Monthly Archives: July 2008

Al-Qaeda in Iraq back in Afghanistan!

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Do you chose to believe this yarn? It’s not long, it’s circular. US casualties in Afghanistan have surpassed casualties in Iraq, and to explain it maybe, US military spokesman have revealed they believe the leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq is now back in Afghanistan!

Let’s see. We attacked Afghanistan because the Taliban refused to rein in its terrorist arm, purportedly named al-Qaeda. Which may or may not be a figment of US military intelligence imagination. We know about al-Qaeda only through our military interrogator, plus the 19-known hijackers who were dead before there was public mention of al-Qaeda, and no al-Qaeda charges have stuck to any Guantanamo inmate so far.

We can’t find it, do we know “it” exists?

So we attack Iraq which had no known al-Qaeda, until, our same dubious military intelligence people inform us there is an “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” actually, in Mesopotamia, actually, in the Land of the Two Rivers. Depending on the translation.

Was the original logo IN ENGLISH? Actually Osama’s gang was a CIA creation, so the origial al-Qaeda tattoo may have been designed in Langly, then put back and forth through Babblefish to obscure the non-Arabic speaking origins. Or not.

Fair enough, but we still only have our propaganda team to vouch for it, and have we ever known them to tell us anything truthful? Every time insurgents are engaged we hear our forces have killed an al-Qaeda leader. It’s usually the first we’ve heard of the person, and the last. Except the guy they’ve now killed twice.

So every act of violence in Iraq is blamed on AQII until we want to talk about the “surge” working. If we want to declare the “surge” a success, AQII has to goway. And where better than to where it came from (maybe?) Afghanistan!

If we surge into Afghanistan, which Barack Obama has declared we should do, and if THAT’S a hit, soon enough we’ll have it cornered to be al-Qaida in a Cave, and then al-Qaeda in Osama’s Teevee Room!

If we applied the same logic to the Weapons of Mass Destruction supposed to be in Iraq, we could look for them where they came from. The WMD in American chemical weapons companies!

The ideal soldier shoots for Beijing gold

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pentathletes garden of the gods
The Olympic Games are almost upon us. Which contests are you most looking forward to? I tend to like them all, even the events that aren’t immediately understood as sport, like table tennis, rhythmic gymnastics and archery.

One event that dates back to ancient Greece is the pentathlon. In its modern incarnation, athletes must excel at five separate sports: horse-jumping, fencing, shooting, swimming and running. All of these are part of the Olympic Games already, so why the odd amalgamation of seemingly random events?

Isn’t it obvious? The five events paint a romantic vision of a military liaison on horseback. When his mount is brought down behind enemy lines, he must fight with pistol and sword, swim across a raging river and deliver his message on foot. The pentathlete is the ideal soldier.

It begs the question, which country can offer the world this soldier? Which military superpower has dominated Aristotle’s beloved pentathlon?

After a century of Olympic contests, there are two countries in a dead heat, with medal counts that far exceed the nearest competitor. You probably guessed it — Hungary and Sweden.

“The most perfect sportsmen, therefore, are the pentathletes because in their bodies strength and speed are combined in beautiful harmony.”
Aristotle

Free Speech relief unlikely from US Court

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DENVER- Federal District Judge Marcia Krieger heard closing arguments today in the case challenging Denver’s DNC free speech restrictions, and what she didn’t hear, she augmented with her own leading questions. “Would you request that the court reserve its ruling until Invesco security arrangements are announced?” (Is she laying ground for a delayed decision?) Other questions painted the plaintiffs’ Free Speech concerns as requests that protest photo-ops feature the Pepsi Center as a backdrop. Judge Krieger asked: “Does the public have the [Constitutional] RIGHT to frame the picture that they like?”

Judge Krieger adjourned at 4PM to work on her written decision. Her earlier plan to visit the disputed isolation zones in question was called off due to a technicality.

There was also a surprise suggestion of a little playground north of the Pepsi Center where the city attorney asserts the public can catch an unimpeded view of the convention center. The plaintiff countered that the park wasn’t among those offered for permits. The judge answered cheerfully that we wouldn’t need a permit for it, to which the plaintiff clarified groups can’t legally hold demonstrations there, beside the fact that it’s a playground, dotted with playground furnishings… Meanwhile the novel location buttressed the city’s claim that protesters would have visual access to the DNC “from all points of the compass.” A fellow activist murmured “like Long’s Peak.”

The plaintiff’s final arguments today were peppered with questions from the judge, to suggest that demonstrators are looking to make a constitutional issue of a photo backdrop. Tent State’s stated desire to be seen marching away from the convention center was ridiculed as if the idea defied geometry. To walk away from the DNC, you’d have to walk toward it, and vice versa, etc.

The defense attorneys seemed to have displeased the judge more, because she had to restate their case for them in stronger terms perhaps so that she’ll have more room to find in their favor. It looked that way to me.

Wedging the mass into mass movement

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A friend refuses to have anything to do with activists who will not commit to nonviolence. It’s not enough to denounce violence, they must swear it like an oath. The ARD has applied this literally. “I’ve seen it too many times” she says, violence erupts when there’s an insufficient commitment to nonviolence. Translation: too many are untrained to hold the line against violence. Meaning: people who taunt police officers, have knee-jerk self-defense responses, hurt the cause. But the same person complains that too few initiates are joining her [church].

Who can blame scholars for not wanting to discourse with the unschooled? I wouldn’t want to participate in a bridge tournament with an inexperienced partner. On the other hand, maybe I would, as I don’t play. Which I think is my point.

But I will question whether I have a handle on the bigger picture, or has she?

There is no growing your numbers in activism without inviting the participation of others less learned, less pure, and frankly less like you. Certainly in popular actions, you’d have to accept that not everyone will have the diligence or interest to adopt a spiritual ethos before expecting redress for a social ill. Union organizers don’t expect workers to sort out the ideologies themselves. It’s enough to impart on them the means and tools. It’s enough to have common goals.

In my opinion, you won’t widen your base of support if you make nonviolence training the prerequisite. A spontaneous movement of mass appeal will be bound by laws of human nature, including assertiveness –mistaken for aggression– and self-righteous indignation –anger. If you’re going to wait for our ever-degrading education system to supply minds fertile for a counter-culture re-adjustment… well, I won’t.

Or.

There will be no effective popular movement to initiate reform, until the masses are schooled to transcend violence.

Maybe either way, anger or transcendence, in hoping for mass-driven progress toward peace and justice, we’re not there yet.

Racist Jewish Israel keeps killing kids

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Israeli terrorism It is a sad state for the world Jewish community to now be about the leading group of racists in the world these days.

Quite simply, Jewish Israel refuses to give equal rights to its Arab population, continues an occupation of Arab Lands with the goal of annexing them, puts Arabs in the occupied territories into ghettos, and runs continual racist pogroms targeting for murder and injury the Arabs under Jewish domination. See Haaretz.com for the latest.. Palestinians: IDF troops wound 9 at boy’s funeral in West Bank They had already murdered the 11 year old boy, but that was not enough for the racist troops of Israel.

What is this Zionism then? The word is RACISM. Racist terrorism like that practiced by Israel and the US breeds a countering terrorism. The Japanese and Germans learned that the hard way in WW2 when the US and its allies responded to racist fascist terrorism by in turn terrorizing German and Japanese civilians.

Bootstraps? Fiddlesticks!

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Sticks to play the fiddle? Absurd!
 
Here’s another sign our cultural literacy level can’t handle satire: “bootstraps.” It’s become a keyword for the conservative/libertarian dismissal of society’s need for a safety net. Apparently lazy welfare recipients won’t “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.” As if it takes but the effort, even as we can only interpret what was the procedure, since few of us come close enough to wearing riding boots to recognize a bootstrap. But I’ve heard social advocates offer this meek argument for their disadvantaged/minority/ailing charges: “but what if you don’t have bootstraps?”

Well give that person a bootstrap if they think they can levitate with it. Bootstraps may be colloquial to us now, but they only ever could assist you to pull up your boots. Perhaps we could suggest new idioms for the poor like: lose weight by tightening your shoelaces. Or if that’s going to be dated soon: hang on to your earnings with Velcro.

When did hard nose conservatives assume command of the expression that used to ridicule the inhumanity of their tough-love logic? “Bootstraps” now asserts that taking care of oneself is so self-evident it doesn’t merit thinking about.

Does “let them eat cake” register as elite class disconnect anymore? I wonder because the affluence brought by modern capitalism has proved Marie Antoinette cynically prophetic. The disadvantaged have their cake these days. Little Debbie’s. It’s pseudo-food rat poison. We won’t give them bread.

Obama Madonna Sanjaya Brangelina

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John McCain might be confusing his rival Barack Obama for a Britney- type celebrity for an obvious reason, his solo moniker. Obama’s name recognition is not just a sound-byte, it’s a single bite. Electoral product Obama makes a spiffy commercial trademark like many star brands before him: Elvis, OJ, Pele, Maradona, Oprah, (Evita, Imelda, Diana…)

Obama also has the extra comfort effect of ending in feminine A.

Obama will bring the single name phenomena to the White House. Is it just the uniqueness of his last name, like Nixon, Eisenhower or Hitler? I think Obama fits in a larger corporate identity trend, where everything needs a logo, usually a single word. It’s a development of ADD limited memory spans isn’t it? Americans focus better on simple single words. Even celebrity couples have to be dubbed into singular contractions: Bennifer, Tomkat, Brangelina.

Not to forget Osama.

Chipotle and its crappy, sappy White Bread food comes under attack

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TomatoesChipotle’s ‘Mexican’ food is pretty bad IMO. It’s expensive and the ingredients are put together without any cooking skill at all. In fact, it basically is factory preparation of food masquerading as being a model of health food and local ecological responsibility.

Now, like Nike beforehand, all its phony corporate image building is getting exposed to scrutiny, all because they are such cons they thought they could ignore decency in its relations with exploited workers, the farm workers of America.

“We decided long ago that we didn’t want Chipotle’s success to be tied to the exploitation of animals, farmers, or the environment.” Thus speaks Chipotle CEO Steve Ells on sustainable agriculture

But what about the farmworkers? It seems that their demand of 1 cent more a pound of Florida tomatoes has Chipotle turning to other sources of tomatoes to buy from. Because of that, there is now a national campaign to stop them from cutting and running when a group of workers put a simple economic demand on them to wage substandard wages a tiny increment.

See the Coalition of Immokalee Workers site about their expose Chipotle campaign.

Compulsory cannibalism could end killing

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“I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.

Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime. False advertisements win awards, forgers end up in jail. Inflated prices guarantee large profits while shoplifters are punished. Politicians conspire to create police riots and the victims are convicted in the courts. Students are gunned down and then indicted by suburban grand juries as the trouble-makers. A modern, highly mechanized army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression. Slumlords allow rats to maim children and then complain of violence in the streets. Everything is topsy-turvy”
-Abbie Hoffman

R68 Festival of Democracy band line-up

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The R68 Festival of Democracy Music Schowcase fliers have hit the street. The 2-evening lineups includes Boulder bands BLACK SHEEP BRIGADE, DARIO ROSA, NIGHT KITCHEN and WHISKEY BLANKET.

Festival of Democracy MUSIC SHOWCASE
August 25
3pm SAVAGE FAMILY Illegally Occupied US
4pm DINIGUNIM San Diego
5pm DJ CAVEM/MOETAVATION Five Points
      DJ ASAR HERU Brooklyn
      KARMA Barbados
7pm WHISKEY BLANKET Boulder
8pm MIDSTATES MUSIC Chicago
9pm DARIO ROSA Boulder

August 26
3pm DEBAJO DEL AGUA Denver
4pm DKO-ELECTRIC HORNS Denver
5pm MELANIE SUSURAS BAND Denver
6pm REBEL DIAZ Bronx
7pm THE NIGHT KITCHEN Boulder
8pm FROM THE DEPTHS North Carolina
9pm BLACK SHEEP BRIGADE Boulder

With speakers and poets between acts.

CIVIC CENTER PARK, DOWNTOWN DENVER
Broadway/Bannock & Colfax/14th FREE!

Unconventional Denver DNC schedule

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DNC Disruption 08From Disruption’08:
Denver is currently overflowing with plans from an extremely diverse array of groups for different types of demonstrations, music festivals, street parties and actions that will occur during the entire week of the convention. The many events are roughly broken down into theme days (see below). Anarchists and anticapitalists are working on many aspects of this mobilization but have a general focus of expanding acts of resistance outside permitted areas, radicalizing the debate around the Democrats, and ensuring that during the convention there will be no business as usual in Denver!

Schedule of actions:

SUNDAY the 24th
-10:30am, Civic Center Park: Massive march against militarization and occupations called for by Recreate 68. This will be a family-friendly, low-risk event.
-Midday: Funk the War! Following the march, a large, low-risk street party called for by the Alliance for Real Democracy will fill downtown with music and festivities against the war
-Late Afternoon: As the convention-goers check into hotels and attend their pre-convention party, our own raging party in resistance to the militarized occupation of Denver and the world will reclaim public space and spread the festivities onto the streets. Be ready to take the rowdy celebration to the doorsteps of delegate hotels etc.

MONDAY the 25th
-10:30am, Civic Center Park: March against the prison industrial complex and for freedom for all political prisoners.
-Evening: Meet at the Civic Center at 6pm to join the anticapitalist march (see below) or participate in organized and decentralized actions that will actively disrupt the capitalist corruption and cronyism of the two party system by targeting specific fundraisers, delegate parties and corporations backing the DNC. come ready for quick decentralized actions spanning the downtown area at a variety of risk levels.

TUESDAY the 26th
-Afternoon: Confront the Spectacle- We vote no! As delegates are arriving at the Pepsi Center, snake marches will converge on the entrances through the fence of the no-protest zone in order to create spaces for different levels of delegate movement disruption. Flying squads will assist the disruption and create distractions as we bring their party to a halt.

WEDNESDAY the 27th
-All day: Actions and alternatives- Real solutions to the climate crisis! A day of direct action against ecological destruction. We will create solutions to global warming without the politicians by shutting down sources of greenhouse gas emissions and corporations who destroy the earth (and fund the Democrats). we will also engage in creative resistance outlining solutions and alternatives; bike bloc! car free zones! guerrilla gardening!

THURSDAY the 28th
-10:30am, Rude Park: No Borders March! No one is illegal! Join this national mobilization for immigrants rights and help us draw connections between the struggles of immigrant communities and the struggle against global capitalism. This will be a low-risk event safe for all people regardless of immigration status. so play nice.
-Evening: A special Denver anarchist variety show party, put on by none other then Denver’s Louis Vitton.

ALSO:
A precarious workers council of UA has called for an anti-capitalist force to manifest at the DNC as a black bloc on the evening of Monday the 25th. This will meet at Civic Center Park at 6:00pm and will coincide with Unconventional Denver’s call for organized and decentralized no-business-as-usual actions during the same evening. More details TBA.

*this is by no means a complete list of all actions planned by the many groups involved in the Denver mobilization. Check dncdisruption08.org, recreate68.org, realdemocracy2008.org, and weareamericadnc.org for other events and actions.

Republicans hysterically scream: “The Reich is falling! The Reich is falling!”

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Bush -no economist, but friends arent complaining
Senator Stevens. Senator Ted Stevens. Your prison cell is ready. He’s the first US Senator to be indicted in 15 years. I’m not so sure that isn’t more of an indictment of the American justice system, though.

Once a con man, always a con man. Are you dumb enough to give all your money to a disgraced preacher?

Next McCain campaign ploy, “Vote for me, I’m white”?

The audacity of hopelessness. Obama’s snore list.

After flipping off the left, Obama falls behind in the polls.

House appologizes for slavery. But will they appologize for ignoring the Constitution? We might have to wait another 150 years for that.

KY Senate candidate called for the genocide of all Arabs. You’d think the fact that he’s also porno star would have sent up a red flag…

House panel votes to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress. It’s doubtful Pelosi will allow a full House vote, as her top priorities appear to be protecting the administration, and enabling Bush’s crimes against America.

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes July 30, thomasmc.com.

RECREATE 68 -No more politics as usual

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Recreate-68 logoFrom RECREATE 68:
End the Occupations March and Rally — West Steps of the Colorado State Capitol, August 24, 9am
END THE OCCUPATIONS
No more free pass for the Democrats. Join R68 and others as we march to end all illegal imperialist occupations in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Hawaii, North America, and others. The Dems have the power to put an end to the United States’ illegal colonizations and wars, but they will not without pressure from the people. Join us as we create that pressure.
NO MORE! NOT IN OUR NAME! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
The March will begin at the WEST STEPS OF THE CAPITOL and end on Speer Blvd in front of the Pepsi Center.

MORE OF R68’s SCHEDULE:
Freedom March — Civic Center Park, August 25, 10am

Join supporters of Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, The Cuban Five, and other political prisoners for the Freedom March and Rally! Leonard Peltier’s parole hearing will take place in 2008. Let us not forget that the Clintons left him in jail and did not pardon him. Free Mumia, the Cuban Five, the Guantanamo detainees, and others. The march will begin at Civic Center Park and end with a rally at the Federal Court House.

Shake Your Money Maker — Denver Mint, August 25, 5pm

It’s time to redistribute the wealth. Between security and corporate pay-offs, the DNC will cost over 100 million dollars for a party. We think the people deserve that money. Join us as we encircle the Denver MInt (where U.S. currency is produced) and use our collective power to raise the mint building in the air and shake the money out of it for the people. Don’t forget a sack to put all of your loot in.

Bring noise makers, energy, spells, magic, costumes, anything that gives you power. We’ll need it!

Days of Resistance — August 24-28

During the convention, there will be five major protests, one each day. Each protest will focus on a symptom of the disease of an imperialist, capitalist, racist system as seen in our communities. Some of the proposed themes are as follows:

Sunday – End All Occupations at Home and Abroad
Monday – Human Rights/Free All Political Prisoners
Tuesday – No Borders
Wednesday – No Warming
Thursday – No Racism/Imperialism

Festival of Democracy — Civic Center Park and Skyline Park, August 24-28

The Festival of Democracy will be a five day event running in conjunction with the DNC Convention. The Festival of Democracy will include free music and performing arts, free food, and free institution building and political training. The purpose will be to share some fun and to work towards the development of programs and networks that will address our community problems ourselves, without relying on the two party capitalist system. We will also be offering a 24 hour free medical clinic for all community members to receive free health care.

MONDAY, AUGUST 25 — Civic Center Park
TUESDAY, AUGUST 26 — Civic Center Park
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27 — Skyline Park
THURSDAY, AUGUST 28 — Skyline Park

Howabout an unexpurgated face of war

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Forbidden image of a dead US soldierThe US media was not permitted to depict fallen soldiers, in or out of the coffin. Next military censors forbade photos of US wounded. Most recently US soldiers have been under orders to prohibit the press from photographing them at all, to promote the illusion that our Iraqi surrogates alone are handling security. How infuriated our officials must have been to see this photograph in the international press.

Do Americans not want to see their fallen boys? In my recent experience with death, I most certainly wanted to see what happened straight up. Do the families of soldiers really not want to see how their loved one met his/her fate? What utter bullshit! If they don’t I do. Someone should care enough for the poor lost life!

Hopefully the total control our military has been asserting over media images will result in more outright mutiny on the part of international photo journalists.

Not long ago, a sequence of photos which documented the aftermath of an IED led the DoD to forbid all depictions of even wounded soldiers. The picture below shows a victim trying vainly to join his comrades who made it to cover. He didn’t die. But this image most certainly is dispiriting to Americans watching safely from their homes, who are losing their stamina for an ugly war.

Last permitted photo of a wounded US soldier

Before coverage of operations in Iraq were safely controlled by only embedded reporters, freelance photographers were able to record images reminiscent of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. These GIs fell in the assault on Fallujah. Fortunately for the Pentagon, Iraq is now too dangerous for journalist who don’t have American minders.
US casualties in Fallujah

A recent so-called breach of an embed contract yielded images of the aftermath of a suicide-bomb attack. The American photographer incurred heavy criticism for publishing the pictures which his Marine unit had ordered him to erase. But they were published in B&W, which invokes the famous WWII Pacific Theater dead, but it does lessen the realism, doesn’t it? These casualties seem more distant than our losses in Vietnam. And how do you reconcile that the simultaneous photos of the Iraqi casualties were printed adjacent in color? We can handle seeing the red of their blood, but not ours?

Dead US Marines

Provocative provocation at the DNC

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Everything for Everybody
This lingo is undeniably inviting… “a small demand.” I’m guessing something of non-violence training involves not only refraining from violence against persons, but also against material disparity. Threatening redistribution of wealth will certainly provoke a violent defense of corporation-as-person personal property. Why can’t the non-violent crowd preach the non-violent forfeiture of capital loot?

That’s never been the purview of religion has it? They can’t ask the miscreants at the top to get religion, they are just after the low man on the totem pole to accept his fate.

Unconventional Action DNC flier

I wore polka dots today

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polka dots are the new black
…and felt like an idiot. Why? I think polka dots are adorable. They are playful and happy and youthful which are traits I value. And the outfit I had on was classy and cute. So why did I feel anxious that someone might pop over unexpectedly and see my polka dots? I’m not sure, but I changed rather than further contemplate the issue.

I think that maybe polka dots aren’t me. Whatever that means. Like all women, I have a closet full of clothes that I never wear. Truthfully, my closet is a schizophrenic mixed bag pining for psychiatric intervention. I must’ve worn these styles at one time, but I guess I’ve changed. Or, more likely, they were never me. I just didn’t know it, because I was adept at changing me to be a part of the crowd du jour.

I don’t think men are this way. A couple years ago, a friend and I took a getaway to Mexico for a few days. We hung out under a big beach umbrella, two pale obviously-American chubbies in a sea of gorgeous foreigners. The women were thin, tanned, and beautiful, but they couldn’t hold a candle to the men. Unbelievably fit, glistening brown skin, boy shorts. At once holding a cigarette and a partner’s perky breast, we couldn’t stop staring at the men.

When the couples eventually got up and dressed, the guys wore capri pants, silky dark shirts, and closed-toe leather sandals. But even through my drool I knew that, were I given the chance, I probably wouldn’t date any one of them. Seriously! They were not my type.

As pretty as the beach boys were, my type of guy doesn’t spend much time thinking about his hair and wardrobe. A makeover is buying his favorite shirt in another color. I’ve never succeeded in slipping Bruni Maglis over his tennis shoes, nor a man purse over his shoulder. Even the plain front/pleated front battle can rage for days, so sartorial transformation has never been in the cards. Men know what they are comfortable wearing, and are usually unwilling to indulge our female fantasies. Truly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

If men can stay true to form, why do women’s closets suffer from bipolar disorder? Are we multifaceted and complex, or are we being unduly influenced the expectations of our mates, the opinions of our friends, and the daily media mind fuck?

Though my closet doesn’t reflect it yet, my chameleon days are over. I am newly unapologetic about my hairstyle, my yoga pants, and my Doc Martens. When I dress up I usually wear black from head to toe. I don’t show a lot of skin, and hide my few curves. I wear simple earrings, no other jewelry. I no longer worry about fashion trends, because I refuse to be trendy.

My manner of dress is merely an outward manifestation of the natural, unadorned, athletic, private girl that I am. I cover my body in such a way that I’m not constantly mindful of the fact that I’m wearing something. Something that feels foreign and awkward. Like polka dots.

The People-Call-For-Change PC4C wants to keep at-risk activists off the streets

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THE PEOPLE CALL FOR CHANGE (PC4C.ORG) is asking to be added to the ARD collective and wants their activities endorsed and publicized. What are they doing for the DNC? The PC4C has scheduled forums during the convention, it would appear to keep folk off the street. Compelling subjects, but to what end? To energize people about what needs to be done, while the opportunity to do it is knocking/passing outside? Is values-based PC4C a social justice group? Is “change” a social issue? Why does it remind me of Obama rhetoric?

In Search of Values for a New Society
Saturday, August 23rd at 6:30pm to about 8:15pm
Capitol Heights Presbyterian Church, 11th and Fillmore, Denver
Panelists: Dr. Vincent Harding, Gabriela Flora and Reverend Paul Kottke

These panelists will discuss the spiritual values, from both secular and religious traditions, that form the bases for the positions taken by progressives. They will show how these values are applied to domestic and foreign policy issues, laying out, in effect, a positive vision for our society.

Beyond Iraq: Creating a Just Foreign Policy
Monday, August 25th at 7pm to about 8:30pm
Capitol Heights Presbyterian Church, 11th and Fillmore, Denver
Panelists: Leslie Cagan, Hari Nam Khalsa and Dr. Ronald Forthofer

The panel will focus on foreign policy issues with an emphasis on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan and trade issues. They will discuss the current situation, what can be done, and what a values-based foreign policy would look like. Following the panel presentation and q and a, there will be an opportunity for audience members to voice their ideas in a visioning session using Let Us Rise materials.

From Corporate Control to People Power
Wednesday, August 27th at 7pm to about 8:30pm
Park Hill UCC at 2600 Leyden St, Denver
Panelists: David Cobb, Dr. Richard Williams and Dr. James Hoffmeister

This panel will examine how corporate power and big money influence our government to the detriment of the people. A vision of an values-based alternative approach will be considered. In addition, some concrete steps that can be taken to rein in corporate influence on government will be presented. Following the panel presentation and Q and A, there will be an opportunity for audience members to voice their ideas in a visioning session using Let Us Rise materials.

Denver D’Alliance for Democracy

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Alliance for Real Democracy
Here is current the schedule of ARN events:

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 23

All Day City Park
Set up at City Park

Afternoon (TBD) City Park
Resurrection City Free University
Non-Violence Training

5:00 – 10:00 PM Gates Crescent Park
Welcoming BBQ & Drinks for the Delegates

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 24

All Day Platte River & Cherry Creak Trails
AFSC Banners
AFSC is planning on displaying banners for about 100 yards in each direction from REI.

All Day City Park
Art Installations
A variety of art pieces representing progressive ideals.

(9:00 AM
Begin at the WEST STEPS OF THE CAPITOL.
End on Speer Blvd in front of the Pepsi Center.
End the Occupations March and Rally
March to end all illegal imperialist occupations in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Hawaii, North America, and others.)

1:00 PM Various Denver Locations
Funk the War: Dance for Peace
A creative action with an emphasis on music and visuals. Smaller feeder marches lead to a central location with a concert.

Immediately Following Funk the War/Dance Party for Peace City Park
Concert featuring: Son of Nun, Jello, Brian Harvey, David Rovics

7:00 PM Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Theater
Evening of Conscience: No Attack on Iran
Feature performances on opposing any moves towards a U.S. attack on Iran.

(Evening Central Presbyterian Church, 1660 Sherman St.
Progressive Welcome to Denver)

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MONDAY, AUGUST 25

10:30 AM City Park
Town Hall Meeting
Brief ARD meeting to review the day.

12:00 – 6:00 PM City Park
Resurrection City Free University
A free university focusing on praxis and theory

5:00 PM City Park
Nomination of Partyless Youth Ticket
A chance for the youth to nominate a candidate that speaks to them.

Evening (TBD) TBD
Cynthia McKinney Speech
Speech by presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney.

6:30 PM City Park
CODEPINK Concert
A concert highlighting many powerful and talented women.

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 26

10:30 AM City Park
Town Hall Meeting
Brief ARD meeting to review the day.

11:00 AM Skyline Park
A Walk in their Shoes
Thousands of shoes will represent the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died.

12:00 – 6:00 PM City Park
Resurrection City Free University
A free university focusing on praxis and theory

3:00 PM City Park
Concert featuring Blue Scholars, David Rovics, and others.

Afternoon (TBD) City Park
Partyless Youth Platform
The youth will be given an opportunity to create their platform.

Afternoon/ Evening (TBD) Downtown
Operation First Casualty
Street theater that demonstrates the reality of war.

(6:30 PM City Park
Democratic Party “Watching Party”
Local Democrats will host a big-screen TV for non-seated Democrats to watch the Convention.)

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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27

10:30 AM City Park
Town Hall Meeting
Brief ARD meeting to review the day.

12:00 – 6:00 PM City Park
Resurrection City Free University
A free university focusing on praxis and theory

12:00 Noon City Park
Concert featuring: Flobots, State Radio, The Coup, Wayne Kramer, Son of Nun, Jello, and others.

Afternoon (TBD) City Park
Partyless Youth Acceptance Speech
The Partyless Youth nominee will give an acceptance speech.

3:30 PM TBD
IVAW March to End the War
Iraq Veterans Against the War will march in opposition to the war in Iraq.

(Evening Buelle Theater
Cultural Events: Cornel West and the Flobots)

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 28

10:30 AM City Park
Town Hall Meeting
Brief ARD meeting to review the day.

TBD TBD
Immigrant Rights March and Rally
The march, with a national scope, will provide a venue for immigrants and their allies to demonstrate their decree for just and fair reform for our country’s broken immigration system.

12:00 – 6:00 PM City Park
Resurrection City Free University
A free university focusing on praxis and theory

(TBD INVESCO Field
Obama’s Acceptance Speech
Obama will give his acceptance speech to 75,000 people at INVESCO Field. ARD hopes to have a presence outside.)

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 29

All Day City Park
Tear Down and Clean Up
All of ARD will be needed to help clean and clear City Park

All Day TBD
Buses to St. Paul
ARD would like to help coordinate buses and carpooling to St. Paul for the Republican National Convention.

Anarchist bicyclist assaults cop

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‘Bicyclist, Christopher Long, 29, was charged with blocking traffic, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and assault, prosecutors said.’ (from CNET news) To see this bicyclist assault a NYPD ‘peace officer’ go to youtube video of incident.

Shades of St. Patricks Day here in Colorado Springs a while back…

Fox Terrorist Network Exposed!

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Fox Terrorist Adkisson, who shot up a liberal church, was a fan of Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Michael Savage. Like anyone with an triple digit IQ didn’t see that one coming.

Bad karma. Bob Novak — who joked about Ted Kennedy getting brain cancer — has brain cancer.

There must be an election coming up, Dept. of Der Fatherland Security is ratcheting up the scare level again. Boo!

Another right wing lie is exposed.

Study proves media has been harder on Obama than McCain.

Remember when McCain said he would run a “clean” campaign? What a steaming pile of shit!

Bush to completely bankrupt the country on his way out.

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes July 29, thomasmc.com.

Save Congo

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A spin off group from Human Rights Watch reports that over 2,000 women were reported raped in one province of East Congo alone. Over 2,000 raped last month in Congo’s east -report In Kivu, there are over 1,000,000 refugees from the war there, and the United Nations and African Union have already arrived, implemented a peace treaty under their direction, and yet the bloodshed goes on.

Who brokered this deal? Why it was the European Union, the United States, the African Union, and the United Nations. See DR Congo: Peace Process Fragile, Civilians at Risk This is the same sort of ‘response’ that the group Save Darfur has called for in Darfur, Sudan, so it is instructive to see the failure of these military responses from imperialist countries located outside of Africa, in yet another locale, East Congo. Military solutions even while disguised as ‘humanitarian interventions’ under the direction of the UN are prescriptions for failure, and East Congo underlines this.

The United Nations is completely under the control of the United States and its gang of allies, and none of them are willing to take the steps to actually help any African country out. Instead, the name of the game for them is CONTROL. We need to Save Congo, as well as Save Darfur. The only way we are ever going to do it is to break the military control that the US and Europeans use to strangle the African continent. It is truly a tragic situation, and the solution must come in form of releasing the control of imperialism on the region, not increasing it by calling for troops to be sent in.

As a side note, the issue of women being raped in Darfur is one of the big drawing cards for emotional responses to do something that the Save Darfur groups always make. Where are they though when it comes to the Congo conflict?

It seems that their focus on rape is as selective as can be, and is reminsicent of when Americans became concerned about babies in Kuwait which they once used to justify the beginning of the US assaults on Iraq. Women are being raped in Darfur, so the imperialist knights must rush in to save them! But we have the knights in place in East Congo, and women are still being raped. Go figure?

Kids make an offer Denver must refuse

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DNC Disruption 2008Recreate 68’s anarchist faction, the younger protest participants represented by Unconventional Denver, got their unviolent say in a RMN article today: Anarchists promise to sit out DNC. They offered to halt their DNC disruption efforts if the City of Denver would spend its 50 million dollar security grant on social problems instead. It’s an offer Denver cannot accept, but in making it, the anarchist activists were able to spell out why they object to the Democratic Party’s business as usual, and what social change they would like to see. Nothing extreme about it.

Here is the UNCONVENTIONAL DENVER Call to Action:

The Queen City is heating up as anarchists, witches, clowns, Iraq vets, artists, SDSers, radical queers, immigrants, Earth First!ers, rebel Democrats, parents, precarious workers and others are making it known that, come August, the Democrats’ attempt at co-opting our energies and power will fall short as we make it clear that change will come from below not above, in the streets and not in their stadiums.

Here’s the latest call to action from Unconventional Denver to help maximize our impact this August.

sunday the 24th { RECLAIM THE STREETS. RESIST MILITARIZATION}
Late Afternoon: After the 10:00am Recreate 68 anti-war march and the early afternoon Alliance for Real Democracy Funk the War celebration, a raging party in resistance to the militarized occupation of Denver and the world will reclaim public space and spread the festivities onto the streets. Be ready to take the rowdy celebration to the doorsteps of delegate hotels etc.

monday the 25th { NO BUSINESS AS USUAL}
Evening: Meet at the Civic Center at 6pm to join the anticapitalist march or participate in organized and decentralized actions that will actively disrupt the capitalist corruption and cronyism of the two party system by targeting specific fundraisers, delegate parties and corporations backing the DNC. come ready for quick decentralized actions spanning the downtown area at a variety of risk levels.

tuesday the 26th { CONFRONT THE SPECTACLE}
Afternoon: As delegates are arriving at the Pepsi Center, snake marches will converge on the entrances through the fence of the no-protest zone in order to create spaces for different levels of delegate movement disruption. Flying squads will assist the disruption and create distractions as we bring their party to a halt.

wednesday the 27th { ECO ACTIONS AND ALTERNATIVES}
All day: direct action against ecological destruction. We will create solutions to global warming without the politicians by shutting down sources of greenhouse gas emissions and corporations who destroy the earth (and fund the Democrats). we will also engage in creative resistance outlining solutions and alternatives; bike bloc! car free zones! guerrilla gardening!

thursday the 28th { NO BORDERS. NO ONE IS ILLEGAL}
Morning: Join this national mobilization for immigrants rights and help us draw connections between the struggles of immigrant communities and the struggle against global capitalism. Meet at Rude Park at 10:30am. This will be a low-risk event safe for all people regardless of immigration status. so play nice.
E X A C T T I M E S A N D L O C AT I O N S T B A .
S TAY T U N E D F O R M O R E I N F O

Toons stencil history of iconic film stills

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Stenciled film stills
Can you identify the iconic images collected on these stencils? Larger views of each section are reproduced below. Answers at the bottom.

Stenciled film stills

A clue, the stills are in chronological order, going across starting at the lower left.

Stenciled film stills

Stenciled film stills

Lune, Vampyres, Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney, Chaplin, Valentino, Lugosi, King Kong, Frankenstein, WC Fields, Oz, Dietrich, ?, Shirley Temple,

M, Mae West, Gone With the Wind, Groucho, ?, Astaire & Rogers, Garbo, Errol Flynn, Laurel & Hardy, Betty Grable, Maurice Chevalier, ?, Jane Russel, Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford,

Gary Cooper, Ten Commandments, Singing in the Rain, Judy Garland, Grace Kelly, ?, Katherine Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Spencer Tracy, Audrey Hepburn, ?, Some Like it Hot, Yul Brynner, James Dean, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf,

Cool Hand Luke, Psycho, Clockwork Orange, 2001, Berman, Strangelove, ?, Bonnie & Clyde, Nutty Professor, On the Waterfront, Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, Lawrence of Arabia, Bergman, Shaft, Josey Wales, Mrs. Robinson,

Harold & Maude, Bruce Lee, Cabaret, ?, Eraserhead, Aguirre Wrath of God, Woddy Allen, Jaws, Bowie, Pacino, Mad Max, Star Wars, Taxi Driver, Rocky, Rocky Horror, ?,

Yoda, ET, ?, Blade Runner, The Shining, ?, Bruce Willis, Good Morning Vietnam, Divine, ?, Blue Velvet, River Pheonix, Color Purple, ?, Terminator, Tommy,

Hanks, Hannibal, Thelma & Louise, Edward Scissorhands, Run Lola Run, Gary Oldman, Pulp Fiction, Godzilla, Witness, Morgan Freeman, Color of Money, Kwaidan, ?, ?, O Brother Where Art Thou, ?,