Tag Archives: 99%

The frequently cited St Paul Principles had their time and place: ST PAUL

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In my circle they’re called “Saint Paul’s Principles” because my colleagues think the edicts are Catholic I guess. The St Paul Principles came from St Paul Minnesota, circa 2008, and were formally adopted by the varied groups organizing to disrupt the Republican National Convention of 2008. They’ve lived on as guiding principles for activists of all ilk. In 2011 many Occupy encampments ratified the StPP as their own code of conduct, indifferent to whether they were applicable or even beneficial. Let’s examine the well intended dogma. Do they apply universally? Are they constructive? And how did they work out for St Paul? The last one is easy. As you may remember, disruption of the 2008 RNC failed spectacularly.

The St. Paul Principles

1. Our solidarity will be based on respect for a diversity of tactics and the plans of other groups.

2. The actions and tactics used will be organized to maintain a separation of time or space.

3. Any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events.

4. We oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption and violence. We agree not to assist law enforcement actions against activists and others.

It’s hard to argue against this elegant expression of solidarity. With the SPPs, the protest organizers aimed at preempting COINTELPRO style disruption from generating conflict within the movement. The implicit condemnation of violence was of state sponsored violence, not authentic barricade defense. And no snitching. The SPPs addressed the problems which were already scuttling Denver’s 2008 DNC protests. In Denver, “Recreate ’68” planners let the press infer they meant to revive the Chicago riots of 1968, prompting almost every traditional social justice group to circulate a contract which everyone was expected to sign. It was a vow of nonviolence. Organizations who refused to sign were ostracized and could expect the violent police clobbering they invited.

Essentially the SPPs aimed to unite the nonviolent and non-nonviolent activists, to ensure neither denounced the other, and that physically neither wound up caught in each other’s fights or sit-ins. Probably the chief concession was being asked of the nonviolent crowd: Please, as long as we promise not to shroud your family atmosphere and your baby strollers in tear gas, please let the Black Blocs do their thing without your repudiation. Please. We share the same goals.

Can you begin to see where such a strategy might fail to lead?

But the St Paul organizers did share the same goals. Their aim was to disrupt the RNC via a strategy they called “3S” actions. SWARM, SEIZE. STAY. It’s easy to see why three years later Occupy Wall Street was attracted to these directives. “3S” defines Occupy and another three years on, OWS activist followed the 2014 Climate March with an action called “Flood Wall Street” the instructions for which rephrased 3S aquatically.

The “movement” to which the SPPs refer shared a goal, to disrupt the RNC, by means of swarming, seizing, and staying, by whatever tactic each member group wanted. They shared a further agreement, that the city of St Paul was to be partitioned in sectors allowing groups to conduct their actions in isolation, united in time, but separated geographically so that red zone, yellow zone and green zone participants needn’t mix and find themselves out of their respective confort zones.

The groups organizing against the 2008 RNC shared one more thing in common, bound as they were to the St Paul Principles, they were all signatories to the principles.

Do the St Paul Principles apply universally?
It’s easy to see that the 2011 OWS occupations in major cities across the country shared a similar goal. It was, if perhaps more vague than to prevent a party convention, to disrupt the wheels of commerce by means of encampments; the “3S” tactic now reduced to a single verb “Occupy”. Allies such as unions and antiwar organizations, while sympathetic, cannot be said to have shared the same determinaton to disrupt. Even MoveOn with their “99% Spring”, FireDogLake with their merchandizing, and Adbusters had to relent with the revolutionary rhetoric. Eventually OWS spinoffs like Occupy Sandy Relief began to serve functions diametrically opposed to disruption. Did they expand the “movement”? Of course. But did the more inclusive “movement” outgrown the capacity for St Paul Principles to maintain its unity? Are activists bent on disruption expected to respect and support activists determined to prevent disruption?

I know it’s lovely to imagine every social justice effort as anti-authoritarian, and whether nonviolent or indulgent, each comprises a unique wing of a broad anti-government movement. If you are prepared to pretend that everyone’s aims are progressive, we share similar enough goals and we are reformists. But if some aims are revolutionary, explicitely anti-Capitalist for example like Occupy Wall Street, then reformists are counterrevolutionary. If you think reformists aren’t Capitalism’s first line of defense, even as they consider themselves activists, then you don’t know your adversaries from your allies. To imagine that activists shouldn’t address such chasms of understanding in favor of upholding popular delusion is going to get a movement nowhere.

At last year’s Climate March in NYC, the prevailing sentiment was against Capitalism. The organizers didn’t want to mouth it, but a vast number of marchers began to grasp instinctively that Capitalism has no solution for Climate Change. The anti-Capitalist movement can become “the movement” but reformists will have to understand they are obstructionists before they as individuals can be said to share the common goal.

The St Paul RNC Welcoming Committee aimed to disrupt the Republican National Convention for a WEEK. Can activist groups as they grow and transform over years and compete for membership and community resources expect that they shouldn’t be critical of one another’s missteps or aggressions even as their goals diverge?

How scalable are the St Paul Principles? Do they apply to no matter who considers themselves part of a greater “movement”. Do they apply to signatories and non-signatories alike?

Are the St Paul Principles constructive?
I would argue: Hardly. While it seems safer to segregate the Black Bloc from the civil disobedients from the family picnic crowd, you’re not going to reach critical mass with each on its own. With public dischord still in its infancy and while we have nowhere near the numbers to defend against or deter violent repression, perhaps it is only reasonable to program our street protests according to color zones, as if marches were amusement rides for protest tourism.

If you’re satisfied to lead combatants to jail and probation for mere symbolic shows of defiance, and you’re prepared to let nonviolent activists subject themselves to brutality which even when filmed will not awaken the conscience of the sociopathic oligarchs, and you’re resigned to let the masses burn themselves out with boredom given nothing to challenge their apathy, then the St Paul Principles are for you.

Pikes Peak Community College teaches climate denial to meteorology students

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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.- Overheard on FM 89.9, PPCC’s radio station: a spot for the General Meteorology Course MET-150, where students can learn about the earth’s cyclic temperature rises, how after this year warming is expected to level off, and how 99% of world scientists are dissatified with the way Climate Change is being reported in the media. Here the statistic is reinterpreted to mean: scientists agree with PPCC students and Springs radio listeners, and think our worries are overblown.

How much does Occupy not believe in elections? Enough to boycott them?

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US Election is election fraudPundits, even friendlies, are infecting the Occupy Movement with direction-waylaying cynicism, so I’ll tell you what I think Occupy should do next. Never mind the usual grievances, leave those to existing advocacy groups, although they do benefit from Occu-proding obviously. No matter what you think Occupy Wall Street’s core issue was, by definition OWS asserted our system of governance was broken, our regime is not responsive, not representative, and immovable by the conventional permitted mechanisms. So right now, which bankrupt democratic mechanism is being paraded before us, taunting a debunking from Occupy? We’ve been paying it lip service already: the fraud of our electoral process. Isn’t it time Occupy said DON’T VOTE? Don’t dignify Election 2012 with your buy-in, undignify it with a vote of no confidence. I don’t mean merely not vote, let’s Get Out The No Vote! Now wouldn’t that separate the men from the Dems!

MoveOn and the 99% Foundation et al, have been co-opting OWS numbers already, herding Occupy’s newly activated citizenry back into the Obama fold. Apparently there’s still hope to be squeezed, that Barack Obama isn’t the people’s nemesis he pretends to be in office.

If we threaten to occupy Obama’s vote, the Dems will roar! They’ll accuse us of ensuring the GOP villain’s win. They’ll be positively shrill, can you imagine? Occupy will go from a nostalgically eulogized Prague Spring, to People’s Enemy Number One, a national threat, inestimably unpatriotic, and suddenly more relevant than anyone’s ever dared admit. Our unoccupied friends will go from politely avoiding talking politics around us to actively begging us to reconsider.

Anyway, how are we going to explain our demonstrations at the RNC and DNC? We protest because the people are given no real choices. We protest because elections are a sham. Do we believe it ourselves? Think of fellow occupiers who’d earlier agreed that elections are mere show. Was all that talk polite patronizing? The inefficacy of voting is in fact a huge contention, and not one of those partisan niceties upon which we can agree to disagree. The illusion of Democracy is WHY WE OCCUPY. Our government is broken, the entire electoral system is election fraud. The presidential race is just a bold Kabuki show-stopper to please the crowd. Maybe Occupy can make it a real show stopper.

Denver April 28 War on Women march was a PRObama rally and we fell for it

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Rita Ague
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.

By “we fell for it” I mean of course Colorado Springs, where we fall for everything. War, Jesus, and soon, Fracking. The average Colorado Springs Joe would prefer Sarah Palin in the White House, so to fall on the smarter side of that curve it’s enough to favor Obama. In Colorado Springs even the left is right, gays are Log Cabin Republicans, and Occupiers are Teabaggers. Only on conservative campuses did academics look for common ground between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.


Sure enough, three of the five organizers were from Colorado Springs, all outside Denver circles. Does it matter? Not really, the day was a fun outing for Spring’s would-be activated women, and the issues are real and persist. But why now? Why the sudden “Rightwing” onslaught on women’s rights, when Republican candidates and representatives are already wearing the black hat in the economic downturn? It’s called baiting, and the Repugs took it. The War on Women, so-called, is the cry to circle the wagons in fear and support your local gunslinger and hey, he’s a Democrat!


And there they were, keeping to themselves at upstage right, the candidates waited to make their speeches about who was going to save the women.

As a LONG TIME party faithful, Rita Ague sussed immediately that this “grassroots” event was a DP hoax. She recognized the usual suspects and traditional call outs. Newly activated citizens are prey for election year campaigns, and Rita suspected the Dems were after the better half of the 99% like the GOP did the Tea Party.

Even in their country mouse afterglow, organizers pretend they didn’t know their rally would become Pro-Obama. Does that make them duplicitous or simply stupid? I’m tired of suspecting otherwise earnest, personable, and very effective fellow activists of being deceitful, hence the depressing tone of this story. We’re idiots, in a more disguised analogy, we’re sheep.


Rita Ague was criticized for upstaging the speakers with her sign, NO WAR ON WORLD OR WOMEN. Because it clashed with the programmed message. (No Democrat is offering to save women from war.) In threatening Rita, the organizers proved themselves as comfortable as their political guests with censoring all public assertion of free speech at what was supposed to be a grassroots rally. What unmitigated, transparently blank-headed dicks, for want of a sexist term.

The newly formed War on Women defenders circle thought they’d parlay their apparent momentum by calling for a Slut Walk for the following weekend. Why not, the media image-friendly meme has become a successful Jezebel feminist protest form , though not usually scheduled in the cold of MAY.


The authentic grassroots element had a blast on the march, here you can observe a large Occupy Denver contingent, participating to show solidarity and to meet people like-minded enough to take to the street for something they believe in.

Will the 99% Spring mean grassroots reinforcements for Occupy or MoveOn?

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I’m going to think that the more mobilization of the 99% the better, no matter if it’s, ding-dong MoveOn Calling. The vast 99 are wise to the corporations and the corporate media, I think they’ll recognize when corporate organizers try to co-opt their protest. It might be bad enough that MoveOn’s nationwide “Nonviolence Teach-in” wants to defang the popular uprising, they probably imagine the public’s anger can be refocused on the usual Republican bogeymen. What’s so nefarious about MoveOn? It backs President Obama. That means even though MoveOn wants to play megaphone for the 99% and its demands, it’s actually against all of them. MoveOn Obama is against Wall Street reform, against universal healthcare, against action on climate change, against fill-in-the-blank if the people are for it! MoveOn’s centralized DC HQ, effective but decidedly not-grassy, will probably be its undoing.

Wanna occupy? Sorry Colorado Springs but your Wall Street is the military, yes the pointy end of our oppressors’ stick.

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Nobody likes to draw the short straw, but isn’t that already our lot living in Colorado Springs? Yeah, it’s easy to protest Wall Street from the safety of a provincial backwater, our city even backed us with a permit, but is that really grabbing the imperial bull by the horns? The Occupy Movement has spotlighted how the world’s 99% are oppressed by the ruling elite. It made more clear how true democracy is undermined by their military-industrial-corporate-banking complex. Now, doesn’t a major chunk of that alliance operate right where we live? Think. It ain’t banking or industry, and the corporations here orbit around the headliner of that lineup, the military, our city’s dominant export. Yes, criticizing the military in a military town is not popular. Do you think the Wall Street protesters were a welcome sight to Manhattan’s bankers? You can call to “End the Fed” online, or protest anything in the world from a digital soapbox, but a public demonstration is limited to what’s in your local vicinity, especially if you mean to OCCUPY IT. Look on this as a curse or a blessing: The Zuccotti Park activists get to target sharkskin-suited traders, we’re up against men with guns. But what are you going to do, cheerlead the OWS front in NY, or hold up your end of the fight?

Visit Chicago for mirth and adventure

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MoveOn wants to mobilize the world’s largest nonviolence movement, calling on the 99% to teach-in itself in time for their American Spring. That’s certain to sound more palatable to America’s unbaptized middle-roaders, than the invitation above, invoking the reception likely awaiting protesters who plan to converge on Chicago in May. The G8 has been relocated to Camp David, but the larger NATO summit is still scheduled to warrant a two mile wide security perimeter around downtown Chicago. What does this poster communicate to you? I’m guessing the menacing image wasn’t chosen at random, it says to me the unadventurous need not apply.

Four Occupy tormentors unmasked

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Occupy Colo. Springs held a NO WAR ON IRAN demo today, counter- protested by some soldiers who think any antiwar criticism of their mission fails to Support The Troops. (Horrifyingly curious don’t you think, that US soldiers would already consider war with Iran as their mission?!) Joining them it turned out, were four of OCS’s sneakiest saboteurs. I got them with one camera click! From right to ultra-right: Raven Martinez aka Briaunna Webbing aka Occupy Csprings, Michael Clifton aka Agent of Doubt, Ian Carman aka “Father” Ian, and Ryan Butler aka Ry King aka Lone Wolf.

My policy until now was not to dignify any of these Facebook twits with attention, but their rumor campaign against OCS has become so virulent and untrue, and their misdeeds are now tipping the balance. Today the entire intersection had to bear personal megaphone taunts, but I’ll say that the final straw was yesterday when I learned of misinformation they attempted to spread to the local news. Occupy CS’s hand was forced in issuing a public statement about accused-arsonist Kyle Lawrence, because someone asserted Kyle had joined a violent group that had sprung up in OCS. Uh, let’s get to the bottom of that one, shall we?

WARNING: OCCUDRAMA AHEAD. All of it boring, but these creeps need to crawl back under their mouse pads. Ignoring them hasn’t worked, and even though they crave attention, I’ll give that a try.

Exhibit A
Ryan Butler, Ryan King, Lucky Dog, Lone Wolf
At far right is RYAN BUTLER aka Lucky Dog, aka Lone Wolf. When he disrupted OCS GAs he went by “Ry King”.

The secretive Ryan Butler is half of the Clifton/Butler nerd team that hijacked the “Occupy Colorado Springs” Facebook Open Group. It’s got about 400 members, doesn’t represent Occupy at all, and is maintained as a launchpad for Tea Party occu-haters under the pretext of “free speech” as decided by its unlisted admins Ryan & Michael. The open group was originally created by authentic occupier Amber Hagen, who in her idealism let all participant have admin privileges. When Amber discovered that haters among the admins kept wrecking the page, she began to delete them. Michael Clifton once recounted at a meeting how he and Ryan scrambled over Skype to keep Amber from shutting them out. They hurriedly deleted Amber’s admin access, thus exiling her from her own group. This was the act that inspired Raven Martinez to do the same with the OCS Facebook community page, in all fairness I should say, to prevent others from doing it to her.

Ryan’s claim to fame in OCS came from a failed coup to share the spokesmanship monopoly held by occupothead Jason Warf, but I digress.

Ryan had to step away from OCS after legal trouble from a drunken poker game gone awry, which he tried to blame on authentic occupy vet RTG. Ryan has a criminal record of domestic violence and wears a gun in his home in violation of having lost his permit to carry. That much is not disputed. But Ryan refutes RTG’s version of the event: that Ryan pistol-whipped his ex-girlfriend, which enraged RTG and the two fought, trashing the house. Both face assault charges and Ryan’s ex has filed her usual plea to the court to dismiss any notion that Ryan abused her. Instead we are to believe Ryan tried to defend himself with a vice-grips laying about (leaves a strike pattern similar to a gun maybe), accidentally striking his ex.

I’ll add that my perspective doesn’t come from hearing RTG’s testimony, but rather from eavesdropping on private IMs sent by Ryan as he deliberated what to say by way of damage control. Anyway.

Entirely relevant here however is Ryan Butler’s favorite bragging right, his secret Fight Club-inspired “PLAN-B” CLUB (First rule of Plan-B, you don’t talk about Plan B, snore). Apparently “Plan B” is for Amendment Two fans who want an alternate plan “when the revolution fails.” Was this the pro-violence group to which Michael Clifton alluded in TV interviews? It had nothing to do with Occupy, didn’t come from Occupy, and if its membership is limited to Ryan’s friends, I’m guessing that pares it down to two: he and Clifton. Thus Clifton’s statement about his disassociation from proponents of violence was also facetious, because the above photo was taken upon their arrival at the counter-protest, they came together.

But how absolutely scurrilous to attempt to tarnish OCS with the suggestion that occupy was the breeding ground of their pro-gun Amendment Two fantasy life?!

Exhibit B
Michael Clifton, Agent of Doubt
Occupying more than the center of this photo is Michael Clifton, self-appointed videographer of the local occupy, known on Youtube and DIY newsites as “Agent of Doubt”.

Michael Clifton was a very early supporter of OCS, donating water and food as he documented its progress on Youtube, each segment introduced in his best impersonation of Alfred Hitchcock, minus the wit, or substance. Let’s say Clifton’s motives started out good, what would lead him last week to step forward and break the story about arsonist Kyle having a history with OCS, packaging his videos for best consumption by the local media?

Of course the answer is simple, and we’ve seen it before. Apparently 15-minutes of personal soundbite, TV attention converted to Youtube views, trumps any consideration for possible negative blowback for the movement. Clifton actually keeps distancing himself from OCS every time he alleges to speak authoritatively as an insider. It’s laughable if it wasn’t damnable, because this time the oaf said he quit when OCS members began to plan illegal strategies. Whaaat? –leaving listeners to infer that arson was among the strategies. What kind of tomfoolery insinuation is that?

Not surprisingly, once more Clifton is defending himself against accusations of being an informer or provocateur. I make no such charge. He’s an idiot. What can you do, Colorado Springs is full of them. Am I being too harsh? Read on.

In an earlier episode in front of City Council, Clifton famously declared himself an outsider to OCS so that he could take all the credit for a –he-thought– brilliant bit of investigative deduction regarding CSPD’s billing of man hours charged for policing OCS. Our friend had videotaped an OCS march you see, and noticed there weren’t any police officers in sight, ergo, the billings must have been fraudulent, yes, ignoring the possibility the cops were plain-clothed, or observing from a perimeter, or on call, etc. So like a flat-earther who draws conclusions based on only what he can see, our intrepid Sherlock declares the CSPD guilty of fraud, and… marches straight into the local office of the FBI to make the charge! The FBI, he reports, were only too happy to accept all his video footage into evidence!

This might point to Clifton’s real reason to declare he was not part of Occupy, because a GA consensus would have vetoed his FBI idea. OCS had recently endorsed a no-snitch policy, not on anyone, not even the city, and let’s face it, not least of all I’m guessing, TO the FBI.

Thus, however unwittingly, let’s call it witlessly, Clifton is an FBI informant in the very technical sense, isn’t he?

To put a fine point on it: everyone who’s participated in OCS activities recorded by Agent of Doubt Clifton, is now on record at the FBI, in not just the lossy Youtube segments available online, but the original hi-def digital sequences, in their entirety.

And while Agent Dork has been a stalwart companion to Occupy, if only for the videos which he converts into ad-views whose revenue he “contributes” to the Occupy movement by funding his own efforts to “promote” it, so far the sum of his efforts has been to give law enforcement and the local media evidence to build a case against Occupy. Thanks a ton Agent Dork. From here onward, your camera aught to record everyone giving you the finger!

Exhibit C
Department of Homeland Security Officer Ian Carman
I was tempted because of his sign to give Father Ian Carman a pass. Who’s to say a Department of Homeland Security employee shouldn’t consider himself part of the 99%? But after successive absences from GAs, then hiding among the haters, it might be time to take a close look at this very disruptive occupier.

Divisive behavior can be very subtle, so I’ll cut to the quick on Father Ian. He revealed to us that he worked for DHS because he wanted to explain that he had access to confidential files on certain occupiers, one of whom, supposedly a veteran, still had a very high security clearance, indicating he was likely still active duty, or perhaps in the intelligence service. Father Ian was asserting this about our high profile occupy star JWS, effectively trying to snitchjacket JWS. Come down on that whichever way you like.

Exhibit D

Raven Martinez writes on Facebook under the identity of her daughter, or the occunonymous Facebook user “Occupy Csprings”. Once a formidable OCS volunteer, Raven suddenly became my own personal raving critic. It’s been suggested that her fury bears the air of a woman scorned — I’ll delve into that further down, if I feel like it.

As reported above, the Tea Party mutiny of Amber’s Facebook OCS open group is what inspired Raven to hijack the OCS Facebook COMMUNITY PAGE. Raven might have done it with the best intentions, but did it utterly undemocratically and to everyone’s chagrin and condemnation. Here’s what happened.

Embattled by internal struggle against the very identity of mothership Occupy Wall Street, the OCS GA had adopted the moderating policy implemented by the New York OWS to thwart vanguards and saboteurs, but the Springs admins at that time were refusing to implement them. Admins were continuing to post political endorsements, conspiracy theories and statements critical of fellow occupiers. Further protocols were adopted by OCS to require admins to use their initials to identify who was responsible. Again this was ignored, and now many of the admins were refusing to attend the GAs.

One day Raven noticed important posts being deleted and snide comments being made about OCS protest actions, all being done by an admin who would not reveal his/her identity, and worst of all, in the name of Occupy Colorado Springs. An admin herself, Raven made the clever move of temporarily deleting all the other admin users on the chance that this one might be stupid enough to reveal himself by complaining about his suddenly lost access. The idiot took the bait, and turned out to be none other than OCS-permit-holder and self-important-leader Hossein Momsforpot. For shit. Well this left Raven with a dilemma. Who was going to believe that Hoss was anti-OWS? More critically, who among the admins she had deleted, could she reinstate without the risk that Hoss would convince them to reinstate his admin status with which he could then delete Raven? This was the lesson Raven had gleaned from the hijack perpetrated by Wolf & Agent Duh.

I neglected to mention that the earlier hijack was accomplished anonymously, with Ryan pretending that sole admin status was held by “his dog”. So with her hijack, Raven added her own innovation, Raven loudly proclaimed that she’d been shut out too! She planned to claim that her eventual “reinstatement” was the result of an omniscient AnonymousTM hacker who’d intervened for the betterment of the movement.

Raven’s problem was that I had just the day before publicly refused an admin appointment, and when she cavalierly let suspicions fall on occupier PJ, he promptly deleted himself. Funny story, no?

Well, although a number of very earnest admins felt slighted, oddly enough things worked out for the better after Raven’s purge because all the internal occuhating stopped, and a number of the admins who felt pushed out ultimately outed themselves as Ron Paul enthusiasts, conspiracy nuts, or single-issue MMJ addicts. In reality, no one was ejected from OCS, but having lost their control over the Facebook page, they chose to make kissoff statements and move on.

So Raven was able to coax PJ and me to share the admin responsibilities with her, and it’s a good thing too, because when Raven eventually turned against the broader OWS mission, she’ll say it was because of my personal agenda, Raven went and DELETED the Facebook page. She thought she’d done it, but Facebook has safeguards fortunately, PJ and I were alerted and able to save the 3,300 member page from oblivion.

And the rest is history in the making. Three of us administrate the community page now, we trust each other and our dedication to the values and goals of the original Wall Street occupiers, and the Facebook likes continue to rise.

Is that enough about Raven? Yes it is. She’s doing her best to vilify and destroy our efforts, but that’s as much as I want to say about her.

What the hell. Each of these four unsavory characters knows that I could say far more than I’ve divulged here. I’m already embarrassed enough to talk about them as I did, good grief. The personal attacks on me are based on nothing that I hadn’t written about on NMT, yet they persist via email and phone calls to everyone they can reach. Well, here’s my shot across the bow.

The “War On Women” is a wedge issue

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War on Women is a wedge issue
I’ll say this with the sensitivity I know White Males of Privilege have in spades: I’m sorry, isn’t the War On Women an obvious wedge issue? To me it’s the usual progressive ideals versus religious brick wall, meant to divide voters during an election year. Submitting to the traditional patriarchal framing of this debate sets back the goalposts on women’s rights. And where yesterday the public was questioning the undemocratic authoritarian fiscal system which perpetuates, among many ills, gender and social inequalities, now the American population’s better half is being misdirected to the usual Neanderthal bogeyman. Who is against female reproductive choices? The same Scooby-Doo straw villains who keep Gay Marriage in a seesaw of legal battles. The moral struggle against archaic cultural traditions has already been won, but corporate feudal interests pretend that the public they poll would forbid it. It requires a continuous drive, especially if we keep falling for the Kabuki illusion that the end zone grows further off. To women now mobilizing their energies against the so-called W.O.W. I have to say, way to let the ass’s tail wag you. Yes, Rush Limbaugh is doing today’s henchman cameo, yesterday it was the church and the GOP, but who declared this “war” to divide the 51% from the 99%? None other than President Obama with his health care measure meant to provoke church-administered health facilities. You don’t think this was a depth charge set to fire exactly now? As local women’s groups extemporize defensive demonstrations, it will be interesting to see what activism infrastructure already had the astroturf on order.

Hollywood to rest of world: Whatever.

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It used to be the effusive “You love me. You really love me” but the Oscars post-Guy Fawkes have lifted Hollywood’s green curtain. Meryl Streep may have thought she was retweeting the audience when she pulled the Federer/Schumacher victor’s lament, but what was that really saying? A world audience appreciates genius in the performance arts, equal parts haughty, but Hollywood’s standard for a thinking-man’s actor is clearly not deep. Hollywood puts the silver shimmer on the corporate media pro-war propaganda, and when its spokes-glamor catch a whiff of discontent from the masses, their reaction is as genuine as Sally Fields, says the 1% to the 99%: “whatever.”

Say goodbye to 2011 and bad bad Walmart

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OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Occupy Walmart continues today at Platte and Chelton. JOIN US. Why Walmart — where have you been?! If the 99% can come together on anything, it’s against capitalism’s most despotic retailer. Judging by the support from traffic passing on Platte Avenue, 99% agree, this new year will not sustain such a greedy business model. Here are photos from Friday’s protest.


Friday’s action attracted four CSPD cruisers right from the start, followed by periodic drive-bys, videotaping and parking nearby.


When the popo try to intimidate us, we occupy them.

SATURDAY UPDATE:

High winds were a challenge for everything but Jack’s snare drum.

Occupiers can learn from Anarchists

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Here’s one of the more popular pamphlets distributed at Occupy Colorado Springs, courtesy of the DABC. DEAR OCCUPIERS: A LETTER FROM ANARCHISTS
 
Support and solidarity! We’re inspired by the occupations on Wall Street and elsewhere around the country. Finally, people are taking to the streets again! The momentum around these actions has the potential to reinvigorate protest and resistance in this country. We hope these occupations will increase both in numbers and in substance, and we’ll do our best to contribute to that.
 
Why should you listen to us? In short, because we’ve been at this a long time already. We’ve spent decades struggling against capitalism, organizing occupations, and making decisions by consensus. If this new movement doesn’t learn from the mistakes of previous ones, we run the risk of repeating them. We’ve summarized some of our hard-won lessons here.

Occupation is nothing new. The land we stand on is already occupied territory. The United States was founded upon the extermination of indigenous peoples and the colonization of their land, not to mention centuries of slavery and exploitation. For a counter-occupation to be meaningful, it has to begin from this history. Better yet, it should embrace the history of resistance extending from indigenous self-defense and slave revolts through the various workers’ and anti-war movements right up to the recent anti-globalization movement.

The “99%” is not one social body, but many. Some occupiers have presented a narrative in which the “99%” is characterized as a homogenous mass. The faces intended to represent “ordinary people” often look suspiciously like the predominantly white, law-abiding middle-class citizens we’re used to seeing on television programs, even though such people make up a minority of the general population.

It’s a mistake to whitewash over our diversity. Not everyone is waking up to the injustices of capitalism for the first time now; some populations have been targeted by the power structure for years or generations. Middle-class workers who are just now losing their social standing can learn a lot from those who have been on the receiving end of injustice for much longer.

The problem isn’t just a few “bad apples.” The crisis is not the result of the selfishness of a few investment bankers; it is the inevitable consequence of an economic system that rewards cutthroat competition at every level of society. Capitalism is not a static way of life but a dynamic process that consumes everything, transforming the world into profit and wreckage. Now that everything has been fed into the fire, the system is collapsing, leaving even its former beneficiaries out in the cold. The answer is not to revert to some earlier stage of capitalism—to go back to the gold standard, for example; not only is that impossible, those earlier stages didn’t benefit the “99%” either. To get out of this mess, we’ll have to rediscover other ways of relating to each other and the world around us.

Police can’t be trusted. They may be “ordinary workers,” but their job is to protect the interests of the ruling class. As long as they remain employed as police, we can’t count on them, however friendly they might act. Occupiers who don’t know this already will learn it firsthand as soon as they threaten the imbalances of wealth and power our society is based on. Anyone who insists that the police exist to protect and serve the common people has probably lived a privileged life, and an obedient one.

Don’t fetishize obedience to the law. Laws serve to protect the privileges of the wealthy and powerful; obeying them is not necessarily morally right—it may even be immoral. Slavery was legal. The Nazis had laws too. We have to develop the strength of conscience to do what we know is best, regardless of the laws.

To have a diversity of participants, a movement must make space for a diversity of tactics. It’s controlling and self-important to think you know how everyone should act in pursuit of a better world. Denouncing others only equips the authorities to delegitimize, divide, and destroy the movement as a whole. Criticism and debate propel a movement forward, but power grabs cripple it. The goal should not be to compel everyone to adopt one set of tactics, but to discover how different approaches can be mutually beneficial.

Don’t assume those who break the law or confront police are agents provocateurs. A lot of people have good reason to be angry. Not everyone is resigned to legalistic pacifism; some people still remember how to stand up for themselves. Police violence isn’t just meant to provoke us, it’s meant to hurt and scare us into inaction. In this context, self-defense is essential.

Assuming that those at the front of clashes with the authorities are somehow in league with the authorities is not only illogical—it delegitimizes the spirit it takes to challenge the status quo, and dismisses the courage of those who are prepared to do so. This allegation is typical of privileged people who have been taught to trust the authorities and fear everyone who disobeys them.

No government—that is to say, no centralized power—will ever willingly put the needs of common people before the needs of the powerful. It’s naïve to hope for this. The center of gravity in this movement has to be our freedom and autonomy, and the mutual aid that can sustain those—not the desire for an “accountable” centralized power. No such thing has ever existed; even in 1789, the revolutionaries presided over a “democracy” with slaves, not to mention rich and poor.

That means the important thing is not just to make demands upon our rulers, but to build up the power to realize our demands ourselves. If we do this effectively, the powerful will have to take our demands seriously, if only in order to try to keep our attention and allegiance. We attain leverage by developing our own strength.

Likewise, countless past movements learned the hard way that establishing their own bureaucracy, however “democratic,” only undermined their original goals. We shouldn’t invest new leaders with authority, nor even new decision-making structures; we should find ways to defend and extend our freedom, while abolishing the inequalities that have been forced on us.

The occupations will thrive on the actions we take. We’re not just here to “speak truth to power”—when we only speak, the powerful turn a deaf ear to us. Let’s make space for autonomous initiatives and organize direct action that confronts the source of social inequalities and injustices.

Thanks for reading and scheming and acting.

May your every dream come true.

Occupy chants

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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.

Ain’t no power like the power of the people
’cause the power of the people don’t stop! –Say what?

Si, se puede! (Because “Yes we can!” is now Obama’s)

WE ARE the ninety-nine percent, (and so are)
YOU ARE the ninety-nine percent, (and so are)

Show me what Democracy looks like.
This is what Democracy looks like!

Off of the sidewalk into the street!

Stop watching, start marching!

Whose streets?!
Our streets!

Hey Wall Street, it’s not a pretty picture
The poor get poorer and the rich get richer

The POLICE ARE the army of the rich.

More anti-police:

From Denver to Greece, Fuck the Police!

Oink oink bang bang, everyday the same old thang.

One bullet, one pig. One bullet one pig.

All in

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When i first set out to write this blog i had no intention of writing about geopolitics, or anything any bigger than my own little world, or to develop any sort of readership at all, let alone to kick up international interest. Who knew? Since the time i started, Adbuster’s Occupy movement has overtaken the whole world and i’ve become a part of it, along with apparently millions of fellow humans dissatisfied with aspects of the concentric and overlapping political systems that govern and control the minutiae of our daily lives. Occupy has struck a chord that resonates well beyond what seems to have been its original intent as well.

Adbuster asserts in its campaign web-page opener that, “we vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy,” speaking, one assumes of U.S. democracy, even though Adbusters is a Canadian publication founded by Kalle Lasn, an Estonian. Adbusters itself claims to be a, “global network of culture jammers and creatives,” and that their Occupy is, “[i]nspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas.” One should note that Adbusters is a non-profit organization with aspirations and effect well beyond the confines of the magazine at its core.

Many of my dear intrepid friends struggle mightily with the unavoidable nature of the movement in which we all participate. Occupy Colorado Springs, (OCS), has garnered a fair amount of attention both because of its early acquisition of a city permit to camp on the sidewalk, and for its fragmentary infighting. Strong personalities have clashed fairly spectacularly for what scale we’re dealing with here, and precisely the same arguments are on display at Occupy web-pages all over the U.S., as well as abroad. Here, many patriotic, nationally oriented players have concentrated on addressing the U.S. Constitution and the influence of corporate interests in Washington, D.C. politics. Others have been caught up in causes of personal concern as the “focus” of the overall movement has grown more and more diffuse. The bickering and difficulty in reaching consensus has been frustrating but, i suggest, not unhealthy or out of place.

Adbusters, following ques from the Middle East and Spain, deliberately set off a “leaderless” movement, and has fastidiously avoided taking hold of any sort of control of what has developed since, refusing even media interviews for fear of exercising undue influence. Occupy remains a leaderless movement. Various groups and individuals have issued lists of demands; the one linked there, “is representative of those participating on this [particular ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Facebook] page.” We Occupiers have much common ground, which has served well to bring us all together, and will continue to serve as we gather to discuss and bicker over issues and particulars. There is plenty to differentiate amongst us as well, on individual and other categorical bases, but we have recognized, more or less, an essential humanity that has us willing to stand in freezing temperatures if we live in the northern hemisphere, and subject ourselves to the slow, often painful process of learning to live together.

Some among us, as we have seen right here in Colorado Springs, are very uncomfortable indeed with the amorphous nature of the Movement. We have seen splintering, censorship wars, general Assemblies that devolve into shouting matches, and the development of personal animosities. These phenomena are repeated on a grander scale throughout the Movement while observers gloat over the imminent dissolution of Occupy unity. Neither we Occupiers nor the Movement’s detractors ought to be misled by these birth pains. Our situation as humans, or for that matter any other creature inhabitant of the Earth has been rendered fully untenable by humans competing for dominance. The upheaval we engage from our Colorado Springs street corner, or from squares in Manchester, Belgrade, Cairo, and etc. is the natural response of rats in a corner. Were it not for the fact that we humans indeed possess reasoning capacity beyond a rat’s we really would be screwed. Fortune, or Divine providence, or evolution, or whatever mechanism or mechanisms turn(s) out to be true has granted us the tools that, utilized with empathy at every turn may–just may–allow us to work our way out of the massive pickle in which we’ve put ourselves. Nothing about this will be easy, quick, or for most, especially comfortable.

The Movement is leaderless. This is an existential fact. No matter how strenuously individuals attempt to grab hold of reigns, or to turn them over to others, there is no authority behind the Movement other than the profound spiritual authority of its essential Idea. The financial disparities that we have focused on here in the U.S. are real, and the supra-national bodies that control our government with full directive power are the same bodies that separate people from power in every nation on Earth. Each issue that has arisen into the Movement’s overall consciousness, from derivative markets, to marijuana law, to camping on public property is part and parcel of the whole thing, which itself amounts to such a gigantic, lumpen juggernaut that we have a hard time gathering our thoughts around the whole thing at once. We must.

Many U.S. citizens, including some prominent in and around OCS, have expressed insistent nationalism. Muslims and Christians around the world have pushed religions agendas. Nationalism is by no means confined to the U.S.A. Our corporate, non-personal enemy and its personal, human operators are Global already, and use these divisions to our detriment! At a Colorado College faculty panel yesterday, much ado was made of income disparities and market finagling by Wall Street financiers. We can isolate our minds all we want, but we can not eliminate the fact that Wall Street, Fleet Street, Singapore, Hong Kong, the House of Saud, whatever, whatever, are already one indivisible entity, operating in opposition to any concern for overall humanity or household priorities for any of us as inhabitants of the planet, including the natural requirements of the controllers. The Idea of competition and profit has acquired an independent life of its own and has prevented even those at the top of the unwieldy pyramid from living lives connected to the most valuable prizes of all, which we humans have recognized throughout our history and recorded in odes, songs, and literature to be transcendent of politics and possessions. The statistics cited by those college economists, and the many Occupiers that mention them in speeches and lists of demands are quite real, and Americans might note that Kurdish, Nepali, and Palestinian Occupiers, for example, skew the stats we’ve been flailing our arms about here even further, and that “First World” exploitation is a very large part of this discussion, indeed.

There can be little doubt that the “Wall Street” entities in control of our various governments have planned for and directed events toward a “New World Order” for decades, if not centuries. Lots of justifiably paranoid conspiracy watchers all over the planet have done their best to alert their fellows to this alarming and unacceptable development for as long as it has been in the mix. The Vatican, a power with negative credibility in its adherence to its own doctrine, has offered itself up as a potential controller of a global banking scheme. Currently entrenched power-brokers will absolutely without question attempt to co-opt and control the current Movement. We humans are not interested in more of the same bullshit, plus the added benefit of still more bullshit! We occupiers are fully Sovereign, each in his or her own right. We are leaderless by design, which is the natural development of the abject failure of our leaders, and in fact of the failure of the very foundation of our interaction amongst ourselves that has developed without much direction for at least the 10,000 year span during which we have written about it. Those who resist this fact will find little more than inversely correlated discomfort in their resistance. One can deny the nature of a rhinoceros till one’s dying day, but the beast remains a rhinoceros, and the denier’s last day may well come on the day he encounters a rhinoceros.

Sovereign consensus building is not democracy. It’s something we humans have never attempted on the scale we Occupiers are attempting now. Broad-scale cooperation as a foundation is against an established competitive approach that we have fallen into by default for a long, long time. Voting one another into submission will not work, simply because we have let the cat out of the bag. We noble individuals are learning a brand-new thing, like it or not, because a rhinoceros has smashed the freakin’ house down. I, for one will not abandon the Liberty of my own Sovereignty, no matter who votes what, nor will i abandon the respect i hold for each other Sovereign in the entire mix. I recognize the differences between whatever groups or persons are in the whole wide world. Categorical observations are real, so far as they go; but i won;t be bound by them. I won’t be forced to fight against the 1% simply because i am a member of the 99%. Rather i will be fighting with every fiber of my being for the 100% of us who will ALL be trampled by the rhinoceros, in pretty danged short order, unless we ALL relinquish our insistence on control, avarice, and irresponsibility of all stripes.

Each of us has a part to play, a purpose to serve. Never abandon what you know. Work hard at open discussion. Don’t be embarrassed by frustrating moments or attempt to hide your own humanity. Withdraw for a moment if you need to to prevent overboiling passions. We’re all in this together. Be patient Brothers and Sisters; this is gonna hurt some….

OWS List of Demands:
www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=157161391040462
Adbusters:
www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet
NPR:
www.npr.org/2011/10/20/141526467/exploring-occupy-wall-streets-adbuster-origins
Middle Eastern origins:
www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/apr/09/libya-egypt-syria-yemen-live-updates
Acampadas:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13466977

Oct 24-29 is Mile High Showdown, plus Obama, Tar Sands, 1% Robin Hood Tax

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Mile High Showdown, Oct 24 - Oct 29
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.

Next Adbusters proposes a Robin Hood Tax, 1% on global banking transactions

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Looking for the next big thing? ADBUSTERS hasn’t mislead you yet. An October 29 mobilization for OCCUPY WALL STREET to call for a Robin Hood Tax, a 1% tax on all global banking transaction. I know 1% from the 1% sounds meager, but it’s a start toward 99% for the 99%.

DPD used riot gear in dead of night to arrest camp singing national anthem

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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!

Gov Hickenlooper’s use of State Troopers to clear the capitol lawn in the middle of night probably preempted actions by other Occupy camps to draw police resources away. Next time how can they distract the popo legally? Follow Occupy Denver’s lead. Apparently peaceful, nonviolent free speech is enough to bring clampdown.

GA earlier in evening reaffirmed that movement is not about having messages heard, to be ignored per usual, but SHUTTING DOWN THE SYSTEM. It’s is not about speaking truth to power. Power already knows the truth. What it doesn’t know is extent of peoples’ determination. Denver GA wasn’t won over by voices content to keep occupation as daily sidewalk protests, lasting into winter, to usual no effect. You want protracted Wall Street protest? Antiwar vigils have been ongoing for 10 years…

Tents ARE key issue for all Occupy protests. What is your right to peaceably assemble if you can’t protect yourself from cold? Does 1st Amendment only apply in summer, during the day, and when authorities aren’t too bothered by your dissent? Thinking this movement is about getting your issues heard is to pretend #OccupyWallStreet means “Voice Off to Wall Street.” Nope. Tents are needed in Denver, Wall Street and everywhere because this movement needs to stop the system, not hector it until we lose energy & body temp.

The Denver Post doesn’t have a live camera from their building which overlooks the capitol and Occupy camp. They’re not press, they’re criminals. What they have is nominal, the view above actually, but a low rez surveillance webcam is poor excuse for a media outlet.

Those who think Occupy Denver should have decamped and gone home, are not thinking of the homeless -the fullest victims of Wall Street. Hopefully Occupy members who were praising the Denver Police so warmly in earlier GAs will stick around on sidelines at least to get lesson in police state. Of course all the members who chose to flee DPD intimidation will be welcomed back tomorrow. But voicing their next 2-cents worth? Not so much.

Police are people too, but they have a job to do. By coincidence it’s to stop you from stopping Wall Street. Yep it’s a dilemma. It’s probably no surprise that pro-fracking, pro-coal, pro-war, anti-immigrant, anti-union gov of Colorado would be against Occupy Denver. Issuing a warning of arrests to be made between 11-5am is extortion, threatening unlawful arrest is police state terrorism. Do we accept police raids tonight on Denver and Seattle camps? Protest is civil right, shelter is human right. Police state is fascist wrong.

Something to thing about: Whole crowds can be subdued by one tyrant with a gun, if they remain nonviolent. Numerical superiority counts where people have courage to act. When people say there’s strength in numbers, it’s not if you’re queued obediently to have your eye put out, or shot, or for rigged elections.

Colo. State Troopers are wearing riot gear to face Denver protesters, because post-curfew peaceful campers equals RIOT in Fascist police state.

Iraq & Afghanistan should have thought to require US to withdraw occupation every night. Military bases must violate some vagrancy law.

Cops sympathetic to 99% could have shown their mettle if they’d occupy their sick leave, occupy off-duty, occupy right to refuse unlawful orders. Otherwise state troopers are dumbasses and do not represent Colorado or 99%. I know by regulation cop IQ has max limit, didn’t know cowardice was also requisite.

Occupy Denver was won Oct 14 at 11:01PM, regardless what happens now. Threat of arrest enlarged crowd, didn’t shrink it. The movement’s momentum is proved.

Mid-night raid won’t matter. Cops wouldn’t face crowd at its largest, the Occupy protests have been emboldened past critical mass.

The 40 minute warning given to the protesters is actually the police giving themselves 40 minutes to shit their pants. The OWS juggernaut is on the move and the popo have chosen to side against 99%. Denver officers, you’re marching against the 99%. Occupy Denver will forgive you and blame your bosses. But you’ve probably heard of Anonymous’ motto.

Riot gear worn by Colorado police concedes conceit that Occupy Denver issue is illegal camping. OWS protest camp is free speech and assembly.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks

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In honor of Oct 2, the International Day of Nonviolence, which hardly any government of the world honors IN DEED, especially the league of NATO and USA’s coalition of the killing. I thought I’d perseverate further on the role nonviolent dogma plays in squashing dissent. Here’s my theme: If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks the antiwar movement of the 60s might have deposed the military industrial complex before it became supersized, privatized and above the law. Or not, but NV claptrap certainly got us nowhere.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, Gaza might have been liberated already. Nonviolent kabuki demonstrations have spoiled attempted marches from Egypt, have scuttled would-be flotillas, have squeezed out real activists from sailing to Gaza’s rescue. Ask yourself, which brought more attention and sympathy for Palestinians, the Mavi Marmara or “The Audacity of Hope” which didn’t even show audacity enough to confront Greek harbor keepers? The Turkish activists on the Marmara were nonviolent, but not neurotically so. They might have expelled their Israeli boarders, but we have to pretend at least surprise at the brutality of Israel’s massacre. The US Boat on the other hand exchanged indignation over bullhorns without ever leaving the harbor, then stood down. Nonviolence doesn’t mean passivity, really?

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, the Palestinian’s right to defend their homeland from their occupiers would not be an issue. If Palestine was allowed to resist their invaders, Israel would stop trying to take it all.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, Bush could not have stolen a second election and Americans wouldn’t have had to settle for hope instead of change.

If it wasn’t for the nonviolence sneaks with their ultimatums of passivity, who knows how soon the New World Order might have been prevented? It’s the nonviolence sneaks who are the most despicable provocateurs, alienating the 99% by ensuring public protest remain forever ineffectual.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks, antiwar movements would end war, social injustices would be righted, and greed brought to justice.

If it weren’t for the nonviolence sneaks who enforce public compliance, world governments would respect their people and couldn’t rule by fear.

If if wasn’t for the nonviolence sneaks, the public’s urgent will would be heeded, instead of dismissed for inconsequential whine it’s become.

#OccupyColoradoSprings Acacia Park, Tejon & Bijou, against corporate greed

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Acacia Park at Tejon and Bijou
The 99% speak out from Acacia Park, downtown Colorado Springs. Favorite posters were: In Capitalist America, Banks Rob You and We The People Are the Solution!
 
Great pics of #OccupyDenver Saturday march at kallisti.imgur.

Acacia Park at Tejon and Bijou

Acacia Park at Tejon and Bijou

Acacia Park at Tejon and Bijou

Dear President Obama, your email MailMerge function needs tweaking

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When a Codepink blogger offered her public reply to President Obama’s “This Fourth of July” email, I thought I’d poke my own fun at passages like “as America comes ever closer to achieving the perfect Union our founders dreamed.” But when I examined the email Obama sent me, that laugh line had been scrubbed. Did you know our personal notes from the president were indeed personal?

It surprises no one I’m sure, to imagine that mass emails would be personalized to address the recipient. “Dear Eric, how’s the weather in Colorado, etc.” It’s no great leap then to customize each theme according to subjects of concern to me more than others.

Obama knows apparently that I’m not likely to buy “today is a day to reflect on our independence, and the sacrifice of our troops standing in harm’s way to preserve and protect it.” In fact I do not give a rat’s ass for a single one of our soldiers standing in harm’s way. Although we have only guesstimated body counts to go on, obviously 99% of that harm flows the other way.

Soldiers who resist orders to keep heaping harm on innocents is who I care about.

Fighting for America’s freedom begins at home. Let any citizen try to petition his government for redress and he’ll see exactly whose side the soldiers are on.

My personal 4th of July email from the president does mention our soldiers and their sacrifice, but adds another emphasis:

That sacrifice is shared with husbands and wives, with sons and daughters, with fathers and mothers, who are asked to wait at home as their loved ones protect our nation. Their heroism, too, has helped pave the path of our freedom.

Now where did the White House Mail Merge function get its wires crossed on that one? If there are Americans about whom I care less than the GIs, it’s the parents who couldn’t give them better advice. Theirs was no heroism at all, it was go with the flow. Stuck hoping their child escapes unscathed is their just due. Mothers who raised their boy to be a soldier, did it for Charles Darwin.

Neither do I care to honor those military wives furiously praying for stateside widowhood and a $100,000 insurance payoff.

Clearly my Obama message was intended to inspire a flag-drapper. How many variation of the Obama 4th of July email do you suppose went around?

I hesitate to wonder what my personal email from Obama would look like if indeed he had my number. I am hoping to avoid “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka!”

Red White and Brave Welcome Home

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Colorado Springs will be hosting a parade on August 29 to welcome troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Its predecessor was a 2004 victory parade, this one is billed as a Red White and Brave Welcome Home. You might shy from holding an antagonistic banner like “I DON’T WORSHIP WAR,” but imagine a message draped from a balcony along Tejon Ave! WELCOME HOME, NOW STAY HOME or WHAT HAPPENS IN IRAQ, STAYS IN IRAQ or my favorite, addressed to the 50,000-plus expected to attend: WE’RE CELEBRATING THE MURDER OF HOW MANY CIVILIANS?

This isn’t a Veterans’ Day parade right? It’s one thing to be honoring troops. This parade is an appreciation, a “go get’em” to soldiers returned from Iraq to be redeployed to Afghanistan.

This parade is about recruiting more soldiers. It’s to show prospective recruits that the community supports what they do and are thrilled to send them off again to Afghanistan.

Would protesting the event represent any significant population of Colorado Springs? Although the majority of even this city are against the continued conflicts, I’ve no doubt very few dare speak out against the wars.

That’s where to come out in protest of the glorification of militarism is not about a democratic representation. It’s about what’s right. If 99% of Pikes Peak area residents were just fine with blowing unfortunate Afghan and Iraqi children to bits, I would still object to their wanting to hold a public parade to celebrate it. Let the world see that not every last one of us in Colorado Springs gets off on the carnage we’ve been perpetrating for going on eight years.

McCain-Palin: incontinent & incompetent

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Is John McCain dying?

Poll: the only thing McCain’s slimey campaign lies are hurting, is John McCain’s campaign.

If you thought McCain couldn’t sink any lower, think again. His latest ad campaign: Obama kills babies. What’s next, he eats them, too? White Christian babies?

Grandmother sues McCain/Palin for promoting hate speech.

McCain flat out lies about his “support” from veterans.

GOP tricking voters into registering Republican.

Rigged voting machines in W. Virginia are flipping votes from Democrat to Republican candidates.

Leave it to a Reich Wing Conservative to claim that the Robber Barrons ripping off the other 99% of us is a good thing.

The rip-off that just keeps on taking. $70 BILLION of Wall St. bailout will go to bonuses for the very people who drove those companies to the verge of bankruptcy. I predict a shart uptick in guillotine sales in the near future.

Colin Powell rejects the Islamophobia of the fascist right, as he endorses Obama. Then again, shouldn’t Obama reject an endorsement from a war criminal who stood up at the UN and lied to the entire world about bogus WMDs in Iraq?

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Oct 20 notes, thomasmc.com.

Filthy Rich Win Class War!

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Treasonous Congress Pays Off Wall St. Pirates! That loud sucking sound you hear is your future going down the toilet.

Administration threatened Congress with Martial Law if it didn’t give in to Wall St. extortion demands.

The $1T bailout gift to Wall St. was just the first installment. I bet they make least one more trillion dollar extortion demand before the inauguration in January. And they won’t stop until the country is bankrupt, and 99% of the wealth is held by the richest 1% of the population. If Americans had any sense, they would burn DC &amp Wall St. to the ground by morning.

Nazi cops in Denver gloating about ignoring the Constitution during DNC.

False Prophet Pat Robertson predicts USA will be hit by a nuclear strike after election. Though it probably wouldn’t do as much damage as Congress did this morning.

Is Bill O’Reilly a dysfunctional moron? Does the Pope shit in the Vatican?

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Oct 3rd notes, thomasmc.com.

Ossetia South doesn’t want to be West

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Ossetia dividedSOUTH OSSETIA? You might very well ask, where’s NORTH Ossetia? The Republic of North Ossetia-Alania is in the Russian Federation. So the minority enclave of South Ossetia wants to break from Georgia? They’ve watched developments in the increasingly US-controlled Georgian leadership and they don’t want to be pawns of the West. South Vietnam? South Korea anyone?

Bruce Gagnon sent more this morning:

Some old sage once said we learn world geography by tracking American wars – or in this case American proxy wars. I am as certain as I can be that this is a proxy war. The U.S. and Israel have been arming Georgia heavily in recent years. The U.S. and Israel have been sending military advisers to Georgia. There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. has been, at the very least, “encouraging” Georgia to make a grab for the independent territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia knowing that by doing so they would very well provoke Russia to respond. I am convinced the U.S. wants to confront Russia militarily and if they can get someone else to do it then why not. It’s the cold war strategy come back to life.

The corporate media in the U.S. is having a field day promoting Russian aggression against Goergia. One very interesting CNN-TV story detailed Russian destruction of the Georgian city of Gori but then the camera man who took the footage said the film he took was actually of Georgian destruction of Russian peacekeeper forces in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. You can see why the American people are so often confused and misinformed. We are being led with rings in our noses into a new protracted war.

A distant cousin of mine who lives in Massachusetts wrote me saying that when she went to work yesterday the folks there were convinced that Russia had bombed the American state of Georgia. “Why do we bother?” she asked.

Bruce also suggested this article:

Marching through Georgia
By Patrick Schoenfelder

Maybe everyone is already up to speed on this, but if you are depending on the usual drumbeat of warlike bluster from the mainstream media (in the words of Paul Krugman, “real mean don’t think things through”) you are missing most of the news.

Therefore, a brief memo:

South Ossetia and Abkhazia are small areas on the border between Georgia and Russia where the majority of residents belong to ethnic groups other than Georgian. During the Soviet era, both of them were semi-autonomous areas under Soviet control.

In 1990, after Georgia became independent, Georgia claimed both areas as part of Georgia.

Russia opposed this claim as did residents of the areas, and Russia forced Georgia at gunpoint to allow autonomy to both regions in 1992, and both regions have been acting as de facto independent countries since then.

Peacekeepers from Russia commissioned by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been stationed in both countries since then.

After the so-called Rose Revolution and the overthrow of Edward Shevardnadze in 2003 it became a policy of the Georgian government to repudiate the independence of both regions and to work for re-establishment of Georgian control.

In 2006, a referendum was held under OSCE supervision with 34 observers from Poland, Germany, Austria, and Sweden. The referendum drew a 95% turnout and voted 99% in favor of full independence.

Georgia rejected the results, claiming that ethnic Georgians were intimidated out of voting, and arguing that the Russian peacekeepers actually were supporting the Ossetians.

Meanwhile, Georgia developed a close relationship with the Bush administration and cultivated a relationship with the EU, beginning application for membership in both the EU and in NATO. Georgia has the third largest number of troops in Iraq, after the US and Britain. The US has supplied the Georgian army with a large amount of war material.

In mid-July of this year, the US military held a joint war games training exercise in Georgia with the Georgian military.

The US left a number of “military advisers” in Georgia after the exercise.

On August 7, the Georgian army invaded South Ossetia in force, advancing rapidly across the area and killing both Ossetian soldiers and Russian peacekeepers.

On August 8, the Russians moved a large force into South Ossetia, including use of airpower for bombing and support. The Georgian army was rapidly crushed and began to retreat into Georgia. The Russians continued to pursue them into Georgia and used artillery and planes to bombard both military and civilian targets in Georgia as they advanced. They also declared that Georgian troops stationed in Abkhazia must leave or surrender, and sent troops into Abkhazia as well.

The Russians at this point seem to be determined to remove the Georgian leadership and establish independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The extent to which they will occupy or establish control in Georgia proper, and for how long, is not clear.

The Georgians, after starting the war, probably partly at the urging of the US, are now screaming for peace.

The US and the Europeans, while expressing dismay (“I am shocked, shocked I say!”) have exactly zero ability to do anything about the situation, since the area is well within Russian sphere of influence and away from any means of support (think of a US military action in Mexico.) They are hanging the Georgians out to dry (think of the Kurds under Reagan and Bush the elder.)

The Russians have been pointing out the similarity with Kosovo and US activity there. They have also pointed out that the US is in no position to complain about superpower military intervention or occupation of any place, given their record over the last eight years.

The possibility of any meaningful economic or other sanctions against the Russians is slight, since Russia is the number one supplier of oil and natural gas to Europe and an important trading partner, and the Russian bloc has the second largest oil reserve in the world (perhaps even the first, depending on the results of exploration in the Caspian region) and is a huge supplier of mineral resources from metals to diamonds.

IMPORTANT BLOOD FOR OIL FOOTNOTE: The largest pipeline between the Black Sea and Caspian oil fields and Europe and the only one not completely under Russian control is the 1 million barrel a day capacity BP line that passes through Georgia and parts of Abkhazia. Both the Russians and the Georgians would benefit hugely from ability to control this pipeline. Some observers suggest that war efforts on both sides are related partly to the issue of this pipeline.

CPIS against Space Weapons Symposium

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Reminder: Citizens for Peace In Space will be protesting the Space Symposium held annually at the Broadmoor. As usual the event is 99% about space weaponry. Come see all the smarmy businessmen (suntans and loafers) and their military meal tickets (top brass). CPIS activities include a protest at the opening cocktail hour MONDAY 17:00-17:45; then at 19:00-20:30 a panel discussion at Penrose Library with CPIS guests JN Rao of India, Jan Tamas of the Czech Republic, Damian Moran of Poland and Mary Beth Sullivan of Maine; TUESDAY 15:00-16:00 bannering at Peterson AFB; WEDNESDAY 10:30-12:30 bannering at the Broadmoor while schoolchildren are bused in to see the pseudo- scientific displays which glorify US military superiority.