The Thunderbolt 220406 — The Endless War Continued
Dana Walker
The Thunderbolt
News — Commentary — Calendar of Activist Events — Dumb Jokes
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1) FYI Section:
1A) Call to Arms: No New Airport in Tumwater
1B) Contact Congress: Cut the War Budget!
1C) The Battle for Black Lake Continues
1D) The Poor People’s Campaign Announces the Third Reconstruction
1E) Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation Actions
1F) Grassroots Organizing: Free Workshops
2) We Are the Middle of Forever
3) Thurston Live Hunger Walk
4) Bonus Tip of the Day
A detailed description of all events is located after the News and Commentary section
To go directly to an event description just type the index entry above into a search box
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The Endless War Continued
220406
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Unlikely Schooling
Hey People!
I am taking a break from the bus project to bring you this Thunderbolt because three things have recently exploded my head and I needed to touch on them.
First is the least important one — in fact, rather than a head explosion, this is more of a firecracker — but anyway, I was recently forced by the phone company to abandon my flip phone and get a ‘smart’ phone. Whilst learning to use it, I was having a hard time making it do what I wanted it to do and when I inadvertently opened the ‘Goggle Assistant’, which was not what I was looking to do, I groaned and said, quote, “Fuck this shit!”
The Goggle Assistant dutifully printed, “Fuck this shit” on my screen — and then, to my utter astonishment, a fucking computer program saw fit to lecture me about my fucking language!
This nanny state bullshite is getting very real! Jeez! I took a screen shot of the admonition just to prove it actually happened.
Anyway, here is what my phone said to me: “I’m a virtual assistant, but your words are still very real. Please keep them respectful. If you’re frustrated with something, I’m open to your feedback.”
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I am thinking of sending them some feedback that contains a large number and wide variety of highly disrespectful words (that are very real nonetheless) pointing out that Goggle is not my fucking mother — but I haven’t decided yet.
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Suffer the Children’s Mother
The second thing my head exploded over recently is connected with an epic tale that I published last September called Suffer the Children, wherein I reported upon a story wherein a couple of local 0.1% elites named Hans and Kathryn Stoker used their wealth and influence along with several shady, unethical, and possibly even illegal tactics to steal Kathryn’s grandchildren away from their mother, Kathryn’s emotionally disturbed daughter Selena. They even received the direct help of Thurston County Sheriff John Snaza in their efforts.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5y6r3r6nmxoawza/TBR%20210908%20-%20Suffer%20the%20Children.docx?dl=0
Anyway, I recently learned that Selena not only disappeared under suspicious circumstances shortly thereafter, but the police, having evidently classified Selena under their non-official classification of OTH (i.e. ‘other than human’) are refusing to even look for her much less investigate whether or not any foul play may have been involved. According to Selena’s father, “Neither the Portland PD, the Lacey PD, nor the Boulder, CO. PD would file a missing person report at my request. I also contacted the WSP and they said they couldn't help.”
Since the police have recently been getting into a whole lot of trouble for doing just that, I am surprised that they are still so blatantly refusing to look for people that they have deemed to unworthy of their effort.
Here is more information from Selena’s father, John Smith, along with some links to relevant information:
Selena has been Missing since Christmas, 2021. Ayer (Hazel’s father) and Kathryn (extremely wealthy grandmother) both bore grudges against her. Hans Stoker said he had always hated Selena as well as pulled a handgun on an unarmed James Wells without provocation in a drunken stupor, a familiar condition for Hans. Selena’s children (Hazel, Onawa, & Raven) are now in the hands of Kathryn Stoker who has stalked and demonized Selena for years along with Kat’s husband, Hans, who told Selena he had always hated her–the Thurston County Court’s preferred choice to raise Selena’s very young children after orchestrating their theft from their mother under cover of darkness from the State of Oregon without any proper due process. They are currently in the tender care of the Gorgon.
3.31.22 8:12pm Robert Ayer Tel. Call, last seen w/Selena 12-25-21 in Lacey, WA
6-27-21 Interview w/Selena Smith In Re: Assault by Hans Stoker & Jim Wells
(Selena Smith recalls physical abuse & intimidation at hands of alcoholics)
One of over 55 secret recordings by James Wells inside Selena’s home (2020)
Case Information
21-1-00676-34 | STATE OF WASHINGTON vs SELENA URSA SMITH
Cordially,
John Smith, goatherd (360)427-3599
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The Endless War Continued
The final outrage is the fact that once again the Western media is successfully leading everyone around by the nose with this Ukraine thing and no one dares question anything lest they be pilloried. After centuries of leaders lying and then further lying and then lying about their lies in order to get us to fight their wars for them, people still swallow the bait whole and question nothing.
To my utter consternation, evidently it is still a shocking and controversial position to say that our government and our media are lying us into a frigging war. Is everyone just forgetting that endless stream of previous lies as they swallow the newest ones?
Here is a brief summary of just a few of their most recent hits: Back in 1964 we had the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which North Vietnamese boats allegedly attacked two US destroyers thus justifying the American invasion of Vietnam.
The problem was that the incident never actually happened. Vietnam was started over a lie.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Gulf-of-Tonkin-incident
Just 26 years later, in 1990, a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl known as ‘Nayirah’ described in detail to an American congressional caucus a horrific tale of Iraqi soldiers removing scores of babies from incubators and then leaving them to die. Her testimony notably increased support for the Persian Gulf invasion that happened less than a year later.
However, it turned out that ‘Nayirah” was the daughter of a Kuwaiti official and her testimony was actually orchestrated by an infamous public relations firm called Hill & Knowlton on behalf of their client, the Kuwaiti-sponsored Citizens for a Free Kuwait.
Again, it was later proven that this incident never actually happened — but it had served its purpose, so that didn’t matter.
https://citizentruth.org/fake-news-1990-that-ignited-gulf-war-sympathy/
And then, we had the famous ‘WMD’s in Iraq debacle. During the lead up to Bush’s invasion, Scott Ritter, the head of the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq, and Hans Blix, the head of the UN weapons inspection program, were arguably the world’s two leading experts on WMD’s in Iraq — and both men were running around the United States at that time crying out to anyone who would listen that Iraq did not have any WMD’s.
They were completely ignored by the Media Machine.
In Venezuela, everyone is convinced that Nicolás Maduro is a dictator even though he was democratically elected in a free and fair election. The Americans said it wasn’t legitimate because Maduro’s people had disqualified two of his leading opponents.
This was after those opponents had participated in several coup attempts. In almost any other country they would have been arrested. Then the airwaves were filled with widespread accusations of Venezuelan troops torching a humanitarian convoy coming over the border from Colombia.
It was later established that Columbian hooligans had crossed the border and thrown Molotov cocktails on the trucks as a prelude to looting them.
Has everyone forgotten false accusations against Bashar al Asad concerning chemical weapons?
And as for bombing civilians in humanitarian corridors — an accusation recently leveled against the Russians — has everyone already forgotten the false allegations of civilians in humanitarian corridors being subjected to attacks by Syrian and Russian forces when, it later turned out, they had actually been struck by American-backed opposition forces?
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If the United States government is not lying about this latest war, it will be the first time in history that they weren’t — yet they’re doing it again, and everyone is falling for it again.
This is getting really depressing.
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According to the nearly unquestioned narrative this time, the Western powers are the white knights riding to rescue the world from the arch-evil Putin. This is even though Putin is not doing anything the Americans have not themselves done countless times over the last few decades — with a big difference being that, unlike the Americans, the Russians actually have vital strategic national security interests at stake here.
Nonetheless, container ships full of weapons of mass destruction manufactured by the same companies that hold our federal government in general and the Biden Administration in particular in their pockets are all streaming into Ukraine now, and everyone from Amy Goodman to Thom Hartmann are cheering them on. National Public Radio might as well be National Ukrainian Radio since they have pretty much stopped covering anything else — and NPR’s coverage consists not of reporting on the historical contexts that are necessary to understand what is going on, nor do the ever mention Russia’s interests in not having Western troops and Western missiles sited right on their borders. Nor is NPR asking what Americans would think if the Russians or the Chinese started stationing troops in Canada and installing missiles in Tijuana?
Instead they simply repeat State Department propaganda and pass that off as ‘news’.
And those weapons were flowing into Ukraine long before Russia invaded — and in fact, those weapons flowing into Ukraine were one of the central reasons that Russia invaded — and there is plenty of evidence that American officials knew damned well that this was a red line with the Russians yet they crossed it anyway, meaning they’ve been planning this for a long time — and I can guarantee you that they will want to drag this out for years, bogging the Russians down with a mass counter-insurgency that is being armed by Biden’s campaign donors.
Yes, the Americans seem willing to fight the Russians down to the last Ukrainian.
And as usual, the hypocrisy involved is simultaneously both astonishing in its scope yet completely normalized. When the Americans wipe out a wedding party with a drone strike the Media Machine not only fails to call for war crimes prosecutions, but they routinely simply ignore such incidents — yet Russians shooting civilians is immediately followed by impassioned cries for war crimes investigations before such reports are even verified.
Make no mistake, I’m not standing up for Vladimir Putin as he is a mass murdering psychopath who should indeed be prosecuted for war crimes — but so should every American president since Herbert Hoover — and Hoover is only excepted because he did not preside over any wars, though ironically, Hoover did commit a lot of war crimes during World War I before he became president — and in fact Hoover was instrumental in a successful elitist plot to extend World War I for 3½ years longer than was necessary, as demonstrated in this eye-opening video from James Corbett:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yod1ySgXxtw
Meanwhile, both Amy Goodman and Thom Hartmann were pulling nuclear boogeymen out of the hat jumping right in with the latest campaign to terrify everyone so they can elevate military spending ever further…
Thom Hartmann thinks we should allow Polish jets into Ukraine’s airspace to fight the Russians.
Right, Thom. Things aren’t volatile enough already. Lets take yet another big step closer to World War III.
You may want to move the hands on the Doomsday clock ahead by another minute, before doing so, though…
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What is happening in Ukraine is that a bunch of murdering psychopaths in Russia attacked a bunch of murdering psychopaths in Ukraine and the murdering psychopaths at NATO and the murdering psychopath in the White House are all upset about it. Everyone in that passion play are evil suckers — except, of course, the only people who actually pay any price for all this, in this case the Ukrainian people.
And just as I predicted before Biden assumed office, the War Machine is about to grow exponentially larger under Biden’s mis-leadership. None of Biden’s people even mentions any peace talks or negotiations to try to resolve this situation, and both Biden and war profiteer / Secretary of State Anthony Blinken summarily dismiss any talk of diplomacy or peace agreements. They figure that sending shiploads of weapons is the way to peace.
I am most pleased to see that the Media Machine is actually paying attention to the ‘innocent victims’ of this latest figoobliation — as they well should. The problem is, of course, that the only reason is because a) it is our ‘enemy’ who is causing the atrocities this time and b) because the victims this time are white — or ‘civilized’, as one talking head described them…
Meanwhile, refugees from places like Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and Haiti (just to name a few countries that the United States has destroyed over the last few years) and most of those refugees are equally if not more desperate than the Ukrainian refugees are, yet those people are still being persecuted, turned away, or held in prison camps.
And its not like the Ukrainian government are a bunch of angels. There are videos taken just after the coup that brought the current government to power of an American official — I believe it was Samantha Power (I can’t find it right now, but I’ve seen it before — maybe it’s been censored) telling Ukrainian officials which people were acceptable to the Americans in the new Ukrainian government and which were not — up to and including the Prime Minister.
In addition, both the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian military have significant factions of dyed-in-the-wool Nazis within their ranks.
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Joe Biden has never met an interventionist war he didn’t like and his administration is stuffed top-to-bottom with people who spent the Trump years either lobbying for war profiteers and/or working for think tanks that are funded by war profiteers.
https://dana98501.wordpress.com/2022/01/19/tb-220109-the-warmongers-apotheosis-reprint/
Everyone except the common people are the bad guys in this situation. There are no ‘good guys’ who have any influence on any of this whatsoever.
It is time to demand peace.
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The Olympia Action Alert
April, 2022
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1A) Call to Arms: No New Airport in Tumwater
I got this message from North Beach:
Dear Port Commissioners,
The Port of Olympia Special Meeting pertaining to the CACC (building a major airport in Tumwater) was very depressing. It was a deeply flawed meeting.
There was no mention of the environmental impacts of a major airport where the Tumwater airport currently resides.
There is no mention of the possible 230,000 flights over our heads because of this proposal.
Yes, it will take time to develop this proposal.
Yes, it will take 15-20 years to get it done.
But our children and our grand children will hate our names for putting this proposal into play.
This is wrong! The thousands of tons from the air plane leaded fuel raining down upon our heads is wrong.
The tons of particulates covering our lands, our houses, our ponds is is wrong.
Any "Happy Talk" of possible electric Planes is "pie in the sky"; a fantasy. Stop this proposal discussion now; no expansion of the Tumwater Airport.
Thank you,
L. Riner
2103 Harrison
Oly., WA
98502
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1B) Contact Congress: Cut the War Budget!
I got this message from Glen:
Earlier this week, President Biden submitted his request for the FY 2023 Pentagon budget – a staggering $813 billion request, and a $31 billion increase over last year. As you’ll recall, Congress already added $25 billion over what Biden requested last year. They are literally shoveling money hand over fist to the Pentagon. This is the same Pentagon that can’t account for how it spends its largesse and has never passed an audit.
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Peace Action
P.O. Box 8637
Silver Spring, MD 20907
United States
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DONATE |
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1C) The Battle for Black Lake Continues
I got this information from Esther:
Dear Commissioners,
We write as advocates for Citizens for a Clean Black Lake to provide these comments regarding the March 8 Public Hearing held by the County pursuant to the request of our Petition to dissolve the Black Lake Flood Control District. We find that the procedures used by the County before and during the Hearing were flawed and did not follow standard due process procedures outlined in Washington state law, as we note below.
1. The County did not provide written or email notice to Petitioners. There were many people who made written comments to the Commission who did not receive notice of the Hearing, including Mr. Dierker and I who submitted the Petition on August 31, 2021.
2. It appears there are no written procedures in the Thurston County code to inform the public of what procedures would be followed in such a hearing.
This lack of written procedures for such a hearing violates RCW 34.05 requirements for having such written procedures for public hearings and other administrative actions. The County lacks any proper procedure upon which to claim that they acted properly during their conducting of this hearing of our Petition. Absent these procedures, this Hearing cannot be considered a legitimate exercise of government, which must assure citizens due process and equal protection under the law, and consequently, there has been no proper adjudication of our Petition.
Despite our repeated requests for the procedures that would be followed during the Public Hearing, no such information was provided to Petitioners or to the general public. In particular, the County failed to give Petitioners prior notice that it intended to conduct this Hearing as a legislative action. We told the County for months that this would be a quasi judicial hearing because it is a petition for a specific action and adversarial in nature, as defined by the Municipal Resource Service Center (MRSC). The involvement of adversaries, like Ms. Burgess who personally contacted the Prosecuting Attorney on behalf of the Flood Control District impairing any impartiality of advice Ms. Petrich could give to the Board, is evidence this hearing should have been conducted in a quasi-judicial manner where Petitioners could present their petition before testimony and where testimony and responses from any responding parties, both the County and the flood control district, would be included.
If the Hearing were a legislative action, it would require a SEPA determination and environmental full disclosure of all information to form a procedural basis for such a legislative action, which needed to be done long before any hearing. Therefore, it appears Ms. Petrich misled the Board and the public by deeming this a legislative hearing despite the fact that a petition is inherently adversarial and no proper procedures were followed for the conducting of a legislative hearing.
Further, the County Manager failed to allow a point of order at the beginning of the Hearing to request disclosure of any conflicts of interest that would require recusal from any consideration of this matter as per RCW 32.46, the Appearance of Fairness Act, which requires these claims and request for recusal from decisions to be done at the earliest possible time. The doctrine of common law and Article 2, Section 30 of the Washington State Constitution also require this be done at the very start of such hearings as part of the normal procedure. The MRSC, to which the County contributes as a member of the Association of Counties, has a script available on their website to guide County officials in the proper procedures to be taken during such a public hearing. Unfortunately,, though we alerted the County Manager to this resource, he did not follow the standard protocols for conducting such a hearing. This failure, and the failure to allow Petitioners time at the beginning of the Hearing to explain their Petition denied us a meaningful opportunity to be heard.
3. County prosecuting Attorney, Elizabeth Petrich, completely misrepresented the requirement for making a claim in this state and falsely asserted that the Board could not consider dissolution of the District.
Washington is a “Notice Pleading” state, meaning a simple concise statement of the claim and a request for relief sought is sufficient for making such a pleading. Pleadings are to be liberally construed to allow for a decision on the merits. State v Adams 107 Wn.2d 611, at page 620, 732P.2d 149, 1987. See also Washington State Superior Court Civil Rule CR8(a)
Obviously, our Petition requested dissolution of this flood control district and while we may have not cited to RCW 85.38.225 as being the alternative relief statute for granting the relief that we sought, we did note what relief was sought and we did submit a simple concise statement of our claim as the Prosecutor’s own testimony showed when she said we filed a Petition for Dissolution under RCW 85.38.220 which sets forth the procedure for the process the County should take under RCW 85.38. This would necessarily include use of all portions of RCW 85.38, including the alternative relief we sought through our Petition for Dissolution of the Black Lake Flood Control District. Our Petition clearly requests the suspension of activities unrelated to the public purpose of RCW 85.38, which is to simplify procedures for diking, drainage and flood control facilities. Obviously, the Prosecuting Attorney did not liberally construe our Petition based upon our claims and the relief we sought as required by the law of this State. Unlike those who submit an application for land use who get responses to questions and aid to correct any mistakes on their land use petitions, we did not receive such aid. This violates due process and equal protection of the law.
Further, we find no evidence in RCW 85.38 where it clearly states that this is a purely legislative action when considering a petition, since often even legislative actions require quasi-judicial administrative hearings exactly like this one for taking legislative actions such as when making rules, changing the Comprehensive Plan and other such actions, though the County has often delegated that authority to the Planning Commission, Hearing Examiner and others. Most people are familiar with dissolutions of marriage and are aware that these actions must be considered in an adjudicative proceeding. See the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which refers to petitions for the redress of grievances, which begin an adjudicative process.
Based upon a clear reading of RCW 85.38 and its procedures, there is no clear statement that this is a purely legislative action that does not have some sort of quasi-judicial or adjudicative action when there is a Petition for Dissolution of the District filed in the matter. This is obviously something that needs to be done in a quasi-judicial hearing using written adjudicative rules and procedures that are created before any Hearing, for which we were not given written notice. Therefore, we had no meaningful opportunity to even present the Petition nor to argue our case at all because of the improper actions of the Prosecutor and the Board in this matter.
If the County can act to dissolve such a flood control district under RCW 85.38.225, then the people have a right to petition the government for redress of grievances for dissolution of the flood control district as part of their control of their government which is the basis of all law. The people are the supreme power here, not the government, and Ms. Petrich’s assertion that nothing in the statute would allow the Board to consider dissolution is a false claim.
4. The County by its actions imposed unlawful prior restraints on our First and Fourteenth amendment rights to petition the government for redress of grievances and for equal protection and due process of law, thereby violating Article 1, Section 10 (Administration of Justice), and Section 4 (Right to Petition) of the Washington State Constitution.
We have the right to amend the Petition at any time, including up to the Court of Appeals because we are pro se litigants. In Gillespie vs Civoletti, the 9th Circuit Court required that pleadings of pro se litigants must be liberally construed, not like the Prosecuting Attorney did here.
We underscore that despite 6 months of our inquiries to the County Manager and the Board, the issues raised by Ms. Petrich the day of the hearing were never communicated and were fraudulently withheld, even after the Board had taken an action on January 11 to delay the Hearing when we had again asked for clarification.
As noted above, this issue could have been resolved with one communication from the County as to any problems concerning the Petition to give us the opportunity to amend our complaint thereby. This was a purely clerical correction of our Petition, normally allowed by the Court even for attorneys to at least the level of the Court of Appeals. Instead, the Prosecuting Attorney held our informal petition to improperly strict legal standards far above those of any attorney though we are senior and disabled pro se litigants, and she did so in a manner of surprise attacks and withholding of information and lack of transparency in all the proceedings to the point that we were misled as to what type of proceeding we were even in and hence, were not allowed a meaningful opportunity to be heard as Petitioners, as noted by several people.
As senior citizens and a disabled veteran, we would expect the County to have given us reasonable accommodations under the ADA for any administrative pleadings we may make,
as does the Office of Administrative Hearings which provides procedures for filing informal pleadings for pro se citizens. Instead, the County’s refusal to communicate with us, along with its delay of the Hearing, the evidence of backroom talks between the attorneys of the County and the District, and the withholding of information for months (we still have not received pleadings submitted by the Black Lake Flood Control District’s attorney) sadly reveal the County’s intent to bar us from our lawful right to petition, whose sole purpose was to protect the drinking water of this area.
5. There is NO proper agency record for the Board’s action.
Petitioners have submitted numerous documents to which we have referred, and others have also submitted comments to the Board, none of which were listed in the record on the County’s website. If this had been a purely legislative hearing, it would be subject to both SEPA and the Public Records Act which require an agency record that discloses to interested parties all information upon which a SEPA action is conducted for a legislative action PRIOR to any SEPA comment period and decision, which would be the only evidence that could be considered by the Board for a legislative action. Further, the Public Records Act does not allow any decision to be based upon documents which have not been disclosed in a proper manner, as does SEPA, an environmental full disclosure law and part of procedural due process.
6. The bond for the alum treatment was issued fraudulently.
We note admissions and concessions in the testimony of Ms. Gregory, attorney who negotiated the bond for the alum treatment, that the County would be liable for leftover payments of the bond. This is exactly what we stated last year when the Board was considering the bond. The County’s response to us at that time was that we were in error, that the County would not be liable, and a clause in the bond contract itself explicitly states that the County will not be held liable. Therefore, the County, the bonding company and the attorneys involved committed fraud last year by issuing a bond with that clause in violation of state law and by telling the public that the County would not accrue liability. Obviously, the bond was issued improperly, and this attorney violated her fiduciary and legal duty by including this clause which, it now appears, violates state law.
7. The only issue the Commissioners can consider in this matter is whether or not the actions taken by the Flood Control District were related to flood control, and whether or not such actions violated state law preventing the use of such materials in the sole source aquifer and the Strategic Groundwater Preserve established under WAC 173-591, which provides drinking water, groundwater and surface waters to the people and endangered and threatened species of plants and animals downstream both north and south of Black Lake.
Any testimony that was given to the Board that did not deal with flood control or with the adherence to laws protecting the environment, including WAC 173-591 and the Clean Water Act, would be the only public purposes that could be considered by the Commissioners. The Board must strike and/or refuse to consider any testimony which did not refer to these public interests as that testimony was irrelevant thereby. If such testimony is not stricken, it would only be to show that harm has been done to Black Lake because of the elimination of organic materials in the water column that allow one to see to the bottom of the Lake which is called Black Lake precisely because its natural state did not allow such clarity of the water. (See article by Bob Vadas, aquatic ecologist, in April’s Works in Progress). Any testimony that solely relates to recreational use of the lake for swimming, scuba diving and boating does not respond to Petitioners’ major claims regarding the contamination of the Strategic Groundwater Reserve and a sole source aquifer. Mr. Herrera’s testimony, in particular, cannot be considered as he has a conflict of interest, having still been with Herrera Environmental Consultants, the company which did the first alum treatment at Black Lake, in 2016. Department of Ecology permits cannot be relied on, as it has been found to be in violation of the Clean Water Act, and admits in its own documents it does not have “a coherent state program designed to address nonpoint pollution statewide and to protect threatened and endangered species as well as public health.” (page 54 of Responses to Comments on Ecology’s nonpoint pollution plan)
8. There was no testimony for maintaining the operation of a flood control district to prevent flooding on Black Lake, which does not flood, which is relevant to the only public purpose for creating such a district, as per RCW 85.38.
Obviously, without such testimony, there is no factual or legal basis to allow the continuation of a flood control district which does not do flood control and never has or will by its own admissions on their website and in their Resolutions, as we have noted in our prior pleadings.
Dissolution of this flood control district is required since there is no flood control on a lake that does not flood, and failure to do so would be erroneous and/or arbitrary and capricious - - - We don’t know who could argue with that, as we previously noted.
9. Finally, the Thurston County Code 17.12 has a BLACK LAKE STORMWATER CONTROL AREA with taxing authority.
A Thurston County agency already exists that does flood control at Black Lake, since control of stormwater IS flood control, especially at Black Lake which does not flood on its own without the influx of stormwater runoff from development in the area. The people of the area are already being taxed. There obviously is no need for double taxation of the residents in the District for flood control.
We incorporate by reference all our prior written pleadings and verbal testimony concerning this matter given to the Commissioners and the County over the last few years.
We hope you grant our Petition and thank you for your consideration.
Esther Kronenberg, Jerry Dierker and Gary Kline, on behalf of
Citizens for a Clean Black Lake
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1D) The Poor People’s Campaign Announces the Third Reconstruction
I got this message from Oly FOR:
Drawing on the transformational history of the First Reconstruction following the Civil War and the Second Reconstruction of the civil rights struggles of the 20th centu- ry, the Third Reconstruction is a revival of our constitutional commitment to establish justice, provide for the general welfare, end decades of austerity, and recognize that policies that center the 140 million poor and low-income people in the country are also good economic policies that can heal and transform the nation.
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, Repairers of the Breach and the Kairos Center have been a part of building a movement towards a Third Reconstruction for years. On May 20, the co-chairs of the Poor People’s Cam- paign, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, joined Representa- tives Pramila Jayapal and Barbara Lee as they announced a non-partisan congressional resolution to support this movement, entitled: Third Reconstruction: Fully Addressing Poverty & Low Wages From the Bottom Up.
This historic effort comes as a response to years of movement-building and emerges from the pain and organizing power of the 140 million. It reflects an omnibus vision to restructure our society from the bottom up, recognizing that in order to build a true Third Re- construction we must simultaneously deal with the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of health care, militarism and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism that blames the poor instead of the systems that cause poverty. It is one part of a broader movement to realize a Third Reconstruction, which we are building across the country in the Poor People’s Campaign’s 45 state coordinating committees and network of more than 250 labor and organizational partners and hundreds of faith partners, and dozens of national faith bodies.
As Frederick Douglass wrote during the years leading up to the First Reconstruction, “power concedes nothing without a demand.” From Appalachia to Alabama, the Carolinas to California, the Borderlands to the Bronx, from the hood to the holler, we are organiz- ing the power of the nation’s 140 million to ensure that the abundance we live in is marshalled towards the needs and priorities of the poor. We are carrying forward the legacies of the First Reconstruction and the Second Reconstruction and their demands for equity, liberty and justice for all.
Forward together, not one step back!
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1E) Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation Actions
As usual, Oly FOR is up to things. Here are a couple of their upcoming actions:
Olympia FOR is stirring as Spring arrives, with more daylight and more sunny days, less Covid, and new chal- lenges for the world. We are renewing commitment to justice through non-violence, as we gather (at least on Zoom) for the WWFOR Spring Assembly and to plan to support the Poor People’s Campaign March on Washing- ton, June 18, 2022.
During the pandemic, we’ve had mostly online events, outdoor vigils and a few outdoor social events—not the same, but opportunities to maintain our connections and plan modified activities. We’ve found that the upside of Zoom is that we can connect and work with people all over the world! and without spending precious natural resources to travel. We’re hoping to do more in-person events in the warmer months ahead, depending on Covid surges and the increased risks to older people.
We’re planning with the Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons to do tabling at the Olympia Farmers’ Market for non-violent support for Ukraine and humani- tarian assistance for the people of Ukraine and Afghani- stan, refugees and people still living in their devastated countries.
On Sunday, April 10th, at the joint meeting of Olym- pia and Tacoma FOR chapters we will discuss ideas for supporting the PPC June 18th March on Washington.
On Wednesday, April 13th, the Olympia Steering Committee will hear a proposal from Mr. Jacob Squirrel at 6:30 pm about a project to help activists with self-care, interactions between activists, and general conflict resolu- tion. Interested FOR members are invited to attend.
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1F) Grassroots Organizing: Free Workshops
Sign Up Now for Online Workshops Beginning April 24th
I got this message from Glen:
Here is FREE help for ALL of the issues you care about!
We are always the underdogs in working for issues we care about, but these FREE online workshops really can strengthen our skills and strategies to make significant progress on ANY and ALL of the issues you care about!
Nonviolent grassroots organizing has been proven to be effective, but people – even experienced activists – could make much more progress by strengthening our skills. This series of workshops (“Nonviolent Grassroots Organizing”) really can help!
People who have taken my workshops appreciate how interesting, informative, inspiring and practical they are.
SIGN UP NOW for my next series of FREE ONLINE WORKSHOPS.
They’ll run every Sunday from 1:30 to 3:30
Pacific Daylight Time from April 24 through May 29, 2002.
These workshops are FREE and user-friendly. They are good for people of ALL ages and ALL levels of experience.
People who have taken these workshops have found them informative, inspiring, and practical.
à See the flyer I’ve attached to this e-mail.
à See the second attachment, which summarizes the many powerful, practical and effective topics my workshops cover.
I posted the attached FLYER and the attached TOPIC SUMMARY to my blog:
https://parallaxperspectives.org/how-you-can-make-more-progress-on-issues-you-care-about
To sign up now, simply e-mail me at glenan...@integra.net or phone me at (360) 491-9093.
à Please share this opportunity with other people who might be interested!
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2) We Are the Middle of Forever
Sunday, April 24th
1 to 3 pm on Zoom
I got this information from Oly FOR:
Sunday, April 24, 2022 1:00 PM 3:00 PM [via Zoom]
For our LRR April Gathering, we are deeply honored to welcome Dahr Jamail and Stan Rushworth, editors of the captivating new book: "We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth". This will be a special opportunity to hear insights from this powerful, intimate collection of conversations with Indigenous Americans on the climate crisis and the Earth's future.
Although for a great many people, the human impact on the Earth—countless species becoming extinct, pandemics claiming millions of lives, and climate crisis causing worldwide social and environmental upheaval—was not apparent until recently, this is not the case for all people or cultures. For the Indigenous people of the world, radical alteration of the planet, and of life itself, is a story that is many generations long. They have had to adapt, to persevere, and to be courageous and resourceful in the face of genocide and destruction—and their experience has given them a unique understanding of civilizational devastation.
An innovative work of research and reportage, We Are the Middle of Forever places Indigenous voices at the center of conversations about today’s environmental crisis. The book draws on interviews with people from different North Ameri- can Indigenous cultures and communities, generations, and geographic regions, who share their knowledge and experience, their questions, their observations, and their dreams of maintaining the best relationship possible to all of life. A welcome antidote to the despair arising from the climate crisis, We Are the Middle of Forever brings to the forefront the perspectives of those who have long been attuned to climate change and will be an indispensable aid to those looking for new and differ- ent ideas and responses to the challenges we face.
http://www.dahrjamail.net/ https://thenewpress.com/books/we-are-middle-of-forever https://learningrightrelations.org/ https://forusa.org/ (co-sponsor)
$25 suggested donation (sliding scale / no one turned away for lack of funds)
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3) Thurston Live Hunger Walk
Sunday May 1st
3 pm @ Saint Martin’s University Track
I got this message from Glen:
Give today to help feed your hungry neighbors. Your donation benefits Thurston County Food Bank and The Community Kitchen equally.
It’s fun and simple. Visit ThurstonHungerWalk.com to donate and support the team of your choice today! (On-line giving ends Monday, May 2, 2022.)
Walk if you want around Saint Martin’s Track – Sunday, May 1 at 3 pm.
can give
on-line, in person at The Walk, or send a Hunger Walk check to: Thurston’s
Hunger Walk, 220 Thurston Ave. NE, Olympia, WA 98501
All tax-deductible gifts equally benefit Thurston County Food Bank and The Community Kitchen.
Support a team today! Donate at – ThurstonHungerWalk.com
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4) Bonus Tip of the Day:
Don’t accept the status quo.
Peace.
Dana
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LINKS:
To Donate:
https://www.patreon.com/TheThunderbolt
Online version of this week’s Thunderbolt newsletter:
https://dana98501.wordpress.com/2022/04/06/tb-220406-the-endless-war-continued/
The Thunderbolt newsletter archive (new editions posted every Wednesday morning) and the Thunderbolt radio program archive (new shows posted every Friday morning):
https://dana98501.wordpress.com/
The Thunderbolt Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/ThurstonActivists/?fref=ts