THE AIM/NCOM MOTORCYCLE E-NEWS SERVICE is brought to you by Aid to Injured Motorcyclists(A.I.M.) and the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM), and is sponsored by the LawOffices of Richard M. Lester. For more information, call us at 1-(800) ON-A-BIKE or visitus on our website at http://www.ON-A-BIKE.com
NCOM COAST TO COAST BIKER NEWS
Compiled and Edited By BILL BISH, National Coalition of Motorcyclists
ONE NATION, UNDER LITIGATION
As our Nation celebrated its independence and heritage thispast July Fourth, we also became united against a new attack on our country and ourPatriotism from our own judiciary.
Most of us grew up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school, the words rolling aseasily off our tongues as the ABC’s and 1-2-3’s, and Americans in general are appalledthat a federal appeals court would take aim at our sacred oath. And why now, at a timewhen our country is united in defiance of terrorist aggression, and our fellow countrymenpray to a higher authority for strength and guidance?
Bikers didn’t need 9-11 to catalyze our Patriotism and love for our country. Manymotorcyclists are veterans, and most of us are more civically involved and politicallyaware than the average citizen. Despite a reputation for rabble rousing and a rebelliouslifestyle, we routinely recite the Pledge of Allegiance at our meetings, rallies andgatherings, and we did so even before it became politically correct.
Former President Clinton once said that you can’t love your country and hate yourgovernment, but most bikers would respond that we love our country enough to want to fixit. Now, a San Francisco court gives us yet another reason to question authority.
Politicians have been quick to wrap themselves in the flag since the court’s June 27decision, and both sides of the aisle and even President Bush have decried the Ninth U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals declaration that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in publicschools is unconstitutional because of the words “under God” inserted by Congress in1954.
In a 2-1 decision, the court said the phrase “one nation under God” amounts to agovernment endorsement of religion in violation of the separation of church and state. The case was brought by a California atheist who objected to his daughter beingcompelled to listen to her second-grade classmates recite the pledge.
Critics of the decision were flabbergasted and warned that it calls into question the useof “In God We Trust” on the nation’s currency, the public singing of patriotic songs like”God Bless America,” even the use of the phrase “So help me God” when judges are sworninto office.
The ruling, if allowed to stand, would mean schoolchildren could no longer recite thepledge, at least in the nine Western states covered by the court: Alaska, Arizona,California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington state.
However, the ruling does not take effect for several months, to allow further appeals. The government can ask the court to reconsider, or take its case to the U.S. SupremeCourt. Incidentally, the Supreme Court itself begins each of its sessions with thephrase “God save the United States and this honorable court.”
The 9th Circuit is the nation’s most overturned appellate court – partly because it isthe largest, but also because it tends to make liberal, activist opinions, and becausethe cases it hears – on a range of issues from environmental laws to property rights tocivil rights – tend to challenge the status quo.
Congress inserted “under God” at the height of the Cold War after a campaign by theKnights of Columbus, religious leaders and others who wanted to distinguish the UnitedStates from what they regarded as godless communism.
USA PATRIOT ACT IS UNPATRIOTIC
A complete and utter overreaction to the tragic events ofSeptember 11th has taken place. I don’t believe the people of this great country knowthat Congress has rendered the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution nulland void! How did this happen? By rushing to pass the “Uniting and StrengtheningAmerica by ProvidingAppropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act” or USA PATRIOT Act of2001.
It allows the application of F.I.S.A. (Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act) todomestic investigations. This allows law enforcement to get around strict rules of theFourth Amendment. The F.I.S.A. was originally written to apply solely to foreignintelligence gathering. The PATRIOT Act expands F.I.S.A. to include domestic matters. This means that a set of rules for dealing with foreign spies can now be used on UnitedStates Citizens.
The PATRIOT Act also contains an expansion of Federal Surveillance to include rovingwiretaps. This means that if your brother-in-law is doing something to get his phonetapped, when he comes to visit at Christmas, even though you are doing nothing wrong andhave no knowledge of what he is doing, the wiretap follows him and your phone is tappedwhile he is visiting.
Congress apparently wasn’t satisfied with just the Fourth Amendment, they also went afterthe First Amendment. Groups that use “criminal” methods to intimidate government are nowconsidered “Domestic Terrorists”. Civil disobedience has been the best way to protestunfair or unjust laws since our nation was formed. Under this law, women’s suffragegroups of the 19th century and civil rights groups of this century could be defined as”Domestic Terrorists,” and maybe your group is next.
Everyone should call or write their Congressional representatives and demand that the USAPATRIOT Act of 2001 be repealed! If they don’t, we should elect a Congress that will. That is, if we are still allowed to hold elections.
BEAR, Iron Cross Motorcycle Club
Chairman, Georgia Confederation of Clubs
AUTHORITIES ARE INVESTIGATING THE WRONG GANG
At last, a journalist makes sense of therecent biker violence and the subsequent (over)reactions by law enforcement, and MikeSeate of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review even takes shots at his colleagues in the pressfor sensationalizing these events and working in concert with the police in promptingpublic hysteria. Read on for Mr. Seate’s take on this situation, as published in hisJuly 15, 2002 article:
Over the last few months, the motorcycle gang that made headlines for its rebellious,anti-social antics in the 1960s has been in the news again.
Hells Angels members now are middle-aged and graying, but they’ve been involved in fatalshootings in New York and Laughlin, Nev., had their names linked to internationaldrug-smuggling rings and even prompted the summoning of the National Guard when theyshowed up at a New Hampshire motorcycle rally last month.
Unfortunately, all of this hype has little to do with the reality of working alongside agroup of area Hells Angels a few weeks ago.
For a group that TV news teams and police departments from Amsterdam to Los Angeles havedescribed as “a wealthy, sophisticated drug cartel,” these guys were taking nothingstronger than Advil.
The Lake Coast chapter of the Hells Angels, who attended a motorcycle festival atCleveland’s Thompson Dragway, were an older, friendly lot for a bunch of guys who’ve beenpainted with the same brush as al-Qaida terrorists. If the Angels and other motorcyclegangs are, in fact, reaping billions from operating alleged drug empires, the profitshaven’t trickled down to Akron yet. These bikers partied on bargain beer, lived in a20-year-old trailer and cooked their meals on a tiny, 99-cent discount store barbecuegrill.
For all of their multi-million dollar budgets and high technology surveillance equipment,you’d think the AFT and FBI would realize that millionaire drug dealers don’t ride10-year-old Harleys and walk around with fewer teeth than are found in the back row of aWillie Nelson concert. Maybe the biggest crime being committed here is felonystereotyping.
It’s true that many people over-romanticize the outlaw biker image and ignore it whenthese guys do break the law. But why are we still vilifying a group that contains a fewpunch-out artists and small-time dope peddlers when white-collar crimes – from stockfraud to dodgy accounting practices that affect the lives and jobs of millions – stilldon’t get guys in Armani suits stereotyped as thieves?
Maybe it’s because law enforcement agencies can use the so-called threat of biker gangsto scare the populace and beef up their operating budgets.
And it’s a lot easier to roust a half-employed guy in a leather jacket for selling $50worth of cocaine than it is to investigate the highest levels of corporate America. Ifthe FBI is, in fact, looking to apprehend career criminals, they should shift their spyglasses from the trailer parks to the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies.
For years, the media and society at large have labeled all members of certain groups bythe actions of a few. Guilt-by-association, for some unknown reason, applies to some ofsociety’s minorities and not others; no one targeted red-haired Christian gun nuts afterTimothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building, but it’s a sure bet thatArabic men interested in airline jobs are being advised to seek different career pathsthese days.
Surely, some Hells Angels have broken the law in lots of weird and horrible ways. But sohave plenty of Masons, Shriners, politicians and, as we learned last week, executives atenergy giant WorldCom and Qwest, a Denver-based telecommunications firm.
Of course, experienced members of the media know this already. It just doesn’t make agood story.
Bandit will sell his ’48 Pan to the Marines for service to the country.
MOTORCYCLE MARINES RIDE ON
OooooRah! In the jungles and rugged terrain of Nicaraguaand Panama during the “Banana Wars” and on the scarred landscape of France during WorldWar I, the Marine Corps and Harley-Davidson created a bond forged in combat. That bondwas recently renewed when two Marines rounded the corner of Constitution Avenue inWashington, D.C. this Fourth of July aboard Harley “Fatboys” during the NationalIndependence Day Parade, and the Motorcycle Marines were reborn.
“Starting this summer, hand picked Marine Recruiters will begin appearing at parades andregional events aboard gleaming, fire engine red and chrome Harley-Davidson motorcycles,”said Sergeant Jimmie Perkins in a USMC Recruiting Command story. The motorcycles willjoin the Marine Corps’ other event-marketing vehicle, a red Humvee.
“Harley-Davidson and the Marine Corps share a special place in the hearts of the Americanpeople,” said Major Gen. Jerry D. Humble, Commanding General of Marine Corps RecruitingCommand. “With a shared pride of being known as the best, Harley-Davidson and the UnitedStates Marine Corps represent ideals that have made our nation great.”
ROUND-THE-WORLD MOTORCYCLE RACE BEGINS The first ever round-the-world motorcycle racehas started from London.
Covering 25,000 miles through 20 countries, five deserts and four continents, the 24competitors will be on the road for 95 days. The event will raise more than $160,000 forcharities including Sight Savers, The Meningitis Fund and for Alzheimer’s groups.
Mr. Sanders – who holds the Guinness world record for riding around the globe on amotorcycle (31 days and 20 hours) – and who has bicycled around the world twice, says thecompetitors will have their minds on the grueling task of covering up to 1,000 miles aday. “The riders are going to find it hard. They have had to train a lot over the last12 months,” he said. “They will be riding an average of 400 to 700 miles and up to 18hours a day.”
After their send-off in England, the bikes will be shipped to the United States, wherethe race will officially begin in three weeks.
WEIRD NEWS OF THE MONTH
Mayor Quits After Chucking Bottle At Biker. Criminal chargesmay be brought against former Sodus Point, New York, Mayor Donald Buchwald overallegations that he threw a plastic bottle at a passing motorcyclist, State Police toldthe Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspaper.
Buchwald resigned July 1, a day after he was accused of hitting the motorcyclist in theshoulder for driving too fast through the village in the early morning. Buchwald deniedthat he threw the bottle, saying he went out to the curb and only yelled at a group ofmotorcyclists to slow down and stop revving their bikes.
Trooper John Jackson said police have statements from 10 witnesses and the motorcyclistthat claim Buchwald was the culprit. “It’s not just a case of ‘He said, she said,'”Jackson said. “You have 10 people saying one thing and another person saying anotherthing. Who do you believe?”
The motorcyclist said that he didn’t see who threw the full bottle, but was told byfriends it was Buchwald. He was treated at a local hospital for a bruised arm.
WELCOME TO NCOM
The National Coalition of Motorcyclists would like to welcome new NCOMboard members “Little Jimmy” Rouse, Business Manager for the Modified MotorcycleAssociation (MMA) of California; Jimi Ricci, Chairman of the MMA of Massachusetts; and”Cotton” Tedder, President of the Concerned Bikers Association (CBA) of North Carolina.
NCOM bids a fond farewell to longtime board member Rick Nail, past-President of the CBAof North Carolina, who retired this year from the NCOM Board of Directors.
The NCOM Legislative Task Force wishes to welcome aboard two new members: Joe “Cowboy”Dickey, State Coordinator for ABATE of Pennsylvania, and Kate Butcher, former StatePresident of ABATE of West Virginia and wife of fellow NCOM-LTF member West VirginiaState Delegate Greg Butcher.NCOM would also like to welcome ABATE of Utah, Texas ABATE Confederation, and the Sons ofLiberty Riders to the NCOM family of Member Groups.
WELCOME ABOARD TO ALL!
NCOM BOARD MEMBER RUNS FOR OFFICE
The National Coalition of Motorcyclists has longadvocated getting our own people elected to legislative offices, and we are proud toannounce that NCOM board member Jeff Barone, President of the Rhode Island MotorcycleAssociation (RIMA), has tossed his hat in the political arena.
“As I announced at this year’s NCOM Convention, I have moved forward and declared to be acandidate for The Rhode Island House of Representatives,” beems Barone. “As you allknow, one of our goals is to get motorcyclists elected to public office. With having avoice at the State House, we will be heard. Although there are more issues than FREEDOMOF CHOICE, that will be my main platform along with AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE and a tightfocus on EDUCATION.”
As we all know, running for office takes money, so anyone interested in supporting Jeff’spolitical bid can send donations to “Friends To Elect Jeffrey P. Barone,” and mail themc/o 125 Smith Ave., Unit 3A, Greenville, RI 02828
QUOTABLE QUOTES: “So, Your Honor, the pledge is unconstitutional because it says ‘UnderGod’. Guess that means when you were sworn in with your hand on a Bible, and at the endof your oath repeated ‘So Help Me God,’ that makes your job unconstitutional, thereforeyou have no job, which means your ruling doesn’t mean squat.”Comedian DENNIS MILLER, regarding the judges who declared the Pledge of Allegianceunconstitutional
