Republican National Convention Convergence Center Raided

I just received this e-mail, and I am completely appalled by the level Big Business and the Religious Right will go to stifle Free Speech.


Kris


I am forwarding this email to everyone who needs to know this information. Starhawk went to St Paul to help organize peaceful protests during the RNC, and last night the closed theater they're using as a staging ground and training center was raided by police, claiming they are terrorists and have bombs.
Please forward this email to everyone you know and get the word out!

NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.


It's Friday night.
Our Pagan Cluster is sitting on the
bluff of the Mississippi having our first real meeting, when Lisa gets a

call. The cops are raiding the Convergence Center, where we're organizing
meetings and trainings for the protests against the Republican National

Convention. It's not a role play, the caller says. It's real.


Instantly, we jump up and hurry back the six or eight blocks to the old

theater we are using for meetings, trainings and social gatherings. I have
spent the last two days doing magical activism trainings,
teaching people how to stay calm and grounded in emergency situations and
when things get chaotic. Now it's time to put the training into practice.


Aaron, a tall, red-headed young man who could be one of my nephews strides
along beside me. "Are you grounded?" I ask him. He nods, and runs ahead.


Nobody can keep up with Lisa, who speeds ahead like an
arrow, walking, not running, but still covering the ground quickly.
Andy and I
trail behind. We¹re often street buddies, because we¹re both big, slow,
and supremely calm and stubborn, willing to wade into almost any situation and
become the immovable object.


We're stopped by a line of cops just before we reach the

building. They refuse to let us through, or to move their van which is

blocking Scarecrow's car. There's an investigation underway, they say, and
won't say more.


Brush, our dear friend, is inside, having gone to a jail solidarity meeting,
ironically enough.
So are two very young people who had

just joined our cluster that night. I try calling Brush's cell phone, but get no reply.



We wait. That's what you do when the cops have guns trained on kids inside

a building. You wait, and witness, and make phone calls, and try to think
of useful things to do.



We call lawyers. We call politicians. We try to call media.
We call
friends who might know politicians and media.


Through the kitchen door, we can see young kids sitting on
the floor, handcuffed.
We walk across the street, back, made more

phone calls. An ambulance is parked in front, and the paramedics head into
the building, leaving a gurney ready.
Susu, from her car around the
corner, reports that the cops have been grabbing pedestrians from the street,
forcing them down to the ground, handcuffing them.


Song, one of the local organizers, calls her City Council member.
She wants
to call the Mayor, Chris Coleman, who has promised that St. Paul will be as
welcoming to protesters as to delegates, but no one has his home number.


What I have forgotten to tell people at the training is how much of an
action is just this: tense, boring waiting, with a knot of anxiety in your

stomach and your feet starting to hurt. Song talks to a helpful neighbor,

who's come over to find out what's happening. He knows where the mayor
lives, says it's just a few blocks away, and draws us a map.


We decide to go and call on the Mayor, who could call off the cops.
About
five of us troop down there, through the soft night and a neighborhood of
comfortable homes and wide lawns on the bluffs above the Mississippi.
The
Mayor's house is a comfortable Dutch Colonial, and lights were on inside.


We decide that just a few of us will go to the door, so as not to look

intimidating. Song is a round, soft-bodied middle-aged woman with a sweet

face. Ellen is a tiny brunette with a gap-toothed smile, and Lisa,
formidable organizer though she is, looks slight and unthreatening.
The

rest of us hang back. Someone opens the door. Our friends have a
conversation with the mayors' wife, who is not pleased to
be visited by constituents late at night, and who tells us we should call

the office. The Mayor, she says, is asleep, and she will not wake him up.


We think a mayor who was doing his job would get up and go
see what's going on. Nonetheless, we head back to the convergence space.


A protestor has been released from the building. A small crowd has gathered
across the street, and Fox News has arrived.
They interview
Song, who does her first ever Fox media spot.
She tells them the
truth, that people were in there watching movies,a documentary about Meridel Le

Seuer. Meridel would be proud, and I'm glad she is with us in some form.



One by one, protestors trickle out. Now we get more pieces of the story.


The cops burst in, with no warning. They pulled drew their guns on
everyone‹including a five year old child who was there with his mother,
forced everyone down on the floor. It was terrifying.


They had a warrant, apparently, from the county, not the city, to search for

bomb making materials. They were searching everyone in the building, then
one by one releasing them as they found nothing.


They continue to find nothing, as we wait through long hours.
Meanwhile,

more and more media arrives. These cops are not as creative as the DC cops
during our first mobilization there against the International Monetary Fund

and the World Bank. Those cops confiscated the lunchtime soup, which
included onions and chili powder, claiming they were materials for home made
pepper spray.



We wait until the last person gets out. He's a twenty year old who the cops
have accused of stealing his own backpack‹but apparently they relented.



And now it's morning. I wake up to the news that cops have been raiding
houses where activists are staying, bursting in with the same bogus warrant
and arresting people, including a four year old child. They've arrested
people at the Food Not Bombs house, a group dedicated to feeding protestors

and the homeless. They've arrested others, presumably just
for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.


The Poor Peoples¹ Campaign, which had set up camp at Harriet Island, a park
in the middle of the Mississippi, has also been harassed, its participants
ordered to disperse and its organizers arrested.


Let me be perfectly clear here: all of us here are planning nonviolent
protests against an administration which is responsible for immense
violence, bombs that have destroyed whole countries, and hundreds of
thousands of deaths.


This is the America that eight years of the Bush administration has brought
us, a place where dissent is no longer tolerated, where pre-emptive strikes
have become the strategy of choice for those who hold power, where any group
can be accused of bombmaking or terrorism on no evidence whatsoever in
order to deter dissent.



Please stand with us. Because it could be your home they are raiding, next.



Call the Mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Tell them you are outraged by

these attacks on dissent. Urge them to let Poor People encamp and to let dissent be heard.


FLOOD THE MAYORS' OFFICES ASAP

St.
Paul Mayor Chris Coleman

651-266-8510

Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak
(612) 673-2100

(612) 673-3000 outside Minneapolis

Starhawk is a lifelong activist in peace and global justice movements, a leader in the feminist and earth-based
spirituality movements, author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing, Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, and her latest, The Earth Path.



Starhawk's website is www.starhawk. org, and more of her writings and information on her schedule and activities can be found there.

John McCain : No Choice for Women

On this day in 1920, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby ratified the 19th Amendment, finally giving American women the right to vote. After years of organizing, women achieved the right to cast their ballots in full participation in our democracy. On this momentous anniversary, it’s important to recognize the power of women voters, and to make clear the stakes in this year’s Presidential election. If John McCain is elected, he will restrict and roll back women’s rights, and work to prevent our achieving full equality in society.

John McCain Is No Choice for Women. John McCain has an alarming history of disrespecting women and their contributions to society. He’s violently opposed to womens’ reproductive freedom, has voted against women’s access to health care, and has repeatedly opposed women receiving equal pay for equal work. None of us can afford to vote for a person like John McCain, who shows such utter disrespect for women.

John McCain’s attitude towards women’s rights demonstrates that if elected, he will actively promote an anti-women agenda from the White House. Luckily, women have a great advocate in Barack Obama, whose history of support for women’s issues should reassure female voters that the Democratic Party will protect and expand women’s rights.

John McCain Opposes Fair Pay for Women

John McCain’s history of votes in the Senate demonstrates that he thinks sex discrimination in the workplace is just fine. He has repeatedly stated that there is no need to make sure that women are paid the same as their male colleagues for equal work. Barack Obama, on the other hand, was raised by a single, working mother, and a grandmother who worked on the World War II assembly lines, and later rose from the position of secretary to vice president of a bank. Barack Obama respects and wants to equally reward the efforts of hard-working women.

John McCain’s Record on Opposing Fair Pay for Women:

* John McCain opposes fair pay for women. He thinks it is fine for employers to pay women less than men for equal work. In 2008 he refused to vote for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which allows women to receive equal pay for equal qualifications to a man. John McCain said that instead of fair pay for equal work, women need more “education and training.” Source: Huffington Post.

*

In 1990, John McCain also voted against a bill that would have strengthened civil rights in the workplace and banned discrimination on the base of sex. Source: Senate.gov

Barack Obama’s Record on Supporting Pay Equality for Women:

* Barack Obama voted in favor of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and wants women to earn an equal wage for equal work. He also supports requiring employers to provide seven days of paid sick-leave per year. 40% of women currently have no paid sick days per year. Source: obama.senate.gov

* Barack Obama has a history of supporting fair pay for women. In the Illinois State Senate, he passed a law that helped 330,000 women prevent paycheck discrimination. Source: Real Clear Politics

* Obama’s website states that he “believes the government needs to take steps to better enforce the Equal Pay Act, fight job discrimination, and improve child care options and family medical leave to give women equal footing in the workplace.” Source: BarackObama.com

* Barack Obama wants to invest in women-owned businesses. He supports investing in women-owned businesses and reducing discrimination in business lending against female business owners. Source: BarackObama.com

John McCain : No Choice for Women -part 2

John McCain Makes Offensive and Derogatory Comments About Women
John McCain has a history of making offensive comments about women. He even thinks jokes about rape are funny, and spends time with other men who think the same way. On the other hand, Barack Obama praises the women in his life and credits them with enabling and empowering him to achieve what he is capable of.

John McCain’s History of Derogatory Comments About Women:

* John McCain told the following “joke” on the campaign trail in 1986: “Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’” Source: Tucson Citizen, via JedReport

* At a Republican Senate fundraiser in 1998, McCain told following “joke”: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.” Source: Salon.com

* One of McCain’s fundraisers, Clayton Williams, once told the following “joke” comparing rape to the weather: “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” Source: The Independent

* After returning from Vietnam, John McCain cheated on his wife, Carol, who had been horribly disfigured in an accident. He eventually divorced her and one month later married his second wife, Cindy, the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune. Source: The Daily Mail

* In 1992, when Cindy McCain teased her husband about his thinning hair, he replied, “At least I don’t pile on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” Source: Cliff Schechter, The Real McCain, PoliPoint Press 2008, via Raw Story

Barack Obama’s History of Immense Respect For Women:

* Barack Obama credits the women in his life with making his achievements possible. He states on his website, “My mother, Ann Dunham, was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and what is best in me, I owe to her. My grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, helped raise me, sacrificed again and again for me, and loves me as much as she loves anything in this world. And the mother of my daughters Sasha and Malia - my wife Michelle - is the rock of the Obama family and a woman who continues to make me a better person.” Source: BarackObama.com

* Barack was raised by a single mother who was a teenager when he was born. His mother worked hard to provide Barack with an education and opportunity to succeed. Source: Chicago Tribune

* Barack’s grandmother raised him during his high school years. His grandmother started as a secretary, and worked her way up to vice president of a bank, in an era when women were routinely denied promotions. Source: USA Today

* Barack married a strong working woman, Michelle. Michelle worked as a lawyer, and later a hospital administrator. Michelle says of her husband, “He is incredibly smart, and he is very able to deal with a strong woman, which is one of the reasons why he can be president—because he can deal with me.” Source: ABC News
*

Barack repeatedly praises his wife, Michelle, introducing her at speeches as “my rock.” Source: Newsweek
* Barack’s two school-aged daughters, Malia and Sasha, motivate him to work hard to give all children a brighter future. He wants all of our daughters to have full equality in society, so that “that they’ll be able to dream without limit, achieve without constraint, and be free to seek their own happiness.” Source: National Women’s Law Center, via obama.senate.gov

John McCain Is No Choice for Women.

John McCain has a history of fighting against women’s rights, whether it is their right to receive equal pay for equal work, access to health care, or the ability to make their own reproductive decisions. He will continue this anti-woman agenda in the White House. Women cannot afford another President like George W. Bush, who actively tries to hurt Women’s Equality and Women’s Causes.

Barack Obama has a history of strong support for women’s issues, from our right to choose to our right to reliable medical care. As President he will work to protect these rights and expand women’s equality, not only for his own daughters but for all women in America.

On this anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, we need to remember: women have a choice. This November, our choice is clear: women should vote for the candidate that supports their rights, their issues, and their freedoms. This candidate is Barack Obama.