Free Republic

The Twin Cities and Denver will face a common challenge for the next five weeks. As host cities for the Republican and Democratic national conventions, both are girding for battle with "sleeping dragons" and other tools of mass disorder. There's one significant difference. Denver's City Council is considering an ordinance to defang the dragons. Minneapolis and St. Paul are biding their time. Denver City Council's public safety committee will vote today on an ordinance that would bar protesters from carrying items such as weighted PVC pipes, carabiners and quick-drying concrete. These are the raw materials of the sleeping dragon --...

Waldo - Some 150 anarchists from throughout the United States and Canada descended on a strip of private land this week in this Sheboygan County village for four days of workshops, including some focused on strategizing for demonstrations at the upcoming Democratic and Republican national conventions. The 2008 CrimethInc. Convergence was the sixth annual communal campout organized by CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective, an international underground network that since the mid-1990s has published widely read anarchist texts such as "Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook." The group also has drawn the attention of FBI agents trying to infiltrate the protest movement. At...

Denver—With a recent move to relegate peaceful protestors beneath the Denver homeless population, Re-create 68 has now vowed that there will indeed be “a bloodbath” at the Democratic National Convention should they try to keep them fenced in. The American Civil Liberties Union and several advocacy groups have filed an amended complaint to their lawsuit, stating that their First Amendment rights have been violated by security restrictions. “What the hell do they think we are? Barnyard animals,” asked Tom Mestnik, a member of The Re-create ’68 Alliance, an umbrella group organizing the protesters. “They’re giving the homeless a free pass...

State police believe some people are so angry with the current state of the country that they took their frustrations out on a veterans' cemetery in Westmoreland County. Burned flags, broken holders and anti-American writing now litter the Hillview Cemetery in Hempfield Township...

The Twin Cities will become a battleground between security and civil liberties when the Republican National Convention begins in less than seven weeks. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned activists will press for more protections for protesters Wednesday. "There is cause to worry. That's why we're focused on making sure that the laws are in place to protect people as they plan to exercise their rights," Jude Ortiz said. Ortiz is part of the Coldsnap Legal Collective, a group of volunteers who run a hotline to help people in police custody. He explained the group wants certain protections in Minneapolis to...

Code Pink was sickly sweet in our presence on Wednesday night, trying to look good in front of their pot luck dinner attendees. We were offered ice cream cones, soda, beer and to participate in their pot luck dinner. All declined since we didn’t have the antidote to strychnine or a shower was not close by. In the Politico article Some on left target McCain's war record, “Suzzie” Medea Benjamin was quoted as saying: "I wouldn't characterize anybody who fought in Vietnam as a war hero," said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the theatrical anti-war group Code Pink. "In...

Anarchists Announce Plans On-Air to Foil RNC Convention Goers Last Edited: Sunday, 06 Jul 2008, 9:41 PM CDT Created: Sunday, 06 Jul 2008, 9:08 PM CDT RNC Welcoming Committee a.k.a. Anarchist group ST. PAUL -- An anarchist group threatening to crash the Republican National Convention has taken to the airwaves. Ironically calling themselves the “RNC Welcoming Committee,” members of the group shared plans to wreak havoc during the RNC. Their plans include blocking bridges into St. Paul. Those plans, called “Swarm, Seize and Stay,” call for members to try and cut off convention-goers and delegates from the arena.

A group planning to bring 50,000 anti-war demonstrators here for the Democratic National Convention might get to pitch tents in City Park, but they could be knocking on doors for a place to sleep or take a shower. The city issued an assembly permit in the southwest corner of the park for Tent State University to bring a tribe of college kids from across the country for an "alternative university" Aug. 24-28. "Come to Denver to end a war!" While the city said the permit is for "approximately 20,000 participants," chief Tent State organizer Adam Jung said he dreams of...

Elaborate plans are underway to encircle and "shut down" the Republican National Convention at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center in September. The strategies and tactics involved could come straight from a guerrilla warfare manual. Anarchist groups with ominous names -- the RNC Welcoming Committee, Unconventional Action -- have announced a "three-tier strategy" to cut off the Xcel Center. The steps include "blockading" streets and freeways, "immobilizing" delegates' transportation and "blocking" bridges to impede delegates' access to the center. The plan also features a "swarm, seize, stay" strategy. After dividing the city into "sectors," protesters propose to "seize space" through both...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a23mbSYcBgc

Activists who plan to protest at the Democratic National Convention this summer are splitting with the umbrella organization, Re-create 68, because of concerns over its rhetoric and tactics... The new coalition, called Alliance for Real Democracy, is a network of local and national groups, including Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, the American Friends Service Committee, the Green Party of Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Colorado Street Medics, and Students for Peace and Justice. “We’ve separated ourselves; we’re not part of Re-create 68,” said Claire Ryder, chairwoman of the Denver Green...

BERKELEY — Michael Rossman, one of the leaders of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, died last week after a short battle with leukemia. He was 68. Rossman died at his Berkeley home surrounded by family and friends, said his wife, Karen McLellan. Rossman was at Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus on the afternoon of Oct. 2, 1964, when 3,000 students sat around a police patrol car and kept it from taking student protester Jack Weinberg to jail. One by one, people took off their shoes and hopped onto the top of the police car to speak,...

AS A CHILD, Peter Leeson was pirate-obsessed. He cherished the ruby-eyed skull ring he got at Disney World, after riding Pirates of the Caribbean. He took up a collection of coconut pirate heads. He lapped up the pirate themes in "Goonies." And when he grew up to be an economics professor, and started studying pirate society, he found a new excuse for admiration. Pirates, it turns out, were pioneers of democracy. Presidential candidates, take note: Long before they made their way into the workings of modern government, the democratic tenets we hold so dear were used to great effect on...

(CNSNews.com) - Self-described anarchists and "anti-authoritarians" are planning to "shut down" the Republican National Convention, which will take place in St. Paul, Minn., on Sept. 1-4. Mindful of the upcoming protests, the city's police force said it will quintuple its numbers to deter possible aggressive action by the activists. Last month, the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) reported that over the past year, protest planning for the GOP event had grown at a "considerable pace" since the SDS endorsed disrupting the proceedings at its 2007 national convention. At that time, the SDS adopted a...

(photo below edited by me) (photo below edited by me)

Local antiwar groups filed suit in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis today seeking an injunction to order the city of St. Paul to grant a march route for a demonstration on Sept. 1, the first day of the Republican National Convention. Accusing city authorities of violating the protesters' free speech, the lawsuit alleges that city officials have frustrated their efforts to obtain a march route between the State Capitol to the Xcel Energy Center and back to the Capitol. Named in the suit are Mayor Chris Coleman, St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington and his assistant chief, Matt Bostrom, who...

Bicyclists were twice as likely as drivers to be at fault in the nearly 2,000 collisions that killed or severely injured Bay Area bike riders in the past decade, an analysis by The Chronicle shows. Bicycle and safety advocates say the deaths two weeks ago of two cyclists hit by a Santa Clara sheriff's deputy's cruiser should serve as a call to improve relations between cars and bikes on the roadways.The advocates say large numbers of cyclists fail to follow the rules of the road, running stop signs and red lights, and drivers are becoming more aggressive. "There is a...

In Denver. Denver is not equipped to handle any convention scenario other than a coronation, and certainly not the most (potentially) contentious national convention in 40 years. It is important to point out that the state of Colorado, and the city of Denver, is currently nearly completely controlled by Democrats at every level of government. This puts these locals in a box, politically and from a law enforcement standpoint. This sets up a scenario similar to Seattle 1999 WTO debacle. I happened to be living in downtown Seattle during that awful experience, and what stands out is that the city...

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. Capitol Police arrested 10 war protesters who began shouting in the Senate gallery Wednesday. The protesters were quickly hustled into a hallway and out of the view of reporters. They had chanted, "The war is immoral! Stop funding the war!"—as police officers grabbed them and physically removed them from a visitors gallery overlooking the Senate floor. The demonstrators wore gauze shrouds over their heads and black shirts that read, "We will not be silent." One member said they represented the "National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance." Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas was speaking during debate on...

Authorities investigating the bombing of a military recruiting center in Times Square have turned their attention to a strange incident at the Canadian border last month.  Four men fled a checkpoint when crossing, and the Canadians arrested two of them.  During questioning, pictures of the center and other apparent targets were found in their backpacks, suggesting a plot in the works: Nearly a full day after the explosion in Times Square, law enforcement officials said they had no suspects. WNBC.com has learned NYPD, Homeland Security and FBI officials are now revisiting an incident that occurred along the Canadian border last...

AP 'We Did It' letters eyed in NY bombing By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Capitol Hill offices received letters Thursday containing a photo of the Times Square military recruiting office before it was bombed and including the claim "We Did It." ADVERTISEMENT The manila envelopes contained a photo of a man standing in front of the recruiting station before it was bombed. The photo was the kind commonly sent as a holiday greeting card, according to a Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is under investigation. The message on...

The ricin found in Las Vegas is almost certainly part of a deliberate plot of some kind; authorities continue to insist there was “no link to terrorist activity,” but now they’ve found firearms and an “anarchist cookbook.” LAS VEGAS - As police tried to piece together how a rare, deadly poison ended up in a motel for transients, the 57-year-old man who could hold the key lay unconscious in a hospital. Adding to the mystery, police said firearms and an “anarchist type textbook” were found in the same room where the ricin was discovered two days later. Capt. Joseph Lombardo...

Police are now revealing that firearms were found in that hotel room, along with an anarchist handbook tabbed to "Ricin." Also, that this person also apparently spent some time at the Excalibur Hotel/ Casino. They sent a team over there to check for contamination and say nothing was found. When the official was asked why they didn't mention the firearms in the earlier presser, he said: oh, I didn't know we didn't mention that. The victim (terrorist on a dry run, perhaps) is 57 yrs. old. The male who came to claim his belongings is also in his 50's. No...

Lots of internal links! http://www.recreate68.org DO IT IN DENVER! SEE YOU THERE! Welcome to the "Re-create 68" website, your virtual activists' Convergence Center for the Denver Democratic National Convention of 2008. This website was created for all the grassroots people who are tired of being sold out by the Democratic Party. R-68 agrees with the proposition, POTESTAS IN POPULO, "all power comes from the people." What stands between the people and power are the party machines. The parties were devised as a means to represent the people. Today they represent nobody, not even party members, but only party bureaucracy. The...

Police force will have 370 Tasers just in time for RNC. St. Paul police are about to issue Tasers to all 370 officers on the force. Police say they are a safe way to stop a potential threat, but some people say Tasers are dangerous and sometimes deadly. Police spokesman Tom Walsh says the Taser is stronger than a verbal order and less dangerous than a gun, especially in the case of a violent or unstable subject. “It’s a safety issue for both the person being arrested and the officer,” Walsh said. “The bottom line is the Taser is an...

Goldberg has marshaled a staggering amount of evidence to conclude, as the first chapter has it, that "everything you know about fascism is wrong." Mussolini was weaned on anarcho-socialism (his father Alessandro was a socialist and anarchist). Mussolini and the Italian Fascist party were, in the early years, not anti-Semitic—in fact, the party included Jews. As a young man, Mussolini had carried in his pocket a medallion of Karl Marx, whose influence—combined with the bizarre syndicalist philosophy of George Sorel and a Nietzschean contempt for Christianity—resulted in Italian fascism, a mix of myth-making, prophecy about the rise of the working...

Today, Iowa is the center of the political universe, but for only a day. Right here in Minnesota is where the next president will be chosen. I know the conventional wisdom: Candidates who hope to capture their party's nomination must make an early splash in Iowa or New Hampshire, or at least in Florida's primary on Jan. 29. As a result, it's thought, the GOP convention in the Twin Cities later this year will merely anoint a nominee chosen months earlier, in the sort of anticlimactic, scripted coronation we've seen for decades. This year, I predict, things will be different....

Lakota Indians Withdraw Treaties Signed With U.S. 150 Years Ago Thursday , December 20, 2007 WASHINGTON — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said. A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the...

Do you support the Lakota Freedom Delegation's declaration of sovereign-nation status? Yes No

WASHINGTON — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said. A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old. The group...

Washington, DC—Fighting to keep its doors open, a struggling United Methodist congregation in Baltimore has partnered with a collective of radical anarchists in a space-sharing agreement. The tiny St. John’s United Methodist Church, still not fully restored after a 1981 fire, now hosts meetings of Red Emma's collective, a self-described anarchist group. Payments from the anarchists have allowed the church to continue paying its utility bills. Red Emma’s speakers at the church have included a former Black Panther imprisoned for armed robbery and the Northeast Federation of Anarchists-Communists St. John’s garnered attention earlier this year when its pastor, Ann Gordon,...

Assistant St. Paul Police Chief Matt Bostrom on Monday assured state lawmakers that demonstrators outside the Republican National Convention won't be confined to fenced-in areas. Bostrom said the city might erect barricades but he doesn't envision enclosures where protesters would be relegated. He told a legislative panel that demonstrators will be granted "sight and sound" access to the Xcel Energy Center, where the main convention business will be conducted next September. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, that city set up a "free-speech zone" outside the FleetCenter surrounded by fences, barricades and razor wire. Protesters complained that the...

Eight people were detained by police in Lund on Friday during demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the death in 1718 of King Karl XII. Two people were formally arrested for violent resistance. One of those arrested is also suspected of attempted assault. Six others were detained. A few dozen people were involved in the march, according to police. Demonstrators from the '30th November Association' gathered outside Lund Cathedral at lunchtime on Friday. The association is made up of nationalist groups from the university town and was founded following the First World War. Counter-demonstrators met in the Lundagård park. A...

Hippies are just born problem-solvers, aren't they? /s

How to make sense of the Ron Paul revolution? What's behind the improbably successful (so far) presidential campaign of a 72-year-old 10-term Republican congressman from Texas who pines for the gold standard while drawing praise from another relic from the hyperinflationary 1970s, punk-rocker Johnny Rotten? Now with about 5 percent (and climbing) support in polls of likely Republican voters, Paul set a one-day GOP record by raising $4.3 million on the Internet from 38,000 donors on Nov. 5 -- Guy Fawkes Day, the commemoration of a British anarchist who plotted to blow up Parliament and kill King James I in...

MINNEAPOLIS - Shrouded in black, with a bandanna masking her face, a self-proclaimed anarchist slips into her combat boots and dashes through town, tossing a Molotov cocktail here, launching a bowling ball there. The YouTube video is more parody than threat: The flaming cocktail ignites a charcoal grill, and the bowling ball knocks down pins instead of crashing through a Navy recruiting office window. But as the video fades to black, the message on-screen is clear: "We're getting ready. What are you doing?" With less than 10 months to go before the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St.Paul, activists are already...

Activists Already Planning RNC Disruptions MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ― Shrouded in black, with a bandanna masking her face, the self-proclaimed anarchist slips into her combat boots and dashes through town, tossing a Molotov cocktail here, launching a bowling ball there. The YouTube video is more parody than threat: The flaming cocktail ignites a charcoal grill, and the bowling ball knocks down pins instead of crashing through a Navy recruiting office window. But as the video fades to black, the message onscreen is clear: "We're getting ready. What are you doing?" With less than 10 months to go before the Republican National...

t-shirt reads: "Our new weapon in the war against terrorism" - a peace sign(!)Sweatshirt reads "War is not the answer". (I guess, by the looks of it, Krispy Kremes are?)

Critical Mass, the loosely organized bicycle group that ties up rush-hour traffic once a month in Minneapolis, has demonstrated who rules our streets. But Minneapolis isn't the only place where the Mass mob has strong-armed the police and City Hall, and left outraged motorists fuming but impotent. Today, Critical Mass cyclists cow commuters in more than 300 cities, from Denver to Rio de Janeiro, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The ride got its start in San Francisco (where else?) in 1992 with about 50 cyclists. Authorities there looked the other way as riders ran red lights and snarled traffic....

St. Cindy’s just about out of absolute moral authority so they brought along a father of a soldier killed in action to shield them from the flak they’ll be taking for this latest stunt. The occasion was a Heritage Foundation panel on the war led by Fred Kagan, one of the architects of the surge, and featuring leftist bete noire Michael O’Hanlon. The woman in the first clip in the black dress and glasses is Medea Benjamin, of course; she and the Pinkos have traded their standard gear lately for “civilian� clothing the better to infiltrate events like these. Most...

Saturday night, Geraldo had his hands full as anarchists and 9/11 truthers attempted to disrupt the airing of Geraldo at Large

Last Friday, I inadvertently found myself in the midst of the opening salvo of a battle to turn the Twin Cities upside down next year. I was driving home at rush hour from downtown Minneapolis, when several hundred bicyclists blocked the street leading to Interstate 394. My fellow motorists and I sat obligingly for several minutes, missing green light after green light. Finally, folks began angrily honking their horns. If two police cars hadn't moved the riders along, people might have leaped from their cars to take on the bicyclists themselves. Later, the protest ride turned ugly. Two officers tried...

The national antiwar-impeachment group, World Can’t Wait, drew 150 people, representing the range of the city’s cultural milieu, to the San Francisco Main Library’s Koret Auditorium Sunday to “drive out the Bush Regime” and reverse its slide toward what many see as an imperial presidency. The meeting was one of at least 11 such events around the country this month and last, from New York to Los Angeles, mobilizing public sentiment for impeachment, despite the repeated insistence by Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership that the issue is “off the table.” An American Research Group poll last week found...

The RNC Welcoming Committee doesn't really want to welcome the Republican National Convention to the Twin Cities. And they're organizing this weekend - a year before the Republican heavyweights arrive - to make their un-welcome heard. A few hundred "anarchists and anti-authoritarians" will gather for a pre-convention convention this Saturday and Sunday, to give shape and strategy to their 2008 RNC convention plans, according to a woman who identified herself as Bea Bridges. Bridges read a statement at a news conference this morning about this weekend's gathering but did not take any questions from invited reporters. In her statement, she...

A group of activists who describe themselves as "anarchists and anti-authoritarians" will hold a private strategy session over the Labor Day weekend to discuss plans to protest at the Republican National Convention to be held in St. Paul Sept. 1-4, 2008. The group, called the RNC Welcoming Committee, held a news conference on Monday at the Jack Pine Community Center on Lake Street in Minneapolis, where Bea Bridges, speaking for the commitee, showed a video that hinted at confrontational tactics, read a statement and walked out, taking no questions. The group had sent out an announcement last week, saying questions...

RALEIGH - The living arrangement has a name, The Mayview Collective, which conjures '60s-era images of backyard chickens and overgrown vegetable patches. Living in a duplex with three bedrooms on each side, members of the Collective kick in $325 per month toward rent, utilities and a reserve fund for household expenses. Not long ago, they bought a vacuum cleaner. The back side of the home includes a kitchen where volunteers cook meals for the homeless and a space where more volunteers help people fix their bicycles. Within walking distance of Cameron Village, the people who live here carry a different...

A blog written by antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and posted on MichaelMoore.com criticizes Charlotte police for allowing counter-protesters to "try to intimidate us" during Sheehan's antiwar rally Tuesday in Bryant Park. But in a memo to top police administrators, one captain said officers had no issues during the two-hour event and expressed surprise at the complaints. "At the School of the Assassins in Columbus, GA, and in Charlotte, NC, we ran into similar problems: police presence that seemed to be there to foster violence. At both places the neo-Nazi, pro-war fascist group "Gathering of Eagles" came out to mostly try...

Posted in Briefings by Kit Lange on July 14, 2007 A “very preliminary” report by law enforcement in Maryland has come across the wire saying that an anarchist group is looking to deface the Wall on September 15th during ANSWER’s rally in Washington, D.C. This will not be allowed to happen, period. We are acting on this intel and we’re certain that Eagles will be there in force to assure the safety and sanctity of our hallowed grounds. Be aware–September 15th will be quite a showdown. Please consider either being there yourself or helping someone else get there by donating...

To someone walking through Schenley Park in Oakland yesterday, the gathering at the Anderson Pavilion might have looked like any other Fourth of July picnic -- food, kids, Frisbees and fun, even a three-legged race. Of course, there also was that big black banner with giant letters proclaiming "Anarchy." The third annual anarchist picnic -- an alternative Fourth of July event -- attracted about 85 people, more than in past years. It might be a reflection of the growing movement. Or it might have been just a really nice day. Alex Bradley, 27, of Bloomfield, has been involved in all...

Driver and riders accuse each other of provoking the fight - A Friday clash between a Berkeley minivan and Critical Mass bicyclists continued to generate conflict Monday as the van driver said the bicyclists placed bicycles under his front tire during the violent melee. "A certain number of the bicyclists were prepared to do this with malice aforethought," said Harlan Head, 70, driver of the Chevrolet minivan. "They shoved bicycles under the car and attempted several other things." Critical Mass organizer Jason Meggs, 38, who filmed part of the incident (see video) on his digital camera, called Head's accusation "outrageously...