Bay Area CODEPINKers in Denver - Day One

by Janet Weil

More than seventy CODEPINKers converged on Denver from at least 26 states around the country yesterday, Sunday, August 24, to bring our joyous, intense woman spirit and our peace and "war is not green" messages to the DNC. Nine of us took the Peace Train from the Bay Area; see here for photos.

Deidra Lynch of Orlando, FL, Dana Balicki of New York City, Rae Abileah of San Francisco, and Gael Murphy greeted women (and a few men) with an activist orientation and pink fabric activist goodie bags with our "War Is Not Green" message at the Mercury Café, a phenomenal cafe that is providing us with hospitality, healthy organic food, and endless self-serve coffee.

Bay Area PINKers - 45 strong! – brought costumes, props and banners for our "War Is Not Green", "Get R Done", "Peace Platform Construction Crew" and "I Miss America" affinity groups, and signed up to work on the Comm (internal communications) and Volunteer Teams. Rae facilitated an orientation, covering legal rights, knowing our allies in Denver (and being an ally), our multi-layered schedule and "radical self-reliance" -- and introduced our Blogging Team Leader Linda Milazzo, our Press Coordinator Jean Stevens, and prop managers Liz Hourican and Tighe Barry.

Highlight of actions so far include:

 Funk the War: A big pink presence with banners ("Make Out Not War" and "Power to the People/the People Want Peace") marched and biked through downtown Denver to a lively rally led by Medea in front of the train station. Our favorite chanting slogan: "Dems: Attention! This should be a peace convention!"

 We had planned to do a 5-minute "Freeze" (on an attack on Iran) action INSIDE the train station, but the police nervously closed the station – in the middle of a busy Sunday! So we hiked up busy 16th Street Mall, where tourists, delegates, DNC volunteers and locals were swarming, and did the "Freeze" action on the mall.

 "Get R Done" action at Coors Field: the baseball/softball theme affinity group went to the baseball stadium to sing "Take Us Out of the War Game," display our banner which reads "GET R DONE/PEACE AND JUSTICE NOW/CODEPINK LOVES THE COLORADO ROCKIES", pass out flyers for the "Make Out Not War" aerial image action, and talk to locals. Many, many photos by pros and tourists have been taken of the banner, and a federal agent in full black riot gear gave Keiko a peace sign when he saw it.

Susan Harman and Cynthia Papermaster as part of National Impeachment Network talked to Congressman Conyers ("incredibly sweet" in Susan's words) who will try to come to the press conference about impeachment and pardons on Thursday morning at PDA headquarters. Our Bay Area impeachment team is working on getting Barbara Lee to start hearings on impeachment.