The Battle Of Athens

By Findalis
Monkey in the Middle

Or How Common Citizens Removed A Corrupt Government From Their County.

The Battle of Athens (sometimes called the McMinn County War) was a rebellion led by citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the local government in August 1946. The citizens, including some World War II veterans, accused the local officials of political corruption and voter intimidation.

Here is what happened:

Following World War II in 1946, violence erupted when returning American soldiers discovered their Tennessee county had been taken over by political corruption. Their plan to take it back involved bullets—lots of bullets—and dynamite.

Why Athens in McMinn County, Tennessee became a battleground was due to Paul Cantrell, a Democrat running for sheriff in the 1936 election. He won over his Republican opponent, although the victory was tainted by rumors of fraud. Cantrell was a corrupt sheriff—for example, since state law allowed his office to collect fees for each person booked, jailed, and released, deputies boarded buses passing through the city and arrested passengers on bogus charges of drunkenness, forcing them to pay fines. Prostitution, gambling, and kickbacks from illegal drinking establishments were commonplace.

The tide began to turn in 1945 when GIs returning to Athens were subjected to arrest on the flimsiest excuses and heavily fined. When the fed up soldiers attempted to support their choice for sheriff against Pat Mansfield (by then, Cantrell had been elected to the state Senate and backed Mansfield’s bid), matters boiled over into direct conflict on Election Day 1946.

Mansfield hired several hundred armed “deputies” to patrol the voting precincts in Athens—and no doubt to assist in the typical ballot stuffing and voter intimidation. The volatile situation escalated when Walter Ellis, an ex-GI and volunteer poll watcher, was arrested by Mansfield’s deputies and held without charge. A black resident, Tom Gillespie, was refused the right to vote, beaten, and shot. More GIs were arrested and threatened with violence. By the end of the day, the former soldiers had enough.

They broke into the town armory for weapons and besieged the jail, where Mansfield and his deputies had taken the ballet boxes. Battle continued sporadically throughout the night, resulting in wounded on both sides. When the GIs ran out of bullets around dawn, they began throwing dynamite. The deputies inside the jail surrendered.

The highly publicized Battle of Athens not only ousted corruption from one county in Tennessee, the lesson learned would ultimately lead to great reforms in Southern politics.

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This is a part of American history that all elected official should learn and remember.  When the government forgets whom they serve and dictates to the American People what to think, do, say, read, and how to vote, it is incumbent upon the citizens of that town, city, county, state or nation to rise up and remove (By force if necessary.) the dictator.

What happened in Athens, Tennessee was the most extreme example of citizen action.  The last resort of a desperate people.

In such desperation the American people will do anything to return their rights to them.  Something every politician in this nation should remember.

The Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the University of California at Berkeley

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com




Get a load of this:

http://crg.berkeley.edu/content/islamophobia

This, of course, is the brainchild of professor Hatem Bazian, who not so long ago was an activist student at Berkeley. Just this past week, he was sharing a stage at UC San Diego with Cynthia McKinney as she struggled to put a coherent thought together (see my post).

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2013/05/hatem-bazian-cynthia-mckinney-at-ucsd.html

So now Berkeley, which is a boffo institution on its best of days, has this what-ever-you-call- it devoted to documenting any thought or utterance critical of Islam and the Islamist agenda of establishing world-wide supremacy over the rest of us and whatever other religion we may believe in.

Never mind that Muslims enjoy equal rights in America and full freedom to practice their faith-as they do in that other country so vilified by Bazian-Israel.

Never mind that in virtually every Muslim majority nation on earth, religious minorities are being actively persecuted by violent and often legal means.

Never mind that just since 9-11, there have been over 20,000 acts of terror carried out world-wide in the name of Islam.

Never mind the virulent expressions of hate spewing forth from the mouths of imams reading passages from the Koran directed toward Jews and Christians in mosques and madrassas around the world.

Never mind that on almost any day, Muslims in Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan are killing other Muslims (Sunni-Shia) while Sufis and Ahmadiya Muslims are also persecuted in Muslim countries.

None of that matters, you see because all that matters is that little things like the above have given some folks a rather negative perception of Muslims.

Except for the fact that most Americans have done a good job of separating the innocent Muslims from the violent jihadists-and their apologists.

But let's take a look inside the pages of this "project" (link above). The first thing you note is the recent 4th annual study of Islamophobia conference (apparently just concluded). I wonder if Cynthia McKinney spoke at that one.

Also check out the inaugural edition of the Islamophobia Studies Journal and peruse the list of articles. They can be read in full if you are into masochism.

http://crg.berkeley.edu/content/islamophobia/islamophobia-studies-journal

Like this one from Bazian:

http://crg.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Bazian.pdf


"Since the events of September 11, 2001, the FBI and other security 
agencies have resorted to the recruitment of Muslim informants by means of 
enticement and, if necessary, threats of deportation or financial ruin. From 
the cases that have come to light, it is clear that vast sections of the Muslim 
community and its civic and religious institutions are the intended targets of 
these FBI operations."

Bazian then goes into a lengthy treatise of the "objectionable" FBI efforts to develop sources of information within the Muslim community and likens it to the COINTEL probes of decades past. Of course, what he doesn't stress is that the objective is to save innocent lives from terrorist attacks. His article, was of course, written before the latest attack in Boston.

Speaking of Boston, there is also this gem by Professor Muhammad Tamdgidi of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, in which he quotes a definition of Islamophobia as adopted by the Runnymede Trust on Islamophobia Report of 1997.

http://crg.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Tamdgidi.pdf


"The Runnymede report defined Islamophobia and “closed views of 
Islam” as follows:

1. Islam [is] seen as a single monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive 
to new realities. 
2. Islam [is] seen as separate and other—(a) not having any aims or 
values in common with other cultures (b) not affected by them (c) 
not influencing them.
3. Islam [is] seen as inferior to the West—barbaric, irrational, 
primitive, sexist.
4. Islam [is] seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of 
terrorism, engaged in ‘a clash of civilisations’.
5. Islam [is] seen as a political ideology, used for political or military 
advantage.
6. Criticisms made by Islam of ‘the West’ [are] rejected out of hand."
7. Hostility towards Islam [is] used to justify discriminatory practices 
towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream 
society.
8. Anti-Muslim hostility [is] accepted as natural and ‘normal’.4
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But our friends at the IRDP wish to define Islamophobia as follows:

"Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure.  It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve "civilizational rehab" of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise).  Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended."

According to that latter definition, I am can proudly attest that I am not an Islamophobe. Admittedly, the former, at least in certain points, is more problematical for me. I know one thing, however; I don't go around referring to people from other religions as "apes and pigs" and envision the day when I will hunt them down behind the last tree or rock to kill them. I don't know where that fits into anyone's definition of "phobia", but it must fit in somewhere.

Another featured article is by two professors at British universities who compare Islamophobia with European anti-Semitism:

http://crg.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Meer-Modood.pdf

What is conveniently missing from this piece is the fact that most of the anti-Semitism in Europe today is by young male Muslim immigrants who are making it impossible for Jews to walk the streets of major cities  dressed in distinctive Jewish garb lest they be insulted, spat upon, accosted or assaulted by the aforementioned criminals while intimidated Europeans turn a blind eye. Also missing are images like this, which just may contribute to "British Islamophobia".





But here is where it really gets good. Introducing Professor  Ramon Grosfoguel of (where else?) UC Berkeley:

                                                                                                         


Ramon Grosfoguel

http://crg.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Ramon-Grosfoguel.pdf



" For the sake of economizing space, when we use the term 
“world-system” in this essay, we refer to the “modern/colonial Westernized 
Christian-centric capitalist/patriarchal world-system” (Ibid). At the risk of 
sounding ridiculous, we prefer a long phrase like this to characterize the 
present heterarchical structure (multiple power hierarchies entangled to 
each other in complex historical ways) of the world-system, than the limited 
characterization of a single hierarchy called “capitalist world-system” with 
capital accumulation as the single logic of the system (Ibid). The latter leads 
to an economic reductionist understanding of the world-system, while the 
former leads to a more complex, non-reductive structural-historical analysis. 
Islamophobia as a form of racism against Muslim people is not an 
epiphenomenon but constitutive of the international division of labor." 

(It means capitalism is bad.)


"At a world level, Islamophobia has been the dominant discourse used 
in the post-civil rights and post-independence era of dominant cultural racist 
discourses against Arabs. The events of 911 escalated anti-Arab racism 
through an Islamophobic hysteria all over the world, specifically among the 
dominant elites of the United States and Israel. The latter is not surprising 
given US and Israeli representation of Palestinians, Arabs and Islamic people 
in general as terrorist decades before 911 (Said 1979; 1981). The
responsibility of US foreign policy is never linked to the tragic events of 911."

OK. Enough of that. I think you get the flavor. Essentially, everything about the West is bad, which leads one to wonder why the various authors have chosen to live in the West.

This is no Simon Wiesenthal Center, Folks. Keep in mind that as we speak, the 56-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation is still working hard to get the UN to pass a resolution that all member nations should criminalize any criticism of Islam. So is it fair to ask whether this "research and documentation" project is meant to be a repository of information on all those so-called "Islamophobes", real or imagined? Is there a larger agenda at work here against capitalism, democracy, true freedom and respect for ALL religions, and other institutions we have heretofore held so dear?

How sad it is that this is what passes for scholarship in places like the University of California at Berkeley.

Hatem Bazian-Cynthia McKinney at UC San Diego

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com






Yes, Virginia, there's a lid for every pot. Hatem Bazian-Cynthia McKinney


Last Thursday, UC Berkeley Professor Hatem Bazian and Cynthia McKinney spoke before a packed hall of about 40 students.....

..... from the Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association as part of the week-long festival of hate against Israel at UC San Diego. No, I wasn't there, but people I know were, and they took copious notes.

According to my reports, Bazian was his usual complaining and boring self while McKinney gave one for the ages. It will be forever known as the Cynthia McKinney San Diego Address-as opposed to the Abraham Lincoln Gettysburg address. The only similarity was that both consisted of few words, but at least Lincoln's made sense.  Already rambling from apples to French fries, about half way through, she completely lost her train of thought and paused repeatedly for painfully long periods at one point trying unsuccessfully to put a film up on the screen as a student had to run up from the audience to help her. I am told it was embarrassing.

But that's nothing new for Cynthia.

Bazian, as usual, whined about the "harassment and  discrimination" that pro-Palestinian students face on University of California campuses then went on to complain about US support for Israel.





Here is a summary of McKinney's speech:

"Oh, I'm sorry........"

"What I'm trying to say is that one team shows up on election day. Another team shows up and the other team wins......Uhh....

....."try to talk about the way we organize................." PAUSE

......"What is this? ...Well, where I wanna go is............"(long pause)

"One moment.....Ok, uh.. That's it."

And this woman is a former US Congresswoman and studying for a PhD at Antioch University!!

To be sure, she made references to AIPAC and that pro-Israel lobby that has such an influence on all political aspects of our lives. She referred to an article by (Jewish Daily) Forward that described how the lobby is able to get Jews elected to Congress. She even quoted that great statesman (and Jew-hater)  Gus Savage, who spoke about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby on the House floor back in the early 1990s.

Gus Savage: Sexual predator, corrupt Congressman, race baiter, anti-Semite. And this is who McKinney quotes.

I should also note that McKinney quoted Savage in May 2009 at UC Irvine when I asked her a question about how much the Jews had cost her her last election. She was too stupid not to take the bait.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2009/05/cynthia-mckinney-speaks-at-uc-irvine.html

In addition, McKinney told the "audience" that she had just returned from a 17-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur the night before. She also told of being recently  in Capetown, South Africa at the -get this- Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Palestine and being told by "many" South Africans that the apartheid of the former South Africa "paled in comparison to the apartheid in Israel."

http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/south-africa/south-africa-session-%E2%80%94-full-findings/cape-town-session-summary-of-findings

I note that among the "luminaries" at the above clambake was the crackpot American-born Israeli professor Jeff Halper, who concocted the "spectral dust" story which he related at UC Irvine. (You gotta read this.)

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2011/02/jeff-halper-at-uc-irvine-cont.html

Which begs the question: Who is paying for this dim bulb (McKinney)  to travel around the world-or any of them for that matter?

From what I am told, the UCSD week of hate was pretty much like the UCI week of hate. The average turnout was about 30-40 MSA-types, 3-5 pro-Israel types, and 3-5  curious students here and there-probably getting extra credit to attend from their radical professors.

UC San Diego Preventing Videotaping of MSA Events

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot,com



Here is an update on the situation at UC San Diego as the Muslim Student Association began their week of anti-Israel events. Below is my initial report:

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2013/05/msa-intimidation-at-uc-san-diego.html

Last night, private security hired by event organizers prevented any video recording or audio recording of the event by outside persons.

This morning, a friend of mine called the UCSD Dean's office to inquire about the policy and to inform them of how the issue had been resolved at UC Irvine the previous week. My friend was told by  an unidentified woman that the UCSD had a "different interpretation of the law", had consulted with their own attorneys, and that the "organizers of the event" had requested that no public filming  be allowed. She  further advised that they would send their policy to my friend in writing.

Stand by.

Meanwhile, here is a video from The United West from May 2011 at UCSD. Watch what happens when Tom Trento and his team arrive to videotape the MSA events. This is good stuff.



I must make one correction to the video. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a designated terrorist organization.

(But it should be.)

MSA Intimidation at UC San Diego

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com



I have been advised that the UC San Diego Muslim Student Association is kicking off their own version of Hate Week today through Thursday. I have also been advised that last year, the MSA, with the cooperation of the university, was able to prevent audience members from videotaping. Here is the sign that appeared last year.





I have also been told that the MSA uses their own security to enforce the video ban.

As previously documented on this site, UCSD was until recently  under the leadership of a Lavern and Shirley team identified as Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and vice chancellor Penny Rue. The new chancellor is Pradeep Khosla. They need to be set straight as to the law.

At a public event on a public site at a public university, audience members have the absolute right to videotape.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/speech-484746-hate-msu.html

Do you think the MSA and their speakers have something to hide?

"Uhhhhhh................yeaaaaah."

This is another example of intimidation, pure and simple. At UC Irvine last week, we didn't let them get away with it. I hope they won't be allowed to get away with it at UCSD. Private security or MSA members acting as security or enforcers can not take the place of campus police, who are the authorized guardians of order.

And guess who is speaking this week? Cynthia McKinney.......

....and Hatem Bazian, who, no doubt, will roll out his old power point presentation and read his talk. Hopefully, somebody in the audience will ask him about his reported past statements at Berkeley, where he  allegedly called for intifada in the US and referred to all the campus buildings with Jewish names on them. I have asked him about these alleged statements at UCI, and all I got was a song and dance for an answer.


                                                                                                         




I count on getting updates on this version of the San Diego Zoo.

Let's help out one of our Heroes

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

Not many people are aware that the Drug Enforcement Administration is active in Afghanistan. I have received the below message from the Association of Formal Federal Narcotic Agents, of which i am a member. One of our retired agents, Doug Driver, was critically injured in Afghanistan by  an IED. As the below letter describes, he needs some help.

Dear AFFNA Member:

Subject:  Request for Contributions to Support Doug Driver

Recently the AFFNA Board of Directors met at the Western Regional Conference in San Diego. During our meeting it came to our attention that one of AFFNA’s own, retired DEA Group Supervisor Doug Driver needs our support.

Many of you no doubt know Doug Driver of Jacksonville, FL. Among his many accomplishments during his DEA career, Doug was the DEA Case Agent whose investigative efforts led to the arrest and conviction of Carlos Lehder, a principle member of Colombia’s Medellin Cartel and one of the most important investigations in DEA’s history.

When the investigation began, Lehder had acquired Norman’s Cay in the Bahamas and was using the island to transship tons of cocaine from Colombia into the United States. Pursuant to Lehder’s arrest in Colombia he was immediately transported to Jacksonville, Florida where Doug spearheaded DEA’s successful conviction of Lehder and his co-defendants. Doug also worked in DEA offices in Los Angeles, Savannah, Georgia, Washington DC and Panama City, Panama.

Upon retirement from DEA, Doug began working for a company that provided law enforcement support to our soldiers in Afghanistan. He was embedded with U.S. Army combat units in remote areas of Afghanistan, providing leadership in conducting investigations into those groups responsible for the manufacture of IEDs against U.S. forces. Our young soldiers always expressed amazement at what a 62 year old man could do physically in a demanding climate and terrain so they nicknamed him, “Superman.”

In 2010, while on a mission to arrest two Afghan brothers who had manufactured an IED which had killed two American soldiers, Doug was severely injured by an IED.  

Because of Doug’s meticulous investigation of the IED which killed the two U.S. soldiers, he identified the two Afghan brothers responsible. While attempting to make the arrests in a remote village, another IED intended for Doug and his unit exploded and killed several Aghan citizens in the vicinity. Doug, who was close to the explosion, initially suffered a severe headache but later that night suffered a massive stroke, which left him in a coma for a period of time until he was transported to Germany and subsequently to the U.S for treatment. As a result of the stroke Doug has been left partially blind, with the inability to talk or walk and requires 24/7 medical assistance at his home in Jacksonville. Doug has all his mental capacity and is cognizant of everything but simply has limited use of his body.

As you can no doubt imagine the last few years have been very difficult for Doug and his wife Becky. His rehabilitation has been a long and difficult journey but both Doug and Becky have always been fighters. Along the way, they have had to battle against the insurance company to cover their medical costs and have had limited success due to several factors.  Some of their current needs are to obtain rehabilitation equipment for their home, making their home accessible for a handicapped person and many other requirements.   

The AFFNA Board of Directors is offering our members the opportunity to assist and join in the our efforts to support Doug’s valiant fight and determination to get well by asking that our members donate whatever they can in support of his requirements. We know that Doug and Becky will appreciate any contribution, no matter how great or how small.  The most important thing we can do as brother and sister DEA agents is to let Doug and his family know that they are not forgotten and we stand together with them in their struggle.

Please consider sending a contribution to the Doug Driver Fund. Please make your check payable to AFFNA. Send your contribution to Andy Fenrich, AFFNA’s treasurer at:

Andy Fenrich

280 S. Scofield Mountain Road

Winchester, NH  03470

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As you can plainly see, this is a cause that merits our support. If you can help, please give what you can.

UC Irvine Hate Week Wrapup

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com






The above picture of the "infamous" Apartheid Wall is truly representative of the week of events fostered upon the UC Irvine campus this week by the Muslim Student Union, with added sponsorship by Students for Justice in Palestine, the Black Student Union, and MECHA. The newly refurbished wall wound up needing more refurbishing after rain washed out the noon event at the flagpoles and forced the event indoors. In addition, Monday and Thursday's noon slots couldn't be filled with outside speakers. Not even Amir Abdel Malik Ali was available this year.

As it was, the events couldn't draw flies aside from the MSU kids themselves, most of whom appeared bored from listening to the same old lines they have been hearing for years from boring speakers that nobody ever heard of. It was clearly the scrubs filling in this year. Most of the events drew about 35 people- at the most 50-60. The biggest drawing event was on Wednesday night when their enemy Daniel Pipes appeared with a panel in a separate hall. As I noted in my early reports, the MSU spent the first couple of days trying to keep me from videotaping. Finally, it took the Dean of Students to advise them that we have something in this country called the First Amendment. They seem to think it only applies to them-certainly not to Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren or Gary Fouse.

What we heard this week was the same old drivel from a bunch of angry misfits who continue to preach victimhood to their bored and exhausted listeners. I say exhausted because hate week is certainly labor intensive for the MSU. Every morning, they have to pick up that "wall" from some storage place, truck it to UCI, assemble it, then sit through the events, take it down at 5 o'clock, then truck it back to the storage place before being on time for the 7:30 event, which apparently they never were because the two events I went to started late.

Of course, as always, the MSU insists on giving their recitation from the Koran and reading a preamble that insists they are not anti-Jewish and reject any form of bias or hate, be it ethnic or religious. Yet, I noted one interesting fact this year. Virtually every recitation from the Koran, when translated by the speaker into English, was focused on God's punishment for the disbelievers. How interesting. (I did not capture these on tape because, as a teacher at UCI, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to take pictures of students or film them.)

So that is pretty much what we heard. You know what we didn't hear?

Not a word about the flames burning throughout the Middle East, which Israel has nothing to do with.

Not a word about the violence, hate and persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt.

Not a word about the murder of our diplomats in Benghazi and the craziness on-going in Libya.

Not a word about Syria, the 70,000+ killed, and the flight of the Syrian Christians.

Not a word about the mad mullahs in Iran, their developing nuclear bomb, and persecution of gays and Baha'i.

Not a word about the on-going massacres of Christians in Nigeria at the hands of Islamic Boko Haram.

Not a word about the Sudanese genocide against black Christians and animists and the refugees in Darfur.

Not a word about the killings between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq nor of the anti-Christian persecution in that country.

Not a word about the Sunni persecution of Christians in Pakistan as well as the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims by the Sunni.

Not a word about the last remaining Jews trying to get out of Yemen.

Not a word about the forced migration of some 700,000 Jews from Arab nations in 1948-49.

Not a word about the vicious anti-Jewish rhetoric across the Middle East.

Not a word about the daily harassment of Jews across Europe by young Muslim male immigrants.

And, of course, not a word about that most recent of events-the Boston marathon massacre.

No, folks. The problem, you see, is Israel.

I would like to make another point, which I made during a previous year; If non-verbal communication means anything, I think the MSU is sending a wrong message to the rest of the student body. Aside from the angry rhetoric and some speakers with their anti-American rhetoric (a wave to my friend Sohail Daulatzai), what kind of message is the MSU trying to send with their militant-looking black and red t-shirts with the word "Struggle"  emblazoned across, the red bandannas and armbands? Are they trying to intimidate people? If so, it is not working. All you have to do is watch the UCI students passing by on their way to lunch or class. With rare exceptions, they do not stop. They do not look. They just keep going. If non-verbal communication means anything (and I pay attention to non-verbal communication), they are either oblivious to it or annoyed.

Because that is what the MSU is on our campus-an annoyance. It is because of the MSU activities over the years (need I mention Michael Oren?) that UCI has suffered a black eye in the view of the nation when the other 99% of students have made it an otherwise great university. The only thing the MSU is accomplishing is  lending credence to the notion that they are radical and threatening. After all, when you routinely bring in radical speakers, you do take ownership of them.

But that is what I told the MSU last May when Amir Abdel Malik Ali called UC President Mark Yudof a "Zionist Jew".

Final verdict? The MSU flopped this year.