R2K. D2K. When Arianna gets arrested. Drug War. 2 taboo subjects for August 16 D2K March for Justice. In honor of the hundreds of heroic arrestees from the August 1 "Criminal In-justice System" day of protests at R2K in Philadelphia.
When Arianna gets arrested. That is the question and the answer. When will the suits in the suites hit the streets? And when will the streets accept her change of heart? When rich, white, and even famous, kids started getting beaten and killed in the early 1960's, then civil rights and voting rights progress in the South couldn't be stopped. Enough hearts and minds had been changed, both black and white. When rich, poor, and famous all start getting arrested and beaten today for their beliefs, then change can't be stopped. The Corporate Criminal In-justice System, and corporate control of politics and life will seriously change for the better. When Arianna gets arrested.
D2KLA Calendar of Actions and Events. {Shadow Convention is listed as being from August 14 - 17.}
http://www.a16.org/losangeles/calendar.cfm
D2K. August 16 March for Justice. March & Rally Against Mass Incarceration, Police Brutality.. Full event details by clicking on number for day of month in this D2K calendar.
http://la.indymedia.org/calendar/index.cgi
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TOMPAINE.COM SHADOW CONVENTION COVERAGE: Five Days that Didn't Shake the World. published 2000-08-04.
http://tompaine.com/opinion/2000/08/04/index.html
Final Thoughts on the Convention and Its Discontents.
Hans Koning is a novelist and essayist. His most recent novel is Pursuit of a Woman on the Hinge of History. He is a contributing editor at TomPaine.com.
Philadelphia, the morning after. The Republican Convention, Anno 2000, came to stand for everything that is wrong and mendacious in American public life, or so it appears to me. But I dare say I am part of a majority here, for I'm not speaking of an opinion but of plain facts. I don't pretend to know what went on in the minds of the delegates. They weren't treated all that well or perhaps more precisely, they weren't taken seriously. They were a hired claque, admitted to some events, but not to the ones that counted; fed from lunch boxes and moved around in chartered buses, they waved their signs at the people who run the show, and they were always ready for one more round of applause for the wives, mothers, brother, and children of those people. In truth, they were treated with hidden contempt. Didn't they know, didn't they care? Didn't they recall that Republican policies diminish the lives of people like them, of what used to be called the "little man"? That little man is still a little man, even if he may now own two cars and a room full of electronics. He and she are consulted every four years, but only after having been carefully misinformed about what they are consulted about.
Yes, there was diversity, as it is now called. African-Americans paraded on the podium but they were all singers or preachers and even the whitest Alabama or Texas Republican knows that it's okay for black people to be seen entertaining or preaching. Colin Powell does neither, but he does not count; he is every inch as much of a Wasp as George (Washington) himself.
In this un-ideological country it is maybe best not to talk anymore of Left and Right, compassionate conservatives or non-compassionate brutes. Maybe the big divide now is between those of us who really want to cheer when Bush Junior announces that his priorities will be "faith" and "family," and when a poor retarded girl is made to read out a letter she sent the man (and lo and behold, he answered! A hand-written card! He said he loved her too!), and those of us who had to repress an urge to vomit.
The Shadow Convention, in retrospect, redeemed itself from its Senator McCain start and took shape as a thoughtful and progressive forum. And yes, if only Year 2000 candidates debated that way with each other and with all of us! They put our professional politicos to shame (if those are capable of that emotion). We must hope they lit a candle, but - but the speakers I heard based their solutions, in the end, on an assumption of goodwill and solidarity between all of us, on an underlying harmony. This seems an idle expectation. Bosses and underlings do not have the same interests. Their conflicts have to be arbitrated at all times by the government, that is to say, by the people. And that is why Robert Reich, on the podium with social workers of all kind, suddenly cried, "Political action! Political action!" in perhaps the most dramatic and the most realistic moment of the Shadow Convention presentations.
The Shadow Conventions are spurs to the political ones; the Democrats' turn will come next. Perhaps Reich doesn't believe in any of the present candidates, but he does believe in the system as it was meant to be -- by necessity. What else could one hope for?
The protesters were less sanguine than Reich. They were less fiery than the protesters at the last convention I attended, Chicago 1968, but then the Philadelphia police and Philadelphia's black mayor were less aggressive than the once Mayor Daley. As in the sixties, most commentators declared themselves at a loss to understand what these people wanted. On Thursday, Walter Goodman wrote in the New York Times that since many of them called themselves anarchists, and "since anarchism is by definition opposed to every sort of system," they were about destroying what is, rather than achieving what ought to be.
Goodman is mistaken. Anarchism is about a society of "free agreements between associations freely constituted for production and consumption and the satisfaction of the ... aspirations of a civilized being" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911). Perhaps because the protesters are so young, do they have the belief that such fantastic changes could be seen within their lifetime. Lucky people.
But the protests were written up and videoed by freelance journalists and photographers who have combined in a press center run by volunteers, with donated computers, nothing copyrighted, and access to the public television. It's called the Independent Media Center [ http://www.phillyimc.org/ ], and you could almost call it an anarchistic undertaking.
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*Greens and the Drug War. Worldwide. LINKS. Green Party candidates, positions, platforms, etc.. Concerning the Drug War, cannabis, marijuana, etc.. Ralph Nader info, links.
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/greens.htm
*U.S. Rightist Republican-led (GOP) Drug War. GOP fascists lead, Democrat flunkies follow. Huge LINKS list! Revised edition. GOP's holy war. Drug war leaders: rabid right, hate radio, hate television, NRA (National Rifle Association), religious right, (snortin') George Bush the hypocrite, etc.. Amnesty 2000.
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/gop.htm
*Uncle Sam banners! USA has 2 million of the world's 8 million prisoners. USA has only 5% of the world's population, yet has 25% of the world's inmates. The USA, as of late 1999, surpassed Russia, and now has the world's highest incarceration rate, 5 to 17 times higher than all other Western (long democratic traditions) nations. Drug war banners for free! 2 million prisoners in the USA gulags. Paste these free banners into webpages worldwide. Land of the Free? Only for corporate greed, and the prison industrial complex.
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/wantout.htm
