Will the Maoists spoil Nepal’s victory party?

The Maoists control 80% of the countryside, have set up provisional governments in those areas, and are well-armed. The King’s capitulation would not have been possible without their support.

Rejecting the King’s announcement, the leader of the Maoists, who uses the nom-de-guerre Prachanda (the terrible one), said that the political parties had committed an “historic blunder” by ending the protests. He also announced that the Maoists would immediately blockade Kathmandu and other major towns until a special assembly, with the power to draft a new constitution for Nepal, was formed.

[tags]Nepal[/tags]

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Comments here are moderated, and thus must be approved before they appear.

The immigrant rights posts here have gotten way more comments than anything else ever posted. One post, May 1. ‘Day without Latinos’ protest now has 160 comments, and that’s not counting all the comments I deleted. Yes, deleted. Racist or right wing comments looking to start a fight won’t get posted. This is a left wing blog, as should be obvious from the About page. I’m not looking to be unbiased here.

It’s not just political blogs that moderate, Robert Scoble, “Tech Evangelist” for Microsoft recently started moderating his comments too.

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Over 100 events in 60 cities planned so far

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There are now three protests planned for May 1 in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles- Port of Los Angeles
La Collectiva del Troqueros del Puerto
“12,000 Troqueros working the Port and local rails will shut down and congregate at Banning Park. Solidarity from most other Ports in the nation expected.”

More, including news this may now include L.A. taxi drivers too.

12 noon, Olympic & Broadway
March about 1.5 miles to City Hall
Protest initiated by March 25 Coalition

3 pm, MacArthur Park
March about 4.1 miles to … The La Brea Tar Pits. (I am not making this up.)
Protest initiated, IMO, by those who don’t really want a protest. Note the starting time, some wouldn’t even have to skip work to make it. What are they thinking? Why march 4.1 miles, a long march indeed, to the Tar Pits, a place where dinosaurs saber-toothed tigers got trapped in seeping asphalt 25,000 years ago. What is the symbolism of this, pray tell? Plus it’s not even on a subway line, so all those people will either have to carpool or take notoriously slow LA buses back. Assuming the drivers haven’t walked out, that is.

The Olympic & Broadway march will be the biggest march, and the organizers have endorsed the boycott. That’s the one I’m going to.

ANSWER LA is helping to build for May 1, the phones are ringing off the hook, and we’ve gotten out probably 70,000 flyers. People have been taking them by the thousands to hand out in their communities, a sure sign indeed that the buzz on this is huge.

Of all the protests in L.A., the port shutdown may well be the most significant and get the most attention.

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Cara Scissoria has just released several new political greeting cards. Check out her site now!

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To follow up our post of April 8, here’s a podcast of Chelli Stanley and John Harmer of The Tel Rumeida Project speaking at a ANSWER S.F. forum on April 15.

They lived in Tel Rumeida for several months, documenting the daily, violent attacks by extreme right-wing Israeli settlers upon Palestinians, often while Israeli military watched and did nothing.

And yes, they have the videos to prove it.

mp3 ( 40:07, 13.7 mb)

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