On the 28th of August, Orlando area pro-Palestine activists gathered at the headquarters of the Orange County Democrats. They condemned the brutal physical assault of a Muslim DNC delegate from Orlando by other Florida Democrats at the DNC last week in Chicago.

Speakers also called out the ongoing role of the Democrats and the Biden administration in arming Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. One speaker warned the Dems that this genocide is forcing the younger and antiwar voters who have so often boosted Democrats to electoral victories in the past to “look outside the two party system.”

The “Great Outdoors Initiative”  is a plan leaked to the media to “redevelop” nine Florida state parks to replace wild lands with golf courses, luxury hotels and lodges, and even pickleball courts. The pickleball courts seem to be a “thin end of the wedge” to get a developer foot in the door for later plans in those same parks. ALL of the targetted parks would get four pickleball courts and a disc golf course.

Honeymoon Island is one of the parks that would initially get the pickleball courts and disc golf, no doubt to be later followed by the full programs of 18 holes of golf and a luxury resort. This plan is sufficiently destructive in and of itself to place at risk the survival of endangered species in the park.

There was talk of a shadowy “nonprofit” called the Tuskegee Dunes Foundation, that tried to poach the name of the famous Tuskegee Airmen. Golf has nothing to do with flying P-51 Mustangs against Nazi Germany, and people allegedly connected to this organization have been furiously backpedaling. Capping matters, the CEO of the Tuskegee Airmen National Museum reported his organization has never heard of the Tuskegee Dunes Foundation.

On the 25th of August, a couple hundred protesters each showed up at Anastasia State Park and at Jonathan Dickerson State Park in Florida. The protesters were there to condemn and fight DeSantis-backed proposals to clearcut woods and rip out parklands to build everything from golf courses to luxury hotels.

At Anastasia State Park (protest on video here) the proposed destruction included a 350 room luxury lodge, pickleball courts, and a disc golf course that could no doubt become a full-on golf course later. Protesters showed up at 10 AM on a Sunday morning in scorching heat, and most of the protesters were park users at what was probably their first ever protest.

Florida’s DeSantis-backed “2024-2025 Great Outdoors Initiative” is all about “opening up” parkland to “glamping” and luxury recreation at the expense of wild lands and all other users. This has run into a firestorm of opposition across the state, including Sunday’s protests. It is literally turning out people in the streets to fight it!

A Tuesday meeting at Jonathan Dickerson State Park had been planned to “discuss” what no doubt was intended to be a done deal. This was on four days notice, with only 150 people to be allowed inside. As opposition mushroomed, the meeting had to be indefinately postponed while DeSantis’s minions mull over their next moves.

On the 21st of August, Cops attempted to arrest a protester for waving Palestinian flag from an elevated subway station. The crowd however wasn’t having it. Protesters swarmed up on the police position,apparently forcing them to release their hostage. Let’s hope the protest marshals were telling the truth about this!

Video cut from Unicorn Riot’s livestream

On the 20th of August, the second day of pro-Palestine protests at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) was repeatedly attacked by riot cops, who used clubs and push bars to forcibly stop a march and temporarily kettle or nearly kettle the march.

As police swarmed in with clubs in their hands, in “pushbar” mode the famous chant from the 1968 DNC and police riot “the whole world is watching!” rose from the crowd. Again the cops were seemingly deterred from using their clubs as baseball bats or firing tear gas, as a repeat of 1968 would be incredibly toxic to the Harris campaign.

A couple dozen arrests reported but most of the crowd apparently managed to push their way out on the sidewalks after the pro-Israel counterprotesters who may have sparked the police blockade in one direction left the scene.

Video from raw clips by Ford Fischer, Talia Jane, and Unicorn Riot

On August 19th in Chicago, a march rolled in on the venue hosting the Democratic National Convention. Marchers succeeded in breaching the outer fence. The main thrust of the march was solidarity with Palestine and opposition to the Biden/Harris program of open-ended arms sales to Israel. This policy has led to a horrific genocide killing an estimated 40,000 Gaza residents directly and including all “excess deaths” possibly as many as 180,000.

With the outer perimeter fence breached cops made a stand at the inner fence, some fighting resulted. Cops made a small number of arrests, pushed most protesters back with billy clubs in “pushbar” mode. Pepper spray was brandished but not fired. Perhaps mace would invoke the tear gas of 1968?

Members of the press were threatened with having their press passes taken by the cops as the cops pushed everyone (save for arrestees) back through the breach in the outer fence.

Afterwards, police pushed again to force protesters further back from the fence. An effort to set up an encampment was harassed by cops demanding tents be taken down, results unknown to me at this time.

Ahh yes: billy clubs at the Chicago DNC. In 1968 it was joked two new TV shows came out of the DNC: “Beat the Press” and “Mace the Nation.” Again the press was hassled, so far just threats to grab their press passes though. Note that members of the press who do not intend to enter the convention can cover the protests just fine without press passes.

DNC event disrupted FROM THE STAGE!

Video by Nader Dissa originally posted to Twitter

On the 18th of August, a pre-DNC event got disrupted FROM THE STATE by a masked protester who charged the stage and condemned US support for genocide in Gaza.

The DNC hasn’t even started yet, and ALL layers of security must have been defeated for this to go down

Protests on the pier outside pre-Convention event.

Video by Tom Shuba, originally posted to Birdchan (Twitter/X/Musk)

While at least one protesters defeated all the security for a DNC welcome party and got inside, their comrades were outside on the pier with bullhorns, chants, and Palestinian flags.

The 18th of August was the eve of the Democratic National Convention, and the day chosen for nationwide “Not Another Bomb” protests demanding an embargo on shipments of weapons to Israel. These weapons are being used every day for wholesale slaugher of civilians, for genocide.

Due to the proximity of the Sunday farmer’s market, “event staff” plus the usual Keystone Kops showed up to harassd protesters, demanding that the rally move outside the park to the sidewalk. The cops were reminded their usual next move would be to cry “blocking the sidewalk” but they made no further aggro moves. Eventually, protesters marched around the lake chanting-right by that farmer’s market packed with people.

Below is the flier given out at the Lake Eola “Not another bomb” protest. The listed website notanotherbomb.com and QR code link to a petition demanding an embargo against shipping weapons to Israel from the US

The video reposted here starts with the disruption inside, then an intense confrontation with cops outside. Smoke flares set off, arrests opposed by the crowd, seems to be some rather serious fighting.

Lots more of scootercasterny’s video of this event originally posted to Twitter/X/Birdchan available w/o an account at

https://nitter.poast.org/scootercasterny

Example, the other posts are near this in her timeline:”Breaking: heavy clashes and arrests after pro-Palestine protesters STORMED Democratic afterparty after Kamala Harris event in NYC

https://nitter.poast.org/ScooterCasterNY/status/182389596723555131

The tenth of August was the day after Israel dropped a US-made GBU-39B Small Diameter Bomb on a SCHOOL in Gaza. Over 100 people were killed. Emergency protests for Gaza were no doubt held in many places, one of these was in Tampa, Florida

A speaker from SDS was at the protest, vowing that as University of South Florida(USF) begins their Fall semester, pro-Palestine protests will return. The tear gas attack on April 29 won’t deter activists. The suspensions and expulsions are just more issues to fight over and won’t stop the protests either

The same speaker called out the City of Tampa for its support of the Florida-Israel Business Accelerator. This is a program assisting Israeli businesses setting up “settlements” so to speak of themselves in Florida and especially Tampa. This in spite of Tampa having one of the largest Palestinian communities in the US and the largest in Florida.