They created the largest urban farm in America. The owner of the land wants to sell it. The farmers have refused to leave. Dozens are camping there, some living in trees, in protest. Early this morning ‘hundreds’ of police moved in to start the evictions.

LA Indymedia has breaking news, ditto for KPFK.

Update: Converge at 41st and Alameda. Map

Urgent message from the South Central Farmers:

At this moment, the South Central Farm is under siege. If you live in LA or in the surrounding area, we urge you to come to the farm to keep the protesters and farmers safe from LA County Sheriffs and the LAPD. The immediate area around the Farm has been blocked off by the police, limiting access to the site. Spontaneous rallies of support have sprouted on the perimeters of the farm with crowds increasing in size as the morning passes.

Protesters still inside the Farm are being physically removed and arrested. The easiest access is to come from the South side of the farm coming north on Alameda or to head east towards the Farm on 41st or any other streets that run east/west bound. Once again, this is the Red Alert! The Sheriffs have begun and are carrying out the eviction! Mobilize as many people as you come to continue to protest this oppressive action arrests have already been made. It is still unconfirmed but there are also reports that a protester was carried out on a stretcher. Bulldozers positioned nearby have began breaking through the fences. Once again, please converge to the Farm. Thank you for your support.

Update 2. (all links have video and photos)

Dozens of arrests

Daryl Hannah to be removed from tree.

Farmers, celebrities evicted from urban plot

41st and Alameda is/was blocked by protestors, “illegal assembly” order has been given. Fences and the farm is being bulldozed. Protestors have chained themselves to objects to prevent being dragged away.

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“Boxer endorses Lieberman,” and in response, BOPNews, gets all atwitter because she mentioned netroots - rather than slam her for such a backwards, gutless stance. But I guess they got so excited by having an actual senator mention netroots that they plumb forgot what it is (they say) they’re fighting for. Talk about star-struck…

Netroots, that buzzword hyped by DailyKos, is all about how they, a self-proclaimed elite of liberal blogdom, will take over and reform the Democratic Party all by themselves. Just by using the Net too! No need for all that tedious organizing, endless flyering, building of events, and creating coalitions. Nosirree, their shiny new Net widgets will magically do it all, quickly too, and then the Democratic establishment will simply melt away in the face of their cyberspace onslaught.

This is so naive I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

How progressive is Kos? Judging from his recent post about how he’s a “Libertarian Democrat”, I’d say, not very. In fact, libertarian Democrats definitely tilt to the right side of the party. That goes along with other Kos views about not appearing too radical, stopping all that damned noisy protest, and adopting a bland centrist platform in order to attract voters from the Right - in short, almost precisely what Bill Clinton did, and what directly led to the implosion of the Democratic Party from the 90’s on. Faced with a party of marshmallows, voters went elsewhere.

For real change to occur, you need to be noisy, you need to be in their face. That’s why immigrant rights is now a central issue in the country. Millions got in the streets, marched, and sent their message loud and clear. They accomplished more in two months than all the netroots have put together. That’s because they have an actual base and genuine on-the-ground organizing, not just some nebulous bitstream of netroots. Nor are they so dim that they think they’ll just waltz into DC and the established powers will roll over and say, scratch my tummy. No, they know it will be a serious fight, one that may take years.

Also, if Kos wants to play in the fast lane he needs a way thicker skin. Maureen Dowd (at least a potential ally) just mildly criticized him, and he responded by calling her an “insecure, catty bitch.” He thinks netroots will take over DC and he even can’t handle a mild slam? Wait’ll he pisses off James Carville. Then he’ll know what it’s like to be sliced and diced.

If netroots wants to take over the Democratic Party, they will need to knock the Carvilles out of power first, a task I doubt they truly comprehend or are capable of doing.

PS. Will this post earn me entry into this elite club?

[tags]netroots[/tags]

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Try as I might, I just can’t seem to figure out how a detailed analysis of MySpace is going to advance national security. But then, I don’t work for the National Security Agency, which has a far better understanding of how best to waste its resources than I.

Indeed, their plan is to monitor phone calls (they promise they aren’t recording the calls, sure, I believe that, don’t you?), snoop on social networking sites, browsing habits, and email, as well as credit card accounts, plane ticket purchases, and who knows what else. Then, somehow magically they say, they will assemble all data in near real-time and be able to search and retrieve it just as fast so it might be useful in catching an Evildoer.

Sounds like a database disaster waiting to happen, you ask me.

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