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Blast From Yer Past: Washington DC 09.27.02

By mike flugennockThursday - September 26th, 2013Categories: Bushit, DC Local, Globalization, liberty

Are you ready for some football?

September 27, 2002: the first day of “People’s 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.

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Obama Goes It Alone

By mike flugennockSaturday - August 31st, 2013Categories: Bushit, Middle East, Obamarama, media, war and peace

“White House: Obama Can Go It Alone On Syria”, was the front page headline in last Friday’s Washington Post, as our mass-murdering Nobel Peace Laureate President tried to put on his brave face after the Brits bailed on him, and our own Congresscritters’ clamor for debate grew louder. So, President Sparkle Pony wants to blow off Congress, and the Constitution, and the War Powers Act again, huh? Where have we heard that before, hmmm? Based on what we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, this can only mean one thing — it’s time to heat up the Jiffy-Pop.

11×17 inch grayscale .jpg image, 464kb

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Was George W. Bush Really That Bad?

By mike flugennockMonday - April 29th, 2013Categories: Afghanistan, Bushit, Iraq, Obamarama, War on Terror, liberty, media

So we know President Bush the man. And what President Clinton said is absolutely true — to know the man is to like the man, because he’s comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He doesn’t put on any pretenses. He takes his job seriously, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He is a good man.
--Barack Obama, speaking at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, 04.25.13

The dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library this week gave the US media a chance to engage in one of its current favorite pastimes: rehabilitating the public images of thoroughly loathsome and reprehensible public figures. They’d hardly had time to catch their breath after canonizing Margaret Thatcher before it was time for their toughest challenge ever — rehabilitating George W. “The Decider” Bush. Yeah, that’s right, it’s Shark Jumping Time.

Y’know the worst thing about this wretched speech, though? He’s paraphrasing Bill Clinton, f’cripesake. Between this and the Thatcher veneration and Chelsea Clinton interviewing the GEICO Gecko, I’d say this pretty much indicates the death of the US media.

11×17 medium-res color .jpg image, 684kb.

For your further entertainment, here’s a couple of classic op-ed stinkburgers from the Washington Post from this past week. Feel their sliminess wash over you.

“George W. Bush, A Principled President”, Michael Gerson, Op-Ed Scribbler; author, Heroic Conservatism, The Washington Post, 04.25.13

“George W. Bush Is A Victim Of A Rush To Judgement”, Stephen Knott, Professor, U.S. Naval War College, The Washington Post, 04.25.13

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Goodbye, Blue Sky: 03.20.03

By mike flugennockWednesday - March 20th, 2013Categories: Bushit, DC Local, Iraq, Middle East, War on Terror, media, war and peace

Sorry, gang; the YouTube copyright police are jerking me around again on account of the old Pink Floyd tracks I used in this piece. You can download a copy of the mpeg4 with the sound track intact (05:39, 66.3mb) from archive.org. Sic semper tyrannis.

Oh say, can you see
on the bridge named for Key
where the “Aqua Team” marched,
and a bunch were arrested…!

It was bone cold, rainy, sloppy, and miserable only a day before the official beginning of spring — in other words, your typical mid-March morning in DC. It was also a morning full of coordinated disobedience actions across DC marking the first day of Iraq War v2.0. Our group, nicknamed “Aqua Team”, was given the plum job of mobbing aboard a Metro to Rosslyn and taking Key Bridge early during rush hour.

Things turned out quite nicely. All the color-nicknamed groups gathered for their rallies at designated points around DC, not knowing where they were headed until it was actually time to go — a brilliant piece of strategy which greatly reduced the chances of any snitches in the crowd getting the word ahead to the cops — in our case, it was a meetup at Eastern Market, right in my backyard, then onto an Orange Line all the way across town to Rosslyn, where hilarity ensued…

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