Local Occupiers will gather in Acacia Park this Election Night to protest the undemocratic, empty rhetoric of the present national election. In the spirit of objectives espoused by the original Occupy Wall Street organizers, and consistent with the principles upon which the USA was founded, we believe that all people have a human right to true democratic leadership, manifested by meaningful elections, and WE PROTEST that US elections have become theatrical farces where public concerns are left unanswered and voices of dissent are ignored.

WE PROTEST an electoral system dominated by a monied oligopoly where corporate parties vie only to promise the lesser of evil outcomes. WE PROTEST the corporate media coverage which insures that the American electorate expects no greater representation than two ideologically similar candidates. WE PROTEST the unlimited financial contributions which have raised election spending in 2012 to a record six billion dollars, earned entirely by a media which colludes to heighten the dramatic tension while uncritically limiting the discourse.

About all the issues ignored by the election coverage WE PROTEST: climate silence, the housing crisis, student debt, school privatization, healthcare, immigration, the drug war, endless war, covert crimes against humanity, extrajudicial drone strikes, eroding civil liberties, police brutality, union busting, the forthcoming “austerity” theft of public wealth, Wall Street impunity, corporate person-hood, and predatory imperialist capitalism.

Whichever corporate candidate emerges victorious today, the outcome will be the same for the American people: more foreclosures, evictions, pipelines, GMOs, fracking, drones, income inequality, corporate hegemony, neoliberal belligerence, injustice and war.

WE PARTY to celebrate Election Night, when a meaningless election can no longer distract politically conscious activists from the real work of social reform.

Activists will gather at the SW corner of Acacia Park, downtown Colorado Springs, Tuesday afternoon, November 6, with an anti-election demonstration scheduled for 5pm.

(More information at this Facebook event page)

Occupy was officially inaugurated in Colorado Springs September 22 last year, when representatives of Vectra Bank called the police on us for standing on their sidewalk. A year later, you might think business types would have learned that occupiers are not easily dislodged, certainly not from the public pavement in daylight, but that wasn’t the case last weekend when managers from the 8th Street Walmart told us we had to leave “their sidewalk” or face arrest. Even more surprising, their tactic worked.

Last year when Vectra was so afraid protest signs would prompt a run on their bank, freshly-coined occupiers were standing at our city’s busiest pedestrian intersection, at Nevada and Colorado, at the foot of our investment banking plaza, in an effort to overcome the media blackout against a nascent Occupy Wall Street protest. We were blocking neither entrance nor traffic, but in short order a police commander stopped by to advise us, and confirm what we already knew, that we were within our rights on a public thoroughfare.

Over the last year, Occupy has become a household name, and with it, thousands of activated citizens have become much more familiar with their civil liberty protections, as well as lamentable recent encroachments. A police command appearing to contravene someone’s right to free speech or assembly doesn’t have the gravitas it once had. Even police officers are more careful today about throwing their weight around activists.

Last weekend a small Occupy contingent was holding a banner on the public sidewalk along a street in from of a Walmart, as part of a nationwide action to prompt Walmart workers to join a growing movement for workers rights. Among us was a seven year old girl, a veteran of many similar protests over the last year. Before you caution that hers was too tender an age for such active civic participation, remember this was a non-confrontational bannering aimed at an almost completely sympathetic drive-by audience.

We were having a great time until a delegation of three ID-wearing supervisors walked up and informed us in very friendly terms that we couldn’t be on Walmart property. With just as much conviviality we replied that we knew of course the truth to be otherwise, we were on public property. They truncated our brief discussion by declaring they were going to call the police, and walked away, us mid-laughter.

Except our laughter couldn’t console our youngest activist, who informed us in terms which quite overpower adults that she didn’t want to wait around for police to arrive. The past year has also graced our consciousnesses with terrible images of police brutality and arbitrary behavior. Her fear was more than we could assuage and we had to decamp.

We comforted ourselves with the assumption that the police would have harsh words for those Walmart managers who presumed to solicit law enforcement intervention where clearly no law was enforceable, but ultimately we could not hang about to confirm it. Summoning the police without a legitimate complaint should be illegal — from the standpoint of a citizen exercising their rights, calling the police on them is harassment, but as a union-busting tactic, harassment often works.

On the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement, in solidarity with the People’s Wall scheduled for Monday 7AM EST in NYC, Colorado Springs occupiers will join Denver for their S17 Foreclosure Dance Party at noon, S17, at the Wells Fargo Bank on Broadway & 17th. OCSprings’ own birthday bash will be THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 20, at the Penrose Public Library, where we’ll occupy a planned gathering of local one-percenters, conspiring to privatize the city-owned utilities! Closed to the public, par for the course, but discussing privatization in a public library? That’s cheeky! Join us Thursday 2PM, at Cascade and Kiowa. Occupy the Privatization Sneaks!

Was Occupier Steve Bass’ arrest last November for homeless camping or making a political statement with a tent? Bass is standing up for both.
 
Local newspapers reported the “first camping ordinance arrest” was last week, omitting steve’s arrest last year. Was this a confession perhaps that the Occupy citation was to curb protest, not manage vagrancy?
 
Steve Bass wanted his day in court and he got it. His jury trial is TUESDAY, July 25 at 1:30 PM, at the Colorado Springs Municipal Courthouse, located on Kiowa between Nevada and Weber St.

On Tuesday July 10, the Colorado Springs City Council will hear public comments about suggestions to regulate Oil and Gas Fracking. An ordinance adapted by the City of Pittsburgh, based on a common law principle of natural community rights, has served to ban fracking in their municipality, and no one’s suing. Here’s the language below:

City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Ordinance No. _____ of 2010

AN ORDINANCE TO PROTECT THE HEALTH, SAFETY, AND WELFARE OF RESIDENTS AND NEIGHBORHOODS OF PITTSBURGH BY BANNING THE COMMERCIAL EXTRACTION OF NATURAL GAS WITHIN THE CITY; ESTABLISHING A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PITTSBURGH RESIDENTS; AND REMOVING LEGAL POWERS FROM GAS EXTRACTION CORPORATIONS WITHIN THE CITY

Section 1—Name
This Ordinance shall be known and may be cited as “Pittsburgh’s Community Protection from Natural Gas Extraction Ordinance.”

Section 2—Authority
This Ordinance is enacted pursuant to the inherent right of the residents of the City of Pittsburgh to govern their own community, including, without limitation, the Declaration of Independence’s declaration that governments are instituted to secure the rights of people, and the Pennsylvania Constitution’s recognition that “all power is inherent in the people.”

Section 3—Findings and Purpose

Whereas, the City Council of Pittsburgh finds that the commercial extraction of natural gas in the urban environment of Pittsburgh poses a significant threat to the health, safety, and welfare of residents and neighborhoods within the City; and

Whereas, the City Council finds that widespread environmental and human health impacts have resulted from commercial gas extraction in other areas, and

Whereas, the City Council finds that regulating the activity of commercial gas extraction automatically means allowing commercial gas extraction to occur within the City, thus allowing the deposition of toxins into the air, soil, water, environment, and the bodies of residents within our City; and

Whereas, the City Council finds that meaningful regulatory limitations and prohibitions concerning natural gas extraction, along with zoning and land use provisions, are barred because they conflict with certain legal powers claimed by resource extraction corporations; and

Whereas, the City Council recognizes that environmental and economic sustainability cannot be achieved if the rights of municipal majorities are routinely overridden by corporate minorities claiming certain legal powers; and

Whereas, the City Council believes that the protection of residents, neighborhoods, and the natural environment constitutes the highest and best use of the police powers that this municipality possesses; and

Whereas, the City Council believes that local legislation that embodies the interests of the community is mandated by the doctrine of the consent of the governed, and the right to local, community self-government;

Therefore, the City Council hereby adopts this ordinance, which bans commercial extraction of natural gas within the City of Pittsburgh, creates a bill of rights for the residents and communities of the City, and removes certain legal powers from gas extraction corporations operating within the City of Pittsburgh.

Section 4- Statements of Law – Rights of Pittsburgh Residents and the Natural Environment

Section 4.1: Right to Water.
All residents, natural communities and ecosystems in Pittsburgh possess a fundamental and inalienable right to sustainably access, use, consume, and preserve water drawn from natural water cycles that provide water necessary to sustain life within the City.

Section 4.2: Rights of Natural Communities.
Natural communities and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, wetlands, streams, rivers, aquifers, and other water systems, possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist and flourish within the City of Pittsburgh. Residents of the City shall possess legal standing to enforce those rights on behalf of those natural communities and ecosystems.

Section 4.3: Right to Self-Government.
All residents of Pittsburgh possess the fundamental and inalienable right to a form of governance where they live which recognizes that all power is inherent in the people, that all free governments are founded on the people’s authority and consent, and that corporate entities and their directors and managers shall not enjoy special privileges or powers under the law which make community majorities subordinate to them.

Section 4.4: People as Sovereign.
The City of Pittsburgh shall be the governing authority responsible to, and governed by, the residents of the City. Use of the “City of Pittsburgh” municipal corporation by the sovereign people of the City to make law shall not be construed to limit or surrender the sovereign authority or immunities of the people to a municipal corporation that is subordinate to them in all respects at all times. The people at all times enjoy and retain an inalienable and indefeasible right to self-governance in the community where they reside.

Section 5-Statements of Law – Prohibitions and Corporate Legal Privileges

Section 5.1. It shall be unlawful for any corporation to engage in the extraction of natural gas within the City of Pittsburgh.“Extraction” shall mean the digging or drilling of a well for the purposes of exploring for, developing or producing natural gas or other hydrocarbons. “Natural Gas” shall mean any gaseous substance, either combustible or noncombustible, which is produced in a natural state from the earth and which maintains a gaseous or rarified state at standard temperature or pressure conditions, and/or gaseous components or vapors occurring in or derived from petroleum or natural gas.

Section 5.2. Corporations in violation of the prohibition against natural gas extraction, or seeking to engage in natural gas extraction shall not have the rights of “persons” afforded by the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions, nor shall those corporations be afforded the protections of the commerce or contracts clauses within the United States Constitution or corresponding sections of the Pennsylvania Constitution. “Corporations,” for purposes of this ordinance, shall include any corporation, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, business trust, or limited liability company organized under the laws of any state of the United States or under the laws of any country, and any other business entity that possesses State-conferred limited liability attributes for its owners, directors, officers, and/or managers.

Section 5.3. Corporations engaged in the extraction of natural gas shall not possess the authority or power to enforce State or federal preemptive law against the people of the City of Pittsburgh, or to challenge or overturn municipal ordinances adopted by the City Council of Pittsburgh.

Section 5.4. No permit, license, privilege or charter issued by any State or federal agency, Commission or Board to any person or any corporation operating under a State charter, or any director, officer, owner, or manager of a corporation operating under a State charter, which would violate the prohibitions of this Ordinance or deprive any City resident(s), natural community, or ecosystem of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by this Ordinance, the Pennsylvania Constitution, the United States Constitution, or other laws, shall be deemed valid within the City of Pittsburgh.

Section 6—Enforcement

Section 6.1: Any person, corporation, or other entity that violates any prohibition of this Ordinance shall be guilty of a summary offense and, upon conviction thereof by a district justice, shall be sentenced to pay the maximum fine allowable under State law for that violation, and shall be imprisoned to the extent allowed by law. A separate offense shall arise for each day or portion thereof in which a violation occurs and for each section of this Ordinance found to be violated.

Section 6.2: The City of Pittsburgh may also enforce this Ordinance through an action in equity brought in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. In such an action, the City of Pittsburgh shall be entitled to recover all costs of litigation, including, without limitation, expert and attorney’s fees.

Section 6.3: Any City resident shall have the authority to enforce this Ordinance through an action in equity brought in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. In such an action, the resident shall be entitled to recover all costs of litigation, including, without limitation, expert and attorney’s fees.

Section 7—Effective Date and Existing DEP Permitholders

This Ordinance shall be effective five (5) days after the date of its enactment, at which point the Ordinance shall apply to any and all commercial extractions of natural gas in Pittsburgh regardless of the date of any applicable DEP permits.

Section 8—People’s Right to Self-Government

Section 8.1. The foundation for the making and adoption of this law is the people’s fundamental and inalienable right to govern themselves, and thereby secure their rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Any attempts to use other units and levels of government to preempt, amend, alter, or overturn this Ordinance, or parts of this Ordinance, shall require the City Council to hold public meetings that explore the adoption of other measures that expand local control and the ability of residents to protect their fundamental and inalienable right to self-government. Such consideration may include actions to separate the municipality from the other levels of government used to preempt, amend, alter, or overturn the provisions of this Ordinance or other levels of government used to intimidate the people of the City of Pittsburgh or their elected officials.

Section 9—Severability

The provisions of this Ordinance are severable. If any court of competent jurisdiction decides that any section, clause, sentence, part, or provision of this Ordinance is illegal, invalid, or unconstitutional, such decision shall not affect, impair, or invalidate any of the remaining sections, clauses, sentences, parts, or provisions of the Ordinance. The City Council of Pittsburgh hereby declares that in the event of such a decision, and the determination that the court’s ruling is legitimate, it would have enacted this Ordinance even without the section, clause, sentence, part, or provision that the court decides is illegal, invalid, or unconstitutional.

Section 10—Repealer

All inconsistent provisions of prior Ordinances adopted by the City of Pittsburgh are hereby repealed, but only to the extent necessary to remedy the inconsistency.

ENACTED AND ORDAINED this ___ day of __________, 2010, by the City Council of Pittsburgh. By: ____________________________

On Monday July 1st, we joined crowds assembled to cheer the firefighters returning from their shift and those heading out to contain the Waldo Canyon Fire. We’d learned that many of the fire crews brought in from across America don’t even have healthcare benefits so we brought signs to express support for the idea, including a poster that read “We Support the Firefighters Union!” The parade of firefighters approved, but a local TV crew from KOAA went to great pains to keep our signs out of their camera shots. They’d rather show adulation for our wildfire heroes, rather than care about them.

It was less than six months ago that we stood next to the downtown coal plant wearing gas masks and demanding Colorado Springs “Close This Poison-Cloud Maker Now.” We got sick by the way, our gas masks had no filters, and we let City Council know about it at their next meeting. We were just a small band of occupiers but we knew we represented the greater public opinion among those concerned about community health and the environment. Who would have predicted that Colorado Springs Utilities would now be discussing closing the Drake Power Plant, with a decision coming within the year?! Let no one doubt the power of a common sense message put before the eyes of the public, in particular the demographic who can do something about it.

CSU can offer whatever motive they want for closing Drake, so long as we reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, especially under our noses!

Next we’re taking on hydro-fracturing, the sinister idea that extra oil and gas can be squeezed from the land at the expense of contaminating the water. Across the world, communities are pushing back against this careless enterprise, some scientists warn that it could be the single greatest disaster to threaten our water supply. France has banned fracking, Germany outlawed it. Now Colorado Springs has the chance to draw the line before the frackers have our city smelling like already fracked Wyoming. Let’s send Ultra Petroleum and their Koch industry lobbyists packing, preferably tarred and feathered, if you were to ask fracking’s already many victims.

The world is waking outside my window.
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao.
Drags my senses into the sunlight
For there are things that I must do.

Wish me luck now, I have to leave you,
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao,
With my friends now up to the city.
We’re going to shake the Gates of Hell.

And I will tell them – we will tell them,
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao,
That our sunlight is not for franchise
And wish the bastards drop down dead

Next time you see me I may be smiling.
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao.
I’ll be in prison or on the TV.
I’ll say, “the sunlight dragged me here!”