Urgent! Defend the Right to Dissent at the DNC

Defend the right to freedom of speech and assembly!

Protesting is not a crime!

Denver Police Department & DNC: Stop violence against protesters

Drop all charges against arrestees

Police OUT of Civic Center Park

Hands Off the march today!

Sign the online petition to send a message to the Denver Police, the DNC, the Denver City Council, Congressional Leaders and the media to end the police violence against DNC protesters IMMEDIATELY! http://www.troopsoutnow.org/dnc08protestrights.shtml

In the past week, thousands of people from around the country have gathered in Denver to protest during the Democratic National Convention.

In the past few days, Denver police have engaged in deliberate provocations and violence against activists. On Monday night, they began beating and pepper spraying protesters and engaging in illegal mass arrests. On Tuesday, they clubbed and arrested Denver activist Carlo Garcia and Code Pink member Alicia Forrest.

Despite misrepresentations by the media and the Denver Police Department, the only acts of violence taking place in Denver are being committed by police trying to silence dissent. See the report on the Recreate 68 Alliance Press conference and other reports and videos on the Troops Out Now Coalition DNC-RNC at http://dncrnc.wordpress.com/ for details of police attacks on protesters.

It is shocking, with tomorrow being the 40^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic 'I Have a Dream' speech, that the Democratic Party and the Denver Police are engaging in acts of violence against non-violent protesters. The true spirit of Dr. King is one of dissent and of speaking out against war, injustice and racism, and that is what the protestors in Denver are doing. They should not be criminalized by the city of Denver and the DNC.

We must take a stand against these attempts by the Denver Police to silence dissent. This has an impact beyond the protests in Denver: This is part of the ongoing struggle against the attempt by all levels of government--and both major parties--to criminalize dissent.

As we write, the Denver Police are surrounding Civic Center Park, dressed in riot gear and armed with automatic rifles, pepper spray, and clubs. The Recreate 68 has a legal permit for protest activity in the Park, and all of us have the right to voice our dissent without being criminalized. Today, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) will march to the Pepsi Center, followed by thousands of supporters - they have a right to march, and we stand in solidarity with them and demand "Denver Police - hands off the Veterans March!"

We demand that the police and the Democratic Party stop attacks on protesters. We demand that all of the false charges against arrestees be dropped. We demand that Denver police end their violent occupation of Civic Center Park.

Here's how you can help:

** Sign the online petition to send a message to the Denver Police, the DNC, the Denver City Council, Congressional Leaders and the media to end the police violence against DNC protesters IMMEDIATELY! http://www.troopsoutnow.org/dnc08protestrights.shtml

** Call the Mayor and Governor - demand that they stop attacking protesters:

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper

Phone: 720-865-9000

Ask for the Mayor's Office

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter

Phone: (303) 866-2471

** Forward this message widely - send it to your list serves, post it on your blog or social networking site, print it out and pass it on.

SEE VIDEOS, more photos, and press reports of the police attack on demonstrators, as well as video of the Monday March and Rally for Political Prisoners and the Sunday March and Rally to end imperialist wars and occupations at TONC's DNC/RNC BLOG at dncrnc.wordpress.com

• visit TroopsOutNow.org
• DONATE to keep us in the streets! Troopsoutnow.org/donate.shtml
• visit our DNC/RNC BLOG at dncrnc.wordpress.com
• JOIN US @ DNC 8/24-28 & @ RNC 9/1-9/4!
  DNC: Recreate68.org RNC: MarchonRNC.org
• StopWarOnIran.org - Sept 27 Actions in 100 Cities

Troops Out Now Coalition
c/o Solidarity Center
55 W 17th St - 5C
New York, NY 10011
212-633-6646
www.troopsoutnow.org
info@troopsoutnow.org

Thousands stage anti-war protest march

CATHERINE TSAI and COLLEEN SLEVIN, AP, Aug. 27, 2008

DENVER (AP) — A column of people three blocks long, led by members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, streamed from the Denver Coliseum on Wednesday in an anti-war protest march to the Pepsi Center, where the Democratic National Convention is being staged.

As many as 50 soldiers wearing army fatigues led the noisy but peaceful protest into downtown and toward the Pepsi Center as police and bystanders watched.

"We are the veterans! The Iraq War veterans! The anti-war veterans!" they chanted. "We are soldiers! Anti-war soldiers!"

Crowd estimates, generally around 2,000, were fluid as the group lost and picked up people along the way.

A sit-in was planned at the convention site.

Iraq Veterans Against the War wants Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to agree to an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. They also want full health care benefits for returning troops and veterans, and reparations to the Iraqi people for damage caused by the war.

The group sent a letter to Obama on Monday.

The protest march began after a reunited Rage Against the Machine ended a concert that drew an estimated 9,000 people to the coliseum.

Dozens of veterans, some in uniform, began the march in formation, chanting "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." It is about 4 miles from the coliseum to the Pepsi Center.

People on motorcycles and bicycles joined those on foot. Some people held signs that said "US out of Iraq" with red handprints and "No War on Iran." A few had the numbers of lawyers written on their bodies in case they were arrested.

Behind the veterans, protesters yelled: "Troops out now!"

Jan Critchfield, 24, of Seattle said he served in Iraq in 2004, and after returning home, came to believe that the war was an "unlawful, immoral occupation."

He said now that he's back in the U.S., he thinks about what it's like for Iraqis living with U.S. forces in their country.

"I just can't imagine driving through my neighborhood at home and seeing a security checkpoint."

Critchfield said he joined the Army at 17 without much thought about the implications.

Jonny 5, Brer Rabbit and Andy Guerrero of the Denver group Flobots were with the marchers, as was Raymond "Boots" Riley of political hip-hop group The Coup.

U.S. hidden hand pushes Ossetia war

Sara Flounders, Workers World, Aug. 13, 2008

Aug. 13—Long before Aug. 8, when the leaders of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus Mountains south of Russia, attacked a small autonomous region known as South Ossetia, the U.S. military was deeply involved in Georgia. Washington is no innocent bystander in this bloody struggle, which provoked a response by Russia that now dominates the news.

Georgia’s well-organized and massive military assault set the city of Tskhinvali, South Ossetia’s capital, aflame within hours, destroying the parliament building, the university and the main hospital. According to AP interviews with survivors, there was hardly a single building left undamaged. Eduard Kokoity, the South Ossetian leader, estimated that more than 1,400 civilians were killed in the assault. (Reuters, Aug. 8)

Russian military forces then struck back at Georgia’s military bases, airfields and the main Black Sea port of Poti. Most news coverage in the West, however, is slanted to give the impression that Russia initiated the conflict with Georgia.

Many of the hundreds of recent articles detail the significance of Georgia as a strategic transit point for oil and gas from the Caspian Sea. But what connection this conflict may have to other U.S. maneuvers in this strategic region is barely mentioned.

Even as Russia is preoccupied with a war on its border and world attention is focused on South Ossetia, the Bush administration has sent two additional U.S. Navy carrier groups to the seas around Iran.

U.S. armed, trained Georgia’s army

Washington does not claim credit for the invasion of South Ossetia ordered by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, especially now that his forces have been routed. The roads back to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi are littered with tanks and other military vehicles abandoned by Georgian soldiers in their mad scramble to return home. (BBC News, Aug. 12)

But at the time of the invasion, the White House made clear its political support for Saakashvili and Georgia has been closely allied with the U.S. military in its war in Iraq.

The U.S. and NATO have heavily armed and trained the Georgian military. There are U.S. military “advisers” in Georgia today. A thousand U.S. Marines from the Third Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment just finished three weeks of joint maneuvers there called “Operation Immediate Response.”

In the period leading up to Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia, the Pentagon had supplied Georgia with hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery weapons, rocket launchers and dozens of combat helicopters and anti-aircraft missile systems. Hundreds of other weapons systems have poured in from other NATO members and from Israel. (Interfax, Aug. 7)

In exchange Georgia had provided the third-largest military force in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. But on Aug. 10 the U.S. began ferrying the 2,000 Georgian troops out of Iraq to the war zone in Georgia.

Along with the “advisers” and U.S. troops sent for maneuvers, U.S.-origin mercenaries and privatized military trainers function in Georgia. Tens of thousands of “civil society” operatives, international consultants, policy experts and technical assistants operate in Georgia, Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics.

NATO divided over Georgia

NATO, a U.S.-dominated alliance of imperialist military powers, has been divided over Washington’s demands for expansion. The April 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, nearly broke up over Washington’s provocative proposals.

The U.S. demanded further expansion of NATO eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia, two countries that were once part of the Soviet Union and that both border Russia. Despite deep popular opposition in Poland and the Czech Republic, the U.S. military also pushed ahead with a plan to place a U.S. anti-missile system in each of these two countries, raising another threat to Russia.

At the Bucharest meeting, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg strongly and openly opposed Bush’s demands to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. Some of these governments said they felt apprehensive about U.S. recognition of Kosovo’s secession from Serbia. This secession was in direct violation of United Nations agreements and even the conditions the U.S. imposed on Serbia in the cease-fire agreement in 1999, which ended NATO’s terror bombing of Yugoslavia.

NATO postponed its decision on the status of Georgia and Ukraine until December. But Washington has refused to wait until the December NATO meeting. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Georgia on July 10 and strongly reiterated U.S. support for Georgia’s membership in NATO.

NATO expansion

For 40 years the NATO military alliance was comprised of wealthy, industrialized imperialist countries that had prospered from generations of colonial plunder. It was essentially an anti-Soviet alliance to halt the spread of socialist revolutions in Europe. NATO used military might, nuclear blackmail, economic sabotage, espionage and terror to protect and expand the private corporate wealth of its members.

Using the 1992-1999 war against Yugoslavia to justify its expansion and intervention, NATO has now grown from 16 members before that war to 26 members and 38 nations in four different “partnership” arrangements, as Canadian Gen. Ray Henault of the NATO Military Committee boasted in his Chairman’s Report in April. NATO has spread its field of intervention far beyond its original North Atlantic area to Eastern Europe, Africa and Afghanistan.

Many of the new members and “partners” of this military bloc are former socialist countries from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that have become captured ministates—economic colonies of European and U.S. imperialism.

However, the reestablishment of capitalist private ownership over the resources and production of this vast region of the globe did not pacify U.S. imperialism, which sees competing capitalist development in Russia also as a threat. U.S. corporate power is determined to allow only dependent colonial subjects. Any country seeking to control its own development or resources, regardless of its social system, is targeted. This is as true for Russia as it is for Iran, China or Venezuela.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. corporate power has attempted to establish control over the vast energy resources of Central Asia and the nations of the Caucasus region, the Caspian Sea and Black Sea.

Through NATO’s military expansion, the Pentagon has sought to encircle Russia. Again and again U.S. corporations have used Washington’s intelligence agencies and U.S.-based, corporate-funded nongovernmental organizations to cynically manipulate national antagonisms, tensions and claims throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the former Soviet Republics.

Ossetia’s status

For 70 years South Ossetia, though bordered on three sides by Georgia, held the status of an Autonomous Oblast (Region) within the Soviet Federation. Its population is 70,000. The neighboring Republic of North Ossetia-Alania has maintained its status as an autonomous republic within the present-day Russian Federation. The Ossetians have a distinct Persian-related language and culture. Schools, publishing houses and theaters helped preserve Ossetian nationality within the Soviet Union.

With the collapse of socialist planning in the Soviet Union, socialist solidarity among its constituent nations broke down. The capitalist market brought chaos and upheaval that hit hardest at the many small nationalities as the Soviet Union ended. Contending gangs of privatizers seeking to grab hold of nationally owned property fueled and manipulated nationalist sentiment.

The reactionary, pro-capitalist leadership in Georgia suddenly abolished South Ossetia’s autonomous status and rights and annexed the small nation, as they did with Abkhazia, another small, autonomous nation strategically located on the Black Sea and surrounded by Georgia. In the resulting struggle, South Ossetia and Abkhazia each declared their independence from Georgia in 1991.

This led to a 17-year standoff, with both Georgian and Russian “peacekeepers” stationed in South Ossetia. The latest Georgian attack ended the standoff with a de facto attempt at annexation.

Abkhazia has similarly declared its independence from Georgia. Georgia’s military onslaught against South Ossetia could well have spilled over into an attack on Abkhazia.

Given the scope of the operation and the active influence of U.S. forces in Georgia, it is hard to believe that Washington could have been uninformed of Saakashvili’s decision to launch an all-out war against South Ossetia.

Within the United Nations Security Council, U.S. and British representatives blocked a Russian-drafted resolution calling on Georgia and South Ossetia to immediately put down their weapons. The U.S. rejected the three-sentence statement that would have required both sides “to renounce the use of force.” It was a clear confirmation of U.S. support for Georgia’s continued “use of force” against the small Ossetian nationality.

However, Russia succeeded in repelling Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia. So as of Aug. 13, Georgia and Russia agreed to a “peace plan” brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Saakashvili is already criticizing the West generally, and the Bush administration in particular, for not coming to his aid—indicating that this puppet of Washington, who spent his time as a New York lawyer before being set up as a politician in post-Soviet Georgia, may believe he had the go-ahead from his imperialist masters to carry out a reckless attack on both Russians and Ossetians in the small autonomous region.

Take Action Today - Tell Congress: No Blockade! No War on Iran!

Sign the petition at http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml

As we write, Congress is on the verge of voting on Congressional Resolution 362. (read text here)

This resolution, which has 261 co-sponsors from both major parties, demands that the President immediately impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to stop shipments of gasoline, and to subject all cargo entering or leaving Iran to stringent inspection requirements. This would require a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Imposing such a blockade is considered an act of war, and is clearly meant to escalate tensions and pave the way for use of military force against the people of Iran, with 'weapons of mass destruction' as a justification. The resolution makes no mention of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate report of December 2007, which found that there was no credible evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons development program Iran.

A similar vote, cast in October of 2002, paved the way for the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has cost the lives of 1 million Iraqis and more than 4100 U.S. soldiers.

This Resolution, which is paralleled by a similar Senate bill (S. RES 580), could come to a vote at any time. Congressional leadership has assumed that there will be little opposition to the resolution - a staffer in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office said that it is expected to "pass like a hot knife through butter." They need to hear from you today to let them know that we will not be silent as they initiate another illegal war in the Middle East using discredited lies about "weapons of mass destruction."

We must take action now to prevent another bipartisan rush to war.

Please take action today:

* Sign the petition http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml

* Make an Emergency Donation to help us mobilize against a U.S. war on Iran http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml

* Help get the word out - tell a friend http://stopwaroniran.org/friend.shtml

* Link to us - graphics available at http://stopwaroniran.org/link.html

Stop War On Iran
www.StopWarOnIran.org

Wal-Mart reportedly urges managers to lobby against Obama

Wal-Mart warning managers of labor bill
Reuters, Aug. 1, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Friday it has held meetings with U.S. store managers warning them of issues that could arise if Democrats win power and pass a law that would make it easier for workers to unionize, but stressed it was not telling workers how to vote.

Wal-Mart opposes proposed legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize by signing a card rather than holding a vote.

"We believe EFCA is a bad bill and we have been on record as opposing it for some time," Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said. "We feel educating our associates about the bill is the right thing to do."

The Wall Street Journal reported that about a dozen employees who attended meetings in seven states said executives told them employees would be required to pay hefty union dues and get nothing in return, and warned that unionization could force Wal-Mart to cut jobs as labor costs rise.

The Journal report said Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings do not specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's presidential election, but they make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in.

"If anyone representing Wal-Mart gave the impression we were telling associates how to vote, they were wrong and acting without approval," Tovar said.

Wal-Mart, which does not have a unionized U.S. workforce, has been the target of union-backed groups that criticize the retailer for everything from its pay practices to its health care benefits.

(Reporting by Nicole Maestri; Editing by Ted Kerr)