Random Notes

• The A31 Coalition plans gatherings at barricades and spontaneous free-speech zones as well as no-permit direct actions:
• 9:30 a.m. At Bank of America financial roundtable, Tavern on the Green
• All day. Actions at offices of corporations with Republican ties or those involved with the Iraq war, including: Carlyle Group, Fifth Avenue at 58th Street; The RAND Corp., 342 Madison Ave.; Chevron, 230 Park Ave., 49th to 50th streets; General Motors, 767 Fifth Ave., 58th to 59th streets, and a showroom, 599 Lexington Ave., 52nd to 53rd streets; Global Crossing, 435 W. 50th St., Ninth to Tenth avenues; Hummer of Manhattan, 55th Street and 11th Avenue
• New York Metro Area Postal Unions demonstration, 2 p.m., Eighth Avenue at 31st Street
• NARAL Pro-Choice America demonstration, 5 p.m., Union Square, North Plaza
• The War Resisters League plans to gather at Ground Zero and march in a funeral procession to Madison Square Garden for a "die-in" at 7 p.m.
• Convergence on Madison Square Garden, 7 p.m., to create a ring of "free-speech zones"
• Nonpartisan "Mobilization 2004/Let Justice Roll: Faith and Community Voices Against Poverty" rally from 7 to 9 p.m. at Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Dr.
• From 9 to 10 p.m., New Yorkers, holding flashlights, to line Broadway from West 72nd to West 125th streets to put focus on poverty and social justice issues.

Democracy Now reports:

600 Arrested As Protests Continue in New York

Outside Madison Square Garden, protests are continuing today for a fifth day in a row. The A31 Coalition has called for a day of direct action against the Republican National Convention. Meanwhile The War Resisters League, Voices in the Wilderness and other activist groups are planning to stage a die-in in front of Madison Square Garden tonight. On Monday more than 15,000 marched in a protest organized by the Still We Rise coalition. Thousands also rallied in the Poor People's March for Economic Human Rights. Police arrested about 20 protesters in protests yesterday bringing the total to around 600 over the past five days. The National Lawyers Guild yesterday accused the city of preventing jailed protesters from seeing lawyers and they charged the arrested protesters were being held in poor conditions

"Can we win?" the war on terror, Bush said, "I don't think you can win it. "
-- G.W. Bush on NBC's Today Show, August 30, 2005

"This battle will take time and resolve. But make no mistake about it: we will win."
-- G.W. Bush, Sept. 12, 2001

Highlighted by Kos on DailyKos.

"In this great struggle, we need a commander in chief who is a beacon, not a weather vane," said Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico in remarks prepared for delivery to delegates gathered four miles from the site where terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001.
--"GOP Assails Kerry As Convention Begins," by David Espo AP Special Correspondent

The opening invocation at the Republican National Convention will be given by a Mormon woman who has equated support for gay marriage to support for Hitler and the Holocaust. Sheri Dew is President of the Mormon-owned Deseret Book.

"At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family--but maybe not," Dew said in a recent speech.

Her remarks ignored the fact that gays were among the first victims of Hitler, while Mormon Church leaders supported him. Helmuth Hubener, a Mormon youth who secretely fought against Hitler, was excommunicated by the Mormon Church for "conduct unbecoming a member of the church" before the Nazis executed him. Deseret Book has sold three different books about Hubener.

It seems Ms. Dew doesn't know which side she's on.

More at Eschaton and Jesus' General.

• Disabled American Veterans rally, 10 a.m., Eighth Avenue and 31st Street
• The Still We Rise Coalition, more than 40 New York City groups covering issues including immigration, housing/homelessness, health care/AIDS, welfare reform, education and criminal justice/civil rights and liberties, gathers at 11 a.m. at Union Square and marches toward Madison Square Garden for rally
• Billionaires for Bush hold "Vigils for Corporate Welfare," noon at Union Square and 4 p.m. at United Nations.
• Jews for Racial and Economic Justice rally, 1 to 4 p.m., Plaza Hotel, Fifth Avenue and Central Park South
• NYC AIDS Housing Network and Hip Hop Summit Action Network rally, 1 p.m., Union Square to Eighth Avenue and 31st Street
  Poor People's Economic Human Rights rally, 1 p.m., Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

Overview of Sunady's march This is what democracy looks like. One Thousand Coffins...

Vastly exceeding expectations of 250,000 partipants, the march organized by United for Peace and Justice drew 400,000 people to streets and sidewalks of New York. A Continuous update of events is available at the Portland Indymedia site, as the New York site went down. In a move widely condemned by civil libertarians, organizers were denied their request to hold a rally in Central Park, a denial of First Amendment rights that was upheld by low-level courts. In a pre-march gathering, filmmaker Michael Moore addressed the crowd. "We are the majority," Moore told them. "A majority of this country opposes this war ... a majority of this country never voted for this administration." "We are saying 'no' to the Bush agenda, 'no' to the war in Iraq, 'no' to the regime change by our government, 'no' to preemptive war, 'no' to the economic policies," said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice. Although the permit for the after-march rally was denied, thousands of people are gathering in Central Park in an informal show of strength and defiance of the war on American civil liberties. Reporting by cell phone just after 4 p.m. New York Time, an Oregonian demonstrator told Portland Indymedia there were 'lots of people' in the part, with only 4 officers watching over people as she approached from Columbus Circle. First hand reports and comments are available here and here from DailyKos.

Demonstrations planned for Sunday in New York City include:

• United for Peace and Justice, 10 a.m., gathers in the area north of 14th Street and Seventh Avenue. At noon, march up Seventh Avenue past Madison Square Garden, turn east on 34th Street, march to Fifth Avenue, then march down Fifth Avenue to 23rd Street and then march down Broadway back to Union Square
• Code Pink Women for Peace rally, 8 a.m., Riverside Park, Eleanor Roosevelt Corner
• Christian Defense Coalition demonstration, 2 p.m., Church Street between Liberty and Vesey streets
• Billionaires for Bush's "Million Billionaire March," noon, Plaza Hotel, Fifth Avenue and 59th Street

New York City (NYC) saw its largest Critical Mass bike rally ever on Friday, August 27, with over 5,000 participants in the 2-hour event, highlighting a week of activities hosted by Time's Up, an NYC-based environmental organization. During and after the event, New York police arrested 264 participants, according to a report in Newsday.

"Video of the evening being processed by the Indymedia Center right now shows the regrettably predictable violent nature of the arrests," according to an early report on the New York City Indymedia website. "Caught on tape are images of protesters being thrown off their bicycles, heads beaten into the asphalt, then cuffed with plastic flexi-cuffs. Pedestrians milling about also unfortunately fell victim to the cops, getting pulled off the street and arrested too," the report stated.

Founded in 1992, Critical Mass holds monthly bike rallies on every continent except Antarctica, with the vast majority in Europe (139 rides) and North America (208 rides). Cyclists ride through the streets disregarding traffic signals in a form of non-violent civil disobedience, creating a temporary liberated space and reclaiming the streets from the monopoly of fossil fuel car traffic. (Article on Critical Mass's 10th Anniversary here.)

Although technically illegal, it is now commonplace for police to accompany and facilitate Critical Mass rides. There were scores of arrests of Critical Mass participants in Los Angeles during the 2000 Democratic National Convention, when police suddenly, without warning, switched from facilitating the ride to arresting participants.

A comprehensive list of the Swift Boat Liars, with refuting evidence for their main claims is available here, in a diary entry at Daily Kos. Read this piece, and you'll know more about the issue than all the talking heads on cable.

"The city is rolling out the red carpet for the Republican delegates, but most New Yorkers would roll out the green carpet of Central Park for the anti-Republican demonstrators," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. The Mayor and the courts have denied permission for demonstrations in Central Park, effectively repealing the First Amendment.

A just-released Quinnipiac Poll found that:

• 71 percent of city voters say demonstrators should be allowed in Central Park;
  
• 81 percent approve of lawful demonstrations during the convention;
  
• 68 percent approve of non-violent civil disobedience;
  
• 11 percent plan to join demonstations;
  
• 25 percent approve of the way Bush is handling his job as President;
  
• 70 percent disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job as President.

In February, 2002, 68 percent approved, and just 23 percent disapproved.

Moral: Go to New York when you are hot, not when it is hot.

Atrios reminds us that, unlike the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth," :

MoveOn PAC is, as it suggests, a...wait, here it comes... a PAC!
Otherwise known as a... POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE.
As we're all smart well-informed reporters out here in media
land, we understand that PACs have nothing to do with the
"shadowy 527s" we keep hearing about. PACs have very strict
donation limits and timely financial disclosure requirements.
Individuals can't give more than 5 grand in a calendar year to
it, and there are overall PAC contribution limits as well.

But, of course, Atrios is not real journalist. What does he know?

"In case their discontent isn't already clear, protesters are spelling it out. "Stop Bush Now" signs and other anti-GOP messages are appearing throughout the city well before delegates arrive for the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday," reports Sara Kubler for Associated Press here.

"Bright blue tarps, painted with glaring yellow letters, are going up on dozens of rooftops in Brooklyn, under the flight paths into busy New York airports. Thousands of delegates and convention guests peering down at the city might see messages like 'No more years' and 'Re-defeat Bush.'"

A wide variety of signs are going up everywhere...

"'Let no Republican look anywhere in this city without seeing our message,' says one site, promoting an image of a black 'W' inside a red circle with a slash through it. 'Let's make the entire city our canvas and let the RNC know that they've grossly miscalculated their choice of venue.'"

JuliusBlog has a snapshot overview chart and detailed timeline looking at the timing of terror alerts.

The work is far from scientific--though the chart clearly shows that Bush's popularity spiked three times: just after 9/11, just after the invasion of Iraq, and just after Saddam Hussein was captured.

The relationship of terror alerts is murkier, though their increased frequency is clear. The timeline does show that terror alerts frequently appear soon after some really bad news for the Bush Administration. But there's been a lot of bad news for the Bush Administration for the last year and a half. Still, seeing all the events placed in a timeline context gives a very clear sense of how terror alerts have regularly distracted attention when the Bush Administration was feeling some heat. It also highlights how often the alerts have been issued on dubious grounds.

Three recent stories highlight the embattled nature of freedom in Iraq:

• Iraqi Government Shuts Al-Jazeera Station (Associated Press)
• Iraq Imposes Death Penalty (Associated Press)
• Iraq's Labor Upsurge Wins Support from U.S. Unions -- By David Bacon