The situation finds that both Grapski's group and the corrupt clique must play to public opinion. (Did I mention that Charlie gives a good speech? He can take them!) The clique has performed a combination of stonewalling, legal maneuvering, grandstanding, threats, intimidation, and harassment in their attempt to fight the charges from Grapski and company. Do they appear to be poised professionals? No, they give every appearance of covering up something that they have to hide. Theirs are dark and sinister ways of evasion, including the glib use of sophisticated terminology to "explain away" any onus that should rightly fall to them. The clique on the whole exudes a guilty demeanor as they display the tricks of the trade for dodging accountability.
Citizens of Alachua should demand accountability, and not be cowed into losing their rights for clean elections and above-board government. As Charlie said to Raw Story, "People that work for the city are either part of the problem or they are afraid to stand up against it." He also said, "The people in the City of Alachua are afraid of retaliation by the public officials and the police officials if they stand up to the government. People are literally afraid." Michael Canney said that officials are subverting democracy, betraying the public interest, and in many cases violating the law.
Of Grapski, Canney said -- "he has declared his intention to expose the corruption and official misconduct that has become endemic [in Alachua] and he has demonstrated a remarkable tenacity in pursuing his goal of holding public servants accountable for their actions." Of the latest (Feb. 12 '07) frivolous arrest of Grapski (in which the police chief Jernigan is trying to level felony charges, a low blow), Canney calls it "just another politically motivated attack against a law-abiding citizen whose only crime has been to hold public officials accountable to the same rules and laws we are all bound to respect."
This case reeks, even from Connecticut. According to Grapski, Alachua faced "a similar problem ten years ago, [and] the City destroyed the records and told citizens they no longer existed." Now we can have the question, were public records destroyed in a perhaps-too-convenient fire at City Hall on December 3? Evidently, that fire started days after Grapski had requested public records from city computers, and the fire is thought to have started suspiciously with computers in City Hall.
I said above that the issue is election fraud; but, after noting their behavior, I believe that the entire clique as mentioned can, and perhaps should, become the issue. In addition to accountability, perhaps citizens should be demanding that heads roll -- that this clique should step down and resign. (That's a call for the people of Alachua to make, but as I write from Connecticut, my confidence in their government is zero.) Mayor Calderwood could be voted out of office in this years' April elections. [Note. On Feb.26'07, Alachua officials disqualified all three challengers, who had filed papers to run for City Commission in the April elections. This means Mayor Calderwood will be unopposed, and cannot be voted out of office in this years' April elections, which are the same as no election at all. We could nickname Alachua's to be a "martial law government." Citizens cannot feel well about having no choice, treated like serfs on a plantation.]
Due to this episode, Alachua is getting a national reputation for the corrupt, nasty, and reptilian ways of its officials. It is high time for external officials to investigate scrupulously, and to order the repair of Alachua's broken government. And it's high time for local officials to stop the false arrests, civil rights violations, and demonization of Charlie Grapski. Their clumsy attempts are laughable and display how Alachua officials have sunk to desperation. At the end of day, this will not be an "ad hominem" case about Grapski.
Grapski has become a widely-known brand name of activism. I note that recent headlines could be short and sweet: "Grapski arrested" (per AM850). "They're attacking Charlie again" (per Orient Lodge). I believe that Charlie gets resented (by corrupt officials) because he is the smartest man in the room. If citizens help him to get through this case, he will demonstrate and establish that citizens can only be ignored for so long. Upon completion of his program, what he will leave behind is better government. Charlie was running for office (State Rep.) when this case came down. I believe that he would make a fine State Rep., were his campaign not interrupted by Alachua's shenanigans.
According to Raw Story, "On June 29, Judge Pete Sieg of Florida's Eighth Judicial Circuit Court barred Charles Grapski from entering the City of Alachua....Banning a candidate for public office from entering a city seems extreme under any circumstances. But the judge's ruling is even more shocking considering that Grapski has not been charged with any crime." This was after the first frivolous arrest of Grapski, and before the charges were dropped. One can see that an election campaign is diminished when the candidate may not set foot in a city of his district! Everyone should decry this low blow, and evident interference with yet another election.
I urge the friends of the China Support Network to consider themselves as friends of Charlie Grapski. Perhaps one day, he will fight corruption in China (again). I can tell another story from CSN. In 2005, I began a rally by re-reading a Charlie Grapski speech of 1989. Afterwards, I spoke to a woman who said, "Your speech made me realize why I am here." She should not have needed a reminder -- she was herself a student in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Here was a Chinese woman, in a Chinese cause, and it took a Grapski speech to reconnect the dots, and to reinforce her original idealism. His words of 1989 still speak to us today.
John Kusumi ran independently for U.S. President in 1984, as the teenager going up against Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. He was the first Generation X politician in U.S. federal elections, and Ronald Reagan's youngest political opponent ever.
In 1989 Kusumi launched the China Support Network, a grassroots organization of Americans supporting the Chinese democracy movement - amid outpouring of response to the massacre of college students and other civilians in and around Tiananmen Square.
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