denver

Protestors from New York to San Francisco are hailing this afternoon’s actions at Funk the War and Reclaim the Streets an inspirational success. After marching through the streets in an un-permitted breakaway snake march, Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarians have revitalized feelings of pride and possibility in protest in the streets.

The breakaway snake march lasted approximately two-and-a-half hours. Demonstrators and police had three tense stand-offs. After police demanded protesters disperse, they did. And then they reconvened and continued the occupation of public space, several times.

Approximately 20 demonstrators surrounded by police escaped into a multi-story parking lot, ran up the building, and chanted enthusiastically from the roof to the delight of the crowds below.

Since the fatal shooting of Denver Crips co-founder Michael Asberry, Denver's corporate media has been thrilled to sell news announcing that a new wave of gang violence is sweeping our city. What the media fails to report is the consistent harassment people on Denver's East and West Side face from the most violent gang in town--the Denver Police Department. The media fails to discuss the city's failing education system, the pressures of racist employment practices, and the predatory recruitment of youth of color into the even larger gang--the U.S. military.

Hip-Hop is dead. The style of music that originated in Jamaica and moved to the South Bronx in New York has stifled its ongoing mutation into new, exciting, fresh and original sound. Now the common goal among “artists” is to create an emulation, or a culmination of past (or present) artists’ styles.

According to a press release distributed on Colorado Indymedia, Denver Activist Larry Hales was assaulted and arrested by police as they forcibly searched his home.

According to the Denver Post, SWAT Teams were brought in at the last minute to count ballots in our local elections because our Elections Commission botched the job again. The city justified this exercise in police supervision of elections by saying that the police had underground background checks. I, for one, am a bit suspicious that the same overgrown thugs who beat and pepper-spray people in the streets practicing their first amendment rights have any business counting votes.