On August 31, nearly 1000 people were nabbed by the NYPD during widespread direct actions around New York City. (A number of medics over the past few days have been singled out and arrested).

The mainstream coverage describes these protests and arrests as "confrontational" and "scuffles," etc, but protesters held their composure and kept to their well-organized plans, despite aggressive police tactics that included orange plastic fencing to keep protesters penned in, and "snatch squads" that targetted individuals standing in the middle of otherwise peaceful crowds.

Actions I witnessed included a "shut up-a-thon" in front of fox news headquarters (there were over a thousand chanting "shut the fox up"), a road blockade by comrades from the bay area, a die-in by members of the war-resisters league, a street party near union square, and lots of arrests. It felt like spontaneous eruptions all over the city, the grassroots pushing up through the concrete at every park and major intersection, strategically non-violent and with powerful messages against the war in iraq, the corporate agenda of the bush administration, and the lies propogated by the corporate media.

more updates: [ Are You A Peaceful Police Officer? I Interviews from the RNC ]

see also: [ NYC-IMC I Portland Indymedia Coverage I Puerto Rico Indymedia Corbertura en Espanol ]

Come dine in support of the SHAC7! There will be a four course vegan meal on August 27, 6:00pm, at the United Methodist Church in Santa Cruz.

On May 26th, three Bay Area activists, as well as four others across the country, were arrested and charged with Federal Terrorism and "Interstate Stalking" charges as a result of their involvement in the campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences (a notorious animal testing lab).

Make no mistake -- this is not about terrorism or animal rights. The simple fact is that these charges are nothing more than an attempt to silence activists who have utilized their First Amendment right to speak out on controversial issues and tactics. If the government can get away with charging these activists with Terrorism, every protester in the US has something to worry about!

report back: Gourmet Dinner For the Shac7

[ SHAC 7 I Inside Huntingdon Life Sciences I The SHAC 7 and the future of democracy I Who is the Legally Defined Terrorist: HLS or SHAC? ]

A multi-agency task force shut down a NYC Indymedia video team benefit late Saturday night, sparking complaints that the action was politically motivated. "I don't think every single department showing up here was a coincidence," said Brandon Jourdan, a video team organizer. "But maybe it was or maybe it was not. People will have to decide for themselves."

Jourdan, who was dressed in black pajamas with a white skeleton running down his torso, said that the first undercover cop showed up at 5 p.m. three hours before the benefit began and that the space was swarming with police as well as members of the Department of Buildings and the Department of Health.

"They came in the middle of the party with flashlights and started pointing at holes in the ceiling and a ramp that they said shouldn't be there," said NYC IMC member Ana Nogueira. "...They could have come and inspected this at any time of day. They could've checked it months ago."

[ NYC IMC Video Team I FTAA IMC - The Miami Model I RNC Watch I A Call to Media Arms ]

In 1992 (pre-google days), I spent 3 months in college doing individual study/research on the historical documentation of women street performers. Not only was there nothing on women street performers in library archives, sans a tale or two of women troubadours from long ago, but there was a serious lack of documentation of street performer (or “busker�) history altogether. The lifestyles of street performers are romanticized or shamed, but the fact remains: there is a mystique around street performance since so few know who we are, why we became street performers, and why we keep doing it. Solo women street performers are especially mysterious to the mainstream, as we break gender stereotypes. I have started getting firsthand interviews with all the street performers I have known in my 25+ year career as a busker, so that more documentation will exist for students in the future. This article evolved from interviews with two infamous women street performers that I have shared venues with over the decades.

[ Kirsten Anderberg's Articles ]

Despite City Measure C passing in 1994, despite State Prop 215 passing in 1996, Despite a local medical marijuana ordinance passed in 2000, and besides a 9th circuit court decision that found that the drug laws are not meant to apply to medical uses for cannabis, no distribution center has been open in the City of Santa Cruz since 2000. Critics say the law is fatally flawed and must be reformed before any distribution centers can open. This article explains why.

It is 2004, eight years after the passage of Proposition 215, the Medical Marijuana Compassionate use Act. An elderly woman walks with a cane down near the levee. She carries cash with her. Her hip joint aches with every movement, her knees also pain her and both her ankles are swollen. She meets her connection and they both look furtively around before they exchange cash for a small plastic baggy of the only medication she has found that helps her to endure her pain without knocking her into a stuporous non-productive state.

Why can’t this woman go into a clinic or health care center and pick up her medication? Why must she sneak around furtively in some back alley getting questionable quality cannabis when the citizens of Santa Cruz voted overwhelmingly (73% in favor) of legalizing the use of medical marijuana?

How to Defend a Medical Marijuana Patient in California

[ Area 420 I Tax and Regulate I California NORML I Marijuana Policy Project ]

Here are some pictures from the largest pre-execution date demo to date at San Quentin on 11/19/05.

Tunis,(11-18-05) The World Summit on the Information Society has just released a statement of their resounding success in Tunisia, where they maped the course of the internet toward a goal of global connectivity by 2015. Meanwhile, the "digital divide" was demonstrated throughout Tunis, where internet sites were blocked and civil society organisations experienced a police crackdown.

Equal opportunity criminal prosecution for Howard Dean’s top appointees/cronies….

History repeats itself. The 1991 backstory to the unlawful Capitola Mall restriction of free expression.

Capitola Mall’s Ousting of Protesters Saturday Follows Unlawful Pattern of Rights Abuse