The Try-Works

And I should be fucking pistol-whipped for not having these up earlier.  My apologies, gentle(wo)men.  Don’t y’all never stop.

Happy 4th of July, Enjoy the Barbecue!!!

Why We Say . . .Fuck the Troops

With this kind of spirit in town, do you really think anyone’s gonna miss T.A.R.D. come August?

Thanks to the Try-Works’ extensive network of sources, following is an email sent by Adam Jung(k) to his fellow T.A.R.D.’s just prior to their last meeting.

Needless to say, everything after “Hey All” is a lie.  I mean literally everything.  The Jill to whom he refers, for instance, has been an activist in Denver for ten years, has been working her ass off in local communities, and is trusted by just about everyone.  Adam, on the other hand, is about fifteen seconds from being chained to a tree and horsewhipped.

But let’s get it started.

Hey All,

I’ve been thinking about this alot over the last few days.  I’m posting it because I won’t be at Wednesday’s meeting.  We have less then 6 weeks till the Convention and I can’t spend three hours discussing R68, which is what the last three meetings I’ve attended have entailed.  So this is my take on the Sunday march.

You mean you idiots have been spending your meetings whining, and not getting anything done?  I’ll try not to swallow my cigarette in shock.

- Logistically its a nightmare.  Many people will just be getting into Denver the morning of the 24th and I think a 9:30 start time is too early. Following the rally, if we are alotted equal say and speakers, a situation will be created forcing us to “compete” will R68 for people.  We have events planned that afternoon and evening, and so does R68.  And we will be farther from our “homebase” then R68 at the rally (by about 12 blocks.)

In other words, you don’t have your shit together.  Again, cigarette/shock.

- We will confirm alot of people’s assumptions that we were simply created to put a friendlier face out there for R68.  Regardless of promises, this march WILL be an R68 march.  R68 claims everything.  Jill has contacted some of our artists in what can only be considered sabotage, including repeatedly contacting Son of Nun.  They’ve claimed Doc’s Place and are still claiming United for Peace and Justice and CODEPINK in their “e-flashs.”  And they are claiming the march right now.

Yeah, of course this’ll be an R68 march.  Y’know, in that it will be coordinated by R68, because, well, they’ve actually been coordinating it for a year and a fucking half, while you’ve been doing whatever it is you do.

- The music festival will be wrecked.  I’ve spoken with Jamie from the Flobots a lot about this.  Just today they were offered a show at Red Rocks during the DNC.  I understand they are rejecting it, but these offers will increase.  With their rock solid opposition to R68, it’s highly possible they will drop out and play another, un-related event. Rage Against the Machine has already stated they are not interested in being associated with R68.  Wayne Kramer thinks their mere existance is ridiculus.  I think it’s safe to assume Against Me! and Pearl Jam, nethier of which have confirmed yet, but it’s looking likely, will not play ethier.  Both bands are backing Obama.

Horseshit, top to bottom.  But, speaking of not having their shit together, let’s not forget that Mr. Jung(k) doesn’t even have a place for his bands to play.  Right?  The only thing he has is a conditional permit for City Park.  If any of these poor fuckers actually sign up with Tent State, there’s a real good possibility they’ll end up playing on a Colfax sidewalk.

- We lose organizational support.  I don’t think it’s a secret why UFPJ is hesitant to join ARD.  We don’t have our shit together on this march and we’re entertaining the idea of a march with R68.  I think (Zoe, correct me if I’m wrong)the CODEPINK Parade may be scrapped now for the same reason.  If you go to the Backbone Campaign’s website I think you can agree they will not march under R68 eithier.  Not to mention all the individuals R68 has already turned off, including the delegates that I thought we wanted marching with us.

Groups don’t want to join you because they don’t think you have your shit together?  Where’d that cigarette go?

- Funding.  No one’s going to give to a group affiliated with R68. Couple that with the loss of the bands (who are securing the $60,000 necessary for the stage and sound,) were are we going to get funding?

You know, usually I try not to rag on typos and whatnot, as I myself am prone — particularly after a cocktail or two — to the occasional lapse in grammar.  But one has to ask: this little asshole’s really a college student?

- Our message is lost and media turns against us.  I’ve spoke with Judith at UFPJ and she framed it best.  Up until recently, R68 has held a hedgemony on messaging, and their messaging has been horrible.  We’ve broke that. ARD or coalition groups have been receiving the majority of coverage both locally and nationally.  The Nation’s feature next month is on ARD members, the Flobots put alot of ARD members, banners, and messaging in their music video that will drop on Mtv in a couple weeks, and almost all of the coverage has been positive.  If we hand what we’ve built back over to R68, we’re screwed again.

You’ve turned around R68’s “hedgemony” in messaging you say?  That’s funny, I go to R68’s website and look at July’s updates, and I see articles from The Denver Post, The Rocky Mountain News, The New York Times, Fox 31 Colorado, 9News, The LA Times, and USA TODAY, as well as nigh daily interviews on two local talk radio shows.

And then I search, say, “alliance for real democracy” on Google News, and I get, well, four articles, none of them in July.

Great media work, ace.  Hell, you fuckers ought to send me a case of Scotch.  I seem to be the only person in Denver talking about you at all.

- You make some of our lives hell.  We’ve met with City Officials, the Mayor, Councilmembers, the Police, DOJ, Neighborhood Associations, East High, and the Zoo.  This have ALL been positive.  The Police, the Zoo, some city officials, and East High all want us to be allowed to camp.  Alot of it has to do with our positive messaging and willingness to work with these institutions.  East High is even writing off the 8th period on Wednesday to allow students to attend the Flobots portion of the concert, presenting some of our speakers at the school, allowing field trips to Tent State, and going to bat for us with the parents.  An association with R68 will destroy all of this.  They believe us when I say we’re not with R68, and are thankful.  Just look at Concilwoman Madison’s quote last week in the Post.

Well, at least he’s got it together with the junior high school students.

Hey, maybe they’ll let him hold his concerts in their auditorium.

Y’know, since as of right now, he ain’t got anywhere else to put the bands he may or may not have.

- There is no trust.  The R68 members now coming to our meetings (wtf!?) have broken trust time and again.  Ben did it with Dead Prez, and many of you saw his amazing writing skills.  Jill is contacting as many of our artists as she can causing wonderful conversations between some of us and the artists, and apparently plans to disrupt the neighborhood meetings.  Seriously, wtf!?  She also bcc’s Ben Whitmore and who knows who else every time she emails us, resulting in more wonderful emails sent to a few of us.  If you’re not familiar with him, here’s a link to his blog:

http://tryworks.org

You’ll find wonderful articles written on myself, Claire, Ben, Zoe, and T.A.R.D. as he loves to call us.  Maybe you’ll recognize the usual R68 commentors below the articles.

Sue me.

And finally, a major WTF!?  Many of the organizations in ARD refused to work with Tent State when we were associated with R68.  Now people are arguing to be associated with R68.  It’s more then frustrating.

And that’s the kicker, of course.  T.A.R.D. is falling apart, and the reason they’re falling apart is because they don’t have their shit together.  Right now they exist as a kind of group therapy session, spending every Wednesday evening venting hurt feelings and licking their wounds.  They’ve already canceled what was supposed to be their big march, and they don’t even have a place to hold the events they stole from R68.

Again, Mr. Jung(k) can claim whatever he wants, but the only thing he has is a conditional permit for City Park.  And hell, even if by some miracle the city grants it to him, that means his little shindig’ll be located four fucking miles from the Pepsi Center.

Good luck with that.   Given what I’ve seen of your organizational skills so far, I’ll be fucking amazed if there are more than a hundred people at City Park at any one time during the DNC.

And that’s if every group aligned with you hasn’t already jumped ship by August.

Which, from your email, and from what I’m hearing offline, looks to be the case.

Adam Jung,
National Organizing Committee,
Tent State University,
816.349.7385
adam@tentstate.org
http://tentstate.org

National Organizing Committee, you say?

No offense, but I’m betting you ain’t gonna retain that position for long, Mr. Jung(k).

In case you haven’t noticed, I try to live by the words of dear Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of my least favorite US president.  As she said, “if you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”

But, as much as I do enjoy finding unkind things to say about T.A.R.D., there are groups working in Denver that manage to cut through the overwhelming contempt that washes over me whenever I contemplate that useless, bloated, ahistorical, drooling beast known euphemistically as the antiwar movement.

What I mean is that as long as there are groups like RAIMD and Unconventional Denver out there, all hope ain’t lost.

From the Denver Post.

In Denver this weekend, a group of anarchists who have pledged to disrupt the Democratic National Convention will hold a secret action camp to learn about medical training and legal rights and to practice nonviolent tactics.

“We don’t want history to remember the Democratic National Convention in Denver as something that went smoothly,” said Tim Simons with the self-described anarchist group, Unconventional Denver.

“We want people to know there was dissent and people spoke up,” he said.

In the meantime, local governments in the region are inking contracts to send hundreds of law enforcement officers into Denver during the last week of August to work the convention.

Aurora will send nearly half its force to Denver, Jefferson County will ship more than 100 deputies and Arapahoe County is expecting to add 100.

Dozens of other agencies are sending officers: Colorado State Patrol, Arvada, Wheat Ridge, Englewood, Littleton, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Douglas County and many others.

“We want to make sure we are adequately staffed for the number of people who are going to be here,” said Sonny Jackson, a Denver police spokesman. He would not disclose what agencies will be participating or how many officers are expected.

“We respect everyone’s First Amendment rights,” Jackson said. “We hope that the citizens will come in and conduct themselves in a law-abiding and responsible manner.”

With the contingent of local officers and federal agents and the money being spent on security from a $50 million federal grant, protesters worry about possible outcomes.

“The police are gearing up for confrontation,” said Glenn Spagnuolo, organizer with the protest group Re-create 68. “Police are getting dressed up for a fight, and if there isn’t one, they will create one.”

He said he has not heard of any of the protest groups planning violence against the police or citizens.

Plan for disruption

Numerous anti-war groups have announced their intention to demonstrate in Denver during the Aug. 25-28 convention, but most have promised peaceful actions. The language of the anarchist groups is more confrontational. Unconventional Denver is part of a national group of anarchists planning to descend on Denver.

The group says it will engage in nonviolent direct action and has called for protesters “to engage in a broad variety of tactics to disrupt fundraising events and prevent Democratic delegates from putting on the spectacle they claim as democracy,” according to the group’s website.

Unconventional Denver wants to shut down, disrupt or delay the convention; storm events; and “ensure that the DNC is a thing of rowdy beauty.”

The website suggests activists “hold” intersections to strand delegates in buses and “swarm” streets to force police to retreat.

The group has posted a schedule of events for certain days:

Sunday, the group wants to reclaim public space in the city. Monday, there will be actions against parties or restaurant outings and a “black bloc” gathering against capitalism. Tuesday, the group wants to shut down access to the Pepsi Center. And Wednesday and Thursday, there will be “creative actions” to address specific issues such as global warming, racism and criminal injustice.

“The streets will be a wild and creative place,” said Simons, a 25-year-old graphic artist who grew up in Boulder and lives in San Francisco.

Simons is helping organize Denver’s group, which meets weekly at a Colfax Avenue coffee shop. He wouldn’t disclose the size of the group.

For six days starting Saturday, they will meet at an undisclosed location to discuss actions and learn how to tend to one another’s medical needs and how to legally monitor the police reactions.

Simons says there will be street theater, “guerrilla gardening” and ways for alternative forms of media to get out their message.

A group called the Colorado Street Medics will be on hand throughout the protests to provide immediate medical service, said Zoe Williams, who is coordinating the expected 120 volunteer street medics.

“We don’t want to see a dark, evil atmosphere descending on Denver,” Simons said. “We want a festive atmosphere that celebrates grassroots movements.”

History of violence

Yet, historically, law enforcement officials have blamed anarchists for violence in protests.

In 2003, Colorado Springs Police Chief Luis Velez said, officers used tear gas on war protesters after anarchists from Denver disrupted the peaceful rally with violent acts — blocking an intersection and banging on cars.

Anarchists took center stage in Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, when protesters smashed shop windows and police shot tear gas and rubber bullets. The National Guard and state patrol were called in to quell the chaos.

“I was there,” said Simons, who blamed police force for the trouble. “We were standing up for democracy.”

Simons said the real message of what people want will not be heard in the Pepsi Center or in the Democratic Party’s platform; it will come from what is being said in the streets.

“Politicians and the people in power should be afraid of the power of the people,” he said. “That is the sign of a healthy democracy.”

Well fucking said, Mr. Simons.  Tonight I’ll raise a glass to and yours.  In the eternal words of Herman Melville:

Gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together — there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses!

Of course, if you’re surprised, you’re an idiot.

Arizona Sen. John McCain did not bother to show up for Wednesday’s Senate votes on whether to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to absolve George Bush of responsibility for initiating an illegal warrantless wiretapping program and to provide retroactive immunity to the telecommunications corporations that violated the privacy of their customers in order to collaborate with a lawless president.

But that’s OK, because Illinois Sen. Barack Obama cast the votes that McCain would have.

Keep reading.

I’m hurt, dear reader.  In the interest of unity, fair play, and good sportsmanship, I took time out of my busy schedule to invite Claire Ryder to a round of friendly, leisurely sport-drinking, and not only did she not respond, she sent the following out to a few hundred of her closest friends.

Just in case anyone wants to know, Mr.. Whitmer is part of the R68 coalition, and is one of their biggest supporters.  In case anyone was wondering about solidarity, this is how to build it, eh?

Adam and Zoë are also frequent targets.

Funnily enough, I am not even part of the Alliance.

Read this and maybe people will reconsider about working with R68.

And unlike some people do, I have no one bcc’d on this.  Funnily enough, when you bcc someone on an email, then they stupidly hit reply all, then everyone knows who is bcc’d.

Funnily enough, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about, dear.  I ain’t a part of the R68 coalition.  I am a supporter, of course, but I don’t represent anything here other than my own half-formed, usually incoherent abhorrences (apologies to Ed Dorn).

It’s a fucking blog, ma’am, a little space of my own to bang out ten minutes of hate between cocktails, it’s sure as shit not a mission statement.  As import goes, it’s somewhere between couch therapy and masturbating into a condom.

That said, Ms. Ryder, I seem to recall an incident not too long ago where you posted personal information about an R68 member on a website that gets a whole hell of a lot more traffic than this one.

I just took it as a sign that you wanted to play.

If you’re like me, dear reader, you’ve been pondering exactly why CodePink, United for Peace and Justice, Tent State and the rest of T.A.R.D. have taken it upon themselves to do everything they can fucking dream up to decimate local organizing around the DNC here in Denver.

As some of you have pointed out, it’s simply what these corporatized activist organizations do.  Right?  They blow into town, systematically plunder the work that’s been built at the grassroots level, crush local perspectives, drown out voices from communities of color, and ensure whatever so-called oppositional points of view left are pristine, lily-white, and entirely fucking useless.  It’s business as usual for these assholes.

But I’m curious as to why.  What do these little shits have to gain?  Or, a better question, given their nature: what purpose do they serve?

Well, I’ve got an answer.  And I’m gonna precede that answer with the following from Baudrillard’s discussion of Watergate in Simulacra and Simulation:

The denunciation of scandal always pays homage to the law. And Watergate above all succeeded in imposing the idea that Watergate was a scandal — in this sense it was an extraordinary operation of intoxication: the reinjection of a large dose of political morality on a global scale. It could be said along with Bourdieu that: “The specific character of every relation of force is to dissimulate itself as such, and to acquire all its force only because it is so dissimulated”; understood as follows: capital, which is immoral and unscrupulous, can only function behind a moral superstructure, and whoever regenerates this public morality (by indignation, denunciation, etc.) spontaneously furthers the; order of capital, as did the Washington Post journalists.

But this is still only the formula of ideology, and when Bourdieu enunciates it, he takes “relation of force” to mean the truth of capitalist domination, and he denounces this relation of force as itself a scandal: he therefore occupies the same deterministic and moralistic position as the Washington Post journalists. He does the same job of purging and reviving moral order, an order of truth wherein the genuine symbolic violence of the social order is engendered, well beyond all relations of force, which are only elements of its indifferent and shifting configuration in the moral and political consciousnesses of people.

All that capital asks of us is to receive it as rational or to combat it in the name of rationality, to receive it as moral or to combat it in the name of morality. For they are identical, meaning they can be read another way: before, the task was to dissimulate scandal; today, the task is to conceal the fact that there is none.

Watergate is not a scandal: this is- what must be said at all cost, for this is what everyone is concerned to conceal, this dissimulation masking a strengthening of morality, a moral panic as we approach the primal (mise-en-)scene of capital: its instantaneous cruelty; its incomprehensible ferocity; its fundamental immorality — these are what are scandalous, unaccountable for in that system of moral and economic equivalence which remains the axiom of leftist thought, from Enlightenment theory to communism. Capital doesn’t give a damn about the idea of the contract which is imputed to it: it is a monstrous unprincipled undertaking, nothing more. Rather, it is “enlightened” thought which seeks to control capital by imposing rules on it. And all that recrimination which replaced revolutionary thought today comes down to reproaching capital for not following the rules of the game. “Power is unjust; its justice is a class justice; capital exploits us; etc.” — as if capital were linked by a contract to the society it rules. It is the left which holds out the mirror of equivalence, hoping that capital will fall for this phantasmagoria of the social contract and fulfill its obligation towards the whole of society (at the same time, no need for revolution: it is enough that capital accept the rational formula of exchange).

In an admittedly reductive nutshell, then, that’s where I see T.A.R.D.  The members therein don’t actually oppose the war any more than the Watergate scandal opposes Capital.  Instead, they provide moral cover for the population at large.

We cluster-bombed civilians?
Don’t blame me, I adhere to solely non-violent principles.

US contractors raped prepubescent boys to garner information?
Don’t blame me, I lit a candle.

More than a million civilians have been exterminated since 2003?
Don’t blame me, I wore pink.

In fact, if you think about it, the members of T.A.R.D. are necessary for the furtherance of the war.  If they didn’t exist, the state would have to invent them.  Without them to provide that moral cover, to help bridge the cognitive dissonance inevitably caused by a culture that prattles on about human rights while committing a fucking holocaust, someone might actually do something to, well, stop the war.

In other words, CodePink, United for Peace and Justice, and the rest of T.A.R.D. are as necessary to ensuring Iraq remains an abattoir as .223 rounds.  They function as an ideological Free Speech Zone, mandating the limits of what is allowable in protest, and restricting dissent.  They serve to provide a safe, State-sanctioned zone for the exercise of limited rights, and to express a purely symbolic opposition to the war.

The only problem being, of course, that the war isn’t symbolic.  And neither are those one million and more dead Iraqis.

They’re just fucking dead.

And, in part, they have T.A.R.D. to thank for it.

Update:  On cue, your T.A.R.D. representative, in the Rocky Mountain News.

The city of Denver has conditionally approved permits for 1,000 local Democrats to host an Aug. 26 Democratic National Convention “watching party” on a big-screen TV at City Park and - just a Frisbee throw away - an encampment for 20,000 to 50,000 war protesters vowing to “Confront the Democrats” for failing to use their control of Congress to cut Iraq war funding.

“How fun will a Denver Democratic convention watching party be with 50,000 protesters all around protesting us?” asked Julie Kronenberger, a Denver County Democratic Party member working to obtain city permits for their night event at City Park Pavilion and adjacent band shell.

But leaders on both sides of the political divide believe they can find common ground at the park.

“I think it’s great. I think the dialogue between the people at Tent State University and the (local) Democrats will probably be more democratic than anything that’s going on inside the convention,” said Adam Jung, chief organizer for Tent State, which describes itself as “a positive, youth-led initiative to fund education instead of war.”

“We’re not there to chastise rank-and-file Democratic Party members. Many of them probably agree with our position on the war,” said Jung.

He said the young protesters’ beef is with national Democratic Party leaders, including presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Jung fears Obama is making a “run to the right” and wavering on vows to withdraw troops from Iraq 16 months after taking office.

Yet, he added, “I can’t foresee us doing anything that would make (local Dems’) night unpleasant. In fact, I think they would be welcome to check out what we’re doing. I think they might have a lot of fun.”

Keep reading.

Fucking pig.

And I mean that quite literally.  As Glenn Spagnuolo alludes in an interview with Peter Boyles this morning, Adam Jung(k) of Tent State (and a founding member of T.A.R.D.) is working with the city to draw people away from downtown Denver’s Civic Center Park, which is home base for the protests and protesters.

I’ve been amused to discover that word has it Ms. Claire Ryder of the Denver Greens is a bit of a drinker.

Okay, word has it that she’s known for appearing falling down fucking drunk at organizational meetings, refusing to appear in public without her ubiquitous Sprite bottle full of vodka, and, to the great dis-ease of all around her, not above the casual groping of whatever young man happens to be in reaching distance of her greasy paws.  Indeed, there is some speculation that her alcoholism might be responsible for her recent selling out to the corporate activists over at CodePink and United for Peace and Justice.

But, you know me, dear reader.  I am nothing if not a believer in unity.  As such, I would like to offer this gesture of friendship to Ms. Ryder:
You’re a tippler, dear, as am I.  There’s nothing I enjoy so much as a good cocktail, and I am a great believer in the sacred visionary qualities of strong liquor.  As such, I’d like to challenge you to an old-fashioned drinking contest.

We’ll meet up at one of the few little dives left in this fast-gentrifying hellhole — some joint lacking in natural light, where the entire human heart can be beheld in all its obscene glory — and then, dear, it’s just me and you.  I’ll let you pick the drink as long as I can pick the music — Billy Joe Shaver, naturally – and whoever hits the fucking floor first loses.

If you win, I’ll shut down the Try-Works.  Immediately, and without protest.

But if I win, if I win, you tell me Adam Jung(k)’s badge number.

Sound fair?

Update: I’m behind the times, as several readers have been emailing me to point out.  Ms. Ryder no longer gets her checks from CodePink, but from the Denver Greens.  Post fixed.  In my defense I have only to offer that when it comes to sleazy, neo-cop, middling, liberal, leftist groups, I never could tell ‘em the fuck apart.

Which ought tell you all you need to know, eh?

A pig is a pig is a pig, and T.A.R.D. are fucking pigs.

Remember this post, where I noted that the geniuses at The Alliance for Real Democracy (T.A.R.D) had filched their front page graphic from Westword?

The graphic which I uploaded so’s we could still chuckle over their corny little thievery when they deleted it?

Well, they’ve deleted it.

Keep reading, T.A.R.D.  I’ll be roasting your asses well into August.

But Try-Works commenter Puck beat me to the punch.

TARD is basically made up of the large, liberal national protest bureaucracies like UFPJ, CodePink, etc. They are the big corporations of the protest movement. And, naturally, they are organizations that quash independent, grassroots, local, spontaneous, radical activism. They quash anything that doesn’t follow their script. Along with this, they make everything they touch bland, safe, boring, rehearsed. TARD is a last minute attempt to co-opt the work that R68 has been working on for over a year. These liberal, national groups show up in town and find a few faces willing to sell out the local community for a few bucks. They also exploit existing splits in the local scene in order to move in. One really has to wonder about the intelligence of those who are are selling out the Denver activist scene to get paid positions. They sell out for next to nothing — it isn’t like UFPJ or CodePink are going to have any use for these Denver sellouts after August. After August, these national groups will cut them loose. In the end, the sellouts are just fucking themselves over by wrecking the Denver activist community. I don’t see how these sellouts can show their faces in public.

My advise to the sellouts: You’ve really fucked up for nothing. You ought to cut your losses. You should come hat in fucking hand back and talk to the right people while they are still willing to listen.

Now, granted, I haven’t really been, how shall I put it, blinded by the brilliance of those shining stars over at The Alliance for Real Democracy (T.A.R.D.). But, even as underwhelmed as I’ve been, I couldn’t help but be a little thunderstruck at the sheer ineptitude evidenced by whoever’s doing the organizing.

Take, for instance, this latest article in the Rocky Mountain News, wherein Mr. Jung(k) pontificates on the lengthy and deliberate preparations he and his cohorts have made in anticipation of 50,000 protesters (their number).

I’d imagine, for instance, that restrooms would be foremost in Mr. Jung(k)’s mind.

His plan?

Jung hopes the city will provide the outhouses.

Really? Hopes? Really? Not having conversations with the city about coordinating the outhouses, he just kinda hopes they’ll, like, appear?

Well, that’s understandable, I suppose. I kinda hope to see Mr. Jung(k) rolled down Colfax in one of those very same outhouses.

Moving on, what about, say, showers?

He plans to ask churches and like-minded Denverites to welcome folks in for showers.

Now that one had me folded up in my chair, laughing. Just imagine, if you will, dear reader, 50,000 motherfuckers milling around downtown, knocking on doors and begging showers.

Naw, that shouldn’t be a problem.

And the best part is that Mr. Jung(k) hasn’t, as of yet, asked anyone to help out with showers. He only plans to.

Hell, we’ve got almost two whole months until the convention. Take your time, Mr. Jung(k).

But, anyway, now that we’ve squared away the facilities, what about food?

Never fear, Mr. Jung(k)’s on top of his game.

As for food, the group will issue participants a list of recommended organic, enviro-friendly local restaurants.

Good. Fucking. God.

Might I suggest, Mr. Jung(k), that you might be better served restricting your logistical talents to endeavors more suited to your capabilities?

Like, I don’t know, stoned trips to Chuck E. Cheese?

Never fear, though. There’s one area that Mr. Jung(k) has down cold.

“Our main argument is, if people are allowed to camp, is that we retain control over the entire event,” he said. “We’re bringing in professional security, so we can direct the energy and we can keep it safe and . . . a very positive event.”

Yep, even I’ll concede that Mr. Jung(k) should have no problem arranging security.

After all, I’ll bet he knows plenty of cops.

The Alliance for Real Democracy has a website. And I couldn’t help but take note of the dominant graphic on their main page (uploaded and displayed below so it’ll still be around when the T.A.R.D.’s delete it):

See, it may be just me, but it seems to bear a certain, shall we say, resemblance, to the banner graphic on Westword’s Demver blog.

Which is a pretty good indication of T.A.R.D.’s modus operandi, ain’t it? Cajole your pasty, narrow-eyed ass into other organizations, lift their ideas, and then start up your own little shindig on their backs.

Hell, with activists like these, who needs cops?

Examples?

Well, anybody notice any similarity between this event, just posted on T.A.R.D.’s website, and this one, which Recreate 68 has been planning for a year and a half?

Even better, however, was T.A.R.D.’s poaching of MC5 guitarist, Wayne Kramer, from Recreate 68’s musical line-up.

What makes that so particularly funny is, of course, that the reason Recreate 68 approached Wayne Kramer is that MC5 kicked off the original 1968 Democratic National Convention protests with the mighty “Kick out the Jams”.

Meaning that, while T.A.R.D. is whining to any journalist who will listen about Recreate 68’s name, the hypocritical motherfuckers are explicitly trying to co-opt their theme.

More to come. Much, much more. One doesn’t get handed targets quite this fucking stupid, bloated with self-appreciation, and full of shit every day. I am gonna be having me some fucking fun.

Thanks, Daisy.

And, bonus, Buckley also threatens to smash Chomsky in the face.

Update:  Had the wrong video up.  This one’s much more fun.

Denver city officials have released new details about Denver’s, ahem, free speech zone.

Details released Monday

* Wire mesh fencing will be used to mark public viewing area.

* Parade route starts at Larimer Street and Speer Boulevard.

* Parade route ends at Seventh Street and Auraria Parkway, which is the entry and exit point for the public demonstration zone in Parking Lot A.

* Permits are not required for entering or using viewing area.

* People using the public viewing area will be protected from unreasonable search and seizure but could be subject to search and seizure under constitutional standards.

* No one will be allowed to obstruct the public viewing area in a way that would prevent free use of the area by others.

The rest.

I ain’t buying for a fucking second, by the way, that Hickenlooper or anyone else in the city is calling the shots on DNC preparation any longer. This is the pigs at the Democratic National Committee.

And, make no mistake, they are pigs. Anyone who would put you in a cage to exercise your civil rights is a pig. They’re not even crypto-fascists, they’re flat-out fascists, they’re fucking pigs.

A right is a right. The pigs at the DNC no more have the ability to allow you your rights than you have the ability to allow the moon to rise. The only thing they can do is use force to ensure your compliance.

It’s no different than what a mugger does.

Or, for that matter, a rapist.

At least that seems to be the gist of the latest Mike Rosen article about Recreate 68.

Free speech? Let them write a letter to the editor, or a book or take out an ad. It’s no secret what these would-be revolutionaries believe in. The icon of a raised fist on their Web site accompanies the menu of daily protest themes, with each one focusing “on a symptom of the disease of an Imperialist, Capitalist, Racist system.” Glen Spagnuolo, Marxist revolutionary-in-chief, describes his group as representing minorities, anarchists, communists, socialists and radicals. He expects 25,000 people from across the country to join his Denver protest. So what? Whom do they represent? And why should anyone else care? Do the math: Twenty-five thousand people out of a population of more than 300 million is eight one-thousandths of 1 percent. That’s less than one person out of 10,000 in the country. Even if it were a hundred times that number, what would it matter? So what if a hard-core band of “anarchists, communists and radicals” takes to the streets to indulge their rage and self-disenfranchisement. Why in the world should such tantrums affect any rational citizen’s fundamental beliefs or positions on important issues?

HBO recently ran a multipart series based on David McCullough’s popular biography of John Adams. In one of the early episodes, an angry crowd of Bostonians is seen venting its frustration at British soldiers. American colonists often took to the streets to protest the tyranny of King George III imposed by his appointed governors, magistrates and military forces. The Boston Tea Party was a demonstration against taxation without representation. One can sympathize with such actions and understand the justification of resorting to property damage and rebellion when no political or legal remedies were available. That was then, this is now.

In our constitutional republic, representative democracy offers ample opportunities for electoral majorities to have their will translated into public policy, with the courts protecting individual rights. I’m not impressed by the theatrics of those who take their politics to the streets. The ballot box is the appropriate venue for orderly change or support of public policy.

Keep reading.

You can be unimpressed, asshole.  That’s your right.  But in this “constitutional republic” the people have constitutional rights.  Those aren’t restricted to writing letters to the editor, nor taking out an ad.  The only way you can state “that was then, this is now” about the First Amendment is to consign the Constitution to the dustbin of history.

Which makes me wonder what the hell kind of conservative you claim to be.  See, I always understood conservatives to be vested with the idea of conserving the Constitution.  Your kind?  Well, I don’t even know what to call you.  I kinda like all the Bill of Rights, both those unpopular to the left and to the right, and I have no idea where the fuck you’re coming from.  You, you ain’t a conservative of any sort that Thomas Jefferson would recognize, you’re more like that kind that’s best exemplified by William Jefferson Clinton.

Constitutional rights aren’t negotiable, they’re rights.  Having the right to vote doesn’t negate the First Amendment, and your argument as such only shows how willing you are to gut the Constitution to your own ends.  You ain’t a conservative, you’re the kind of shitheel our founding fathers would’ve thrown in the Boston Harbor with the tea.

Ladies and gentlemen: your wholly-non-violent, always-opposed-to-exercising-their-own-rights, happy-to-let-cops-beat-them-over-the-fucking-head, Re-create 68 splinter group.

The Alliance for Real Democracy.

Otherwise known as T.A.R.D.

Anything else from me would seem superfluous at this point.

(Thanks, exeter.)

If he were alive today, Thomas Jefferson would shoot Mayor Hickenlooper in the fucking face.

Protesters who want to march to the site of the Democratic National Convention will have to end their processions several blocks short of the Pepsi Center, according to the route released Thursday by Denver city officials.

The special parade route, put together by the city to balance the desires of protest groups with the needs of downtown businesses, angered the protesters, who had hoped to be able to end their marches within sight and sound of the convention hall

“This is not an appropriate parade route,” said Re-create 68’s Glenn Spagnuolo. “I’m not being able to march in front of the event site at the Pepsi Center. That’s the target audience. Your political protest is completely ineffective if … you’re not even allowed to march to where your intended audience is.”

The route begins at Civic Center park and runs down West Colfax Avenue to the southbound lanes of Speer Boulevard until it reaches Larimer Street and ends. A wide divide separates the end point from the Pepsi Center, which will hold the delegates from 4 to 9 p.m. nightly Aug. 25-28. The U.S. Secret Service, responsible for protecting the convention, has yet to release its security perimeter.

Keep reading.

This from the Rocky Mountain News.

On Monday, the city told protesters the demonstration area will be 50,000 square feet somewhere on the much larger Lot A, or VIP parking lot at the Pepsi Center. It will be surrounded by a fence that will allow people outside to see and hear the protesters, and vice versa, an attorney for the protest groups said.

Keep reading.

Fucking idiots.  Quick, trolls, name one kind of quickly erected fencing that doesn’t allow those inside to see those outside?

For the life of me, I can’t think of a concentration camp in the world that doesn’t have a good concertina wire fence, which meets the city’s proposal to the letter.

But, hey, on the bright side, it’ll give Medea Benjamin, Leslie Cagan and Adam Jung somewhere to pretend to be relevant.

The rest of us, those who actually have some respect for our rights, we won’t be in pigpens.

From Fox News.

Political activists planning protest rallies at the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver have their stomachs in knots over a rumor about a crowd control weapon - known as the “crap cannon” - that might be unleashed against them.

Also called “Brown Note,” it is believed to be an infrasound frequency that debilitates a person by making them defecate involuntarily.

Mark Cohen, co-founder of Re-create 68, an alliance of local activists working for the protection of first amendment rights, said he believes this could be deployed at the convention in August to subdue crowds.

“We know this weapon and weapons like it have been used at other large protests before,” he said.

Cohen, who described Brown Note as a “sonic weapon used to disrupt people’s equilibrium,” cited eyewitness accounts of its use during free-trade agreement protests in Miami in 2003.

“I think these weapons were mostly intended for military use and so their use for dealing with innocent protesters seems highly inappropriate,” he said. “The idea that they might be field testing them on people who are doing nothing more than exercising their first amendment rights is disturbing.”

His group is preparing against a possible attack by Brown Note and other crowd-control measures by dispatching street medics at the convention trained in treating injuries in demonstration situations.

“It’s all we can do,” Cohen said.

So is the Brown Note a real threat?

Dr. Roger Schwenke - an expert acoustician who appeared on the Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” in 2004 to test the phenomenon - told FOXNews.com there is no scientific evidence that proves such frequencies cause involuntary defecation.

“When we conducted the low frequency experiment for the Brown Note episode of MythBusters, we tested a variety of low frequencies and no involuntary gastro-intestinal motility was caused,” he said.

But Schwenke acknowledged the low-frequency exposure did cause an adverse effect. Several people — including himself — reported “abdominal discomfort,” he said, “which was easily alleviated by moving a moderate distance away from the source.”

Adding to the Brown Note rumor is a refusal by Denver’s Mayor John W. Hickenlooper to release details of what was purchased with $18 million of a $50 million federal grant the city received to pay for convention security, despite a lawsuit filed by ACLU.

Cohen’s group is calling on the administration to disclose what measures will be taken.

In a statement released to FOXNews.com, city spokeswoman Sue Cobb said, “commenting on specific security preparations is not helpful to ensuring their effectiveness. I can say, however, that all of our security-related purchases for the Democratic National Convention will comply with federal and City requirements. We are working closely with the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure that the $50 million federal security grant is spent on personnel and equipment in the manner required by the grant.”

Denver’s police Department wouldn’t comment on the tactics that will be used during the convention, but a spokesman said that “we do support and encourage people to express their views safely and in a manner that respects the rights of others along with the laws and ordinances of our city.”

But Glenn Spangnuolo, also with Re-create 68, isn’t taking any chances. He said he has no doubt that Brown Note exists, and is preparing his group for confrontation. “Whether it causes someone to defecate in their pants or not, I don’t know that,” said Spagnuolo. “What I do know is that it causes a person to be disoriented and lose their equilibrium resulting in a nauseous feeling in their stomach.”

Keep reading.

Okay, I have no idea if the brown note is real.  Every time I get it in my head to dismiss as ridiculous some idiotic piece of pig weaponry, I get hit over the head with something even more ridiculous, like say, the puke flashlight or armor-weaving spider goats.  A sonic weapon that makes people wish they were elsewhere doesn’t seem all that far-fetched to me.

But if it does make people shit explosively and uncontrollably, I want one.

Can you imagine how much fun something like that could be if aimed at, say, the Cherry Creek Mall?

Or downtown Boulder?

Or KHOW studios?