http://the-uptake.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/695/
Actually video footage of police confrontation of my detainment. No dispersal order, no communication, just a whole ton of tear gas.
I was fairly far behind the people with the banner but still got trapped in clouds. The mention of "Chelsea, keep moving" is a friend I was right next to. The guy asking Oliver if he is alright is Shannon, and I was a couple yards behind him at that time. Tear gas hurts. No dispersal order was issued, no one was being violent when the cops. The Uptake also has a video of our detainment and the arrests of 150 people who had "hurt a lot of people" according to the police that talked to us. All the kids in the front of the line were in the peaceful protest and were with us the whole time. I saw no violence.
Here is our detainment.
http://the-uptake.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/689/
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
More information
Coldsnap legal collective needs your help. The prisoners in jail in downtown st. paul need your help. Democracy and civil rights need your help. Please lobby politicians, call the jail, go to the vigils and show your support for the 300 plus protesters, including media, medics, lawyers and peaceful protesters (not just unruly, violent anarchists) who are behind bars being denied medical attention, due process of law and their freedom of speech.
http://coldsnaplegal.wordpress.com/
http://stimulator.tv
http://twincitites.indymedia.org
http://nornc.org
http://coldsnaplegal.wordpress.com/
http://stimulator.tv
http://twincitites.indymedia.org
http://nornc.org
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
St. Paul Police State RNC 2008
The police, the federal government and the national guard have made it clear that our constitutional right to political dissent is to be handed out in permits, restricted by cages and confined to "free speech zones." Now don't get me wrong, I am not a bumping constitutionalist, but doesn't it say somewhere in there that Americans have the right to free speech? Doesn't it say that we have the right to assemble? Lets take a look...
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmenti
Now, I think keeping ANYONE from being able to go into downtown St. Paul after the "free speech rally" (which, by the way, was limited to a very out-of-the-way, short path no where near the proposed rally route, which the RNC protest planners sued and lost the state over... but whatever, lets not focus on that little detail right now) could be considered an abridgment on the freedom of speech. There were riot police lining nearly the whole route, including standing on the other side of the fence in the freedom cage we had to march through (though I do have to admit, screaming chants of "tell me what a police state looks like-this is what a police state looks like!!!!" was fairly invigorating.)
Lets focus on press now for a second. Any Goodman, independent and highly respected news reporter, was arrested yesterday... with a press pass. Here's video of that. Of course, they had nothing on her and she was let out last night, but only because of her prestige. Other legal, lawful and legitimate reporters and camera men and women are still downtown behind bars. The police have no legitimate charges on them, and probably have as little legitimate charges on the other 263 people locked up, not to mention the other 300-400 anarchists who haven't been booked due to their policy of not carrying ids with them. Now, when legitimate press passed journalists are getting arrested for doing their job, you know something is wrong.
Now on to Patey's story. I have a friend who works for UTNY who also had a press pass and was in downtown yesterday filming and photographing the action. After realizing how dangerous the area was becoming, he met up with an ABC reporter and another indy journalist for lunch at a thai restaurant downtown. After lunch, they left and just happened to stumble across a police confrontation of a peaceful, if considered "illegal" by the free speech regulations, protest. These three legitimate, press passed individuals, despite their credentials, were shot at numerous time by riot police using rubber bullets. They ran the hell out of there and didn't look back. Now, when the press is being involved in the confrontations, you know something is not right.
So maybe its time for my personal account, as much as I never actually got into downtown st. paul and never really got to see any of the real action. After the rally, my four friends and I joined up with the anti-capitalist group from the rally and tried to figure out how to get involved from here. We heard that there were some confrontations at Wabasha and Cedar and wanted to go there to show solidarity and hopefully stand upwind of the tear gas. Now, we were probably about 200 kids all wearing black and red and army green with wet bandannas over our faces- not exactly the least conspicuous group, but none-the-less, with every intention of being peaceful. We weren't out there to knock over dumpsters, blockade roads or pour concrete onto delegate buses (btw- mad props for whoever came up with that last idea! Before seeing this police state I probably would have condemned such action, but I guess the violence I saw as a peaceful demonstrator has proved to me that peaceful demonstration just doesn't work when the cops are so out of hand!) Anyway, the easiest way to get there was to walk down Wabasha. As soon as our peaceful but conspicuous group got to the bridge crossing the river, about 30 riot police congregated at the entrance and refused to let us pass. When we say them fiddling with gas maskes, we calmly retreated.
So to find another route. It looked like the only way was to walk down the bluff to the lovely path down by the river on Jackson/Shepard road and come back up behind the Exel energy center. So about 200 of us, not chanting and not at all acting like a mob or a connected group (keep in mind it was about 90 degrees, there was no shade and we'd all been biking and marching four at least four hours) slowly ambled toward downtown. All was fine and good until we heard some grenade sounds in front of us. Being the stupid person that I am, I quickened my pace to see what the action was, and saw mobs of riot police shooting gas bombs at my peaceful protesters. As we all retreated, asserting to eachother "walk, don't run! Stay calm", the police were able to run ahead of us. I was behind the front of the police charge, walking through clouds and clouds of tear gas (thank god for bandannas soaked in apple cider vinegar, by the way). The crowd was screaming "Please, we've turned around, we are retreating! NO MORE TEAR GAS!" as the cops shot at least five to ten more tear gas bombs in our direction. I saw one kid get hit directly with one, and he didn't even have a bandanna.
As we retreated, feeling totally dejected and powerless, we decided we needed to find another route into downtown. Some 15 year old girls caught in the area were crying and freaking out- they weren't at all part of the demonstrations and had no idea what they were getting themselves into. There were also local families taking their kids for walks in strollers and handfuls of people simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As we started embarking on the exit up the bluff and back toward the capitol, tons of gas masked bike police and cavalry started charging us from the other side saying "turn around, you can't go this way." Being the clever people we are, we realized we were being trapped. With a bluff on one side, the river on the other, riot police behind us and cops in front, we all stayed put. Over time, the two groups had all 200 of us blocked off in an area about as big as half a city block. There were at least 300 of them. Our peaceful mob was outnumbered. Then the plastic handcufs came on. "Everyone, sit down and put your hands on your head. You are now under arrest." A few people who didn't comply got pepper sprayed at short distance. Me and my friends were near the front, sitting dejected on the grass, overcome with a feelings of total defeat.
The first thing the riot police did was arrest the two medics, peaceful observers there to help tear gased, pepper sprayed, tased and rubber bullet hit protesters recover from any injury. These were not the enemy- I guess they were just seen as aiding the enemy and were thus carted away. After that, the press was allowed to leave. The riot police then started pointing at my friends and saying "yeah, lets remove them. But we gotta circle them. We don't want any of these people escaping." For whatever reason, of the 200 people detained down by the river, we were either the first or the second group to be let go. Only 50 of the protesters were allowed to leave, about a hundred were arrested one-by-one and the other 50 were detained until 7pm. (This is all happening between 4-4:30 I would say.) They had us stand and said "we know you guys didn't do anything wrong, but there are a lot of people behind you who hurt a lot of people." I didn't see any violence among these individuals, but the cops had paint-gunned a couple so they must have done something wrong... for your viewing pleasure, here is the photo that was front page of www.startribune.com this morning of me and my four friends being released.
Of course, the caption said "young protesters arrested" or something, but we weren't. We just looked sweet and innocent enough to be unsuspicious (its a good thing shannon took off his "fucking revolution" t-shirt that I bought for him in Bulgaria...) We were told that this was our last chance- if we returned to downtown St. Paul, we'd be arrested for sure. Feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, we walked back to our bikes and got the hell out of there.
When you can't demonstrate peacefully on your own streets, when houses are getting raided, people being arrested for no reason and anarchists are being singled out without doing anything wrong, political profiling is being used by the police and even medics, news reporters and peace observers are being singled out as criminals, then you know you are living in a police state. A van was raided in St. Paul near where my parents live, far from downtown- it was searched without a warrant and towed, the police told the owner "This is what happens when anarchists come to town." Now I'm not saying the anarchists weren't breaking a few windows and harassing a few cops, but that was only the minority. The black garb isn't to look intimidating, its to not be singled out. So instead they single out all of them and throw them all in bars.
I am too rattled, dejected and crushed to make any intelligent insight on this at this point. All I can ask is what the fuck are the police so afraid of?
Just another observation from the RNC protests, 2008.
Code Pink infiltrates the RNC during McCain's speech. Haha, finally someone doing something the delegates will see.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmenti
Now, I think keeping ANYONE from being able to go into downtown St. Paul after the "free speech rally" (which, by the way, was limited to a very out-of-the-way, short path no where near the proposed rally route, which the RNC protest planners sued and lost the state over... but whatever, lets not focus on that little detail right now) could be considered an abridgment on the freedom of speech. There were riot police lining nearly the whole route, including standing on the other side of the fence in the freedom cage we had to march through (though I do have to admit, screaming chants of "tell me what a police state looks like-this is what a police state looks like!!!!" was fairly invigorating.)
Lets focus on press now for a second. Any Goodman, independent and highly respected news reporter, was arrested yesterday... with a press pass. Here's video of that. Of course, they had nothing on her and she was let out last night, but only because of her prestige. Other legal, lawful and legitimate reporters and camera men and women are still downtown behind bars. The police have no legitimate charges on them, and probably have as little legitimate charges on the other 263 people locked up, not to mention the other 300-400 anarchists who haven't been booked due to their policy of not carrying ids with them. Now, when legitimate press passed journalists are getting arrested for doing their job, you know something is wrong.
Now on to Patey's story. I have a friend who works for UTNY who also had a press pass and was in downtown yesterday filming and photographing the action. After realizing how dangerous the area was becoming, he met up with an ABC reporter and another indy journalist for lunch at a thai restaurant downtown. After lunch, they left and just happened to stumble across a police confrontation of a peaceful, if considered "illegal" by the free speech regulations, protest. These three legitimate, press passed individuals, despite their credentials, were shot at numerous time by riot police using rubber bullets. They ran the hell out of there and didn't look back. Now, when the press is being involved in the confrontations, you know something is not right.
So maybe its time for my personal account, as much as I never actually got into downtown st. paul and never really got to see any of the real action. After the rally, my four friends and I joined up with the anti-capitalist group from the rally and tried to figure out how to get involved from here. We heard that there were some confrontations at Wabasha and Cedar and wanted to go there to show solidarity and hopefully stand upwind of the tear gas. Now, we were probably about 200 kids all wearing black and red and army green with wet bandannas over our faces- not exactly the least conspicuous group, but none-the-less, with every intention of being peaceful. We weren't out there to knock over dumpsters, blockade roads or pour concrete onto delegate buses (btw- mad props for whoever came up with that last idea! Before seeing this police state I probably would have condemned such action, but I guess the violence I saw as a peaceful demonstrator has proved to me that peaceful demonstration just doesn't work when the cops are so out of hand!) Anyway, the easiest way to get there was to walk down Wabasha. As soon as our peaceful but conspicuous group got to the bridge crossing the river, about 30 riot police congregated at the entrance and refused to let us pass. When we say them fiddling with gas maskes, we calmly retreated.
So to find another route. It looked like the only way was to walk down the bluff to the lovely path down by the river on Jackson/Shepard road and come back up behind the Exel energy center. So about 200 of us, not chanting and not at all acting like a mob or a connected group (keep in mind it was about 90 degrees, there was no shade and we'd all been biking and marching four at least four hours) slowly ambled toward downtown. All was fine and good until we heard some grenade sounds in front of us. Being the stupid person that I am, I quickened my pace to see what the action was, and saw mobs of riot police shooting gas bombs at my peaceful protesters. As we all retreated, asserting to eachother "walk, don't run! Stay calm", the police were able to run ahead of us. I was behind the front of the police charge, walking through clouds and clouds of tear gas (thank god for bandannas soaked in apple cider vinegar, by the way). The crowd was screaming "Please, we've turned around, we are retreating! NO MORE TEAR GAS!" as the cops shot at least five to ten more tear gas bombs in our direction. I saw one kid get hit directly with one, and he didn't even have a bandanna.
As we retreated, feeling totally dejected and powerless, we decided we needed to find another route into downtown. Some 15 year old girls caught in the area were crying and freaking out- they weren't at all part of the demonstrations and had no idea what they were getting themselves into. There were also local families taking their kids for walks in strollers and handfuls of people simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As we started embarking on the exit up the bluff and back toward the capitol, tons of gas masked bike police and cavalry started charging us from the other side saying "turn around, you can't go this way." Being the clever people we are, we realized we were being trapped. With a bluff on one side, the river on the other, riot police behind us and cops in front, we all stayed put. Over time, the two groups had all 200 of us blocked off in an area about as big as half a city block. There were at least 300 of them. Our peaceful mob was outnumbered. Then the plastic handcufs came on. "Everyone, sit down and put your hands on your head. You are now under arrest." A few people who didn't comply got pepper sprayed at short distance. Me and my friends were near the front, sitting dejected on the grass, overcome with a feelings of total defeat.
The first thing the riot police did was arrest the two medics, peaceful observers there to help tear gased, pepper sprayed, tased and rubber bullet hit protesters recover from any injury. These were not the enemy- I guess they were just seen as aiding the enemy and were thus carted away. After that, the press was allowed to leave. The riot police then started pointing at my friends and saying "yeah, lets remove them. But we gotta circle them. We don't want any of these people escaping." For whatever reason, of the 200 people detained down by the river, we were either the first or the second group to be let go. Only 50 of the protesters were allowed to leave, about a hundred were arrested one-by-one and the other 50 were detained until 7pm. (This is all happening between 4-4:30 I would say.) They had us stand and said "we know you guys didn't do anything wrong, but there are a lot of people behind you who hurt a lot of people." I didn't see any violence among these individuals, but the cops had paint-gunned a couple so they must have done something wrong... for your viewing pleasure, here is the photo that was front page of www.startribune.com this morning of me and my four friends being released.
Of course, the caption said "young protesters arrested" or something, but we weren't. We just looked sweet and innocent enough to be unsuspicious (its a good thing shannon took off his "fucking revolution" t-shirt that I bought for him in Bulgaria...) We were told that this was our last chance- if we returned to downtown St. Paul, we'd be arrested for sure. Feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, we walked back to our bikes and got the hell out of there.
When you can't demonstrate peacefully on your own streets, when houses are getting raided, people being arrested for no reason and anarchists are being singled out without doing anything wrong, political profiling is being used by the police and even medics, news reporters and peace observers are being singled out as criminals, then you know you are living in a police state. A van was raided in St. Paul near where my parents live, far from downtown- it was searched without a warrant and towed, the police told the owner "This is what happens when anarchists come to town." Now I'm not saying the anarchists weren't breaking a few windows and harassing a few cops, but that was only the minority. The black garb isn't to look intimidating, its to not be singled out. So instead they single out all of them and throw them all in bars.
I am too rattled, dejected and crushed to make any intelligent insight on this at this point. All I can ask is what the fuck are the police so afraid of?
Just another observation from the RNC protests, 2008.
Code Pink infiltrates the RNC during McCain's speech. Haha, finally someone doing something the delegates will see.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
not so fist hearted
Its surprisingly easy to be back here. I have my qualms with American culture, but it isn't as though they didn't proceed my trip to Bulgaria. I miss a lot of things about Sofia, and I will continue to miss those things, but dammit, my friends and my parents here are really quite awesome and they are definitely worth coming home to.
Now I am off to the east coast. Not really sure why I am leaving, but I guess it makes sense. I have to fully greet my country before I can settle back in to life.
My livejournal post was much more profound... but right now, I really can't be bothered.
Now I am off to the east coast. Not really sure why I am leaving, but I guess it makes sense. I have to fully greet my country before I can settle back in to life.
My livejournal post was much more profound... but right now, I really can't be bothered.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
karadare reflections
The beach was beautiful. But I think I prefer mountains. Something about spending that much time relaxing really tired me out. In reality, we ran out of sun screen and I was so afraid of turning bright red that I spent most of the last two days sipping nescafe in the bar reading Palace Walk. It was quite nice. And a great way to reflect on the last 2.5 months of my life.
It was funny, Katerina was paging through a magazine on the picnic table and stumbled across a five page article on Minnesota. Is it a sign? Or maybe just a coincidence. Who knows, but I found it very amusing. I wanted to take the article, but I restrained myself.
Didn't see any dolphins or sharks, but I imagined them playing out in the distance. The waves were really strong, but I found that if I went in deeper I could ride over them more easily. I am a much better swimming than I think I am... Neither of the girls with me knew how to swim. Bon fire's at night with African drums and singing. Early mornings waking with the heat of the sun. Crashing around on the waves, walking along the coast, being treated to shopska salat by friendly Bulgarians, meeting English speaking Bulgarians at the bar... twas nice.
But I am happy to be back in sunny sofia where my friends and surrogate family reside.
It was funny, Katerina was paging through a magazine on the picnic table and stumbled across a five page article on Minnesota. Is it a sign? Or maybe just a coincidence. Who knows, but I found it very amusing. I wanted to take the article, but I restrained myself.
Didn't see any dolphins or sharks, but I imagined them playing out in the distance. The waves were really strong, but I found that if I went in deeper I could ride over them more easily. I am a much better swimming than I think I am... Neither of the girls with me knew how to swim. Bon fire's at night with African drums and singing. Early mornings waking with the heat of the sun. Crashing around on the waves, walking along the coast, being treated to shopska salat by friendly Bulgarians, meeting English speaking Bulgarians at the bar... twas nice.
But I am happy to be back in sunny sofia where my friends and surrogate family reside.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
karadare
I am going to the sea by night train tonight. I am going to a beach that's a fourty five minute walk from the nearest inhabitant. It is the last untouched piece of sea coast left and it will be developed within the next two years. Dolphins, swans, nude beach... should be interesting. Anyway, camping on the beach, eating only what we bring, drinking only what we bring. I'm sick as hell, but maybe the relaxation will do me some good. that and the questionable over-the-counter antibiotics.... what a strange country this is.
But the moral of the story is I won't be back until the night of the 5th and I will have no contact with the outside world (except cell phone if there is some emergency) so if you don't hear from me, you know why.
Chow- wish me happy dolphins, friendly sharks and beautiful sunrises! And ... you know... tolerable sun burns. (Nude beach... hmmm)
Chow
But the moral of the story is I won't be back until the night of the 5th and I will have no contact with the outside world (except cell phone if there is some emergency) so if you don't hear from me, you know why.
Chow- wish me happy dolphins, friendly sharks and beautiful sunrises! And ... you know... tolerable sun burns. (Nude beach... hmmm)
Chow
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
apologies
My apologies- I wrote that last blog entry in a state of extreme and possibly somewhat blind determination. I am going to visit between the 10th or 11th and the 19th or 20th or something. I will go to Baltimore first to visit Peter, then DC, the NYC and upstate NY if Oliver is there, which it seems like he won't be. It was just a crazy idea yesterday, but now it seems like it might actually happen! And of course I intended to ask you all before inviting myself (though I did get an open invitation to bitch about the US in a garden at any time...)
Giving oneself something to look forward is a very good defense mechanism.
Giving oneself something to look forward is a very good defense mechanism.
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