BLM and the Political Conventions

This article believes that BLM will be the driving counter-force at both conventions. I believe it is wrong…

I believe what we are going to see this election season, particularly at the Republican Convention is the emergence of Hispanics as a powerful demographic, and political voice.

And if Hispanics carry through with that threat, and actually get the sort of turnout that black folks have traditionally had – then the Chumph, and the Republican Party is going to learn just how bad it is to have pissed off both major minority groups in the US. Since Hispanic turnout is traditionally low (around 40%), up until now, using Hispanics as whipping boys for the right really hasn’t cost Republican anything. Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials, projects 13.1 million Hispanics will vote nationwide in 2016, compared to 11.2 million in 2012 and 9.7 million in 2008.

The Black Lives Matter Movement’s Political Moment

The party conventions provide an opportunity for protesters to reassert themselves on a national stage.

Political conventions have always attracted political protests, and the history of black organizers protesting at major party conventions stretches back decades. Mass protests led by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, then-Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee leader and current Representative John Lewis, and activist Fannie Lou Hamer at the 1964 Democratic Convention helped bring the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into existence and hasten the exit of white conservatives from the Democratic Party. The 1968 Democratic Convention was upended by mass protests and riots from a collection of counterculture and civil rights groups, including anti-war demonstrators, black nationalists, and the nonviolent remnants of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign. The surveillance, protests, and a political plot at this convention captured the fraught racial climate of the United States in the wake of King’s death and the ensuing riots.

With the 2016 Democratic and Republican conventions approaching, America’s mood is perhaps not quite as tense as it was after the anti-black violence of the 1964 Freedom Summer or the fear and destruction of the 1968 King riots. But it is still characterized in part by anger from black activists. Donald Trump’s campaign has fomented protests from black organizers across the country, and his racist posturing has led to renewed calls for protests against the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Black Lives Matter, a movement that dominated headlines last year in protests against police violence, has always been political, but the conventions provide much more direct avenue to electoral politics. Black activism could be a major force in shaping or disrupting the agendas of both parties.

Will the Democrats’ gathering in Philadelphia look anything like its 1964 or 1968 predecessors? Prominent activist and member of Campaign ZERO DeRay Mckesson stated that he expects organizing in Philadelphia to reflect young black disillusionment over Clinton’s candidacy and the Democratic platform, as well as the precedent set by a recent sit-in in Congress led by Lewis. Philadelphia activists affiliated with Black Lives Matter have confirmed their intent. Erica Mines of the Philadelphia Coalition for REAL Justice—known for challenging Bill Clinton about his crime bill at a rally in April—says her group and other black activists in the area will have a presence at the convention in late July. “We definitely plan on having a protest,” Mines told me…

…But will that same spirit of protest also spur black activists at the Republican Convention in Cleveland? The people planning it certainly think so. Planners in Cleveland have used much of the $50 million event grant from Congress on surveillance of black protesters and have purchased a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) for use in crowd control. The original anti-protest rules for the Cleveland convention were so strict that liberal and conservative grassroots joined forces to defeat them in court. But Cleveland-area groups affiliated with Black Lives Matter would not go on the record about any specific plans.

Their reticence to go on record reflects a fear of surveillance among black organizers. After numerous protests in Cleveland in 2015, FBI officials intimatedthat they were closely surveilling the city’s activists. The Secret Service has also rolled out a muscular intelligence apparatus in Cleveland in advance of the convention. While most of their efforts are dedicated to addressing threats of terrorism, law-enforcement officials are also monitoring the social-media activity of Black Lives Matter activists.

Despite the increased security, black protesters will almost surely show up. Cleveland became a center of black organizing against police brutality after police killed Tamir Rice in 2014. The city has also been the target of a Justice Department probe into police brutality. The first major Black Lives Matter conference was held in Cleveland last year, marred by an incident in which a transit officer pepper-sprayed demonstrators.

Not all black protesters who show up in Cleveland or Philadelphia will be working for the same exact goals. Shanelle Matthews, the director of communications for the Black Lives Matter network, said the organization does not publicize direct action in advance, and the conventions do not have a blanket significance nationally. “Because we’re decentralized and all of the chapters work autonomously, to each of the chapters in their regions [conventions] mean something different,” Matthews said. Some chapters or affiliates that choose to protest might focus on police violence. Others may focus on economic justice. Still others may focus on environmental justice.

This is a critical summer for Black Lives Matter as an organization and a broader movement—as Matthews notes, it is “still in its infancy.” Local activists are seeking to build their advocacy networks and figure out what causes and methods make sense for them. Both conventions will provide opportunities for black activists to make their mark on electoral politics, if they are so inclined. “I think this is a time for us as black and brown people in this country to really understand what it means to be part of the democratic process,” Mines told me. “It is a pivotal time for us especially for the DNC and Philadelphia historically. Understanding this is the birthplace of democracy and this is a once in a lifetime thing, we have to get our issues addressed.”

While these activists will undoubtedly draw from the legacies of 1964 and 1968, the thoroughly decentralized, intersectional Black Lives Matter movement may well add something new to the history of protests and conventions. After months of being overshadowed by the election, black protesters will likely make headlines again in July.

 

 

Ronald Reagan and Religion Billboard

Seems some clever folks have found a way to push back against the right wing extremist “Religious Freedom” laws being passed by Republican dominated legislatures around the country…

Reminding them of what their Saint Raygun said. One would have hoped many other organizations could have found the money, or cleverness to do the same to battle right wing facsism as will be on full display in the Chumph convention.

This Ronald Reagan billboard outside the Republican convention is going to infuriate conservatives

Former President Ronald Reagan’s son and namesake Ron Reagan is literally the poster-person against religion. While the younger Reagan has been doing ads on news channels for the Freedom from Religion Foundation, it will be his father’s words that will hover over the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July.

“We establish no religion in this country… Church and state are, and must remain, separate,” the billboard will read.

The quote is part of a longer statement Reagan made in 1984 to Temple Hillel and Community Leaders in Valley Stream. “We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs,” Reagan said. “And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.”
Co-President of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Annie Laurie Gaylor, said in a statement that this particular message was important at this point in history.

“The RNC needs to be reminded that our nation is predicated on a godless and entirely secular Constitution,” she said. “The fate of our Establishment Clause hangs in the balance of the election. We’re not voting for the next president — we’re voting for the next Supreme Court justice.”

The local chapter director, Marni Huebner-Tiborsky, agreed that the message is an important one for Republican leaders to remember. “This billboard couldn’t be any more timely, and is definitely needed to remind our political leaders and the public that political campaigns should stick to a secular platform, where real change can happen,” she says.

Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump met with religious leaders last week and unveiled his evangelical advisory committee with former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Trump does not have an extensive track record with religion other than to attack others for their beliefs. Though this was enough for evangelical James Dobson to call Trump a “baby Christian.”

 

Democrats In House Finally Grow Some Cajones

If the Institution refuses to do the peoples work, then it is time to bring the Institution to its knees. Democrats should have been doing this all along. By any means necessary…

Democrats Stage Sit-In On House Floor Over Gun Bills

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis led the charge. “We will be silent no more.”

Democrats literally sat down on the floor of the House chamber on Wednesday — and forced the House into a temporary recess — as part of an effort to compel Republican leadership to vote on gun control legislation.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon who led sit-ins all through the 1960s, spearheaded the effort with a fiery, sermon-like denunciation of Congress for its failure to act in the wake of mass shootings.

“For months, even for years, through seven sessions of Congress, I wondered, what would bring this body to take action?” Lewis said while Democrats slowly surrounded him at the microphone. “We have lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people to gun violence. Tiny little children. Babies. Students. And teachers. Mother and fathers. Sisters and brothers. Daughters and sons. Friends and neighbors. And what has this body done? Mr. Speaker, not one thing.”

After about 10 minutes of escalating questions — and shouting, “Where is our soul? Where is our courage?” — Lewis said it was time for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to bring up some of the pending gun control bills. In the meantime, he said, he’d just take a seat. Moments later, he sat down on the floor. And so did all the other Democrats with him.

“Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary. Sometimes you have to make a way out of no way. We’ve been quiet for too long,” Lewis said. “Now is the time to get in the way. We will be silent no more. The time for silence is over.”

As another Democrat began to speak, the Republican lawmaker sitting in the chair gaveled the House into a temporary recess until noon. The House cut off the C-SPAN cameras that normally broadcast the floor. Later, when lawmakers reconvened, Democratic members still refused to budge, forming a circle in the well of the floor while chanting. Republicans were forced to gavel into recess once more.

It’s not clear what GOP leaders plan to do now.

“The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed subject to the call of the chair,” said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong.

In the absence of cameras, Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) broadcast clips on Twitter of members speaking. C-SPAN then broadcast Periscope and Facebook Live streams of the action.

Democratic senators also showed up to stand or sit with their colleagues. Among them were: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Chris Coons (Del.), Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Al Franken (Minn.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii). Presidential candidate and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)joined late in the afternoon.

Lewis’ effort was a dramatic attempt to force the hand of Republicans before the chamber adjourns later this week for a weeklong recess. But it’s not the only disruption House Democrats are planning. According to multiple aides and lawmakers, Democrats will try to essentially hijack the House floor both Wednesday and Thursday in an effort to get gun control measures a hearing.

The “No Bill, No Break” campaign centers on clever and repeated use of procedural rules. Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) has already tried and failed, twice, to bring up legislation to deny people on the no-fly list the right to purchase a firearm.

But the extent of the party’s plans has been kept largely under wraps out of concern that Republicans would move to undermine the strategy. Several aides have described it as a “disruption” campaign. One Democratic lawmaker said the party was “devising a variety of parliamentary tactics to pressure the GOP in D.C. this week, then in individual districts next week during recess.”

“Watch the floor carefully this week,” the lawmaker added.

The old Lion finally roars.

 

Democracy Spring Protest

Apparently utterly ignored by Cable News, the Democracy Spring Protest went on today with 400 arrests of the protesters. One of my young ones was at this, and I haven’t gotten a call for bail – so I assume they didn’t get busted…

 

The Almighty Dollar…

With the full faith of ISIS!

The Official Currency of ISIS’s Caliphate: the U.S. Dollar

ISIS may threaten violence against the United States and aim to rid the Islamic world of U.S. influence and U.S.-backed regimes, but if you want to do business in the group’s ersatz caliphate, you’d better have money backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government:

Within the last two weeks, the extremist group started accepting only dollars for “tax” payments, water and electric bills, according to the Raqqa activist, who asked to be identified by his nom de guerre Abu Ahmad for his safety. “Everything is paid in dollars,” he said.

Plenty of countries around the world use the dollar either exclusively or accept it in addition to a local currency. Given the other fruits of Western capitalism, from Toyota trucks to Twitter, that ISIS has put to its own uses, perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising that the group relies on the greenback.

Still, it’s a change of heart. In late 2014, ISIS announced plans to mint its own gold, silver, and copper Islamic dinar coins with a design overseen by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself, as a way of moving away from the “tyrant’s financial system.” Turkish police arrested six suspected ISIS members for minting ISIS coins in the city of Gaziantep in October 2015.

The currency plan seems to have never gotten off the ground. The AP reports that the new “dollars only” rule come along with another pay cut for ISIS fighters and the elimination of benefits and perks, from bonuses to “free energy drinks and Snickers bars.” The group’s finances have reportedly been battered by its loss of territory, airstrikes against its cash stores and oil fields, as well as the Iraqi government’s decision to stop paying civil servants in areas controlled by the extremists, reducing the money ISIS can collect in taxes. Plummeting global prices have also reduced ISIS’s income from its black market oil.

 

The KKK, Including Cops in St Louis get Exposed!

Whoops!

Anonymous Operation #HoodsOff IDs St. Louis Klan Members — Including Cops

Twitter, Facebook and Google + accounts are being deleted right and left today, as Anonymous Operation #HoodsOff continues in response to a letter from the Klan threatening Ferguson protesters. Guess they don’t understand that everything’s already been screen-grabbed! (That’s Imperial Wizard Frank Ancona in the video.)

They also hacked into the national Klan’s twitter account and used it to out several St. Louis cops as Klan members so far. They’re asking the public to help them identify the rest:

For the Full Exposure – Go Here

Several of these guys are local cops –

Taking them …DOWN!

 

The Black Church Joins Occupy

No surprise here. The Civil Rights Movement was about Justice, including economic justice.

African American pastors express support for Occupy movement

As the country observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant was outside the District headquarters of the Federal Reserve, protesting.

Instead of lingering at an MLK memorial prayer breakfast with the Rev. Al Sharpton and other icons of the civil rights movement, the Rev. Delman Coates also made his way to the protest, which included churchgoers, students and people from the Occupy Wall Streetmovement.

And rather than reminiscing about old speeches and discussing King’s legacy, the Rev. Graylan S. Hagler used his airtime on WPFW, a public radio station, to note the similarities between the Occupy movement and those who camped in “Resurrection City,” in the shadows of the Washington Monument, after King was slain.

A growing number of African American pastors in the Washington area are embracing the Occupy movement. In December, leaders of Occupy D.C. left their encampments at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza to worship at Empowerment Temple, Bryant’s church in Baltimore. Hagler has held services on Freedom Plaza. Others donate food and clothing to protesters. And Bryant, who ministers to many in the Maryland suburbs, co-founded Occupy the Dream with former NAACP leader Benjamin Chavis Muhammad.

The pastors’ pleas for economic justice sound a lot like King’s.

“This is the continuation of the [civil rights] movement. It was the economic movement that King was killed for,” said Hagler, pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Northeast Washington.

Coates, pastor of Mount Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, echoed Hagler’s sentiments.

“When Dr. King was killed, he was . . .fighting for the rights of sanitation workers,” he said. “It is critically important that we relate our faith to issues of economic justice and systemic inequality.”

Some critics say the focus of the Occupy movement, which by design does not have leaders, is unclear. But Bryant, who observed the movement from a distance before deciding he wanted to be part of it, was adamant that Occupy the Dream has a defined agenda.

“Number one, we are asking for more Pell grants so that our young people might be able to compete and go to colleges and universities,’’ he said. “Number two, we are asking for an immediate freezing on foreclosures.” The group is also seeking billions of dollars “from Wall Street for economic development and for job training.”

Beginning in February, Bryant plans to launch a campaign to urge people to pull their money out of their banks and to move it to a minority-owned financial institution.

Bryant, 40, a former national youth director for the NAACP, said his involvement in Occupy the Dream feels like a “coming home” to his civil rights roots.

“I think the Occupy Wall Street movement has held the legacy of Dr. King and has brought the church back into accountability,” Bryant said. “Dr. King would be here today. He wouldn’t be at a breakfast; he wouldn’t be at a mall. He would be here with us.”

But some pastors hesitate to throw their support behind Occupy.

The Rev. William Bennett, pastor of Good Success Christian Church and Ministries in Northeast and a founding member of the Washington Interfath Network, hasn’t joined. But, he said, “I understand what they are fighting for.”

“We have not had an economic time like this since the Great Depression, and it does call for some actions,” Bennett said. “But what I have observed . . . is that there are not clear goals and objectives. The Occupy movement does seem to be organized with a goal to create chaos. The civil rights movement was organized with a clear list of demands.”

The Rev. Joe Watkins, pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, said churches should stick to their primary mission.

“The role of the church is to lead people to Christ and to tell them the good news and to live the good news,” Watkins said. “The young people part of the Occupy movement are just as precious as anybody. But the primary focus of the church is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.” (more)

 

Second Iraq Vet Seriously Injured By Oakland Police

There has always been a disconnect between the Oakland Police and the rest of the city. In a multicultural, progressive city, the police department remains as the oddity. So the violence in Oakland is a natural outgrowth of the schism between the police and the community.

Occupy Oakland: second Iraq war veteran injured after police clashes

A second Iraq war veteran has suffered serious injuries after clashes between police and Occupy movement protesters in Oakland.

Kayvan Sabehgi, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in intensive care with a lacerated spleen. He says he was beaten by police close to the Occupy Oakland camp, but despite suffering agonising pain, did not reach hospital until 18 hours later.

Sabehgi, 32, is the second Iraq war veteran to be hospitalised following involvement in Oakland protests. Another protester, Scott Olsen, suffered a fractured skull on 25 October.

On Wednesday night, police used teargas and non-lethal projectiles to drive back protesters following an attempt by the Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland.

Sabehgi told the Guardian from hospital he was walking alone along 14th Street in central Oakland – away from the main area of clashes – when he was injured.

“There was a group of police in front of me,” he told the Guardian from his hospital bed. “They told me to move, but I was like: ‘Move to where?’ There was nowhere to move.

“Then they lined up in front of me. I was talking to one of them, saying ‘Why are you doing this?’ when one moved forward and hit me in my arm and legs and back with his baton. Then three or four cops tackled me and arrested me.”

Sabeghi, who left the army in 2007 and now part-owns a small bar-restaurant in El Cerrito, about 10 miles north of Oakland, said he was handcuffed and placed in a police van for three hours before being taken to jail. By the time he got there he was in “unbelievable pain”.

He said: “My stomach was really hurting, and it got worse to the point where I couldn’t stand up.

“I was on my hands and knees and crawled over the cell door to call for help.”

A nurse was called and recommended Sabehgi take a suppository, but he said he “didn’t want to take it”.

He was allowed to “crawl” to another cell to use the toilet, but said it was clogged.

“I was vomiting and had diarrhoea,” Sabehgi said. “I just lay there in pain for hours.”

Sabehgi’s bail was posted in the mid-afternoon, but he said he was unable to leave his cell because of the pain. The cell door was closed, and he remained on the floor until 6pm, when an ambulance was called.

He was taken to Highland hospital – the same hospital where Olsen was originally taken after being hit in the head by a projectile apparently fired by police.

Sabehgi was due to undergo surgery on Friday afternoon to repair his spleen, which would involve using a clot or patch to prevent internal bleeding.

The MSM BTW is reporting 10,000 demonstrators. This is raw video footage from a helicopter of the march to the port…

10k? Really? Looks more like 100,000 to me.

 

Unemployed “Occupy” Mitch McConnell’s Senate Office

They need to Occupy “C” Street where these Rethug scumbags live…Give them no lace to hide.

Jobless Protesters Occupy Mitch McConnell’s Office As Congress Dithers On Jobs

Protesters Sit in Waiting Room

Roughly 30 jobless protesters from D.C. neighborhoods occupied Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office in the Russell Senate Office Building Thursday, saying they wanted to talk to him about jobs.

But McConnell was busy at the Capitol Building, where he led Republicans in blocking a $60 billion infrastructure bill. The protesters said they supported the measure.

McConnell’s legislative director offered to sit down with the group, but they declined, saying they’d rather wait for the senator himself. So they sat in his office, taking up every chair and lots of floor space while McConnell’s staff went about its business. A Capitol Police officer scoped the situation and said her heart went out to them for losing their jobs.

The protesters, most of whom said they lived in the poorest part of Southeast D.C., had no affiliation with the Occupy Wall Street movement. They’d been organized by a community group called OurDC, which has been hectoring Congress about jobs since it launched with SEIU seed money earlier this year. The protesters remained in the office as of Thursday afternoon as of 3 p.m. and said they wouldn’t leave before meeting the senator.

“Hopefully we can all get together with the senator today before time is up,” said Ted Black, a 58-year-old resident of Southeast D.C. Black said he is a Vietnam-era veteran and that he lost his job as a radiologist tech three months ago. He supports President Obama’s jobs package, he said, including the blocked infrastructure bill.

“I’m here supporting the cause for veterans and also for teachers and children and schools and residents who are unemployed or underemployed or homeless,” Black said.

McConnell’s office declined to comment on the protesters.

 

 

Occupy Baltimore Gets Support of Police and Firefighters Unions

One of the things being challenged by Occupy Baltimore is the failure of the Education System…

The Occupy Movement evening meetings appear to be the only place democracy is actually working in America anymore. There certainly isn’t any democracy left in the big marble buildings just 30 miles down Interstate 95 from Baltimore.

 

Egyptians March in Support of Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy movement has truly gone worldwide. Yesterday, pro-Democracy Egyptians in Cairo marched in solidarity with Americans in the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The brutal assault on the Occupy Oakland protest has gone worldwide.

As they vowed earlier this week to do, Egyptian pro-democracy protesters marched from Tahrir square to the U.S. Embassy today to march in support of Occupy Oakland—and against police brutality witnessed in Oakland on Tuesday night, and commonly experienced in Egypt.

Yet another battle is brewing in Louisville, where Police were ordered by Tennessee’s Republican Governor to arrest protesters for the second time this week. Once again, a Judge has thrown out the arrests as illegal.

The arrests and harassment of Occupy protesters is beginning to resemble that endured by Civil Rights protesters in the 60’s. It’s not nearly as violent (yet)… But if some of the local authorities don’t get a grip – it may be. As evidenced by the protests in Egypt, people worldwide are disgusted with the assault upon the First Amendment rights of the protesters in the supposed bastion of Democracy.

Occupy Nashville protesters arrested again

State troopers for the second straight night arrested anti-Wall Street protesters for defying a new nighttime curfew imposed by the Republican governor, in an effort to disband an encampment near the state Capitol in Nashville.

And also, for a second time, a Nashville night judge dismissed the arrest warrants.

The Tennessean newspaper reported early Saturday morning that Magistrate Tom Nelson told troopers delivering the protesters to jail that he could “find no authority anywhere for anyone to authorize a curfew anywhere on Legislative Plaza.”

Occupy Nashville protesters – including many of the 29 arrested in a pre-dawn raid on Friday – returned to the Legislative Plaza that evening and remained through the 10 p.m. curfew…

 

Occupy the Hood!

One of the criticisms levelled at th Occupy protests across the country by conservatives is the “lack of black participation”. Of course, it’s your typical right wing lie, in defense of Tea Party racism. The Lawn Jockey squad of black conservatives brad and butter is dysfunction in the urban black community. Pretending that no one in those communities is doing anything  but “living on the plantation”.

Occupy Boston’ Meets ‘Occupy the Hood’

In Roxbury, as Christians stood with Muslims and as white college students stood with a black woman who recently lost two nephews to gun violence, the voice of the Occupy Boston movement sounded more diverse than ever in the three weeks since protesters set up tents in the Financial District.

“We’re one family,’’ said True-See Allah of the Nation of Islam, addressing a crowd of more than 500 in Dudley Square during a rally for Occupy the Hood, a movement in Roxbury allied to Occupy Boston and other Occupy movements around the country.

“It’s not about black and white; it’s about who’s wrong and who’s right,’’ he continued. “The Nation of Islam stands with you 1,000 percent. This is a beautiful sight, and we want to take this moment, and we want to build from it and continue to grow and grow.’’

While the occupation in Dewey Square has been diverse, whites have been the majority. Yesterday’s Occupy the Hood Rally was nearly evenly divided between whites and non-whites, as students and Occupy Boston regulars joined local residents.

“The message of this movement, when you boil it down, is that we are the 99 percent,’’ said Brian Kwoba, 28, of Cambridge, one of the Occupy the Hood organizers. “There’s the top 1 percent, and the rest of us are denied a voice. But people of color are disproportionately denied a voice. Therefore, in order for us to unite all of the 99 percent, we need all of us to unite together, communities of color and other communities.’’

 

“I Don’t Think They Know What They Dealing With!” Dick Gregory

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Discovered “I Don’t Think They Know What They Dealing With… via dandelionsalad
Follow my videos on vodpod

 

 

NC Voters Evict Tea Party Bigot School Board

Another district who has found out that Tea Bagger elected officials are toxic, and that the “throw the bums out” elections in 2009 and 2010 resulted all to often in letting the scumbags in.

This could be a bell weather of the 2012 elections, with voters expressing severe “buyers regret” over Tea Party candidates  whose often radical hidden agendas weren’t exposed until after their election.

NC voters reject Pope-backed candidates in local school board battle over resegregation

Voters in Wake County, N.C. headed to the polls yesterday in high numbers to reject a slate of conservative Republican Board of Education candidates who opposed a longstanding diversity policy aimed at avoiding high-poverty and racially-isolated schools.

The big win for Democrats and desegregation represents a big loss for conservative benefactor Art Pope, who served as the architect of the 2009 school board election that saw an anti-diversity Republican majority win control of the officially nonpartisan body, and who along with his political network backed yesterday’s losing candidates. Pope is one of the most influential money men in North Carolina politics and is a close national ally of the billionaire Koch brothers through his role as a national director of the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, which backs school privatization and whose North Carolina chapter helped Republicans in the 2009 school board race.

With five of the board’s nine seats up for grabs yesterday, Democrats won four races outright and ousted board chair Ron Margiotta, a particularly divisive figure who also serves as a trustee for a private school run by Bob Luddy, a close associate of Pope and the Koch brothers and another major funder of this year’s anti-diversity-policy candidates. Margiotta lost to political newcomer Susan Evans by 52% to 48% in Southwest Wake’s District 8, considered the most strongly Republican of the board’s nine districts.

 

Son of Bo Diddley Arrested for Occupy Protest… In Bo Diddley Park

Wow…Getting busted in a park named after your Dad! Actually, unlike the New York Police, the Gainsville Police were pretty civilized about things…

Occupy is spreading all over the country.

Bo Diddley’s Son Arrested for Occupy Protest in Park Named After His Father

Not many people plan on getting arrested on purpose, but such was the case with Elias Anthony McDaniel, the 56-year-old son of rhythm and blues legend Bo Diddley who was cuffed for trespassing in a plaza named after his father, according to the Independent Florida Alligator.

McDaniel, who was taking part in the Occupy Gainesville movement, was accompanied by at least four other protesters when he was picked up by the police on Friday morning for being in the park after hours. The protesters claimed they had decided to get arrested in order to prove a point.

“This is my father’s park,” said McDaniel, who resides in Gainesville. “For them to arrest me in that plaza is ludicrous … I’m an American. This is freedom of assembly.”

The members of Occupy Gainesville had procured a permit which allowed them to gather in the park for Wednesday night and Thursday morning, but it did not extend past regular public hours on Thursday night. That’s when the protesters decided to occupy the space for as long as it took for them to be arrested.

Those who were arrested were handcuffed but released several minutes later with a notice to appear. “We’re just enforcing a law,” Cpl. Angelina Valuri said. “We have a job to do.”

Despite being released, McDaniel is still incensed. “There’s a symbolic stone in front of me that says freedom of speech,” he said, referring to a gray stone inscribed with the Bill of Rights. “I feel like a number of my rights have been violated.”