DIA, COLORADO- While we shuffled around the International Arrivals reception area trying to abide by the sign restrictions placed on our airport free speech permit, these children brazenly unfurled totally unvetted posters they’d prepared to welcome their daddy’s return from Mexico.
Forty seven water protectors were arrested yesterday as militarized police cleared both Oceti and Rosebud camps along the Cannonball River in Standing Rock. Helicopters flew low, not to support the ground troops conducting tent to tent raids, but to interfere with resistance drones recording the spectacle. Drone operators report their links being jammed and their drones being forced into collisions if they were unable to avoid the Homeland Security choppers. There were many live feeds being broadcast from drones, long distance cameras and on the front lines. Once Oceti camp was cleared, one by one the feeds were interrupted and dropped. When connections resumed, viewers learned that Rosebud camp too was swept and cleared. Rosebud was on reservation land, not disputed treaty land, but BIA officers helped by militarized police evicted everyone.
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO- Water Protectors Jerima King (on left) and Karyna Lemus were arrested inside a downtown bank on Friday while trying to convey a message to Wells Fargo Bank to divest its interest in Energy Transfer’s controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Protesters were denied entry into the Wells Fargo main location but marched to a nearby branch and entered its lobby before police were called. Several dozen Springs activists participated in coordination with protests at Wells Fargo banks across the country.
The bank doors were locked against the Water Protectors, who’d been asked to act in support of the Standing Rock encampment which is actively trying to block the construction.
CSPD officers emerge to warn protesters that those who remain seated will be arrested. Before the protest had even begun, a CSPD paddy wagon was parked on the sidewalk next to the bank, to intimidate the activists. Earlier police officers circulated to tell everyone that they’d be allowed to enter, and be arrested if they wish. The police said they’d seen Facebook references to the desire to be arrested. They wanted to know specifics of what to expect to ensure that no one would have to be hurt getting arrested.
When the group tried to enter, the same officers blocked our way. They said “you can’t come in.” When I disagreed and pushed past them, they physically ejected me out the door. Then commanded me to rebove my foot from holding the door ajar.
So much for the pre-arrangements touted by those protesters who’d taken their council. Since there was no gameplan to discuss, meaning there was no way to tell the police what to expect, the police were effectively disseminating the warning that being arrested unpredictably would mean getting hurt. And there was never an intention to allow the demonstrators to enter the bank atrium, no matter how peaceful.
The new CSPD warning was conveyed to Karyna and Jerima. But everyone remained, whether seated or standing.
After a brief rally at the front door. The water protectors discussed visiting a Wells Fargo branch four blocks to the south. Over the bullhorn we feigned disbanding, thanking everyone for joining in, then going to our cars. Except we appeared to have left our cars, all of them, in the same direction. CSPD did not take note and we were able to reach the branch location and enter its lobby.
There was not room enough for everyone in the tiny lobby. Note the bullhorn.
Officers arrest the two water protectors who stayed behind after the bank employees locked the doors.
Water Protector Jerima King is led out in handcuffs.
El Paso County Green Party upstart Karyna Lemus is taken in handcuffs.
Arrestees were taken to CSPD HQ in a police van.
DENVER, COLORADO- Thousands streamed into Civic Center Park to spend Saturday afternoon listening to speeches against President Trump’s MUSLIM BAN. Lots of families with kids so I kept my sign on the fringe pointed outward. I don’t usually favor profanity but this slogan was spotted at New York’s JFK airport last Satruday, then replicated across the country the same weekend. I spotted several at the Denver rally AND in Colorado Springs, because I think, NOT TODAY MOTHERFUCKER says it best. Racism, bigotry and wanton abuse of power is obscene.
MEDIA BLACKOUT ON 400+ ARRESTS AT WASHINGTON DC #DEMOCRACYSPRING –You don’t have to be there to support the work of these activists. You can help by making others aware of their action. Add your voice and share. They are standing up for us. It’s time we stand with them and spread the word of their action.
One highlight of 2015. Special thanks to Wile E. Coyote.
DENVER, COLORADO- Here’s Eric Brandt at the corner of Speer and Parkway IN HIS ELEMENT. Click on the above image for the full scene. You’re only looking at a closeup.
DENVER, COLORADO- It may not have been the motorcycle cop who was overheard at Sunday’s #BlackLivesMatter march -commemorating the one-year anniversary of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson- telling a fellow officer “they’re upset about a Nigger who was killed”, but one DPD biker photographed had decorated his sidearm with flair one might hope wasn’t standard-issue. Stuck on the handle of his Glock was a variant of a smiley emoticon which mocked the apprehension a subject might feel upon seeing the unholstering of lethal force.
Photo by Patrick Jay
DENVER, COLORADO- A coalition of Colorado activists led by Black Lives Matter 5280 marched through the state capitol on Sunday to mark the one-year anniversary of the killing of Michael Brown by Ferguson police. Over two hundred marchers gathered at Lawson Park and marched to the courthouse where a memorial ceremony was held for all recent victims of police violence.
Photos by David Lee Anderson
DENVER, COLORADO- Spotted downtown. Did you know a police car can be “off-duty”? Can private interests now hire public assets like a rent-a-cruiser with their rent-a-cops?
It’s become so critical to record the US police state. By the time I got my camera phone ready, my photo of an excessive buildup of police cruisers at Civic Center Park was photo-bombed by exactly one too many veterans of police brutality already recording the buildup.
DENVER, COLORADO- Anonymous dedicated May’s Every5th to victims of Denver police violence. For Cinco de Mayo, Anons brought PINATAS in the likeness of the DPD! Many “Every Cinco” attendees were victims of the pepper spray incident of April 29, when DPD riot cops tried to exterminate its infestation of stubborn marchers by fumigating them with cayenne pepper. In response, Anons considered macing the piñatas, but aerosol wasn’t going to bust these piggies open and guests were eager to get to the chocolates and FTP pins inside. Participants took turns whacking the pigs with UMBRELLAS, Occupy Hong Kong’s answer to pepper spray. After an interminable beating the pigsters gave up.
The EVERY CINCO bash on the west steps of the capitol
Three little piggies
Blindfolded Anons
Preparing to spike
Going
Gone
DENVER, COLORADO- It started with a cop falling off his motorcycle, being pushed it’s alleged, by a bicyclist. Paramilitary officers piled on the cyclist while playing Orkin Man to Civic Center Park’s infestation of free speech. Photos from Denver’s April 29 march against police violence reveal that pepper spray was used less to disperse the hundred or so marchers than to repel Youtube bites. Photos by Patrick Jay and Jason Metter.
Although the marchers had already been herded back unto the sidewalk, militarized state troopers laid down a smokescreen of spray to create a no man’s land around their arrestee.
The march was 2% black, but the DPD chose from the 2% minority for the first arrests. Here activist Al Nesby has been pulled from the crowd while tablet-bearing witness David Long records the irony.
An officer assists in Al’s arrest by directing pepper spray at David whose perspective was apparently too up close and personal.
The officer also arcs his spray toward photojournalist Tanner Spendley.
Here officers spray an activist who was only mouthing off.
When the DPD aimed their pepper spray at individuals, it was because they bore cameras. Otherwise the spray seemed intended to fumigate. At no time were police officers under attack or trying to break apart a stubborn crowd. The pepper spray was dispensed like backwoods insect repellent toward an unseen foe whose sting the officers feared.
Wrote activist Jason Metter:
I believe the cops intended to attack us from the moment the march began. The cop who dropped his motorcycle, unprovoked, started a mini cop-riot by pretending to have been pushed. I did not see any protestors take aggressive actions against the cops. It seems the cops pepper sprayed us to prevent us from photographing and filming them and to punish us for not being meekly obedient to their unreasonable orders.
Even as the clouds of cayenne aerosol appear distant in these photos, each debilitated the nearby subjects and required rinsing of clothes, hands and faces.
Production note: all photographers were harmed in the taking of these pictures.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK- Alright, just for laughs, here are two photos of the pepper spray escalation at Flood Wall Street, taken Sept 22. Both are cropped for emphasis but below you can see the full images which show the poor NYPD faces wincing after being hit by their own pepper spray. We’ve all heard about IQ-caps in the popo recruiting process, evidently these cops pass/failed the pissing-in-the-wind test. Hong Kong Occupiers are wielding umbrellas against chemical attacks, if pro-democracy pNGOs really want to help, send them leaf blowers.
This image actually preceded the other: the moment the pepper spray was discharged, aimed with the precision of Fabreze.
This photograph shows how many NYPD officers were struck, some yet too stoic to react, while Officer Pepper Spray threatens the crowd with MORE OF THE SAME!
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.
COLORADO COLLEGE- The ultra conservative Young America’s Foundation erected a September 11th memorial on the grounds of Colorado College consisting of little American flags stuck in the grass to commemorate the 2,977 lives lost ten years ago, since avenged 500 fold.
Seen this video? Conspiracy theory mocked in less than five minutes.
COLORADO SPRINGS- Local citizens have had plenty to protest with Congressman Doug “Obama is a Tar-Baby” Lamborn, so now the Tea Party bigot has put up a sign, NO PROTESTING. Lamborn declined to meet with community leaders from the NAACP on Monday, or Move-On organizers on Wednesday. Are you in Colorado Congressional District Five? Well, you may neither SOLICIT a meeting with your government representative, nor LOITER hoping to wait him out. Politicians like Lamborn who want to shove undemocratic corrupt legislation down people’s throats, and spout deeply offensive racist rhetoric out of sheer stupidity, have to hide where constituents can’t reach them.
Situating your office where your constituents can’t reach you reminds me of former Senator Allard’s office in the Plaza of the Rockies, where security guards forbid entry to anyone who didn’t look investment-banker friendly.
The plaza complex is now the Booz Allen Hamilton building, the world’s largest weapons industry firms, chaired by James Woolsey and his wife, one of the Colorado College trustees. You’ll note that one of Lamborn’s neighbors is AECOM, another giant war profiteer.
At least Allard chose an office which was centrally located, only a block from Congressman Hefley. Doug Lamborn’s office is situated in an industrial office park where no one can hear you scream.
So is isolating yourself from you constituents now standard MO for legislative office-holders? Not really. Representative government is hardly where you want to take a stand against a public’s right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Especially someone espousing to be a patriot for the Tea Party.
Actually, if Lamborn wants to assert that his corporate representation gig is “private property,” I’d say the crafty bugger is right.
No shirt, no shoes? No representation.
WASHINGTON DC- First citation issued to Camp Out Now, unloading Funk The War sound gear on northwest quadrangle of National Mall.
My PEACE NOW design for the SDS Funk The War BAD ROMANCE march on Friday.
Conclusion of Saturday A.N.S.W.E.R. march on the White House, before the eight arrests. Cindy Sheehan’s account here.
More pictures on Facebook.
Earlybirds mount a first go-round as a mathematical reduction.
Heckler during live TV broadcast
Rita charges
Confrontation
COLORADO COLLEGE- The news from the ISRAEL TODAY lecture is all good. If you’d been there, you might wonder how my takeaway from such a bilious gathering could be upbeat. I’ll tell you. The Palestinian voice was well represented, Israel’s presentation was Old Testament, and the writing on the wall grows ever more clear. And I got a few nice pics.
The Audience
To begin, I would certainly have preferred everyone had acted with more decorum. That is, if there had been impressionable attendees there. As it was, the seats were only half occupied. Except for the young men with “JEW CREW” on their backs, or girls with Hebrew script across their pullovers, there were almost no CC students. The audience was one third voices for Palestine, and two thirds vitriolic Jew, amazingly indignant to disruption of their world view. No one was there to listen, except to cheer for what they already believed. But I’m certain it was an eye opener for all.
My friends and I were sure to supplement the speaker’s pauses with color to augment his heavily loaded statements. For example, when Gil Artzyeli described the objective and feat of Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon “to silence them,” and did that not prove effective? Who could refrain from adding “you killed them.” The 2/3 supporters grew more and more angry. But the speaker had an inopportune manner of posing rhetorical questions, which we couldn’t resist answering.
It almost got us kicked out. I spent the duration with security guards poised right behind me, ready to escort me out of the room. I learned it would be more prudent to avoid the back row at opportunities like this, because you can be pulled out of your chair, or distracted into involuntary conversation with security personnel more readily than if you were well ensconced among the other attendees.
Those voicing support for Palestinians were made to wait until question and answer portion to voice their objections. Even then, the pro-Israel audience would cut them off. It became impossible to ask a complex question without interruptions of “What is your question? State your question!” They hounded everyone who wasn’t setting the speaker up for a softy. It was a ruthless crowd with the civility of Tea Partiers. When the pro-Israel attendees took their turn posing questions, no one interrupted. When it was a detractor, their time suddenly became too valuable to entrust to us. Even a CC student from Gaza, who hasn’t been permitted to visit his family in two years, was not given a hearing.
I’m positive that as these rude people think on how the event transpired, they will not be able to help feeling ashamed. Our interactions were spirited and engaging, addressed to a speaker with the hubris to take us on. We interrupted the speaker, but never tried to drown him out. Our adversaries on the other hand tried to flat out shut their fellow audience members up.
That crowd is immovable. I’ve no optimism for influencing their resolve. On the other hand, their rigidity was laughable. Their logic will not sway anyone new. They were positively shrill about their speaker being permitted to deliver his message as abridged. “Let him speak!” they shouted, as if their attention was rapt by information they’d never heard before, a preposterous notion. I’m neither Palestinian nor American Jew, but this was Israel Foundation Myth for Dummies. I can only think that this crowd sat tightly clenched, thrilled that the others among the audience were forced to listen to their dogma.
The Presentation
Old school. Palestinians offered their own statehood, but rejected it. Israel is pretext for Arab countries to oppress their peoples. No such thing as a Palestinian, Jewish presence in Judea has been continuous, Palestinians teach their children to hate, Israelis teach love, etc, etc. The old greenhouses of Gaza story was the example given to show that Palestinians don’t want to help themselves. Arab neighbor states are blamed for not resettling the Palestinians. Gaza is free, it is not occupied.
Would you believe Israel justifies the force it used in Lebanon and Gaza based on what NATO was permitted to do in Bosnia? Those were war crimes too! Israel accuses its critics of anti-Semitism because they don’t take other militaries to task for their crimes. But really Israel gives itself the latitude to commit crimes commensurate with the worst.
And here’s a wild gem! Israel owes its enormously successful economy (no mention of US foreign aid or direct sponsorship by Jewish American interests) to, among progressive business practices, the fact that all Israelis, both men and women, have to serve compulsory military service. It gives them the skills and discipline to excel in business and strengthen Israel. Mr. Artzyeli showed a video clip taken from CNBC, recommending that such a policy in American would certainly greatly improve its prospects for an economic recovery!
A word about the delivery of the presentation. Though impeccably dressed Gil Artzyeli affected the presence of someone wearing a Tony Soprano tracksuit. He sat back on his heels, his eyes directed to the ceiling as he dismissed his questioners. When a Palestinian girl raised a specific instance of an IDF strategy deployed in Lebanon, wondering how it was not a war crime. Artzyeli ignored it completely, making an aside to someone up front that the he wasn’t about to dignify that accusation with a response.
It’s kinda the problem Israel is having, isn’t it?
The Jig is Up
Over the last weeks I’ve had a chance to participate in three presentation by Israeli officials. The sum experience has fortified me with hope. With world opinion against them, and now the Goldstone Report, Israel is on the run.
The first lecture by Uzi Landau was on the offensive, directed toward Iran. It went over poorly. The Q&A revealed that Landau hadn’t connected the dots at all. The audience he had hoped to rally became only more concerned about Israeli nukes than Iran’s.
The second presentation delivered by Nir Barkat was an encouragement to the Denver Jewish community to support Jerusalem, with donations, travel, and by encouraging emigration. There the audience was equally smug and oblivious to the notion that increased settlements constituted violations of international law. But Israel’s continuous push for Jewish immigrants provides the clue to what Barkat inadvertently confirmed. Jews are leaving Jerusalem. The balance of the population is shifting toward the non-Jew.
This third event with the Deputy Consul General took the rhetoric down to basics, a demonstration of how far Israel is slipping. The dogma behind Zionism’s right to its own state, and their right to defend themselves, used to go without saying. Today Gil Artzyeli was forced to defend the most basic assumptions. The Jewish diaspora, their right to return, the expanding borders, the wall, the military retaliation. I was thrilled to see arguments slip back past the basics.
The Jewish American communities may still be a resolute, but their numbers are not large. It appears to me that the compatriots they’ve recruited, from the Christian right and the neoliberal conservatives are receding quickly.
The image of the much-oppressed Jew is becoming eclipsed by the militant arrogant Zionist, earning no one’s sympathy.
A few pictures from the event:
Castigated for raising his voice, Ed Nace insisted on standing for the duration of the lecture, to lend omniscience to his objection.
Colorado College Poli-Sci professor, and Middle East specialist Bob Lee rose several times to forbid the impromptu participation by the audience. Here he calls for security to remove Ed.
Security reconsidered asking Ed Nace to leave as he informed them in his booming voice that he was a Colorado College alum.
Would you believe Mr. Artzyeli trotted out the old Farfur the Mouse clip, depicting Muslim children being taught to admire suicide bombers. It’s a favorite example whose relevant context was long ago dismissed.
Footnote
One lamentable observation I had regarded a member of the chaplain’s office at CC, who is also a peace community activist. She was not at liberty to take sides on the Palestinian – Israel discussions for fear of alienating the Jewish students. I do not personally doubt her motives, nor her sympathies for the victims of injustice in Palestine.
However, when our 85 year-old Ed Nace raised his voice, or stood angrily, the chaplain’s assistant moved to calm him down. She may have thought he needed assistance, but in reality his stubborn act was working. His offense at the slanders against Palestinians, his incredulity that such a one-sided presentation was being allowed, and his indignation at the ferocity with which he was being silenced, expressed itself as a hard-of-hearing old man who was not about to be bullied. His performance, even inadvertent, worked to disrupt the lecture and temper the smug untruths being passed as academic fact. But Ed’s act was not made any easier by a colleague trying to calm him down. To his credit, Ed persevered and was able to put a human emotional context to Mr. Artzyeli’s slick propaganda.
The chaplain is no doubt schooled in nonviolent communication. She needs to bone up on effective nonviolent theater. Non-confrontational communication isn’t going to bring racist bullies like Artzyeli to heel. Zionist Apartheid is going to fall when it is condemned and pilloried.
