DRANT #260: UPDATE: A GATHERING OF SCUM

To follow up on previous email re: the cowards who physically attacked Carlos Arredondo -- the following has been provided by Melida Arredondo, to whom we are very grateful.
It's the whole true story, including first-person eyewitness accounts, video footage, journalist's accounts, and background information on the assailants and their Brown Shirt Organization The Gathering Of Eagles, plus actual hate-filled postings and accounts on the GOE site.

Dad Attacked for Pulling Memorial Honoring Marine Son Killed In Iraq

Washington, DC - On 09/15/07, a pro war protester defaced a rolling memorial to a fallen Marine by ripping a secured picture off of it. Carlos Arredondo passed by with this display at the end of a peace march. When Arredondo went to retrieve the picture, he was assaulted by five or six pro war protesters. According to many witnesses on the scene, Arredondo was then kicked repeatedly by the pro war protesters for wanting to retrieve the picture until the police showed up.

The memorial honors Lcpl. Alexander Scott Arredondo from Boston, MA who was killed on 08/25/04. Carlos Arredondo is his father and has traveled throughout the United States making sure that the citizens of the US do not forget Alex and the costs of war.

Carlos chooses to honor the death of his son Alex by pulling a memorial consistinf of a flag draped coffin, boots, poster sized pictures, a Massachusetts Gold Star license plate and the copy of a street sign that the City of Boston named after Alex. "I don't want my son to simply be a statistic. I want people to know who he was" states Arredondo.

The man who defaced the memorial, Fred Peterson wrote that when he "saw the photo-image of a proud young Marine in dress blues being held hostage in company not of his own choosing and affixed to a coffin not his own...[he] liberated his image from the midst of the hostile crowd." (1)
Carlos Arredondo has been in DC during September meeting with elected officials, attending press conferences and hearings related to the war in Iraq and displaying the memorial of his son. He sets up the memorial and often steps aside. Arredondo watches and states that "Many people want to find out more information on what they are seeing. That's when I introduce myself, tell them about Alex and give them a copy of one of the letters that Alex wrote while he was deployed." " It's important not to forget that Alex died so we can all live in peace and that if the US had remained peaceful, he would be alive today," says Arredondo.

This event has hit internet blog and news sites repeatedly since 09/15/07. Only recently, have web-activists interested in supporting Arredondo provided him with pictures and film footage of the attack.

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Web Sleuthing Results on 09/15/07 Assault of Gold Star Father in DC

GoE Account of What They did to Carlos

GoE Mission Statement and related thread

(1) GoE Thread of Conversation on Carlos - A True Hate Group

Picture of Chris Hill with George W. Bush on 09/18/07 as of 10/01/07

Video of police attack after pro-war crowd attack

DemocracyNow09/17/07 (Report on Carlos is #5)

Sourcewatch: A Project of the Center for Media and Democracy Entry

DailyKosReport09/24/07

DailyKosReport09/17/07

MichaelMooreReport09/17/07

Check out how prowar protesters admit that they were after Carlos.

AfterDowningStreetStory

AfterDowningStreetPictures

NationalReviewArticle

Journal made of Carlos 09/15/07

Hannah Craig's Oral Accounting of Assault upon Carlos and Herself
Scroll down on page to bottom right corner


Tabacco Blog
Scroll down to read re: eyewitness account of what occurred to Carlos

Veterans for America - Jim Starowicz blog entry from 09/17/07

“Sadly No” Blog 09/17/07/

Blog “Some of the Bird Brains Are Also Thugs” 09/15/07

Democratic Underground 09/19/07

Google Group Alt.Rasap 09/20/07

NH Insider Blog 09/22/07

Boston Craigslist Posting 09/21/07

Posting on Democrats.Com 09/22/07

BostonNow Blog September 2007

IVAW Blog Entry 09/18/07

Newsvine.com Blog Entry by Killfile 09/18/07

OpEdNews.Com 09/18/07

Crooks and Liars 09/20/07

Blog Entry (3rd one) Washingtonpost.com

Possible Information on Fred Peterson - Man who Took Picture off Memorial

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Quote of the day:
"Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck.

The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians."

Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism