DENVER- Isn’t there something distasteful about a gathering of Obama supporters who want to rail against “The War On Women” and permit no mention of his non metaphorical deadly engagements? Organizers complained bitterly about activist Rita Ague’s successful subversion of their Democratic Party-only event messaging, while pretending the Pro-Obama theme was spontaneous and not partisan astroturf. While attendees carried all sorts of reproductive rights slogans, the only signage hung on the amphitheater was for Dem candidates. We had anticipated as much from early participants instructed not to worry about signs, they’d be provided. Indeed they were: “Women for Obama”, “Latinas for Obama” and anti Right-wingnut signs. Another clue came from Denver colleagues who surprised us with the news that a significant turnout was not expected because the Denver community was not responding. This was strictly a country mouse affair.

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OCCUPIED DENVER– If Denver Occupiers accomplished one thing this May Day, in solidarity with global calls for a general strike, and in sync with more aggressive protests in Oakland and elsewhere, Occupy Denver had a great time. THAT WAS ALL IT HAD TO BE. The crowd was largely young, with the energy, idealism and ideology reminiscent of the early days last fall. OCCUPEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULER!

OCCUPIED DENVER- March 24.

Andean people protest against Newmont Mining’s Conga gold project during a march near the Cortada lagoon at Peru’s region of Cajamarca, November 24, 2011. Protests have continued including a national march for clean Water in Peru during February 2012.

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Denver occupiers took to the streets last night in solidarity with OCCUPYs nationwide to protest the brutal January 27 clampdown on an attempted squat in Oakland, California. My favorite chant of the evening was “THEY SAY GET BACK, WE SAY FUCK THAT!” but by the march’s end it was DPD officers who were told to back off. As the protesters took Colfax Avenue and adjacent street, Denver cruisers kept traffic away, eliminating potential witnesses or passersby who might join in. But when Occupy Denver led their protest to the police station, officers with riot control weapons closed in to encircle them in what’s now referred to as a “kettle”, or extrajudicial detainment. Taking a page from the DPD manual the occupiers told their would-be attackers to “GET BACK, GET BACK!” and Obi-Wan-Kenobied their way out of the uncivil-liberty trap. [more on the evening's account later today]

OCCUPIED DENVER- DKNY Know-Nothings have labelled them “BOBs,” but the “Bums On Broadway” occupiers are planning actions with reach well beyond the capitol, mobilizing en mass this Saturday to defend their occupation from a supposed Tea Party assault.

U.S. Pigs gas protesters who have so far not fired a single shot against them, and are called Heroes by the Right Wing Extremists who control the News Media in America.

OCCUPIED DENVER- I heard a lot of taunts aimed at the imposing armored police officers who were crashing our peaceful assembly. Curses, ridicule, warnings, pleas. The best was this admonition:
Dude, this video will go on the internet. Your children will see it.

Occupy Colorado Springs is and has been a relatively staid affair. Our biggest marches have drawn maybe 200 participants, and the street corner has been generally host to small crowds and mostly friendly or indifferent passers by. Visits from police have been just that–visits, rather than assaults, even when the HOTT Team came to arrest me early in the morning on 18 October, and the intrepid Camping Jack on two more recent occasions. We had to take steps to force them to make my arrest. Many of the core participants at Acacia Park have never been involved in any sort of political processes at all, let alone public protestations. So when several of our number traveled to Denver last Saturday to join a boisterous crowd of around 3,000 souls emotions were high, mixed, and complex.

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OCCUPIED DENVER- Patrick shot this video in the thick of the action of October 29, which covers the initial arrests at Civic Center Park. It unmasks first DPD raid as a deliberate provocation, sent aimlessly into thick of crowd to make arbitrary arrests. Footage begins from early moments of protesters asking police not to bring weapons into peaceful assembly, without success.

DENVER- Hundreds of police in riot gear were deployed against the Occupy campers today. Not for the peaceful march, nor the slogans they voiced, nor even activist demands to climb the capitol steps. No, the hundreds arrived with gas masks, and new batons literally out of the box, to roust a dozen protest tents adorned with Occupy Wall Street slogans. To the peaceful assembly, the sudden arms buildup could have been none other than a show of force.

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Off to Acacia Park for the night, then Denver in the morning. Occupy! is fully international. We’ll need to come to terms with that in our own countries, cities, minds, and act accordingly, cooperatively, if we are to truly build a thing of beauty without a ridiculous cataclysm. Continue to embrace Humanity in everyone! Cops and soldiers, bankers and beggars–all of us are just working the Gameboard as seems best to us at the time. Pull back. Breathe. Shine the Light! The Game’s over. Learn to Dance!

OCCUPIED DENVER- Forbidden from erecting tents in Lincoln Park, despite cold and snow, intrepid OWS protesters took their lemons, made lemonade, and surprised authorities with a PROTEST IGLOO. So DPD drove a bulldozer over it.

DENVER- Is it a vanguard action? Check it out and decide, but make sure YOUR itinerary includes TUES 25TH protest of Tar Sands pipeline with American Indian Movement at the UC-Denver Auraria Campus, WED 26TH protest of Obama visit, also on Auraria Campus, and SAT 29TH global march to demand Robin Hood Tax, the 1% tax on all international banking transactions. Really, just 1%? The Robin Hood of yore took more like 99% and left his highborn victims with just enough to limp back to the castle. 1% from the 1% is a start.

DENVER- Concert, 1000-strong march, and the customary Broadway sidewalk shenanigans. Here’s a paint-tub drummer, PVC didjeridoo and my vote for best sign: MIND THE GAP. Saturday’s musical festivities in Civic Center Park meshed well with the annual Zombie Crawl, but the day’s highlight came after dark, when Denver’s anarchist community held a march against police brutality in memory of DPD victim Marvin Booker. The unpermitted route began at Denver Zoo and defined “Whose streets? OUR STREETS!” as it took 23rd, York, Colfax, Broadway, around OCCUPY DENVER’s CC park and into the 16th Street Mall where nocturnal Zombies swelled the ranks and found themselves chanting and carrying the banners STOP POLICE TERRORISM and LAW ENFORCEMENT: END YOUR WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE.

DENVER- Introducing Occupy Denver’s answer to No Tents Allowed: Tent! Eventually Denver Police delivered this warning: no blocking the sidewalks, no jaywalking, and you have to keep the tent aloft. Set it down and you get a ticket. Whatevs.

DENVER- When Occupy Denver threatens to make a difference is when authorities have to shut it down. The sweep tonight is a good sign.
I’m not worried about Occupy Denver. I have a tent booked for this weekend, the police attack tonight will just raise occupancy rate is all. Now I’ll have to move up my check-in date to be assured a space. Colorado Police have already lost this engagement. The mere threat of arrest tonight only enlarged the protest, it didn’t frighten it off. Middle of the night arrests and tent-clearing are of little consequence. At height of the crowd strength, the police backed down. Tents will go up everywhere tomorrow. There’s not enough riot gear in the US to occupy the multitude of protest occupations. Denver state capitol here we come!

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DENVER- The #OccupyDenver encampment at the base of Capitol Hill has quadrupled after the weekend, there are now tents north and south of war memorial obelisk. The crowd tonight was merry, and the GA spirited. More pictures below.

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This weekend the General Assembly of Occupy Denver recognized that its intended occupation was actually a re-occupation, of lands to which original inhabitants lay claim. On Sunday the GA consensus voiced its solidarity with the American Indian Movement of Colorado who submitted a statement for ratification. It’s reprinted below via The Sole Reader:

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You can point the finger at the angry Anarchists, or at the nonviolence biddies who refuse to mingle, but in the end the Occupy Denver General Assembly emerged unscathed. At issue was the third of the St Paul principles, that activists will not condemn each other over divergent tactics. Of course condemnation provokes… condemnation, so the disruptors succeeded with their divisive interjections, until participants concluded that violence versus nonviolence was a non issue. No one wants or plans violence, why pretend it requires sanction or prohibition? For my part I wonder who says youthful exuberance has anything to learn from voices of experience, experienced at failure? Occupy Together is the common goal. The Denver occupation on the capitol steps is now encamped 24/7 and has organized a permitted demonstration on Saturday Oct 1. Local unions have signed on to march, which mirrors the interest labor is now paying in several dozen cities worldwide, just as Occupy Wall Street garners more and more celebrity and media attention.

If you can’t bum a ride to New York City, you are going to miss out, it’s plain as that. But you can make the revolution happen where you are. The Egyptian victory in Tahrir Square wasn’t achieved without simultaneous demos in Alexandria and Suez, etc. The earliest heavy casualties actually happened outside Cairo. In the Colorado capitol, a nascent #OccupyDenver is building steam. President Obama is making a campaign stop in Denver on Tuesday at Lincoln High School at Evans and Federal. That will be an excellent chance to force the media to break its blackout against the anti-capitalist uprising. What’s there to say to President Obama? Nothing right? He’s shown he answers only to Wall Street. But the message to the TV coverage of Obama, and to the people of Denver can be: Why is the bank-owned corporate media not telling you about #OccupyWallStreet? Reclaim our democracy from the bankers.
 
Colorado Springs is gaga for warmongers, bigots, Zionists and conservative educational campuses. The local Intelligence Quotient doesn’t rise to the level of critical thinking, which is a heartbreaking trait in its youth. But there is an ongoing effort to aid #OccupyWallStreet’s visibility. It’s held on the noon hour, at Tejon and Colorado Ave downtown, at the Booz Allen Hamilton Building, where area war profiteers laugh all the way to the investment banks across the hall, passing by the local FBI office, btw. Our protest doesn’t have the music, mahem & hijinks of NYC Liberty Plaza, but none of the beatings either. Come a few minutes late and you get to pass reserve cops hiding out of our view in the alleys around the critical intersection, in case the bankers want their critics squashed. Possible messaging: DON’T LET BANKERS FORECLOSE ON DEMOCRACY, OCCUPY WALL STREET NOW!
 
WALL STREET BANKS ARE STEALING YOUR HOME, HEALTH, RETIREMENT, STANDARD OF LIVING, & WORLD RESOURCES. #OCCUPYWALLSTREET –LOOK IT UP.

For NMania1: Thanks for the Voice
And for Bob Holmes: I love you Bob, I swear. But you deserve this.
Don’t feel too sad–I deserve much worse.

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Well looky who’s the primary sponsor of Denver’s 9/11 misremembrance: our scaremonger friends at THE C.E.L.L., the Zionist funded terror indoctrination center where you can subject yourself and your kids to the psychological trauma of a bomb attack, because the only fear they have to peddle is fear itself. We’ve covered the odious CELL from its start, whose billboards helpfully warn Denver that terror can happen to anyone, any time, any place. Formerly the “Center for Empowered Learning and Living”, now they’ve dubbed themselves the “Counter-Terrorism Education Learning Lab.” Redundant much? It’s obvious that the GWOT drummers would make a last ditch effort on 9/11′s final hurrah. When’s the next big anniversary? 2026? They’ll be the Crow-Eating Liverspotted Lepers by then. Besides trying to keep Americans motivated to kill Muslims to preempt terror at home, The CELL has another motive to spread fear. Israelis are beginning to bail from Zionism, in particular from the Judification of Jerusalem, because the constant fear of violence is wearing on them. One strategy to stanch the exodus is to make fear of terrorism universal, especially in core Jewish population centers like Denver, Chicago, NYC and LA.

Actually Ozone. But I hear the same whiny complaint from both, complying with air standards would be too costly. Leaving aside that exempting SUV’s from emissions limits because they’re “work” vehicles, leads a lot of grossly immature “status seeker” to drive one person in a car made for eight and gets really bad gas mileage. Then get the already subsidized gas drastically reduced by claiming it as a “work” or “business” expense, meaning people who DO pay taxes are forced to pay for idiot-mobiles, so We and our Kids have to eat, drink and breathe THEIR exhaust fumes. Just so they can pretend to be Manly Men and impress other idiots.

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