, and wrote "I was born a Catholic, and with forgiveness I hope to die one." Idaho State University sociology professor James A. Aho said, "I would prefer to say that Rudolph is a religiously inspired terrorist, because most mainstream Christians consider Christian Identity to be a heresy." Christian Identity has been associated with Peter Kevin McGregor Langan and Richard "Wild Bill" Guthrie, founders of the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), a paramilitary gang which has been connected to hate fueled terrorist attacks involving train derailments, assassinations, bombings and a string of professionally executed armed bank robberies planned to finance an overthrow of the US Federal government. Similar social, cultural, and personal motivations have linked the ARA to a loose network of extreme radical right paramilitary cells including the White Supremacy movement and Christian Identity. South African branches of Christian Identity have been accused of involvement in terrorist activity, including the 2002 Soweto bombings. Identity doctrine Identity Christianity asserts that disease, addiction, cancer, and sexual venereal disease (herpes and AIDS) are spread by human "rodents" via contact with "unclean" persons, such as through "race-mixing". :85 The first book of Enoch is used to justify these social theories; the fallen angels of Heaven sexually desired Earth maidens and took them as wives, resulting in the birth of abominations, which God ordered Michael the Archangel to destroy, thus beginning a cosmic war between Light and Darkness. :85 The mixing of separate things (e.g. people of different races) defiles both, and is against God's will. :86 Identity preachers proclaim that, according to the King James Bible, "the penaltys for race-mixing, homo-sexuality, and usury are death." :86 The justification for killing homosexuals is provided by Leviticus 20:13 "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." Exodus 22:21-22, Leviticus 25:35-37 and Deuteronomy explicitly condemn usury. :92 Ezekiel 18-13 states "He who hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him." and is quoted as justification for killing Jews, since Jews have traditionally had a large presence in the usury business. Identity doctrine asserts that Eve was seduced by Satan (the Hebrew word "nasha" can mean deceive or seduce), and she then seduced Adam. Cain was evil because he was the spawn of Satan, which explains why he killed Abel. He was cast down to the Land of Nod, where he married a pre-Adamic woman, creating a spawn of Satan bloodline which would eventually become the Jews. :98 This is reinforced with the message "What God created was good. Therefore Jews could not be God's creation." :98 Thus the Biblical concepts of Lucifer, his fellow angels, and their witchwomen mates have now been turned into "Jews", representing the modern world's evil conspirators. :88 According to doctrine, when Constantine I legalised Christianity in 313 A.D., the Jews sought to destroy it from within by introducing "Babylonian" practices (priestcraft, pontifical authority, and vestal virgins), resulting in the gigantic Christian "fraud" known today as Roman Catholicism. :88 Identity doctrine asserts that the "root of all evil" is paper money (in particular Federal Reserve Notes), and that usury and banking systems are controlled by Jews. :87 The creation of the Federal Reserve Corporation in 1913 shifted control of money from Congress to private institutions and violated the Constitution. The money system encourages the Federal Reserve to take out loans, creating trillions of dollars of government debt and allowing international bankers to control America. Credit/debit cards and computerised tills are seen as the fulfillment of the Biblical scripture warning against "the beast" (i.e. banking) as quoted in Rev 13:15-18. Identity preacher Sheldon Emry claims "Most of the owners of the largest banks in America are of Eastern European (Jewish) ancestry and connected with the (Jewish) Rothschild European banks", thus, in Identity doctrine, the global banking conspiracy is led and controlled by Jewish interests. :91 Identity doctrine disputes the traditional interpretation of the word "Israel". :100 The Biblical quote "Blessed is the Lord God of Israel; for He hath... redeemed His people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David."Luke 1:68-71 is used to support the assertion that "the Saxons are Israel", and that Identity followers can't be anti-semitic, since the true Semites "today are the great White Christian nations of the western world", with modern Jews in fact being descendants of the Canaanites. :101 "Israel" was the name given to Jacob after battling the angel at Peniel in Genesis 32:26-32. "Israel" then had twelve sons, which began the twelve tribes of Israel. :101 In 975 B.C. the ten northern tribes revolted, seceded from the south, and became the Kingdom of Israel. :101 After being subsequently conquered by Assyria, the ten tribes disappear from Biblical record, becoming the Lost Tribes of Israel. :101 According to Identity doctrine, 2 Esdras 13:39-46 then records the history of the nation of Israel journeying over the Caucasus mountains, along the Black Sea, to the Ar Sereth tributory of the Danube in Romania. :101 The tribes prospered, and eventually colonised other European countries. Israel's leading tribe, the Tribe of Dan, is attributed with settling and naming many areas which are today distinguised by place names derived from its name - written ancient Hebrew contains no vowels, and hence "Dan" would be written as DN, but would be pronounced with an intermediate vowel dependent on the local dialect, meaning that Dan, Den, Din, Don, and Dun all have the same meaning. :101 Various modern place names are said to derive from the name of this tribe: :101 Macedonia - Macedonia - derived from Moeshe-don-ia (Moeshe being "the land of Moses") Danube - Dan-ube, Dneister - Dn-eister, Dneiper - Dn-eiper, Donetz - Don-etz, Danzig - Dan-zig, Don - Don The Identity genealogy of the Davidic line can be traced from its beginnings right down to the Royal rulers of Britain and Queen Elizabeth herself. :102-105 Thus Anglo-Saxons are the true Israelites, God's chosen people who were given the divine right to rule the world until the Second Coming of Christ. :101 Groups in the United States Army of God In 1998, letters were sent to news organizations and law enforcement claiming the Army of God carried out several of the attacks attributed to Eric Rudolph. The Army of God is considered a violent offshoot of Christian Identity , a white supremacist religion considered anti-gay, anti- Semitic and anti-foreigner. An independent group utilizing a sort of leaderless resistance, not really an organization which holds meetings and large numbers of subscribers, the Army of God dates back more than 20 years and is linked to an underground movement whose members are trained to evade surveillance and to use violence as a method of protest including opposition to abortion. Army of God members have records associated with numerous acts of violence including bombings, shootings, and killings. The Army of God is an anti-abortion terrorist organization which holds that their activity is lawful and theologically justified: using deadly force to end abortion in the United States. In 1985 Rev. Mike Bray, the "chaplain" of the Army of God, was convicted of destroying seven abortion facilities in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, causing damages of over $1 million. Rev. Paul Hill, an associate of the Army of God, shot and killed Dr. John Britton in Pensacola, Florida in 1994. :11 James Kopp, a member of the Army of God, shot and killed Dr. Barnett Slepian in 1998. In 2001, at the height of the United States anthrax scare, more than 170 abortion clinics and doctors offices in 14 states received letters containing white powder and the message "You have been exposed to anthrax. We are going to kill all of you. Army of God, Virginia DARE Chapter." In December 2003 Clayton Waagner was convicted for these attacks. Waagner had entered the home of antiabortion militant Neal Horsley, tied him up and held him at gunpoint, and then made a taped confession. Ann Glazier, director of clinic security at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that during the trial Waagner had "repeatedly bragged that he had been the most wanted man in America and that he was a terrorist. It was unbelievable." Salon magazine reported that whilst the press had generally called Waagner a terrorist, they "studiously avoid use of the word 'Christian'". Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates, said "If Waagner had been a self-identified Muslim terrorist instead of a Christian terrorist, he'd have been lynched by now...But if it's fair to say if we can see the religious motivations in the Taliban, we ought to be able to see them in Waagner or Eric Rudolph." A group which "is not so much an organization" but more of "a shared set of ideas and enemies," the Army of God utilizes "Leaderless Resistance" a tactic of irregular warfare used against the American government employed by some members of the radical right. The Army of God, whose ultimate goal is establishing a Christian theocracy through violence, claims that the murder of abortion doctors is "justifiable homicide," exemplifying the group's evolving philosophy from violence against property to violence against individuals. An Army of God manual found buried in the yard of Rochelle "Shelly" Shannon, an Oregon activist convicted of shooting Wichita doctor George Tiller, provides detailed and explicit instructions for home-brewing plastic explosives, fashioning detonators, deactivating alarm systems, cutting phone, gas, and water lines, and includes the statement: "Annihilating abortuaries is our purest form of worship." However, according to records compiled over a period of twelve years by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and besieged clinics which included 123 cases of arson, 37 bombings in 33 states, and more than 1,500 cases of stalking, assault, sabotage and burglary, a large portion of staff time was devoted to routine women's reproductive health care - pap smears, teaching and supplying birth control methods, and treating sexually transmitted diseases - not to abortions. Some of the clinics targeted did not provide abortion services but were subjected to violence nonetheless. Aryan Nations Aryan Nations is a white supremacist group founded by Richard Girnt Butler as an arm of the Christian Identity group Church of Jesus Christ-Christian, with headquarters listed as a Lexington, S.C. post office box. Aryan Nations followers admire Adolf Hitler and claim that minority group members are "mud people" and spawns of Satan. Aryan Nations doctrine follows that of Christian Identity which claims that Europeans are the lost tribe of Israel, Jews are satanic, blacks are subhuman, and the Federal Government is illegal. In August 1999 Buford O. Furrow, Jr., a Christian identity activist and member of Aryan Nations, carried out the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting, injuring three little boys and two female workers. :19 Authorities quoted Furrow as saying he wanted his act to be "a wake-up call to America to kill Jews." Less than an hour after the attack, Furrow gunned down Joseph Ileto, a Filipino-American employee of the United States Postal Service. Furrow told investigators that he considered killing the mail carrier a "good opportunity" because Ileto was non-white and worked for the federal government. Furrow received two life sentences plus 110 years in prison for the attack. Furrow had once told police that he often fantasized about suicide, while neighbors, associates, and court records stated that Furrow had a long history of mental illness and had interests in white supremacist religion and paramilitary. Furrow, who was an officer of the internal security force of the Aryan Nations, reportedly stockpiled weapons and ammunition, abused his wife, and once daydreamed about shooting people at random in a shopping mall near Seattle. Furrow was reportedly second husband to Debbie Mathews, the widow of Robert J. Mathews, domestic terrorist who died in a shootout with Federal authorities in 1994 and the founder of a U.S. neo-Nazi group called the Order which was involved in a campaign of assassinations, bombings and robberies. The Order was supposedly broken apart by arrests, internal dissent and killings; however, some members vowed to strike at targets in small groups or alone, committing violent acts against Jews, blacks, homosexuals or abortion providers thereby earning membership in a loose-knit fraternity of racists who call themselves priests, the Phineas Priesthood. Richard Kelly Hoskins, author of many books about race and banking, one of which was found in Furrow's van, wrote, "As the kamikaze is to the Japanese, as the Shiite is to Islam, as the Zionist is to the Jew, so the Phineas Priest is to Christiandom." Interviewed from his home in Lynchburg, Va., Mr. Hoskins said the book found in Furrow's possession, "War Cycles/Peace Cycles," was about "the history of usury," including what he called "the traditional Jewish presence in banking," and wrote on his Web page that the book explains "the necessity for assassination of national leaders." In 2007, a 36-year-old man, Jason Hamilton, who had ties to the Aryan Nations, fatally shot himself in a Presbyterian church after killing his wife, a police officer, a church sexton, and wounding three men. Christian Patriots The anti-federalist, extremist tax-resistance movements, seditious beliefs, religious and racial hatred of the American militia movement and other contemporary white supremacist organizations in association with the broader Christian Patriot movement actively incorporate Christian scripture and biblical liturgy to justify and support violent activities. :105-120 Timothy McVeigh who, along with his accomplice Terry Nichols, carried out the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, has admitted to a belief in Christian Patriotism and involvement in Patriot activities. Ku Klux Klan Ku Klux Klan with a burning crossThe Ku Klux Klan are proponents of a fundamentalist Christian theology strongly influenced by Christian Reconstructionism, hoping to "reconstruct" the United States along biblical (primarily Old Testament) lines and establish a white-dominated theocracy. They have often used terrorism, violence, and acts of intimidation, such as cross burning and lynching, to oppress African Americans and other social or ethnic groups. Hundreds of indictments for crimes of violence and terrorism have been issued against them, and many Klan members have been prosecuted. The Ku Klux Klan consists of many subgroups who have individually carried out terrorist acts. One example is the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who in 1998 were found guilty of burning a 100-year-old black Baptist church to the ground. The noose and burning cross See also: Ku Klux Klan regalia and insignia, Cross burning, and Jena Six The noose and cross burning of the Christian cross are two well known symbols of terror primarily associated with the Ku Klux Klan, made infamous during lynching in the period of the late nineteenth century and still in use today. "A noose is a symbol of America's oldest form of domestic terrorism." "The noose is replacing the burning cross in the mind of much of the public as the leading symbol of the Klan." Cross burnings, while not that common compared to overall crime, still take place in the US today and have a huge impact on the victim and the entire community. Cross burnings are generally covert acts performed in rural areas where there are scarce witnesses and bonds between conspirators, especially if part of an organized hate group, are strong. "They are a poisonous kind of hatred and can increase racial tension that may already exist in the area." Louisiana resident, Jeremiah Munsen, 18, faces federal hate-crime and civil rights conspiracy charges for taunting civil rights marchers who had been protesting alleged injustice in relation to an incident in Jena, LA in which authorities brought no criminal charges against three white students for hanging nooses after black students sat in a traditionally whites only area, but six black students were prosecuted for beating a white student after the hanging of the nooses. An unnamed juvenile conspirator who claimed to be in the Ku Klux Klan also told police that on September 20 he tied the nooses to the back of the pickup truck. Munsen and the conspirator then repeatedly drove slowly past the group of marchers specifically to threaten and intimidate, authorities said. The indictment issued by a grand jury in Shreveport, Louisiana, was announced by U.S. Attorney Donald Washington and Grace Chung Becker, acting head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. A rash of noose incidents reported in the months after the initial Jena, Louisiana events reintroduced the frightening and offensive symbol of segregation-era lynchings to the US. Some of the publicized incidents include nooses left in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, on the office floor of a white officer who had conducted race-relations training in response to the incident, in the locker room at a Long Island police station which recently touted its efforts to recruit minorities, in a tree near a building on a Maryland college campus housing several black campus groups, and on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York. Lambs of Christ The Lambs of Christ is an anti-abortion terrorist organization which holds that their activity is lawful and theologically justified: using deadly force to end abortion in the United States. James Kopp, who shot and killed Dr. Barnett Slepian in 1998, was a Lambs of Christ activist and a member of the Army of God. Groups in Indonesia On July 26, 2007, 17 Christians from Poso, Indonesia, were convicted of religion-inspired terrorism under Indonesian law. Fourteen year sentences were given to two of the seventeen for their main roles in the killings, while ten were sentenced to twelve year terms. Five were convicted in separate hearings and received eight year sentences for their part in the "acts of terrorism by the use of violence." A Christian mob attacked, murdered, and beheaded two Muslim fishermen in September 2006, reportedly as retaliation for the execution in 2006 of three Christian farmers, who were convicted of leading a militant group which killed hundreds of Muslims in Poso in 2000, an execution that attracted a plea for clemency from the pope, and accusations from Amnesty International that the trial was unfair. The convictions come in the context of seven years of violence between Christian and Muslim groups in the province, including the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls on the way to school and the deaths of hundreds of Muslims and Christians, and campaigns of religious cleansing on both sides. Groups in India See also: Insurgent groups in Northeast India and Terrorism in India National Liberation Front of Tripura The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) is a rebel group operating in Tripura, North-East India. The NLFT were declared a terrorist organization under the Indian Prevention of Terrorism Act in 2002. The NLFT manifesto says that they want to expand what they describe as the kingdom of God and Christ in Tripura. They are accused of forcing indigenous tribes to give up Hinduism and become Christian in areas under their control. In 2000 the Indian government of Tripura announced that it had hard evidence that the Baptist Church of Tripura was backing the NLFT. Nagmanlal Halam, secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, was arrested and found to be in possession of a large quantity of explosives. Halam confessed to buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT for the past two years. The National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism classified the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) as one of the ten most active terrorist groups in the world in 2003. They wrote: " The NLFT, like the ATTF, focuses its activities in the Indian state of Tripura. However, the impetus driving the NLFT's armed struggle is the creation of an independent state in Tripura that is governed by Christian principles. With many of the group's members motivated by Christianity, the NLFT manifesto seeks to end "Indian colonialism" and "neo-imperialism." The organization, operating from Bangladesh, uses its numerous bases to execute subversive terrorist activities in India... Typical NLFT targets include Indian government employees and officials, as well as civilians. Members of the rival Communist Party of India and their family members are also victims of NLFT attacks. Bombings and kidnappings are the tactical measures used most often by the NFLT... the group ranks as one of the most active terrorist groups in terms of both incidents and fatalities... the organization reportedly receives financial assistance from Christian supporters in India, enabling the organization to implement its operations... The NLFT has managed to maintain contacts with various terrorist organizations, such as the National Liberation Front of Bodoland, an organization active in Assam; the Nagaland-based National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM); and the Manipur-based Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL). The NLFT has, likewise, cultivated transborder linkages in Myanmar and Bhutan, which are also rather accessible, and has formed strategic networks with intelligence organizations in Pakistan. " The stated goals of the NLFT include the overthrow imperialism, capitalism and neo-colonialism by way of armed struggle so they can form a distinct and independent Borok civilization in Twipra. They state that they have been completely marginalized by the immigration of nonnative peoples, been oppressed socio-politically, and economically exploited. They believe they are facing an identity crisis due to chauvinism and imperialism from what they call the so-called Aryan descendants of Hindustan(India). Nagaland Rebels The Nagaland Rebels is a coalition of rebel groups operating in Nagaland, North-East India. The largest of these is the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM), which is fighting for the establishment of a "Nagaland for Christ". The NSCN-IM have carried out numerous acts of terrorism against the Indian Army, other ethnic groups, and opponents within their own ethnic group. The insurgency has been waged since the 1947 Indian declaration of independence, and has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. Baruah writes that "Christianity is an essential part of Naga identity"; the NSCN-IM estimate that 95% of Nagas are Christian. According to Gordon Means "the religious issue cannot be overlooked... A great number of Nagas are Christians... the Naga Federal Government (NFG) could play upon the fear of many Nagas that within the Indian Union the religious freedom of a small Christian minority would be compromised. An independence movement that can cloak itself in the garb of both nationalism and religious righteousness has an initial advantage. And there can be no doubt that the rebel Nagas are a sincerely pious lot. By all accounts, hymn singing and prayers constitute an important part of their daily routine in their jungle hide-outs. The vice-president of the NFG, Mr. Mhiasiu, was a preacher before joining the underground. Serving as chaplains for the Home Guards are many Baptist ministers." Groups in Lebanon Guardians of the Cedars The Guardians of the Cedars is the paramilitary wing of the banned Lebanese Renewal Party, and one of several Christian militias active in the Lebanese Civil War. From 1973 their slogans have included "No Palestinian will remain on Lebanese soil" and "A good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian". According to Judith Tucker, "the Guardians of the Cedars played an important role in terrorist strategy throughout the wars in Lebanon... They are best known today for the numberous attacks and cold-blooded murders of Palestinian civilians in the Sidon region." In an interview carried out by the Jerusalem Post, leader Abu Arz said that Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed from Lebanon "We shall drive them to the borders of 'brotherly' Syria and tell them to keep walking. Anyone who looks back, stops or returns will be shot on the spot. When I suggest that such harsh procedures might put the Christian world against them, he simply says: 'We are the Christian world.'" Lebanese Forces The Lebanese Forces (also known as the Christian Phalangist Militia) was a right wing secular group, who had support from the Maronite community, during a civil war based not on religious beliefs, but on the control of political and economic power. The Lebanese Forces were one of several Christian militias active during the Lebanese Civil War; it carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre in which an estimated 700-3500 Palestinian refugees were massacred. The attack on the camps occurred within a few days of the assassination of the Maronite Christan president of Lebanon. The Lebanese Forces attacked the camps after being let in to them by Israeli soldiers who sealed off the two camps for three days. Attacks against Israel by Palestinian guerrillas, led Israel to invade and occupy southern Lebanon in 1982. Groups in Northern Ireland Religion as a factor Several people have stated that religion was a contributing factor to terrorism in Northern Ireland: Mark Juergensmeyer wrote "Like residents of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of religious terrorism: shocking, disturbing incidents of violence laced with the passion of religion - in these cases, Christianity" :19 and "The violence in Northern Ireland is justified by still other theological positions, Catholic and Protestant." :20 and "The ferocity of religious violence was brought home to me in 1998 when I received the news that a car bomb had exploded in a Belfast neighborhood I had visited the day before. :4 Martin Dillon interviewed paramilitaries on both sides of the conflict, questioning how they could reconcile murder with their Christian convictions. His interviewees included Kenny McClinton, a convicted murderer who once advocated beheading Roman Catholics and impaling their heads on railings, and who is now Pastor of the Ulster/American Christian Fellowship Ministry, and Billy Wright, a Born again Christian preacher who became one of the most feared paramilitary figures in Northern Ireland, and who accepts that, although his faith calls for him to defend his people, his own actions in this defense could lead to damnation (see Notable individuals). First Minister of Northern Ireland The Revd. and Rt. Hon. Ian Paisley often cast the conflict in religious terms. He preached that the Roman Catholic Church, which he termed the "Popery", had deviated from the Bible, and therefore from true Christianity, giving rise to "revolting superstitions and idolatrous abuses". Paisley once said "The Provisional IRA is the military wing of the Roman Catholic Church" and has claimed several times that the Pope is the Antichrist, mostly famously at the European Parliament, where he interrupted a speech by Pope John Paul II, shouting "I denounce you as the Antichrist!" and holding up a red poster reading "POPE JOHN PAUL II ANTICHRIST". Pastor Alan Campbell has also identified the Papacy as the Antichrist, and has described the IRA as "Roman Catholic terrorists". Campbell preaches a Christian Identity theology; he is strongly against race-mixing, and supports the British Israel hypothesis, claiming that the Celto-Anglo-Saxon people of Ulster are the true "Israel of God". Steve Bruce, a sociologist, wrote "The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality". :249 Reviewers agreed "Of course the Northern Ireland conflict is at heart religious". John Hickey wrote "Politics in the North is not politics exploiting religion. That is far too simple an explanation: it is one which trips readily off the tongue of commentators who are used to a cultural style in which the politically pragmatic is the normal way of conducting affairs and all other considerations are put to its use. In the case of Northern Ireland the relationship is much more complex. It is more a question of religion inspiring politics than of politics making use of religion. It is a situation more akin to the first half of seventeenth-century England than to the last quarter of twentieth century Britain". Padraic Pearse was a devoted believer of the Christian faith, a writer, and one of the leaders of the Easter Rising. In his writings he often identified Ireland with Jesus Christ to emphasise the suffering of the nation, and called for his readers to resurrect and redeem the nation, through self-sacrifice which would turn them into martyrs. Browne states that Pearse's "ideas of sacrifice and atonement, of the blood of martyrs that makes fruitful the seed of faith, are to be found all through writings; nay, they have here even more than their religious significance, and become vitalizing factors in the struggle for Irish nationality". William Edward Hartpole Lecky, an Irish historian, wrote "If the characteristic mark of a healthy Christianity be to unite its members by a bond of fraternity and love, then there is no country where Christianity has more completely failed than Ireland". Sweeney argued that self-immolation, in the form of hunger strikes by Irish republicans, was religiously motivated and perceived. He wrote "The Rising catapulted the cult of self-sacrifice to centre stage of twentieth century Irish militant politics in a strange marriage of Catholicism and republicanism. A religious and a sacrificial motif can be detected in the writings of those who participated in the 'bloody protest'. Brian O'Higgins, who helped in the rebel capture of Dublin's GPO in O'Connell Street, recalls how all the republications took turn reciting the Rosary every half hour during the rebellion. He writes that there 'was hardly a man in the volunteer ranks who did not prepare for death on Easter Saturday and there were many who felt as they knelt at the altar rails on Easter Sunday morning that they were doing no more than fulfilling their Easter duty - that they were renouncing the world and all the world held for them by making themselves worthy to appear before the Judgement Seat of God... The executions reinforced the sacrificial motif as Mass followed Mass for the dead leaders, linking them with the sacrifice of Christ, the ancient martyrs and heroes, and the honoured dead from previous revolts... These and other deaths by hungerstrike transformed not only the perceived sacrificial victims but, in the eyes of many ordinary Irish people, the cause for which they died. The martyrs and their cause became sacred." Sweeney goes on to note that the culture of hunger strikes continued to be used by the Provisional IRA to great effect in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in a revamped Sinn Fein, and mobilising huge sections of the Catholic community behind the republican cause. :13 The Guardian newspaper attributed the murder of Martin O'Hagan, a former inmate of the Maze prison and a fearless reporter on crime and the paramilitaries, to the revival of religious fundamentalism. Groups Organized paramilitary crime, including drugs and racketeering, have threatened civil society in Ireland as gangs with both Catholic and Protestant ties have engaged in activities such as "drug dealing, counterfeiting and forgery, money-laundering, benefits fraud, car theft, arms trading, extortion and cross-border smuggling" and influencing employment. Although often advocating nationalist policies, these groups consisted of and were supported by distinct religious groups in a religiously partitioned society. Groups on both sides advocated what they saw as armed defence of their own religious group. :134-135 Notable Catholic groups include: Provisional Irish Republican Army. Official IRA Irish National Liberation Army (also known as the Catholic Reaction Force) Irish People's Liberation Organisation Continuity IRA Real IRA Notable Protestant groups include: Ulster Volunteer Force Ulster Defence Association Loyalist Volunteer Force Red Hand Commandos Ulster Resistance Groups in Russia Many Russian political and paramilitary groups combine racism, nationalism, and Russian Orthodox beliefs. "In Russia, on the other hand, even extreme nationalism was always coloured by Orthodoxy, and, consequently, was to be considered traditionalist". Alexander Verkhovsky writes: " National-patriots accuse the contemporary society of total lack of spirituality. Thus, the concept of spirituality and, accordingly, the concept of religion are very important for them. In most of the cases, the religion in question is Russian Orthodoxy. ... Anti-Semitism, in principle, is not a requisite feature of each and every national-patriot, but practically all of them are Anti-Semites nevertheless. The idea of a 'Jewish-Masonic' conspiracy in its various versions pervades nationalist thinking. It is also closely correlated with anti-Western attitudes. In the extreme, Jews are perceived as the age-old enemies of the Russian people and Russian Orthodox faith who direct all the other enemies, such as the United States, the Pope, Chechnya, etc. ... The Catacombs Church of the Truly Orthodox Christians headed by Archbishop Amvrosy proclaims racist convictions on the theological level... For the majority of national-patriots, nevertheless, Russian Orthodoxy still serves as an ideological basis... Russian Orthodox national-patriots who are close to the Church in their faith naturally maintain immediate ties with the Russian Orthodox fundamentalists within the Church, whose ideology is also national-patriotic. It is actually impossible to draw a clear distinction between these two groups. The Patriarchy itself had been trying for a long while to draw such distinction within the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods but did not succeed. " At the murder trial of Russian National Unity leader Igor Semenov, Vladimir Gusev, a Russian Orthodox priest, testified that "Judaism does not have any positive conception in the Christian sense", and he identified Hasidic and Ashkenazic Jews as members of totalitarian sects that "kill children, gather their blood, and use it to make matzah" (the Blood libel against Jews). He added that "The Jews should not celebrate Chanukah because it can insult the religious feelings of the Christians." Russian National Unity Russian National Unity is an outlawed far right party responsible for several terrorist attacks, including murders on religious grounds, and the bombing of the US Consulate in Ekaterinburg. In their manifesto "Bases of social conception of RNU" they advocate an increased role for the Russian Orthodox Church in all areas of life: " The Russian orthodox traditions are the main principals of RNU's activity. The members of RNU are orthodoxy Christians and are basing on the old medieval forms of the Russian Orthodoxy, which were serving as spiritual base for our ancestors during creation of the Russian State. ... RNU is opposite to membership of Russian Orthodox Church in WCC, against the it's taking part in ecumenical movement, closing to Catholicism and Judaism....Activity of religious confessions, communities and sects, hostile to Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional confessions (Islam, Buddhism) must be forbidden in the legislative order. ... The concept of personality's rights has become one of the main principals in present sense of justice. The idea of such rights is based on Bible's doctrine about the human being as image and likeness of God, as ontologically free being..The Christian social-state ethics demanded to keep some autonomous sphere for the man, where his conscience is absolute host, because rescue or death, way to Christ or way from Christ finally depend on free will...At the same time for RNU's members' sense of justice the idea of freedom and human rights is connected with idea of serving. Christian needs rights because having them allow to execute his high mission to "image of God", performance his debt to God and Church, to nation, family and state. ... RNU considers that all the representatives of non-native communities of Russia without exception are foreigners. It doesn't depend on the place of their birth and time of their living on the territory of Russia and must be deprived the Russian citizenship. All foreigners must be exposed to investigation with the purpose of determination of the measure of their loyalty and usefulness to Russians and Rossiyane. ... The main reason of escaping of our contemporaries in alcoholic and narcotic illusions is spiritual emptiness, loss of life meaning, degradation of moral orientations. ... RNU considers as the main state aim the defense of genetic purity of Russian Nation. Any forms of compulsion to mixed marriage or affair, doing the harm to genofund of Russian Nation must be prosecuted in law order. Any propaganda of mixed marriages must be forbidden....The major criteria is a spiritual condition of a man born in a mixed marriage. Man born in mixed marriage and having one Russian parent is considered as Russian if he has Russian spirit, brought up on Russian national and cultural traditions, is patriot of Russia and orthodox Christian. " Russian National Socialists The Russian National Socialist Party bases itself on four principles: Orthodox Christianity, a strong state, aggressive Russian nationalism and non-Marxist socialism. Party leader A. Barkashov has advocated "a Hitlerite racial biology, and proclaims the need for creating an armed resistance movement against the supposed Jewish dictatorship in Russia." :7 In August 2007, a 23 year old member of the group was arrested for distributing a video on the Internet that showed two Muslims apparently being beheaded and shot by a militant wing of the RNSP. Groups in the former Yugoslavia Michael Sells asserts that religious mythology played a crucial role in Bosnian genocide. :backcover He wrote about the religious ideology of Christoslavism: :36 " "In the nineteenth century, the three myths - conversion to Islam based only upon cowardice and greed, stable ethnoreligious groups down through the centuries, and complete depravity of Ottoman rule - became the foundation for a new religious ideology, Christoslavism, the belief that Slavs are Christian by nature and that any conversion from Christianity is a betrayal of the Slavic race. " Sells asserts that the genocide in Bosnia: :89-90 " was religiously motived and religiously justified. Religious symbols, mythologies, myths of origin (pure Serb race), symbol of passion (Lazar's death), and eschatological longings (the resurrection of Lazar) were used by religious nationalists to create a re-duplicating Milos Obili'c, avenging himself on the Christ killer, the race traitor, the alien, and, ironically, the falsely accused 'fundamentalist' next door. The ideology operated not only in speeches and manifestos, but in specific rituals of atrocity. Survivors of concentration camps report that during torture sessions or when they begged for water they were made to sing Serbian religious nationalist songs reworded to reflect the contemporary conflict. " Sells asserts that these acts were seen as ethnoreligious purification: :51 " Christoslavism - the premise that Slavs are by essence Christian and that conversion to another religious is a betrayal of the people or race - was critical to the genocidal ideology being developed in 1989. Christoslavism places Slavic Muslims and any Christian who would tolerate them in the position of the Judas figure of Kosovo, Vuk Brankovi'c. It sets the Slavic Muslims outside the boundaries of nation, race, and people. As portrayed in The Mountain Wreath, it demonstrates what can be done to those defined as nonpeople and what is, under certain circumstances, a religious duty and a sacred, cleansing act. It transfers the generalized curse of Kosovo onto Slavic Muslims in particular, a curse against the natal milk that will allow them to progenerate. In their acts of genocide from 1992 through 1995, Radovan Karadzi'c and his followers integrated the Kosovo tradition, as it was handed down through Vuk Karadzi'c and transformed by Njegos and Andri'c, into the daily rituals of ethnoreligious purification. " Norman Cigar asserts that, according to the world's respected fact-gathering organizations, the Christian Serbs committed over 90% of the war crimes and 100% of the genocide in Bosnia. Together, Christian Croats and Bosnian Muslims committed under 10% of the atrocities. Tsar Lazar Guard The Tsar Lazar Guard is the paramilitary wing of the Movement of Veterans of Serbia. Its president Zeljko Vasiljevi'c called it the "first uniformed Christian militia squad, comprised of war veterans from all over Serbia". The group was officially formed at a swearing in ceremony at the Lazarica Church in Krusevac on 5 May 2007. The group is said to have 5000 troops. The United Nations and NATO have classed Tsar Lazar's Guard as a terrorist group. Tsar Lazar's Guard threatened to attack United Nations and NATO troops if Kosovo declared independence, and have stated their desire to detonate a nuclear bomb in Kosovo. White Eagles The White Eagles were a Serbian paramilitary group which carried out a number of atrocities, massacres, and acts of terror over the non-Serb population both before and during the Yugoslav wars. Mirko Jovi'c, leader of the White Eagles, called for a "Christian, Orthodox Serbia with no Muslims and no unbelievers". :80 Clarence Augustus Martin, in the book "Understanding Terrorism", classified the White Eagles as terrorists and accussed them of practicing "gender-selective terrorism against men" for their deliberate targetting of Muslim civilian males. :312 Due to the widespread collusion between the Christian Serb regular forces and paramilitaries, local leaders classified acts of violence as "state terror. The Bosnian Muslims were being killed without any compunction. Those so-called Christian paramilitaries were all over, but in reality, they were an arm of the state... local Christian Serbs believed Bosnian Muslims were terrorists, while Bosnian Muslims felt terrorized by ethnic Christian Serb paramilitaries". :76 Stipe Mesi'c, the last president of the former Yugoslav Federation, described the violence carried out by the White Eagles as "terrorist actions" in his political memoirs. The White Eagles were also described as terrorists by Elvedina Omerovic of the Helsinki Commitee for Human Rights in Sandzak. The White Eagles were strongly anti-Semitic, stating in an official document titled The Jewish Vampire Ball that Jews are "the sons and servants of the devil... There are not enough words to describe all their deceit, deviancy, and crimes against the holy Church of Christ, that is, the Orthodox Church and its believers... killers, thieves, tricksters, wanderers and vermin". The document went on to accuse Jews of inventing AIDS "in their monstrous laboratories". :129 Other national groups God's Army, Burma God's Army is a Christian revolutionary group in armed rebellion against the military government of Burma. God's Army consists of around 100-200 veteran fighters, and is led by two twin brothers, who are believed by their followers to be immune to bullets. Sons of Freedom, Canada Sons of Freedom are a sect of religious anarchists who believe man owes allegiance only to God, part of a Russian nonconformist movement called the Doukhobors (literally "spirit wrestlers") who came to Canada in 1899. Until 1962, the capital of the Sons of Freedom was a village in British Columbia, Krestova (which in Russian means "City of the Cross", to which, in 1966, the Sons of Freedom returned. The Sons of Freedom have used violence, terrorism, arson and explosives in their defiance of all "worldly" authority including the Canadian government, rebelling against laws requiring their children to attend school, government efforts to force relinquishment of their squatters' rights, and Canadian taxes. In 1961, the Freedomites' violence peaked as they bombed towns from Nelson to New Denver, blaming the government for the 1924 murder of Peter Lordly. As signs of protest the Sons of Freedom have marched nude, blown up power pylons, railroad bridges, and set fire to homes, often targeting their own property. The Lord's Resistance Army, Uganda The Lord's Resistance Army is a guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, and is accused of many acts of mutilation, torture, rape, abduction, the use of child soldiers and a number of massacres. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Christian Holy Spirit which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations. The group aim to establish a Christian state by replacing the Ugandan constitution with the Bible's Ten Commandments. The LRA has been known by a number of different names, including the "Lord's Army" (1987 to 1988) and the "Uganda Peoples Democratic Christian Army" (1988 to 1992). The LRA insurgency has displaced nearly two million people and more than 10,000 have been killed in massacres, while twice that number of children have been abducted by the LRA and forced to work as soldiers, porters and sex slaves. LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle, but some Islam is mixed into their beliefs as well. The LRA uniform pips contain a white bible inside a heart. Joseph Kony has justified murdering his own Acholi people with biblical references and has named one of his children from one of his 88 wives, "George Bush". The LRA have been noted for cutting off the hands, lips, breasts and noses of their victims. Leader Joseph Kony has claimed this is justified by the Bible, "If you pick up an arrow against us and we ended up cutting off the hand you used, who is to blame? You report us with your mouth, and we cut off your lips. Who is to blame? It is you! The Bible says that if your hand, eye or mouth is at fault, it should be cut off." (referring to Ezekiel 23:25-34, Matthew 5:29-30, Matthew 18:8-9 and Mark 9:43-47) Historical cases of Christian terrorism Albigensian Crusade, 1208 Jonathan Barker cited the Albigensian Crusade, launched by Pope Innocent III against followers of Catharism, as an example of Christian state terrorism. The 20 year military campaign led to an estimated 1 million casualties. The Cathar teachings rejected the principles of material wealth and power as being in direct conflict with the principle of love. They worshipped in private houses rather than churches, without the sacraments or the cross, which they rejected as material items, but in other respects they followed conventional teachings, reciting the Lord's prayer and reading from Biblical scriptures. According to Barker, the Albigenses had developed a culture that "fostered tolerance of Jews and Muslims, respect for women and women priests, the appreciation of poetry, music and beauty, been allowed to survive and thrive, it is possible the Europe might have been spared its wars of religion, its witch-hunts and its holocausts of victims sacrificed in later centuries to religious and ideological bigotry". :74 When asked by his followers how to differentiate between heretics and the ordinary public, Abbe Arnaud Amalric, head of the Cistercian monastic order, simply said "Kill them all, God will recognize his own!". St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, 1572 Gilmour has cited the historical case of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre as an instance of Christian terrorism on par with modern day Islamic terrorism, and goes on to write, "That massacre, said Pope Gregory XIII, gave him more pleasure than fifty Battles of Lepanto, and he commissioned Vasari to paint frescoes of it in the Vatican". It is estimated that ten thousand to possibly one-hundred thousand Huguenots (French Protestants) were killed by Catholic mobs, and it has been called "the worst of the century's religious massacres". The massacre led to the start of the fourth war of the French Wars of Religion. Gunpowder Plot, 1605 Peter Steinfels has cited the historical case of the Gunpowder Plot, when Guy Fawkes and other Catholic revolutionaries attempted to overthrow the Protestant aristocracy of England by blowing up the Houses of Parliament, as a notable case of Christian terrorism. Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, 1649-53 Lutz and Lutz cited the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland as terrorism; "The draconian laws applied by Oliver Cromwell in Ireland were an early version of ethnic cleansing. The Catholic Irish were to be expelled to the northwestern areas of the island. Relocation rather than extermination was the goal." Daniel Chirot has argued that genocide was originally the goal, inspired by the Biblical account of Joshua and the genocide following the Battle of Jericho: :3 " Massacres of whole populations are an ancient phenomenon. The word genocide was first coined only in 1944, but the concept and the act are much older. We all remember the story of how Joshua's men blew their trumpets and down came the walls of Jericho, the first of the Canaanite cities to fall to the invading people of Israel. Children who are told Biblical stories in Sunday schools are not usually told what happened next. 'Then ' the story continues in Joshua 5, 'Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.' Only the family of the harlot who had protected Joshua's spies and betrayed her people was saved. Finally, and I quote again, 'they burned the city with fire, and all within it.' Lest you think this is just an ancient story, remember that it inspired Oliver Cromwell in the mid-17th century, whose army invaded Ireland explicitly using the Book of Joshua as an example in what began as a campaign to exterminate Catholicism from that land. He failed, and in the end the English were more practical and only subdued Ireland without wiping out the Catholics, but at the start of the campaign, the intent was there. Historians estimate that close to 20% of Ireland's population at that time died from war and the diseases and famine that always traveled with invading armies in those days. " Southern United States, 1865-1910 In the late nineteenth century southern United States evangelical Protestants used a wide range of terror activities, including lynching, murder, attempted murder, rape, beating, tar-and-feathering, whipping, and destruction of property, to suppress competition from black Christians (who saw Christ as the saviour of the black oppressed), Mormons, Jews and Catholics. Iron Guard and Lancieri, 1927-1945 The Iron Guard, also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael, was an Orthodox Christian anti-Semitic fascist movement in Romania. It splintered from the National-Christian Defense League, and was, unlike similar European fascist movements of the time, overtly religious. According to Ioanid, the Legion "willingly inserted strong elements of Orthodox Christianity into its political doctrine to the point of becoming one of the rare modern European political movements with a religious ideological structure." The Iron Guard justified their actions through claims that "Rabbinical aggression against the Christian world" was undermining society. According to Tinichigiu, the Iron Guard was a terror organization, which carried out terrorist activities and political murders. The Iron Guard were active participants in the Romanian Holocaust and carried out the Bucharest pogrom. Nichifor Crainic, Professor at the Faculty of Theology, University of Bucharest, developed various theological justifications arguing "that the Old Testament was not Jewish, that Jesus had not been Jewish, and that the Talmud, which he saw as the incarnation of modern Jewry, was, first and foremost, a weapon to combat the Christian Gospel and to destroy Christians." :24 Crainic played a critical role in the formation of the National Christian Party from the National-Christian Defense League, and became its general secretary. Between 1935 and 1937 the paramilitary division of the National Christian Party, the Lancieri, were responsible for numerous acts of brutality against Jews. :26 The Romanian Orthodox Church had strong antisemitic leanings, both in its senior hierarchy and among local clergy. :24 Conflict was encouraged by its leaders; Patriarch Miron Cristea said "One has to be sorry for the poor Romanian people, whose very marrow is sucked out by the Jews. Not to react against the Jews means that we go open-eyed to our destruction... To defend ourselves is a national and patriotic duty" :25 and "The duty of a Christian is to love himself first and to see that his needs are satisfied. Only then can he help his neighbor... Why should we not get rid of these parasites who suck Rumanian Christian blood? It is logical and holy to react against them." Rexists, 1940-1945 Rexism was a Belgian movement which combined Christianity and fascism during the Second World War with the aim of abolishing democracy and replacing it with a corporatist society based on the teachings of the Church. It was the proscribed ideology of the Rexist Party, which was officially known as Christus Rex (literally Christ King). Rexist followers supported the occupying Nazi forces, admired Adolf Hitler, and had similar anti-semitic leanings. The Rexist Party originally split from the ruling Catholic Party, but Rexist bishops increasingly cut ties with the Roman Catholic Church, developing financial links with, and incorporating moral support, for Nazi Germany into their teachings. Paris theatre attack, 1988 In 1988 the film The Last Temptation of Christ was released. The film controversially portrayed Jesus fantasising about sexual intercourse with Mary Magdalene, and was roundly condemned by Christians. Following its release, the Saint Michel theater in Paris was burnt to the ground whilst showing the film, leaving 13 people hospitalised, 1 in a serious condition. Following the attack, a representative of the film's distributor, Universal International Pictures, said "The opponents of the film have largely won. They have massacred the film's success, and they have scared the public". Jack Lang, France's Minister of Culture, went to the St.-Michel theater after the fire, and said, "Freedom of speech is threatened, and we must not be intimidated by such acts". The Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, said "One doesn't have the right to shock the sensibilities of millions of people for whom Jesus is more important than their father or mother." However, after the fire he condemned the attack, saying "You don't behave as Christians but as enemies of Christ. From the Christian point of view, one doesn't defend Christ with arms. Christ himself forbade it." The leader of Christian Solidarity, a Roman Catholic group that had promised to stop the film from being shown, said, "We will not hesitate to go to prison if it is necessary". The attack was subsequently blamed on a Catholic fundamentalist group linked to Bernard Antony, a representative of the far-right National Front to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunited from the Roman Catholic Church for his fundamentalist beliefs. Similar attacks against theatres included graffiti, setting off tear-gas canisters and stink bombs, and assaulting filmgoers. At least nine people believed to be members of the Catholic fundamentalist group were arrested. Rene Remond, a historian, said of the Catholic far-right "It is the toughest component of the National Front and it is motivated more by religion than by politics. It has a coherent political philosophy that has not changed for 200 years: it is the rejection of the revolution, of the republic and of modernism." Concerned Christians, 1999 The Concerned Christians were a group of "Apocalyptic Christians" that "planned to carry out violent and extreme acts in the streets of Jerusalem at the end of 1999" and believed that being killed by police would "lead them to heaven." The group were planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem; some fundamentalist Christians believe that the Al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest shrines in Jerusalem, must be destroyed and the Temple in Jerusalem restored in its place, before Jesus can return to Earth. The group were deported from Israel and are said to currently reside in Greece. Radical Christian Activists, 2007 In 2007 three teenagers from Burleson, Texas were charged with attempting to destroy a church with an explosive device. Police Commander Chris Haven said that the group believes that society has become too focused on self improvement and self gratification and has lost focus on the glorification of God. On July 4, police in Burleson, TX received reports of suspicious activity at a church and of a fire in a nearby field. Three men were subsequently arrested and charged with arson at a place of worship, a first-degree felony. A fourth suspect, a juvenile, who reportedly was not involved in the attempted arson, was not charged. Two of the suspects admitted to being involved in at least one other fire in a recycling bin at a different church during 2007 according to a police report. One of the three men also faced a charge of tampering/fabricating physical evidence. The three self-described radical Christian activists, part of a religious group that opposes organized religion and government, have pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered firearm categorized as a destructive device in the attempted bombings at the Burleson, TX church. Police found the bomb, a glass bottle containing a mixture of gasoline and chlorine with a cloth wick, propped against the church door after the men twice attempted to detonate the device. Michael Philip Plaisted and Jered Michael Ragon pleaded guilty December 4, 2007 and Dayton Lee Calaway pleaded guilty February 5, 2008. Punishment faced is a fine of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison. Notable individuals George Habash TIME magazine identified George Habash as "Terrorism's Christian Godfather" and a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Habash was a Greek Orthodox Christian by birth. A 1998 interview with the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs identified Habash as Christian. In 2007 Global Politician identified Habash as being a Christian. Habash died in 2008 and was buried at a Greek Orthodox Church in Amman, Jordan. At the time of his death, he was identified as a Christian by the New York Sun and Agence France Press, and Jerusalem Newswire (quoting the BBC) described him as "a Christian, an Arab nationalist and a Marxist". He was a professional physician, who joined the anti-Israeli movement after Israeli forces massacred 250 people in his hometown of Lydda on the same night that his sister died from typhoid; he blamed the Israeli attack for preventing her from receiving medical attention. On being evicted by soldiers from his home, he said, "I remember asking one of the soldiers where we were supposed to go." Habash rejected Christianity then: "I was all the time imagining myself as a good Christian, serving the poor. When my land was occupied, I had no time to think about religion." In regard to the moral justification for his use of violence, he said, "All the time I was believing from the bottom of my heart and brain that I am fighting for a righteous cause." He said all Arab revolutionaries "must be Marxist, because Marxism is the expression of the aspirations of the working class." Mark David Uhl Mark David Uhl, a student at Liberty University, planned to bomb and kill members of the Westboro Baptist Church at the funeral of Jerry Falwell. Max Blumenthal called Uhl a "Christian terrorist", "a devout evangelical Christian who advocated religious violence in the name of American nationalism". On Uhl's MySpace page he called on Christians to die on the battlefield for "Uncle Sam." He quoted Biblical passages to justify his call to arms, and wrote "Christians, we have been given life after death and we should help others receive it and not sit here in our big buildings and sing to ourselves so we can go home and feel good about ourselves... Christ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2ce_1222122871 UmarthePashtun Christian Terrorism christian, terror, terrorists, Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:03:13 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fd2_1206028993 devildog04 Protestors say, 9 Binghamton University students were arrested this afternoon after their anti-war march on the Vestal Parkway was ended by police. This wasn't the first time students at Binghamton University have gathered to protest the Iraq War. Holding signs and yelling through bullhorns they walked around campus expressing their freedom of speech... peacefully. Police escorts followed the crowd as it went towards the Vestal Parkway. University traffic still flowed and students stuck to one side of the road...until they reached the parkway, and headed east to the military recruiting station in University Plaza. The rally spread across 434, and slowed traffic down to 2 miles an hour. Students marched all the way down to Plaza Drive--and that's when the chaos began. One police car tried to stop the protest from spilling over to the other side of the parkway, that's when the first arrest was made. Students began screaming and a scuffle began. Arrest after arrest was made-- pepper spray was used. Protestor, "They are using force on a non-violent protest...." "You're arresting me for swearing?!?? That's free speech man!" Lt. Jerry Mullins, Vestal Police says, "They had one lane, then they got over into the passing lane, that created a hazard, they began to shove police that's why they got arrested." And that's also when traffic troubles began. Bystander says, "They can march in peace, but not block traffic, they should consider the rights of others." Norm Donahue, Bystander says, "This is a waste of our taxpayers money, silly of them to be out in the Vestal Parkway, it's a safety hazard." Kathleen Sisek, Protestor says, "We were in the streets, but these are our streets, we went off to the side, if they just gave us more time to move over, and not used force....." And just when it seemed to calm down, more arrests were made. Police began talks with protest organizers in the hopes to end the rally peacefully. "Police are trying to get the traffic back in order, and trying to get the students back to campus safely and as soon as possible, and as you can see right behind me, the crowed is starting to disperse." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fd2_1206028993 devildog04 Binghamton University protest turns violent. binghamton university, binghamton, protest, violent, liberal, Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:33:48 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b4d_1194986028 Koliedrus Duo arrested, charged after one wounded in South Knox incident By Don Jacobs Tuesday, November 13, 2007 Horace Garland didn't have time to think when two men claiming to be police officers tried to force their way into his South Knox County home. He didn't have time to consider why officers would be screaming and yelling on his front porch about midnight Sunday. He didn't have time to be scared. The 63-year-old man only had time to react with the .38-caliber Police Special he kept at his bedside. Garland, a Vietnam veteran, said he started shooting at "anything I could hit." "I'm glad he did," said Garland's live-in girlfriend, Kay Cupp. "I believe those guys would have killed us in bed if they could have gotten in." One of the men, Jeremy Johnson, did get in the house. Garland, who stands 5 feet-9 inches tall and weighs 122 pounds, shot the 21-year-old Johnson through the neck. Garland and Cupp said they moved to the Chestnut Street house in Vestal less than two months ago. Garland has relatives in the community, so the couple had no trouble settling into their new neighborhood. The couple had been in bed about an hour Sunday night, but weren't yet asleep when they heard a commotion on their porch. "A boy just came up on the porch, hollering and yelling he was KPD," Garland said Monday. "I told 'em I had a pistol." When the two interlopers couldn't force the locked door open, they smashed out the chest-high window on the door. Johnson then dove through the broken window "like he was diving into the water," Cupp said. When Johnson stood up, Garland started firing. One round struck Johnson's neck, dropping him to the carpeted floor of the living room in the single-story home. "I shot three or four times," Garland said. Although less than five feet separated the two men, only one round struck Johnson, who began screaming for help. "I was standing back to keep an eye on the other guy and he had a gun," Garland said. "He was sticking the gun through the window and shot at me. He had a potato stuck on the end of his as a silencer." The round from the gun wielded by Johnson's stepbrother, Timothy Lee Sellers, 26, missed Garland by less than two feet. The round entered the wall of Garland's bedroom at about waist high, pierced the open bedroom door and then struck the bed's wood end board. With Johnson screaming for help, yelling he was unable to move, Sellers decided he'd had enough. "He was yelling quit shooting, so I quit," Garland said. "It was over just like that. It happened so fast." Garland allowed Sellers to clamber through the broken front door window to get to his screaming partner. "I let him come in and get 'em," Garland said. "I wanted them out of here." Without a word, Sellers grabbed Johnson and bundled the wounded man through the door window. Blood still marks the spot on the front porch where Johnson hit when he was shoved through the broken window. Then Sellers opened the front door and walked out. Sellers drove Johnson to the University of Tennessee Medical Center where he was treated for the wound to his neck. A few minutes later, police found Sellers driving on Scottish Pike. Knox County Sheriff's officers said Sellers and Johnson admitted their involvement and each faces charges of aggravated burglary and attempted aggravated burglary. Each man was being held in jail in lieu of $55,000 bond. Authorities said both men have criminal histories. The retired Garland said he was puzzled why anyone would target his residence for a home-invasion burglary. He said sheriff's detectives told him the suspects may have thought the previous occupants still lived in the house. Although Garland said he was concerned he might face a criminal charge, the Knox County Sheriff's Office noted that Garland was acting in self defense and does not face any charges. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b4d_1194986028 Koliedrus Homeowner shoots burglar in self defense home invasion,guns, gun control, burglary,NRA, Vietnam, Hey Man Nice Shot