http://www.mediamouse.org/rnc/2008/08/18/rnc-plans-draw-on-lessons-of-p/

Hey, we get puppets! You can make them at the convergence center!

Does this have the sound of "We know better then everyone" while at the same time sounding FUBAR? Dick I wonder if that is the impression you got while at the meeting or am I reading something that isn't there into it?

What are the chances that the cameras will stay online for the public after the convention is over? I'd say zero.

Unconventional Denver Final Organizing Update
Friday, August 22 2008 @ 03:14 AM CDT
Contributed by: Anonymous

Well, it’s almost here. Here in Denver, the home of the Democratic National Convention this time around, Democrats are scurrying around writing the final pages of the spectacle; police are fitting their riot gear; local Denverites are rolling their eyes; and Unconventional Denver is putting the final touches on a week worth of festive and liberating actions; now all we need is you. Here are a couple updates to bring you to speed on what’s happening in Denver, what to expect, and how to plug in.


Convergence Center

We have a convergence center!! Located at 4301 Brighton Blvd in Denver, the convergence center is the perfect place for you and your crew to learn the down and dirty on the Mile High City and the coming festivities. It will also be host to nightly spokes councils, perhaps some music, and lots of awesome people. The convergence center is open to all the groups and people who are organizing outside the DNC, and will have information on all of the events happening during the week.

Please visit www.dncdisruption08.org to see the guidelines, policies, and other center info in the Welcome To The Convergence Space letter.

Spokes Councils

Unconventional Denver is organizing nightly spokes councils for coordinating direct action to disrupt the DNC, and a general direct action orientation will be held on Saturday 23rd at 6pm. All spokes councils will be held in the convergence center and focus on the next day’s action. They are scheduled around the major actions, rallies, and concerts during the week so there is no one set time for the spokes councils. The schedule for each day is:

Saturday 23rd: General DA Orientation, 6pm; Sunday Action Spokes: 7 pm

Sunday 24th: Monday Action Spokes: 7:30 pm

Monday 25th: Tuesday Action Spokes: 2pm-3:30pm

Tuesday 26th: Wednesday Action Spokes: 8pm

Wednesday 27th: Thursday Action Spokes: 9pm

Days of Action!

The DNC week is going to be packed full of fun and action. Unconventional Denver is organizing

Sunday- Reclaim the Streets!!

Kick off a week of resistance to the corrupt two-party system and capitalism with a rowdy street party that will reclaim public space from the police state occupation of Denver!

Monday- No Business As Usual!!

come one come all: demand No Business As Usual when the Democrats get together for their capitalist fundraising orgy. While they’re giving windbag speeches and doing really bad karaoke and charging a thousand dollars a plate to fill their election coffers - anarchists, agitators, and other assorted clowns will be on-hand to disrupt the flow of capital and corporate cronyism that funds this sham democracy.


Tuesday- We Vote No!! Change From Below, Not From Above!!

Join Unconventional Denver on Tuesday, August 26th as we take our message of liberation into the streets and to the Pepsi Center. Being that the convention is just a puppet show we seek to actively disrupt the convention’s media coverage through festive celebration of our success of surviving outside an oppressive system and the new world we are building.

Wednesday- No War! No Warming!!

Join us for a day of actions and alternatives in the streets of Denver.
Unconventional Denver is calling for both decentralized and coordinated direct actions
shutting down the sources of global warming and the corporations profiting from
environmental destruction and funding the Democratic party.

Thursday- Immigrant Rights! No More Borders!!

Join the Immigrant Rights March from Rude Park to Lincoln Park- demand an end to borders, racism, and capitalism! The rally begins at Rude Park at 9am and kicks off at 10am. There is talk of organizing an anti-authoritarian/anti-capitalist bloc within the march, though it is waiting approval from the organizers of the march.

Friday- D-Town 2 the Twins!!

Join Unconventional Denver as we wrap up our week here in Denver and travel up to the RNC in the Twin Cities to take part in the actions against the Republicans the following week. We will leave Friday morning from the convergence center at 10am and travel to Lawrence, KS for a night of ol’ fashioned camping revelry. At 9am the following morning, we will depart our friends in Lawrence and descend upon the Twin Cities recharged and energized for the week of resistance in the North.

Trainings

There will be many trainings happening through-out the week. Some will be in the convergence center, but many will be at Civic Center Park and City of Cueranvaca Park (don’t worry, it’s in downtown Denver). Trainings will range from non-violent direct action and human blockade trainings, to legal observer and know your rights trainings. Check out www.tentstate.org and www.recreate68.org or visit the convergence center for a list of the being offered in the parks during the week.

D-Town 2 the Twins!! An Unconventional Caravan!!

Unconventional Denver is organizing a caravan from Denver to the Twin Cities (look under Friday above for more details) and needs your participation! If you are someone who is planning on going from Denver to St. Paul, please send an email to dtown2thetwins@gmail.com. We are running tight on seats for people traveling, so if you are interested in making the trip and have car space for even one person and you are willing, please get in touch with us.

Sexual Assault
Unconventional Denver has a sexual assault policy in place to appropriately address issues of sexual assault in our movement and communities. Sexual Assault WILL NOT be tolerated in any DNC protests or radical Denver space. Unconventional Denver has an Accountability/Mediation Team (AMT) in place to support survivors and ensure that their needs are met. The AMT is a resource for survivors in making spaces as safe as possible and supporting them in their emotional/physical/wholeness needs. If you are a survivor (or an empowered representative) and have concerns or needs that need to be met, please contact the AMT at (970) 623-5629. Below is a brief summary of Unconventional Denver’s Sexual Assault Policy; please visit www.dncdisruption08.org to view the policy in it’s entirety (no really, check it out! There is a lot of information not in the policy below that you should know!) Survivors of intimate violence (a.k.a. domestic violence) who need support in anyway should also contact the AMT.

Our Response to Sexual Assault

Sexual Assault will not be tolerated at the DNC protests or other related events. Unconventional Denver sees two different situations arising at the DNC: 1) An assault happens during the protests/related event. 2) A survivor comes to Denver and their perpetrator is present. We have two different plans and guidelines to be followed for each situation. We will have an Accountability/Mediation Team (AMT, whose contacts are publicly available) that survivors/empowered representatives can approach to assist and support the survivor in their needs and requests.

1) An assault happens during the protests/related event. Due to the short term nature of all the DNC events and the immediacy of the situation, the requests of the survivor are foremost important. We will also take into account the risk the perpetrator poses to the rest of the community present and whether they constitute a threat that needs to be expelled. Only secondary (and on the request of the survivor) will we confront the perpetrator and begin an accountability process that can then be carried on in the perpetrator’s home community.

2) A survivor comes to Denver and their perpetrator who has not been through an accountability process is present/accountability process states that they are not welcome in spaces where the survivor is. We will respect and enforce the needs and requests of the survivor. We will begin the accountability process that the perpetrator will take part in back in their home community.

We encourage survivors to seek out whatever support they need from both the AMT and their community yet we realize how difficult this can be. We hope that the formation of this policy the AMT and publicly presenting it will help create a safe enough space where survivors can come to us if they need our support and assistance in addressing their situation.

Unconventional Denver Final Organizing Update

I imagine the RNC update will be quite similar. Some of this stuff is pretty humorous. what with all the "convergence centers", "empowered representatives", "spokes councils", "wholeness needs" and "accountability process".....blech...

It sounds like rape victims are called "survivors". How interesting.

Also did this remind anyone else of 1984 when they read it? Double plus ungood.

It helps the person to think of themself as a "survivor" rather than a "victim". I am a survivor of a violent crime. If I called myself a victim instead, it would alter the way I think of myself. I am stronger and more able to conduct myself in group outings because I "survived".

That makes sense. Thanks for a very good explanation. I imagine most folks like myself who have never been in that position wouldn't understand the difference.

Direct from Denver and the DNC: Sunday, Recreate zzzzz 68

Larrey Anderson

The Democratic National Convention started Sunday not with a bang, but a whimper. The radical left-wing group Recreate 68 "commandeered" the steps of the Colorado State Capitol to protest the war in Iraq. (They had a permit.) The speakers spent the entire morning decrying "fascist America" and pronouncing the death of the freedom to assemble and freedom of speech. They used a very large outdoor sound amplification system. The crowd was small (less than 200 people.) The media was omnipresent (as many reporters as demonstrators.) The hypocrisy was overwhelming.

The message was crystal clear. The unjust war in Iraq is merely a symptom of a much greater problem. America is a racist, sexist, fascist, war-mongering regime bent on destroying all forms of dissent. One speaker went as far as to compare hurricane Katrina with the holocaust.

The demonstrators were not only anti-American, some were pro-terrorist. This large banner was prominently displayed during the rally:



You read it correctly. These protesters were showing their "solidarity" with a man who has been directly responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqis.

The speakers included Cindy Sheehan (lately famous for runnign against Nancy Pelosi because she's too conservative); Ron Kovic (a wounded Viet Nam war vet, and perennial protester, who had the audacity to announce through a thousand watt public address system that he could not speak his mind in America); and the indefatigable ignoramus Ward Churchill. Professor Churchill, you might recall, claimed that the people slaughtered on 9/11 had "provoked" the attacks.

The "emcee" of the event kept trying to provoke the police who were providing security for the protest. He claimed, just as the police in Chicago had been responsible for the riots at the Democratic Convention in 1968, that the police in Denver would be responsible for any violence that occurred during this demonstration in Denver.

Here are the "vicious thugs" and "storm-troopers" he was describing:



That's right. This is the security detail that tagged along behind the protest march of Recreate 68 yesterday in Denver.

Conservatives are not entirely absent from Denver. Newt Gingrich's "Citizens United" premiered its new documentary film, Hype, The Obama Effect. The movie is cutting edge and includes some of the information on the Obama/Ayers connection (via the Chicago Annenberg Challenge) that has been reported here at American Thinker by Thomas Lifson.

The Minutemen Civil Defense Corps (the group of volunteers that patrol U.S. borders) is holding a rally today at Congress Park in downtown Denver. Alan Keyes, Rep. Tom Tancredo, and the Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr are the featured guests.

The far-left Recreate 68 was allowed to hold its rally on the steps of the Capitol. The right-wing Minutemen have been sloughed off to a tiny park several blocks away from the "action."

When is someone going to tell the "right-wing corporate pigs" who run America (according to Recreate 68) to start giving conservatives a better venue?

Larrey Anderson is reporting this week from the streets of Denver on the DNC for American Thinker. Photos by Larrey Anderson and Brett Olson.

Big protest ties up downtown Denver
Posted at 4:16 PM on August 24, 2008 by Mike Mulcahy (0 Comments)

Several hundred demonstrators marched through downtown Denver Sunday. Many were protesting thre war in Iraq and any potential war the U.S. might fight against Iran. Update: The Denver Post is now reporting more than a thousand took part in the protest and that there were no arrests.

Police had closed off some streets, and traffic was congested. There were dozens of police officers watching the parade. Some were on bikes. Others were wearing riot gear.

"The odd part is that it's our Democrats, our left, who spend $50 million to secure themselves from independent thought," said Todd German, a protester from New Orleans.

Access to the Pepsi Center was blocked for a time. Because the Democratic National Convention doesn't start until Monday, that was mostly an inconvenience for journalists and others trying to get in to set things up ahead of time.

Despite the number of protestors and police the march seemed generally orderly. I was able to cut through the march to cross the street with no problem.

I bumped into St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman this morning, who said he was planning to meet with Denver law enforcement officials today to talk about their experience with the protest. His city may have to deal with a larger march next week as the Republican National Convention comes to town.

As the protest broke up Seattle resident Doug Skove let the air out of his inflatable earth. Curtis Gilbert snapped this photo but neglected to ask whether Skove planned to pack it up and take it to St. Paul. Or whether you can check an inflatable globe with your regular luggage.