Tag Archives: camp democracy

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Whistleblowing 101:

Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel; Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst;Halliburton Watch

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Perhaps the highlight of our experience at Camp Democracy was becoming involved with the Bush Chain Gang. I’ve done street theater before but never like this. Tom and I both dressed up in costume multiple times and did actions. I was Donald Rumsfeld the times I was in costume and Tom alternated between Cheney and Rumsfeld. We walked around the mall at various times and we did an action at the White House. We were like magnets – people flocked to us for photos.

Bill Moyer(not to be confused with Bill Moyers with an “s”), the creator of the Chain Gang, was there leading our actions. He is the person dressed as a cop in the photos below.

We took the chain gang to “Busboys and Poets” restaurant on Saturday. What a great activist restaurant. We were a hit!

While en route to the White House we were asked by a Park Police officer where we were headed. Being truthful, we told her. As anticipated we were greeted by the secret service who let us in to the “White House Viewing Area” after collecting identification. While there a couple who had just been married had their photo taken with us – the first ever wedding photo with the Bush Chain Gang.

After the White House action we took the Chain Gang out to dinner and then went bar hopping. What a hit the Chain Gang was in these establishments!

What I discovered is the barrier that is broken for diaolguing with this medium. People were much more interested in talking about Bush’s war crimes than if I just walked up to them and handed them literature.

Watch for the Bush Chain Gang hitting the streets in Salt Lake sometime this fall…….

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At Camp Democracy we learned a new way of making banners for holding over freeways on overpasses. This is one we brought home with us:

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Here are photos of artwork at Camp Democracy:

Chain Gang Puppets
(More on our involvement with these in a subsequent post….)

The next 7 photos are of artwork from Skip Rohde, a political artist, at Camp Democracy:
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I’ll be posting photos and accounts of my Camp Democracy experience very soon. As a teaser, watch for photos of me and Tom in costume, photos of speakers like Ray McGovern,Arun Ghandi,Kevin Zeese and Lester Brown; banner making; lots of messages about the Bush regime; and some great political art. I’ll also be describing the arrest action of the “Pentagon Five” on Saturday. That one will leave you shaking your head in disbelief.

I hope to also post some sound files of some of the speakers we were able to record.

I’m swamped at my school this week with our move into our new building and our opening and no computers yet, so my blogging will be sporadic, but I’ll get the photos up as soon as I can.

I met and worked with David Swanson this past weekend. Here is his piece published on Truthout yesterday:

Dedicating September 11th to Bush
By David Swanson
Camp Democracy

Monday 11 September 2006

George W. Bush is an ordinary human being, in fact a quite stupid one. So are all of his handlers. They are ordinary people, and we have the power, should we choose to use it, to throw them out of our public housing.

This simple fact is hidden from us not just by the media constantly instructing us that we can make no difference, not just by lies connecting the crimes of 9/11 to Iraq, or Iraq or Iran to weapons they do not have, and not just by the deference to power of the devoted neo-conservative minority.
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We are back from Camp Democracy and I have lots to post. Six of us did actions at the White House, we made banners that we brought home and we heard a host of speakers, including Arun Ghandi today.

I gained much insight into the continuing anti-war movement, including reinforcement of something I and many others here in Utah have been trying to emphasize to others:

The same messaging strategies are not working. We must change our strategies.

I’ll be posting my exepriences over the next few days.