OCCUPIED DENVER- So we got a little bored with Saturday’s march, the white-bread marchers being kept to three chants, (99%, Democracy & Our Streets). Parade marshals insisted procession not overtake a fat woman in a wheelchair, preventing the march from stretching out and disrupting any more than two blocks at a time, effectively handicapping the march! For respite we got some giggles by greeting some third story well-wishers with this variant: “OUT OF THE WINDOW, INTO THE STREET!” Absent on Saturday were anti-imperialists to mix it up, which prompted me to inventory chants to remember to bring to the next events.

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Occupy! is a movement that has arisen “in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice.” It’s a phenomenon, perhaps more that a movement. The state of the world, and of the human race has grown so imbalanced, so deeply dysfunctional, so painfully self-absorbed by malign tendencies that suddenly we humans passed a threshold beyond which our tolerance could not continue. So we spilled out into the street to demand attention to the aggressive imbalances we’re all forced to live with every day, be they economic, racial, nationalistic, religious–the nature of these distinctions is far less important than our weariness of the game we’re caught up in involving the necessity to grind down our fellows in order to keep our own heads above water.

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Apologies to readers not at hand or interested so deeply in Colorado Springs’s silly affairs.
 
Last night , it appears more cops were called in to arrest or press charges against one of our own, Jack Semple, by one of our own, the identity of which latter individual seems muddled to some extent. It’s simple enough to determine that Jason W. and Kristie W. are the only individuals that have any sort of legitimacy, however dubious, for cop-calling, but we all know from experience that the cops possess a grasp of nuances like this one below a genuinely operable threshold. Some have been bandying about terms like “tyranny,” “hater’” and other such inflammations. I’ll note that, though Jack and Jason will serve as specific personifications for this piece, others have made alignments according to the differences described. More than one observer has noted the inanity of all this, both from here in Colorado Springs, and from afar. Holy mackerel.

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OCCUPY COLORADO SPRINGS has an asshole problem, fortunately it’s just one asshole, and it’s not Occupy Jack Semple. Colorado Springs Occupiers passed a no-snitch policy Tuesday, in line with Occupies nationwide, but that doesn’t stop Jason Warf, as permit holder for his personal “occupy” franchise, from calling the police on activists trying to make the Acacia Park encampment about more than Warf’s media-whore ego. Fellow occupiers are forbidden to speak and act as anything other than solitary individuals, whether addressing City Council about the 1st Amendment, or answering media questions about what they hope to achieve with OWS. Whereas Jason Warf, self-officialized spokesman talks only about divisions and who’s not part of his movement.

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OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Why stop at protest tents? Jack’s got a protest car, now there are two. Two cars used by Occupy Colorado Springs have now been booted for not paying their way alongside Acacia Park. No homeless allowed, so no homeless cars allowed. The plan? Occupy Cars! Activists are sleeping in shifts, occupying these cars to prevent them being impounded. Did you watch yesterday’s video of the Saturday arrests? Jack Semple is a rockstar. If you can help Jack and his fellow occupiers, figure out something, they can use your help. They’ve already got the outrageous ideas, it’s the run of the mill support that will turn the tide.

Those readers following the Occupy! Movement in its many forms around the world and in Colorado Springs will be glad to hear that Tuesday culminated a difficult week for us here with a resolution of many contentious issues, and an overall commitment to unity.
 
The subject matter behind this particular post is closely associated with the Movement in general, but it’s more a humanity thing than an Occupy thing, overall. I hope i can get the associations to make sense, and that readers will restrain themselves from developing the erroneous notion that this is meant to be a pitch for some sort of religion. It’s not.

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OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Attention local media, if you’re looking for authentic spokespeople for Occupy Colorado Springs, you need look no further than today’s front row. Holding the big sign is first arrestee Steve Bass, to his right: three times arrestee Iraq vet Jack Semple, arrestee Amber Hagen, arrestee Raven Martinez, and arrestee Thomas G.

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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- 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.

COLORADO SPRINGS- 7PM Tuesday Eve and all is well, chants, drumming, and car horns midst sporadic precip. Two dozen at 7PM GA, spirits high. Tomorrow morning we’ll see how we occupy SNOW.

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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.

Nighttime arrests continue across the country in local moves to stomp on the sparking Occupy Movement, using park, curfew and anti-homeless ordinances to thwart permanent protest encampments. Participants remind each other that it’s about issues not tents. The authorities however seem indifferent to their public raising issues, but raising tents is out of the question. Last night saw a mass arrest of over one hundred in Chicago’s Grant Park. Here’s what they were chanting as occupiers were pulled from their human chain, zip-tied and led paddy wagons on loan from the Illinois prison system.
          ONE! We are the people!
          TWO! We are united!
          THREE! The Occupation
          IS NOT LEAVING!

COLO. SPRINGS- This image just in from a reconnoiter of the downtown police garage. The CSPD has mobilized an urban assault vehicle, for, I don’t know what, keeping up with the Jones’s? Ever since Springs police decided that the Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission held gravitational pull over all political dissent in El Paso County, the CSPD holds weekly briefings with a PPJPC staffer, and of late they’ve added morning tete-a-tetes with an OCCUPY delegate from Acacia Park. What are those “representatives” telling them? That law enforcement needs bigger ammo? Would now be the time to suggest we call organizers who grease the mechanisms of oppression, however ill-conceived their intention, by a more appropriate term, RATS?

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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.

This is a direct copy of the email i sent earlier today and then copied and pasted some before it dawned on me it would be much easier and more effective to post it here. Collins is a law professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His referenced comment appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette on 18 Oct, after my arrest but before the paper got the news to rectify a time-frame misconception i tossed around earlier. The version of that story is dated 17 Oct, but the paper version came out the following morning.

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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.

By which I don’t mean not to occupy everywhere, but occupy the wheels of commerce, the gears of the system, not just the street. They could give a damn about your Main Street. You can pull a general strike there, nobody’s home, the businesses are shuttered, those banks didn’t get the bailouts. Protest yourself silly. You can parade and chant nonviolent oms until the cows come home. India’s free, the Blacks beat segregation, now the system is wise to the key they used. Ensuing demonstrations didn’t end the Vietnam War, they didn’t stop nukes, save whales or prevent the Iraq War. It turns out an unprecedented grassroots uprising didn’t even unseat the Bush corporate junta, it changed a president’s color, not his spots. And if you think passive protest is going to squeeze compassion from Wall Street, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn where they can kettle your idealist ass. Honestly, you couldn’t beat that day for irony.

COLO. SPRINGS- I’m not crazy about OCCUPY organizers negotiating with city representatives for a tentative permit to occupy Acacia Park. You don’t need permits for free speech, nor does activism gain by the advice of cops. That said, allowing a protest encampment, even without tents, may grow participation more effectively than outrage over oppressive responses to civil disobedience. So what’s come of this strategy today is the same permission that has been granted to the Wall Street activists in Zuccotti Plaza, sleeping bags but no tents. Doesn’t that seem shamelessly punitive? Shelter is a human right, deprivation of which is a violation of the 14th Amendment. It’s likely the city could be held liable for endangering the health and lives of these activists.

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“Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.”
–Lemony Snicket on Occupy Wall Street protests

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COLORADO SPRINGS- Activist Steve Bass was arrested last night for overstaying his welcome in the city’s Acacia Park, violating the ordinance against pitching a tent in a public park. While the city is asserting that the anti-homeless no-camping ordinance ban applies to overnight free speech and assembly, and the OCCUPY COLORADO SPRINGS protesters argue that protest should be differentiated from the homeless issue, Steve reminds us that for many on the street, homelessness is their protest.

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COLORADO SPRINGS- This morning’s OWS Oct15 march visited the downtown banking giants, along Tejon, Colorado, Cascade & Boulder.

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UNITED FOR GLOBAL CHANGE certainly smacks of the meaningless slogan that swept President Hope to power. My guess is that this is Advertizer Omnicom’s contract PR redesign to subvert the worldwide Global Democracy movement sparked by Spain’s Indignant rebels and the Arab Spring. Original promotional materials called for GLOBAL DEMOCRACY, which meant something obviously, but might confuse Americans who think their illusion of democracy is enough, spread via Pax Americana. Global “Change” is a straw man open to pundits critical of unspecific demands, “Democracy” less so.

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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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COLO. SPRINGS- We don’t really know what happened last night. Police commanders told representatives of the Colorado Springs Occupation protest that they would be arrested that evening if they lingered in Acacia Park one minute past 11pm. They were told that the decision came from the City Attorney. Then nothing. Whether an intimidation tactic or Psy Ops to discredit the protesters to cry wolf, it backfired, because last night the city of Colorado Springs learned that quite a few of its citizens are willing to face arrest in order to stand up for freedom of expression and the right to assemble. Even as the entire night passed without interrution, whether now the welcome table, canopy and protest materials are raided no longer matters, because it will be reconstituted in spades. The people of Colorado Springs know their rights! Incidentally, in their talks with the organizers, on the record, the CSPD claimed that the ordinance they were enforcing had passed with the approval of the local ACLU. Not true!