Click to enlarge/read. Uploaded 2:00 PMSo I get a call mid-noon from a reporter at my favorite bricks-and-mortar newspaper, the Springfield Republican requesting comment (since I'm Amherst's token conservative) about a Warrant Article signed by 129 residents coming before Town Meeting this fall (a painfully outdated legislative body I first joined in 1991) concerning relocating Guantanamo Detainees to the People's Republic of Amherst.
Of course my first reaction is laughter (Only in Amherst!) and then I rant and rave a bit mentioning how peacenik, do-gooders went to Iraq in 1991 (the first Gulf War supported by 90% of America, but unanimously NOT by Amherst Town Meeting) just before coalition forces pulled the trigger and Saddam Hussein used the naive nitwits as shields.
But then she pointed out the key word "cleared"--as in, they had nothing to do with 9/11, the USS Cole sneak attack, bombing our embassies in Africa, etc. They were simply caught up in the reaction to that horrible, horrible day--forever emblazoned in our psyche as the numbers 9/11.
Although I'm sick of the bricks-and-mortar media story about how that newfangled DNA evidence proves somebody innocent who has been imprisoned for 20 years, I agree those innocent victims should be justly compensated.
Only as long as they are CLEARED: by the FBI, CIA, Justice Department, and even our little old Northwestern District Attorney. Under those conditions, bring 'em on!
19 comments:
Why does Amherst have authority to speak for the Pioneer Valley?
The warrant should be re-written to identify all of the claims relative to Amherst and it's desire that take in the 'cleared of being terrorists' former detainees.
They warrant should also identify the estimated funding required to so accomplish the initiative.
Yeah, good point.
This is all still "hot copy" to me as I have only been in possession of the warrant article itself for an hour or so.
But I'm sure it will start getting LOTS of discussion starting tomorrow morning. And even the Gazette may follow up (turtles that they are.)
LOL.
Give them Amherst for a couple of weeks, they'll be building nukes behind the UMASS green houses!
So does this mean that you will be voting "yes" on the resolution?
I agree with Anon 2:42 that the use of the phrase "Pioneer Valley" to designate the place of refuge is presumptuous in the extreme.
I am happily not on Town Meeting this year, but I wish that there was a way for members to abstain on the record or to respond "I believe that Town Meeting is not the proper forum for this issue."
We have not had a resolution like this one for some time, and that has been just fine. There should be some requirement attached to these articles that there must be a canvass of the residents before a TM member can presume to speak for his/her neighbors on these matters.
In the absence of that, I continue to believe that Amherst voters do not delegate the authority to their precinct's TM members to represent their views on national and international matters. But that does not appear to be the prevailing view.
Just another episode of "Sovereignty of the Self" in Amherst Town Meeting, for those of you who miss those bygone days of high school student council.
Rich Morse
a waste of town meetings time....who are these 129 people...
Oh come on Mr. Morse don't you remember Special Town Meeting Nov. 1, 2006 where only 4 warrant articles were voted on.
One called for no attack on Iran, another for a stop to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, a third called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney and last but not least called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
I actually voted in favor of the Darfur one, but strongly voted No to the other three. Naturally all four passed rather overwhelmingly.
Another reason why Amherst is the laughing stock of the free world. Lets invite terrorists to come live among us.
can you post who the 129 are or is that available?
Yeah, I could--they are public documents.
But I was on my bike and I only had 25 cents and the town charges 20 cents per page so I only copied the main page containing the actual resolution and not the other 5 or 6 pages of signatures (all of them from Amherst).
Amherst, where the wine flows like liquid prozac!
F'ing dump.
Except of course around the barriers on Lincoln Avenue.
You may have seen the complaining on Mary Streeter's Yahoo Group this spring that Town Meeting went way too fast.
Can't have that.
Ms. Hooke, one of the article's sponsors, told Masslive.com tonight that the article is "an educational endeavor". She failed to mention that this is an educational endeavor to a captive audience. Which is what truly makes it the ideal forum for whatever we happen to think up: attendance is checked at the door and those attendance records get published more widely these days.
So we'll take care of this problem of greater TM efficiency. After all, we can't have people with families, work lives, and other responsibilities coming in there and then fouling up the works with their damned motions to end discussion, long before we've had a chance to vent whatever happens to be on our minds that is undoubtedly of interest to the whole body, thereby ruining our little debating society.
Gotta keep this party limited to only the truly committed. And this is where TM has gone wrong in recent years, with these dilettantes, with their single-minded focus on the minutiae of town business, coming in from outside our little group of global visionaries.
Repeat after me: if the TM process doesn't waste hours and hours of time, it isn't true democracy.
and one wonders why that in town elections...there are never enough people running for town meeting (at least in my district usually 5 or 6 for 8 seats)....nobody has the time or energy to listen to certain opeople 'spout-off' about nothing that has to do with the town...
Maybe it was created by people who want Guantanimo to stay open. Because once you specify where the 'cleared' terrorists are going to live support for closing the prison drops.
Can you find out who the people are who want this?
Where is the list?
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