Impressions from the DNC

By Spencer Kingman

From August 25-29, I was in Denver to protest against the war while the Democratic National Convention nominated Barack Obama. This is not a political analysis of the elections, or of summit protesting. It is merely a collection of personal anecdotes from my trip.

Walking downtown, my friend and I were wondering how we were going to get to a free Rage Against the Machine concert, forty blocks north. A gray-haired, middle-aged woman, pulled up in a rental car. She asked us, “Do you know where the Coliseum is?” Me and my friend smiled at each other. “It’s a few blocks north. We’re going there. Can we get a ride?” She gave us an awkward smile and said quietly, “Don’t do anything crazy.”

We got in and pointed her in the right direction. “I heard their were riots going on up there,” she said in a Florida accent. She told us she was a press photographer, and listed some websites I didn’t recognize. We told her riots were doubtful. The concert was organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War. When she asked why we were against the war, my friend said, “I really just believe in following Christ and what he said about turning the other cheek and loving your enemy.” Perhaps a little surprised by this, she replied, “You also have to remember what he said right after that about being ready and defending yourself.”

We continued to talk amiably about religious topics the rest of the way there. Before we exited at the coliseum, she handed us business cards (for a website named www.UnitedStates-America.net) and said, “Remember one thing. In the end, it’s all Jesus. In the end, it’s all Jesus.”

Later I saw her pushing through the crowd. Jello Biafra, an older punk rock singer, was on the microphone. He kept yelling about keeping “a flamethrower up the ass” of the democrats. She had a determined look on her face, and I wondered what she must be thinking.

* * *

Before the concert, a handful of Iraq Veterans Against the War came out on stage in full uniform. The crowd started chanting “U-S-A U-S-A U-S-A…” It seemed really inappropriate, but I looked around at who I was sharing this experience with. Mostly young males, some jocks, some punks, but really a whole crowd of people trying to feel tough, to fit into something, to forge some kind of workable identity out of white masculinity, rebellious urges, a fistful of consumer brands. Seeing a stage full of soldiers, the crowd responded automatically.

As the band played through their old hits, I danced and romped and rapped along with probably 10,000 other people in the dark steambath of the old coliseum. I went down to the floor where everybody was moshing, mostly sweaty teenage boys with their shirts off. Bulls on Parade indeed. In a crowd like this, there’s a tension between asserting yourself and going with the flow of bodies, pushing and being pushed. It’s been a few years since I’ve danced like this, and I really felt my age in my back (even though I’m only 28). It was a lot of fun.

After the concert, the Iraq Veterans were brought back on stage. Their leader led the crowd in a militaristic recitation, some sort of pledge of support. It was too much for me, so I left. I didn’t like it, but perhaps these rituals were important to the Veterans, all of them active-duty, who were about to step out of line and challenge the powers amassed downtown. I didn’t quite understand what was at stake for them, emotionally, or career-wise.

* * *

The march was long, hot, and slow. There was no permit, so the IVAW was in constant negotiation with the police; it was very stop-and-start. I was roped into carrying a banner on the edge of the march. It was actually part of a long line of banners all made by the same group of Denver anarchists. They were backed with sheets of foam insulation. Maybe for some kind of shield? Whatever their intended purpose, they made it extremely easy to keep the crowd together. It was much more efficient and less authoritarian than using “marshalls,” (people in neon vests that have to constantly yell “stay inside the yellow lines!”).

Most of the people in the march were carrying simple, sensible signs: “U.S. Out of Iraq,” “No War on Iran,” etc. I looked over the top of my banner. It read “MAGICAL REALISM IS A WEAPON.” I looked past the bike cops with their poker faces, onto the streets of workers and normal people, and felt foolish. When we finally arrived at our destination, I found a picket sign on the ground. It said “END THE WAR” in big black letters. “Now that’s more like it!” I said to myself.

The march lasted five hours. It wasn’t until the very end that I saw the Iraq Veterans Against the War who were leading the march. There were 50 or 60 of them. They were standing in formation, surrounded by riot police on all sides, while inside the Pepsi Center, Tom Daschle was lecturing the world on “responsible redeployment.” The IVAW were negotiating with police and representatives of the democratic party to be allowed to deliver a letter to Obama and schedule a future meeting.

After a tense half-hour, the spokesperson was finally allowed in to meet with someone in Obama’s campaign. I don’t know if they got their meeting scheduled, but all of the Veterans were hugging and smiling, teary-eyed with relief. Soon after, the cops closed in. I wasn’t eager to get arrested, so I walked home parched and tired.

* * *

When I arrived in Denver, I had no idea where I was staying. My contact said he was camping out in the parking lot of the Pepsi Center, which sounded pretty miserable to me. Fortunately, we ended up on the floor of an apartment that belonged to a friend of a friend of a friend. He had a masters degree in critical theory, but he worked at a cafe. He was back in school studying nursing, but the campus was closed for a week because of the DNC. He said that for a lot of kids at the protests, being an “anarchist” just meant dressing crazy, making one’s self a target, “going out in the street and yelling things.”

* * *

On Tuesday night, I was watching some poets and bands at the Recreate ‘68 party in Civic Center Park, downtown Denver. We were sitting in a Roman-style amphitheater with huge white pillars. It was 8:00pm, and night had just fallen. In a different part of the park there was a silk tent structure in the shape of a mosque. Huge portraits of ordinary Iranian people were printed on all of its panels, a visual plea for peace. Five times a day, a recording of the Muslim prayer call issued loudly from the tent, filling the surrounding blocks. In respect of this ritual, the woman on the Recreate ‘68 stage announced a ten-minute moment of silence. As soon as it started, a police helicopter began circling above us, shining down a bright spotlight on the amphitheater. Everyone sat silent as the Arabic singing floated through the park. One black man walked around the amphitheater, looking at everyone and saying, “Its all about the police.” When the prayer call stopped, the police turned off their harsh light and flew elsewhere.

* * *

While I was carrying my “End The War” sign through the streets, a young guy walked up to me and said, “Can I ask you some questions about the war? I see how some of it is good, and some of it is bad.” We talked a little bit about war and politics, then he said “I’m asking because I’m thinking about joining the Marines.” I gave him the names of some websites, beforeyouenlist.org, afsc.org… I asked, “Why do you want to join the marines?” He replied, “Well, mostly just to get a roof over my head.” It turns out he was homeless.

While we were talking, a tall, muscular man with a tight face, stopped and tapped me on the shoulder. His two front teeth were chipped. He talked fast, without pauses, pointing to my sign, “With all due respect, I did three tours in Iraq, and we’re not quite done yet. Almost, but not quite.” We talked for a few minutes. He believed in “the mission” and was proud of what he had done in the Army.

I asked him, “Are you out?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m happy for you. Are you happy about that?”

“My kids sure are,” he said as he lit a cigarette.

He looked well dressed. I asked him, “Are you doing alright? Did you find work?” He told me he was a student at the Community College. I asked if he was getting his G.I. Bill.

“My tuition is 100% paid by Veterans Affairs.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m classified as 80% disabled. Do you know how big a bullet for an AK-47 is?” He’d been shot in Iraq. A camera flash came from somewhere. “Where did that flash come from!?” he said, worried. I looked around; there were tourists with cameras everywhere.

“It could have been anyone,” I said.

He said, “I’m really sensitive to them.”

* * *

Wherever I walked in Denver, people saw my “End the War” sign and wanted to take pictures with me, or of me. Perhaps they liked having protesters around to make their vacation a little more edgy and exotic, but at times, they also communicated respect and solidarity. I was struck by how many well-dressed convention delegates supported us, even as protesters at their unity-themed convention. On the night that Joe Biden spoke, I came across a crowd of people on the sidewalk, frozen in front of a loudspeaker, listening.

* * *

One night on the street, we ran into young, fresh-faced girl who was lost, like us. She was an intern for Fox News. We were obviously protesters. Trying to be polite, I steered the discussion away from politics. When we parted, she looked us in the eye and said, “I really support what you’re doing.”

* * *

The streets were filled with menacing police presence. Often, they were dressed from head to toe in black riot gear. They wore gas masks and carried 3 foot batons. They prowled the streets on vans with big metal running-boards, riding on the sides like firemen. There were also militarized black vehicles that looked like airport stair-cars. Sometimes police stood on these mobile towers, lording over crowds with their weapons. From normal people you would hear “I feel so much safer with all these police around,” but also expressions of disgust, resentment, and fear. Walking through a crowded pedestrian mall, I came upon a detachment of Riot police in full battle dress. “Tear gas. Pepper spray. Not necessary,” I said, pointing at their shiny, new orange-and-black guns.. A rich woman in heels walking ahead of me turned around and yelled, “I agree!”

* * *

A Hispanic construction worker waiting for the bus, pointed to several of the skyscrapers that rose all around us, naming them and telling us that he had “built them.” My friend asked him what the police were like in Denver. “Well, they shot me,” he replied. He told us that two years ago as he was walking through an alley, an unmarked police car brushed him as it passed. He didn’t know it was a police car, and he kicked it. They shot him in the leg. The ACLU took up his case, and now he has a $1.5 million lawsuit against the city.

* * *

Carlos, a young kid with long black hair and some light facial hair, stood next to an ancient looking man, waiting for a bus. The old man was leaning on a garbage can for support. They seemed to be related. Carlos explained to us that the city was giving out “hotel vouchers” to people who showed up at the rescue mission. The city didn’t want conventioneers to see any homeless people. Maybe there were some spare rooms in non-union hotels (the DNC only uses union ones).

As we talked more, Carlos told us that he was Lakota Sioux. He said he had been homeless himself in 2006, but he didn’t like to go back to the Reservation in South Dakota. Everything there was “conforming” or “depressing,” and everyone was “poor.” He seemed frustrated that blacks and latinos were getting so much attention, when his people had it worst of all. “I would really like to talk to you again about this, because I never really get to talk about this stuff.” I gave him my phone number and told him we would be downtown everyday, but he never called.

* * *

A kid with a big orange “U.S. Out of Iraq” sign stopped me in the middle of a busy crosswalk. He pointed at my sign. “For some reason I feel some connection with you,” he said with a laugh. I followed him to the corner and tried to talk, but he wasn’t really making any sense. After five minutes he said “You know, I’m sorry. Right now I am so high.”

* * *

I was struck by the amount of black pride on display in Denver, and how this was connected to the Obama phenomenon. Everywhere you looked, one saw black people wearing Obama shirts and pins with slogans like “hope” “change” and “progress.” Some of the shirts were homemade. Some featured MLK or even Malcolm X. When I went to a party in a storefront one night, the crowd was split between white punks and older black people. A young black woman from New York performed some passionate poems and songs about Obama, and somebody taped up an Obama “HOPE” poster on the wall. After this, a white activist played some culture-jamming videos, that seemed like they were coming from a totally different world. The room split, and the party kind of died.

* * *

An older white anarchist explained some of the mellowness of the protests, “People just didn’t want to come out to protest the DNC. I’m not here to protest. You see, where I live [he was from West Philadelphia], its like this is really deep. The whole community is affected and you can feel it in the air. This is some esteem shit. And its a huge step for a segment of the population. And a lot of young anarcho-kids like us just don’t get that.”

* * *

It wasn’t just black people who were excited about Obama. One morning, as my friend and I stepped out of the apartments where we were staying, we ran into a young woman, perhaps 20 years old, struggling with a large canvas that was bigger than her whole body. It was a colorful, musical painting of a smiling Obama. She said, “I just want to show it. Obama is the first person that ever made me excited about politics.” I saw her later at the amphitheater, with her painting, over a mile away.

So over the past six months, The Mormon Worker has found its way into print. It is a newspaper devoted to promoting mormonism, pacificism and anarchism. The third edition just came out and it is trying to keep a bimonthly schedule. The website for the project is themormonworker.org.

At UVSC the student group United for Peace and Justice has participated in the MLK Celebration in February and the Peace and Justice Dialogue on Nuclear Weapons. The group is trying to secure a semi–permanent rack for counter-recruitment materials in the hallway at UVSC. It tables occasionally and shows movies.

MESJ Utah County died away for a few months with no active leadership, but it recently had a meeting to reconstitute the project and we’ll see where that goes.

The Community Activist Library is still in existence, but there have not been any events there recently. There were two reading groups in the winter. One for Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, another for Noam Chomsky’s Profit Over People. We’ve had trouble getting people to return the books they borrow.

“Provo citizens protest Iraq War, hold peace vigil”

 

John Ditzler
September 05, 2007
UVSC College Times

A Provo peace vigil was held in Pioneer Park, Tuesday, August 28, as citizens gathered to protest the Iraq War. The event was organized by the Utah County chapter of Mormons for Equality and Social Justice (MESJ).

“The Bush Administration has led us into an un-winnable civil war based on lies, for the benefit of private contractors,” said Ash Bledsoe, co-chair of the Utah County chapter of MESJ. “This war has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of American soldiers. It’s time for Congress to stand up in September and vote to end this war now.”

Those gathered in Pioneer Park Tuesday heard from two Vietnam veterans as well as William Van Wagenen, a graduate of Brigham Young University and Harvard Divinity School who recently volunteered in Iraq for seven months with Christian Peacemaker Teams doing human rights work.
Van Wagenen rejected all the reasons the Bush administration has given for America’s military involvement in Iraq, saying President’s Bush’s publicly stated reasons for invading Iraq have changed each time the former explanation failed to hold up to public scrutiny.

“Americans were told, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we had to invade Iraq for our own national safety,” said Van Wagenen, “Now the Bush administration has admitted that there are no weapons of mass destruction.”

Van Wagenen said the rationale behind continuing the war in Iraq then shifted to talk of needing to establish stability in the oil-rich Middle East. However, Van Wagenen claims, that, based on what he saw when he lived in Iraq, America’s presence has significantly eroded stability in the region, and increased both sectarian violence and terrorist membership and activity. Van Wagenen criticized the Bush Administration’s ignorance of regional politics and the history of Iraq and its neighboring countries.

Van Wagenen claimed that the reasons put forth by the Bush administration for America’s continued presence in Iraq has finally shifted to talk of humanitarian concern for the citizens of Iraq. But according to Van Wagenen, with hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, according to human rights organizations, and millions of unemployed or displaced Iraqi’s now rendered homeless, America’s military presence in Iraq’s cities is inflicting even more death and destruction than previously existed under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Vietnam veteran Bart Tippets encouraged Tuesday’s crowd to hold President Bush, a self-proclaimed Christian, to live up to the teachings of Jesus in the Bible and promote peace around the world rather than war.

Tippets also referenced Book of Mormon passages that explicitly directed Mormons to never preemptively attack other nations. Tippets said America’s War in Iraq is therefore contrary to LDS teachings.

Tuesday’s gathering was co-sponsored by Moveon.org, which claims it was one of 600 similar protests across the nation August 28.

http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2007/09/05/46df15971e428

The BYU Alternative Commencement in protest of Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit was tremendously successful. The events of the month were widely covered in national and international press. Here are some artifacts:

[The following is an unedited draft for a guest posting at the blog: http://feministmormonhousewives.org/  It was written by Hannah Graves and it talks about the formation of OPAC and the work on the BYU Alternative Commencement]

SECRET IDENTITY?
Being a leftist mormon can feel like a secret identity. While during the day, I dutifully (and usually rather quietly) sit through my classes and try not to cringe at some of the more outlandish things I’ve heard by the most conservative of my classmates (”It’s better for ninety-nine innocent people to be executed than one guilty person go free because we need to take a harsh stance on crime.” —this is law school discussion of the death penalty, folks. “Why do people who aren’t citizens of the U.S. even have access to our court system at all?” —from someone who hopefully never travels abroad in a country where she wouldn’t have access to the court system). Outside of class (and sometimes in class if I feel like I’ve *got* to say something), I turn into a LEFTIST FEMINIST ACTIVIST crazy person!

Has anyone discovered this (not-really-so-) secret identity? Well yes. My family knows (and largely supports, if not agrees with me). Most of my friends know because they have a similar identity. For those people I’m not as close to…

I’ll admit that I felt a secret stab of subversive glee when my roommate and I answered our visiting teachers’ question about what we had been up to and we told them about a anti-war protest we’d held in front of the city library. On their part, my visiting teachers seemed vaguely supportive–sharing our happiness–but they didn’t really ask any questions or voice opinions. It was just a little throw-away moment. Just like when a classmate of mine asked if I had gone to the anti-war protest in Salt Lake, and when I answered with a guarded yes, she exclaimed, “I knew it was you! I saw you on the news!” Sort of like when I showed up to my bridal shower and my former young women’s leader (one of the kindest, most gentle, and Christlike people I know–and undoubtedly conservative politically) said she had thought she had seen my fiance on the news. “It was about some sort of protest or something,” she said with a puzzled expression on her face. I knew that my fiance had made the news twice in the past couple weeks for two separate protests, “Did it have to do with the vice president?” I asked. She said yes, and I confirmed that was him. In little moments like this, I feel like I have a secret identity and that makes it kind of cool.

Like attracts like. There are plenty of students who agree with me about some things, even if they aren’t out and about in the community saying so. And while I have spoken out in enough of my classes here for people to know that I’m not a Republican, I would say that most of my activism is outside the realm of school. Law school has not seemed to be a particularly political place (which is not to say that people don’t come at things with a partisan bias, because that does happen–but there aren’t really any groups or students who do political activism–though we do plenty of good community activism).

I did my undergrad in California at Scripps College, which is one of the Claremont Colleges. Student activism there was not unusual, and the array of causes was vast. I started out college too much of a cynic to participate much. Protests didn’t actually *change* anything, so even though I admired those willing to stand up for something they believed in, even if it was hopeless, I declined to get involved. A couple of things changed that: one was finding causes I felt so strongly about that I couldn’t help but want to do something–even if it was just symbolic “testifying” and didn’t change the world (I would guess most latter-day saints can relate to this–we’re supposed to stand for witnesses of God even if changes no one’s minds or hearts because it has to do with where we are choosing to stand); another was realizing that small changes could and do happen, and the third was falling in love with a guy who viewed political activism as his bread and butter.

LEFTISTS OF UTAH COUNTY — UNITE!
When I came to Utah to do law school, said guy moved here as well so that we could get engaged (and eventually married). He’s about as leftist as they get, had just recently come back to the church after a long period of being a disbeliever, and wanted to connect with other like-minded individuals and do activism here. He talked to some of our friends (mormon anarchists, leftists, and other liberals) about what sort of organizing existed and found out that although there had been some stuff happening a few years ago, the people organizing it had left Provo behind and so most stuff was either happening in Salt Lake or not at all. He set up a group and started having meetings and the results were mixed–sometimes I would be the only other person at the meetings, sometimes people we’d never met before would show up. Though we wanted people of all ages to participate (too often activism is seen as purely a college student activity), it’s easiest to connect with 20somethings when you are one yourself. And as he was going back to school at UVSC, he was able to get a lot of support there [Actually, UVSC has a very strong culture of student--and professor--activism; there's a Peace & Justice Studies minor and a number of scholarships available for people involved in community activism. It's interesting how in many ways, UVSC serves to provide what is excluded from BYU without really framing itself in opposition to BYU (like how the University of Utah sometimes comes off)]. Thus, the Orem-Provo Action Coalition (OPAC) AND the UVSC United for Peace and Justice Club started.

What OPAC strives to do is connect different Utah County activists and goings-on with each other (as well as with what goes on in SLC–we’ve got friends who work with We the People for Peace and Justice and other groups up north). We’ve had screenings of films, a demonstration, and have other sub-groups that do things as well. For instance, I started a feminist reading group last summer and we meet every other week–probably about thirty people (male and female) have come to at least one meeting, and there’s usually six or seven of us at any given meeting. We’ve networked with the feminist club at UVSC and with Parity (at BYU). There’s also a community activism library that we put together with over 400 books that can be borrowed. Other goings-on we try to make people aware of are stuff like a food co-op, an anti-racism zine, etc. When there is other stuff going on in the community (like the recent SoulForce visit to BYU, or my friend selling handmade crafts from indiginous women to support the zapatista movement), we try to let people know. We’ve worked with Amnesty International at BYU as well as Wednesday Night Discussion Group–a weekly discussion of philosophy, politics, or whatever that frequently has speakers (Pete Ashdown, former BYU professor Jeff Nielson, BYU Law professor David Dominguez) and who has been crucial in being the meetinground for the Cheney protests (this is where the BYU College Democrats came in).

HOW THIS CHENEY BRUHAHA GOT STARTED….
Basically, there’s a large group of left-leaning people who are all connected in one way or another. And so when something huge like Dick Cheney coming to BYU comes up, we all just sent out e-mails, got together for an “emergency meeting” where we all crammed in a living room on a Sunday night and said, “What do we want to do? How do we want to approach this?” Some people wanted to flat-out protest him, some people wanted to try and stop him from coming, some people wanted an alternative commmencement. And so we planned out the different stuff we wanted to do, who would work on what, and started contacting the press. We had a meeting four days later to discuss the political, factual, and philosophical basis for our protest. It varies from person to person–some people object because BYU has a position of political neutrality and they feel this violates it, some people object because they feel Cheney violates BYU’s standards for a commencement speaker, some people object because it is Cheney….etc. etc. We just keep e-mailing each other, and the e-mail list grows. People set up websites, people do interviews with press people, people make flyers and buttons and signs, people have been contacting professors and friends and family members trying to raise funds….

IN CLOSING….
When I participated in a small anti-war demonstration in front of the Provo City Library a few months ago, we kept track of the responses we got (being flipped off versus getting a thumbs-up or a peace sign). We actually had more positive responses than negative responses (though only by a hair, and the negative responses could get pretty vocal: “JIHADISTS GO HOME!” “GET OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” “YOU F***ING IDIOTS!”). I think there really is a diversity of opinion in Provo and BYU, but that people’s assumptions about what mormons believe or how mormons vote push that to the side.

What has been so exciting about Cheney coming has been how many more connections have been made in the politically active Utah County community. We’ve gotten together and moved quickly and we’ve had support from around the country. It is not very often that I’ve felt a groundswell support for my minority opinion. It’s been great to show the community and the rest of the country that we exist–that there are students at BYU and residents of Provo who are not politically conservative, who do care about their community (and who love their country and their church and their God) and who show that they are engaged and active in that community by dissent. We’ve been jeered at, ridiculed, had our testimonies questioned, but we’ve been heard, we’ve been seen, and we’ve forced people to acknowledge that there are people (even if just a minority, even if we are crazy, or liberal, or feminists, or whatever other “bad” word you can think of) within BYU who disagree with the political majority. And there’s support for us.

What an exciting month! We had a showing of the movie “FOURTH WORLD WAR” with perhaps 20+ people. We had a good group of people make it up to the March 19 demonstration in SLC against the fourth anniversary of the war. Here ’s a photo of the huge dove Tyler’s mom made:

But it doesn’t stop there. WSORG had a fantastic meeting on Mormon Feminist Theology. We will try to post the readings from that on the WSORG page.

And finally, Last week it was announced that Dick Cheney will be the speaker at BYU’s graduation. There has been a groundswell of anti-Cheney and liberal Mormon activism in Provo! It is really exciting. The plans have united all sorts of people and range from letters to an actual alternative commencement!

UVSC ufpj and the Anti-Racism Project are struggling to finish literature.

WSORG had a weak meeting on the 20th. The reading was long and unsatisfying.

The Bike Collective is just starting up for spring.

The library is finished typing labels and entering books, for a while.

Provo Peace and Noise has some plans to hold another demo for the 4 year anniversary of “shock and awe”, do a movie showing of “The Ground Truth”, and a hold a more high-class forum somewhere.

We ventured a demonstration and had a great benefit for our library last weekend. About 15 people participated in our demonstration in front of the Provo City Library. We stood with signs and banners for about an hour and a half. We could have stopped after an hour, but everybody wanted to keep going. We actually had a pretty good time. Most of the people who saw us were in their cars. We received more support than heckling. There seemed to be an extremely high correlation between heckling and homophobia. At the beginning, everyone who harassed us used anti-gay epithets. They were mostly driving big trucks, believe it or not.

We had good interaction with the police. Spencer was told he did not need a permit. The lady went out of her way to tell him that it was his right to protest on public property. We got a peace sign from one cop who drove by. As we were packing up, a police man drove up and asked us about a sign with some foul language, but he was friendly. The night before, the Community library held a concert. 50-60 people came to hear the show. The library had its first checkouts and made a little money. It was a very fun time.

At UVSC a meeting happened. About 8 people showed up. It was decided to proceed with creating some literature (a zine especially) and perhaps working on an educational event about the military commissions act.

At the meeting today, a crew of about 10 people showed up. They were involved in Provo activism for a long time, but due to some recent housing difficulties were unable to continue what they were doing. They were happy to see that other people were organizing. It was a great day! We went over to the library space. They have many, many more books ready to go into a library, and they also have a computer system to keep track of the books. They are down for the February 3 demonstration, and it looks like it will really come off.