Just came across this....
"God Bless America"?

There is more...URL at bottom.

j.

Commuting By Bus In Denver? Papers, Please.
DEB DAVIS LIKES to commute to work by public bus. She uses the time to read, crochet or pay bills. It's her quiet time. What with the high price of gas, she saves money, too: a week's worth of gas money gets her a month's worth of bus rides.

Deborah Davis and Son

Deborah Davis defends freedom at home while her son serves abroad in Iraq.
The bus she rides crosses the property of the Denver Federal Center, a collection of government offices such as the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, and part of the National Archives. The Denver Federal Center is not a high security area: it's not Area 51 or NORAD.

On her first day commuting to work by bus, the bus stopped at the gates of the Denver Federal Center. A security guard got on and demanded that all of the passengers on this public bus produce ID. She was surprised by the demand of the man in uniform, but she complied: it would have meant a walk of several miles if she hadn't. Her ID was not taken and compared to any "no-ride" list. The guard barely glanced at it.

When she got home, what had happened on the bus began to bother her. 'This is not a police state or communist Russia', she thought. From her 8th grade Civics class she knew there is no law requiring her, as an American citizen, to carry ID or any papers, much less show them to anyone on a public bus.

She decided she would no longer show her ID on the bus.

For the next two weeks she said had no ID. The guards would then ask her if she was getting off on Denver Federal Center property. When she told them 'no', they would let her alone: not once was she ever asked to get off the bus.
The Compliance Test
On Monday, September 26th 2005, Deb Davis headed off to work on the route 100 bus. When the bus got to the gates of the Denver Federal Center, a guard got on and asked her if she had an ID. She answered in the affirmative. He asked if he could see it. She said no.

Welcome.

Visitors Welcome (to be arrested). The entrance to the Denver Federal Center.
When the guard asked why she wouldn't show her ID, Deb told him that she didn't have to do so. The guard then ordered her off the bus. Deb refused, stating she was riding a public bus and just trying to get to work.

The guard then went to call his supervisor, and returned shortly with a federal policeman. The federal cop then demanded her ID. Deb politely explained once again that she would not show her ID, and she was simply commuting to work. He left, returning shortly thereafter with a second policeman in tow.
The Second Compliance Test
This second cop asked the same question and got the same answer: no showing of ID, no getting off the bus.

The cop was also annoyed with the fact that she was on the phone with a friend and didn't feel like hanging up, even when he 'ordered' her to do so.

The second cop said everyone had to show ID any time they were asked by the police, adding that if she were in a Wal-Mart and was asked by the police for ID, that she would have to show it there, too.

She explained that she didn't have to show him or any other policeman my ID on a public bus or in a Wal-Mart. She told him she was simply trying to go to work.
The Arrest
Suddenly, the second policeman shouted "Grab her!" and he grabbed the cell phone from her and threw it to the back of the bus. With each of the policemen wrenching one of her arms behind her back, she was jerked out of her seat, the contents of her purse and book bag flying everywhere. The cops shoved her out of the bus, handcuffed her, threw her into the back seat of a police cruiser, and drove her to a police station inside the confines of the Denver Federal Center.

Once inside, she was taken down a hall and told to sit in a chair, still handcuffed, while one of the policemen went through her purse, now retrieved from the bus.

The two policemen sat in front of their computers, typing and conferring, trying to figure out what they should charge her with. Eventually, they wrote up several tickets, took her outside and removed the handcuffs, returned her belongings, and pointed her toward the bus stop. She was told that if she ever entered the Denver Federal Center again, she would go to jail.

She hasn't commuted by public bus since that day.

What are the issues involved?

http://www.papersplease.org/davis/facts.html

So you have lived in the U.S. eight years and on the personal experience gained in those years you say "God Bless America."

It is an error to proceed from the personal, the subjective. In doing so you ignore the experience of tens, nay, hundreds of thousands whose experience encompasses the hundreds of years since their forbears were dragged here on slave ships in chains.

If you have lived here for eight years perhaps you know that the term "nigger" has not been lost from the U.S. lexicon and that, even when not spoken, the treatment that historically went with that terminology persists.

Surely, since the beginning of your eight years here you bacame aware of the death of the "nigger" Amadou Diallo, shot down by New York police with twentyone bullets, for no crime at all.

Were he to come back would he say "God bless America?"

Were I to speak from my own personal experience I would tell you that the U.S. government has a dossiea on me dating back to the age of 16 (I am now seventyone) when I first joined the revolutionary socialist movement.

I can tell you that as recently as six months ago my public access television show on Atlanta's public access channel was cancelled (Without due process in a courtroom) allegedly because I insisted, on the show, of calling the managers of the channel whores and prostitutes for diverting assets and facilities of the channel to their own ends.

The public access channel was set up by Atlanta government as a First Amendment Forum.

The truth of the matter is that I was removed because of the things I have been saying about the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. I have taken much of that material from Al Jazeera on line, and as well other publications telling the truth about US criminal activities in Iraq. One does not get good treatment when one stands on the side of "The enemy," the "terrorists."

But then again one must understand the difference between the terrorism of the US government and the terrorism of the oppressed.

Had you lived here more than eight years you might know about the terrorism visited on the slave holders here by such as the slave Nat Turner and the white preacher John Brown although they failed to bring about the slave uprising they envisioned. It took the US civil war to achieve that, i.e., the end to legal slave holding.

The terror unleashed by Turner and Brown could not achieve the end of the terror of slavery. But the terror goes on

I was removed for speaking out on the side of the just and appropriate terror directed against the US occupation of Iraq. In this country upon which you call down blessings it will soon be a crime to speak as I do here, and as well in Britain. Indeed the President, and at least part of the court system, asserts he has the right to declare as "enemy combatants" those of us who speak up in defense of the popular resistance in Iraq. Enemy combatants, the President asserts can be jailed without access to attorneys, trial, or any representation or hearing in a court. "God bless [that] America?"

Long live the Iraqi resistence to occupation and the struggle to bring down this US imperialist government.

Jack Jersawitz
404-892-1238
bigjack2@bellsouth.net

Whoa, dude! No one has the right to speak for everyone. We're not a heard of sheep, you know?

I think U.S. press is concerned with U.S. issues involving the war so that's where it's focused. I've heard both versions of our side ~ but there are holes in the information, important pieces that have gone missing. Al Jazeera does a great job in filling some of them. Because of them, I got to hear from bin Laden, who explained what happened that caused his out-rage. Of course, he didn't explain why he feels he has a claim on Afghanistan and Iraq, but if those channels are kept open, this dialogue would follow.

And if Abu Musab al'Zarqawi wants my head... he can have it. It's bad enough to be hated by him, but to not understand why is something I just can't deal with. I'm sorry, but life just doesn't mean that much to me. It's not worth it if brothers kill brothers and everyone hates each other.

The River

He/she must be terrorized by USA journalistic terrorism and have been brain washed, it is normal for American people to think so about Aljazeera because they cannot stand reality or the truth, they are bewitched and mesmerized by USA journalistic terrorism. What would any reasonable person think of people living in USA or in other part of the world were the Constitution is hijacked by the media outlets and other terrorists.

Perhaps you're true, but i think that it must enforce our involve for more discussion with "dissidents" of this broadcast channel. Sure there are problems and bad things, but, objectively, one can't say Al jazeera give bad tracks to her viewers. This is why we must more and more discuss, explain, with sincerity and accuracy...

Abdsamad BELGHITI
PARIS - France
www.generations123.com