My Own Side

Yesterday was another dreary, rainy day in Olympia, but the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance group had called a rally down to the port to protest the war, and you could feel the excitement building. The local paper, The Olympian, estimated that there were about 350 in attendance, which might be generous but seems roughly right to me. They had drums, Che and even a Truther, so they were off to an official start.

Here’s a few of the things that kids make in art class nowadays.

This young man’s sign said “Class Struggle Against the Imperialist War Machine!”

If you wonder where he’s dredging up rhetoric like that, you might not need to look any further than the local school, Evergreen State College. This was one of the speakers.

He was introduced as Larry Mosqueda, a professor at Evergreen State College. This quarter he is teaching Marxist Theory. From the course description:

If one believes the current mass media, one would believe that Marxism is dead and that the “end of history” is upon us. As Mark Twain is reported to have said upon news accounts of his demise, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” The same, of course, is true for Marxist Theory.

Of course. Who could possibly look back at the 20th Century and get the silly notion that Marxism was an utterly failed ideology? From his personal web page at the college:

A little quiz (answers below)
…
3. What is the qualitative and quantitative difference between a “terrorist” who bombs a building and an “officer and a gentleman” who bombs a building?

Answers: … 3) What is the difference? You tell me.

From his speech at the protest:

We’ve had two weeks of protests here, and more importantly, two weeks of resistance. It’s five years after the war started, almost five years. It’s not even a question anymore whether the war is illegal and immoral. It is.

Which makes what’s going on in Olympia, and the port, complicit in war crimes.

We are not afraid of the police, and we have gone from protest to resistance. And it’s not just a moral statement but our goal is to no longer just to protest the war, to make a moral statement, our goal is to STOP the war.

And I put the emphasis on resistance, and stopping the war. It’s no longer enough just to write letters. They don’t pay attention.

He goes on to quote the discredited Lancet study on Iraqi casualties, and then talks about numerous inquiries that they have received from activists in other cities about starting their own direct action groups at their ports. Look for more sabotage in the months ahead.

Here are a few other speakers.

Ok, just kidding on that last one. By the way, perhaps someone with more experience in such matters can tell me if that is really a double hemp rope bra strap on the first speaker above? Good grief. Don’t they get TLC in Olympia?

A major topic at this rally was police brutality. They were repeatedly pushing the message that they were victims of the Olympia Police Department (OPD), in signs, press releases and speeches.

These two Olympia students are Patricia and Kathleen Hutchison, the twins that were arrested at one of the more violent protests. They are mentioned in the protest group’s press release above.

One of them launched into quite a profanity laced tirade against the police on the stage.

And speaking of the police, I would have gotten pictures of them, only they weren’t there. At all. The entire time. Not even a bicycle cop or a parked cruiser on the side. The march started, moved in front of cars on the street, and travelled down all lanes of one of the main streets in downtown Olympia, shutting down traffic. The protesters ruled the streets. Here is the start, and the tail end.

Note the cars behind trying to get past. Here is one car that got caught in the middle.

The “peace activist” in front lost his cool and started pounding on the cars hood. Hard. Some other protesters were finally able to get him to chill out and walk away. Remember that the women in this car were simply driving down the road when they were swarmed by these peace zombies. For a bit of irony, note the cap the guy was wearing. It says “National Lawyers Guild: LEGAL OBSERVER.”

The only other real tense point came when a counter-protester tried to get up on the back of the stage to take pictures and he didn’t leave his sign behind. Tempers flared briefly, but they were tamped down as quickly as possible by the organizers.

The guy in the second picture is one of the counter-protesters who went over to try and calm things down and get the other guy off the stage in one piece. As I was going through the pictures at home later I finally noticed his cap. The logo is for Caterpillar. This is the company that sold the bulldozer to Israel that crushed Rachel Corrie. It was unsuccessfully sued by her parents in that incident. Remember that Rachel was a product of the same Evergreen State College that many of the protesters attend. The guy’s got guts, that’s all I can say, going to the protest with that cap.

Despite these two incidents, I got the distinct impression from their comments at the beginning that they intended this march to be for the cameras and public consumption and that they didn’t want any incidents of violence or property damage to hurt their cause. It was challenging for some of them to change gears that way, and I heard one of them yell “Enough of this non-violence crap!” However the Stryker equipment has nearly all been moved, so for now there is not much incentive to attack the port facilities, at least in daylight.

This is one of the organizers, Phan Nguyen. He was also involved in the Ehren Watada press conference when that officer announced his plans for resistance.

Speaking of Ehren Watada, here is one telling endorsement for him. From the “Freedom Socialist Party.”

Earlier I mentioned that there were no police. Actually, there was one that showed up.

There were a few troop supporters waiting for them at the end of the march. Including an eagle.

Anti-war protesters lined up in front of them with a “Warning: Fascism!” sign, and an upside down American flag.

Even the doggies and children were brought along. I really wish they would just leave the kids home on these things.

An interesting take on this sign. By this logic it is just fine to commit perjury provided you don’t shoot someone afterwards.

Well that wraps up this protest. Just enough time left for one big group hug.

Click here for the full gallery of pictures.

Also check out this protest a couple days earlier at the Tacoma Mall against a recruiting station.

Finally, here is a message to the community from the President of Evergreen State College about the incidents. Apparently there has been property damage to the campus. I can’t help but think about chickens (moonbats?) coming home to roost. He calls on the adult organizers to get a message across to the youth they are stirring up. When you commit civil disobedience, you can expect a police response.

Hmm. Just maybe those kids will learn one useful thing in college.

UPDATE: Welcome, many readers! My bandwidth got exceeded. By double. Had to offload pics to another server and pay the piper. Not that I’m complaining, mind you

It’s been a busy week for the Olympia protesters. They have been pouring concrete on train tracks, assaulting photographers and dropping their children on their faces. All in a days work.

Some of the same crowd came up to Tacoma Mall on Thursday to protest the existence of an Army Recruiting Station. As usual, they were organized by a communist front group, in this case Socialist Alternative.

Gotta love the “Smash Capitalism” sign on the right.

They had some catchy new chants as well:

They’re our brothers!

They’re our sisters!

We support,

War resisters!

Hey recruiters!

We’re no fools!

Get your lies,

Out of our schools!

Not another nickel!

Not another dime!

No more money,

For U.S. crimes!

The Marine recruiters acted first class, even under fire. This guy was jabbing his fingers in a Marine’s chest while heatedly making his point, whatever it was. He was later arrested for refusing to step away and allow the door to be closed to the recruiting station. He was repeatedly (5 times) given the choice to calm down and step away, but he refused. It took a while, but his persistence was finally paid off and he got his “Don’t tase me bro!” moment in the spotlight. An officer that I talked to shrugged and simply said “He made his choice.”

One of the speakers. Note the Socialist Alternative labeling on the megaphone. I wonder if it is tax deductible?

This fellow and his side-kick Jennifer were asked to give their update on the Port of Olympia protests that they had been involved in. She complained about how awfully they were treated when they were arrested. How DARE the police treat them like seditious punks! Or something like that. I might have been a little more sympathetic of her plight if she hadn’t sounded so totally excited about it all. She talks about how they have “successfully blocked” several shipments, and recommends eye protection and bandannas around your face. Useful advice from someone with experience in these matters.

These people use the media well. I heard one of the organizers preparing the crowd for the “Live at 5:00″ broadcast that was coming up. When I mentioned this to one of the crew he chuckled and said that at 5:03 they would all be gone. He wasn’t far off, actually.

It was an official protest, because they had drums.

Fortunately, a military family came out to support the troops. Semper Fi.

The full gallery of pictures can be found here.

This years Seattle May Day rally and march for rights and justice for illegal immigrants was much smaller than last year. The (credible) estimates for last year were 25-30k. Police estimates for this year were about 8k, which is possible but still seems a little high to me.

The full gallery of pictures for this year (2007) is here.

The gallery of pictures for last year (2006) is here.

The gallery of pictures for the April 10, 2006 march is here.

First, here are some crowd shots. The first one has pretty much everybody, if you want to do your own crowd estimate.

Notice the sign in the upper left corner of the last picture. It is the same old labor union sign saying “Jobs with Justice” recycled from last year, but they have added “Stop Destroying Families” to it. Before the day of the march I called the organizers and asked them what the main messages of the rally were going to be. The new message this year is a push to stop raids and deportations on the grounds that it is destroying families. Many of the signs were reflecting this new theme, and we should expect to see more of this angle in the immigration debate from now on. They seem to be encouraging children to participate more to play up this angle. Of course, this is an attempt to gain sympathy, but it has a fatal flaw. There is no acceptance of any personal responsibility for putting their families in that tenuous situation in the first place.

Always on the periphery, and helping organize the marches, are the same old leftist groups that appear at every protest around here.

You also have the usual dichotomy of racial pride contrasting with white guilt and self loathing.

A recurring theme is the Reconquista notion that illegal immigrants have a right to be here because it still belongs to them. “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!”

There were many flags. I liked last year better. The dual US/Mexican flag last year had the US one above the Mexican one. They seem to have been reversed this year. Assimilation progress?

The news outlets have been claiming that the reduced turnout is because of the fear of being deported. I did overheard their security guy telling the volunteer “peace keepers” to be on the lookout for ICE and to tell them if they were seen. I’m not convinced that it is the sole reason, but it was pretty obvious that the community was very unhappy with even the small number of recent enforcement actions. There were many signs condemning the raids, and one I saw (sorry, no photo) that even equated ICE enforcing federal immigration laws to committing a terrorist act.

Unlike last year, I didn’t see any voter registration tables. But there were signs. Oh well, at least any illegal aliens that sign up to vote in US elections will be voters that have a pulse, which is still an improvement in King County.

As usual, Che’s dour visage was there to grace the march. By the way, is that the only one picture of this guy in existence?

Unlike the last protest I covered, this one was official. It had drums.

And some cool mascots.

I find it a little ironic that they used the Statue of Liberty as a symbol. It’s true that it is an iconic symbol of freedom, however, it is also known as the first sight that 12 million (legal) immigrants had of their new home as they came to America. Of course, they were on their way to Ellis Island to do it the right way.

This years march didn’t have the Mayor and Ron Sims. But then it wasn’t an election year. However, King County Councilmember Larry Gossett was there. And other Democrats.

Well, that’s it for this year. Remember to breathe. Take your blood pressure medication. And vote.