Closet Cases Shutting Down Online Sex Networking
repost from national gay and lesbian task force,

The hypocrisy knows no bounds. While the powerful get their sex in public men's rooms, us "normal" people who negotiate for it online are about to be criminalized. Read what the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has to say about proposed rule changes that will have the FBI collecting and storing info on your sex partners - more warrantless searches - woohoo.

"The federal government is proposing regulations that would effectively kill adult social-networking sites. This is being done under the guise of fighting child pornography. You have until September 10 to object to these regulations. It’s easy to do and essential...Obviously, none of this has anything to do with child pornography. Instead, it is a blatant attempt to end the ability of consenting adults to use adult social-networking sites to meet other people for sex..."
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Beyond Kozol, Toward a School Action Plan
Dr Rich Gibson,

These are harsh times. The economy grinds down and the wars bomb on. In such an era, people define themselves by their actions. Often, there is no reversing the action taken, as a wounded economy and a desperate empire at war have no forgiveness.

This is especially true for educators, school workers, who face the militarization of schooling and the regimentation of what is taught, what kids come to know and how they come to know it, through curricula regulations noosed by high stakes exams. Every educator now faces questions like, “Why am I here? Whose interests are being served? What shall I do?”

Jonathan Kozol was an early inspiration for me and thousands of others, even though he quit as a teacher very early on. Now, he has issued an “Education Manifesto.” His plan of action for educators is a false flag rooted in wrong premises about the nature of education, society, and the possibilities of action for social change. Educators and activists need to get beyond Kozol with a concrete analysis of capitalist schools.
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Riding the Eclipse
moonpedaller,

Last night I went on a bike ride during the eclipse. It was so awesome watching a spectacular natural event unfold over the paved, built, engineered, unnatural urban landscape.

Scientific study, precise calculations, news reports, photos, videos, animations, simulations and more have reduced mind-blowing phenomena such as eclipses to routine, scripted series of steps far less engaging than the latest video game. But last night, for me, the eclipse was much more than that.

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Protesters Oppose Statue of White Supremacist and Queerophobe in Downtown San Diego
compiled by san diego indymedia volunteer,

On Saturday afternoon, about three hundred protesters gathered in front of Horton Plaza to oppose the unveiling of a statue of Pete Wilson, white supremicist and queerophobic former mayor of San Diego, and California Senator and Governor. Wilson is notorious for championing Proposition 187 and for vetoing legislation to protect queers from job discrimination.

from Janice Jordan: On Saturday, activist communities from San Diego challenged the presence of Pete Wilson, a man of hate and a symbol of racism in downtown San Diego. Border Angels and Raza Rights, two of the organizing bodies for the demonstration of the installation of facism kept the crowd of 200-300 noisy and energized. --Read More--

comment from s t a r r: At the unveiling of his statue yesterday, former SD mayor/CA governor Pete Wilson called those opposed to the statue "thugs," "childish," and "horse's asses." He went on to state that whoever opposed the statue was in support of illegal immigration... [We] reject the statue of Pete Wilson because of the profits he and his wife have made off of exploiting prison labor and prison privatization. During his tenure as Governor, Pete Wilson's wife, Gayle, owned over half of the prisons in California. At the same time, Wilson got re-elected using a tough-on-crime Republican platform which resulted in the denial of parole for numerous women serving excessive sentences for defending themselves against domestic violence. It also landed tens of thousands of minor drug offenders behind bars, as he aided & abetted Ronald Reagan's so-called war on drugs. This was clearly a conflict of interest. One could picture Pete and Gayle in bed, chatting. Okay, honey, you buy the prisons, and I'll fill them up. --Read More-- (scroll down for comments)

comment from Rocky: ...Let them put up the bronze statue of Pete Wilson, if you must. The seagulls will know what to do with it.--Read More--

comment from Cecil: Statues suck anyway. Why waste time? let them put it up and then vandalize it. Put pink spray paint on his crotch or something. Really, have you ever seen a good statue? Even an Emma Goldman statue would be worthless. Let them waste their money on a statue of stupid Pete-- they want to honor him for building Horton Plaza for fuck's sake. --Read More--

from Mexica Movement at los angeles indymedia: ...The crowd chanted "Tear down the statue! Tear down the hate!", disrupting the dedication ceremony across the street honoring Wilson. At times, Wilson gestured to the crowd, acknowledging that the protesters were making their message heard loud and clear...--Read More w/ Photos, Video--
Video of Protest
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Anti-ICE/Solidarity with Elvira Arellano Demo
videographers: missska and r.l. rodriguez; editor: san diego indymedia volunteer,

Approximately 50 community members gathered in front of the Federal Building in downtown San Diego Tuesday evening to express their opposition to the deportation of Elvira Arellano, who was apprehended by ICE officers in Los Angeles Sunday afternoon, and to the continuing ICE raids, which are devasting families.

Video includes interviews, demo speakers and chanting (en español e english). Video in quicktime format (for assistance in viewing it, click here and scroll down).

Play the video

Tonight was san diego indymedia's second successful practice with our mobile media catalyst unit (the first being last week's no borders camp benefit). The unit allows us to go anywhere and immediate upload stories, pictures, video to san diego indymedia on-site, as well as provide media and internet access to those who don't have it. if you would like us to bring the unit to your event, meeting or community, please write us at
imc-sd AT lists DOT indymedia DOT org
(replacing " AT " with "@" and " DOT " with "."

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Grand Jury Resister Danae Kelley Arrested at Animal Rights Demo- $50,000 Bail!
Njeri - repost from indybay.org,

UPDATE from sdimc volunteer Wed afternoon: According to a bailiff in the sd felony arraignment court, charges were not filed against Danae and she should be released this evening. (see also this blog post on alongingforcollapsepress on myspace: click here

UPDATE from Troy Tuesday evening: Danae will be arraigned on Wednesday at 1:30pm. She will be in Judge SZUMOWSKI's courtroom, which is Dept. 12 at the downtown county courthouse. According to jail information, she is currently being charged with PC 422, which is essentially threatening to cause great bodily injury to another person. Anyone can go down to Dept. 12 and observe the arraignment, but be warned: it is likely to be a very routine, scripted process. The only reason to go would be to offer emotional support through your presence. But, know that you won't be allowed to communicate with Danae at the arraignment, and it's possible that she won't even be able to see any courtroom supporters.

from Njeri / San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia: California activist [and Grand Jury Resister] Danae Kelley was arrested after a legal demonstration in San Diego over the weekend. (13 others were detained but then released without charges just as Danae should have been.) Phone calls need to be made on her behalf. Please call [Los Colinas Detention Facility] and ask when she will be released.

Danae Kelley - Booking #7762437 - is at the Las Colinas Detention Facility-- Please call 619-258-3176 & ask when she'll be released and if she's getting vegan food. --Read More--; see also article on infoshop.org; updates at alongingforcollapsepress on myspace

SD City Beat description of arrest: click here

from fuck the green scare: you can/should also contact city council and the district attorney to speak out about her unfair arrest and inflated bail: san diego city council | San Diego District Attorney

from Janice Jordan: The people wielding the power of the justice system, law enforcement agencies and political administrations want working-class communities to live in fear. For if we live in a constant state of fear, "I can't get involved", "I can't go to jail", "I might lose my job", "It's none of my business", the disease of fear spreads and its' infectious wrath takes more and more people down with it... It is imperative that all concerned parties of free speech, civil rights, and the right to assemble unconditionally support both Rod Coronado and Danae Kelley. Just when we all think it couldn't get more reactionary-IT HAS!--Read More--

Related: Rod Coronado's Hearing/Trial | Midwest ALF/ELF Grand Jury | More info about the Minnesota Grand Jury | Eric McDavid's Trial | Solidarity for Non-Cooperation Political Prisoners | greenscare.org | ecoprisoners.org | greenisthenewred.com
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Elvira Arellano Arrested by ICE and Apparently Deported to Tijuana
r.l. rodriguez,

from Leslie/LA Indymedia: Elvira Arellano, who, with her son Saul, has become a national symbol of the destruction of families by federal policy, was taken into immigration custody today in Los Angeles.--Read More--

from r.l. rodriguez/SD Indymedia: I received a phone call from a friend at 7:15 notifying me that Elvira Arellano was being driven from L.A. to TJ to be deported.

The corporate media reported late sunday that the pastor of the church in Chicago where she sought sanctuary had spoken to her by phone in Tijuana, where she was free after being deported.

Solidarity actions have taken place in Los Angeles and Chicago.

UPDATE:
San Diego Solidarity Demo
Tuesday August 21, 6PM
Fed Building, 800 Front Street Downtown

Read More: Chicago Indymedia feature | Los Angeles Indymedia feature

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Emily Hicks on Open Source Software and Borders
queer-j brad,

On July 11, 2005 Emily Hicks, Professor of Chican@ Studies and English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University appeared on Veer Towards Queer on radioActive sanDiego. She talked about the military-industrial-academic complex, the mechanics of the corporate university, open source software, creating community with music, the existence of bisexuality, a proposed open source lab for chicanas, and the ideology of borders and breaking them down.

From the Interview: Emily Hicks
Who is going to be the actor, the subject of history, and I don't think it is a male factory worker anymore. I think immigrants, people without papers, people all over the world who do not have the last name that matches the dominant culture, that matches the passport. Those are the people who are going to be fighting the state for all of us. As anarchists, concerned with overthrowing the state, we can see that whoever is trying to cross the border, whoever doesn't have papers, whatever musician is sitting on the cement embankment three months, trying to get across, can't get across and has no ID, except for a flyer that he had from a gig in Mexico City, an alternative art space.

Those people are not just US-Mexico border people, its not just this border, those people are speaking for, embodying the contradictions of people all over the world, that would be eastern Europe, that would be in any part of the world right now where people are without papers, and their papers were taken from them, and they aren't ever going to get to go back home.

The theoretical term for that is those people are de-territorialized, that is what Deleuze and Guattari call it.... It's now the person who is de-territorialized, speaking with an accent, speaking without rights. And whatever those people are up to, that's our leader, that's who we should be looking to...

Emily Hicks Interview: Part One | Part Two


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Rocky to Run for Mayor of San Diego
Rocky Neptun,

Only participatory democracy will save this planet. Political power from the bottom-up, the inside-out, that is self-governing and makes decisions in unity with our common global needs. Face to face democracy breaks down the pyramids of power which institutionalize unfairness,inequality and privilege. That is what I propose for San Diego.

As a candidate for an office that I can't possibly win, part of a broader coalition, possibly a local justice movement, if nothing else, at least an adventure; I am free to campaign on the issues. To go beyond the media forged parameters of possibility and discussion. To change the political dialogue or, as that great Chicago organizer, Saul Alinsky, once said, "to stink up the place."

I will challenge the fundamental nature of store bought politics. Today's politicians have become squabbling creatures of self-interest. Our mayor is their poster boy. Jerry Sanders...jerry rigging city contracts and peddling influence.....JS....BS. The darling of the corporate media and wealthy developers, he has been called a "crook" by our own elected City Attorney and "silly and uniformed" in a recent City Beat editorial. Like Sanders, most local politicians lack vision and have forgotten how to imagine, prisoners of their own mendacity and greed. They pander to despair and fear, thumping the virtues of selfishness and looking out for number one, reducing collective existence to its most banal aspects.
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Come Out to the No Borders Benefit Now!
san diego indymedia volunteer,

Come out to the No Borders Camp benefit at the City Heights Free Skool Tonight (Wednesday)! Here's a video clip explaining the camp and talking about the benefit: No Borders Camp VIdeo Clip

And here are a bunch of other video clips:
Cathect
Zines, Crafts and Dancing
Doctor Bird
The Eclectic Bastards

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No Borders Camp Benefit: Wed Aug 15 7PM
In Solidarity, The No Borders Camp San Diego Organizers,

A number of community organizers and collectives from San Diego, CA are collaborating with organizations across the continent on an action camp effort to directly confront the injustices, violence and environmental degradation that the U.S./Mexico border embodies. Direct action, Independent Media broadcasting, workshops, art, music and speakers are being planned during the week of November 5-11, 2007.

The No Borders Camp will be in the Calexico/Mexicali borderland region. The Imperial/Mexicali valley is a leading producer of agricultural products for the U.S.A, houses dozens of multinational corporate Maquiladoras, has three toxic bodies of water that flow throughout the region and an Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) detention center where migrant people are held for months to years. This No Borders Camp will be directly contributing to building community and awareness around the issues facing this region. Organizers are working to incorporate and exemplify the strong connections between the struggles people face in the borderlands and the realities communities face across the continent.

Most of the media's attention on immigrant issues today is concentrated on marches and legislation. However, the history and future of violence against immigrant people from Latin America is rooted in the displacement of farmers, natural resource extraction in remote communities, unlivable wages and state sanctioned violence to push the political agendas of governmental and capitalist entities. The strategic displacement of communities, to gain access to their resources, and subsequently to their cheap labor, is the driving force behind paramilitary violence in Mexico today. In fact, the violent displacement of communities of color around our world is directly connected to the political and economic forces at play in the Calexico/Mexicali region. This is an imposition that reduces human life to a mere variable in an economic equation, and a disposable variable at that.

For these reasons we are collaborating, and reaching out to you for support. We would like to invite you to collaborate with us in our efforts to realize the No Borders Camp, and together raise funds for a Media and Convergence Center to support the communities in getting their voices heard. Come to the benefit this Wednesday and enjoy music, food, art and friends.

No Borders Camp Benefit
A Night of Radical Music to raise funds for a Media and Convergence Center Wednesday August 15 7-10PM
City Heights Free Skool 4246 Wightman

Music By: The Eclectic Bastards (Portland), Doctor Bird, Corporate World Domination, The Americans and Hot Pink Magon!!!
awesome d.i.y. crafts, zines, snacks and beverages by donation
all ages // no alcohol
$5 donation

No Borders Links: Calexico/Mexicali No Borders Camp | Ukraine No Border Camp: Call, Website | UK No Border Camp (Gatwick Airport) | No Border Network


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Groundwork Books Benefit Report
san diego indymedia volunteer,

Groundwork Books put on a lively hardcore benefit show at the Che Cafe on Wednesday, featuring locals The Americans and Cathect, and Resist the Right from Vancouver, Canada.

Groundwork is a political collective at UCSD seeking to develop the skills for a "nonhierarchical and nonauthoritarian system of social organization." They run an awesome bookstore on campus, send books to prisoners and sponsor informational programs for the community. As one of four autonomous co-ops at the heavily corporatized UCSD, Groundwork struggles for survival against university administration as well as corporate giants like amazon.

Luke from Resist the Right spoke to sdimc about the connection between music and politics; gentrification and oppression of indigenous people in advance of the rich person's party known as the 2010 olympics in Vancouver, and the effort to shut them down; and the urgency of reversing the corporate-induced ecological crisis.

from Yesi: The Show was a success, Groundwork (and everyone who organized it) did an amazing job, the bands were awesome, and the ever-so-struggling food co-op even made a little money selling vegetarian snacks! all in all, it was AWESOME! i can't wait for the next co-op event!

from jae: This was such a good show!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Resist the Right are one of the best punk bands I have seen from Canada. I can't wait for them to come back. Groundwork Books is more than a good bookstore co-op they also know how to throw a fun show. They should do more.

Videos: Groundwork | Resist the Right

Tonight was San Diego Indymedia's first attempt to provide live coverage through a mobile media unit we are developing. It didn't work, but we were able to send off, semi-live, a short clip (the first video) by tapping into a weak wifi signal at the Che Cafe. We hope to get things sorted for the No Borders Camp Benefit next week. See you there!


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Stay Home Wins in Oaxaca Election, PRI Retains Power
compiled by san diego indymedia volunteer,

In Sunday elections in Oaxaca, close to 80% of the electorate elected not to vote, meaning that the candidates of PRI (the party of murderous dictator Ulises Ruiz, which has long held power) won all open offices. The overwhelming lack of participation was somewhat unexpected, given APPO's (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) call for a punishment vote against the ruling party.

Reports:
por Centro de Medios Libres: Al menos ocho de cada diez ciudadanos oaxaqueños convocados a las urnas (2 millones 383 mil 667), despreciaron la vía electoral como el medio para “dirimir sus diferencias”. Con más del 60 por ciento de las casillas computadas, el nivel de abstencionismo ronda el 80 por ciento, superando todos los pronósticos, que señalaban que el mismo sería del 40 por ciento.--Leer Mas--

por El ChicoZapote: Ya que terminó el “ejercicio democrático” de ayer, estamos de vuelta en la normalidad autoritaria. Obviamente nunca salimos de ella, y la elección, tan costosa, fue parte de esta realidad autoritaria. Y por eso la gran mayoría de la ciudadanía, el 70%, no votó, no entró a este juego. Aunque los tachan de desobligados, de ignorantes, de antidemocráticos, la verdad es que el abstencionismo se debe al hecho que la mayoría no encuentra un lugar dentro de las instituciones políticas: la percepción de las instituciones, y de la “democracia” electoral es de profunda desconfianza, de rechazo, de asco. El acto de votar es visto como ejercicio de legitimación de un sistema deplorable, o simplemente como perdida de tiempo, que al final es lo mismo.--Leer Mas--

from South Notes: Although the preliminary results are still being tallied, it’s already apparent that the big winner in today’s legislative elections is “none of the above”. At just after midnight local time, the State Electoral Institute showed that 75% of the electorate chose not to vote today. [Note: That number may change as more ballots are tallied.] --Read More--

from Barucha Calamity Peller: Last night, while the votes were being counted that confirmed a PRI sweep of the state legistlative elections, three people were taken off the streets of the Zocalo in Oaxaca City by police at approximately 10 pm. Among them were two Catalans and one Mexican woman...[the detainees apparently have been accounted for] The elections, in which almost 80% of the Oaxacan population abstained from voting, came as a dissapointment for the APPO’s “punishment vote” campaign against the PRI.--Read More--

Background:
from Barucha Calamity Peller: Has the world forgotten about Oaxaca? Political activity, from repression to organizing, is still just as present as when the Oaxaca uprising was visible in the streets, but with the appearance of normalcy in Oaxaca City it seems that many of us have begun the process of forgetting or assuming that the Oaxaca struggle is over. --Read More--

from South Notes: Mexico’s Ejercito Revolucionario Popular (EPR) guerrilla group has claimed responsibility for the two explosive devices found in Oaxaca City yesterday. One of the devices damaged the shuttered front entrance of the Sears department store in the Plaza del Valle shopping center district, while the other (placed in a Banamex branch in a different neighborhood) did not detonate. --Read More--


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Radical Right Mounts Two Rival Anti-Marriage Drives
Mark Gabrish Conlan/Zenger’s Newsmagazine,

Two rival radical-Right initiatives being proposed to ban legal recognition of same-sex marriages in California reveal a split in strategy and tactics within the anti-Queer, anti-marriage movement. The California Family Council, affiliated with Jim Dobson’s powerful Focus on the Family organization, is promoting a so-called “Protect Marriage” initiative that would simply write into the state constitution Proposition 22, passed by California voters 61 to 39 percent in 2000, which defined marriage in California exclusively as the union of one man and one woman.

Another group, called the Voters’ Right to Protect Marriage Initiative and headed by former California Assemblymember Larry Bowler, is going farther and pushing a ballot measure that would not only define marriage as one man and one woman but would also repeal California’s landmark domestic partnership legislation. Both groups are fighting for large-scale financial backing to pay signature gatherers to get their initiatives on the ballot.

The two rival initiatives are coming up in the middle of a process by which supporters of marriage equality for same-sex couples are pushing their demand in the legislature and the courts. In 2005, both houses of the California state legislature passed a marriage equality bill, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it and said in his veto message that the final determination of whether California should legally recognize same-sex marriages should be made by the courts or by voters.--Read More--

Equality California Website
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Resist to Live: Interview with Don Benjamin
elias lawless,

In some respects, Don Benjamín is one of the lucky ones, a survivor.

As a 35-year-old indigenous peasant from Guatemala’s western highlands, he has pushed the limits of survival, beyond what many could ever imagine – outlasting a genocide aimed at him and other Maya civilians in the 1980s and 90s: a strategic, government-sponsored crusade that left him orphaned as a young teenager, fleeing into the mountainous backcountry, eluding army search squads and aerial bombardments.

In the early 1980s, those who resolved to attempt prolonging their survival by living in hiding among the wilderness formed the Communities of Population in Resistance (CPR). As a member of the CPR for nearly a decade and a half, Don Benjamín not only confronted repeated military attacks, he often lacked shelter and clothing amid dangerously chilly weather, and constantly battled hunger.

He did not re-emerge from the CPR until after the signing of the Peace Accords in December 1996, which officially ended the military’s so-called “counterinsurgency” operations against Guatemala’s Maya population, implemented under the guise of hunting guerrilla fighters.

A few years later, a truth commission sponsored by the United Nations (UN) found that more than 200,000 people had been killed in the conflict -- the overwhelming majority Maya -- establishing the bloodshed in Guatemala as one of the deadliest genocides in our hemisphere’s modern history...
Don Benjamín, member of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation, talks about surviving Guatemala’s genocide against the Maya and the current indigenous-led struggle to demand justice.--Read More--

Related: Guatemala Femicide: Happy Mother's Day???? | Gender Savagery in Guatemala | Video: Violent Evictions at El Estor, Guatemala || More Info: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

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"Project Censored" Head Speaks in San Diego
Mark Gabrish Conlan/Zenger’s Newsmagazine,

Peter Phillips, head of "Project Censored" at Sonoma State University and principal author of its annual compilations of the 25 "most censored stories" in the U.S. corporate media, spoke in San Diego at the First Unitarian-Universalist Church July 25. He talked about the structural issues that make the U.S. media a tool of the capitalist ruling class, the sheer scope of the ambitions of the neoconservatives that now dominate America's ruling class, and the need to start the fight-back by impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and removing them from office.--Read More--

Al Giordano's (Narco News) Criticism of Project Censored and Exchange With Peter Phillips: 1 | 2

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San Diego Dyke March/Ride and Festival
two san diego indymedia volunteers,

At noon on July 22, about 100 marchers and over 50 cyclists took to the streets in the 2007 San Diego Dyke March/Ride, traveling from Balboa Park to the Rubber Rose in North Park, the site of an afternoon Dyke Festival.

Marchers and cyclists carried signs reading Dykes, Not Bombs; Girl Kisses are Delicious; This is What A Dyke Looks Like; Pride is Sexy; Dyke Pride; Vagina, Vagina; Just Dyke It; and Free the Newark/Lesbian Seven. Chants, energized by the Radical Fucking Cheerleaders, included: We're Here, We're Queer, We're Fabulous, Don't Fuck With Us; If You're Queer and You Know It And You Really Want To Show It, Clap Your Hands; We Don't Need Your Christian Hate, Separation of Church and State; and What Do We Want? Equal Rights! When Do Want Them? Now! Cyclists provided a safe space for the marchers to take one and sometimes two lanes on the street.

Festival attendees flowed between the cool interior of the Rubber Rose; workshops; a beergarden down the street; the City Heights Free Skool Bike Kitchen Mobile Clinic; performances by locals MC Flow, Dropjoy, Lauren DeRose, Eileen Myles, Jiggle It! Bitch Burlesque and Addiquit; chillin in the shade with friends; and a giant (painted) vagina.

San Diego Dyke March/Ride & Festival Video: Part One | Part Two

San Diego Dyke March | City Heights Free Skool Bike Kitchen | The Rubber Rose

Additional Pride Coverage: Police Chief, 16-Yr.-Old at Pride Celebration | Recording of LGBT Pride "Celebration" 7/15/07

Comments on landsdowne 'stonewall award':
from techno-tranny-slut: Giving awards to the murderous, violent SDPD is just too much. I'm disgusted. Its a good thing that the radical queer movement in san diego is growing, because this is a disgusting way to honor stonewall.
from Michel: It's almost as bad as having the fuck'in police in the Martin Luther King Jr. parade every god-damn year! We do remember the history of the Stonewall Riots, right! Cops trying to make good? - Hell no! It's just like the blacks & brown fighting a white man's war! You know about the military industrial complex history, right! Or do I have to get into that too? Point being: Fuck the police! Who's streets? Our streets! You racist-sexist-antigay... You can't take my rights away!
from a queer: giving a murderous thug an award has nothing to do with stonewall and everything to do with serving the interests of the elite, who are protected by landsdowne's roving armed gangs. it was made plain last year that the apprehension of the bashers was related to protecting the bonanza that straight and queer rich people make from ordinary folks at corporate pride with their fucking overpriced events, hotel rooms, etc.

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DA Dumanis Invading Homes of Poor: San Diego's Project 100%
Eric Isaacson ,

Applying for public assistance to feed your children in San Diego requires submitting to a search of your home by agents of the County's top prosecutor, District Attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis.

The ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties filed suit to stop Project 100%, arguing that the District Attorney’s invasions of homes of the poor violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches. When a district judge ruled that government agents going through an impoverished citizen’s bedroom closets and medicine cabinets looking for evidence does not even amount to a “search,” the ACLU filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.--Read More--

Video of Stephen Colbert commenting on Dumanis's systematic invasions of the homes of the poor

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La Revolución Mexicano: ¿Tierra y Libertad?
Jorge Garcia and Jeff Graves,

Looking at the Mexican Revolution from a distance, we can see that the overt theme was set in the tone of the poor versus the rich; those who drank pulque and had a sense of community and those who sipped fine wine at the expense of the working-class, with an affinity for privileged isolationism.

Ricardo Flores Magón may have been right all along when he said that:
“The dreamer is the designer of tomorrow. The practical man, the sensible, cold head, can laugh at the dreamer; they do not know that he, the dreamer, is the true dynamic force that pushes the world forward. Suppress the dreamer, and the world will deteriorate toward barbarism. Despised, impoverished, the dreamer opens the way for his race, sowing sowing sowing the seeds which will be harvested, not by him, but by the practical men, the sensible cold heads of tomorrow, who will laugh at the sight of another dreamer seeding, seeding, seeding.”


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Human Rights Activists Protest Police Violence in Oaxaca
san diego indymedia volunteer,

On Monday, human rights activists responded to brutality in Oaxaca against a people's celebration of Guelaguetza, a traditional festival, by educating and protesting at the Mexican Consulate in San Diego.

On July 16, state and federal forces in Oaxaca City attacked members of APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca), people participating in the popular celebration and journalists, leaving at least one dead, numerous injuries and over 60 detained or disappeared (en1, en2; es1, es2). The popular Guelaguetza was an alternative to the government-supported celebration, co-opted from the traditional holiday by commercial tourist interests.

Activists from vAPPOroaxaca and The Indigenous Binational Front (FIOB) began early in the morning by informing the folks standing in line to get into the consulate about the situation in Oaxaca and by playing videos (vid1, vid2) from the July 16 attack on a laptop. After the Consul arrived mid-morning in his fancy car and expressed his displeasure by staring and making faces at the protesters, they began chanting and loudly demanding freedom for political prisoners and the removal of the corrupt governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz.

APPO formed last summer shortly after school teachers repelled an attack by state forces on their occupation of the zócalo (central plaza) of Oaxaca City and effectively governed the city for several months until an invasion by Federal Preventative Police, prompted by the murders of Oaxaqueños Esteban Zurrita and Emilio Alonso Fabian and Indymedia journalist Brad Will by government-sponsored paramilitaries, on October 27. San Diego activists set up a camp and continuously occupied the sidewalk outside of the Mexican Consulate from October 29 to November 21, using it as a base for protests, marches and rallies in solidarity with the People of Oaxaca.

Monday Protest Video | Solidarity Camp Coverage
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Southeast San Diego Fighting Immigration Raids
Jordan (guest journalist of ATX IMC),

Southeast San Diego community members are organizing opposition to immigration raids, seeking a resolution supporting immigrants from City Council and policy changes from the San Diego Police Department. In a community forum held Wednesday, several panelists shared compelling testimony as to why these raids must be stopped.
Read more >>

Work with Guatemalan Anti-Genocide Activists
jordan,

Call for direct solidarity with the indigenous movement in Guatemala...
Become a Human Rights Observer!

The Guatemala Accompaniment Project (G.A.P.) of the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) is always looking for qualified candidates to be human rights accompaniers.

Next training: October 14-21, 2007
Application deadline: August 17, 2007
Training will take place in San Francisco, CA

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