Face the fear, people



Let's just put it out there -- we're screwed. Governmentally, socially, globally, militarily, economically etc. ...
Why do you blame undocumented inmigrants for being screwed.

So what do we do about it? Stock supplies and watch the news. I personally love the show House but others like American Idol.

Are we insane? Do we not know the dangers facing us? Have we been dumbed down to the point of incoherence?

You want to know the answer? It's NO

-- we know exactly what's happening. But there is one HUGE elephant in the room.

Fear.

It's fine for me to protest, as long as the cops don't beat me down. It's fine for me to write my congressperson, so long as I don't piss someone off and have someone in a suit with a gun and handcuffs knocking at my door. It's fine to argue with my Bush-lovin' neighbor, as long as tensions aren't too high and one of us doesn't end up in the morgue.

We're afraid of what might be coming to us if we act, and we're afraid of what we might do if we’re confronted. Will we risk our kids to child services if we get arrested and go to jail? Will we give up our homes? Can we physically fight back against a cop if we’re illegally threatened? Will we risk being killed for what we believe? Can we spend months, even years, in a courtroom or "holding cell"?

Now what? Our "elected officials" aren't listening. The staff at every media outlet in America are more worried about their paychecks and possible Homeland Security troubles than telling the truth. The quality of our lives is circling the drain.

We now have to look in the mirror and face our fears. We have to make those plans. Who will take care of our kids if we're detained? Who will pay our bills or mortgage or provide shelter if our accounts are frozen? What lawyer will we have on speed dial if confronted and have to fight back? What lawyer will we have for the long term if we are detained for speaking our minds? Which one of our friends knows the laws and law libraries of each state to give us a fighting chance? Who will bury us if we fight and don't live to see the outcome?

All the underground basement supplies and emergency shelters in the world won't help, if we're detained or in some encampment for an "undetermined period of time." We know how this game ends. We watched Hitler play it, and Nero long before him.

Face the fear, people. Make the hard choices. Make the contingency plans -- for very shortly time will run out. Then there will be no "one phone call" privilege. The beasts are at our doorsteps.

Feel the fear. But fight anyway.
Police raid finds a plant of growing operations.
Except: Guns drawn, police serving a marijuana search warrant at a Pullman apartment found green leafy plant material. It just wasn't the kind they normally find in residences in the college town.

It was tomato plants.

In America, your home can be raided by police, solely because it's alleged that you possess a heat lamp for growing plants -- an item so common it's sold in virtually all hardware stores, garden shops, at Target stores, etc.

If America is not yet a police state, then Police Commander Chris Tennant, who thinks possession of a heat lamp is "credible" evidence of a crime, will be reprimanded or fired.

If America is not yet a police state, then the judge who issued a search warrant on the basis of a heat lamp allegation will be removed from the bench.

Or, if America is a police state, then this raid was nothing much newsworthy, and this will probably be the last you'll hear of it.

As an addendum, please note, we've reprinted the entire news item, as it originally appeared on the website of KNDO/KNDU, twin TV stations in the Tri-Cities and Yakima, Washington.

The public doesn't get to know the names of the people whose apartment was raided.

We don't get to know the name of the judge who OK'd a search warrant based solely, according to the article, on a landlord's claim that he'd seen "a specialized plant growing lamp inside a closet."