ANTI-SEMITIC ORGANIZATION INT'L ANSWER BECOMING JUSTICE FIRST?

GUEST-POST BY "SLEEPING BUNNYRABBIT":

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Modified 09:49 AM 05/13/2009
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International ANSWER, known for subverting the peace movement with their anti-Israel agenda, appears to be trying to hide their tracks. Posters up and down Market street have the ANSWER address and phone number, but show the name "JUSTICE FIRST" - alleged to be "a newly formed national organization that is dedicated to fighting for people's economic, social and political rights".

[The brick-and-mortar location of Justice First and International ANSWER is at 2489 Mission Street.]

International ANSWER may have tanked their reputation with the public by their over-the-top "blame Israel for everything" antics, but they have most certainly made enemies of the Department of Public Works with their littering and nuisance-postering in several parts of the city. The latter issue has caused a legal problem for ANSWER.

The posters on Market Street were probably put up by ANSWER activists heading to the Federal Building to pack the public seating at ANSWER's Court of Appeals hearing on illegal postering.

Per the rebuttable presumption clause of the relevant ordinance, if an illegal poster has your organization's name and contact info on it, there is a rebuttable presumption that you are responsible for the posters that were put up. The burden is on you to prove the contrary.

The six elderly communists 'packing' the courtroom are merely there to create a threatening environment, as there will be no input permitted from the public in today's hearing.


------Sleeping Bunnyrabbit

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Here is part of a message that was sent out on behalf of the swine at ANSWER:

We are appealing for your support as our struggle for free speech with the San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW) reaches a critical stage. The DPW has imposed fines for postering violations against the local ANSWER Coalition that now total more than $45,000! Similar circumstances also exist in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

There was an initial finding for the DPW in Superior Court, but the ANSWER Coalition and its renowned civil liberties attorney, Carol Sobel, have relentlessly pursued an appeal in order to protect free speech and the First Amendment. Our appeal is set for oral arguments before the California Court of Appeals this coming Tuesday, May 12, 9:30 am, 350 McAllister St. Division 2, San Francisco.

Ms. Sobel, who lives in Los Angeles, has very generously taken our appeal pro bono, but there are still many expenses for filing fees, travel and organizing work around the case. You have been instrumental in supporting previous campaigns, and we are asking for your help again.

Nearly all of the citations against us are for flyers and posters posted in the Mission District of San Francisco. We view the city’s campaign against us to be an integral part of the continuing gentrification drive in the area. Political and cultural notices are regarded as nothing more than "blight" by the developers and big property owners, and their friends in city government.

There are hundreds of volunteers who work with the ANSWER Coalition. We have a notice up in our office published by DPW regarding sign posting requirements, and inform people who pick up our material about the legal ways in which material can be posted. Our flyers are also available on-line, as is common practice these days.

We have no way to control what anyone does with the materials we make available. Yet, in the administrative hearings held in DPW, whoever's name is on a cited poster or flyer is presumed guilty under the doctrine of "rebuttable presumption." Before April 2003 when the ordinance was amended, there had to be an actual link shown between an individual and an illegally posted flyer. Not anymore.

In every case that we, or our attorneys have witnessed, the cited party is found guilty—whether or not they posted the offending flyer—and usually fined the maximum—an astounding $150 for each flyer and $300 for each poster! The DPW's position is that they don't have to show anything more than the name on the literature in question. There are no rules of evidence, in fact there is no real due process at all in these hearings.

That the DPW adheres to this "process" is hardly surprising given the fact that under the April 2003 amended ordinance, DPW now gets to keep all of the fines levied, instead of them going into the city's general fund. The fines of $150 to $300 for each flyer taped to a pole are ludicrous. If one is cited for a few flyers, the fines can easily exceed those assessed in many serious criminal cases..

The ANSWER Coalition, as you know, has played a key role organizing many mass protests against war, racism and bigotry of all kinds in San Francisco.. We have already been forced to divert from our real work far too many hours and thousands of dollars from our very limited funds. Now we are threatened with tens of thousands of dollars in fines, which would be impossible for us to pay.
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NOTE: International ANSWER and Richard Becker (Western Regional Coordinator of ANSWER) have been prime instigators of anti-Semitic actions in the Bay Area for several years.
An overwhelming majority of their events singled out Israel, no matter what the purported raison for the actual protest, and mister Becker himself is on record as having thrown a monumental tantrum in public at one point, screaming that the Zionists were behind it, the Zionists were behind it, the Zionists were behind it!

One of the things that International ANSWER has recently attempted to do is blame the Israelis and the Mossad for the police-shooting death of a black man in BART at New Year.


Previously, when certain city supervisors were covering for Richard Becker and his revolutionaries, charges against ANSWER's egregious littering, thuggish behaviour, and promotion of hate never went anywhere.
Fortunately the skin-blemished haramzad and most of his cadre of morally corrupt acolytes are no longer in office, and their influence has started to wane.
Still a few more to go before the city is entirely free of that lot, though.


Those who have been at ANSWER rallies can attest to the nauseatingly high level of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel venom.
The speeches by International ANSWER leaders and guest-speakers (most of which are findable on the internet) mark them as egomaniacs and psychopaths.
Except, of course, for that insane performance by Cindy Sheehan - I am still not quite sure what the heck she was trying to say, and no one else who listened to her that day has been able to figure it out either. She may have been on medication.