Hey friends, here’s some quick updates on the various legal issues, including our bus, our friends in jail, and more.

Thanks for all your calls and emails—they have been tremendously effective, as you’ll see below!

My full accounts of the actions can be found at www.starhawk.org.

UPDATE: First, the good news: Elliot Hughes, who was badly beaten, tasered and maced in jail, is out now, with all charges dropped. He’s with our Pagan Cluster, getting lots of healing, good food and a bath, and this morning will go to a hospital for a CT scan as he has head injuries. His spirit is amazingly strong, and it’s really good to have him back and see him smiling and laughing.

Riyanna is also out of jail, with all charges dropped, and back with us. She’s unharmed and doing well.

Jason Scarecrow is still in jail, still as far as we know has not received medical treatment for his wounds, including a gash in his foot and remaining bits of copper from the taser in his hip, but sounds in good spirits and we hope to see him get out today. He was tasered seven times by the police in the street when he was not resisting their unprovoked arrest, and beaten up badly for no evident reason.

Over a hundred activists were released uncharged throughout the night. Police were driving them far away from the jail and their waiting supporters and dropping them off in lonely places with no phone access.

UPDATE ON THE BUS:

The City Attorney’s office in Minneapolis has now said that seizing the bus was “a regrettable misunderstanding”. The bus will be released today, and while the Wilsons will still have to have it towed from the lot because of some clauses in the city’s insurance policies, they are free to drive it, do workshops and trainings from it, and stay in the state of Minnesota as long as they like. One of the National Lawyers’ Guild lawyers is a former truck driver and has offered to help them fix the mechanical issues with the bus that were found in the inspections. So the PermiBus may soon be on the road again. Thanks so much for all the support, and thanks to all of you who have donated money. Any funds left after they pay for towing, impound, and repairs will go to help pay for gas and food for the crew as they carry on their journey of teaching and training the skills we need for survival and change. Oh yeah—and for starting a lawsuit that will help deter the authorities from doing this sort of thing again.

See their blogs and journals at permibus.livejournal.com.

Information on Earth Activist Trainings can be found at www.earthactivisttraining.org.

BAD NEWS:

Eight members of the RNC Welcoming Committee have been charged with criminal conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism, under the Minnesota version of the Patriot Act. The Welcoming Committee organized the food, logistics, housing, and meeting spaces for protestors coming to the Twin Cities. No actual acts of violence were committed or alleged to be committed by any of them. No weapons or physical evidence of any conspiracy were found. The entire case against them is built on the testimony of three paid informants who infiltrated meetings. Such testimony has been proven, over and over again, to be notoriously unreliable—as the informants have a vested interest in fabricating plots and plans that can justify their pay and a disproportionate police response, which we have seen.

This is exactly what we’ve always feared the various anti-terrorist laws would be used for: not to stop another September 11, but to target dissent.

I’ll have more information later on this—a press conference is scheduled for this morning. But let’s just be clear—when people can be charged with ‘conspiracy’ for things they have not actually done, we are all at risk. Almost all the protestors arrested in this last week were charged with ‘conspiracy’: ‘conspiracy to riot’, Riyanna was charged with ‘conspiracy to use poisonous substances’ (???) although no evidence of any poisonous substances were found anywhere on or around her. (Those charges were dropped.) When we can be arrested, tasered, beaten, have our property seized and illegally searched on no evidence that we’ve actually done something but only on suspicion that we might have thought about or spoken about the possibility of doing something or be somehow associated with a group that someone else thinks might be thinking of doing something—whoa, no one is safe.

Thanks again, everyone, for standing so strongly with us through all of this! Starhawk
-----
Below are all of the DemiOrator posts containing Starhawk's reports from the 2008 Republican National Convention:
Starhawk's RNC post 1: On the Bad Side of Town
Starhawk's RNC post 2: Raid on the Convergence Center
Starhawk's RNC post 3: New Moon Ritual
Starhawk's RNC post 4: Police Seize Permibus
Starhawk's RNC post 5: A Spiral Dance in the Streets
Starhawk's RNC post 6: Emergency Calls Requested
Starhawk's RNC post 7: Dancing with Delegates
Starhawk's RNC post 8: Peace Island and Poor Peoples’ March
Starhawk's RNC post 9: Updates on Thurs, 4 Sept 2008
General Info about Starhawk's RNC Posts

Labels: activism, conventions, non-violence, politics, Presidential race 2008, protests, RNC, starhawk

In case it's not obvious, I'm reproducing these reports pretty much as I get them by email. I've stripped the listserve and her bio info after the first couple in this series but you can find it below in this post. I've done some very light corrections (spelling) and spiffed up the formatting (bolding the titles, adding hyperlinks where needed for convenience, etc.). My apologies to Starhawk for changing her words but I can tell these pieces are often a little rushed. I can't really count correcting obvious spelling errors as "editing" but the writer in me quails a little at altering another writer's work without express permission. I figure the important thing is getting this info onto the web.

I've also numbered them differently because I'm counting the emergency posts as well. (She's on 6, I'm up to 8)

I'm willing to be taken to task by her for my liberties when she has the time. (Hahahaha! Sure, like that will happen soon!)

Listserv sub info and bio
This post has been sent to you from Starhawk@lists.riseup.net. This is an announce-only listserve that allows Starhawk to post her writings occasionally to those who wish to receive them. To subscribe to this list, send an email to Starhawk-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.

Starhawk is a lifelong activist in peace and global justice movements, a leader in the feminist and earth-based spirituality movements, author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing, Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, and her latest, The Earth Path. Starhawk's website is www.starhawk.org, and more of her writings and information on her schedule and activities can be found there.
-----
Below are all of the DemiOrator posts containing Starhawk's reports from the 2008 Republican National Convention:
Starhawk's RNC post 1: On the Bad Side of Town
Starhawk's RNC post 2: Raid on the Convergence Center
Starhawk's RNC post 3: New Moon Ritual
Starhawk's RNC post 4: Police Seize Permibus
Starhawk's RNC post 5: A Spiral Dance in the Streets
Starhawk's RNC post 6: Emergency Calls Requested
Starhawk's RNC post 7: Dancing with Delegates
Starhawk's RNC post 8: Peace Island and Poor Peoples’ March
Starhawk's RNC post 9: Updates on Thurs, 4 Sept 2008
General Info about Starhawk's RNC Posts

Labels: non-violence, politics, Presidential race 2008, protests, RNC, starhawk

UPDATE: Hi folks—not so much action today, but lots of really bad stuff is happening in the jail.

We’re asking people to continue to call three people:

Mayor Chris Coleman 651-266-8510
Sheriff Bob Fletcher 651-266-9333
Ramsey County Chief Judge Gearin 651-266-8266
Head of the Ramsey County Jail: Ryan O’Neill 651-266-9350

On the good side, some progress is being made toward getting the bus back. Update on all that later. Thanks for all the calls and support, Starhawk

More updates on my website, www.starhawk.org . If you want off my personal listserve, directions on how to unsubscribe yourself are on the bottom of every post. Don’t bother me right now and ask me to do it for you. If you want on, email starhawk-subscribe@lists.riseup.net and put ‘subscribe’ in the subject line. Thanks.

Peace Island and Poor Peoples’ March

Tuesday, September 2:

I begin the day at a very different kind of action, the conference called Peace Island, for which my old friend Susu is a major organizer. The conference aims to bring together the peace and environmental communities to look at solutions to our problems. I’m speaking on the panel about transforming our food system. The main speaker, Jim Harkness of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, does a great job of tying the current food crisis to two overarching systems—the industrial agriculture that destroys soil and local subsistence farming, and global trade policies and institutions that have forced developing countries to sell their food reserves and produce for export, not for home consumption. China, with its history of famine, resisted these pressures, subsidizes its own grain production and maintains deep reserves, and it has not seen huge rises in the price of grain.

I speak about soil as sacred, and as a potential sink for carbon. When we compost, when we manage grasslands holistically and graze them skillfully, when we plant and nurture forests, we can actually sequester carbon and create healthy, resilient systems that can provide the basis for real prosperity. It felt good to step out of the chaos of the streets for a bit, and think about the world that can be, and all the other forms of activism and organizing that can bring it about. I also talked about the Transition Town movement in Britain and similar movements in the U.S. where people are getting together to organize their communities, making energy descent plans, strategizing on how to use the resources we have today to prepare for a zero-carbon future. While these accounts focus on the actions in the streets (because, frankly, it just makes much more exciting reading!) I’m actually spending most of my time these days in efforts to build the world we want and to teach the skills of sustainability, and that’s the focus of my longer-term writing.

In the afternoon, I listened to my old friend Terry Gips from the Alliance for Sustainability speak about the Natural Step Program, and the ways he is working with businesses and cities to plan for sustainability. He was very encouraging about the efforts being made by even huge corporations to shift, and the speed of change which has been rapid in the last year.

I’m glad to hear his talk, because I have come to believe that we need rapid, large-scale change as well as grassroots empowerment. It’s something I learned from the last hurricane to hit the Gulf, when I went to New Orleans to volunteer after Katrina. I went partly to see if our directly democratic organizing style had anything to offer in a crisis. I found that it did—indeed, in the first weeks after the hurricane, all the official systems were dysfunctional, the National Guard and military either absent or oppressive, FEMA disastrously incompetent, the Red Cross bound up in red tape. But the activist group Common Ground Relief, drawing on the skills of many of these people I see in the streets around me, and many of the same medics who staff our clinic here, was up and functioning within days, seeing patients, offering medical care and counseling and doing it all in a warm and welcoming way. Common Ground Relief organized distribution of supplies, volunteers to gut houses and clean out toxic mold, a bioremediation project to help heal soil, and many other programs. I found that our activist organizing style had a lot to offer in emergencies.

But I could also see its lacks. We were a tiny effort, compared to what needed to be done. We could have used a thousand Common Ground Reliefs, or some big agency that could go into every parish, every county, assess the damage, bring in help and medical care and resources. And I found myself thinking, hmmn, we’re supposed to have such an agency—it’s called FEMA. We’re supposed to have such an institution, it’s called government, which we the people are supposed to control. And for a problem on this scale, we need an answer on a large scale. So I do believe we need government—that works, that’s accountable to the people, and that helps us to collectively provide for each others’ needs and mitigate the losses and wounds of life.

Tuesday afternoon: I leave the conference to go meet our cluster, to walk together in the March for Our Lives organized by the Poor People’s Movement. The March had been permitted originally, has had its permit withdrawn, reissued and changed so many times I’d lost track of whether it was going to be legal or illegal. We gather in a small park, and the organizers ask everyone there to commit to honoring their nonviolent principles. Everyone raises their hand and promises to act nonviolently.

Just after that, there’s a disturbance in one corner of the park. We run over, and someone runs toward us and tells us that Jason and Riyanna, two of our cluster, have been arrested. They were scouting, roaming the edges of the crowd, when an undercover cop grabbed Jason and threw him on the ground. Later we get the full story: he was tasered seven times with several different devices. Barbs from one of the tasers were left in his hip until he reached the jail, much later, and today, a day later, he’s still removing pieces of copper. He has a deep gash on his leg which has only now, after twenty-four hours, stopped bleeding. He was beaten up—we have a cell phone recording of it, and his face is bruised, he has a black eye and his mouth is hurt. Video of his arrest is at:

http://www.kare11.com/video/player.aspx?aid=81605

I’m going to just jump to the jail stuff and just say that the march was lively, completely nonviolent, but for us, tense. Undercover cops were everywhere, and I was especially concerned for Lisa who we know is on their lists. Several of us stuck close to her throughout the march. At the end, near dark, we left while many people went into the caged area near the convention that was designated the Free Speech Zone. Shortly after we left, the police fired flash bombs, pepper spray and tear gas into the crowd which included women and children.

He was badly beaten when the cops knocked him off his bicycle. They stepped on his chest, and he was coughing blood all night but received no medical treatment. The guards were calling him ‘Princess’ and making homophobic remarks. We heard from Jason that last night, Elliot was making noises to protest not receiving any food for more than twelve hours. Twelve officers entered his cell. Screams were heard for over five minutes. He was tasered three times, maced, and beaten, then removed and the men were told he was being taken to a restraint chair. We have heard, now, that he is being released and are trying to confirm this. Riyanna is still in jail—when last we heard, she was okay and with the other women. Many others have been arrested and are being badly treated and denied medical care—so please include them all in your prayers and energy.

Good news now—Elliot has been released, and is being taken to the wellness center. We’re off to a march against police brutality—I will write more later, Starhawk
-----
Below are all of the DemiOrator posts containing Starhawk's reports from the 2008 Republican National Convention:
Starhawk's RNC post 1: On the Bad Side of Town
Starhawk's RNC post 2: Raid on the Convergence Center
Starhawk's RNC post 3: New Moon Ritual
Starhawk's RNC post 4: Police Seize Permibus
Starhawk's RNC post 5: A Spiral Dance in the Streets
Starhawk's RNC post 6: Emergency Calls Requested
Starhawk's RNC post 7: Dancing with Delegates
Starhawk's RNC post 8: Peace Island and Poor Peoples’ March
Starhawk's RNC post 9: Updates on Thurs, 4 Sept 2008
General Info about Starhawk's RNC Posts

Labels: non-violence, politics, Presidential race 2008, protests, RNC, starhawk

UPDATES:
Emergency Note: Yesterday, Tuesday, two of our cluster were arrested before the start of the March for Our Lives organized by the Poor People’s Movement. Riyanna and Jason were standing at the edge of the park where the rally was happening when they were attacked by police. Witnesses reported to us that Jason was tasered while he was lying on the ground, not resisting, and was refused medical aid. Somehow, later, he managed to get a call through to us on his cell phone, to report that the two taser barbs were still in his hip and the police were refusing to take them out. His phone remained on while we could hear what sounds like the cops beating him up. In a later call, he reported that he has a black eye and multiple abrasions on his head and torso, but is basically okay, and that the taser barbs have been removed. We also heard from Riyanna who is also okay. I just talked to her, and she sounds fine and strong and worried about other prisoners who are being denied needed medication. Arraignments and release are now going very slowly, and she could be held as long as 36 hours, or more. . A good person to call today would be the St. Paul mayor, Chris Coleman, 651-266-8510 demand that he end the targeting of protestors, the abuse of prisoners, and the confiscation of property.

Our PermiBus has been officially ‘released’, but its owners are being told there are 23 violations against it and they are not being allowed to drive it away. They have not received copies of any of the violations except for one: ‘no proof of insurance’. In reality, Stan Wilson has proof of insurance on the bus but was never allowed to produce it. The authorities claim that all searches and seizures over the last week have been done legally, with warrants and judicial review. But the bus was seized illegally with no charges and searched illegally, without a warrant and without the presence of the owners. This is a violation of the Bill of Rights. For the PermiBus, call the Mayor Rybek of Minneapolis,

(612) 673-2100 (His office)

Complaints to Mayor Rybek can be directed by email to dsicomplaints@ci.stpaul.mn.us.

Thanks to all who have made calls—they’ve been very effective If you can’t get through—that’s probably because so many of us are calling!

This account will also be up on my website, as are my stories from the first few days: www.starhawk.org

And don’t worry—after this week I won’t be posting so often!

Dancing with Delegates
by Starhawk

Monday, September 1:

We find ourselves on a wide street that leads into the enclosure where delegates are being allowed into the convention. I look over the river, which winds below us, and when I look up, Lisa and Juniper are in the street, holding back a bus with their hands. The bus driver is inside, looking down at them, and the rest of us run out and join them, until a line of police comes over and, in a fairly gentle manner, pushes us away.

We regroup on the sidewalk, and realize that we have found one of the key sites where delegates are being admitted. Another bus pulls out, and we run out in front of it, forming a spiral which the police again push back.

Across the street, we see a group of delegates walking in on foot. We rush over, and form a line, interfering with their progress and attempting to talk to them. They are attempting to push through us, and one gent in a business suit begins pushing, shoving and shouting at us until the police jump in, push us back and let them through.

…Now there are several hundred of us, Funk the War has joined us with their sound system. We swarm into the street and become a dance party that blocks buses from coming in. We dance our way back up to the enclosure by the convention center.

Groups of delegates are coming through but they’ve got to make their way through hordes of expressive youth and a barrier of rumbling bass. I see one flying wedge of riot cops push a group of delegates through the crowd, These are new cops, much harder edged and more angry than the first ones we encountered.

The swarm still fills the street, and the busses can’t get through. A line of riot cops forms up and begins pushing us back with batons, chanting “Move! Back! Move! Back!”

I’ve gone into the state I think of as the Zone of Deadly Calm—alert, aware, grounded just like I train everyone to do, but strangely emotionless. A lot of truly frightening things are happening all around me, but I’m not feeling fear. That can be a good thing or a bad thing—fear, like pain, is useful information. I’ve done stupid things, in this state, as well as brave ones. But I’ve been through a lot of these actions, and I’ve been in Palestine, supporting nonviolent resistance to the occupation, where we were standing in front of tanks and reasoning with soldiers who shoot real bullets, and the tension never eases up. I understand more now about what exposure to violence does to a person. Yeats has a poem, “The Easter Rising”, I found myself reading over and over after my first tour in the West Bank. It has a line in it that stuck in my head like a mantra:

We fall back, staying as close to the horses as we can, talking to the cops on their backs. “Don’t do this to your horse,” Andy is saying over and over again.

More delegates arrive, and the horses block us. Then a way opens up and we take the street again, pushing forward to the entrance, a small gate in the barricades. The horses are trotting after us and shoulder us aside, then they fall back to regroup and we move forward. Our cluster brings out balls of yarn and we begin tossing them back and forth, weaving a web. Lisa keeps tying it onto the fence, blocking the entrance, and a cop with a knife keeps cutting it.

The web is a soft deterrent to the horses—but it also could easily entangle us. At a certain point, we let it drop. The horse cops have called for reinforcements, and there are more of them now. Suddenly they charge into us, pushing us back into the curb in a panicky crush. Elizabeth yells out—her foot has been caught under a hoof. I am squeezed between the horses and the crowd, and I stumble. But strong hands lift me onto the curb, up to safety. I turn and see David Solnit, an old friend from back home in San Francisco. My rescuer! I thank him and he just grins.

Elizabeth, it turns out, is not hurt, just grazed. But we all regroup on the sidewalk, where all along a vendor has been selling hot dogs. Seeds of Peace arrives with sandwiches and carrots, and we grab a bite of lunch.

A young woman in a motorized wheelchair rolls up near our group. She’s speaking to me, but her voice is so soft I have to lean over to hear her. Her head is large and her limbs are shrunken and twisted, and I can’t help but wonder what will happen to her if the police bring out chemical weapons. I put my head next to hers, and she says, “I’m sorry that this is the image you’re getting of our town. It’s really a very nice place to live.”

She seems very brave, alone in her wheelchair, so vulnerable, but with undaunted curiosity. I thank her for coming out, and she rolls away.

A young man sitting on the wall looks up at me. “Pagan cluster, you rock!” he says. “You guys were holding back horses with your bare hands!”

I smile at him. That’s the true reason I’m still willing to put myself out here on the streets, at an age when I probably should know better. Nonviolence isn’t something that can just be preached. It must be practiced. Show, don’t tell. It’s hard to persuade people of its power—because it goes against all of our deepest instincts and the assumptions we’ve internalized from our violent culture: that power comes from the weapon, from physical strength and the willingness to use it to hurt and destroy, that force works. No sane person wants to stand against horses and clubs and more lethal weapons with only our soft bodies and hands. Yet when we do, a different sort of power arises.

Elsewhere in the city windows have been broken. I don’t have patience for long, philosophical discussions about what constitutes violence or nonviolence, or whether inanimate objects have feelings. I don’t agree with those tactics, because, for me, what gets shattered are webs of relationships—the trust and support given to us by the ordinary people of this city where I have friends and relatives and long-standing ties. It’s those relationships we need to truly transform this country. Small groups of isolated activists, however passionate and ideologically pure, aren’t going to do it alone. We need to honor the courage and win the trust of all those people who are never going to see broken windows as anything but vandalism, but who struggle every day against huge forces just to hold their lives together as the system crumbles around us all. And to do that, I believe we have to embody the kind of power we want as a base for our lives: the power of compassion, creativity and love.

Lunch is over. The temper of the cops is worsening with the day, and as more and more demonstrators appear in the streets, they get rougher. A bus moves down the street, and we surge forward to block it. The police form a line and begin driving us back, pretty roughly. We’re forming up our cluster on the sidewalk when the police jump on a protestor and pull him down. A young man is standing nearby, writing down the legal information, and suddenly the cops lunge for him. He’s alert, and runs beyond their reach. They grab Aaron, who is standing holding our flag. They rip the flag out of his hands, throw him down on the ground, and kneel on him. I run forward trying to get to him, but I’m blocked by a cop and his motorcycle and I can only watch as they kneel on his back and jerk his hands up to be cuffed. One of his hands is bleeding.

They’ve got him surrounded, and we can’t get to him. We can only call out, “Aaron, Aaron we love you! We’ve got your back!”

Then the police push us out, further down the road. Their mood is getting uglier. They’re spraying pepper spray, from big canisters, shooting it out before them into the crowd. The mood of the crowd is starting to get angrier, too. Behind us now are not horses but lines of riot cops in gas masks—a bad sign.

We’re moving away when we catch the acrid scent of tear gas on the wind behind us. I have asthma, and though its very mild I feel an obligation to myself to at least try to stay out of tear gas, when I can. So we move faster.

We’re rounding a corner of a building when a cop goes berserk. He lunges at soft-spoken Deborah, whacks her on the arm with his nightstick and knocks her to the ground. Elizabeth runs back and grabs her away as Andy and I move toward the cops and slow them down, talking to them calmly. “We’re leaving,” I say. “We’re doing what you’re telling us to do.”

Deborah is bruised, but okay. We’re moving back up the streets, away from the convention center. We sit down on a lawn to regroup and rest for a moment.

A young man in black, with a Nikon camera, comes running into our group, with two cops on bikes behind us. He rushes through us—they drive into us but can’t get through. He looks around like a cornered rabbit, sees us caught in the melee and turns back, his hands up.

“I’m giving myself up!” he calls to them. He could have gotten away, but I believe that he makes his choice because he feared the cops pursuing him were hurting us. He’s shaking, trying not to cry. “I was only taking pictures. I’m only seventeen. I live here!”

The cops frisk him and search him while we get his name and his mothers’ phone number. We try to get his camera, to keep it safe, but the police won’t release it. “We’ve got your back! We love you. Stay strong!” we call to him. The police lead him away, and Lisa phones his mother.

It’s been a long, tense day and hard to assess its success. But I believe I’ve met my goal—to hold the Republicans accountable in the streets, since the Democrats and the media and the institutions of conventional politics have failed to do it elsewhere. And tomorrow is another day.
-----
Below are all of the DemiOrator posts containing Starhawk's reports from the 2008 Republican National Convention:
Starhawk's RNC post 1: On the Bad Side of Town
Starhawk's RNC post 2: Raid on the Convergence Center
Starhawk's RNC post 3: New Moon Ritual
Starhawk's RNC post 4: Police Seize Permibus
Starhawk's RNC post 5: A Spiral Dance in the Streets
Starhawk's RNC post 6: Emergency Calls Requested
Starhawk's RNC post 7: Dancing with Delegates
Starhawk's RNC post 8: Peace Island and Poor Peoples’ March
Starhawk's RNC post 9: Updates on Thurs, 4 Sept 2008
General Info about Starhawk's RNC Posts

Labels: non-violence, Presidential race 2008, protests, RNC, starhawk

by Starhawk (Tue Sep 2 06:46:54 2008)

Hey friends, first, thanks for all the support you’ve been giving us. For those who have made calls about the permibus, thank you! They’ve been very effective and we’re making some progress toward getting it back. Keep them coming! If you’ve tried to donate and can’t get through, here’s a corrected link: http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/donate.html

The phone info, again, is:
Phone: (612) 673-2100 or
call 311 or call (612) 673-3000 outside Minneapolis.
Also call the Ramsey County Sheriff
Sheriff - Bob Fletcher 651-266-9300

and demand the immediate release of the Permibus.

Our whole cluster is safe—one person was arrested but is out of jail. My account begins below and will continue later today when I get a bit of time to write.
love Starhawk

A Spiral Dance in the Streets

Monday morning: we gather up with the cluster at the beginning of the march. We meet early, on a quiet space near the Korean War Memorial at the Capital, where ghost soldiers hover around us, reminding us why we are there to protest war.

We had planned to march as a cluster and then, after, join the blockades in the streets that would attempt to disrupt the beginning of the convention. But all plans have changed, as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast. The Republicans have condensed their convention, canceled Bush and Cheney’s planned speeches, and moved the timing to earlier in the day. We have moved up our timing as well, in order to intercept the delegates.

Why do we want to interrupt their convention? For me, the answer is simply this: Bush, Cheney and by extension the party that supports them have violated their public trust. They lied to bring us into a war that has cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. And no one has held them accountable. The Democrats refused to even consider impeachment, although both of them have committed grave offenses. The Democrats have continued funding the war even while speaking against it. The political process has not brought reckoning for the lives they have destroyed and the resources they have squandered. So we will, directly, by putting our own bodies in the way of their immediate ends and goals.

Our cluster is deeply committed to nonviolence. We see nonviolent direct action as a powerful form of magic, of consciousness change. When we commit to nonviolence, we say, “Violence stops with me. I might receive it, but I won’t pass it on. I won’t inflict it, or resort to it to make my point.” When we commit to direct action, we say that we won’t wait for someone else to redress a wrong for us—we will do it ourselves in some way, if only by interposing our bodies into its operations and interfering with its ends.

But we’re also aware that not everyone who will be in the streets shares our philosophy or our goals. The police, and the Republicans, certainly have no commitment to nonviolence. So we are very tightly organized. We each have a buddy. We have scouts who can roam around and bring us back information. We have a medic and a person who will compile any needed information for the legal team. We have a flag to follow, for those willing to enter situations of more danger, and another flag for those who want to stay more safe. Those who do not want to risk either arrest or the other consequences of action will stay with the march.

We circle up, sing, put protective circles around us, bless each other. Then a small group heads off for the march, and about twenty of us head into the streets.

Ahead of us Funk the War, a group of several hundred young people who roam the streets with portable sound machines--direct action by dancing and sheer exuberance. We want to stay a bit away from them—love the kids, hate the sound system, which makes it impossible for us to drum or sing or do the things we do to raise power. Following on their tail, we find ourselves on the edge of a mass of people trapped in an intersection, with riot cops closing in behind. We see an escape route, but we also see an open space in front of the line, and decide to run in and begin a spiral dance. We’re singing “Rising, rising, the earth is rising, turning, turning, the tide is turning” and spiraling in front of the bemused cops, weaving in and out with some of the kids joining us and a hundred cameras clicking away, and when I look up, the riot cops have moved off. Just like magic.

It’s the first victory of many—but now the tension between living life and writing about it has reached crisis point, and I’ve got to go off and play with the grownups today at the Peace Island Conference. So this account will resume later.
-----
Below are all of the DemiOrator posts containing Starhawk's reports from the 2008 Republican National Convention:
Starhawk's RNC post 1: On the Bad Side of Town
Starhawk's RNC post 2: Raid on the Convergence Center
Starhawk's RNC post 3: New Moon Ritual
Starhawk's RNC post 4: Police Seize Permibus
Starhawk's RNC post 5: A Spiral Dance in the Streets
Starhawk's RNC post 6: Emergency Calls Requested
Starhawk's RNC post 7: Dancing with Delegates
Starhawk's RNC post 8: Peace Island and Poor Peoples’ March
Starhawk's RNC post 9: Updates on Thurs, 4 Sept 2008
General Info about Starhawk's RNC Posts

Labels: conventions, impeachment, non-violence, Presidential race 2008, protests, RNC, starhawk