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RNC: Post-sleep report-back

If you were able to follow along with my sporadic and unhinged twitter updates, or read my posts here on Feministing.com, you already know that the RNC security team delivered swift but massive blows to the infrastructure of dissent created to ensure political change in the next election. They targeted independent media, street medics, legal aids, and activists with mass arrests, illegal detentions, beatings, surveillance, harassment, and what can only be described as torture. 

One particularly brutal attack on the people came at the same moment as two CODEPINK protestors and one IVAW man interrupted McCain’s speech—one of two acts of dissent that actually made national news (the other being the Sarah Palin CODEPINK interruption of the night before). “You can’t win an occupation,” read one sign, with “McCain votes against vets” printed on the other. Elizabeth Hourican, Nancy Mancias, and Adam Kokesh were ejected from the building after rushing the stage with another sign emblazoned with “McCain = more war.”

Major media only gave the interruption a flash, and McCain followed suit.

“My friends, my dear friends,” McCain said from the stage on September 4. “Please, please don’t be diverted by the ground noise and the static, I’m going to talk about it some more, but Americans want us to stop yelling at each other.”

At the RNC: What is Women’s Choice?


Yesterday afternoon, a Republican friend of CODEPINK bequeathed upon Jodie Evans one ticket to Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention. This small act of generosity and support for the group’s message — come on, if you invite CODEPINK somewhere they will eventually be escorted out — has inserted some sanity into the discussion of the McCain Palin ticket. “Sarah Palin is not a woman’s choice,” the phrase, is still echoing around the Xcel Center, the CNN Newsroom, the streets of St. Paul, and the breakfast tables of America.
Evans “dressed up” last night — temporarily covered up her pink outfit with black, put her trademark red hair in a bun on the ...


Yesterday afternoon, a Republican friend of CODEPINK bequeathed upon Jodie Evans one ticket to Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention. This small act of generosity and support for the group’s message ...

At The RNC: Terror on Robert Avenue

Deep black-clad troops thick with riot gear and anonymizing helmets, no distinction between them save color-coded duct tape between the shoulders and the slightly differing gait in the thudding of their boots against the cold and hard pavement marched, god I’m not kidding you, Gestapo style up the middle of Robert Avenue in St. Paul last night around 8:45 p.m., straight up toward the Capital building, where they young girls I’d just interviewed were headed because, as they explained, the Poor People’s march “was getting too rowdy.”

Boy, were they likely surprised when 300 storm troopers in black black riot gear showed up to the party, that had already been shut down and quiet for hours.

It was easily the most terrifying ...

Deep black-clad troops thick with riot gear and anonymizing helmets, no distinction between them save color-coded duct tape between the shoulders and the slightly differing gait in the thudding of their boots against the cold and hard ...

At the RNC: Woman Trouble

The Shock and Awe Campaign at the St. Paul RNC continues unabated, and eyewitness reports are flooding all the technology I got, including good, old-fashioned, hang-out-in the-coffeeshop-and-say-hi-to-people v.1.0. Eyewitnesses at the Mears Park gathering of yesterday afternoon, at which tear gas, “impact rounds” and physical threats ended in the arrests of at least 284 people have the city concerned, regrouping, and cautious. However, passersby at my CPHQ locale, the Black Dog Café a few blocks away, witnessed little to no violence being perpetrated by the black-clad young people targeted in the incident. Although videos now online do show blockades proceeding as originally planned, and one assault against an officer intended to intercede on a particularly rough arrest, I have yet ...

The Shock and Awe Campaign at the St. Paul RNC continues unabated, and eyewitness reports are flooding all the technology I got, including good, old-fashioned, hang-out-in the-coffeeshop-and-say-hi-to-people v.1.0. Eyewitnesses at the Mears Park gathering of yesterday afternoon, ...

At the RNC: On the Parade Going On

As it often does when the GOP does something respectful of human rights, yesterday’s decision to cancel the majority of day one activities at the RNC threw activists for a loop. Do we continue our protests? During what could be another Gulf Coast disaster? What, then, is our message? And how does CODEPINK, as an anti-war group dedicated to capturing media attention on behalf of the rest of the movement, continue that work when we’re all aware Gustav should remain our focus?

But the parade, as they say, must go on.

As it often does when the GOP does something respectful of human rights, yesterday’s decision to cancel the majority of day one activities at the RNC threw activists for a loop. Do we continue our protests? ...

At the RNC: The FBI Agent, the Retired Colonel, and the Roomful of Anarchists

I came to the town I went to high school in to mobile microblog the RNC, but it got a little crazier than I expected, much faster than anyone predicted. Follow me on Twitter for regular updates, or check codepink4peace.org/blog for photos and more–assuming I’m able to stay on top of these stories.

What exactly does it take to get whistle-blower and former FBI agent Anne O’Hare McCormick, retired Army Colonel Ann Wright, and a roomful of dirty anarchists together in an unkempt rec room that, until a few hours ago, was locked on specious charges of fire-code violation? Not much, it turns out.

At about 9 p.m. on August 29th, several fully armed police officers used a battering ...

I came to the town I went to high school in to mobile microblog the RNC, but it got a little crazier than I expected, much faster than anyone predicted. Follow me on Twitter for regular ...