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In the Common Dreams article,Last Weekend Karl Rove Said I Was a Clown, Cindy Sheehan states that reports of her arrest were false.

Please reply if you have any other info on this.

I am very disappointed to see some Green Blogs posting the Counterpunch article Which Way Forward for the Green Party?, especially without any commentary attached to the posting, de facto advocating the contents of the article. The Counterpunch editorial team is not a friend of Greens and has never published one positive thing about the Green Party and so it dismays me to see fellow Greens advocating this article which has many untruths in it about the party and its affiliates.

Read what Ken Sain says about this article in Beating Dead Horses.

Today was the third day of action to demand that the U.S. Government withdraw troops from Iraq and end the war. The day’s events in D.C. centered around United for Peace and Justice’s mass nonviolent civil resistance action. Among those arrested today was Cindy Sheehan.

Police arrest Cindy Sheehan, the Calif. woman who has used her son’s death in Iraq to spur the antiwar movement, during a demonstration outside the White House. (AP)
See Video of the arrest.
Other updates that I have found on the mass civil resistance action:
Anti-War Mother Cindy Sheehan Arrested Outside White House
D.C. Indy Media
WRYR-LP Radio Live Stream
Civil Resistance at White House

Before the 2004 Green Party of Utah split, there was 2003.

A faction in the GPUT at that time attempted to kick 6 people out of the party without going through the process (as outlined in the bylaws) for reasons that had not been brought forth to the membership and also of which were falsehoods in themselves. Secret meetings were held and letters were sent out to the 6 (inlcuding myself) telling them they were no longer GPUT members and containing the $10 dues check (I never cashed mine). This faction also claimed that the GPUT had no place in activism and that we were way out of line to incorporate activist activities with politics. Huh?

This action resulted in the 6 of us, along with one other member, filing a civil suit which was dropped because the faction decided to drop out and form the Progressive Democrats of Utah. (Ironically, we have all been working together in recent months on peace demonstrations….) –

– except for one of those people who has dropped out of sight of the political scene in Utah.

That person and his wife joined the GPUT about the time I did and had “moved here” from another state. This person ended up being one of the most vocal about kicking people out of the party for no substantiated reason. He kept a dossier on the 6 of us that he waved around at us when things started getting ugly.

This person had a high ranking position with the Utah Health Department(I’m not sure if he is still in this position)and ended up advocating that our water be flouridated! This was a shock to Greens in this state, needless to say.

Come to find out, an anonymous source has informed me – just within the past few days – that this person was planted by the company Cargill to disrupt the GPUT and keep us from progressing. One of Cargill’s campaigns is to flouridate water – it’s a big money maker for them.

Sound familiar?

As I have stated in previous posts, there is this move a-foot to disrupt progressive organizations everywhere. Our values are being compromised and violated. While we need to stick to our values and live by them, including being accepting of anyone who wants to join us, we need to always also stick to our process and watch for poor behavior and address it right away. As I was once taught by a self-proclaimed non-violence expert (who is now one of the suspended GPUT members for violating her own principles in the GPUT….), “Bullshit has no place in our movement. Call people on it.”

The more I am involved in progressive efforts, the more I realize that we do need to be firm when people “act up” and not allow them to be disruptive. To not do so is a disservice to the work we need to accomplish.

Here are some articles that I found about or that refer to Cargill:
Hydrofluosilicic Acid!
The Phosphate Fertilizer Industry: An Environmental Overview
Junk Water
Critique of the ADA’s Promotion of Fluoridation
Truth Decay? (1995 article)
GENERAL ELECTRIC-They also bring bad things to life!
Will new World Bank CEO, Paul Wolfowitz, continue the Rape and Pillage of Poor Nations?

Check back on this post for updates of more articles.

Common Dreams
‘End This War’: Hundreds of Thousands Protest Iraq War
Local War Protesters Find Reception Growing Warmer
Thousands March Through London in Iraq War Protest
Antiwar Bus Tour Rolls Into Capital for Protests

Ken Sain
No more war
More DC photos
Nader at the Rally

Part 3 of my September 24 photo essay:

Andrey & Olga Filippovs,Photographers

Here is part 2 of my photo essay.

The march was awesome. The Radical Cheerleaders made their first cheerleading stop along the route in a grassy area between the marchers and the street. A police officer approached us after we had performed two cheers and told us we were obstructing the pedestrian traffic and people had to move around us (????). When we pointed out to him that we were out of the way and no one had to move around us (which they didn’t) he replied “yes they do.”. So we just moved on.

Even though there was a peacekeeping team leading the march, the march was taken over by a group of anarchists who ventured into the street. This group remained on a corner outside the rally plaza, beating bucket drums and chanting and waving their signs and flags. One person ended up being arrested. The story is that his flag accidentally rubbed against an officer’s shoulders and the officer took the flag and arrested the participant. We ended up loaning his friends some money to help get him bailed out.

Here is part 1 of my photo essay of the rallies and march yesterday, September 24, in Salt Lake City. Between 2,000 anbd 3,000 people turned out!

You can see more photos at:

Protest Photos
and
The Cause

The first gathering was in Pioneer Park (about 4 blocks west of the site of the bigger rally following the march), followed by the march.

PHOTOS:
Deanna Taylor and Tom King, Photographers
Autumn Killpack-Havey, Radical Cheerleader photographer

It was an amazing day.

The weather was perfect, the speakers were inspiring, the music was awesome, rally-goers were creative, and the anarchist kids, with their drums, voices and high energy, were instrumental in creating a vibrant presence in our event and confronting the police (more on that in my next post and how the police were less than helpful yesterday), resulting in some arrests outside the rally plaza.

My voice is raspy this morning from radical cheerleading yesterday (during the local farmers market in the park where the pre-march gathering was held, during the march itself where our squad positioned ourselves in three spots along the route and entertained marchers with cheers, and then later at a local bar where rally-goers gathered and Raphael and I did more cheers…..).

Here is one photo from yesterday, taken by Jenni’s daughter, Autumn, who served as the official radical cheerleader photographer yesterday:

(Can you guess which one I am in this photo? How about Jenni, of Jen’s Journal?)

Today I am going through the few hundred photos I have downloaded on my computer and will be posting them.

In the meantime, below are links to the online local coverage of yesterday’s event. It is interesting to note how the newspapers accurately reported the numbers attending and the tv outlets did not:

SLC protesters join global call for pullout of troops from Iraq – Salt Lake Tribune front page top headline(online version)
3 are arrested at Salt Lake protest – 2,000 gather to express views, hear Rocky – Deseret News ront page, a headline, but further down (online version)
Hundreds Gather to Protest War– Channel 5 NBC
Hundreds Meet At Pioneer Park For War Protest – Channel 2 CBS

It’s almost here! Tomorrow (Sept 24) promises to be a BIG day in Salt Lake. We are expecting thousands.

Here are some photos of “pre-Sept 24” activities.

Radical Cheerleaders getting ready, Thursday, Sept 22:

Sign-making and puppet preparing Thursday, Sept 22 at a participant’s business warehouse:

Sign-making at the activist retail shop FREE SPEECH ZONE, owned by the GPUT secretary. This event was sponsored by the GPUT.