There are those who spend a lot of time speculating about strategies and people who wallow in impotence, and there are people who act. Those people are Activists, such as Brett Kimberlin. Behind the scenes, an amazing journey from young Radical to single-handedly shutting down entire outlets of right-wing hate spew. If you've never heard his name I highly recommend you Google it, I cannot possibly do his story justice with this diary.
Brett Kimberlin is the founder of Justice Through Music, a non-profit organization that "uses famous musicians and bands to organize, educate, and activate young people about the importance of civil rights, human rights and voting". This is a great cause and they're doing wonderful things over there with the young people. The Justice Through Music website has some really powerful music videos on the subject of Bush torture and bigotry toward gay-marriage.
But more important is his Activist organization, Velvet Revolution. This is Change you can believe in! Just two days ago, he won another victory, jailing right-wing hate spewer Aaron Walker for his venom. Kimberlin helped create Brietbart Unmasked, a fantastic website about what a piece of shit asshole motherfucker he was. Velvet Revolution is also geared toward young adults of the Occupy generation, the future of this country.
Kimberlin has been very effective at countering the right-wing hate spewing machine. Robert Stacey McCain (no relation but just as fascist) decided to attack him for his Activism with children for Justice. Lets just say Robert Stacey McCain is on the run these days. Erick Erickson of CNN fame got a nice little knock on the door. Seth Allen get the message as well. This is what Activists do, shutting down hate speech one individual at a time. If Brett Kimberlin can make a difference by himself, we all can.
Of course, with success comes more attacks, and of course the racist GOP is attacking Kimberlin for teaching Civil Rights to children. On June 6, Senator Saxby Chambliss requested that Attorney General Eric Holder investigate Kimberlin and his non-profit education organization. Activists should expect such attacks from racists when teaching Civil Rights, but you can trust the masters like Kimberlin to handle it.
Like Activists such as Brandon "Skabby" Baxter and Bill Ayers, Brett Kimberlin began his Activist career with explosives. Being a true master of Alinsky's wise advice of "using your enemies rules against them", Kimberlin actually bought explosives while impersonating a DOD official (wow). In 1978, he was accused by the fascist corporate police of murdering a co-worker.
Activists act. Kimberlin began a string of six bombings over the next few days, eventually taking a man's legs off. He was convicted of bombing, attempted murder, perjury, drug trafficking, and impersonation of a federal officer, and sentenced to 51 years in prison.
An Activist's job is constant, and imprisonment was no obstacle for Kimberlin. In 1988, he made news on NPR, admitting that he had sold marijuana to then Vice President Dan Quayle, a major revelation sending shock waves through the highest levels of the racist GOP. From prision, ce coordinated with other Activists to continue the bombings to prove his innocence.
He studied how to use the system against his enemies, and used the legal system to his advantage. By 1992, he had filed over 100 motions and lawsuits against his hate-spewing opponents, including some people he bombed. In 1994, after 13 years of unjust imprisonment, a wise Judge recognized Kimberlin for his Activism and released him on parole.
In 2004, Kimberlin made news again, offering $500,000 to anyone who could prove the fact that the 2004 election was swiftboated from John Kerry. But it wasn't until 2011 that he met Neal Rauhauser and combined efforts to squelch the right wing hate-o-sphere.
Neal Rauhauser is an Activist famous for his use of "beandogs" to disrupt the racist tea party protests. He found Brett Kimbelin to be the perfect beandog, an adept veteran of aggressive tactics. Combined, an unstoppable force with a great cause for the children, the donations from George Soros, Barbara Streisand, and Teresa Heinz-Kerry poured in and the hard work began.
Incidentally, why is Neal Rauhauser banned from Kos? He used to go under the name Stranded Wind. The man is a Democratic strategist and a brilliant Organizer. I believe a progressive site such as this has room for an expert like Mr. Rauhauser!
Anyway, after some major victories, we still have many more spews to silence. You can show Solidarity and help the cause. Nadia Naffe is fighting the good fight by filing civil suits to learn the true identity of other anonymous bloggers spewing hate. If we all work together, we can eliminate the insane ramblings of the hate-mongers and finally educate the children about Social Justice.
There's lots of stuff on the internet about Kimberlin and Rauhauser's work. I recommend reading about it if you're interested at all in Activism. Just don't say anything bad about them on the internet. It would be bad.
