The Mime Troupe's "Making a Killing", presumably about gargantuan corruption over in Iraq (while we watch plays and mutter to each other), has some local implications.

Ike Solem has been on Free Radio Santa Cruz recently exposing City Council collusion with Camp, Dresser, and McKee, a large multi-national with profiteering expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq. See "Desalination and War Profiteering in the City of Santa Cruz" at http://www.indybay.org/news items/2006/09/27/ 18314697.php as well as a radio interview with author Ike Solem at http://www.radiolibre.org/ brb/brb070913.mp3).

The short version: Rotkin's Council is throwing money at a war profiteering firm and declining to give us information about it.

If you see a City Council member at this show, or a SCAN member, or anyone involved with that crowd, demand an appointment and an agenda discussion of the issue. That way, you'll actually be addressing profiteering LOCALLY instead of staring at a stage, laughing, crying, and then going home.

Let's stop pretending we're all Progressives watching a Fun Mime Troupe Show about activities 6000 miles away that we all condemn. Instead raise issues for the politicians and their political pals who show up regarding local issues such as Reilly's refusal to meet with Homies for the Homeless around unconstitutional arrests under the Sleeping Ban. (since the Jones decision: http://www.aclu.org/rightsofthepoor/housing/25070prs 20060414.html).

Or maybe Vice-Mayor Coonerty's refusal to secure release of City Attorney John Barisone's secret memo on the issue, presented to City Council over a year ago and still concealed from the public, while an expensive lawsuit is brewing.

Or how about City Council's disinterest in racial profiling and selective enforcement and their kneejerk support for the SCPD and piling on Councilmember Madrigal for even suggesting such things may have happened last year?

Or closer to the Mime Troupe's topic, there's Assemblyman Laird's jumping on the Bush bandwagon to demonize Iran, taking as a leap closer to war? http://www.indybay.org/
newsitems/2007/07/05/18433386.php

Or Rep. Farr's vote for the broad military budget this year (his earlier vote against the Iraqi appropriation notwithstanding)?

Demand these representatives represent!

There's lots to do and perhaps a fun place to do it!

Food will be available at the HUFF table provided by India Joze Jumbogumbo soupsipper Joe Schultz! Come one! Come all!

Join the lawsuit against the Sleeping Ban while you're at it, and prepare for the next protest at City Hall. City Council meets next Tuesday. A larger protest is slated for the 2nd Council meeting in October!