...and how would you like this done?

So... in Venezuela, Juan Guaido, a rightist "opposition" leader who'd never actually run in the recent Presidential election, just out of nowhere declares himself "Interim President" and swears himself in, and the US is apparently ready to support this doorknob in a coup attempt against Nicolas Maduro, a Bolivarist who actually ran for President, won the election, and was actually sworn in as the actual President this past week.

Just so we're clear on that, folks, next time CNN or somebody drops another "bombshell" about the Russians "meddling" in our "elections".

Speaking of which, why the hell didn't Hillary think of this? Why didn't she just swear herself in? Cripes, she wouldn't quit screaming about how she won the goddamn popular vote; why couldn't she rustle up Lawrence Lessig or Laurence Tribe or one of those other Harvard Law knobs to administer the oath and just swear her own insufferable ass in?

Emoluments, 25th Amendment, Russia, bah! Have Ruth Bader Ginsburg swear her in on a copy of In Takes A Village, get Macron, May, and a couple of other EU neoliberal Blue Meanies to recognize her, and badda-bing, El Presidente.

12x11 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 830kb

Blast From Yer Past: "A16"

Oh, that good old Spirit Of Seattle. Turtles’n'Teamsters everywhere.




The mood and solidarity between different parts of The Movement — folks like old-skool unionists and environmentalists discovering common goals and realizing they were fighting the same fight against the same enemy — were electric and invigorating in the months following Seattle, and none quite like the personal charge I got when, just a couple of weeks afterwards, I saw the action call posted in alt.activism for the April IMF/World Bank Mobilization in Washington, DC, for April 16, 2000 — the now-legendary “A16".

Blast From Yer Past: "A16" IMF/WorldBank Mobilization, 04.16.00 from Mike Flugennock on Vimeo.

At last, no more watching for little shreds of TV coverage, of scouring another city’s IMC postings — the revolution circus was coming to my town, and I was going to actually be in it, and photographing and taping it, and telling the story of that week for everybody else out there… and, the wheatpasting. Oh, yeah, the wheatpasting...

Blast From Yer Past: Washington DC 09.27.02

Are you ready for some football?

 
September 27, 2002: the first day of "Peoples' Strike" weekend, three days of mobilizations against the policies of the IMF and World Bank, and George W. Bush's war in Afghanistan. It was 7am when I showed up at Franklin Square in downtown DC -- way too early for a guy my age to be up, even back then. A loose confederation of anarchists and affinity groups was gathering at the Square, planning to stage an unpermitted "wildcat" march downtown to the IMF.

As it turned out, the march got as far as Vermont Avenue and L Streets NW before being trapped by police and scooped up. At least 400 protesters and bystanders were arrested en masse that day downtown, at Franklin Square and Pershing Park. I somehow managed to avoid being nabbed by noticing the police line forming up early at Vermont and K, seizing a moment of opportunity and slipping through before more police arrived there. It was all over by about 8am -- and I still had a whole fun-filled day ahead.

   
Good morning, boys'n'girls! Hanging out and drumming at Franklin Square while waiting for folks to show up for the ill-fated wildcat march.

   
Whose streets? The march heads out of Franklin Square, taking the street at 14th and K Streets NW. After turning north on Vermont Avenue, they encountered a police motorcycle blockade at L Street. Anyone who didn't notice the first cops appearing back at the other end of the block quickly enough would find themselves in a world o'trouble.

   
Are you ready for some football? While it probably seems dull to most of you, to me this is a memorable and iconic image -- the moment I realized the cop at my left was distracted by some action to his right (out of the frame), stepped away and left a huge gap for me to dash through. Up until this moment, I was worried that I was nabbed for sure -- and suddenly, daylight! He who hesitates is lost, as the old poet wrote.

   
All she wrote... Some moments later, more cops arrived, the line firmed up, and people trying to sneak through the gaps were being collared and shoved back into the crowd.

 
It's a gas! Yep, that's tear gas drifting through the foreground, there. By this time, there was nothing left for the people trapped on that block to do but wait around for the buses to arrive to haul them to the lockup.