Wednesday, July 4, 2012

The Assault on America’s Civil Justice System


This is a public service posting:
 
The Assault on America’s Civil Justice System

                                      And Your Constitutional Rights

 
The regular second Tuesday of the month meeting of South Dakota Peace and Justice will investigate the long-term corporate propaganda campaign to convince Americans that they should give up their constitutional rights in the name of tort reform.  With three hundred and twelve million citizens in our country, it is easy for vested financial interests to find an occasional case where the system has been abused.  The case of the elderly woman who spilled scalding McDonalds’ coffee in her lap was not such an incident!
 
The multiple film festival winning documentary, Hot Coffee: Is Justice Being Served? will be shown.  This film looks at numerous cases that have been totally distorted, and the subsequent atmosphere thus created, which prevents our system of justice from redressing egregious damage to our citizens.  Local defense attorneys Mike Wilson and Jim Leach will lead a discussion following the documentary.
 
The general public is always encouraged to attend our free presentations.  We meet at the St. Isaac Joques Church, adjacent to the Mother Butler Center.  The church is located at 221 Knollwood , across the street from the Carmike 10 Theater.   The meeting starts at 7 PM and usually lasts about two hours. Coffee and light refreshment are served.  Please encourage anyone you know who is concerned about the continued erosion of our civil right by the emerging oligarchy in our country to attend.
 
 For further information contact Jim Petersen at 342-6245 or MaryJo Farrington at 716-5166.
 

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Governor misinformed or misleading?


I heard and interesting story two weeks ago while engaged in the weekly Saturday Occupy Rapid City protest on a corner along Main Street in Rapid City.  The story was being related in a casual and conversational way, similar to discussing the weather or some other interesting incident of a less than cataclysmic importance.  When hearing this type of recounting of a seemingly innocuous happening some my reply, “That doesn’t surprise me.”

A delegation of visiting members of British Parliament and other British officials were visiting South Dakota in the early part of June.  On June 6 they were in Pierre where the story has it that one of the members of the group asked Governor Daugaard about the Occupy Movement in South Dakota.  In the story, the Governor’s reply was something to the effect that “we don’t have that in South Dakota.”   The Governor must get his news from Rapid City news sources where the activities of the Occupy Movement are not reported on unless it offends an entity like Duhamel Broadcasting.  In addition to the every Saturday protests in Rapid City, members of Occupy Rapid City have given their support to and participated in the protests by several groups in Rapid City since their local beginning in October of 2011.

It is a little hard for outsiders to track the local Occupy Movement since it does not have a hierarchical structure or an official organizational membership list.  However, there are several South Dakota Occupy Movement group websites that list members numbering from seventy or so to nearly on hundred.  There are also quite a number of people that post on these sites that appear to think of themselves as members of the Occupy Movement even if their names don’t appear on a group page membership list. 

It is obvious that participation has waned considerably from what it was during the first exciting days when it was new concept for a lot of people with, perhaps, less than realistic expectations.  Still it is less than accurate for the Governor to tell our British guests that “we don’t have that in South Dakota.”