features archive

AC and others from A31 have been released this morning. They've been held for over 36 hours in horrible, unsafe, unsanitary conditions. Another portland person is still being held on felony charges. Please call the numbers to demand that bullshit felony charges get dropped. This person is a videographer and she was targeted. Call again today even if you called yesterday.

read more >>

Specifically regarding the cop presence ...On August 29 with half a million people jammed into major streets surrounding madison square garden the police were fairly laid back and all dressed in their *blues*. This resulted in people in the streets having actual conversations with them and inquiring after their contracts, etc. I did see a handful of cops with riot helmets on that you could clearly see their face through, but that was just a hat paired with the policeman blue cloth outfit. Aside from my affinity for fashion, the reason I post this is to underscore the fact that police systematically escalate reactions ("violence") from protestors at Portland events by dressing up in their full body, no skin showing, storm trooper riot outfits. It was startling for me to talk to cops and have them respond like humans during a protest. We are so completely getting fucked by the robo-cop routine they pull here in portland. We bring what? 500? a 1,000? people to a protest here and you're lucky if the officer is wearing his badge number on top of his thick black padded chest. ' [ Read More ]

read more >>

After speaking on the phone with a member of Team Cascadia at their convergence space in New York City, I'm able to give a summary of arrests of Cascadians and related information. In total, 6 have been arrested/detained or are missing, and one has been released already.


Well-loved and much-listened-to pdx indy radio personality Arturo Commando was arrested Tuesday in NYC. Arturo had been calling in reports from the streets during the chaos in the Union Square environs [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ], and was apparently swept up during the mass arrests there or in Herald Square [ 1 | 2 ]. Arturo is one of at least a dozen indymedia activists who have been arrested in NYC, where police have been targeting alternative media, legal observers, and medics.

From the Free State of Cascadia, we send all our love and best wishes to our dear brother Commando, and look forward to seeing him again soon, healthy and safe and happy.

[ Archives of Arturo Commando's radio shows ]

Jennifer Whitney, a Portland-based activist, writer, and musician, has been detained during protests in New York City, in Union Square. She is a journalist for Narco News, Indymedia, an editor of the book We Are Everywhere, and a founding member of the Infernal Noise Brigade. Narco News reports on her detention, along with 2 other of their reporters and the rest of the INB. They give details and discuss the unconstitutional and illegal nature of the police action, and demand their release.

read more >>

Sparkle Girl Press Release: inb arrested by repressive state-apparatus

It has come to Sparkle Girl's attention that the Infernal Noise Brigade has been arrested during a performance at the Republican National Convention. We are at a loss to understand why the Repressive Apparatus Of State Terror (hereafter referred to as RAOST) finds the prospect of human beings playing beautiful music-- in public, for free, so terrifying.

[ update and more details ] [ Infernal Noise Brigade ]

read more >>

8-31 Lo-Down on the RNC Ho-Down Breaking News from NYC, Aug. 31, archive
From PDX IMC newswire:

[ Camera Photos from 6pm PDT 18:20 Aug-31 | photo update from nyc 17:09 Aug-31 | Marco sends solidarity song from Milwaukee 19:37 Aug-31 | The Daily Poetry Movement ]

GDC Keeping track of Portlanders 21:26 Aug-31
Protester INSIDE Convention site heckles speech relayed by Philly girl 20:11 Aug-31
QuestionFundraising for NYC bail? 17:08 Aug-31
Infernal Noise Brigade arrested in NYC 16:59 Aug-31 |
breaking news nyc hearld sq pics 16:14 Aug-31 |
43rd/bway: no indication of "huge situation" 16:32 Aug-31 |
Revolutionary Reporting Live from the RNC 15:25 Aug-31 |
Guide to events being covered on Breaking News wire |
Holly from Michigan IMC, reporting from Ground Zero 13:41 Aug-31 |
Interview with a DNC to RNC marcher 12:36 Aug-31 |
Reflections on protests in NYC so far 11:27 Aug-31 |
some quick notes from this morning's events in NYC 11:23 Aug-31 |
March in Harlem: NO to DNC and RNC 10:31 Aug-31 |
breaking report from Immigrant Detention March in NYC 10:25 Aug-31 |
Breaking news from NYC, Aug. 31, as of 12:40pm EDT 10:17 Aug-31 |
August 30 Recap 01:10 Aug-31 ]

From the NYC IMC newswire

[ Department of Corrections: Bush & Cheney 2004 RNC Theme song D.O.C. A31 9:49PM |
NYC indymedia.org served with subpoena A Noise Sound Team A31 7:14PM |
A Noise Daily Roundup from the RNC - 8 30 A Noise Sound Team A31 7:04PM |
Arrests at Queer Fist Kiss-In on Times Square Vinny Lombardo A31 9:45AM |
Interviews from Still We Rise March Vinny Lombardo A31 9:39AM |
March For Our Lives Report Vinny Lombardo A31 9:02AM |
Robert Khuzami's Patriot Act DT A31 4:00AM |
Houston Indymedia News [on RNC] A31 3:21AM |
song from women's march chickpea A31 12:42AM |
Voices of the United for Peace and Justice Rally Aubrey Semple A31 12:40AM ]

read more >>

The August 29 United for Peace and Justice rally has been gathering press for months, due to UFPJ's altercation with the City of New York over the city's refusal to issue a permit for a post-protest rally in Central Park. In the end, both the City and the state court rejected UFPJ's request to use the park. However, several thousand people convened in the park regardless, in a peaceful. festive gathering which went mostly unmolested. Meanwhile, police arrested over 150 people - many of them bystanders - in Times Square and on Broadway,as protesters attempted to converge outside the venues where Republican delegates had gone to watch Broadway shows. Times is no Tiananmen but they are part of the same movement against oppressive forces everywhere. The U.S. government did little more than learn from the Peoples Republic of China about how to handle this uprising in NYC a little more gently and with better control of the media. So, since the leaders of America and China consort amongst themselves, why shouldn't the common people, who live in those occupied lands, act in solidarity?

From NYC Indymedia: [ August 29, 2004: Wrap Up | Bronx Cheer: Well Into Evening, GOP Delegates Unwelcomed by New Yorkers | Volunteering at the RNC; Part #2 | The Not Quite "Battle" of Central Par | 'We're Disgusted With This Man': A Half-Million Marchers Say No to the RNC | Radical People of Color Take their Messages to the Streets | Interviews from UFPJ March, Part 1 ]

[ Photo summary of A29 ]

read more >>

Informaci?n e imagenes continuamente actualizadas, en castellano, en este enlace: http://www.lahaine.org/b2/articulo.php...

Awkward google translation: At the moment traves of THIS WEB the manifestation against the National Convention of the Republican Party can be seen that this being developed in New York (between 7? Reconciled and street 22, concretely). By this time no longer you go away the manifestation by this camara. The head of the manifestation has arrived at Square Union, end of the route, without moment incident nor arrests have taken place - of. At brief moments it is predicted that the concentration in Power station begins Park, is possible that something traves of webcam of THIS PAGINA is seen (Click on ?Central Park Area ?) People mainly direct towards Power station Park. The general atmosphere is quite calm in spite of small isolated incidents with the policia and the provocations of a handful of against-demonstrators. Two people have been stopped in 6? with 34 to photograph to policias of countryman. [ Read More ]

read more >>

Apparently a patriarchal, hierarchical, authoritarian society, such as ours, has today, and throughout history, always considered the anarchists in society to be the gravest threat of them all. This can be seen as the Republican convention comes to New York, and the media once again gets hysterical over the threat posed by that greatest of all bogeymen, as the anarchists once again bring their special brand of ruinously destructive chaos to the streets of what must be a terrified New York City. It is worthwhile to review how anarchists have always been regarded as the most dangerous of heretics, even in times long past, and so not much has ever changed and truly there is nothing new under the sun.

The operation to defend the homeland is about to swing into action as some of the most dangerous anarchists are heading for the streets of New York and once the fearful apocalyptic end of the world as New Yorkers have known it once again threatens the city.

[ other articles by Brent Herbert ]

read more >>

I was one, armed with woman-made sign, because my heart is with protesters in NYC. The Bushites had a bash to honor 59 Oregonians headed for NYC to attend the Republican National Convention, and I was there in protest. I arrived at the Lincoln Center, 10250 SW Greenburg Road in Tigard, just before 10 a.m, after multiple bus transfers. My "woman-made" sign displayed my cause: "IRAQ = VIETNAM, IN SOLIDARITY WITH RNC PROTESTERS, DROP BUSH/CHENEY." (The previous evening I had dropped 2 letters in "protesters," when I was fixing a balled-up internet problem, but I repaired it mightily with peeled-off cardboard paper, sized to word, and brown sticky tape.) I held the sign and my head high as I walked up to the entrance.

A security guard, standing in front, said I couldn't go in. I replied I had no intention of doing so. Soon 2 more guards came out and said I had to leave the area and go up to Greenburg Road. Well, it has public visibility there, as I stood on the sidewalk waving to hundreds of passerbys in cars. Bush/Cheney signs were flashed at me, along with Women for Bush, Vets for Bush, a middle finger, yelling "Communist China," "insane," "fight for peace," and "How's Kerry's cancer?" To some I chanted "Out of Iraq."

read more >>

Last night the police broke bones. They surrounded and arrested hundreds in Critical Mass, the giant mass bicycle ride, that took off from Union Square with two to three thousand bicycles. I wish I'd seen them leave?I was at a book party and teach-in for David Solnit's book Globalize Resistance, in which I have a piece on feminism and globalization. The book is an anthology of writings about the movement, and many of us who wrote for it were there to speak about our pieces.

The book party took place in a community garden in the Lower East Side that was an idyllic little spot among the brownstones and refurbished tenements It was full of winding paths and raised beds of small trees and flowers blooming in purples and lavenders and pale yellow. We all crowded onto a small lawn and spoke as loudly as we could after the police turned off the sound system. There was a good crowd there in spite of half a dozen competing events, and I would have liked to stay but I had to dash off to a Pagan Cluster meeting. [ Read More ] [ Starhawk.org ]

read more >>