Call for anti-capitalist contingent at April 4th Denver labor actions

The following is a statement issued by the Denver General Membership Branch of the IWW calling anti-capitalists to converge on the April 4th labor actions in Denver. There will be an anti-capitalist and radical worker’s bloc participating in the march beginning at 11:30am at 17th and California as well as a presence at the later rally and vigil.

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NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO COMPROMISE

SEIZE THE TIME!

The uprisings in Europe, then North Africa and the Mideast, and in the United States are not a coincidence. They are, at least in part, a common rebellion against a common enemy that threatens to make working people pay for its plunder and failures: the neo-liberal policies of unregulated capitalism, croney government, and phoney “banking”. We believe the best of what workers have spoken so far is not reforming a crippled and crippling capitalist system, but for the working class to step in as replacements for bundling bankers and bungling politicians.
WE HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE: WE CAN LET OUR MOVEMENT BE CHANNELED TO WEAK REFORM AND ELECTORAL MEASURES OR WE CAN PUSH ONWARD NOT JUST FOR WORKERS’ RIGHTS IN THE OLD SYSTEM BUT FOR WORKERS’ POWER to control our own work, our wealth, our well being. Early in the last century the newpaper The Messenger, founded by A. Philip Randolph, called for mass strikes and workers’ control as “the antidote for capitalist poisons”.

Aurora leaders hold counter-insurgency meeting

Take note of the ongoing operations by which our enemies intend to prevent an uprising in Aurora while the cops murder people left and right. These are the people who work together to keep peace in the streets while class society continues to rule: Cops, religious leaders, activists, volunteer cops called “peacekeepers.”

Below is from the Denver Post, slightly edited to reduce misinformation:

Aurora officials convened a meeting of volunteers, police and the U.S. Department of Justice office that helps prevent racial tensions in the wake of recent shootings in which four people have been killed by police and two others wounded by police bullets.

Barbara Shannon-Banister, chief of the city’s community-relations division, said her office has not heard reports of unrest from the community and that Monday’s meeting was standard procedure after a major incident such as an officer-involved shooting.

Among those in attendance were members of the city’s Key Community Response Team, a group of volunteers who meet regularly and respond in times of civil disorder, as well as the city’s human-relations commission and representatives of the local faith community.

Also participating was a representative of the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service, which is described on its website as the department’s “peacekeeper” for community conflict and tension arising from differences of race, color and national origin.

Shannon-Banister said the representative is a regular attendee of such meetings and a member of the Key Community Response Team.

Aurora officers have killed four individuals since Feb 10, three of them in the past week. The first two murdered individuals were both Latino. Police and the coroner’s office have not released the identities of the two others killed in the most recent shootings.

Aurora sees 4th armed standoff with police in a week

Aurora SWAT officers, snipers, canines and a hostage negotiator staked out an apartment in the 1400 block of Clinton Street in pursuit of a suspected armed fugitive tonight.

After more than two and half hours of negotiations, 22-year-old Grant Bletcher released a hostage unharmed and then surrendered, said Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson.

A U.S. Marshals fugitive task force was looking for Bletcher in the area about 6 p.m. When Bletcher saw the marshals near East 14th Avenue and Dallas Street, he took off in a white pickup truck driven by a woman.

Though police didn’t chase them, the truck crashed a short distance away. The woman was taken into custody for questioning, and Bletcher ran into a nearby apartment, taking a woman inside hostage, Carlson said.

Court records show Bletcher was wanted on felony warrants for burglary, menacing and escape.

He has been arrested in the past in Denver, Jefferson and Adams counties on drug, burglary, identity theft and vehicular eluding charges. He was sentenced to six years of community corrections in January for a Thornton burglary, court records show.

Bletcher served nearly a year in jail was sentenced to 10 years community correctons for a 2007 conviction for conspiracy to distribute drugs, records show.

Third officer-involved shooting this week in Aurora

The Aurora pigs have shot 5 people this week, killing 3 of them. All of the people tried to defend themselves, and some shot back.

Looks like it’s that time and place…

Hurry to play, comrade, before the media convinces you that the actions of the police are somehow ‘justified’.

No peace in the streets with police in the streets!

 

AURORA — A man is dead, two others were injured and a police officer also received injuries in a late-night shooting in Aurora.

This marks the third time in the past week that an officer was injured and a suspect killed in an officer-involved shooting in Aurora.

It happened shortly before midnight, in the 400 block of North Laredo Street when Aurora police officers encountered three male suspects in an industrial area, according to a news release from Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson.

The shooting happened inside a fenced-in car storage lot behind the Automotive Service Center, a group of three buildings where auto repair and collision businesses — many of which are family-owned — rent space.

Police were responding to a possible car theft in progress when they found the three men in a back lot.

That’s when, Carlson said, the suspects hopped into a truck and tried to drive off.

Carlson said shots were fired.

Two of the three people in the truck were hit by gunfire. One man died at a hospital. A second man who was shot is being treated at a hospital, while the third man is being treated for injuries believed to have been sustained in an ensuing, post-shooting crash.

One officer received an injury to his head and was taken to a local hospital. It was unclear how he was hurt. Police said he is expected to be released this morning.

Carlson said police are investigating whether the driver drove at an officer and hit him with the truck.

The names and conditions of the people involved weren’t released.

Investigators are still determining who shot at whom and a sequence of events.

The officers who fired their weapons have been placed on standard, paid administrative leave pending an internal review of the shooting. Their names were not released.

Government vans arsoned in Fort Collins

Anonymous communique from Colorado Indymedia follows:

Two US government vans parked outside a military recruitment center in Fort Collins, CO were set on fire a couple of nights ago.  The extent of damage is unknown.

These wars go on and on.  We read about the dead.  Across an ocean and their names are not spoken here.

Kimya Hamid

Aji Agha Pather

Fereshta and her brother Ali

Rahmet Wali

Nejeba Mohd

Faisal Karim

Habdul Wajad

Malik Nabi Jan

Fatima Sarajiddin

Saya Begum and her sister Rayhan Begum

These flames are our way of remembering.

We fight here.

Fort Collins Celebrates Iraq Anniversary with Broken Recruitment Windows

Communique:

Fort Collins, Colorado celebrates the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by breaking windows at a military recruitment center.

Happy Anniversary! Last night People Against War broke three windows at a military recruitment center in Fort Collins, Colorado. We threw the stones in commemoration of 6 years of murder in Iraq. We wanted to celebrate with a bang! With a smash and a crash!

Yup, we know this is a little action. Breaking a few windows is small resistance to the machinery of the state that’s destroying millions of lives. But an anniversary’s an anniversary and we wanted to celebrate!

Military recruitment gets a big grin out of people losing jobs, cause there’s ever more despair to feed off of. Even a few broken windows diverts time and money that would go to recruitment.

Grab a rock and join in celebrating the anniversary!!

St. Paul Obama office attacked in solidarity with Denver

communique:

In the early hours of Sunday August 24th, the first day of action against the Democratic National Convention in Denver, a Barack Obama campaign office was attacked in St. Paul.

Two windows and a glass door were smashed out. Paint bombs were thrown at the exterior and interior of the building.

Today our friends in Denver will stand up to the electoral spectacle despite the violent threats of the police. Those who attacked this office stand in solidarity with our friends and loved ones in Denver. We look forward to seeing them in the streets.

at war,
the conspiracy of shards of glass

Anti-war protests in Fort Collins; “Old Main” campus building arsoned

A week of protest took place against the U.S. military invasion of Cambodia. Mere days prior to the escalation by anti-war students at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, the National Guard had opened fire on protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.

On May 8th, an assembly was held for students to meet about campus anti-war protests.

Two thousand students marched on City Hall to demonstrate against the war, many students walking out of class. Some professors held “teach-ins” against the war instead of their regular lesson plans.

At about 10:45 pm police discovered that the “Old Main” building had been set on fire. The arson caused the build to burn to the ground. No one was injured, and no one was arrested or charged with the arson.

‘Minor riots’ are said to have taken place during the anti-war demonstrations.