[HCCN] Crimeless Victims A Go Go

[Reverend Doktor C. Sarian]

Crimeless Victims A Go Go

Oscar Grant, Michael Connell, the Irfan family, residents of Gaza and
thousands of pelicans are this week's featured crimeless victims of
deplorable incidents, collateral damage and regrettable consequences of the
war being waged by the military industrial complex.

Oscar Grant joins Jean Charles de Menezes, Rigoberto Alpizar, Sean Bell,
Kathryn Johnston, and untold others as the latest inductee into the pantheon
of citizens ruthlessly murdered by police gunfire. Oscar, 22, father of a
young daughter, and popular community figure was involved in an alleged
altercation on a train platform in Oakland. BART officers intervened and
after subduing the participants, one officer fired his pistol point blank
into Mr. Grant's back as he lay face down on the floor begging for mercy. As
is becoming increasingly common, bystanders photographed the incident on cel
phone and soon a video of the execution style killing was available for all
to view on the internet, sparking protests by outraged citizens which turned
to rioting as the city deployed riot police. In the twenty first century it
is not extraordinary for a uniformed officer to commit murder in front of
witnesses only to be allowed to walk quietly home after his shift. Days
later, apparently wracked by remorse, the officer resigned from the transit
police. Poor guy!

Like Wellstone and MacDonald before him, Bush's IT guy Michael Connell is
the latest victim of a suspicious aircrash. On the way to testify about his
role in hacking the 2004 presidential election, the plane he was riding
crashed after cockpit communications indicated flight data was falsified. As
the pResident's internet whiz kid he is thought to have been instrumental in
hiding millions of White House eMails from public scrutiny, as well as
defrauding the American public into submitting to an additional four years
of the Bush administration's "unitary" tyranny, so strictly speaking he may
not have been compleatly crime free. But now we'll never know, will we?

Atif Irfan, U.S citizen, with his extended family of eight plus one, was
removed from a DC to Florida flight when they discussed innocently the
safest seats aboard a plane, a subject dear to the conscience of every air
traveller. Other passengers presumed from the discussion, and the family's
Muslim faith, that they were terrorists, and since passengers' emotions are
in command of aircraft, the scary family was ejected for the flight to
depart. The Irfans were subjected to interogation by the FBI who determined
they did not pose a threat of terrorism, however they were refused a booking
on a subsequent flight. Days later, apparently wracked by remorse, Transair
issued an apology, but they could do nothing about the family's wrecked
travel plans, or the profiling of citizens of the Muslim faith as security
threats.

When the "cease fire" between the Israeli government and Hamas officially
expired 19 December 2008, Israel unleased a long planned offensive against
the Gaza concentration camp. Using as a pretext the sporadic firing of
homemade fertilizer rockets into Israeli territory by militants, the Israeli
military is employing the most sophisticated weaponry available, including
F-16 warplanes, "bunker buster" bombs, white phosphorus and depleted uranium
munitions supplied by the United States to destroy hospitals, schools,
police stations and homes in the densely populated enclave. In the ruins
injured, starving children have been found by the battered corpses of their
dead mothers. No matter to which side of the conflict one adheres, waging
collective punishment against innocent civilians is a war crime.

Thousands of pelicans along the coast of California from Baja to Oregon have
been found on shore feeble and disoriented, often being struck by autos.
Reminiscent of the plight of frogs, honeybees and bottlenose dolphins in the
new millenium, the birds are clearly being affected by some sort of
environmental hazard. Bird flu? Radar? Toxins? Fox News? Who knows? Who
cares? They're just birds. As greater numbers of more economically
significant animals succumb to habitat degradation, it will become
imperative for people who can afford it to remain in the relative safety of
sterile microenvironments.

What will it really take to avoid becoming the next crimeless victim as the
War on Terror takes on a sort of reality game show quality where to receive
food pellets contestants attempt to navigate a maze where deadly personal
threats arise suddenly without warning? Whether those threats are posed by
supersonic aircraft and massive blasts of high explosive, or microscopic
aerosols from toxic consumer goods is moot. What is significant is the level
of innocent suffering required to maintain the non-negotiable suburban
lifestyle.

Reverend Doktor C. Sarian
www.reverenddoktor.freakwitch.net
Mid Coast Sub Church of Paranoia
Church of the SubGenius