AntiBVBL

I knew it! I always got the feeling that Park and Byler were allies of Robert “Mark My Words” Duecaster. They are featuring this video of him on their channel right now. It’s clear that they are out to promote Corey and Greg. Just look at their videos. And they have so many videos of Greg, Help Save Manassas and Corey and none of Mexicans Without Borders. They don’t have a single video of Ricardo Juarez. If that isn’t bias, what is?

“not too many Virginians think there’s a lot of value in the Communist Manifesto.”

Wow. Does that ever make Virginians sound like a bunch of ignorant yahoos–not that anyone has to agree with Marx, but they are basically saying Virginians haven’t even studied the CM enough to learn from it and understand it’s landmark contributions to history, philosophy, political science, and economics. Virginians, natural born and transplants, ought to be highly insulted.

Anon, what are you TALKING about?

Greg is really getting desperate over on bvbl. He’s reduced to making patently stupid accusations because he has no other way of discrediting 9500liberty and antibvbl. It’s pathetic really. I’m starting to feel sorry for him. He’s not getting many comments on his threads either. Poor guy. He has nothing else going for him besides HSM and bvbl. Nothing.

kgotthardt,
I’m being sarcastic, making fun of Greg’s twisted logic.

Oh. Duh. Sorry. LOL. Missed it until just now.

“it’s landmark contributions” I meant “its.”

I dont know this robert guy but I had always felt that 9500 liberty folks were pretty one-sided. They also seemed to me that they were allied with the MWB crowd, they always seemed to be attached at the hip every time I’ve seen them. I dont think they are objective at all, that robert guy sounds like he’s pretty volatile as well.

Slightly off topic,

This is the first post I’ve put up since I had some outpatient Surgery on Tuesday Morning. During a look inside, they found what was causing me some problems and fixed it “I hope.” This was good news but it expanded my recovery time as I have had to lie around with this “Device” half sticking in me.

Anyway, late in the day on Tuesday this “Device” malfunctioned and my doctor/surgeon being important was in another state and advised me to go to the emergency room and get the “Device” fixed. This drove me to despair since a lot of people I know have warned me that due to the invasion of illegals using up the emergency services meant for citizens, that even a simple emergency room procedure these days can take hours upon hours and in some cases lead to death or infection in the waiting room.

Well my mother drove me over to the Reston Hospital ER around 7:00pm and long story short, there was hardly anyone there in the lobby, I waited about 20 to 30 min (I told them I was pretty much a maintenance job, not an emergency case) and I was shown to a room.
Maybe they have made special rooms where they keep all the migrants, maybe this is a sign that the migrants are leaving, maybe this was just an off night for migrant emergencies, but as far as I could see Emergency services were not being denied to me because of an influx of “anchor babies.” It took a while to get the “Device” fixed and get me checked out, but that was more due to HIPPA and Payment protocol than overcrowding.

My two cents, maybe the Vikadin has blurred my judgment, but it seems some of the famous rumors are not quite true.

Elvis, Elvis, I was so hopefull the “micky” would have a long lasting effect

9500 Liberty has given all parties an opportunity to be heard. It just so happens, that many of the extreme rhetoric has occured on the BVBL/HSM side, certainly, you can’t hold Eric and Annable responsible for what people choose say in public. Robert Duecaster is also Advocator on BVBL, he has no problem letting people know that is his moniker. His mantra is often volitale. Say what you will about us here, but we never “advocate” hate or violence. We may call out people who de-humanize hispanics, we may call out people who want a simple solution to a complicated problem, and we will disagree, but we really try to empathize with people who are struggling in their neighborhoods and we try to be civil with one another.

Rod,
I hope all is on the mend you have a speedy recovery. Hey, even on some good drugs you are an excellent writer, thanks for the story!

I have been reading BVBL for quite some time now. Greg has often tried to make a distinction between the blog and HSM, especially with BVBL’s often negative (for lack of a nice word) posters. Seeing Advocator in action makes me believe that the Southern Poverty Law Center has something to be concerned about. Where is the line between a group of hateful people and a hate group? I would really like to know right about now.

notGregLetiecq, 15. May 2008, 14:59

Greg is really getting desperate over on bvbl. He’s reduced to making patently stupid accusations because he has no other way of discrediting 9500liberty and antibvbl. It’s pathetic really. I’m starting to feel sorry for him. He’s not getting many comments on his threads either. Poor guy. He has nothing else going for him besides HSM and bvbl. Nothing.

KENNETH SAID NOT SCREAMED – SEND GOSPEL MAN MY REGARDS…..WE HAVE A CLASS BLOG HERE…..HIS IS ALL THE THINGS HE SAYS ABOUT THE LESS FORTUNATE…KINDA MAKES HIM THE LEAST FORTUNATE OF ALL!!!

Get well soon, Rod! And thanks for the insight from the “inside.”

Elvis, where on earth have you been????!!!! You don’t know “this Robert guy?” Robert Duecaster WROTE THE IMMIGRATION RESOLUTION that destroyed this county’s economy, its sense of community, its reputation and split the Prince William County Republican Party into two halves that hate each other.

Google his name and the Help Save Manassas newsletter “Front Line” if you won’t take my word for it.

That just sums it all up for me. AnonForNow posts a hilariously spot-on parody mocking Gospel Greg’s style of attacking people. KGott has become so accustomed to reading such silliness that she takes it seriously! This time I really did laugh out loud!

KGott, you have to stop visiting the Church of Gospel Greg and get the politics of hate out of your system. You are losing the ability to discern the difference between a fake rage clown and a parody of a fake rage clown.

NGL, it’s hard to feel sorry for the man who lured Corey Stewart from an elite class of promising Conservative leaders into the disgraceful depths of yesterday’s hate-mongering morass.

Welcome Anonforever!

And imagine, this is the person who was so “well respected” by our government body, HE was allowed to attempt to set policy for all PWC citizen by drafting for John Stirrup , the first immigration resolution. Now THAT, is truly frightening.

This guy Duecaster is a bit off center. I saw him speak on this occasion that is on the citizen’s time video. He made a point when he left to demonstrate his contempt for the crowd in the lobby. Having read his posts for a while on the other side, he has shown no other idea for a solution other than to remove 12 million people. He is not exactly my first choice to write any piece of legislation for any County anywhere.

Lucky Duck,
What did he do to show his contempt? He is so rude and contemptuous to anyone who doesn’t agree with him 100%.

When he exited the Board chambers doors, he waved his arms in a sweeping gesture towards those seated in the folding chairs in the lobby. Obviously his speech did not over well with the mostly immigrant crowd in the lobby (they were able to watch via the two large monitors in the lobby) and there was some crowd noise when he exited. The crowd noise was not rude, but just general noise from people talking to one another. He stopped after he exited, waved his arms over the crowd and proceeded down the aisle to the front door.

That is odd, very odd!

The Duecaster Disaster is just another of example of the astoundingly myopic parade of misconceptions that led this community to shoot itself in the foot with the Immigration Resolution.

Duecaster cleverly fails to dawn a HSM sticker at Citizens Time, so, we assume for months that the Help Save Manassas member who wrote the Immigration Resolution, and this dangerously hateful xenophboe who openly threatened the Board of Supervisors on October 16th (and threatened mob violence a few weeks ago) were two different people.

Turns out they are one in the same. But no one posts a blog trying to connect THOSE dots. We just accept the fact that some people know our legislative process was hijacked by lunatics, but most people don’t.

Pass a law, vote in ignorance, regret it later. A brilliant plan.

Meanwhile, we allow Gospel Greg to create inane connections in our minds between church congregations and socialists; between faith-based organizations and terrorists; between a particular ethnicity and crime, rats, disease, and murder; between the Human Rights Commission and a fictional outfit called the “illegal alien lobby;” and between any convenient target for hateful defamation and the Zapatista something-or-another from another continent, showing us pictures of men with machine guns and ski masks.

To this day, the majority of this community believes more in the fictions than we do in the facts. Gospel Greg’s lies have been repeated so often and by so many that we know them better than we know the truth.

I know, I know. Reality set in this spring. Our economy and our housing market collapsed, we raised taxes exorbitantly, slashed our county budget, and became the laughing stock of the nation. Around the same time, we began to question the disastrous policy we passed as part of last year’s election season. And yes, we changed it. But we failed to question the assumptions that led us there.

I bring this up because now that the law has been changed, another wave of propaganda is on the way. Gospel Greg has failed. Someone must be blamed. And the most venerable, most faithful, most experienced public servant in Prince William County is the only possible target. Soon the same Gospel Greg who lied us into the Duecaster Disaster is going to try to sell us another load of crap about Police Chief Charlie Deane.

Who’s buying? I can already guess.

“Duecaster Disaster”

Awesome alliterative accuracy!

Hi Censored,
Nice to hear from you, I’ve missed you

Elena,

I still cant help from watching the 9500 liberty videos that they go out of their way to find controversial people talking about illegal immigration, on both sides. how about they show some objectivity by interviewing a families who have been terrorized by illegal immigrants, robbed, harrassed, etc. Or maybe taking a video camera through some of the uban blight that is marumsco and seeing what some of the old time residents there think about them. I’ve viewed almost all the material and it’s all one sided. They may have started out with the ideal of presenting objective material but that’s not what it is. I’m all for immigration law reform, etc..but I cannot agree with the way the 9500 liberty people are going about this. As much as HSM/BVBL have planted themselves firmly on the right, the 9500 liberty folks (and I dont lump you all in with them) have planted themselves firmly on the left.

I take a moderate view of things, 9500 liberty and HSM/BVBL are not moderate and honestly I lump them both together.

my whole beef with the 9500 liberty crowd is that they paint themselves as professional “cough” film-makers who are presenting objective material on immigration. it would be perfectly fine if they stated they are producing their opinion but they dont, they present edited material that pushes their own viewpoints and that’s called propaganda. leni riefenstahl was excellent at this, seems as though they were taking some tricks from her playbook.

Elena, we were Comcastrated by the storm and just got back online.

Elvis, you’d have to tease out how much of Marumsco’s blight was already in place. I lived in Lake Ridge over twenty-five years ago and the Rt.1 area was already the pits (as I guess Rt.1 is in most places).

If you really want to see evidence of blight in the Marumsco area, drive up to the Hylton Ave. and Carter lane area. You will find more than one house with the garage converted into an apartment – to include a separate entrance door. This has taken place over the last four or five years as the real estate boom was going full steam and the houses were priced out of the range of most working people. And lets not forget the one house on East Longview Drive was made from a single family into a duplex with one driveway but two front doors with mailboxes on each.

Elvis,
I see it completely different than you. Annabel and Eric are absolutely NOT in the same category as HSM/Greg/BVBL, come on now, take a sip of that really pretty drink I gave you, you’ll see it my way again

People gave their opinions, and their stories were told. Personally, I think they were VERY fair with Corey and his interviews were clearly edited only for time and not content, as were everyone elses.

The most outrageous statements came from the HSM side. The side against the resolution was mostly afraid and spoke of only wanting to work hard, fear of racial profiling, fear of families being torn apart, etc. You may be right, it is hard not to see the insanity of some on the side of HSM, but I have YET to that demonstrated by anyone else, even MWB. Not documenting that is not the fault of 9500 Liberty, the film footage doesn’t exist. People can have policy differences, but that doesn’t make them turn vigilante.

The way I see it, the film is demonstrating that hate and ignorance can grow quickly, that immigration MUST be dealt with, that people have valid concerns on both sides, and that a resolution IS not the path to a solution illegal immigration, it has simply divided this community.

Elena,

I dont think I would place them in the same category as HSM, i just think their objectivity is in question, there we disagree. where we do agree is the resolution really doesnt do anything. the 287g program is fine where that is concerned. I would be more happy with penalizing buisnesses that hire illegal aliens, that’s something I could live with.

as for MWB, they spew an awful lot of hate from their end as well however none of that is shown in the films. People are upset on both sides, and both have pretty valid points I just dont see both in the films. I’m looking at it from the outside as I dont support any of the local politicians and didnt vote for any of them either. I’m not a member of HSM/MWB or anything. I see a situation that is thoroughly messed up and needs to be fixed.

I would say both HSM and MWB are the extremes. MWB if you look at their website, has some pretty extreme and radical ideas, and spews just as much hate as HSM. One could list them here, but all you have to do is look at their website. It doesn’t take too much clicking to find a page about Zapata, and the motives for his rebelliousness and revolution, and how they see the need for something similar. Even has a picture of him. But I don’t see any of this mentioned in any of this debate. If HSM can be linked to BVBL repeatedly, I don’t see why something on MWB’s own website – not a link to some other website – that sounds pretty extreme can’t be pointed out too.

Meant to say in the above post: “spews just as much hate as BVBL” (or some of the posts on BVBL to be more accurate).

Can the folks at 9500 rename this video ‘Duecaster channels Lucifer’?

“Emilio Zapata:

The social system of the time was a sort of proto-capitalist feudal system, with large landed estates (haciendas) controlling more and more of the land and squeezing out the independent communities of the indigenous and mestizos, who were then subsequently forced into debt slavery (peonaje) on the haciendas. Díaz ran local elections to pacify the people and run a government that they could argue was self-imposed. Under (Dictator) Díaz, close confidantes and associates were given offices in districts throughout Mexico. These offices became the enforcers of “land reforms” that actually concentrated the haciendas into fewer hands.

But in modern times, Zapata is one of the most revered national heroes of Mexico: to many Mexicans, specifically the peasant and indigenous citizens, Zapata was a practical revolutionary who sought the implementation of liberties and agrarian rights outlined in the Plan of Ayala. He was a realist with the goal of achieving political and economic emancipation of the peasants in southern Mexico, and leading them out of severe poverty.

Another key element of the Zapatista ideology is their aspiration to do politics in a new, truly participatory way, from the “bottom-up” instead of “top-down.”

Zapatismo, the ideology of the movement, combines elements of social anarchism, autonomism, libertarian socialism, and libertarian Marxism.” Wikipedia

So….MWB might be Marxist and might not like government. But that doesn’t mean contemporary “Zapatistas” are inherently violent. I suppose like any other group, they could become violent, but are they threatening people directly like GL and his gang? I think not.

Here’s where it shows that the majority of current day Zapatistas, who are incensed about NAFTA because it has destroyed the Mexican agrigultural economny, are not pursuing war as a mechanism for change:

“The first such declaration, issued in 1993, had amounted to a declaration of war on the Mexican government, which they considered so out of touch with the will of the people as to make it completely illegitimate. Subsequent declarations have focused on non-violent solutions, both through political channels and through the assumption of many of the functions of government in the Chiapas state of southeastern Mexico.”

My guess is people who assume Zapatistas (if there are indeed any in MWB) are war mongerers just aren’t informed. I know I wasn’t until just now.

Any group that doesn’t like government leads to people like Timothy Mcveigh and we all know how that turned out. Seems like if people who support the resolution can be labeled as Nazis and things like that, people who are anti-government can be claimed to be like Timothy Mcveigh – who was basically a terrorist. “Social anarchism” isn’t something that sounds too great either, for that matter.

Not that Wikipedia can be considered an authoritative source on anything – it is often full of errors and it isn’t like the articles are always written by people who are experts on the subject.

anon at 13:13,

you are correct. wikipedia is not an authoritative source, any college professor will tell you that these days, they abhor wikipedia references. I did a post-grad program at GWU and actually had a student in the class use wikipedia as a reference in a paper, not the best way to get a decent grade, in fact he got a fat “F” on the paper.

a standard encyclopedia works wonders as well as many other sources. it’s amazing what microsoft encarta will tell you these days.

No, the Wiki isn’t the greatest thing in the world. It’s okay for a quick reference. However, there is a movement among academics to get more involved in editing Wikipedia to make it more reliable. That’s kind of off topic.

As far as Anarchists being like Timothy McVeigh, I can only say that some people give in to violence and some do not. Not all anarchists are violent–I’ve heard some people refer to themselves as anarchists when all they mean is they are fed up with government and think we would be much better without it at all. Then again, our Libertarian Party thinks something similar, just not quite so drastic. There are degrees to everything.

There are plenty of self-proclaiming Marxists out there who adhere to the purist principles of Carl Marx, but they don’t believe the way socialism has been applied thus far is right or productive.

I would love to see an open forum in which members of MWB and other discuss this issue (translators necessary) so we could get a better understanding of their philosophies. Trying to get it second hand like this is, at best, educated guessing, and at worst, assuming.

From Encarta: “On January 1, 1996, on the two-year anniversary of the initial armed uprising, the EZLN announced the formation of a new civilian political organization to be called the Zapatista National Liberation Front (known by the Spanish acronym FZLN). Leaders of the FZLN said that the new organization would not be an official political party, but promised that it would be nonviolent and would seek to foster democracy through constitutional reforms.”

“The group’s longtime spokesman, Subcomandante Marcos, appeared in public for the first time in four years in August 2005. Marcos denounced Mexico’s leading political parties—particularly the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and its leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador—for failing to support Native American rights and said the Zapatistas would work with other leftist groups to influence future elections. ”

This is from Encarta. I don’t know that’s it’s any more insightful, though. What I find interesting is that you see the same kind of strife we have had here with Native American nations who have not been respected. Our recent history isn’t so different than from what happened in Chiapas–the fighting between the ruling authorities and indigenous cultures. (The 1960’s-70’s “Billy Jack” movies are coming to mind, not necessarily an academic thought, but a thought.)

Agreed, guessing what MWB truly stands for is probably a next to impossible task without hearing directly from them – but looking at their website and translating pieces of it – there’s enough there to show evidence of some fairly extremist views. IT does seem to be a fairly agreed upon fact that they don’t believe in borders of any kind (I suppose that fits in with being anti govenment). Personally, I think they are pretty far to the left, and on the extreme. Again, probably all members aren’t that way – but it seems that members of HSM are painted with a broad brush here, so why shouldn’t members of MWB be painted with the same broad brush?

And of course, why not at least get information about the Zapistas from their own website? Haven’t had time to dig through it really – but it has links to interesting things like Pancho Villa (we keep going from one past revolutionary to another in this sarch). Anyway, for those interested in perusing it – it is at http://www.zapatistas.org/ . At least more of it is in English, but reading what little I’ve read of it so far – it makes it no easier to figure out what they are about, or more importantly what MWB is about.

Actually, I don’t even know why I’m arguing this. MWB (or at least the part about the “Woodbridge Workers Committee”) on their website happily takes the credit for the lawsuits against the City of Manassas when they tried to enact overcrowding statutes and for overturning those ordinances. So that trumps everything else for me – since I can’t have anything to do with an organization that supports that – it directly led to the mess my current neighborhood is in which I’ve documented before. So as far as I’m concerned, MWB can pay for the consequences of what happened to my neighborhood, which it appears they’ve had a direct hand in contributing to, based on their taking credit for the defeat of the overcrowding ordinances.

Actually, getting back to what this thread started as, 9500 Liberty ought to come and film where I live. They can film what used to be nice woods behind my backyard, which now are filled with beer bottles, boxes from various foods, papers, etc. And, when you look through there – the one thing that stands out – an extremely high percentage are products clearly identifiable as coming from Hispanic consumers. Not that I’d be any less angry if the trash had English labels on it, but unfortunately there is hardly any of that kind there. Someone should film that mess, if it were truly a balanced documentary – to see what was once a nice neighborhood really gone downhill in the past 3-4 years. What I liked when I bought here was the view of the woods behind my townhouse (rather than looking at another townhouse right behind me) – now in the past 3-4 years that view has turned into a view of more or less a garbage dump. Apparently the signs that were posted saying “No deje en desorden por favor” and “Do not be a litterbug” in English – with a large picture of a litterbug weren’t enough (along with trash cans even!) . Actually, before anyone says anything – I resent living in a neighborhood where it would be necessary to even post signs only in English that say “Do not litter” and have these pictures of a litterbug which are in the common area between the back of my townhouse and the woods behind it! It speaks a lot to what this neighborhood has degenerated to. I’m not sure there are many other neighborhoods sporting nice signs like these or that people would want to move in to a neighborhood where such signage is necessary! While I’m not interested in revealing where I live exactly, it would definitely make a more balanced documentary to show the effects like these on the quality of life here – to show those signs, and then the piles of trash in the woods right behind them! Showing empty businesses is fine to show one side, but I don’t see anyone running out taking video of neighborhoods suffering from overcrowding effects.

Anon,
I would be pretty irritated if I were you too! But how does this relate to illegal immigration? Do you believe all hispanics are “illegal” ? We need community outreach and our Board didn’t have the forsight to think of it, and now you are still dealing with neighborhood issues and no task force to turn to for help.

I obviously agree that not all Hispanics are “illegal” and not even a large percentage of them.

As far as outreach – the local homeowner’s association has continually tried it and failed (not that I’m any fan of the HOA here who has done some spectacularly crazy stuff like their towing cars that haven’t been moved in 5 days – which didn’t help keep my house looking occupied while on vacation as I would have definitely left it in front of my house otherwise). Anyway, the monthly community newsletter (hand delivered to each house) is in English and Spanish and for the past 3 years they’ve had an open plea (getting more and more desperate sounding) to get someone Spanish speaking to join the board or at least be a liason for the Spanish speaking population in the neighborhood. NOT ONE person has volunteered in all that time. So if you view this neighborhood as a “test case” for community outreach it has failed spectacularly. Each newspaper emphasizes taking pride in the neighborhood, not dumping trash all over the place, only putting out trash the night before pickup, etc. My neighbors in the overcrowded house put trash out usually almost the day after the last trash pickup, probably because there’s no place inside to store it I guess.

So, as far as I’m concerned community outreach doesn’t work – they don’t want to get involved in the neighborhood – at least not in this neighborhood. Anyway, as I’ve said, I’ve given up – this neighborhood doesn’t show any signs of recovering – I gave it a chance for the past 3 years, and it was stupid of me to not have moved out of here 3 years ago when I saw the signs and it would have been a lot easier to sell my townhouse. Believe me, I’m kicking myself every day for that dumb decision. I stupidly thought things would improve, the Hispanics moving in would eventually adapt, but it hasn’t happened and I don’t see it happening, at least not in this neighborhood. I hope it will work someplace else, but it isn’t here. This is City of Manassas of course, but I really don’t think there’s too much different here than life in PWC.

“happily takes the credit for the lawsuits against the City of Manassas when they tried to enact overcrowding statutes” The City of Manassas attempted to define family! That’s not the way to address over-crowding. I say, good for whoever took the reins on that one! No, we don’t want crowding, but I don’t want anyone telling ME who MY family should or should not be either. That very notion is absurd.

Furthermore, it’s almost impossible to get ANY people to HOA meetings (my subdivision is a great example of this), never mind people who feel uncomfortable, out of place, distanced because of language, and otherwise resented. If you have friends who speak Spanish, maybe a social event to start with would be better…..more friendly and comfortable. Then go from there. Remember, there is a serious lack of trust between cultures right now and you are up against that. The BOCS has made it 5X worse.

“people would want to move in to a neighborhood where such signage is necessary!” We have signs like that all over the place. And we have plenty of trash to pick up as well. We just had a community clean-up and there was a lot to clean up. I don’t like trash either, but it’s a sad state of our world in general that littering and trash blowing around are common.

I should also say, some Chinese people my wife met after coming here who lived in this neighborhood – got really fed up with what’s going on here too and recently moved out of here (and up to Herndon actually). Their neighbors (who again were Hispanic) actually seemed racist toward them, as I was at their townhouse and I don’t think the neighbors saw me, but saw my wife and them out in the backyard and made Spanish remarks that definitely could be interpreted to be racist, and wouldn’t be appropriate to post here in either the original or translated to English form. I believe they figured that Chinese people couldn’t possibly interpret what they were saying and didn’t realize I happened to be just inside the house when they made these remarks. Anyway, my wife’s friends getting fed up with this neighborhood and chosing to move out of here, is also what helped convince me it is time to get out of here. They were in such a hurry to get out of here, they ended up renting out their townhouse because it would not sell in a short period of time – but it’s not something I would do as I want to get out of this neighborhood and not look back. It is adding too much stress to my life, and it’s just not worth it. I’m probably going to just price my townhouse really low and it get it sold, as I’ll still get equity out of it having been here 20 years, but just not as much equity as I’d have hoped for unforunately. That’s why I’m kicking myself for not getting out of here 3 years ago when I first saw the signs…

Well, the City of Manassas didn’t apparently to have any other viable way to address overcrowding. Anyway, I disagree regarding that ordinance and the defeat of it – at least in townhouses packing 9 or more people in a 3 bedroom 3 story townhouse is absurd.

As far as the littering signage, maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much if there wasn’t one directly behind my back yard with a large cartoon of a litterbug (at least apparently our HOA’s idea of what a litterbug looks like – and it isn’t a pretty picture!) along with the English/Spanish verbage I’ve reported before . If you had one directly off the edge of your back yard (and then again every 30 feet!), you might not like it too. I don’t know who decided the frequency of these signs, or their placement, but basically I felt like in my case, it effectively labeled the edge of my property as a garbage problem zone! Depending on where they are placed in your neighborhood – I might not resent it so much if they were the same way in my neighborhood. Again, the HOA here often does some stupid things. These signs have not made any dent in the problem – and personally I’d love to tear them down (or the one behind my house at least). Maybe it is the litterbug pictorial (or cartoon) or whatever you call it, that makes these signs look spectacularly stupid! I might not mind it as much without that image, I think and just the English/Spanish verbage. I’m not sure what they were thinking when they came up with the particular image they put on there. I will admit, I’ve tried attending the HOA meetings but found them so silly I couldn’t take it (for example people basically wanting exceptions to parking a max of 2 cars in the lot – and having to suffer through why they think they should get some kind of special treatment, when they knew the rules coming in).

Also, in my own case as far as littering problems, my own neighbors don’t mind tossing their lit (they don’t even bother to put them out) cigarette buts into my back yard when they are out smoking on the deck, creating in my opinion a fire hazard. I suppose someone should say we should educate them about that – but again, it is common sense, common courtesy, which they seem to lack, and at this point in their adult lives if they haven’t acquired it, I don’t see anyone being able to educate them. Really, what reasonable person would knowingly toss lit cigarette buts in a neighbor’s back yard?

Actually, when the first people in this house moved in and i had a completely neutral opinion of them, I tried saying hello to them when I first saw them and they just stared past me like I was from some other planet or something which actually quite surprised me at the time as I remember. In fact, I thought maybe it was me speaking English, so after a few times just tried a smile and hand wave and still they just kind of looked at me like I had done something truly bizarre. After awhile, I just stopped bothering to try. I would think a friendly hand wave is universal – figuring there was some language barrier with “hello” or “hi”. Again, I’m not going to generalize, but in my own personal case, with at least the initial inhabitants of this house if you can’t say hi to them and get a response, you aren’t going to get anywhere with anything more complex than that. The inhabitants that have followed (although one or two of the initial inhabitants remain) don’t look any better or any friendlier. I in fact have a sister-in-law who is fluent in Spanish as her parents are from Spain (but moved here many many years ago) and she’s been here and overheard some of their conversations out on the deck, and told me from what she heard these were people she wouldn’t feel comfortable dialoging with. She lives nearby in Chantilly, so has been over here often enough to have gotten a good sense of multiple conversations.

So, again I’m not generalizing, but in my own personal case I’m too stressed out and frustrated over what I see is a declining neighborhood with no possibility of recovering, to want to stay here. It is unfortunate, but it is what it is.

Actually, in a rather stunning turn of events, my wife saw 3 police cars outside and saw police entering the townhouse next to me. I don’t think this is related to the burglary in my house, as I just spoke with the detective yesterday and he said they really had exhausted their leads. In a way, this is even more scary to me, as who knows what this police presence is for next door. It can’t be good anyway, and makes me even less comfortable here than I was. If I find anything out I’ll update this. Kind of illustrates though the lawlessness that in my own specific case I’ve had to put up with. We’ll see what comes of this, but any way you look at it, having police presence of this magnitude at an adjoining townhouse to yours can’t be a good thing and doesn’t lead one to feel very safe. Just another sign of the downhill trend here. I can hear the sounds of a lot of “foot traffic” next door through the walls, so whatever it is there’s a lot of movement going on in that house – they must be searching for something I would guess judging from the noises I’m hearing. Doubt it’s stolen property from my house – it wasn’t there when they looked for it after I returned and told them what was missing, so I’m certain it can’t be there now. I have a feeling this is something entirely unrelated, which in my own opinion makes it not a good sign. The sooner I get out of here the better at this point.

An update – recognized one of the police officers still outside as having taken the report from me on my stolen property, so went out and talked to him. He told me it is a rape investigation. Nice people I live next to! One who no longer lives there was identified by a neighbor as seen running from the back of my house so is a suspect in a burglary, and now another person in that house who still lives there is apparently a suspect in a rape investigation! Just lovely.. We were going to do a little more house hunting this weekend, now I think it may be a lot more – I feel an even more urgent need to get out of here. We are escalating the crimes fast here – first burglary, now rape, what’s next?

I certainly feel sorry for whoever the victim is, and don’t know if the actual rape occurred here in the neighborhood or elsewhere, obviously. Still, don’t like living next to a possible rapist. My wife had always been uncomfortable with them staring at her so this latest development really drives the point home.

I suppose innocent before proven guilty, but in my mind if there was one criminal living in this house I’m not surprised there’s probably another – so in this case I kind of think there’s a good reason there’s a rape investigation going on there. I never bought into the fact that the rest of the occupants had no idea where this person has gone to anyway – and really thought more than just one person of that house was involved in the burglary of my house. The neighbor could only positively recognize one of them given it was dark, etc. Then again that neighbor has had retribution since then, even after this person fled – in the form of rocks thrown at his house in the middle of the night. Could be the person who fled, but more probably one or more of his former roommates I bet. I suppose it would be a form of justice if indeed it was one of the other people in this house were involved in the burglary of my house, and now is the alleged rapist, but I’m sorry that someone was victimized in that way, and actually hope it to be no one here in the neighborhood. Not that it is a good thing for it to be anywhere – but hope the actual rape occurred someplace else. I have seen women come in or out of that house at times around 10 PM when I’ve been out walking the dog, so would be scary if the rape actually did occur inside there. Don’t think there’s any women actually living there however, but at times it is very hard to tell given the traffic in and out of the house, who are really residents there.

testing……tommmy, can you see me?
LOL

ok, I see my post!

Admin/ Elena,
how do I contact you?

And as a final update, saw one of the occupants being led out in handcuffs a little while ago – and the police activity is now gone. Hopefully he’ll stay in jail where he won’t be a threat to anyone else, and maybe it will put some fear into his housemates to at least be law abiding. Just some nice drama to make one feel safe on a Friday night here in the delightful neighborhood!

anon,

I don;t know the answers and do not DOUBT for a minute you are telling the truth.
The City tried to do that thing with limiting the numbers of family members, etc.
and you are talking about how you have SEEN, LIVED the thought of neighborhoods coming together and trying to work things out.( that happened prior to the city trying to pass that ordinance and now we have something different but the SAME in my eyes , the resolution in PWC)

I want to ask you what you think should and can be done, but I see that you feel like nothing can be done as you have stated that you feel that you have done EVERYTHING you can do and want to move.
I understand that. The problem is going to follow you where ever you move but this just makes me ask again and again…wtf is up with our own fed gov?
Why are neighbors fighting against neighbor, etc….

Anon,

I am just catching up. You do live in the city of Manassas? Who is the landlord who owns the house where the problems are?

Anon, sounds like you are in a bad neighborhood or at least on a bad street. (Sorry to hear that!) I’ve lived in places like that before (i.e. store across the street got broken into every other month or so, cars stolen, vandalism, etc.) and there wasn’t an “illegal” problem. It was just a bad neighborhood. What is the relationship between the “illegal” issue and what you are describing? Do you know there are “illegals” living next door or are they just plain old hoodlums?

Yes, I am in the City of Manassas, although only a mile and a half roughly from the border with PWC. Unfortunately I think the landlord is one of the occupants. Not that I want to again link this to Hispanics, but the owner of the house (looking at the Manassas City website where you can see the tax assesment/sales prices/owners) the owner has an Hispanic name. It seems that when the house was sold 3 years ago a group of people moved in, most of which have changed, but I believe 2 still live there. At one time I called the overcrowding hotline and the city took care of it and for awhile it was good. Then after the ordinance got killed it went right back to being the way it was, and the city seems too cowardly to do anything about it (believe me, I tried but they want a long drawn out investigation process to avoid any lawsuits – of any house where they are looking into overcrowding). That is why I personally was affected by that lawsuit against the ordinance – things might not be where they are at today if that house was never allowed to get back to an overcrowded state.

As far as what could be done to turn things around in this neighborhood, I’m frankly out of ideas and feel entirely burned out about the whole thing. I’m sure this is an unusual case where neighbors inflict crimes upon direct neighbors – and it is part of why I think things are relatively hopeless. Anyway for me personally – the only light at the end of the tunnel I can see is to just sign a contract on some place in another neighborhood. In reality, I ask myself why put up with a long commute I don’t particularly enjoy – it would only make sense if I was commuting to/from an area that I felt was nice. So that’s really another big factor – if I can shorten my commute that’s a plus too, and takes out another element of stress. I try to avoid the traffic, which makes me have to get up at a fairly insane hour – and isn’t made any easier by neighbors who make noise past 10 – 10:30 PM when I want to get to sleep during the workweek. So all things considered, the more I look at it, I can’t rationalize any reason for continuing to put up with this, plus my wife is none too comfortable after the break-in. Really, once your house has been broken into, you no longer feel secure. Did install an alarm system – but now that’s an extra $35/month expense I’m paying which I wasn’t before. If I still was working here in Manassas, I’d have more interest in staying here, now it really just makes no sense.

The thing is that no one could have sued the city if they just came in to EVERY crowded home and cited safety, fire, and health codes. The city CAN get sued for citing FAMILY! I wonder who is writing these policies and if they are getting second, third and fourth opinions before trying to implement them. Obviously, this county didn’t bother trying to get other opinions first, and that’s why we are in this mess.

As far as “illegals”and my linkage of that to the problems in my neighborhood. I can’t generalize of course that all the problems in the neighborhood are due to “illegals”. But, for my specific case of the break-in to my house – I know the one person next door that another neighbor on the street identified as being one of the ones involved in the break-in to my house – had no identification of any kind when the police investigated. So that’s how I know he is illegal. Any legal immigrant would either have a green card or a Visa in their passport at the very least, even if they didn’t have a driver’s license. So to have no identification – and then flee and no one else in the house knows where he went – I’d say there’s a 99% chance he is an illegal. So I’m not making some assumption there. As for the rest of them, I have no idea whether they are legal or not. So the one specific issue (and I know it is a specific case) is where I connect it to the illegal immigration problem. A legal person probably wouldn’t just pick up and flee like that, and there’d be some trail as to where he went. Who knows even if he gave a correct name? Without any “documentation” (that is identification) what’s to stop someone from making up any old name to the police? Again, why the police didn’t arrest him on the spot is a good question – somehow I guess they had to wait until I returned home and listed stolen goods. I guess that would be to build a better case perhaps. Who knows. I consider that part a screwup by the Manassas City Police.

Anyway, I’m sure my emotions have gotten the better of me in all of this – and that’s why for me personally, the best thing is to get out of here. I actually think, once your house is broken into that’s kind of the last straw – it is hard (at least for me personally) to feel really secure. With my wife home alone during the daytime (other than for the dog who doesn’t qualify as a watchdog – she is too friendly) – it also now makes me feel less secure about that. As I say, don’t know for other people – but for me – once your house has been broken into – it is like an invasion of your security and there’s no way of regaining that, for me personally. Thinking back, I didn’t really have any plans of moving out of here before the break-in – so all of that changed with the break-in – which was just a little over a month ago now – and really only started looking at houses last weekend for the very first time. In fact, the before the break-in I wasn’t actively following discussions on illegal immigration, to be perfectly honest.

The problem is it takes a huge amount of people in a townhouse to violate fire, safety, and health codes. What a reasonable person might assume is the max number of occupants for a 3 story, 3-bedroom townhouse – does not at all match what the fire, safety, and health codes say. I’m sure if they were amended to more reasonable numbers, there’s be a lawsuit too. It’s a no-win situation. Even if the city had gone about it another way, I’m sure with lawyers, there would be lawsuits. The city is very very cautious now with lawsuits, that is for sure. It is also unfortunately real difficult just counting numbers of individuals in a house, when they come and go at all hours of the day and night. Really, at times I see so many different people coming in and out of there- I really don’t know who are residents and who are visitors. That’s why I suspect they tried to define family, so if they found a bunch of unrelated people living there, and there appeared to be large numbers of people, it might be easier to prove overcrowding. Again, this is just my guess, and I don’t know it for a fact – as to why they tried to go to some definition of family to attack the overcrowding issue.

In fact, this year’s city budget has a substantially increased lawyers fee in it, and obviously is a direct response to the fear of lawsuits, or continued lawsuits. It was one of the justifications for the budget increase and increased taxes – even though assessments are down, the tax rate has been adjusted to actually increase real estate taxes by 10%. Some of that is for a new fire/safety tax levy, but the lawyers fee increase definitely didn’t help things either.

Anon,
Your HONESTY shows!

That is why it is believable to me, “raw emotion” I am sorry this happened to you and I am not sure how I would react but would think that I would do the same.
I see you being PROACTIVE in trying to find answers/hanging in there, etc.

This is why, YES, I was a supporter of the resolution because I wanted to see changes and thought THIS was the answer. I jumped on the only thing riding ( and am STILL THANKFUL, for the op) but started to see that this was NOT the answer back in December of 07.

This is why I say there is no easy answer and that it is a very complex issue. PATHETIC? YES!

Anon,
I am so sorry to hear about the events next to your home tonight. I would be very upset if I were you too. I remember, when I lived in the townhouse in centreville, I awoke to a woman screaming at the top of her lungs, I went rushing outside(blind as a bat because I had been sleeping and didn’t have my contacts in) and then saw a vehicl peel away while leaning on the horn. I ran back in the house, called the police, turns out someone had tried to attack a woman at gun point! Luckily she escaped unharmed. they never caught the assailant but I was terrified for months just walking to and from the car to the front door, front door to the car. I even took a self defense course sponsored by frfx county police. Now, I this was a fairly new neighborhood, and still there was an attack like this! It is obvious you are frustrated and anxious about what is happening in your neighborhood, and what I wish we had, in place today, was a professional task force that had different language speakers, especially spanish, to help deal with some of the broader issues.

Red Dawn – definitely agree this is a highly complex issue with no easy solution, and there is no one answer that will magically solve it. It is unfortunate that things weren’t done a long time ago to address this problem – whatever solutions that would have been found then would have been a lot easier for all parties concerned. And yes, the period since the break-in has been a time for me personally when my emotions have been very close to the surface, and I don’t really enjoy the feeling. I actually can’t remember a time in my life when I’ve been so angry and frustrated about things, and the only thing that prevents a feeling of hopelessness is that at least I afford to move out of here so that’s the only way I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I had quite gotten used to the fact that my mortgage payments were low having bought a long time ago (when at that time it really stretched my budget to get into this neighborhood). Not terribly looking forward to that again being rather pessimistic about the price I’ll get for this house in today’s market (or at least so I can sell it quickly), but I’d rather have less money to spend and be happy than living here with a low mortgage and not being happy and not feeling a sense of security about my house.

Elena – your story above is interesting and would be scary as you say. For me, I often have to travel as part of my job, since the system I work on is located in US military bases mostly at least not in the continental USA and also in some foreign countries where the US has bases. So now am not really comfortable with my wife being here alone obviously while I’m away – since the time of the break-in. I usually have some travel every month or so – for a week or two at a time, so now it is at the point where I’m going to have to deal with that too as my first trip since the time of the break-in is coming up. Although there are options for her to stay with friends or my brother and his family who are here in the area, but that is complicated with the dog and not wanting to impose and also not being as close to her English classes she is taking at present. Taking her with me is something I’ve done when it is to places that are desirable to visit (which some are), but not all are and the ones out of country usually stay at lodging inside the base, which is not an option for my wife as she is not a US Citizen and would not be permitted to stay on the base.

Anyway, the net of it is, when you no longer feel comfortable about the safety of your house, it is time to move. It makes no sense for me to have a somewhat of a long commute and put up with the frustrations sitting in traffic in the evening, when I’m driving back home to a place where I feel my sense of security has been taken away from me, or I can really be proud of. If I was still working here in Manassas it might be a different story, I guess.

Well, it is time to go look at houses, so I’m off of here for now.

“Thinking back, I didn’t really have any plans of moving out of here before the break-in – so all of that changed with the break-in – which was just a little over a month ago now – and really only started looking at houses last weekend for the very first time. In fact, the before the break-in I wasn’t actively following discussions on illegal immigration, to be perfectly honest.”

So if you didn’t have crime in your neighborhood, what you are saying is you wouldn’t care about anyone’s citizen status. I’ve heard at least one other person say that, and I completely understand. No one wants to live in a dangerous place.

I hear what you are saying about the safety codes. But I also think there are other things to consider here. For example, you can’t have different gender children sharing a bedroom after a certain age. You can’t have kids sleeping with parents after a certain age. These are DSS violations and not health/safety violations. There are other things like you can’t have people using something without a window as a bedroom. If it’s a kid, it’s a DSS issue. If it’s an adult, I don’t know what it is.

I would really wonder about a house that is as over-crowded as you are describing. I bet there are other issues there than just health and safety (and criminal activity of course).

My complete sympathy!

Well, we’ve been out looking today, and actually think we found a nice neighborhood. And I did see Hispanic families walking around there, but that’s fine. What I think is the big problem in this neighborhood – is most of what is living here are a bunch of unrelated people in these townhouses, and no children (or in many cases I don’t see any women either). This neighborhood we’re seriously considering looked family oriented and I have absolutely no problem with what I saw today which did include some Hispanic families out walking about. By families what I saw in a few cases were 2 parents and 1 or 2 young children. These are single family homes we are looking at – my wife feels if we are going to move, she doesn’t want to move to another townhouse community, even a new one. In a way, I have a feeling that single family homes, in at least a new neighborhood (although this one is maybe 3 years into a 5 year buildout) seem to have more stable looking families and less of a bunch of unrelated people – at least when they are new. Of course, hard to predict what any neighborhood will look like in 10 or 15 years. Anyway, beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel – we probably will go back tomorrow and get pretty serious about something there. I liked what I saw – I think the problem is this neighborhood has moved away from traditional families like that, for whatever reason. They have a deal where they will arrange leasing your current house for up to 12 months if it takes you that long to sell it. So that seems to alleviate my fears about having to try to sell it quickly. Anyway, will see but feeling a bit more hopeful about things, and like what I saw of the mix of people – again including several Hispanic families out and about around the neighborhood. It was a nice day – so many people were outside today so a good way to get a look at who is living there. I have a feeling, if those kind of Hispanic families were in this neighborhood, it would not be like it is now. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen – at least near me, there doesn’t seem to be traditional Hispanic families in here (by that I meant parents with children, and maybe some other relatives). Instead, it all seems to be unrelated individuals, that are somewhat transient as the composition of the household seems to change quite often – at least the house next to me seems to maybe only have 1 or 2 of the original people in there at the time the house was sold to the latest owner 3 years ago.

For the record, we have no existing footage that shows a MWB person being hateful. The closest thing would be the lady who said kiss my ass which was posted on Nov. 2nd, 2007.

I want to say something about Mexicans Without Borders.

I’m sorry to say I had a negative impression of them at first, because of things I heard and, I guess, believed, most of which was said at the Aug. 28, 2007 Help Save Manassas meeting. Then, I actually met some of the people from MWB, and it turned out they were really nice, voicing their opinion in completely non-violent ways, and doing their best to hold together a fractured community. I didn’t give them a lot of “air” time in our videos because it really seemed to me the decisions our community needed to make hinged on the average voter and the Board of County Supervisors, and whether or not they would accept or reject the doctrines of Help Save Manassas.

We probably should have done more to debunk all the false rumors being spread around about MWB. But, even the most reasonable people had already assumed that MWB was radical and scary, in part based on their radical and semi-scary sounding name. And again, Prince William County was not deliberating a legislative agenda from MWB; the legislative agenda was from HSM.

Eric, would love to see you do a video where they discuss their ideologies, Zapatistas and all that stuff (with translations, of course). That’s the kind of education we all need to help build community.

Eric, I too have met several people from MWB and you’re right, they have been nice and while practicing some civil disobience, have worked to avoid confrontation as they havea learned and realized that to win the majority’s sympathy and/or support they cannot alienate that majority (as waving foreign flags did during protests two years ago). One of the difficulties I have is that in dicussions with them, they DO advocate no borders between specfically Mexico and the US. I have personally had John Steinback (sp?) tell me this. This concept to me is unworkable and a deal breaker. I also object to a group whose members (the vast majority) cannot vote trying to decide or influence county policies. We are a demoncracy and a participatory one at that and that right to participate and make decisions comes with being a citizen. Now I am supportive of some type of path to citizenship, but those that are not citizens should not be given the same weight or right to influence those policies that are to be ultimately decided by elected officials – officials that citizens voted in and can vote out.

Agreed, that is the big problem with MWB – their position is there are no borders between Mexico and the US. There is a reason that countries have borders, and for someone to say they won’t honor that, also makes me not interested in their position. As pointed out above, for them to influence US policy, without being citizens also isn’t right. Any current legal immigrant still has a path to go to get to citizenship and the right to vote – it is earned over time. Here people entering our country are trying to influence policy right away, and that isn’t right.

I’m also opposed to MWB’s position of no borders. I think we’ve got two types of immigrants. Temporary workers who want to come here to work and then go home should retain their citizenship to their country of origin. They should be protected under the law and subject to the law.
The second type of immigrant wants to come to stay. That’s great but they’ve got to make a sincere commitment if they want the country to commit to them. No dual citizenship. No North American Union. It’s not easy to build a nation. First thing thats necessary is that people gotta care about it.
It’s pretty arrogant for MWB to say we’ve got to erase our borders…obnoxious really. They give people like Greg LeTiecq ammunition.