Starbucks and the Philadelphia police department are on the defensive as a video has gone viral showing them allegedly arresting two men for "waiting for a friend while black."
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The Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement is Antifa on steroids. An offshoot group that has popped up has a website with some pretty extreme ideas, including expropriation of property from their enemies. They’ve declared war against capitalism and the state, promoting “militant defense.”
Their intro says:
We situate our political movement in the context of the abolitionist struggle against slavery and continue in the tradition, from Nat Turner to the Black Liberation Movement. We believe the Civil War was never resolved and the system of slavery transitioned into the prison industrial complex. Our struggle today must begin from this starting point. Lastly, as revolutionary anarchists, the abolitionist struggle must be extended to the state and capitalism, the perpetrators of oppression. The revolutionary movement in the US today is at a cross roads, as fascist movements are expanding, and the state becomes increasingly authoritarian.
They want to build a new Underground Railroad to free people from detention, incarceration, deportation, or white supremacist violence. They welcome “comrades” to aid in their efforts to build “organized defense groups, local councils, and regional/national councils.”
Let’s set the mood with their introductory video.
I guess they’re not planning on holding hands around the campfire and singing Kumbayah.
This kind of “anarchist” should not be confused with the voluntaryist type of anarchist, who, as a group, strongly supports free market principles.
While a lot of us wish the state was not so state-y and that the police were less police-y, most rational people aren’t ready to go out and lay a beatdown on anyone they perceive as an enemy. Nor do we wish to demonize capitalism or give away all our personal property for the greater good.
The political foundation of the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement consists of:
While all of these are alarming, I’m particularly concerned about their calls for “self-defense,” “revolutionary justice,” and “expropriation.
Let’s look at what they have to say about these topics through a variety of direct quotes.
The Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement endorses “militant” self-defense, citing the tactics of the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Army, and the Rojava Revolution in Syria. They model themselves, particularly, after the Rojavas.
The training of these new militants is the revolutionary heart of the Rojava Revolution. The long-term intentions of the training programs are to ensure that everyone can participate in self-defense. To that extent, there are also localized training programs that arm the public for a second tier of neighborhood defense. The Self Defense Forces (HPC*) were formed for this purpose. While specific armed groups, such as the People’s Protection Units and Asayîş (YPG** and YPJ*** respectively), have been formed to fight external enemies, the HPC are civilians that get arms training with the specific goal of maintaining autonomy against internal forces that might seek to consolidate power. They are volunteers who receive both political education and self-defense training.
These armed groups are able to defend their communities from attacks without compromising revolutionary values. As the YPG and YPJ liberate ISIS territory new communities become incorporated into their political project. Rather than establish a top-down system of governance, the revolutionary movement establishes new neighborhood councils and communes, feminist education programs, and decentralized local-based militias within each liberated town. To implement this form of political organization, there is undoubtedly a give and take. While the towns receive the infrastructure necessary for self-governance, such as weapons and training from the YPG to set up their own, local defense groups, they agree to uphold certain social principles like feminism and social ecology. (source)
One tactic they endorse is, basically, beating up “Nazis.”
Anti-fascist tactics – focused primarily around the use of physical force—proved effective in forcing neo-Nazi groups out of entire neighborhoods. The tactics were simple, if they came upon a neo-Nazi, they would use sufficient force to drive them away. The network was so successful that it eventually grew to 100 chapters. By joining in a nationwide network, they were able to help spread and strengthen the model while still maintaining local control over each chapter. (source)
Of course, who gets to decide whether someone is a Nazi? Must the person be wearing a swastika t-shirt or a white hood? Or is this just an arbitrary decision based on the color of their skin or who they voted for? You can see how easily this could go downhill.
They offer to train anyone in self-defense who wants it. But – they don’t stop at “defense.” In fact, offense is their plan. They intend to develop “the capacity to begin launching offensive actions against fascists and the regime.” Their common enemies are “fascists, right-wing militias, and State forces. ” (source)
One place they may run into trouble is their desire to be egalitarian.
Successful self-defense must incorporate revolutionary values and practices. In Rojava, combatants are trained both in fighting techniques and the benefits of creating a feminist, egalitarian society. They put these values into effect through their relationships. For example, to dismantle the lingering effects of patriarchy, no man can give a woman an order; to maintain participation and egalitarian relationships, all fighters contribute to decision-making within units, particularly by selecting their own leaders for specific missions.
Look. Everyone gets a trophy.
In the section on Revolutionary Justice, the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement calls for an onslaught of violence against police officers. Now, I’m not a fan of the police state or police brutality any more than they are, but prison uprisings, civil unrest, violence against law enforcement, and riots are not the answer.
Every prison uprising from Attica* to Lucasville**, is an example of revolutionary justice. Every group that goes underground to launch clandestine attacks against bondage and oppression, like the Black Liberation Army or the United Freedom Front***, engages in acts of revolutionary justice. The uprisings of the 1960s in Watts, Newark, and Detroit, to the Los Angeles riots, and the recent insurrections in Ferguson and Baltimore sparked by executions from police are manifestations of revolutionary justice. (source)
They appear to wholeheartedly endorse violence and even execution as the answers.
No platform, no dialogue, no inch of territory, and certainly no concern can be ceded to those who either threaten or unleash authoritarian, white supremacist violence. As the Italian anarchist, Alfredo M. Bonanno has eloquently put it, “The life of someone who oppresses others and prevents them from living is not worth a cent.” (source)
They condemn those who call for peaceful protest.
Revolutionary justice is an unpredictable, yet inevitable, element in revolutionary struggle. As we move towards liberation, there will be spontaneous eruptions, moments to support and side with, as well as alliances to create. The more power tries to suppress the population, the more defiant the acts of revolutionary justice become…
…When police killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, the town erupted in riots. No sooner had they begun this act of defiance, when non-profits and faith “leaders” descended upon the town to induce people to protest “peacefully” and attempted to de-escalate the situation. On the other hand, riot police and armed right-wing militias surrounded the rebels, cornered them in a sea of “illegality” by declaring curfews, and then swept people up with brutal arrests and long jail terms. Without revolutionary objectives, or the foundations for a sustained revolutionary conflict, everyone had to, eventually, reconcile living with the oppressive State that they were just rebelling against when the riot subsided.
The most essential tasks are to create the ideological underpinnings for revolt and the necessary infrastructure that can sustain action and long-term forms of organization. (source)
They intend on long-term revolt and plan to “derail forces that want to bring people back into the fold of power: nonprofits, political parties, and authoritarian political groups.”
First, let’s call expropriation what it really is: theft. But the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement believes it’s entirely justified as long as they’re the ones doing it.
Revolutionary struggle necessitates an aspiration for collectivity. Those who exploit us and withhold the fruits of our work from us will not willingly give up their wealth and power. To carve out autonomous territory, or to begin the revolutionary process, goods, land, and tools must be expropriated, or taken away from those who withhold them. (source)
They cite a group they admire in Greece:
For example, revolutionary anarchist groups in Athens have been working with refugees from the Syrian Civil War. The refugees are routinely attacked by fascists and often denied housing, food, and health care. Anarchist groups have taken over abandoned hotels and have invited refugees to live in them, (source)
They gush over how businesses were taken over from the owners during the Spanish Civil War.
For expropriation to be a successful tactic political organizations must already be in place. As goods and production are taken over, they can be put into collective hands, and organized for communal use. During the Spanish Civil War, workplaces were seized after the owners fled or stopped production to sabotage the revolution. Revolutionaries continued until all major places of work were taken over; many were run and controlled by the workers. In otherscommittees were established to override a lingering boss. (source)
They’re jazzed about collectivism.
While conducting the military struggle on the front, militants in the rearguard helped form workers’ councils and rural communes, and since anarchists were at the forefront of the struggle, the council-based system was remarkably egalitarian. Workers seized factories, peasants collectivized the land, and even the revolutionary militias were organized in a participatory and non-hierarchical fashion as a result of the anarchist struggle. Indeed, the revolutionary militias were formed in a similarly horizontal manner as the collectives, which reciprocally provided them with both weapons and other provisions. The symbiotic relationship between the worker’s councils, collectivized land projects, and horizontal militias demonstrates how the political foundation facilitated cooperation between each of the three organizational structures. (source)
Of course, they leave out the part about how collective agriculture has a long history of abject and utter failure. Most recently an attempt to convert a thriving capitalist country into a socialist utopia has resulted in mass starvation and poverty in Venezuela. But they’re pretty sure it would work differently here and now.
You can be certain that if you were personally well stocked and others were hungry, folks like these would feel completely entitled to your supplies. You need to be prepared for a long-term scenario and extreme civil unrest scenarios to stay safe.
People got upset when I posted an article about a communist group last week who was planning sedition against our country. They said that I was name-calling when I referred to them as communists.
This leads me to believe that there are a lot of folks who don’t know what communism IS.
Communism is:
a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their needs.
It is the opposite of capitalism:
an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
Communism abolishes private property and personal profit and redistributes wealth. Here are the tenets of the Revolutionary Abolition Movement. When you read them with these definitions in mind, is there any other word that fits so well?
- The Abolitionist struggle must take up the immediate fight to abolish prisons, courts, and ICE detention facilities.
- As Abolitionists, we must fight unequivocally with Black, Latino, Native, Muslim people, and all those subjected to prison society and white supremacy.
- This struggle must be feminist, and predicated on queer and trans liberation.
- The Abolitionist struggle must fight for decentralized, commune-based political organization, and stand resolutely against capitalism and the State.
- The struggle must be oriented toward militant self-defense, and devise specific plans for offensive actions against reactionary forces.
- The Abolitionist long-term goal is to get rid of the justice system, the nation-state, and the capitalist economy. (source)
Really, this is the culmination of decades of indoctrination in the Marxist education system. But these people who think they’re seeking “freedom” would end up with just the opposite should their communist dreams come true. The underlying theme throughout their document is:
We will burn down the American plantation once and for all.
Extremist factions like this could trigger the Civil War 2.0 about which many of us have been concerned. A lot of folks like to shrug and laugh off these liberals because of their distaste for firearms and traditionally masculine pursuits.
But, that could be a huge mistake.
Never underestimate a zealot, no matter how misguided they are or ridiculous they seem.
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Monty Bennett’s quiet but intense demeanor, overflowing wallet, and stature as a head of a hotel investment company earn as many friends in high places as narrow-lidded grudges, but — love him or hate him — this Dallas businessman sits in the same precarious position as an untold number of ordinary property owners around the country.
Eminent domain.
Fighting the government to keep your private property is a battle arguably no one should be forced to endure, yet all around the United States, landowners like Bennett — whose ranch, The Lazy W, or officially, East Texas Ranch LP, has been in the family for generations — have been subjected to an unfortunately common tactic employed by an arrogant State run amok.
Bennett, however, has been fortunate enough in business dealings to afford a legal feud with the Tarrant Regional Water District — which seeks to usurp part of his ranch for an enormous water line — in an epic battle for control so revealing of the hubris of the State, everyone needs to take notice.
“It all started a few years back when the entity responsible for getting water to Fort Worth, the Tarrant Regional Water District, let it be known that it intended to take part of Bennett’s ranch and lay a pipe across it,” D Magazine reports. “The water district sued Bennett in an attempt to get the land. The case made its way to the Texas Supreme Court, where Bennett won on a procedural matter before being bounced back to a district court in Athens, where it now sits. In the meantime, his fight with the water district has grown from a pipeline right-of-way dispute into a battle over issues concerning accountability and openness in government.”
Since 2011, Bennett has made plain TRWD will not receive a green light to steamroll the issue, and he’s spent hundreds of thousands contesting eminent domain — one of the government’s most insidious legal holdovers whereby the thinnest of justifications for the usurpation of private property can be implemented to steal rights to your land — as long as that theft of property is conducive to infrastructure or some other public ‘need.’
Perhaps because Bennett’s skirmish with the State has dragged on for nearly seven years, the tidily-composed façade of public interest in which the City of Dallas has festooned its impetus for stealing part of the Lazy W went up in flames at a recent City Council meeting — thanks to voluminous hot air delivered from the lips of Councilwoman Sandy Greyson.
Greyson wasted no time clarifying the imperious nature of the city’s complaint against Bennett, asserting the wealthy businessman “cost Dallas taxpayers millions of dollars, and intends to cost us millions more — unless we settle with him by going around his property.”
Of course, Greyson, the rest of Dallas City Council, and TRWD have indeed ignored from the start the possibility this seven-foot water line could have been diverted through lands either not owned privately, or those privately held, but whose owner would have been amenable to the project.
Rather than even acknowledging such a possibility, Greyson instead vilified the legitimate land ownership — foisting Bennett’s concrete opposition as an ineluctable stance against the supposed greater good. She continued,
“Now, other, ordinary people — regular people like you and I, who can’t afford to fight the City of Dallas over an eminent domain case for years and years — I mean, we wind up getting our property taken.”
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That scofflaw of a defense for offensive actions — a loose logical fallacy in appeal to authority — would win no support from those who have lost the rights to property in their possession to a State so behind in infrastructure innovation as to make eminent domain still a viable means to writ large any project it chooses.
It isn’t as if Bennett recently purchased the Lazy W — eminent domain claim already pending — the property has been in his family since 1955. Understandably, he does not want construction and the water line to invade the tranquility of the property — or to upset the ecosystem maintained in a wildlife refuge there.
Bennett has gone so far as to install a cemetery on the land, because, under Texas law, that feature is exempt from “taxation, seizure by creditors and eminent domain.”
That matters little to an obdurate council intent on implementing a project to the letter of its original plans — rather than conceding a new route for the water line could be a tenable solution for all sides involved.
Calling the government’s theft-of-private-property plan “necessary,” because, Greyson sanctimoniously postures, “we need water lines. We need some of these public improvements.”
Nominally acknowledging the seizure of land through eminent domain might ruffle feathers on occasion, Greyson added, “it’s just infuriating, that if you are rich enough, you can hold the city hostage for years, and then get what you want. There’s something really wrong with that.”
Thus, all signs point to the embittered city councilwoman’s issues with the law — that is, when it works in favor of a people attempting to resist its oppressive clutches.
Let that sink in for a moment.
To Greyson and those aligning, a man fortunate enough to wage a viable defense against the government should be vilified as a nuisance and public enemy simply because he hopes to maintain the integrity of his land — tacitly implying anyone without a fortune in their defense is a better citizen, because they would have no choice but to succumb to the whims of the State.
In fact, continuing her baffling oratory — incidentally evincing why the State just might favor the poor over the rich in their lack of fiduciary competency to fight the taxpayer-funded government — Greyson makes no bones about her ire over private citizen land ownership.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway for anyone not able to obtain as lucrative a profession as Bennett is the unabashed joy the government finds in economic superiority which allows it to trample rights of ownership — as if having less in the bank somehow makes one’s land a commodity ripe for the plucking.
Worse, though, Greyson tacitly champions the stratification of wealth as an obstacle of the State — if you’re wealthy enough to afford it, government cannot possibly be as formidable a foe as would be the case for someone whose legal defense lacks monetary teeth.
But it isn’t differences in worth or income comprising the issue here.
Rather, that the State feels running roughshod over someone’s rights to property is perfectly defensible in any situation is a condemnation of government — its manipulation, its effects on procuring lucrative professions, and its ambitions writ large, regardless of the name typed on a piece of paper proving that land cannot be taken forcefully and without reasonable just cause.
Regardless of years of extenuating details surrounding the Lazy W and Bennett’s family property, that the State through the words of Greyson shamelessly flaunts its clout — and lack thereof, in the face of money — proves eminent domain the sham it always has been.
Whether or not the arguably most hated government stipulation in existence began as a means to ensure the public good matters not if its modern iteration amounts to theft at will — and particularly not so when the content of one’s wallet decides the route for projects like a water line.
Eminent domain exists because the right to own property threatens government at its most vulnerable point — control.
Without that, the State is little more than an entity fleshed out on paper wishing desperately you would just get out of its way.
There is a direct line from Adam Weishaupt’s secret society, the Illuminati, which he formed in Bavaria in 1776, to Karl Marx, and onward to the modern Globalist agenda.
One of the key shared ideas: the abolition of private property.
Many people hold a negative view of Weishaupt, the Illuminati, and especially Marx, and so it fell to Globalists to couch their ideas about property in more acceptable terms.
That feat (one of many attempted) was expressed, in 1976, by Carla Hills, US Trade Representative and a key member of the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission. Hills is credited as the principal architect of the Globalist NAFTA Treaty, which has destructively affected the US and Mexican economies.
Patrick Wood, author of the classic, Technocracy Rising, unearthed Hills’ brief statement on private property. I’ve broken it up into three parts, so I can comment after each mind-bending point.
Carla Hills: “Land, because of its unique nature and the crucial role it plays in human settlements, cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market.”
Her use of the term “human settlements” is curious, as is her reference to “crucial role it [land] plays.” Is she trying to take us back to an ancient period in human history, when people were first abandoning nomadic existence and turning to agriculture and fixed communities? It appears so. She wants us to think of land in terms of “oh, look, we can stop wandering and live here, and this space of soil will play ‘a crucial role’ in our future.” It’s been centuries since private ownership of land became a reality. But Hills doesn’t like acknowledging that. And through her use of “human settlements,” she also wants us to believe that the ancient concept of an entire community moving on to land to live is the only valid view. An individual staking a claim to land or buying it is verboten. It’s a corruption of the natural order. I assume Hills wasn’t living on a kibbutz or in a commune when she wrote her statement, but we’ll leave that problem for another time.
Hills asserts that private ownership of property isn’t ordinary and can’t be thought of that way. Individuals shouldn’t “control it.” And the free market causes problems. Well, of course, the free market causes problems, if you assume that no one should own more land than anyone else. And yes, private ownership, based on hard work, is inefficient, if that means some super-government can’t take land away “for the public good.”
Hills stops short of saying government should own all land, but that’s where she’s going.
She continues: “Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes.”
Social injustice, that familiar theme. Some people might own more land than others. That’s not right. That’s unjust. There should be no reward for hard work and intelligence. No. Instead, there is only planning from above. The wise demi-golds, who have our best interests at heart, can decide all the uses to which land is put. They can own huge tracts of land themselves, because they are gods. But the rest of us must submit to the development schemes they lay out. Only bitter clingers, who actually work for a living and strive and make their own way in the world, believe in private property. They’re for social injustice. They don’t want to give way to Greater Sharing.
Finally, Hills states: “Social justice, urban renewal and development, the provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole.”
Kinder and gentler vision. Just launch a plan to give EVERYONE a decent dwelling and healthy conditions. That’s how land should be used and thought of. No more private property. EVERYONE, of course, includes people (in unlimited numbers—no ceiling) who come here from anywhere in the world. And they come because here they get justice. They should get free housing. They should get “healthy conditions.” No problem. Everyone gets a 20-foot by 20-foot square box to live in.
What could go wrong?
Carla Hills is couching her statement to avoid the heavy philosophy and militant threat and totalitarian thrust of the Illuminati and Marx, but she’s on the same page. She’s “sustainable” and “green” and “kind” and “thoughtful” and “caring.” She’s perfect for self-styled liberals and the virtue-signaling Clueless.
She’s part of the tradition that wants to take down the individual spirit and stuff it in the collective.
I know many people (and I’m sure you do, too) who have worked hard, bought land, built a home, raised children, who would nevertheless applaud Carla Hills’ statement. They’ve succeeded in compartmentalizing their minds. It never occurs to them that if the Globalist dream came true, they would wake up one day with their homes and property ripped out from under them. If they think about it at all, they think they can have it both ways. They can continue to live as they’ve been living, but somehow, at the same time, social justice will be served.
They’re in a dream. It’s so pretty.
There is no iron hand, no Lenin, no Marx, no Stalin. All 400 million or so people in the US have lovely little free cottages nestled in valleys, and it’s spring, and the trees are flowering.
Down a country road, in his wheelchair, comes arch-Globalist George Soros, cackling and humming and talking on the phone to his broker. He’s flanked by bodyguards. Perched on nearby hills, snipers are in position, just in case a threat develops.
In a recent ruling, a Kentucky man has prevailed in a lawsuit he faced over shooting down a drone that entered his property. While the question of where a drone can operate on private property remains to be answered, the ruling appears to be a victory for property owners.
William Meredith became known as the “drone slayer” in 2015, after he used a shotgun to dismantle a drone operated by David Boggs, that he says was flying over his property in front of himself and his daughter. Meredith initially faced felony charges of endangerment and criminal mischief for shooting down the drone. The criminal charges were dismissed by Judge Rebecca Ward in Bullitt County District Court, citing recollections from witnesses who said that the drone was flying under the tree line. Ward also said that Meredith was within his rights to shoot down the drone.
Boggs went on to sue Meredith in federal court for $1,500 in compensation for his drone and to seek a declaratory judgment to define the drone as an aircraft under federal law, flying in “navigable airspace” in an effort to clarify airspace limitations — a legal issue that is currently quite hazy. Drones have exploded in popularity, especially among hobbyists, yet legal guidelines regarding airspace boundaries are still in infancy. The closest case to serve as a precedent is a 1946 lawsuit, United States v. Causby, in which a farmer sued over military aircraft continually flying over his property and causing his chickens to cease laying eggs. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, whom the court found “owns at least as much of the space above the ground as he can occupy or use in connection with the land.”
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Boggs claims his telemetry proves that he flew his drone over 200 feet above Meredith’s property, while Meredith has stuck to his claim that the drone flew around 20 feet above his neighbor’s house before rising to somewhere between 60 and 80 feet above his own property.
The most recent court case ruling in Meredith’s favor does not define boundaries of airspace; Senior US District Judge Thomas B. Russell simply granted Meredith’s motion to dismiss the case and summarized that the clarification Boggs is seeking cannot be issued in a federal court. Russell wrote that “even if Boggs is correct that his unmanned aircraft is subject to federal regulation, as the Court noted above, the fact remains that the FAA has not sought to enforce any such regulations in this case.”
Current FAA regulations are not clear in specifying altitude limitations, with just one rule of a “maximum altitude of 400 feet above ground level.” However, even if distinct laws were in place, Meredith and Boggs are clearly at odds with their respective claims: Meredith is maintaining that Boggs invaded his privacy, while Boggs claims that his drone was not close enough to Meredith’s home to invade privacy.
Despite the contrasts between the two parties in their recollections, Meredith and Boggs both agree that clarification in the law is critical. James Mackler, Boggs’ attorney, said that “We desperately need clarification from this issue and that has to come from the federal level. Drones are continuing to be shot down.” Mackler added that “we have not decided whether we are going to file our appeal.”
Albion, ME — Maine Governor Paul LePage wants to rewrite the law after becoming incensed at the plight of an elderly, disabled couple — one of whom is a veteran — who were evicted from their home of 33 years because they are too impoverished to pay taxes.
According to the Portland Press Herald, in December 2015, the town of Albion moved to foreclose on the “rundown camp” of National Guard and Marine veteran Richard Sukeforth and his wife, Leonette, when taxes went unpaid.
Then, the town put the couple’s home up for auction — it sold for just $6,500 — and the new owner, Jason Marks, kicked the two 80-year-olds to the curb last week.
LePage is irate — and wants to ensure this can never happen again.
“He’s living in poverty,” he said of Richard in an interview with the Morning Sentinel. “Now, we’re throwing him out on the street. That’s just awful.”
“I’m livid about it,” LePage asserted of the ‘legal’ but seemingly unscrupulous eviction, “and I think we have to have laws to protect our most vulnerable.”
LePage appealed to nonprofit Pine Tree Legal — an advocacy group providing free legal advice for Maine residents with limited income — but, it turns out, the eviction followed the letter of the law.
As the Sentinel reports,
“LePage said he thinks it is immoral that a veteran and his sick, bedridden wife, who are at the end of their lives, were kicked out of their home and he is going to fight to ensure the practice is prohibited in the future.”
As he explained in the interview,
“I’m going to ask for an ombudsman to mediate disputes between communities and taxpayers, not just elderly. I want to change the foreclosure law as it relates to poverty, and one of the things I want to do is force them (communities) to sell property at market value and any revenues above taxes and revenue and foreclosure fees go back to the original owner.”
Typically, Maine communities work with disadvantaged citizens to solve tax difficulties — through tax abatement and reverse mortgages, for example — in order to avoid evictions like the Sukeforths experienced.
“As mayor of Waterville,” LePage explained of his position prior to becoming governor of Maine, “whenever we had an issue of poverty, we never threw people out.”
While the town of Albion indeed followed the law, as far as morals are concerned, LePage remarked, “What they did is unbelievable. It’s just not the way it’s done.”
Before the Sukeforths were evicted from property, located on Lovejoy Pond, Leonette — a retired nurse with diabetes — had been confined to a hospital bed under doctor’s orders. Now, the elderly pair has been forced to live with daughter, Yvette Ingalls, in a trailer park in Holden, where a nurse attends Leonette on a daily basis.
According to the Sentinel, daughter-in-law Rachel Sukeforth and son Rick had to essentially rescue the ailing couple in the middle of a snowstorm on the night the new owner kicked them off the property. They’ve had to temporarily house the couple’s beloved Jack Russell terrier and black cat since the trailer park does not allow dogs.
Richard questions the morality of the eviction, telling the outlet in a phone interview,
“That deal was very underhanded. I don’t care what anybody says. It weren’t right. They came down and evicted us when my wife was right in a hospital bed. We’re both 80 years old, so they done it and got away with it and they’re happy.”
An attorney for LePage attempted to negotiate with Marks, the new owner, but was told it would have to take place in his own lawyer’s office with his attorney present. LePage says he prefers to combat corruption as directly as possible, and did not want attorneys involved in such a discussion.
“I never meet with lawyers,” he explained, adding he’d planned to ask Marks to allow the Sukeforths to live out their lives on the property they’d inhabited for over three decades. “When I ask for a meeting, it’s me, alone. When I go after corruption, I go after corruption head-on. I don’t need any help.”
Marks agreed to allow the Sukeforths to continue to reside at the camp as long as they paid rent — but says they never did. He explained he had no choice but to force them out, and is being unfairly portrayed as the bad guy in this controversy.
Town officials stand by the eviction — saying they attempted to work with Richard for several years and that the back taxes were minimal. Albion Selectwoman Beverly Bradstreet owed $4,000 in property taxes for the dilapidated building and the land more accurately described as a camp.
“It’s three years before we foreclose, and we paid his taxes, like two different years to avoid foreclosure,” Bradstreet told the Sentinel, “but then he just let it go. He knew that we were going to do it. He would come in the Town Office, but he did not pay. I don’t know why. He just waited until it was too late. We foreclosed last December, 2015. We gave him six months to still pay it off and he made no effort to pay it off. He didn’t try, and there were other people in town that could use some help, too.”
While that seems a justifiable reason for the town to act, Rachel says no one in the Sukeforth family was aware her father-in-law — who has begun to suffer from dementia — had failed to pay. In fact, when asked, the veteran had affirmed he’d visited the Town Office and paid the bill.
A notice printed in a local paper announcing the auction of the property first alerted family members to the dubious situation.
“As soon as we found this out, we called the Town Office,” Rachel told the Sentinel. “My husband and siblings and our neighbor all tried to pay the taxes up to date, and they refused payment. This wasn’t sitting well with any one of us. Every town has the right to refuse payment, but can also accept the payment as well. When we tried to pay selectmen, they said when an auction is posted in the newspaper, they can no longer accept payment, but that wasn’t true.”
That refusal to accept payment from other parties doesn’t sit well with the family and concerned neighbors — nor does it with the governor.
“It’s never too late until the deed transfers, and the deed had not transferred,” said LePage, who has even offered to take the couple’s dog, Pee-wee, if they are unable to have the canine designated as a service animal to allow the dog to reside the trailer park.
“Richard Sukeforth said he and his wife receive $1,252 a month in Social Security payments. He worked in construction during the summer for many years, operated a snowplow for the Maine Turnpike in winter and later worked for Bath Iron Works until he was injured when he fell off a crane boom in 1982, he said,” the Sentinel reports.
Neighbors, family, and friends took umbrage at the seemingly callous eviction of such a frail and kind family from the property they loved — particularly given Richard’s mental state and that several people tried in vain to make good on the taxes owed.
“He is a … vet. There’s just so many reasons this shouldn’t be able to happen,” said part-time neighbor MaryAnn Sawlan-Neiman, who alerted the governor to the tragic situation after exhausting all other options.
“Every day, he would come down, stay a couple of hours, and I’d go to his house,” Sawlan-Neiman said of Richard. “We just became really good friends. Another neighbor told me in July they were going to foreclose for taxes. I went to the town hall and I said, ‘What does he owe? I’ll pay for it right now.’”
But by that time, Albion officials said, the public announcement meant the tax bill could not be addressed by anyone — and the town refused to work with even Governor LePage, himself, to halt the eviction.
“It’s just devastating for them,” lamented Sawlan-Neiman of the Sukeforths, adding, of Richard, “He’s just like a lost man now.”
And there you have it. A couple, who owed no one anything, had their home stolen from them by government because they failed to pay the state an extortion fee for their right to live — and we still call this place the Land of the Free.
This article was written by Anonymous and originally published at AnonHQ.
Editor’s Comment: The continued assault against independence and self-sustainability is absolutely eradicating freedom. 2017 would do well to see a resurgence of off grid living and a fight back against the regulatory systems that would restrict how people can live on their own land, and without the need to be dependent upon government or corporations for their livelihood.
Unless that silent war is curbed, people will find that all the freedom talk on the Internet won’t mean anything to a population that needs its own resources and resilience. Preppers should be particularly wary of areas that have cracked down the hardest.
Oregon Couple Told They Have No Water Rights, Forced to Destroy Their Own Pond
by AnonHQ
Remember the Oregon ‘Rain Man’ or Gary Harrington — who was sent to 30 days in Jackson County Jail and slapped with a $1,500 fine for collecting rainwater on his 170-acre property? He was ordered to breach his dams and drain his ponds that held more than 13 million gallons of water, enough to fill 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Now, an Oregon couple faces a similar fate as Gary Harrington because the rain belongs to the overbearing government, because corporate greed claims water is not a human right, and because Americans are not entitled to do what they please on their private property.
The Jackson County Watermaster’s office has told Jon and Sabrina Carey to destroy their 2-acre pond — built 40 years ago, long before they bought the 10-acre property off Butte Falls Highway two and a half years ago — as they don’t have any water rights.
“I basically bought a lemon. That’s how they explained it to me.”
The county had no issues with the pond until Jon sought to grow legal medical cannabis on his property. He was then required to produce proof that he had a viable source of water for cannabis cultivation.
Although the county records clearly show the pond, the Watermaster’s Office claimed the previous owners had not received a permit for the pond so the Careys were now in violation of Oregon regulations — and they would have to shoulder the cost of draining the water. As a result, the Careys stopped using pond water and resorted to trucking in water from Butte Falls for their household and garden needs.
Since the Medford Water Commission has rights to the watershed around Careys’ property — where Medford’s primary source of water, Big Butte Springs, is located — its staff denied Careys request to adopt the pond and treat it as a municipal water source so that the water could be used for emergency firefighting, wildlife habitat and as an additional source for municipal needs.
In spite of the government claiming ownership of rainwater as part of the public water supply, it still rejected the Careys’ plea to treat their pond as part of public property. Mail Tribune reports:
“Water Commission staff found several problems with the Careys’ request, including setting a precedent that could prompt similar requests and weaken state statutes while not meeting the definition of ‘municipal water source’. The staff found it would be very difficult to access the water stored in the pond for municipal reasons, and further monitoring and following up on compliance issues would be difficult and costly for the commission.”
Careys’ attorney, Sarah Liljefelt, who filed a request with Jackson County to provide the couple a permit to store water, says:
“The reservoir on Ms. Carey’s property, though small, is one of the largest in the area. In the past, the pond has been used for fire suppression and is accessible to fire trucks from Butte Falls Highway. The pond is an important source of water for beavers, otters, elk, deer, bear, mountain lion, bobcat, bald eagle osprey, great blue heron, snowy egret, Canada geese and the western pond turtle.”
The utter insanity of it all. This is another example of America, land of the free https://t.co/2nj2Q6dJZP
— Gordon Vick (@flashgordonv) December 26, 2016
The couple have agreed to not use the pond water for their household and garden needs and keep the pond for wildlife, fire suppression and for any purpose specified by the Medford Water Commission. They’ve also agreed to reduce the size of the pond from about 12 acre feet of water to 9.2 acre feet; execute an easement to the city of Medfore to flood the property, access the reservoir, and cause the reservoir to be drained any time the city deems necessary; and assume all costs associated with permitting, construction, maintenance and liability. However, the Medford Water Commission is unmoved.
“I’m terrified right now… I am trying to work with the various government agencies to resolve this issue so the property doesn’t lose one of its most valuable assets. We’re just trying to do it by the rules. I’m trying to cooperate.”
The couple recently received support from firefighting agencies that need the water for wildfires. A letter from the Oregon Department of Forestry to the Water Commission supported retaining the reservoir to help suppress wildfires and provide enough water for a multiday operation. Neal Laugle, state aviation manager for ODF, wrote:
“I would like to urge the Medford Water Commission to consider keeping the reservoir in place at its current capacity for the purpose of providing a long-term water source for wildland firefighting. Without the water, it could increase the length of a wildfire fight and could lead to more destructive wildfires.”
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AnonHQ is an independent and investigative news organization run by people of the Anonymous collective. Our goal here is to bring the people of the world important, modern daily news regarding topics from around the globe.
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Butte Falls, OR — An Oregon couple has been told they must destroy a 2-acre pond on their land — the property’s most attractive feature — because the government said so.
Although Jon and Sabrina Carey purchased the 10-acre property near Butte Falls two and a half years ago, the pond has been in place for 40 years — but that fact doesn’t matter to the Jackson County Watermaster’s Office.
“I basically bought a lemon,” said Jon, who became teary-eyed at the edge of the partially ice-covered body of water being targeted by government, in an interview with the Mail Tribune. “That’s how they explained it to me.”
But the couple desperately wants to keep the stunning longstanding feature in tact, so, as the Mail Tribune reports, the Careys have “pleaded with the Medford Water Commission to adopt the pond and treat it as a municipal water source, something Jackson County Watermaster Larry Menteer has opposed because of the precedent it would set.
“The Water Commission has rights to the watershed around the Careys’ property, where dozens, if not hundreds, of ponds are located, as well as Medford’s primary source of water, Big Butte Springs.”
And the Careys aren’t the only people in the watershed who’ve had difficulties with, well, ‘the government’s’ water.
Eagle Point resident Gary Harrington spent 90 days in jail for illegally harboring some 13 million gallons of illicit rainwater — that’s enough rain to fill around 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Harrington masterfully crafted several ponds on his property — even building docks for one, and stocking it with largemouth bass — but his insistence the water would assist in fire control and prevention didn’t satisfy the government, since a “1925 state law dictates that the water belongs to the Medford Water Commission.”
As Mother Nature Network’s Matt Hickman reported in 2012,
“The bigger story here is that rainwater collection is indeed kosher in Oregon, provided that you’re capturing it from an artificial, impervious surface such as a rooftop with the assistance of rainwater barrels. But an extensive reservoir set-up complete with 10- and 20-foot-tall dams is verboten without the proper, state-issued water-right permits — after all, Oregon law dictates that water is a publicly owned resource — and Harrington did not possess said permits.”
Harrington and the Oregon Water Resources Department waged an extended battle over the ponds, and at one point, it was ruled he would be allowed to keep everything in place — but that decision was backtracked in less than one year.
Ultimately, “Rain Man,” as he came to be called, found himself charged with nine misdemeanors, spent three months behind bars, and had to shell out $1,500 in fines — and was ordered to destroy the dams and drain all the ponds.
Harrington’s case might have been infinitely more complex than the Careys’ — considering the large volume of water and infrastructure he’d put in place — but they share the same theme of overbearing government and arguably wholly unnecessary law versus the right of people to do as they please with their property.
“When you’re honest, they take everything away from you,” said Sabrina Carey, who inspected country records — which plainly showed the pond — before they purchased the property.
Going by the book might have been the ‘fatal’ error for the couple, however, since the county didn’t take issue with the pond until Jon sought to grow legal medical cannabis on the land and had to prove there was a viable source of water for the grow operation.
According to the Watermaster’s Office, the previous owners had not received a permit for the pond, so the Careys were now in violation of Oregon regulations — and they would have to shoulder the cost of draining the water.
In an effort to prove the pond is legitimate and persuade county government to allow it to remain on the property, the couple stopped using it — even though the well on their land had run dry — and began shipping in the water for daily living and gardening from nearly Butte Falls.
They’ve also had no choice but to hire attorney Sarah Liljefelt, who filed a request with Jackson County to provide a permit for them to store water, stating, “The reservoir on Ms. Carey’s property, though small, is one of the largest in the area.”
As the Mail Tribune notes, “Liljefelt said the pond is an important source of water for beavers, otters, elk, deer, bear, mountain lion, bobcat, bald eagle osprey, great blue heron, snowy egret, Canada geese and the western pond turtle.”
By all appearances, the large pool of water does more good for the environment than if it weren’t there at all — during their fight with the State, the Careys even suggested it be used for fire control and prevention, like Harrington did, as the pond is easily accessible by fire crews.
But the county has displayed only nonsensical obstinance on the issue.
“This pond seems to be doing way more public good than not being here. Why, now, is it so important to be removed?” Jon lamented.
Indeed, the 40-year-old man doesn’t even profit from the medical cannabis grown on the land he and his wife own, as he literally gives the crop — free of charge — to friends.
“I don’t make anything out of this,” he said.
Members of the Water Commission disagree on whether this is an issue worth fighting over at all, but as the Mail Tribune reports,
“Water Commission staff found several problems with the Careys’ request, including setting a precedent that could prompt similar requests and weaken state statutes while not meeting the definition of ‘municipal water source.’ The staff found it would be very difficult to access the water stored in the pond for municipal reasons, and further monitoring and following up on compliance issues would be difficult and costly for the commission.”
However, the commission also failed to state why this should be a matter for the government in the first place — why punitive bureaucracy needs to meddle with a pond on private property, serving as a valuable ecosystem, that poses no threat to anyone or anything, and isn’t even an eyesore, must be destroyed.
Besides a trailer home and dilapidated house, the pond is the only thing of value on their acreage, and, obviously, as Sabrina said, “We didn’t buy it for the double-wide.”
She told the Mail Tribune the pond should have been registered with the Oregon Water Resources Department nine years ago, but the owners at that time did not reside on the property and didn’t do so.
They have even offered to reduce the pond’s size, allow officials to inspect it when necessary, and have provided a draft easement to the commission in hopes of allowing the prized water feature to remain intact — thus far to no avail.
“We’re just trying to do it by the rules,” Sabrina explained. “I’m trying to cooperate.”
In 2012, Gary Harrington had already been through years of conflict with government officials over illicit water — and provided CNSNews with stronger sentiment on the topic:
“When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, ‘This is wrong; you just can’t take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”
That government feels entitled to not only something located on private property, but that people should not be allowed to collect rain, is everything wrong with excessive government — and the overregulation of daily life.
