Tag: Republican National Convention

John Lennon . . .

I’m sick and tired of hearing things from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites. All I want is the truth.  Just gimme some truth.

Politicians don’t tell us the truth, the conventions are meaningless, the political system is rigged, the government, the economy, and the media are controlled by uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites.  They have immense power and material wealth, they all have a very high opinion of themselves, but one artist with a conscience and the truth is worth more to humanity than every politician, banker, and businessman who ever lived.

John Lennon had a conscience, he told the truth, about himself, about society, about politics, about what matters and what doesn’t.

Why in the world are we here?

Surely not to live in pain and fear.

We have to shine on, no matter what. We have to shine on because the night has come and the land is dark.  We have to stand by each other, we have to pick each other up when we fall.  That’s not socialism, it’s not Marxism, it’s not entitlement fever, it’s why we’re here.  Making money isn’t what life’s about, seeking power over others isn’t what life’s about, helping each other is what life’s about.    

It’s hard to say where it went wrong,

Decades before me and this song,

Through the banksters and the wars,

I just can’t take it anymore . . .

As the leaders of the People’s Republic of Plutocracy, Inc. prepare for the corporate coronations of Romney and Obama in Tampa and Charlotte, they’re fervently hoping Occupy Wall Street won’t spoil all the fun by sending dangerous American citizens into the streets to tell the truth all over the place.  In Beltway offices, Homeland Security meetings, and conference calls with the militarized police departments of the One-Percent, the same questions are being asked about Occupy Wall Street. Who are those people?  Why are they going to the national conventions with protest signs and devious plans to say whatever they want about the government, right out loud, in broad daylight where other citizens might hear them?  What the hell do they think this is, a democracy?  

I’ve got a feeling it’s not going to matter how many riot police are in the streets, pepper-spraying everyone in the twilight’s last gleaming, Americans are going to hear what Occupy Wall Street has to say in Tampa and Charlotte about the “government” and the “job creators” and this trickle down train wreck they call an economy.

Oh yeah . . .

Oh please believe me, I’d hate to miss the train.  Oh yeah.

The chorus of our new national anthem is inspiring, isn’t it?  Feel free to sing along Fox viewers, low information voters, brainwashed birthers and cable pundits, pulpit pounders of the Westboro Baptist Church and Obamabots of the Great Orange Asteroid . . .  

Every worker had a hard year,

Every banker had a good time,

Every general had a wet dream,

Every fat cat saw the sun shine.

Oh yeah.

As a witness to some of the events this past week in St Paul, I wanted to write about it.  As well as having friends who were arrested, in jail and looking at prison sentences, I took it more personal.

I’ve thought about the fact of how many have brought up how they’ve been arrested and/or fellow comrades and how that may take away from the movement and any issues going on in the world.  However, I think that bringing that up is so important because of the police repression that happened in Minnesota this past week, simply for organizing, protesting with a WIDE variety of tactics (whether that is deemed legal or not) and other things that “apparently” people arrested did.

The Welcoming Committee brought up the diversity of tactics for other groups of all kinds on the left to sign on to, as a lesson to the WTO Protests in 1999 in Seattle. Of course, not everyone is going to agree on what Anarchists do and what Liberal kids do … I certainly don’t agree that voting is the change of everything or signing petitions in mass numbers will do much. However, I can agree it may work better at a local level.

An article from May of 2008 (about Diversity of Tactics):

Simply put, “diversity of tactics” means that activists will respect each others’ methods of protesting, allowing each other time and space in which to conduct their protests. Many cited the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle as a successful protest from which lessons on mass mobilization should be drawn. Others spoke of their experience as anti-war activists during the Vietnam War.

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/…

A delegation from the national Veterans for Peace convention, taking place in nearby Bloomington, joined the core group of walkers for the last 2.7-mile segment of the trek, which began in Chicago in mid-July.

Members of Code Pink and the Sisters of St. Joseph greeted the walkers and hosted a celebration at St. Joseph Church to mark the end of the journey.

Witness Against War, a walk from Chicago to St. Paul to promote non-violence and an end to the war is Iraq, is in its final week.  

Dan  Pearson,  the one who dreamed it up, scouted and planned the route, and coordinates much of the logistics, calls it “a totally worthwhile endeavor.”  He and Kathy Kelly are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, the Chicago-based group that organized and sponsors the walk.  

The drive from Milwaukee, where I had last walked with them, to Pepin, WI, on the Mississippi River, to rejoin them, took five hours.  It had taken the walkers five weeks.

As they started Saturday’s trek from Pepin to Maiden Rock, along one of the most spectacularly scenic stretches of river in the country, they had covered 420 miles.   When they reach St. Paul this weekend, in time for the Republican national convention, they will have walked nearly 500 miles.

There are 10 walkers on Saturday, including Marie Kovecsi, who joined the group in Winona, MN to spend a week walking with them before returning to start another school year as a teacher of deaf and blind students, and me.  The rest are part of the core group who left Chicago in mid-July and have walked most or all of the way.   Most days they are joined by local activists who walk with them for a day or two, but there are none on Saturday in this sparsely-populated area.