(Hartford) The Knitty Gritty Committee’s recent installation outside the Charter Oak Cultural Center…

I love that this group exists and is taking direct action to beautify their neighborhood and remind us all that our streets are alive.  From their mission statement posted on their blog, the Knitty Gritty Committee (KGC) seeks to “…bring art, personality and beauty to sterile environments. This opportunity allows us to make a statement against hard, cold, masculine culture by taking a widely-viewed warm and cozy feminine past-time to the streets.”

Awesome!

Unfortunately, at the end of their statement they take a jab (I’ll assume inadvertently) at people who are homeless by referring to such folks as “bums”, further perpetuating the stereotype that people who don’t  have a home or a job, are lazy.  Also, I have to take issue with their description that implies most graffiti is about destruction.  It seems the KGC folx are trying to distinguish themselves from other street artists who are unfairly tagged (pun intended) as vandals, but personally I see both forms as legitimate public art.

No need to make enemies or draw lines in the sand KGC…It could be your group next that is compared to arsonists, such as State Senator John Fonfara did recently in an interview with The Hartford News describing graffiti artists. Street artists of all stripes (and their supporters) need to stand together and continue to challenge societies notions of what art is or where it belongs.

Anyway, I really appreciate and admire what you do and hope y’all keep up the great work!

UPDATE: Since the posting of this article, KGC’s mission statement has been updated and now reads:

“The Knitty Gritty Committee is the one and only Hartford yarn bombing chapter. Our influences came from Houston’s Knitta, and they deserve credit for the concept.

Yarn bombing is a type of street art which employs colorful displays of hand-made textiles placed in an urban landscape. Like most graffiti, yarn bombing isn’t about destruction, but bringing art, personality and beauty to sterile environments. This opportunity allows us to make a statement against hard, cold, masculine culture by taking a widely-viewed warm and cozy feminine past-time to the streets. Perhaps we’ll even bring some “mother” nature to Hartford.

Our targets include many objects in need of sweaters: trees, lamp posts, fire hydrants, fences, benches, monuments, statues, railings, and other urban objects.

All are welcome – male/female, crocheter/knitter.
Even if you don’t know how to knit, all you need is a willingness to learn. We also appreciate scrap yarn donations for those unable to participate in the stitching process.

For those worried about the loss or damage of a finely knit product – don’t fret. Think of it as a public service or arts donation. Odds are you’ll make someone’s day!”

“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
- Saying attributed to the Old Man of the Mountain, leader of the assassins, the Hashishin

The events in Manchester Ct. at Hartford Distributors on August 3rd and what happened on September 11th in New York are bound together by a history of violence. The history in question is the past history of this nation, my nation, America. Born out of Revolutionary War and having waged the longest guerrilla war against the native indigenous people, 300+ years, we were born out of violence. As a young male during the 50’s and 60’s, Viet Nam was where I was going. I was raised inside the war machine as a military dependent (Army brat) for 14 years and on my 18th birthday in 1969 enlisted and volunteered for Viet Nam. I was born and bred for war, fed a daily diet of war programs disguised as high school sports. Filled with pride in our always victorious results we were suckled at the teats of wolves on the milk of violence.

This early psychological conditioning has been augmented by the use of even more intrusive and ubiquitous technology, the Internet, cell phones, i-pods and Black Berry’s. War games and interactive video have taught the bravery of being out of range and fed the vicarious hunger of voyeur killers. Americans have been conditioned to respond to any threat, real or perceived with violence.

There is a correlation between the rise in violent actions within society and the return to society of millions of veterans bringing their wars home with them. Civil society is pressured when our leaders respond with military actions by stoking fear and paranoia. Fear and suspicion is visible in every workplace, security officers are now the fastest growing career and the Office of Homeland Security by its very title reflects that paranoia. Do not think that our children do not see how we respond. They watch us and emulate us.

The Teeth of the Dragon is a reference to mythology. The Greek Jason of Argonaut and Golden Fleece fame, was tested by the King of Colchis. He was given the ensorcelled teeth of a dragon to plant on a field of battle. From the bloody soil sprang full grown warriors that he must then destroy. The test required violent response to violence conceived. This is the never-ending forever war that leaders of our nation nurture. It is replicated in society at large. One of my brothers-in –arms from Viet Nam says it succinctly, “What you do, you become.”

Dave Ionno
Veteran for Peace and Against the Wars

This article by Ryan Harvey of the Civilian Soldier Alliance raises some insightful points about what we are really celebrating on Independence Day. Thanks to Dave Ionno for the tip.

Five to one, Baby
One in five
They got the guns
We got the numbers
Doors Jim Morrison

The muted rumblings in Greece, site of the Athenian Acropolis and birthplace of democracy, precedes the perfect political storm.  Olga Stefan, a 20 year old Greek university student thinks her government is in ..“someway afraid of us.  There are too many of us.”   This simple equation will soon reach critical mass across the industrialized developed world.  The concentration of wealth in the United States has become an obscenity.  The top 4% own outright 55% of the wealth.  This was not accumulated by hard work and savings over time.  This wealth was taken by stealth and force and generated by insider Wall Street stock market access and high speed computer trading in bogus derivatives (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot).  What The Fuck are they?  A tsunami of rage is coming.

The Doors song, “5 to 1” is prophetic.  Jim Morrison was the son of a career Naval officer, a military brat like myself.  The Doors music along with Jimi Hendrix, an Airborne veteran, was the sound track of the GI’s in Viet Nam.  We killed and died as the blood and wealth of the nation was soaked up on foreign ground in Viet Nam.  Martin Luther King Jr., an American hero, said it clearly, “ The Great Society has been shot down on the battlefields of  Viet Nam.”  Today, now as we breathe, our future and our children’s future is being shot down on the battlefields of iraq and Afghanistan.

The American middle class, built out of the GI Bill after WW II and inherited by the sons and daughters of the “Greatest Generation” has been eviscerated by the Wall Street and Pentagon ghouls  in their multinational corporate star chambers.  We are like a snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor, unable to see it and unwilling to drop off.

The so-called wealth generators in their gated communities are beginning to tremble in fear. The wars and the warriors are coming home.  Those of us in the public sector unions, those of us in the working class jobs, those of us who are small business owners, we fought your wars for you and we kept that knowledge.  If we send men off to war, don’t be surprised when they come home talking dirty.  Be careful how you vote.

Dave Ionno
Viet Nam Veteran for Peace against the Wars

Written for the Oakland, California community.

We mourn because a little girl is dead for no reason. We mourn because a little girl is dead for terrible reasons. We mourn for Aiyana Jones, because she is yet another victim of police violence, and because as a community, we want to stand in solidarity with her community and her family – and all those who suffer at the hands of the prison-industrial complex in America.

Aiyana was murdered by the police on May 16, 2010, in Detroit, MI during a no-knock raid on her family’s home. Police threw a flash grenade into the first-floor window, where the little girl lay asleep. After police barged into the home, an alleged confrontation took place between Officer Joseph Weekley and Aiyana’s grandmother, during which it is claimed that Weekley’s gun “accidentally” went off, killing the girl. There is video documentation of what transpired, but there are many conflicting accounts at this time – and more information will undoubtedly be revealed in the near future. The lawyer for Aiyana’s family states that the video taken contradicts the police account of what happened. He states, “What I’m most concerned about is that this videotape demonstrates that police are involved in a cover-up of a child’s killing.” (CBS News) Charles Jones, Aiyana’s father, told reporters that upon rushing into the room where Aiyana was shot, the police forced him to get down on the ground – and he had to put his face in his daughter’s blood.

We do not mourn Aiyana’s death because she was so young and so innocent, though this terrible reality weighs heavy on our hearts. We mourn Aiyana as we mourned Oscar Grant, as we mourned countless individuals whose lives have been ended or forever changed by systemic police violence and the profit-driven prison-industrial complex. So while we do mourn this little girl’s murder, we also acknowledge its connection to the larger whole, which encompasses a racist system of perverted “justice” and social control.

In a sick way, Aiyana’s death represents the intersection of police violence and media spectacle – the raid on her family’s home was filmed as part of a reality television show called “The First 48.” The raid that night was being filmed for media consumption, for entertainment purposes. How disturbing and poignant that the video this film crew recorded of the incident reveals the true brutality of police violence, when its original intent was surely to “document” a dramatized story about police heroics, a story constructed for the American audience to bolster societal beliefs about the role of the police.

Though it is clear that in the coming days and weeks, more terrible facts will most likely be coming to light regarding the circumstances surrounding Aiyana’s murder, what is clear at this point is that the police are not giving an honest account of the incident. This should not be surprising. Acts of police violence are often covered up or depicted as tragic, yet solitary, incidents. By no means should we participate in perpetuating this lie. What happened that night to Aiyana and her family was business as usual when it comes to policing. It happened in Detroit, Michigan, last week – but in 2009 it happened in Oakland, California, and it happens in cities around the country – and the world – all the time.

Officer Weekley is on paid administrative leave at this time, as was Officer Tony Pirone of the BART Police following the murder of Oscar Grant.

Members of the Oakland community will gather at 11 am this Sunday, May 23rd, at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland in a silent vigil to mourn a young life lost, a family shattered, and another victim of systemic police violence.

I am here as always to exercise my constitutional right to speak as an American citizen, a Hartford resident and home owner and as a combat veteran of Viet Nam. I will first of all read the names of the KIA in Iraq and Afghanistan for the month of April. I do this because no one else will. It is fitting to do this as this month is the 35th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. The Wars are invisible as are the veterans and the dead. All of you on Council and every citizen in this audience are complicit by your Silence. Silence has become the weapon by which you rid yourselves of your guilt. I will now read the names of the dead.

As a contrast to the deconstruction and dismantling of the public schools and libraries of the city of Hartford we are financing the building of a new school in Senjaray Afghanistan near Kandahar. So we take from our own children, who have no Music, Art or sports and crowded classes, to build in a country, whose people we kill and who don’t want to be like us. The returning veterans and GI’s are telling you what is happening and you refuse to listen. One Iraq veteran has related to me this story. Truck convoys, driven by contractors, have to swipe a card at the gate as they enter. Every swipe pays $40,000 to the company, KBR, Triple Canopy, Dyne Corp, Blackwater(XE). On inspection by the GI’s it was found that half the trucks were empty.   This is only the tip of the iceberg of corruption and waste by the military and defense contractors.

How much of my tax dollar is diverted to this instead of to the city budget? Can any of you find out the answer? It is your fiduciary responsibility to find out. I will assist you with the handouts I have and provide you with the website of Nationalpriorities.org.

Understand one thing. The Wars are coming home everyday. As you sow you shall reap.

Dave Ionno
Veteran for Peace and Viet Nam Veteran against the Wars