Calling all mobile musicians, marching bands, and folks who want to make noise and reclaim the streets of Denver during the Democratic National Convention–we need you!
On the first day of action during the DNC, we’ll be reclaiming the streets from the police and corporate occupation of Denver. Our celebration in and of the streets will be one of music and noise and so we are inviting mobile musicians, insurrectionary marching bands, radical cheerleaders, and all others who want to make the streets a joyous, vibrant space to come to Denver and add your voice, noise, and music to our collective expression of autonomy and freedom from occupation.
If drums, horns, or strings aren’t your style, come with pots, pans, sticks, and boom boxes to lend your hand in the noise. We’ll demonstrate that real transformation does not come from the parties of the ruling class inside convention centers but from the people and in the streets!
Get a hold of the Urban Reclamation Front of Unconventional Denver (urfud@hushmail.com) and let us know if you’ll be arriving with a band, an instrument, a boom box, or pots and pans. We’ll have space to store noise devices and tools of clamor if you arrive early or are able to bring more than you’ll need for yourself to share with comrades. Get your noise ready and we’ll see each other in the streets!
For revolution….for music….for noise!
For pete's sake!
Better bring some earplugs along with that eye bleach to the protests . . .
Lemme guess--"hey hey, ho ho" or "this is what democracy looks like" and several other recycled protest chants.
Recreate '68 Secures State Capitol Permit For Eve Of DNC; **Update: Recreate '68 Claims Talks With City Have Ended
Glenn Spagnuolo of Recreate '68 announced that the group had received permission to protest on the State Capitol grounds instead of Civic Center Park on the Sunday preceding the Democratic National Convention, but the real concern is the number of protestors expected:
Denver City Councilmember Doug Linkhart says he has no good idea just how many protesters will descend into Denver during the last full week of August.
"It's the great unknown," he said.
He says whatever happens, the city will do everything it can to keep its residents safe and simultaneously protect everyone's freedom of speech.
"We can't walk away from this convention having Denver put into a negative light because of how we respond (to the protesters)."
"If we have huge protests and people egging on the police, we're going to do our best to keep it peaceful."
Glenn Spagnuolo, a Recreate 68 organizer, said Monday the state was "easy to work with" in getting the permits for Aug. 24.
However, he didn't have kind words for the city.
"The state of Colorado has stepped in where the city has refused to and acted in a responsible manner," Spagnuolo said. "If you remember at the end of the lottery process, they promised to work closely with anybody who did not obtain a park to assure their voices were heard. That was a complete lie and fabrication by the city."
Spagnuolo's group released this statement:
Representatives of the Recreate 68 Alliance, which is coordinating demonstrations around the Democratic National Convention, announced today that it had to obtain permits from the State of Colorado for the west steps of the State Capitol Building and Lincoln Park for Sunday, August 24, the day before the DNC, as a venue to stage a massive antiwar protest. This action became necessary because the city of Denver allowed a party organizer for the DNC Host Committee—a private, well-funded organization—to apply for and obtain a permit for Civic Center Park for that date, shutting the public out of the largest public park in downtown Denver. In addition, the City had refused to engage in dialogue with R68 to resolve the issue as promised.
As Glenn Spagnuolo of R68 explained, despite reports to the contrary, R68 has never threatened conflict with the Host Committee. “We only pointed out, based on past experience,” Spagnuolo said, “that the city, by denying us a place to put the thousands of people expected for this event, was creating the potential for conflict. The City promised to work with groups who did not obtain permits to assure their voices are heard during the convention, this did not occur.” R68 asked the city to discuss this situation with them, after being rebuffed, R68 worked with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to try to arrange a meeting. The city refused the requests not only of R68 but of the DOJ as well.
“Our goal from the beginning,” said R68 spokesperson Mark Cohen, “has been to create a safe space for people to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights. Civic Center Park would have been the most appropriate space—public parks are for the public. Since the city has denied its use to the public, R68 has obtained permits from the State of Colorado in order to avoid unnecessary conflict.”
Therefore, to avert conflict and assure that people will be able to safely and peacefully gather to express their concerns about the war, R68 obtained the state permits. R68 members Larry Hales and Carlo Garcia, both of whom have family members serving in Iraq, said that people have not only a right but a responsibility to bring their concerns about the ongoing war to the attention of convention delegates and elected officials. “We have been negotiating with the city in good faith for a year and a half,” Hales said. “We wish we could say the same for them. But we are doing everything in our power to assure people that they can exercise their Constitutional rights.”
There's that "we are peaceful, it's the city's fault if there is any conflict" meme that we have been following.
Meanwhile, Drunkablog carves up a rather long--and by long we mean Biblical--anarchist missive on "mass mobilizations," Recreate '68 (not in a positive way, either), and the relative advantages and disadvantages of protesting the RNC and DNC.
**Update--Denver Daily News says that Recreate '68 claims that communications have been cut off between the group, other affiliated protest organizations, and the ACLU and the city of Denver after the filing of lawsuits asking that the city's police plans for protest parade routes be disclosed--and the new permit for the State Capitol came from the state, not the city, seems to add to that claim. Stay tuned. More on the ACLU's latest lawsuit over detention facilities:
. . . the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday that policies at the Denver jail need to be examined to make sure people arrested during the convention will have adequate access to food, toilets, medical care and lawyers.
The ACLU sued the city and safety manager Al LaCabe over the city's refusal to turn over a copy of its policies at the city jail.
ACLU attorney Taylor Pendergrass said he has serious concerns about complaints and problems concerning operation of the jail, including the death of Emily Rice, who bled to death at the jail from internal injuries after she was arrested for DUI following a traffic accident.
LaCabe said the city has turned over as much as it can without compromising security.
"We have given them those things that we believe are in the public interest and withheld things we believe are not in the public interest that have a lot to do with security at the facility," he said.
Denver's new policy requires an arrest if related to protests, not a "cite and release" plan preferred (for obvious reasons) by the protest groups:
Last summer, in view of the many expected arrests of demonstrators at the convention, Pendergrass said the ACLU asked Denver police to handle minor violations with a summons or notice to appear in court.
But he said police refused, saying that current policy requires officers to make full arrests, including detention in the city jail, for even minor violations connected with protests.
"It is difficult to comment on this other than to say that it's important that we fully identify and process all people that we arrest," LaCabe said.
"Many of these people may be from out of town and we don't know about their identify, so all those things pose issues that make it necessary to stay with our normal procedures. There are many other reasons that I cannot comment any further on."
Pendergrass said the ACLU is concerned that jail staff will be overwhelmed by the volume of arrests during the convention.
Mark Cohen, a Recreate 68 organizer, said they would prefer to have a cite and release plan in place for the convention and claimed a long, drawn out process where people sit in jail waiting to be bonded out takes away their right to free speech during the event.
Nancy Pelosi Headlines Dems Earth Day DNC "Greening" Campaign
If you're around Downtown Denver Monday, you might want to check this out (it appears open to the public).
From a press release (via email):
MONDAY: SPEAKER PELOSI, CONVENTION ORGANIZERS TO ANNOUNCE MAJOR GREENING INITIATIVE FOR 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
Governor Ritter, Mayor Hickenlooper, Rep. DeGette and DNCC CEO Leah Daughtry to Join Speaker Pelosi at Pepsi Center in Denver for Announcement in Lead-up to Earth Day
DENVER – As part of an ongoing effort to make the 2008 Democratic National Convention the most environmentally-sustainable event of its kind, Convention organizers will join House Speaker and Permanent Convention Chair Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to announce a major greening initiative for the Convention at 1:45 pm MT, MONDAY, April 7, 2008, at the Pepsi Center in Denver.
Governor Bill Ritter, Mayor John Hickenlooper, Rep. Diana DeGette and Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) CEO Leah D. Daughtry will join Pelosi for the first in a series of greening announcements the DNCC will make throughout April in observance of Earth Day.
WHAT: House Speaker and Permanent Convention Chair Nancy Pelosi and other local leaders announce a major greening initiative for the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
WHO: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Permanent Convention Chair Governor Bill Ritter Mayor John Hickenlooper Rep. Diana DeGette DNCC CEO Leah D. Daughtry
WHEN: 1:45 p.m. MT, Monday, April 7, 2008
WHERE: Pepsi Center, Lexus Club Balcony on the Club Level (Enter through the Grand Atrium) 1000 Chopper Circle Denver, CO 80204
The Unconventional Greenwashing Taskforce, a band of locals affiliated with the anti-authoritarian network Unconventional Action, “greenwashed” the main entrance to the Democratic National Convention Committee’s headquarters on April Fools Day. The stunt coincided with over 100 creative actions called for by environmental groups such as Rising Tide, Rainforest Action Network and the Network for Climate Action. The pranks were directed at companies and institutions guilty of “greenwashing,” the act of creating an image of environmental responsibility for the public while continuing to engage in practices harmful to the earth.
The greenwashing team showed up at the front entrance of the Denver Post building downtown, where the DNCC’s offices are located, and began applying a light green foam to the windows reading “DNC Greenwash”. The greenwashers were apprehended in the middle of the messaging by security and threatened with arrest. Meanwhile, a greenwashing representative went to the DNCC offices to announce the offer of the free services. . . . Some of the largest known donors to the DNC so far have been companies currently under harsh criticism from the public for their environmental practices. Some of the donors include Xcel Energy which operates numerous coal-fired power plants, the gold mining company Newmont Mining who is currently operating on Western Shoshone land, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase which are both top financers of coal plants, and also General Motors who despite offering hybrids during the convention is rated as one of the worst polluters in the car industry.
While the City of Denver and the DNC Host Committee have been generating a lot of attention from corporate media for their greening of the convention, both the DNC and media outlets have failed to mention that the funding for the multi-million dollar event is being bankrolled by some of the world’s worst polluters. The “greenwashers” action was to send a message that to address the very urgent and real issues of climate change, species loss and other harmful trends that real action needs to take place, which is a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and toward the localization of energy, food, and economic systems for a just, sustainable future.
Blah, blah, blah.
Another dull manifesto explaining a childish prank that accomplishes absolutely nothing.
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