Posted in Uncategorized on July 31, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
On July 31, just under 200 people participated in the “Summer of Choice” kickoff walk, a fundraising walk around the area of Dr Carhart’s clinic in Germantown, MD. No anti-choicers seemed to be present.
Dr Carhart has been targeted by Fundamentalist Christians to be their next target after Dr Tiller, who was murdered recently after enduring decades of harassment and a 1991 summerlong siege of his clinic in Wichita, Kansas.
The anti’s have announced that the upcoming week is to be their “Summer of Mercy 2.0″ a second round of the 1991 siege of Dr Tiller’s clinic, targeting Dr Carhart here in Maryland. Only thing is, not a single one of the anti-choicers was visible at the scene by 2PM Sunday, while 200 pro-choice activists were on the scene! Maybe their scouting elements warned them that they were heavily outnumbered and should stay away?
Throughout the next week, pro-choice activists will maintain a continuous “peaceful presence” while trained clinic escorts provide patients with any necessary assistance in crossing the siege lines that religious extremists may set.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 28, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
On July 28, unions and even Democratic members of Congress spoke out at a Capitol Hill rally opposing GOP plans for force a massive austerity program down everyone’s throat in the place of taxing the rich.
Speaker after speaker denounced the bill as turning the “American Dream” into a nightmare. One went so far as to effectively call for a sixfold increase in corporate taxes, pointing out that in the 1969s corporate taxes were 6% of GDP, now they are one percent. The same speaker pointed out that all recent US budget deficits come from the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and for the last three years the Great Recession.
One of the speakers denounced the Boehner debt ceiling bill for causing the stock market to drop 200 points, condemned the social service cuts inside-and then proceeded to tear up the bill. You can barely see this in the video, the crowd is so packed, but you can really hear that paper tear as the microphone picked it up.
It wasn’t enough to show up and shoot video of someone else taking action against the Tea Party, it was time to take action myself. Therefore, I burned a teabag in front of my own camera and other cameras as a personal position statement opposing the GOP/Tea Party austerity program-a program the likes of which I would expect from someone like the IMF.
Hopefully, by the time this is over the next thing to go will be the entire Tea Party political program-slow to light at first, then bursting into flames and vanishing into nothingness just like my teabag did! Let’s just hope we don’t have to burn our hands on bouncing Social Security checks and shuttered hospitals to get there.
Already the Washington Post is starting to compare the US to Greece. If they really do decide to pay the bankers ahead of Social Security recipients, doctors seeing Medicaid/Medicare, and even their own soldiers, another question will come up-are US protesters prepared to step things up like protesters in Greece?
There should be NO COMPROMISE with the Tea Party, NO COMPROMISE with austerity programs anywhere, NO COMPROMISE with the IMF when they push this shit! Otherwise the streets need to fill with protesters who take no prisoners and fight like the youth of Greece or Egypt to shut down business as usual until the businessmen say “ENOUGH!”
Posted in Uncategorized on July 27, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
On the 26th of July. protesters showed up at the DC courthouse to show solidarity with Tim Dechristoper, who was sentenced at that very time to 2 years in prison for bidding against oil and gas companies for public land in the waning days of George W Bush’s presidency.
He was convicted for placing two bids at a public lands auction intended to “open up public lands for oil and gas drilling” with no intention of extracting minerals. He placed 13 bids in all, won some, forced up prices on the rest, and threw the entire auction into chaos.
The action was a strategic success in delaying these last-minute Bush administration leases long enough for the Obama adminstration to cancel them a huge defeat for the George W Bush energy philosopy, made possible by what some have called an innovative form of open monkeywrenching. Without his action, the drilling would have been taking place before anyone in the Obama administration could easily stop it.
Now backers of oil and gas want their pound of flesh form Tim DeChristoper, they tried for a ten year prison term, Tim was actually sentenced to two years prison plus a $10,000 fine.
Supporters of Tim swarmed the Salt Lake City courthouse, some estimated thousands were present there. The DC solidarity protest, although small in itself, was one of at least 20 held outside Federal courthouses in various cities around the US.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 25, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
On the 24th of August, five passengers of the Audacity of Hope, the US boat to Gaza, gave a reportback on their experiences to a packed house at Busboys and Poets.
The first speaker was Medea Benjamin, who recounted the story of how the US boat was denied permission to sail, sailed anyway-and was then surrounded and menaced by the Greek Coast Guard until the captain threw in the towel. She also reported on the sucesses and failures of the other boats.
Next was Ray McGovern, who brought up two interesting points in particular: One was that South Africans are supporting the Gaza and Palestinian causes because the world helped them with apartheid was in their nation. The other was this: A source reporting to Ray McGovern confirmed that the US State Dept was involved in linking the Greek bailout to strong Greeek action to prevent the Freedom Flotilla ships from sailing! While Hillery Clinton herself was reported to say that she and the entire US state department did not care if the dead bodies of activists floated to shore, apparently they feared that the 11 embedded reporters, one from the New York Times, could share their fate. The bad press that would bring to Israel and to US support for Israel goes without saying.
The of the passengers to speak, a member of the IWW, spoke on the campaign to impose a counter-siege on Israel with global dockworker refusals to load or unload ships going to or from Israel, and of successful limited labor actions of this type, usually for 24 hour periods. The thought of this sort of counter-blockade may be why Israel is now so fearful of the Boycott/Divestsment/Sanctions campaign that a bill to criminalize boycott calls has passed in Israel and is being considered for introduction to the US Congress. Of course, enforcing that has already proven impossible in Israel, with Between the Lines reporting a massive backlash and an increase in calls for boycotts of settler goods.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 24, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
On the 20th of July, two treesitters occupied trees inside the blasting safety zone of the Bee Tree mountaintop removal coal mine. As this is being posted here the treesitters have shut the mine down for three days, and report that Alpha may be trying to build a road to the base of the treesit in an attempt to remove them. This will take a while and cost big bucks!
This mine is owned by Alpha natural resources, formerly Massey. It is the same MTR mine where Climate Ground Zero halted blasting in January 2010, only to be forced down by one of the biggest blizzards in area history. Now two protesters from the RAMPS campaign are holding platforms in the trees in one of the area’s worst heat waves, an exact inversion of the January-February 2010 situation.
Two members of the support team were arrested after a search of the woods, but have since been released. The treesit itself seems to be out of reach of the cops, and word is that Alpha may literally have to build a road to the treesit in order to get them down-at huge cost and time delay!
Here is the story posted by RAMPSmedia, the organizer’s media outlet, comments there may carry updates:
MARFORK, W.Va. – Two protesters associated with the RAMPS Campaign halted blasting on a portion of Alpha Natural Resources’ Bee Tree mountaintop removal mine on Coal River Mountain today by ascending two trees. Catherine-Ann MacDougal, 24, and Becks Kolins, 21, are on platforms approximately 80 feet off the ground within 300 feet of active blasting on the mine. The banners hanging from their platforms read “Stop Strip Mining” and “For Judy Bonds” in honor of strip mining activist Julia “Judy” Bonds of Packsville, W.Va. who died of cancer earlier this year. The activists demand that Alpha Natural Resources stop strip mining on Coal River Mountain and that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection prohibit future strip mining in the Coal River Watershed.
“I feel, with the keen urgency of extinction, that Alpha Natural Resources cannot be allowed to tear apart Coal River Mountain and allow all those living below it to suffer for their profits. The Coal River watershed cannot tolerate any more damage. There is no way that I can begin to detail the comprehensive destruction that surface mining and mountaintop removal wreak on the forest ecosystem of the southern Appalachian mountains,” said Catherine-Ann MacDougal.
Coal River Mountain is the last major intact mountain in the watershed, which encompasses roughly 570,000 acres in the heart of the southern WV coalfields. Nearly a quarter of total land area in the watershed is being mined or permitted to be mined in the future, including over 5,000 acres of Coal River Mountain. As of January 2011, Marfork Coal Company, a subsidiary of Alpha, has destroyed about 75 acres of Coal River Mountain on the Bee Tree permit, the only active mountaintop removal permit on the mountain. Activists say they are determined to prevent further strip-mining.
Elias Schewel, 27, and Junior Walk, 21, are supporting the sitters from the base of their trees. Walk, who grew up in Eunice W.Va. at the foot of Coal River Mountain says that he was inspired to take action, in part, by his lifelong relationship with Judy Bonds.
“The last two families to be driven out of this holler we’re in today were Judy Bonds and my great uncle and they both died of lung cancer. Judy spoke often about how hard it was to leave, but black water spill after black water spill, the blasting dust clouds, and fears for the health of her family forced her out. Packsville is gone. We’re not just losing our clean air and clean water. We’re losing our communities, our history, and our culture.”
Judy Bonds’ fears of the health impacts from coal operations have been increasingly backed up by research from WVU. A recent public health study found a correlation between residence in a mountaintop removal area and higher rates of birth defects, even accounting for other socio-economic factors. Public health research has linked residence in coal-impacted regions to increased rates of cancer, kidney disease, and some other chronic illnesses, confirming long-held community concerns.
“Those who are drinking tainted water, breathing coal dust, and watching the mountains fall around them don’t need a scientific study to tell them what’s wrong,” noted MacDougal. Fellow tree sitter Becks Kolins remembers their first visit to the home of a Coal River Valley resident last year.
“He showed me his yearbook and pointed out everyone that had gotten cancer. The only teachers that hadn’t gotten cancer had made a point of not drinking the water.”
Lisa Henderson, Judy Bonds’ daughter and Coal River Valley resident, sees this action as a continuation of her mother’s work.
“I hope that today’s actions serve as a symbol that the struggle to live peacefully and pollution-free in the Coal River Valley did not end when my mother’s life did. My mother and I often compared the fight to survive here on Coal River to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. I am sure that generations from now, our children will look back on this movement also and the actions of the people involved, and ask the question of their elders, ‘Whose side were you on?’”
Posted in Uncategorized on July 21, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
Over the July 16-17 weekend, Respect DC invaded the Laurel Wal-Mart with a flash mob that included protesterss beating drums and even a brass section, tuba and all
The entire flash mob had those yellow smiley faces, in some cases blowing the brass instruments through them. The song contained Respect DC’s demands against any Wal-Mart opening in DC, the manager looking befuddled as he could do nothing.
Eventually the entire flash mob marched right back out of the store unopposed! I guess for store security to call the police and attempt to make legally questionable arrests would have catapulted this story to the top of the TV news, with bad results for those trying to replace all of DC’s local stores with Wal-Mart supercenters.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 20, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
From September 23 to September 25, the IMF and World Bank will be holding their annual Fall Meetings in DC. That means IMF and World Bank protests will also be coming to DC.
Why you should protest the IMF and World Bank this Fall?
They impose austerity programs similar to the Tea Party’s debt limit plans worldwide. What the Tea Pary is to US economic politics, the IMF and World Bank are to global politics.
The global economy may be in a freefall by that time over the debt ceiling issue. The IMF andf World Bank advocate no taxes on the rich, taxes on the poor, and the dismantlement of pensions, low-income housing, and health care as “solutions” to this kind of Depression. Strangely, you rarely hear the IMF and World Bank demand cuts in military spending ANYWHERE!
They hire rapists as CEO’s, just had to get rid of one. This is no surprise from an organization that specializes in ravaging whole nations and even entire continents.
It is entirely possible that the IMF and World Bank were involved, along with European Union lenders, in brokering a deal between Greece and Israel to block the Freedom Flotilla II aid ships to Gaza in port, in return for more favorable bailout conditions.
On July 10, SHAC-UK published documents from Fortress verifying that Fortress Inc has called in the loans they made to the animal testing laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). Somehow HLS paid off the loans, but now they are in real financial trouble. Hopefully HLS will soon go bankrupt for good!
Any fortress will fall if it is kept under siege long enough, and Fortress Inc was no exception. HLS will not be either. The Siege of Fortress lasted about a year and a half and required an all-out campaign against all their stockholders, such as Nomura and Goldman-Sachs. Both Fortress and Goldman-Sachs sought injunctions in a variety of jurisidictions, but it was not enough. In the end, Fortress threw in the towel, unable to stand up to the siege of their investors.
They have called in their loans and even asked the British courts to void the injunctions in the UK against HLS protests, on the grounds that they have complied with SHAC-UK’s demands and no longer need protection.
This is a major strategic victory, not only over Huntingdon Life Sciences, but also over the currently spreading corporate strategy of using injunctions and lawsuits (SLAPP suits and similar harassment) to silence public opposition to their crimes. For all the injunctions in the courts of at least two nations (the US and the UK), Fortress could not protect all of their investors and with every new round of lawsuits their reputation was lowered another notch. For an investment bank, reputation is one of the most valuable assets they trade on, so ugly stories in mainstream newspapers about lawsuits to suppress free speech were literally consuming their portfolio.
Implications
Fortress saved HLS from foreclosure in 2006 after Stephens, inc dumped them, again after a hard-fought campaign by enemies of puppy-killing Huntingdon Life Sciences.
With Fortress out of the picture, the question is this: Who will save HLS now? Maybe nobody, and this murderous laboratory will roll over and sink beneath the waves. There is also another, ugly possibility: Maybe Fortress told HLS to find a new lender or be foreclosed on, and they found one. If so, you can bet that protesters will find that lender, and they too will face the same kind of siege that felled what at times seemed like an unconquerable Fortress!
Posted in Uncategorized on July 12, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
On the 11th of July, 4 people were arrested in front of the White House during a protest of the US/Colombia Free Trade Agreement that Obama may soon introduce to Congress. They stayed put after perhaps 100 people crossed from Lafayette Park to deliver 51 cardboard coffins to the street in front of the White House.
The 51 coffins symbolize the 51 trade unionists murdered by right-wing paramilitaries and other hired guns last year. An additional 17 have died this year-yet Obama wants to betray his campaign promises to block the Colombia as well as the South Korean trade agreements. Long have the GOP and US Chamber of Commerce sought these deals, long have indigenous people in Colombia and millions of others in both countries sought to stop them.
Two speakers at the rally that preceded the civil disobediance warned that passage of the so-called free trade agreement would mean multinational corporations would gain the “right” to push indigenous people and Afro-Colombians off theirnland to make way for palm oil plantations and other developments favored by foreign multinationals and investors.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 12, 2011 by dcdirectactionnews
As protesters marched on the White House to protest the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, there was an ugly sideshow: A Park Ranger harassing me for using a tripod to film the march.
Video, confrontation is only heard as “Ranger Rat” dodges the tripod-mounted camera, later he is videoed talking to a cop who does nothing
There are NO signs in the park saying anyone cannot use a tripod, and there are no objections to their use in the street. I warned the park ranger to back the hell off while heading to the street, declaring him “an enemy soldier.” He thought better of attempting to grab my gear like two prior offenders last year and settled for yelling. NO Park Police backed him up, even after he appeared to complain to one of them.
Congress reportedly passed a law about ten years ago to stop the Park Service or other cops from requiring permits to film with or without a tripod anywhere in DC, yet there are reports all over the Internet of photographers being harassed all over the Mall as well as in Lafayette Park.
Since police and presumably Park Rangers as well are permitted to lie to the public, there is no way to judge rather or not any legally valid regulations or laws have been written on the subject. If there are any, there has certainly been no attempt to publicize them other than dangerous confrontations with photograhers, some of whom like myself can be quite volatile if harassed.
Is the Lafayette Park issue simply an attempt to discourage protesters from using the park, knowing some media photographers refuse to go there and others are afraid to use good equipment? The excuse about a tripod as a weapons mount does not wash, because tripods can be used openly in the street even closer to the White House.
