Justice Sunday

While Barack Obama was being lauded by Bruce Springsteen, U2, Mary J. Blige, Betty Lavette, Jon Bon Jovi, and a host of stars at the Lincoln Memorial fest Jan. 18, Colorado Springs was having its own little festival of justice. The afternoon started with a rally on behalf of Palestinian rights in Gaza, with a great turnout of kids. The younger cheering section is featured above, and other rally videos are here, here, and here.

Later in the afternoon, Opera Theatre of the Rockies held the first of several special events leading up to a Feb. 28 presentation of the Kurt Weill/Langston Hughes/Elmer Rice opera, Street Scene. On Sunday, 20 actors read a sit-down version of the play sans sets or stage action. This will be followed by musical selections Jan. 25, a showing of the 1931 movie Feb. 5, a discussion on social aspects of poverty and recession Feb. 8, a survey of Kurt Weill Feb. 12, a wine tasting Feb. 13, and a sneak preview of the set Feb. 15. The spoken play was a wonderful preview of the opera to come.




Finally, at 4 p.m., the Martin Luther King march proceeded from Acacia Park, site of the Gaza protest, to Shove Chapel on Colorado College campus. The crowd is above, the Peace and Justice banner-carriers are here. Felt like a little local representation of the Obama mania in DC.

Comcast Rides Again

Of course I'm hypocritical keeping my Comcast account, they're the best bundle out there right now, OK? But the company annoys and outrages me again and again with its pesky political influence-peddling and censorship. If you're unfamiliar with the smarmy history of this legion of scumbags, check out some of Bruce Wagner's tales of censorship, the complaints of poor voice quality and poor customer service, and the company's packing of FCC hearings on net neutrality with paid lackeys.

The latest atrocity involves the censoring of a New Mexico activist emailing people about a rally regarding Israel's occupation of Gaza. Bob Anderson of Stop the War Machine was sending out rally notices Jan. 9 and found his outgoing mail service had been shut off. Bob tells us that "Comcast security says they sent a message about the shut down. But it never arrived here. I don't know when they might have sent it either. This means they must have sent it earlier than the shutdown ... Comcast said I had been reported to them as a spammer and was using Port 25 on their server which is a violation of some type. I should have been on Port 517, they said. I know nothing of what this means except the Comcast rep implied I had been improperly using a business port or some other port and not a residential port. This seemed hostile and a red herring answer. I asked from whom it was that they had a report to shut me down and they said that was proprietary information and they would not tell me ...

"I think a person should have the right to know who is doing this to their private email. I pay Comcast for the email service, they treat it like it is a privilege to email with them. Comcast is one of the telecom companies who have agreed to work secretly with Homeland Security in their interruption and surveillance of terrorists. The question is, does protected political dissent in this country constitute a terrorist activity? I am not a spammer, just a normal politically concerned American citizen concerned that my government is aiding and abetting a genocidal foreign policy in Palestine."

Bob's case is all too common. One thing that concerns me is that an active federal probe under a new administration would find plenty of wrongdoing by both the Bush administration and telecom service providers working with the FISA bypass. Judging by the front page of the Jan. 12 New York Times, Obama is not too thrilled to look into past wrongdoing.

DNC Street Protests, a Video Feast

To understand the different strategies of protest throughout the day on Sunday, you have to grasp what happened to Democratic National Convention peace-protest organizing. Recreate 68 was the first on the scene, but the organization was heavy on the radical-macho side. They moved to a more explicitly "avoid violence" position later in the game, but several peace and environment groups felt uncomfortable with where things were headed, and split off to form Alliance for Real Democracy. On Sunday at 9 a.m., Recreate 68 held its kickoff protest led by one of my favorite singers, David Rovics:




Yeah, those are bodyguards, and that's what makes the R68 effort aggravating. Many speeches were good, including ones from Cindy Sheehan, Ron Kovic, and Ward Churchill, excerpted here, and a Cynthia McKinney speech and Dead Prez performance which I didn't record. I was put off by Cynthia's running mate Rosa Clemente, and by an African-American radical in dreadlocks, not just because they romanticized violence, but implied that those activists who use nonviolence as a strategy are wimps, no better than Democrats (gasp). No surprise Rosa still idolizes Weather Underground, that's how asinine some positions were. The R68 march from State Capitol to Pepsi Center was fun, however, which you can see here and here.


In the early afternoon, ARD, Code Pink and other groups held a Funk the War march to dance around the streets of downtown Denver. One anarchist group called Unconventional Denver split off to do a running street blockade. There was a near confrontation with police near the State Capitol, but all was resolved without violence. It's interesting to note that the middle-aged speakers at R68 all talked of being tough, but the real street activists in the afternoon were all teens and early 20s. Talking vs. doing, I guess. The initial march video is below, and you can find the next sequential steps at Blockade 1, Blockade 2, Blockade 3, Cop Response 1, Cop Response 2, and Blockade Ends.

Finally, ARD and the affiliated Tent State University held a late-afternoon rally at Cuernavaca Park, where Amy Goodman spoke, Jonny 5 of Flobots offered poetry (below), and many Denver groups talked organizing. I grabbed a quick comment from Frances Mendenhall, coolest organizer in Omaha. Later this week, we have Public Enemy, Rage Against the Machine, Flobots, Nader speaking with Nellie McKay and Jello Biafra, and on and on and on. Bill Sulzman and I will be giving a "class" at Resurrection City Free University on Thursday.

Sick of it All

It's no surprise that many citizens of all stripes were annoyed, if not offended, by the protesters disrupting the Sept. 10 testimony of Gen. David Petraeus. If you're a real wacko like Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, you'll go so far as to condemn a Moveon.org newspaper ad calling Petraeus "Gen. Betray Us," as though this single act could bring down U.S. forces in Iraq.

OK, when protest gets personal, people get called names, and Petraeus arguably is more straightforward than someone like Gen. William Westmoreland. But I'd like to defend protests that get annoying and disruptive by explaining why some people find nihilist and iconoclastic actions useful:

We all have heard the old saw about how the boundaries of dissent have been narrowed considerably following the acts of six years ago today. Admittedly, in the post-9/11 environment, it's not smart to bring firearms to school, or to stand on the street corner calling for the death of public leaders. But recognizing the dangers of terror does not constitute total disarmament of freedom of speech.

Regardless of what Ros-Lehtinen may think (assuming she knows how to think), most real opponents of the war are not Democrats, they are independents who are sick of both parties - and a lot more besides. If they're like me, they are people who are sick of most elements of our three branches of government, and sick of an entertainment-driven society full of people who do not want to be reminded about the war, the economy, or much of anything else that would affect their enjoyment of bread and circuses. For these active citizens, limiting the finger-pointing to George Bush and Dick Cheney is striking at the easy targets. And simply writing a representative or standing on a street corner with a small peace sign just doesn't cut it.

The more nihilist form of protester (and make no mistake about it, I am standing in partial defense of nihilism) wants to raise the social costs of ignorance for everyone in society. Such a protester points his/her finger everywhere and nowhere, saying, "The problem is you." And the problem definitely does involve an American citizenry with no interest in practicing or defending basic rights.

This kind of protest goes back to the old idea of "bearing witness," since it sure as hell isn't going to win any popularity contest. And there's the rub. Vast majorities oppose the war, but damn few are going to do anything about it. The ominiscient social protester is like the many civil-disobedience specialists in the Bay Area who love to blockade Market Street or major freeways. This kind of action pisses off the average person going to work. Yet that in many ways is the point of the protest. Raise the social costs for the White House, raise the social costs for Congress, and raise the social costs for the public at large.

Because the society as we know it is so sheep-like and corrupt, the type of protest to influence public opinion may have hit its limits. We are left with the protest of disruption. And as long as it stays nonviolent, I support such forms of protest. Maybe it is counter-productive from a PR point of view, but I think the world needs more brave speakers out there, raising a prominent middle finger to their fellow citizens at large, and reiterating the phrase that is a common factor of the Iraq War, global warming, and many other large-scale global crises: "The problem is you."

Mistrial for St. Patrick's Day Seven

Of course it was ludicrous that charges were even brought against the St. Patrick's Day Seven. It was ludicrous that an acquittal was not reached in 35 nanoseconds. As defense attorney Greg Walta said in the Colorado Springs Gazette article, if safety from bottle throwers was an issue, in any other town, police would arrest the bottle thrower. Only in Colorado Springs would police arrest the marcher. And in an ignorant, bigoted town like Colorado Springs, we'll take a mistrial as the best we can get for now.