Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

The horrifying fires we have all witnessed in Southern California are a direct result of stealing our tax dollars from all social services at home and giving them to the war machine. Please turn your grief into action and join the October 27 peace march in Los Angeles at 12 Noon from Olympic & Broadway and March to downtown federal building. Full Report from the Newswire

Tomorrow's march is a part of a national day of coordinated anti-war protests. The Los Angeles march was initiated by the ANSWER Coalition, and is coordinated by the ad hoc Oct. 27 Stop the War Coalition. It has been endorsed by over 400 additional organizations and individuals. More info from the Global Women's Strike

Related: students and neighborhood protesters shut down recruiting center in pasadena

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, October 24, 2007 – While corporate media provides real time images of fires from helicopters and speeches from elected officials eager not to miss a photo opportunity, independent media is showing another side to the fire disaster. The clear links to global warming, oil wars and over development go unreported and instead the fixation with apocalyptic images is broadcast and rebroadcast. Bush is scheduled to visit the area tomorrow and there are calls for protests against his visit.

Clearly even the mass media with all its wealth and resources is unable to convey the full scope and meaning of the disaster unfolding before us. Independent news and viewpoints are however finding outlets through this site and others. Collected here are some recent postings from our readership:

Malibu fires show class divide as rich evacuees get massages, yoga by WSQT Guerrilla Radio 87.9 FM in DC
Breaking News on local fires by FYI
What is the Border Patrol doing in an evacuation zone? by Mexicanos Unidos en Defensa del Pueblo
Let Malibu Burn: A political history of the Fire Coast by Mike Davis
Worse than Katrina: Burned-up Residents Fault Officials for SD's Devastating Fires by Miriam Raftery
Unnatural Disaster Part II: FEMA, HLS and Bush to invade Southern California by IMPEACH NOW
Images of a City Surrounded by Fire by A
Money for Firefighting & Prevention; Not for War by repost

Also from San Diego IMC: Border Patrol Demands Documents, Takes Family Members into Custody at Qualcomm

NEW: Message to George Bush from a San Diego Evacuee by Ricardo Favela

LOS ANGELES, October 22, 2007 – As fires burned at the perimeter of the sprawling urban mess that is Southern California about 200 people held a demonstration against a fire that burns every day at the city’s inner core: the war of a police force against the people they are suppose to serve.

This year’s march was different from past years. The usual march to police head quarters at Park Center was not held, instead demonstrators gathered at Parker Center and marched to MacArthur Park in honor of those victims of police violence this past May when 1,000s of peaceful marchers for immigrants rights were attacked by police. The police kept a distance from demonstrators this year with riot units deployed some blocks away and only a light cover of cycle units shadowing the marchers. The event was militant in spirit but peaceful in practice. There have been no reports of any police violence or arrests.
From the Newswire: Against Police Brutality, March and Rally by Marcus | | Audio clips from Oct 22 march against police brutality by schock | | Oct. 22nd March Against Police Brutality by Mildred | | (VIDEO) October 22nd March Against Police Brutality by Miguel

On Monday, a small band of anti-war protesters gathered outside at the corner of Alameda and First Streets in Little Tokyo to protest the second court-martial of Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq. The vigil was coordinated by the Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress and attended by members of the Global Women's Strike, Payday Men's Network, Military Families Speak Out, the Mark Twain Club, Whittier Peace Coalition, the International Socialist Organization, ANSWER, and others.
From the newswire: Community Initiates Weekly Vigils in Solidarity with Watada by Amy L. Dalton

LOS ANGELES, October 14,2007 -L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, supposedly a “liberal Democrat,” has suddenly shocked many of the city's famous Venice Beach counterculture, as a wave of gentrification is now set to come crashing down on what's left --of the historic heart of L.A.'s poor, and creative, freethinkers: A move to kick everybody living in a vehicle out of Venice Beach. And this, in the midst of one of Southern California's biggest affordable housing shortages in history.

Responding, local Los Angeles activists, and artists, are starting to mobilize for a petition campaign; for what many are calling the biggest attack in L.A. by the “anti-hip” yet --by area real estate developers to literally destroy Venice Beach as a last bastion of free, colorful, antic, and creative people. “For the City of LA to ban people in vehicles here --is just really going to wipe out Venice; all the poor artists, the poets, the writers, musicians, crafters, and all the youth; who've long come here to find peace, love, and freedom; flower children; like we did,” states Charity Luv, one local activist/artist who first came to the city in the seventies. More than half of those currently living in vehicles, in the area, are poor artists. A group known as the Venice Justice Committee is rallying against the ban. Full Story