violence

Well, the Presidential Farce begins and the creepy candidates are running out of the gate! McCain is appealing to people who believe in the privatization of education, war mongering, Anti-Arabic racism, anti-immigrant policies, the defunding of key government programs, the destruction of individual civil liberties, the right to reproductive choice, the bolstering of NASA/NSA style spying, and the further privatization of the health care system supporting Big Insurance companies. On the other hand, Obama is fueling his campaign with so much "hope" and "belief" that many smart thinking people wrecked by neoliberalism are ignoring his unfettered belief in the so-called "free market." When you look at the number of homeless folks on the street, poor people around my neighborhood, and ever wealthier rich populations it is quite clear that the "free market" system is screwing most people over.

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.

Some happy news in the activist front! INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, a women of color organization working to eliminate violence against women of color through direct action, critical dialog, and grassroots organizing just launched their new website and it looks hot! Now you can go check out organizing tools, videos, donation buttons, forums, and action items from this bad-ass organization! The website was designed by Tumis and looks great!

For those anarchists out there looking to get organized around the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Unconventional Action has just printed their paper outlining Anti-Authoritarian strategy from now till the upcoming elections!

As the country gets invested in the electoral politics and is forced by corporate rule to choose between 2 sell-out parties representing the ruling class, some Anarchists are planning to use this as an opportunity to protest capitalist globalism and demonstrate that another world is possible.

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.

Last night, in a particularly grizzly turn of an otherwise good conversation, my friend and I began to talk about mainstream America's obsession with childhood abuse memoirs--particularly stories of incest, rape, and domestic violence. She argued that people who read such stories may very well be getting off on them, using them as child-pornography. We then proceeded to discuss the obsession with pedophilia, sex crimes, and rape in the mainstream media and how such reporting keeps the public distracted from naming a greater perpetrator of violence against children--the United States government.

9/11 derailed the counter-globalization movement. The morning the planes smashed into the World Trade Center, the Financial Times reported that "the protesters are winning." This referred to the international movement against neoliberal economic policy--that of the Zapatistas, the protesters against the WTO in Seattle, the IMF and World Bank, and the G8 in Genoa.

In a conversation with a friend about the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, she said something that shocked me: "It's too bad Hitler didn't do a better job."