thornhill - We're still well fed. Apathy is doing the job for us.

This might change soon, as the powers that be seem to think that they can get away with withholding food if the circus is good enough.

carridin1 - The fact is, the government has many more gun (and better) guns than you ever could.

Hm. The fact is, Vietnam and Iraq.

During the civil war, friendly and enemy territory were delineated geographically. A class war would not be, and most of the soldiers would have lower-class backgrounds. I'll let you figure out what the implications of this would be.

The 2nd amendment has already guaranteed a plentiful supply of arms and ammunition for virtually everybody in the United States. Nothing can change this except time travel.

All class wars are avoidable. All the greedheads have to do is to settle for being only fabulously wealthy.

if i ever heard of any of them going postal i probably wouldnt blame them... though who to go postal against would be questionable... fight the machine...

what a terrible public relations move on the part of whatever corporation this is (did not rtfa). you'd think they'd just let the back rent slide.

Does it make you feel less worthless when you become passionate about an issue? The supreme court made the right decision, states will make laws soon to fix this loophole, stop talking about retaking the country by force when you don't have enough energy to climb the stairs and leave the house.

There's got to be more to this story. The linked blog is based on a news story that's over a month old now (July 14).

Searching on theday.com and www.norwichbulletin.com for articles with "kelo" and "rent" only get one editorial letter. You would think as much of a hot-button topic as this is, some other news outlet would have picked it up. Anyone find any other news stories?

This is how violent & bloody revolutions get started.
Great job Supreme Court... you stupid farkers.

All those mentioning Highways... duh, that's actual public use.

The Constitution(OTUS) shouldn't even be an issue here.

There's nothing in the Constitution about not spitting on people, telephoning them at 3 in the morning, or shaving their pets. There are just some things you don't do.

Taking peoples property and giving it to someone else is just plain wrong, it's called Stealing.

Well dam...
Just DAM
I'm so fregin mad i cant emagin how the former homeowners feel.

I wouldnt be suprised if some one whent timothy mcbay on this company.

Screw postal this is BEOND postal.
This is umm. hell what is beond postal anyway.

A copy of the e-mail I just send to the NLDC:

Subject:
A Connecticut Resident, on the Kelo Decision

Text:
As a resident of Connecticut (and one whose tax dollars are presumably helping to pay for the eviction of Suzette Kelo and Wilhelmina Dery), I am writing to express my extreme disapproval of the actions of the New London Development Corporation. I'm sure you remember the story of the insane Vietnam general who said "We had to destroy the village in order to save it;" do you not see a correlation with your idea that "We have to kick out the neighborhood residents in order to make the neighborhood a better place to live?"

And while forcing an octogenarian to leave the home she's lived in since birth is vile and despicable enough, charging such a woman over a quarter of a million dollars in back rent as punishment for fighting her eviction orders strikes me as purely spiteful.

I will be buying a house in Eastern Connecticut sometime in the next year, but I dare not do so in New London, knowing how little respect for property rights the city has. If you are bound and determined to give the Pfizer corporation some waterfront property, why not give them Ocean Beach? At least OB is the city's to give away.

If you can only save the city by evicting your law-abiding residents, consider the very real possibility that the city just isn't worth saving at all.

What we lack now as a people are the balls to do anything about this. Give an inch, they'll take a foot. Give another inch, they'll take another foot.

How about this: instead of complaining we have a fark party on the properties of these poor people as the construction is scheduled to begin.

Of course, I won't be there because I don't care until it affects me.

/typical
//my first slashes
///not as fun as I thought

SexyPants

States rights have been superceded for a long time now.

The only thing that is going to take them back at this point, is force.

xia might be on to something, Viva La Revolution!

That's just terrible

I really hope there are at least few pipe hittin nubianz in that neighborhood that have nothing left to loose and execute prejudice on these jews.

Why the fark are people arguing over party lines about this? I don't care who the Supreme Court justices were selected by, they're still assholes for this decision.

Just think what the American people could do to this corporation if we tossed aside our party affiliations and just farking agreed to do something about the encroachment of our rights.

Although I suppose if the corporate media really reported on this thing, we'd end up with pundits from both sides arguing about irrelevant party politics, much like this thread. It's divide and rule, people. It's worked for centuries to keep uppity citizens down. Someone just pissed all over our fifth amendment. I do believe it's time to piss all over them, wether our piss be red or blue or purple (or a bad metaphor).

All I know is that here in Canada (Hamilton, ON) there's a large plaza that was built about 10 years ago. The plaza has a large parking lot, except one fenced-off area. You know what that is? That's the house of the guy who refused to sell. His whole city block is a plaza, except his house.

Yep, that evil, Liberal Canada. Hell, Hamilton is even more left-wing than many parts of Canada, often voting for the NDP (left of the Liberal party).

See? Civilised countries can play nice.

Radioactive Ass
scooby111

OMFG! An honest intellectual respectful discussion from both sides of the fence. Isn't that against the rules on Fark?
Kudos to you both for being dignified in your conversation.


/sick of "it's the [left/right]'s fault" bs
//fix it or stop biatching
///VOTE!

PotVsKtl, is right. All this "blame the left, the right voted against it" crap is off target.

The justices that voted "yes" didn't vote that the homeowners should lose their homes - they voted that "yes" the state and local officials should control how eminent domain is used.

The justices that voted "no" were voting to take the control away from the states and let the Feds control eminent domain.

Since the right wing controls both the Executive and Legislative branch of the government now - letting them have control over eminent domain issues scares the hell out of me.

Our outrage and complaints about this case needs to be aimed at the NEW JERSEY officials that are allowing their citizens to be forced out of them homes - NOT at the SCOTUS.

In fact, each of should be worried about our own state's policy about this. Don't waste time protesting to the folks in New Jersey if you don't live there. You need to contact your local governemt and make sure they understand your position on this - to protect your own property.


If oranjello's comment is true, than Hoo-ray for Alabama for taking the SCOTUS decision and doing the right thing with it.

Sorry, it's the Connecticut official we should be angry at, not New Jersey. My bad.

/don't hate on New Jersy

Libertarians crack me up, they claim they represent the party of freedom, when in reality their ideology would only lead to corporatism.

Seems to me the issue here is that the Supreme Court decided to redefine the term "Public Use". It wasn't so much that they upheld the states rights to use eminent domain, that they gave them broader power in exercising it, beyond the wording of the consitution.

To understand why eminent domain is so important to the neo-communist Democrats, familiarize yourself with the first plank of Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" ( aka: "The Democrat Bible").

If this were the case, then the democrats would be pushing for the dissolution of marriage and family, which isn't on their agenda last time I checked. In fact, they seem to want to strengthen those ties by allowing more people to get married, whereas the republicans have taken the opposite stance. So please can we stop with the total bullshiat? I'm not particularly fond of communism, mostly because of it's blind obedience to the state, and it's renouncement of social and emotional ties to others, but everything has it's good and it's bad points. Socialized healthcare is one of those things that the more I see people in need of it, the more I believe that some kind of dual-system might be the most appropriate.

Case in point, close friends father had major heart surgery last year. He now owes $1XX,000 for that surgery, because his insurance only paid for 2/3 of it. He needed it to live. He didn't take away an organ from someone else in need of a donor. It was just straight out surgery, and no one else (probably) ended up being sacrificed for him to go through it. Still, you can always make the argument that if you can't pay, then too bad. I don't agree with it, but I see the point. Except, this is a man who:

A) Works at a medical university
B) Does cancer research that has led to significant breakthroughs in treatments and possible cures.

If anyone should have ready access to the medical care they need, someone who is working to save other people, at the university that is partnered with the hospital that performed his surgery, it should be someone like him.

I hope they're not surprised when their new development gets burned to the ground multiple times.

Noam Chimpsky:

I don't see Democrats introducing legislation to protect citizens from government land grabs. I only see Republicans pushing this legislation after the Kelo ruling.

You can live without a house. You can't live without life. Property is not the most important principle or right in a free society.

buwolverine: A. My ass always knows what the fark is going on.

That's good. You give your momma less to worry about.

B. I already know nobody will care what happens to me. See A.

I do. What happens to you, ultimately happens to me. If I allow you to be abused by the system, I weaken myself. Plus, I believe in ideas.

C. But you can damn well bet it won't be a Libertarian militia uprising that does me in. And no I don't assume that the extreme of the Libertarian party presides over it, I don't assume the Libertarian party is organized enough for anybody to have any sway over it. You can't have that many divergent view points and expect to have a coherent political party, or coherent viewpoints. If they're smart they'll (all) shut-up about militias and campaign on the idea of less government intrusion in private life.

I agree. But this is how things begin. There is always a radical fringe that inspires people to action, and thought.

D. I take three orange pills a day, the red ones do nothing for the headaches.

:)

Senator Bill Nelson (dem) is holding a press conference tommorow? (just saw this on the news I will have to check his website) at 11am in Orlando specifically to address Kelo, its impact on Florida, and what his plans are concerning it. Bill Nelson is also one of the Senators working with Sen. Mel Martinez (Rep.) to author a bill that limits the impact of Kelo.

If anything does happen, we need to be sure that everyone in New London has read this site: www.fija.org

Jury Nullification...learn it, love it, live it.

Jerks.

The residents should 'salt the earth'. Get a few barrels of PCBs and bulldoze them into the dirt. Any fines levied by the EPA will pale in comparison to what they're already paying and won't matter when they file for personal bankrupcy. That way the development company will be on the hook for millions of dollars of environmental cleanup cost.

America is dead. Welcome to Corporitica.

New London Development Group - http://www.nldc.org/contactus.htm:

165 State Street, Suite 313 -- New London, CT 06320
Phone: (860) 447-8011 -- Fax: (860) 447-3833

Dave Goebel - Chief Operating Officr - davemgcdlnor­g

Jenny Wronowski - Chief Finncial (sic) Officer - mailto:jwr­ono­w­sk­ic­d­lno­rg

John Brooks - Development Manager - jbro­o­k­sc­dln­org

All we need is for one person to die protecting their home from the U.S government.

What's it going to take for an armed militia to march on Washington?

The sad thing is, most Americans are so damn apathetic to their own rights that they don't even care, as long as their house isn't the one getting uprooted.

"If I allow you to be abused by the system, I weaken myself."

I hate to break it to you this way, but in a small part of Indiana, I am the system. And I rather enjoy certain elements of self abuse:)

"There is always a radical fringe that inspires people to action, and thought."

Yeah, but the succesful ones are always peaceful. The Whiskey Rebellion was put down, the Civil Rights movement won. Or at least came closer to winning. I have no problem with inspiring people to action and thought, I just don't like it being done by militias, that isn't inspiration, it cohercion. Anytime somebody feels the need to use a gun to make their point it isn't about having their ideas heard, its about power.

buwolverine: Yeah, but the succesful ones are always peaceful. The Whiskey Rebellion was put down, the Civil Rights movement won.

Actually the Civil Rights movement was a combination of peaceful and violent movements. Each group had their own philosophy. It can be argued that one without the other would have caused the movement to fail immediately.

"It can be argued that one without the other would have caused the movement to fail immediately."

I guess I would argue that the the anger the militants faction of the civil rights movement created within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations acutally slowed the process. They gave fuel to Hoover's fire to supress civil rights, and pretty well pissed off RFK for putting him in a bad position with Hoover.

If the only images of the Civil Rights movement had been peaceful demonstrations and violent white reaction to them it would have made the movement completely sympathetic to middle America who really didn't understand conditions in the deep south. And when the Black Panthers came on the scene if just scared the crap out of them, and gave the Conservatives faithful converts to the "Southern Strategy."
I think the moment the Southern Strategy gained traction the Civil Rights movement started to grind to a halt, peaceful and otherwise. Even today its still stymied, they just replace African-American with whatever minority that middle America is supposed to be afraid, gays, muslims, anti-Christian.

Cynders: Why the fark are people arguing over party lines about this?

For exactly the same reason we argue over party lines for everything, including stuff that clearly has nothing to do with political parties, like Guantanamo abuses, the war in Iraq, the drug war, or the patriot act. We can't fix it, but we've fooled ourselves into believing we have some control over it.

It doesn't really matter *which* party you've fooled yourself into trusting, of course. You'll always find plenty of evidence the other guy's party doing the wrong thing, and plenty of evidence of your party talking about doing the right things.

Horrible things happen to people everyday. People don't get into an uproar unless it involves property though.

Maybe when cars are partly biological, and can get HIV or ebola, having a humain outlook in life will become mainstream. Or, maybe we should just bring back buying and selling of human beings without a basis of skin pigmentation.

Murder, or take away the boards' houses... the only way to fix this problem.

Just to throw this out there, maybe through contancts and stuff, if my assessment is correct, someone who is in the thick of all this will be able to use it to their advantage. I would think it would be obvious though.

The people living in these houses have likely been paying their Mortgage and Utilities still, I believe currently those average about $2500 per month for a single family owning a home altogether. If the city assumed contorol over the housing and the owners would have had to pay rent until they left, the city should have and would have assumed the Mortgage and Utilities, likely by charging $3000 - $4000 rent, or even overinflating that to force the homeowners out. but at eaither rate, all the homowners should track down proof of payment for all things the city should have been covering since the takeover, such as the Mortgage and Utilities, and sue the city with those total expenses

at an average of $2500 per month, that means most of those homeowners, after 60 months, should be owed $150,000 by the city BEFORE their $57,000 or so they owe the city

At the very least

Andref: Just to throw this out there

I like the way you're thinking :)

A beautiful piece of land next to the ocean.

A verry large Navel System that works on electronics.

A bunch of homes worth about 15,000, most deplated, run down abanded fire hazards..

A chance for a city to do something with this shiat pit.

90 percent took the money and ran gladly.

The few hold outs, some bought the land after they knew it was going to be used for the betterment of all in the area, to sell for a profit of course.

Ok maybe 2 of them actually wanted to stay. The loudest already bought a home down the road..

It was a blighted part of town.. I drove thru it each day on the way to the Sound Lab as a civil servent employee.
Like going thru the getto.

If they let the one person keep his home.. Out of the goodness of there hart, It means the home will be worth a million bucks.. good move on the home owner. The will not be able to pay the taxes, so will sell. The new owner will have a good piece of property. The one home owner will make some bucks.. Thats what it is all about..
I say if the beeding hearts want there way, and believe the homeowner really wants to live there, zone it home only. Then he could live there, low taxes, and no one would want to buy it.. win win. It is a nice place to live now.

Quit feeling sorry for some one who just is after the buck.
shiat happens. Still no cure for cancer.

...