WHO: People of Colorado Springs
WHAT: CFP Rally for the Homeless
WHERE: City Hall
WHEN: Noon Friday FEB 5
WHY: Because homelessness is not a crime!
Coloradansforpeace have a 12-24 person sign and extra placards.
Once again COLORADO SPRINGS STYLE nominates THE FAMOUS for the city’s best burger. It ran against the usual lineup of respectable dining establishments plus King’s Chef, the token dive, but there were notable omissions worth pointing out. At the crux, The Famous grinds their own hamburger from bits trimmed from nonpareil $40 steaks, but we’re talking Iowa corn-fed variety, not prairie grass fed beef. You can find a free-range burger at Adams Mountain, which is listed, and Manitou’s The Keg, which is not. The health aspect is a first omission that might have informed local diners immeasurably.
Ranch Foods Direct, and their packing house on the west side, is a regional wholesaler of sustainable, safe meat. But they supply only a few local joints, from The Blue Star to Cy’s Drive-in, to Barney’s. If their burgers didn’t make the culinary grade, I think it’s worth noting they are orders of magnitude healthier than what the others are serving. Get that word out, and those restaurants charging $12.95 for a burger will allocate some of their cost to better beef.
Conways Red Top was also overlooked, whose burger is arguably Colorado Springs’ most famous. Red Top’s giant burger had its own chapter in Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. The local chain was praised for its favorable labor practices and better food sources, in comparison to its fast food competitors. Red Top has since made some compromises with its hamburger patties, but they’re still a local favorite. I remember once taking some Norb’s Whole Burgers from carryout to a Spring Spree park event downtown. Amid brats and roast turkey legs, Hawaiian tacos and the usual concession fare, everyone wanted what we were having.
Thankfully STYLE ignored the fast food chains, the ceaseless Carl’s Junior ad barrage notwithstanding. Likewise there was no dwelling on the corporate theme restaurants for whom the better burger is a raison d’etre. Those omissions, if you’re avoiding the mad-cow feed-lots, meet our approval.
As reported by the Gazette on Nov 30, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security has opened an office in Colorado Springs in the Pueblo Bank and Trust Building. The implication is of a lonely field office to monitor the busy I-25 corridor, but the Nation Magazine is reporting that ICE locations nationwide are being used as unmarked and unmonitored detention facilities for undisclosed detainees. I can’t vouch for ours. Anyone up for a photo field trip? Bring your papers.
According to the Gazette, the office has been a pet pork project of Congressman Doug Lamborn. Their description of the new facilities:
The downtown office in Colorado Springs is the ninth ICE office in Colorado and houses several cubicles and conference rooms as well as a cache of secure rooms to be used for interviews, confidential paperwork and holding weapons.
Detentions have been until now subcontracted with El Paso County. Currently the county holds approximately 150 detainees for ICE.
Did you catch this choice segment of the story? County Commissioner Jim Bensberg apparently confuses “to have a chilling effect” with crime deterrence:
“The presence of the federal office will have a chilling effect on a wide variety of activities,” he said, without elaborating.
“There were days I thought this would never happen,” he said. “If I had a tail right now, I’d be wagging it.”
Here’s a quarter-page size flier you can use to spread the word about tonight’s event. Obama’s announcement will be momentous, no matter which course of action he decides. It will be either the first sign of delivering on his promise of change, or a hopeful public betrayed.
And thousands more Afghan dead. Let’s not forget who suffers the most from America’s reckless decisions.
Come to Acacia Park tonight at 5pm. Let him hear your voice!
Below is the Coloradans For Peace December 1 press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Colorado Springs peace community urges President Obama to chose withdrawal from Afghanistan over escalation
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, 12/1/09 — Coloradans For Peace (CFP) will gather with area community activists on Tuesday, December 1, at 5pm, in Acacia Park downtown, to urge President Barack Obama: NO ESCALATION OF THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.
The nonviolent assembly in Acacia Park will be part of nationwide peace demonstrations in response to President Barack Obama’s forthcoming announcement about a new US strategy in Afghanistan. National organizers include CODE PINK, UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE, WORLD CAN’T WAIT, ACT NOW TO STOP WAR AND END RACISM (ANSWER), and many others.
Speculation has been rising that our president intends to increase US troop levels in Afghanistan, but CFP remains hopeful that President Obama will make a decision in the spirit of his presidential campaign. We will assemble in Acacia Park in advance of the televised presidential address, in unison with other US cities, to remind the president of the electorate’s call for an end to our nation’s military conflicts.
The CFP believes the unprecedented turnout for the 2008 election was strongly motivated by the American public’s alarm over the ongoing foreign wars. We believe President Obama would be ignoring a profound mandate given him by his voters if he decided to expand the conflict in Afghanistan instead of bring it to a close.
In urging an end to America’s foreign occupations, citizens can show their true support for the troops. More than ever before, soldiers are contacting antiwar organizations to say that they support the peace efforts to bring them home.
# # #
I’m already months late in mentioning a new addition to downtown’s ethnic fare. It’s an Afghan restaurant called RUMI’S KABOB, in the location of the old Persian Grill. Rumi’s joins the Everest Nepal Restaurant, the Taste of Jerusalem Cafe, the Pita Pit, Everest Tibet Imports, and the Hookah King, to define Bijou Street’s LITTLE EAST.
Rumi’s lunch buffet offers your best introduction to Afghan cuisine. Here are the fundamentals: Challau, a boiled rice baked with cumin seeds; Daal, lentils; Sabzi, sauteed spinach; Banjan, pan-fried eggplant; Kadu, baked banana squash; and Sheer Birenj, rice pudding seasoned with cardamom. For a crack at deciphering an Afghan menu, two chief curries are Kourma and Lawang. Personal recommendations: for starters Aushak, the Mantu entree, and Jalabi for dessert.
These words would seem as strange to us as items on a Vietnamese menu, another land from which Americans returned without any real sense of the language.
Without probably even meaning to, the block of Bijou between Tejon and Cascade Ave is becoming the city’s vibrant center. Besides Starbucks, it boasts thoroughly functional stops like Gertrude’s House of Hair, now expanded to a spa, Bargain Comics and Bijou Tattoo, and downtown’s only convenience store, the Bijou Minimart. And what is any SW city street without Mexican food at 3 Hermanos? On floors above you can Jazzercise, or attend the region’s smokiest AA meetings. All this, and still a half dozen retail spaces are vacant, awaiting investment in Colorado Springs’ cultural mecca.
I nearly forgot to mention the alley between the Saks and Majestic buildings, off of which lie the Rubbish Gallery, the Modbo, and the eternal speakeasy, 15C.
As the exodus gateway to the Bijou Bridge and Interstate 25, the block offers weekday commuters a briefest taste of urban gridlock. What an additional metro thrill if the city erected an archway, like Chinatown’s famous gate, to distinguish the attraction. What a metropolis we would seem to become, if there was a distinct ethnic identity inside and apart from Colorado Springs that wasn’t Anglo.
You find it by searching for FAMOUS + OPRAH + VIDEO. Because hyperbole arcs the hyperlink. Allegedly, the viral clip is being removed as fast as websites are putting it up. I’ll bet the reason would have more to do with James Frey and Augusten Burroughs baldfaced disingenuity than copyright infringement or Oprah being embarrassed by pedestrian plagiarism. The performance by the Black Eyed Peas, taped live in downtown Chicago for the 24th season of Oprah’s talk show, purports to ignite a spontaneous dance, to Oprah’s joyful astonishment. While the video may be a crowd-pleaser, it certifies corporate music’s lack of originality, and the American TV tube’s despicable boobness.
The jubilant TODAY’S GONNA BE A GOOD DAY scenario borrows of course from the T-mobile commercial featuring a dance production taped at a Liverpool train station, set to a medley of powerhouse dance numbers. At first fellow commuters are surprised. By the end we realize the entirety has been choreographed. Youtube viewers would recognize the contrivance from the Belgian train station scene, where ordinary commuters begin dancing to a favorite song from The Sound of Music, until the whole crowd is participating.
Is dance so highly infectious? There’s something people really love about seeing that theme play out. It gives viewers warm fuzzy feelings having to do with belonging to community. There’s nothing wrong with the Black Eyed Peas wanting to reap that same enthusiasm for their pretend live video. Who holds it against pop to imitate from anything?
Their job of commercial entertainment is to popularize, and an Antwerp central station is hardly a setting familiar to Americans. Better a live concert audience, youthful, outside, wearing the usual panoply of Disney colors, living in the moment, attached to no context of exterior lives, a high school musical on a sunny day, reality TV on vivid.
Both predecessors feature onlookers who stare transfixed, some calling friends on their cellphones, others recording what they see. In both sequences, often those standing on the periphery turn out also to be participants, eventually joining in the dance.
In Oprah’s version, she is the lone spectator, watching incredulous from onstage. Like the train station commuters, she holds a cellphone aloft, eager to record the dance epidemic as it spreads throughout her “audience.” Apparently, it’s not enough today to drop your jaw to show surprise, you have to pull out your camera to show how you know when seeing defies believing. What, is Oprah going to Youtube it? Would her television audience worry that the impromptu dance was going to pass without someone recording it for posterity?
Oprah’s spontaneous wonder may have passed for genuine before a television audience who didn’t see the dance coming, but on the instant replay, how will Oprah’s act play? Are we to believe she didn’t know about the Christo scale choreographed event? If the stunt had been planned as a surprise, do you suppose Oprah wouldn’t have noticed her audience was suddenly uniformly younger and more fit, wearing uniformly bright colors evenly distributed across the monitor screens. Failing that, do you imagine someone as skilled as Oprah at communicating with peoples en masse, wouldn’t detect that this audience had something up its sleeve? It’s probably no false flattery to brag that Chicago is not big enough for Oprah and a surprise party of thousands, without invitations coming across her desk.
The Black Eyed Peas dance bomb may have made wonderful television, and it might have been even better if Oprah had winked instead of gasped. Because now the scene is simply contrived. To watch it in hindsight, as has become the norm for television in the Youtube age, there’s Oprah punking us all.
CNN did it with Balloon Boy, FOX does it for politics, and the rest do it for the war: false concern, contrived conclusions. American media nourishes with falsity. Musicians lip-sinc, Yo-Yo Ma faked his performance at the inauguration, as we learned all instrumentalists do in cold weather.
THE NOT-WITH-MY-TAXES PATRIOTS are holding another tea party tomorrow, to mark Constitution Day Sept 17, 11AM downtown in Acacia Park, where two friends got permission to table there tomorrow to represent the Special Olympics and pass out applications.
It’s a terrible joke, but these teabaggers bring out my inner idiot. WE ARE TOMORROW going to don robes and false beards and circulate like multi-gendered Jesuses, through the throngs of angry Christians, passing out business cards on which we printed the passage from Matthew, what you did for the least of your brothers…
But I’d really like to recruit an intrepid African American male to help me with a hypothesis. I’m pretty sure that at the height of the crowd’s passions tomorrow, a single black voice raised against them, without his appearing to have allies nearby, will result in a spontaneous lunge to try to lynch him. Then we’ll pounce, with the on-duty portion of the CSPD who aren’t attending the event, and arrest the bigots. There won’t be anybody left in the park.
I’m going to tell you something great about Colorado Springs, because sometimes it’s pretty hard not to hate it. On odd summer afternoons, today it’s Saturday, downtown at the Southwest corner of Acacia Park, across the street actually, there assemble seven or so male gospel singers, who sit against a cement planter and sway, harmonizing to an incredible lead vocalist, through song after energetic, soothing song.
Sometimes a crowd assembles, sometimes there is clapping. Often passersby make a point to greet the line of singers, shaking hands with them before walking on. Of all Colorado Springs cultural offerings, this is my favorite.
Because isn’t it pretty hard sometimes not to hate Colorado Springs for the ignorant, artless, soul-killers who populate it? The climate may be top of the line, but the cultural atmosphere brings on endless waves of despair, thoughts of suicide, or a determination to emigrate. And it’s hard to argue against the logic of splitting. Jason Zacharias decided to seek his fortune elsewhere. To have tried to change his mind would have meant a lot of selfish reasons on our part, and telling lies about this place.
Many who chose emigration eventually return. Why? I’ll posit it’s because the region is where we have our roots. I was always sure the solution was to build the environment we prefer to inhabit. I’m no longer so sure it can be done with our too few hands.
Damn the greedy, incurious, time-theving idiots who’ve moved into our midst. Or who’ve grown like uneducated weeds between the crack of what we thought were good school systems. How do we urge them to emigrate? We might have to build a Mall-of-America-sized Walmart a half-day’s drive away, and offer that they can live in it. Imagine, McDonalds in bed, someone to greet your friends at the door. Make the parking lot big enough to accommodate all their gasoline powered vehicles.
Village President John Deschane, 60, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said many people in town believe it’s disrespectful to fly the flag upside down.
“If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it,” Deschane said
Translation from Right Wing Bullshit to Real English:
“You have the right to free speech unless we dislike what you say or how you say it”
“We’re Fighting For Your Freedom, How DARE you go ahead and actually use that Freedom?”
Dispute over flag protest erupts in Wisc. village
APBy ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer Robert Imrie, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 10, 2:44 pm ET
WAUSAU, Wis. – An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it — an Iraq war veteran — claims the officers trespassed and stole his property.
A day after the parade, police returned the flag and the man’s protest — over a liquor license — continued.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is considering legal action against the village of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.’s’ First Amendment rights, Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said.
“It is not often that you see something this blatant,” Ahmuty said.
In mid-June, Congine, 46, began flying the flag upside down — an accepted way to signal distress — outside the restaurant he wants to open in Crivitz, a village of about 1,000 people some 65 miles north of Green Bay.
He said his distress is likely bankruptcy because the village board refused to grant him a liquor license after he spent nearly $200,000 to buy and remodel a downtown building for an Italian supper club.
Congine’s upside-down-flag represents distress to him; to others in town, it represents disrespect of the flag.
Hours before a Fourth of July parade, four police officers went to Congine’s property and removed the flag under the advice of Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey.
Neighbor Steven Klein watched in disbelief.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ Klein said. “They said, ‘It is none of your business.'”
The next day, police returned the flag.
Brey declined comment Friday.
Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula said it was not illegal to fly the flag upside down but people were upset and it was the Fourth of July.
“It is illegal to cause a disruption,” he said.
The parade went on without any problems, Kanikula said.
Village President John Deschane, 60, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said many people in town believe it’s disrespectful to fly the flag upside down.
“If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it,” Deschane said.
Congine, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq in 2004, said he intends to keep flying the flag upside down.
“It is pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government somewhere else,” Congine said, “and then I come home to find it right here at my front door.”
At least they didn’t beat up any elderly and disabled people…
This time…
NMT and CFP share a Little London office which looks upon Uncle Wilber.
COLORADO SPRINGS- I received reports that some participants felt ostracized, while others were directly requested to curb their enthusiasm. Fortunately the infighting was kept from public sight, on Armstrong Quad at CC, while school was on break, on a Saturday when downtown was vacant.
UPDATE FROM COLORADANS FOR PEACE
about March 14 St Patrick’s Day Parade: Drummers, Hats, Flags, Kazoos, and a great St Patrick’s theme! Come wave international flags for PEACE and FREEDOM!
Join COLORADANS FOR PEACE to represent the local peace community in this year’s St Patrick’s Day Parade. Saturday, March 14, on Tejon Avenue downtown. The parade starts at 12noon, and staging begins at 10am.
Peace participants are welcome to park in the TOONS parking lot, at 802 N. Nevada Ave, at the intersection of Nevada and Dale St. We’ll have food and drink as early as 9am for those who want to come early. We’ll have a canopy there where parade accessories will be distributed.
Bring your green peace shirts, if you have them. We’ll have fresh shirts available too. The green peace flags from last year are welcome as well.
No need to bring any other banners or posters, as parade signs are being limited. Our single, unified message will be pre-vetted. This year’s peace theme will tie into the St. Patrick’s celebration of Irish independence.
Irish Americans celebrate no longer being occupied by Great Britain. Given the current direction of US policy, COLORADANS FOR PEACE want to take this opportunity to call for a stop to all ongoing occupations, in which the US is complicit.
Our message is the national DC protest theme marking the 6th year of the Iraq War : OCCUPATION IS A CRIME.
More specifically:
(FROM IRELAND) TO IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN AND PALESTINE,
OCCUPATION IS A CRIME!Behind our main banner, marchers will wave the flags of these four nations. PLUS, as a reminder to parade watchers, of America’s own struggle against British occupation, we will also feature the American Revolutionary War era flags which read “Don’t Tread On Me!”
This year our parade entry will be spearheaded by the superlative Manitou Drummers. The drummers have percussion instruments to share with any participant who wants to accompany them. We will also have a multitude of green kazoos and pipes. The kazoos are decorated with peace symbols.
Kevin Johnson of Elope Hats has donated a marching-band-sized portion of super tall leprechaun hats, which will be emblazoned with peace symbols. These hats will be worn by all the musical participants.
Other marchers are requested to wear the green peace shirts, or to wave the matching green peace flags.
International flag wavers will wear their traditional national costumes. Please contact us if you can lend any suitable apparel.
Wearing Kuffiyeh scarves would certainly be appropriate. White bandanas can do in a pinch. These will also be available beforehand.
We are also interested in any and all participants who would like to ride their bikes, or walk beside them. Bringing bikes serves as a not unsubtle ecological reminder, to counter the parade’s usual multitude of fossil-fuel guzzling vehicles.
For the latest updates, please check coloradansforpeace.org
GAZA PROTESTS PROLIFERATE! Demonstrators are occupying Israeli consulates, storming embassies, harassing pro-Israeli rallies, and spilling blood on Zionist memorials. Not that anything is working so far. Meanwhile, in non-stories for the press, the usual non-confrontational passivists are lighting candles in memory of the slain. Are they anticipating, in their non-violent wisdom, the eminent extinction of the Palestinians of Gaza? Pacifists seem more comfortable to commemorate the ideological sacrifice of martyrs sooner than advocate for the survival of the endangered.
Others are not content to mourn Zionism’s ultimate triumph. Here’s the best analysis yet I’ve encountered for antiwar strategists.
In Caracas, the protests have the support of the state. Venezuelan president Chavez expelled the Israeli Ambassador and called his nation’s Jews to repudiate Israel’s inhumanity in Gaza:
“Now I hope that the Venezuelan Jewish community speaks out against this barbarism. Do it. Don’t you strongly reject all acts of persecution?”
Here is the Free Palestine Alliance statement released January 9, 2008:
The Massacre Intensifies:
As we prepare this thirteenth FPA statement, the Zionist army was continuing what it does best the wholesale slaughter of children and unarmed civilians. As would be expected of the current state of affairs of the US-controlled international scene, the massacre of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is continuing despite yesterday’s feeble UN Security Council resolution that calls for Israel to immediately stop its attack. Actually, the US-Zionist leadership went the other way — more and more attacks. The Israeli Zionist army was given additional orders to escalate the conquest as it enters into a third phase of obliteration. Simultaneously as the Israeli cabinet was giving orders for a higher kill and destruction ratio, the US Senate was not going to be outdone by Zionists. It had to add to its long and shameful record. So it secretly issued a fast-tracked resolution fully supporting the ongoing massacre and giving Israel the needed cover. We ask, is this Senate resolution in the best interest of the people of the US?
But is it not the legacy and norm of the US-Israeli alliance to discard the will of the people of the US and the world. Is it not their norm to discard any and all UN resolutions that may remotely disagree with their strategic plans? The examples are far too many to list, including both UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions dating as far back as 1947.
Yesterday’s UN resolution was approved by 14 of the 15 nations that currently sit on the Security Council, with the US abstaining. As would be expected, the resolution did not address the deadly siege that has been imposed on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, nor did it condemn outright the fascistic actions of the Zionist polity.
Sadly, Palestinian victims have now reached at least 800 murdered and more than 3,300 injured. And these numbers are certain to climb substantially. Yesterday alone, fifty Palestinians were found murdered under their destroyed homes, some with their bodies already beginning to decompose. The Red Cross reported finding 4 near-death children slumped near and over their decomposing dead mothers. These children, like many others, were reported by the Red Cross to have been left without rescue in starvation and thirst for four full days around their killed mothers due to attacks on rescue workers.
On the very same day the UN Security Council resolution was issued, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that serves approximately 800,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip decided that it was forced to fully halt its services. This decision came following the killing of one of UNRWA’s truck drivers, and due to the extreme conditions imposed by the Zionist army on relief workers. The UNRWA also strongly condemned the Israeli cover-up used to justify the bombardment of the Al-Fakhoura school that murdered and injured over 100 children and their parents.
Come Out in Force Tomorrow:
The people of the US have a moral obligation to turn out in massive numbers tomorrow, Saturday, from Washington, DC to San Francisco, Los Angeles and in between, to send a clear message that this campaign of murder must stop at once. In DC, we will be right there to send a message to the Bush administration, the incoming Barak administration, and to the entire US Congress. In San Francisco, where the United Nations took its first founding steps, we can highlight the charade of UN resolutions and international diplomacy, pointing to the double standards and outright racist behavior of the US and its allies. In Los Angeles and all other cities and towns, we can and must mobilize to join in protest in the largest possible numbers. This is the time to stand for what is moral and just. We cannot continue funding Israel while the people of the US are in dire need for funds right here to rescue homes and towns from collapse.
Rather than pay for the destruction of the Gaza Strip, let us pay for the construction of roadways, parks, and schools.
Rather than destroy thousands of Palestinian homes, let us fix the collapsing housing market and keep people in their own homes.
Rather than send more people homeless, let us protect folks from evictions and foreclosures.
Rather than kill doctors, nurses, and relief workers, let us build hospitals and provide health care to the millions without it.
This is our time to let Obama know that he could very easily stimulate both the economy and the morality of the US by stopping all funds used to kill babies and their mothers. Instead, we can invest these same funds in the education and upbringing of millions of impoverished children, right here in the US.
This is indeed our time, folks, and we must come out to lead the US Congress and administrations to the moral high ground. The interest of the US and its people is best served by supporting the construction of US infrastructure, housing, schools, hospitals, and by creating jobs at a living wage. Rather than kill Arab unionists, let us support strengthening unions and their demand for a respectable life and wages.
This is our time to show that Palestine is but a symbol for ALL just struggles. Struggles we all wage every day in various forms. The massacre against the Palestinian people should focus a very bright spotlight on what is wrong with US policies: US tax dollars are being sent to the Israeli army under US diplomatic cover, and are being used to boost corporations that manufacture military hardware, to conquer and destroy countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than rescuing a failing nation from its impending economic depression.
Signs of Defeat:
We regard the UN Security Council Resolution as a fig leaf void of legitimacy. For one thing, it came 13 days following the massacre, and after more than 4,100 Palestinian casualties between killed and injured. It appears that key power-brokers at the UN had hoped that by waiting long enough (13 days) without action, the Zionists could in fact secure a political and military victory.
While the resolution attempts to provide a diplomatic cover for the Israelis and the US as a way out of their unattainable goals, it is nonetheless a clear indication that the ongoing conquest is unable to achieve any Zionist political gain. In fact, politically speaking, the US-Zionist-Arab regime tripartite axis is only achieving the very opposite of what they had intended through this massacre: (1) the Palestinians have achieved massive international, Arab, and Palestinian support; (2) the possibility for appointing a client regime in the Gaza Strip is non-existent; (3) the sustenance of the Abbas PA in its current formation has become very uncertain; and (4) the little legitimacy some Arab regimes have is that much more diminished.
To the extreme dismay of the US and Zionist leaders, the UN resolution demands an immediate stop to the attacks and the opening of all crossings; and it opens the gates for humanitarian aid. Hence, rejected by the Zionist leadership at once. Due to the weight of the pressure on US Arab allies, who could not under any circumstance return home empty-handed, the US had no choice but to abstain rather than give its usual veto — a way to give the US-supported despots a piece of paper to wave in the face of a sea of millions and millions in protest everywhere. Ironically, the gravity of the massacre made a full circle, compromising the stability of the alliance that is responsible for its implementation. The more violent the attack, the more stubborn the resistance, the more widespread the support, and the weaker the grip of despotic regimes.
Let us join the millions who have taken to the streets thus far, including today, in thousands of towns and cities in the world. There are those who are volunteering as doctors, nurses, and rescue workers, with many already killed and injured; there are those who are giving blood to hospitals and to the Red Cross and Red Crescent; those who are protesting; many are writing, painting, dancing and singing for freedom and liberation; and there are those who are holding sit-ins, and those who are giving flowers of appreciation to the Venezuelan government for their principled stance. All are out, and all are outraged.
Come and join!
Take your stand and come out tomorrow. Make it known that this massacre cannot continue!
All Out in Solidarity with the Palestinian People!
The Free Palestine Alliance
January 9, 2009
And this report from A.N.S.W.E.R. about Sunday’s march on DC:
From Washington, DC to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Worldwide–Hundreds of Thousands March to Let Gaza Live!
On Sat., Jan. 10, hundreds of cities, and hundreds of thousands of people, responded to the call for an International Day of Emergency Action to support the people of Gaza. Outside the United States, marches took place in London, Edinburgh, Cairo, Athens, Kuala Lumpur, Beirut, Seoul, Mexico City, Jakarta, Montreal, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, Lyon, Oslo, Berlin, Bern, Karachi, Nablus, New Delhi, Amman, Sarajevo, Ramallah, Stockholm, and Tokyo. The protests continue to grow — today, another 250,000 took to the streets in Spain and more than 100,000 in Algeria.
In the U.S., the Day of Action was initiated on just one week’s notice by a call from the ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, Free Palestine Alliance, National Council of Arab Americans, and Al-Awda – International Palestine Right to Return Coalition. In Washington DC, over 20,000 took to the streets in the freezing rain to demand, “Let Gaza Live!” The streets were so backed up that thousands of people in buses and cars were still arriving after the march had left Lafayette Park.
The demonstration began with a rally at the White House. Featured speakers included former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who was just on a humanitarian relief mission attempting to bring supplies to Gaza when the boat she was on was intentionally struck by an Israeli military vessel; Mahdi Bray, Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom; Rev. Graylan Hagler, National President of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice; Mounzer Sleiman, Vice Chairman, National Council of Arab Americans; Ralph Nader; Paul Zulkowitz, Jews Against the Occupation; Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition; Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, attorney and co-founder, Partnership for Civil Justice; and others.
The spirited march then led to the Washington Post, where demonstrators denounced the paper for its biased pro-Israeli coverage of the massacre and its complete blackout of protest activities in the United States.
In San Francisco, 10,000 took part in the march and rally. The rally included a huge outpouring from the local Arab community, and energetic participation from Bay Area youth.
A crowd of 2000 demonstrators confronted a heavy police presence in downtown Orlando for the “Let Gaza Live: Florida Statewide March for Palestine” called by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition/Florida—just six days prior. The demonstration is the largest anti-war demonstration in Florida in more than a decade and certainly the largest ever protest in Florida calling for a free Palestine. Police tried to intimidate marchers by initially searching all bags, forcing protesters to remove sticks from signs, and denying the use of amplified sound. Organizers and protesters challenged and pushed back their unwarranted scare tactics, and the protest turned out to be a powerful success.
In Los Angeles, 10,000 people participated in a regional mass march and rally to “Let Gaza Live” at the Westwood Federal Building. Hundreds of Palestinian flags and signs reading “Stop bombing Gaza!” and “The real terrorists: U.S./Israel war machine!” lined all sides of the street and the lawn in front of the federal government headquarters. It was the largest protest and the first major march in Southern California since the Israeli bombing campaign and invasion began.
A funeral procession led the march with makeshift coffins draped with Palestinian flags, representing the hundreds of people killed by Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza. Hundreds of children followed, along with a huge, hand-made Palestinian flag, in a contingent organized by the Palestinian American Women’s Association.
The worldwide movement is continuing to grow with more protests today, Jan. 11. There will be countless other actions in the days to come. Today in New York City, the police carried out a violent assault against those marching in mid-town Manhattan in support of the people of Palestine. A number of people were injured and arrested.
With the support of the United States, the Israeli military machine has expanded its invasion into urban areas of Gaza. The death toll among Palestinians is now nearly 900, with many thousands wounded. The injured and hungry of Gaza have no relief. We must do everything in our power to deepen and broaden this movement in the coming days.
Thousands of Israelis protest against the war in Gaza seen here on youtube. Great video of this demonstration! Great demonstration by heroic people in Tel Aviv! Contrast these decent people with the Democratic Party here at home, who are acting in the Senate and House to rubber stamp Israel’s death and destruction against the mainly civilian Palestinians living in Gaza.
This Saturday Democratic Governor of Colorado will be appearing at the Colorado Springs downtown library with the new Colorado State Democratic Party Senator he just appointed. Be there to tell them about how you feel about their party promoting violence and terror against innocent people in the Occupied Territories, and that you want the Democratic Party to stop all these horrible wars they are responsible for along with their Republican buddies.
Get there about 11 AM with signs, and raise your voices to let them hear that Americans are sick of their bloody wars! If Israeli Jews can speak out against the thug supporters of their own government, then so can you do the same in the US!
Yesterday we only managed to get out about 25 of us here in Colorado Springs to protest US-Israeli State Terrorism, but around the country there were many more who demonstrated with us. Here next are a few videos of the action in San Francisco where somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 spontaneously took to marching through downtown in that city, after early completing a rally in protest at the Israeli consulate.
Reports have it that Jewish protesters were more numerous against the Israeli government violence than for it, but the local San Francisco news didn’t give that information out. Many of the marchers were Jewish Americans and sick of what the bloodshed being spilled by the so-called ‘Jewish State’ of Israel and the active complicity of our own US government. Below are the links to some videos coverage of these marches…
SF Demonstration- video shot by participant
local SF TV coverage (CBS and ABC)
Philadelphia rally and march
A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) is calling for a national day of action, TUESDAY December 30, to protest Israel’s sudden open-ended aggression against the non-Jews of Occupied Palestine. Israeli soldiers are being mobilized for an invasion of the Gaza Strip, the inhabitants of which have already been softened under a brutal extended embargo. Sound familiar?
COLORADO SPRINGS: meet in Acacia Park downtown, corner of Nevada Ave and Bijou St, TUESDAY 4:30PM-5:30PM. Sunset is 4:46pm. Bring posters, candles, flashlights, and your voice. Contact us with banner slogan ideas.
Did the aerial assault on Gaza remind you of Shock and Awe? Now Israeli spokesmen are stating that this engagement will extend “to the bitter end,” and that Palestinians and onlookers can expect the violence to get worse before it can get better.
From CSAction Lewis Links:
Dem Now interviews doctors, activists, reporters, and MPs on Gaza massacre
Raw video of school children after missile attack
(warning: dead children)Thousands march around the world against Zionist assault on Gaza
Zionists detained and expelled UN human rights observer Richard Falk, last week to hide massacre
UN Human Rights monitor accuses Israel of massive violations of international humanitarian law
Photo of entire family of little girls murdered by Zionists
3 of main hospitals bombed by Zionists as Gaza runs out of medicine
Israel bombed several buildings of Islamic University in Gaza Sunday
Photo of injured girl being evacuated
Photo of dead boy being carried to morgue
18 photos of Gaza attack
35 photos and 2 videos of massacre
Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine. This reminds me of when some of our local liberal Christian ‘Peace’ monks called the police on us for trying to meet to plan antiwar activities at their Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission Shrine in downtown Colorado Springs. I wonder now how their new smaller shrine will be doing now that it has reopened.
Barack Obama HQ moved into their previous larger shrine. It certainly figures….
Two articles caught my eye in this morning’s Gazette, and I’d like to thank the editors for putting them side by side. The first lauded El Paso County’s strong Republican push-back to the Obama landslide, the other illuminated Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink’s dubiously legal measures at the EPC polling stations. Do the Gazette editors think, as I, that one of these stories could have a bearing on the other?
The first article was written with the partisanship we’re used to from the Gazette. In face of this election’s “blue tsunami,” El Paso County remained high and dry. Can we read this any other way than meaning “safe” and Republican (red), in the face of the Obama danger? The article detailed how El Paso County voted against the prevailing tide. Even the Democratic candidates who won elsewhere were “stomped” here. Stomped –like cockroaches?
The adjacent article was about the Clerk and Recorder. It reported that on election day, the media had been banned from the local polling places. This measure was in defiance of common practice and, the question was raised, even election law. Apparently, lawsuits may follow.
Mention was also made of Balink’s attempt to intimidate Colorado College students.
Did the media ban mask inappropriate election worker activity? Had the CC letter deterred student voters?
The article did not mention a yet-to-be investigated story, the mysterious fire alarm at Centennial Hall, a half hour after voting closed. Everyone had to leave the building. By the way, the fire alarm tactic is a recurring theme if you’ve watched video reports of past election irregularities, in this new age of the self-deputized citizen poll watcher.
Centennial Hall was not only the main poll station downtown, and the chief early voting location, it was the central office into which all the El Paso County precincts reported their election results. Might there be a story here?
The article also didn’t address why in El Paso County, paper ballots were not permitted for early voters. Only Diebold touch-screen machines were available for the early birds, who one might guess would have been the most activated of the new wave.
Mark Lewis recorded some white-people desperation at the mostly African-American Hillside Center polling place. Here’s his account:
The lawyer for the El Paso County GOP, John Buckley takes down an Obama sign from across the street to the polling place, blames it on poll workers, then two McCain worker show up to place signs closer than this new several hundred foot limit.
They also come equipped with some silliness about firecrackers being thrown at kids (by kids) It turns out to be as false as the fire alarm pulled at the Centennial Hall polling place.
As usual, the first order of business in a controversy is the suspend the first amendment right of the free press and rewrite the laws on public “reasonable expectation of privacy”. People cheating and breaking the law hate this open society that exposes them.
In the end, no big deal, just the usual wrangling by a loosing party, desperate to take an election the way they’re used to taking them. They also misrepresented what they knew nothing about: that a person coming to vote carried up an OBama sing and the poll workers told them the law: you can’t come within 100 feet with that sign, so they folded it and put it in the trash. The poll workers thought that might be a violation too, it was visible in the open trash if you looked inside, so removed it, and these 2 guys witnessed the removal, and claimed the poll workers were electioneering within 100 feet.
Earlier Buckley threw out observers from the floor who were later allowed back in because they had a right to be there as credentialed by various ballot initiatives.
Another GOP poll worker threw out a woman looking up registrations for people and claimed she was electioneering and causing a “disruption”. I taped her helping people and she found some at the wrong precinct, directed other to the correct line (3 precincts at this polling place) and some mail in ballots that needed to be taken downtown. Never a word about any political issue.
Otherwise, where I was: West Middle School, Colorado College, Palmer High, and Hillside, the early voting long lines ended up making shorter lines on election day. Now if we can just get the lines down to the 2 hour limit that state law requires and employer give employees time off to vote, we’ll have a match and reasonable election day.
COLORADO SPRINGS- A street party atmosphere prevailed downtown as local Dems formed a line over five blocks long to see the presumptive next First Lady. El Paso County may want to be conservative, but this afternoon the police had to treat the Democrats like VIPs.
We stood to the West of the City Auditorium with our antiwar banners, keeping our distance from the anti-abortion and pro-Palin sad puppies.
Once again Colorado Obama supporters voiced their agreement with our slogan to stop funding the war. As per usual, Tony raised his voice about the less obvious antiwar theaters of Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, etc. With Layla in tow to reinforce the KIDS NOT BOMBS mantra. Still without upsetting most.
Eventually, one campaign official and then another approached us politely to inform us that we had to leave their sidewalk. Naturally we declined since we were not obstructing the public right of way. The second more animated worker went to confer with CSPD officers, who must have advised her to let us be.
No really. I remember hearing about GOP handlers in 2004, pretending to speak with the authority of the Secret Service, telling activists who could or couldn’t participate. I didn’t think I’d have a chance to laugh off that kind of self-important condescension from slickly dresses Democrats too.
Soon enough however, a city utility truck was stopped adjacent to where we were standing, his engine idling as if to test our determination with his exhaust. Most unfortunately, he blocked the visibility of our banner.
We stood our ground though because we could see that TV cameras were mobilizing around us for upcoming developments. It turned out we were ideally situated, perhaps less ideally for the organizers, to greet Mrs. Obama as she visited the outdoor crowd.
Michelle Obama spent a good deal of time shaking hands and listening to personal encouragements. Let’s just admit that she was as gracious and eloquent as her husband.
Tony gave a lengthy interview to Hungarian reporters touring with the Obama campaign. They assumed he was a McCain-leaning counter demonstrator, and so were pleasantly surprised to hear we were actually Green Party Cynthia McKinney advocates. Andy stopped by before rejoining the queue to enter the auditorium. A number of the Springs quasi-extant peace community were in line for the Obama rally, sadly minus any peace paraphernalia to give them –or it– away. Gobama! (Hope for Peace?!)
Next we decided to have a little fun with the anti-abortion contingent who’d occupied the center of the street. We were in general agreement that there are issues more important than the price of gasoline.
But they weren’t interested in our expanded message of saving the already-born too, and moved to block our signs.
EVERY VOTE MATTERS “Election Protection” Town Hall featuring Office of El Paso County Clerk & Recorder (confirmed) and Sec. of State (invited)
Monday, Oct. 27, 2-3:30 p.m. Carnegie Room, Penrose Library,
20 N. Cascade Ave. Downtown. If you cannot attend, watch live at koaa.com or on Comcast Channel 9 (CS) or Channel 247 (Pueblo). Email questions you want asked by Oct 26 to jweiss (at) csindy.com
COLORADO COLLEGE- Energized students held a successful march on Monday from the CC campus to a downtown early voting location. Though billed as a non-partisan EARLY VOTING MARCH, the event was purely a pro-Obama rally, and as such, was rigidly controlled.
For example, unannounced speakers included pro-war US Senator Ken Salazar and other local Dems. The marchers were dispatched ahead of schedule, to thwart other participants and sent along Cascade Avenue instead of the highly more visible Tejon Avenue a block away.
It was great to see college students activated and excited, but really they were just wound up and herded like cattle to the polls. As if the local Dems didn’t trust the students to listen their speeches and remember to go vote. The organizers provided further encouragement by bringing a grill and promising a cookout for after the students emerged. Bluegrass accompaniment too. After all, the students had missed lunch to attend the rally. I’ve heard it explained once before by student organizers. If you want participation, serve food.
The upside I suppose was that the students didi take to the street. They felt the excitement of ringing chants. Of projecting a political purpose in public.
Once when a heckler pulled alongside, to boo and display a NOBAMA sticker, the students answered back with boos, until curtailed by their handlers. The same handlers collected the various Obama signs when the group neared the polling place. Will these activist types be lending their skills when things don’t go as planned on November 4th? Will they be rallying the student to take action when elections don’t offer remedy?
HELLO COLORADO SPRINGS- How is this for a busy Monday?
6AM-8:00AM -Sky Sox Stadium: welcome chorus for Sarah Palin
9AM – County Commission: public comment on Bob Balink abuses
12AM – Monday noon antiwar vigil (half-hour PEACE break!)
12:30AM-2PM – CC student EARLY VOTING MARCH downtown
I can’t say I can remember a Monday I’ve anticipated more! If you like to engage in appropriate public displays of self-righteous behavior, you couldn’t ask for bigger assholes to target.
Sarah Palin and Bob Balink, no kidding, they are two sides of the same, one sided wooden nickel! A BUFFOONALO nickel?
Wouldn’t “ignorant, incompetent, mean-spirited, ethically-challenged and liar” fit both of them?
– 6AM (Sky Sox Stadium)
Wear white to make the supporters wearing red look bloody. The Colorado Women Against Palin are planning an action. Here are some ideas for suggested signs to welcome Sarah Palin, the GOP’s under-vetted KKK/secessionist/puritanic/greed/corruption/doofus candidate:
GO, SARAH, GO; HOME, SARAH, HOME!
ALASKANS PLEASE IMPEACH YOUR CORRUPT GOVERNOR!
RACIST BIGOT, YOU BETCHA!
SILENCE THE VIOLENCE
WE DON’T NEED THE KKK
I CAN SEE THE END OF YOUR POLITICAL CAREER FROM MY HOUSE
POLAR BEAR MOMS SAY NO TO PALIN
CORRUPTION IS NOT PATRIOTIC
McSHAME ON PALIN
LYING IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE
HEEL YOU MESSIANIC FREAK
PALIN: ELECT ME – I’LL SELL THE CONSTITUTION ON EBAY
TROOPERGATE ABUSE: BAD DOG SARAH
Check the Denver protest for more ideas.
– 9AM (El Paso County Commission meeting)
Suggested message to Clerk & Recorder Bob Balink, to challenge his every-election-year counter-democracy unfunny illegal pranks.
ARREST BOB BALINK FOR VOTER INTIMIDATION!
SUPPRESSING THE VOTE IS UNDEMOCRATIC
ON MONDAY OCTOBER 20th, at 12:30pm, Colorado College students will hold a PUBLIC MARCH to mark the first day of EARLY VOTING in the 2008 presidential election. Students will assemble at Worner Center, and march straight downtown to the El Paso County Registrar. This action will call attention to the need to go early to the polls, in case voters encounter challenges to their registrations. I’m more encouraged simply that students are taking to the streets because I believe, like Emma Goldman, “If voting could change anything, it would be illegal.” Would Goldman be so revered a social reformer if people didn’t recognize, deep down, the wisdom of her words?
Students at Colorado College have in years past faced regular disenfranchisement at the voting booth because local election administrators chose to muddy the qualifications for whether out-of-state students could vote in El Paso County. This year, plans to enforce a similar policy were leaked, and the county was forced to deny its intentions. As yet, student organizers do not know what to expect on November 4.
In the past, El Paso County has been such a God-forsaken Republican bastion that election rigging was probably unnecessary. It’s conjectured that this year, facing a growing Democratic electorate, local officials will be so eager for the region to hold to its conservative-idiot tradition that they will justify any means to do it.
I’ve seen the Republican partisanship on display at even ordinary county meetings. The Clerk and Recorder, Bob Balink for example, wears his Republican allegiance like a soccer fan. It would be no exaggeration I’m sure to speculate that Bob Balink will bite off your left foot sooner than let progressive ideas contaminate his hillbilly heaven. He travels to the Denver legislature on a regular basis to report back about what the crazy Democrats are trying to do. Every county commission meeting begins with his scouting tips about what progressive threats his Republican colleagues face over the horizon.
Conservatism in Colorado Springs stands for cronies, imbecilic cretins and the clan. In the 1930s the Pikes Peak region was the Colorado stronghold of the Klan. I’ve no doubt a lot of these guys still have their clan robes. In fact most recently the Minutemen, the post-9/11 incarnation of the KKK, held its recruitment meetings in a Colorado Springs Police Substation community room. It included, I kid you not, a recruiting inducement lifted verbatim and without irony, from the KKK.
Maybe a daylight demonstration of public unwillingness to be represented by bigots –who continue to parade about as if their support is unanimous– will push their politics back into the stagnant backwater of their fenced no-immigrants-welcome backyards where it belongs.
although there’s a rumor that the sudden lack of money in the Treasury is going to derail 24 West anyway…
But the biggest boohoo about 24 is that the people from the back range somehow would benefit more from spending a quarter of a billion dollars on widening the road, no farther than the corner of 24 and 24, right by the Sinclair station, with the big plastic Dinosaur that’s right at a Bus Stop than by putting in LESS money to expand bus service, notably, a bus to Green Mountain Falls, Cascade, Woodland Park, Divide…
Something the Park and Teller county folk have been asking for but the Republican leadership back in the back range have said is impractical, couldn’t possibly work, nobody would willingly give up paying 50 bux for a round trip to the springs just because of somebody having a better deal.
See the disconnect between Real People and Republican Representation?
Same way a few very rich developers were demanding that we finance their Road to Nowhere to the tune of: utter destruction of WestSide homes, partitioning our neighborhood with an even more insurmountable wall than the existing road, so the Rich Ones could drive their Single Occupant Vehicles into downtown, pay to park (and clog downtown roads with the on street parking) and thus impress their friends with how Important and Rich they are.
I dunno, I see a HumVee and the first impression I get is the dumbass got ripped off.
If you have to pop out a hundred grand for a gas-guzzling Stupid Useless Vehicle just to make a statement of Status…. Face it man, you didn’t have status anyway, and you just ain’t fooling anybody.
I could have sold you a tee-shirt with LOSER written on it for 5 bucks and you could take the other $99,995 and buy something actually useful with it.
a real life leaps to mind.
Simple equation: less cars = less traffic = less congestion, with the attendant headaches of road rage, pollution, time-of-commute, and of course, it will even lower the gas prices if consumption goes down.
Not saying give up your private car, hell no. Just don’t expect us to bend over backwards or forwards to accommodate your ride is all.
You want to drive like that, pay the full price. Get your hands out of our pockets, get your smog out of our lungs and our drinking water, no problem.
Nobody owes them more road.
