august 4th....i returned from philly last night. i'm not sure how much of what's been going down in philadelphia has been making it to you so here is a brief report...the police have been severely beating people on the streets and in jail. people have been arrested FOR NO REASON...about 450 people were arrested and lots are unaccounted for. the mainstream press has been saying 280 people arrested. thursday i talked with protestors who were going to leave center city on wednesday.as they approached their car they were surrounded by police. they asked if it was illegal to go to their car. they were beat by police. one woman who was arrested was having an asthma attack and asked to use her inhaler..a cop said yes. she said ok i am going to reach into my pocket to get it out. she did not want them to think she was pulling out a weapon. when she took it out of her pocket and prepared to use it, the inhaler was smacked out of her hand and smashed by police. she was later unarrested by a female cop. another women with them was running from the scene was beaten brutally by about 9 officers and arrested. her friends have not been able to locate her. (hopefully they may have found her by now)...remember...all she was doing was walking to her car trying to leave the area. that is just one of many stories i have heard along those lines. john sellars(not sure if name is spelled correctly) an organizer for the ruckus society was arrested on wednesday when he was walking down the street. he is being charged with misdemeanors that allegedly happened on tuesday. he was with the press all tuesday and his actions can be accounted for. he has a one million dollar bail. i talked to some of the people that were let out of jail yesterday. the cops have been beating people inside the jail and hiding these people from legal advisors. people who have requested medicine have not been recieving it. people are being held in isolation. fines range from 15,000 to 1 million dollars. solidarity is strong inside. about 150 people are hunger striking. the cops also recieved a 3% raise on thursday for doing such a great job. (a great job of suppressing our freedom of speech and beating our citizens) also before the actions on tuesday started, vans and trucks of protestors were siezed by cops and confiscated. people were held in vans for 6 or 7 hours then released. these people were driving to the protest with puppets. WHAT IS THEIR CRIME? also, you've probably heard that a warehouse in west philly that was the center for puppet making was raided on tuesday before the actions.the police were claiming we were using the puppets to but explosives in. 70 people were arrested there and most are still in jail. wednesday the cops destroyed all puppets in dumpsters outside. of course the puppets would have been evidence. POLICE ARE SCARED OF PUPPETS BECASUE THEY ARE SO EFFECTIVE IN GETTING THE MESSAGE ACROSS. we were heavily infiltrated by police. be careful in organizing your actions. if you can't trace someones history back a couple of years with mutual friends that is something to think about. be warey of people who join a couple weeks before actions that you have never seen before and have dodgy stories. try not to have a central location of organizing. we were having a spokes council meeting in the park across from the jail on wednesday to decide what jail solidarity actions to take. cops with video cameras were everywhere. they did not have press passes. they were rude when we asked them not to video our meeting. any compassionate media person respected our request and apoligized. i saw a woman dressed up like a super model (hardly wearing anything with platform shoes) being photographed on the outsquirts of our meeting. (posing on a skateboard and such) a few people were pissed but mostly people were focused. i then saw her photographing people in meeting with super expensive super zoom lens. i suspect she was paid by police to disupt our process. she failed! just an example of the kinds of stuff to look out for. also...the mainstream media has been really fucking us over. some of us were talking and thought it would be a good idea to put media on the agenda of direct action workshops. surprising how many people don't know that you can say NO COMMENT. while there were many media workshops in philly, they were ill attended. people were on philly streets this week to try to give a voice to the people at the republican convention. the two party system can't possibly be democratic when big money has bought the candidates.big business funds the destruction of the environment, the exploitation of thousands, and the republican and democratic conventions. can we say buttering up the govenment? not to mention the big corporations own the media who is twisting our words and not reporting the whole story. when the media reports about the destruction of one cop car here and some spray painting there, they seem to forget that the government and these corporations that we are protesting against have exploited and killed thousands and thousands of people. examples range from the us government killing the innocent people in iraq with their bombs and sanctions to chevron killing african people who were non-violently protesting the occupation and destruction of their land. not to mention the prison industrial complex in the united states boasts having more black men in prison then in college. these are only a few examples of why people were on the streets, the press were saying there were too many issues. DUH! that is because there are so many things wrong. we've had enough! love love love.... please help our people that are still being imprisoned in philly. call mayor john street 215-686-2181 call police commisioner 215-686-3149 call public defender 215-686-3124 call district attorney 215-686-8000 more information can be found out at http://www.phillyimc.org http://www.thepartysover.com sounds from the streets--- r for revolution e everbody s subvert the system i ignite debate s smash the state t tear it down resist! resist! raise up your fists resist! resist! we know you are pissed resist! resist! fight the capitalists resist! resist! show 'em what they can kiss -radical cheerleaders 1 we are the people 2 a little bit louder 3 we want justice for mumia the pizza ignited will never be reheated -the clown bloc whose nuts? we're nuts donuts their nuts -clown bloc hey hey ho ho ha ha ha hee hee hee -clown bloc (if you can't crack a smile how you gonna crack the system) build a bonfire build a bonfire put the republicans on top put the democrats in the middle and burn down the bloody lot -inspired by oztraylans sing- we will not bow down to the two party system we will not bow down to consumerism we will not bow down to television we're gonna stand we're gonna stand we will not bow down to racism we will not bow down to injustice we will not bow down to exploitation we're gonna stand we're gonna stand -trickled down by osha