Ten Days That Shook Olympia

[prole]

Git'ner done.

 

"For 10 days, anti-war activists in Olympia, Washington have slowed down and for two different periods of 12 hours or more, stopped the flow of military weapons and military cargo that were unloaded from a Navy ship that had returned from Iraq. For 24 hours a day, we have used a variety of tactics and actions. They have included sitting in front of trucks carrying Stryker vehicles and other military equipment from leaving the Port of Olympia, building barricades on the roads where these military vehicles were traveling, anti-war demonstrations through the streets of Olympia and vigils, downtown. A hearing was held at City Hall, last Sunday, November 11th, 2007 to document the excessive police force used against people who participated in these actions. We testified at the Olympia City Council and at a hearing of the elected Port Commissioners demanding that they take a stand opposing the U.S. war against Iraq by not letting our Port be used to transport war supplies. About 500 people have taken part in some or all of these protests...

 

It is very likely the military will not use the Port of Olympia again for military shipments during the duration of the occupation of Iraq. This is a victory. A bigger victory and ongoing task is for PMR to educate ourselves and others about how Olympia is being militarized, e.g., by challenging military recruiters in the schools and the deployment of the National Guard to Iraq. It also means working with the Longshore Union, and other communities in Washington State and nationally and with military resisters to raise the social cost of this war and make it impossible to wage. Now is the time to increase militant and dramatic action against this war as well as more traditional demonstrations where 70% of U.S. residents oppose the war while those in power continue to wage it and most of the Democratic Party leadership acquiesces to it. NOT IN OUR NAME!!"--more here

Edited November 16, 2007 by prole

[JayB]

I presume we can expect those behind these efforts to extend their applause to those who employ the same methods to take "millitant and dramatic action against" to prevent access to abortion clinics.

[prole]

A response I would expect from KK or FW. The company you keep is rubbing off on you. Try harder.

[octopuswithafez]

SOkn2Fg7R8w

 

Gotta love the '80s-esque soundtrack

 

 

Edited November 16, 2007 by octopuswithafez

[Off_White]

I can't say that throwing rocks and covering your faces with bandanas impresses me much, and I'm an anti-war lefty. Masking up is not about pepper spray countermeasures, it's about hiding your identity. It's the demonstration equivalent of talking smack with an anonymous avatar.

 

They haven't won any hearts and minds of average middle class residents, that's for sure.

[octopuswithafez]

I can't say that throwing rocks and covering your faces with bandanas impresses me much, and I'm an anti-war lefty. Masking up is not about pepper spray countermeasures, it's about hiding your identity. It's the demonstration equivalent of talking smack with an anonymous avatar.

 

Wouldn't want mommy and daddy who are funding their Evergreen education to find out

[Off_White]

link to more protest video, for your entertainment

[prole]

I can't say that throwing rocks and covering your faces with bandanas impresses me much, and I'm an anti-war lefty. Masking up is not about pepper spray countermeasures, it's about hiding your identity. It's the demonstration equivalent of talking smack with an anonymous avatar.

 

They haven't won any hearts and minds of average middle class residents, that's for sure.

 

What have YOU done for me lately?

Edited November 16, 2007 by prole

[JayB]

A response I would expect from KK or FW. The company you keep is rubbing off on you. Try harder.

 

When every adult has access to the voting booth and appeals to the courts to preserve the rights defined in the constitution and the bill of rights - the moral and intellectual justifications that one can employ on behalf of such actions are few.

 

I believe that the only reason that the first "action" succeeded is because the protesters included non-consenting parties - in this case children - in their ranks, and the police felt that they weren't properly staffed or equipped to forcibly remove the children from the scene. Nice.

 

I'm not comfortable leaving it to the mob to define what's legal and what's not, which purposes the infrastructure can and cannot be used for, etc. I may not always agree with the law or the legislature - but in cases where everyone has recourse to the courts and the voting booth - I much prefer letting the courts and the legislature make these decisions.

 

 

 

[prole]

I much prefer letting the courts and the legislature make these decisions.

 

They seem to be doing a helluva job! Let me know when the country's hit rock bottom and I'll join you for a martini on the barricades!

[ClimbingPanther]

I presume we can expect those behind these efforts to extend their applause to those who employ the same methods to take "millitant and dramatic action against" to prevent access to abortion clinics.

A response I would expect from KK or FW. The company you keep is rubbing off on you. Try harder.

hard to argue against common sense, isn't it prole? what's the difference, seriously?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I presume we can expect those behind these efforts to extend their applause to those who employ the same methods to take "millitant and dramatic action against" to prevent access to abortion clinics.

A response I would expect from KK or FW. The company you keep is rubbing off on you. Try harder.

hard to argue against common sense, isn't it prole? what's the difference, seriously?

 

the difference is the ends justify the means, when you agree with the ends.

 

[Fairweather]

When leftist prof's turn critical thinking into cynical thinking and irresponsibly plant the dark seeds of their own discontent in young minds.

 

 

Those goof balls down at the Port of Olympia seem pretty harmless, albeit misguided. I would be curious how many are Greeners - and who's stirring 'em up.

[JayB]

SOkn2Fg7R8w

 

Gotta love the '80s-esque soundtrack

 

The moral and practical equivalent of Civil-War Re-enactments/Renaissance Fairs for today's Leftists...

 

There's a fortune out there waiting for the first person to who monetizes the experience with an "Activist Land" theme park.

[prole]

I presume we can expect those behind these efforts to extend their applause to those who employ the same methods to take "millitant and dramatic action against" to prevent access to abortion clinics.

A response I would expect from KK or FW. The company you keep is rubbing off on you. Try harder.

hard to argue against common sense, isn't it prole? what's the difference, seriously?

 

the difference is the ends justify the means, when you agree with the ends.

 

Interesting. Thanks KK. I'd be interested in people's ideas of contemporary scenarios in which "extra-legal" tactics might be justified. JayB said in liberal democracies those cases would be few. Elaborations?

[Fairweather]

Washington state property tax code, for starters. And a state supreme court that is bought and paid for by public employee unions and the state DNC. Shay was right.

[Off_White]

What have YOU done for me lately?

 

Oh dude, don't embarrass the cause. Is that what it's about for you? What have I done for YOU, personally? Not a thing, I assume, I haven't a clue who you even are.

[dt_3pin]

There's a fortune out there waiting for the first person to who monetizes the experience with an "Activist Land" theme park.

 

I disagree with most of what you write on this board, but that's pretty funny.

[lizard_brain]

Ten Days That Bored The Rest Of Washington

[ClimbingPanther]

Washington state property tax code, for starters. And a state supreme court that is bought and paid for by public employee unions and the state DNC. Shay was right.

 

Y U HATES ECUDATION??/

 

I hate property tax. it just seems anti-American that you can't own your land and be done with it. no no no, you HAVE to have an income to have the American dream. seems to, albeit in a relatively small way, perpetuate wealth. if I were a liberal I'd still be against it and would find another way to make it up.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Washington state property tax code, for starters. And a state supreme court that is bought and paid for by public employee unions and the state DNC. Shay was right.

 

Y U HATES ECUDATION??/

 

I hate property tax. it just seems anti-American that you can't own your land and be done with it. no no no, you HAVE to have an income to have the American dream. seems to, albeit in a relatively small way, perpetuate wealth. if I were a liberal I'd still be against it and would find another way to make it up.

 

You are the first person other than I whom I've heard express this viewpoint. We're 100% on the same page here. Here's to you:

[ClimbingPanther]

[joblo7]

When every adult has access to the TAMPEREDvoting booth and appeals to the STACKED courts to preserve the rights defined in the CHANGING constitution and the CIRCUMVENTED bill of rights - the moral and intellectual justifications that one can employ on behalf of such actions are few.

 

...ONE I KNOW OF IS: NO WAR IN MY NAME!!!

[shortstow]

I have had the chace to drive one of my trucks through those protests when I got back from Iraq, I got the feeling at one point during the protest they were protesting us the troops, not the govt that sent us there. The Cap is just up the road from the port. Just my 2 cents from the other side of the fence.

 

See you on the snow,

Steve

[Dannible]

I'm not sure how this thing has been depicted by the TV news, but because I am a photojournalism student I was there taking pictures and saw a lot of it go down. Personally I am against the war, but I thought that the idea of protesting stuff coming back was a little counter productive. At some point I think this thing became more about police brutality than the war. Sure people are going to get maced and arrested for blocking the streets, but damn, things got crazy. On Saturday one image that sticks out in my mind was of a girl getting dragged off the street, thrown to the ground, and given a blast of pepper spray to the face. A lot of other people were sprayed and arrested that day, but things just got crazier.

 

On Tuesday night I got there around 10pm to find a line of girls sitting in the street with about 100 people behind them, and 100 more lining the sidewalks around them yelling. Pro war people were on one side trying to start fights with everyone, including me, and the whole thing was lit by stadium lights. The police marched up in a line and arrested the girls one by one, and at some point pushed the crowd behind them back into an intersection. Nothing happened for a long time, but I knew that something crazy was going to go down. The convoy that the protesters was trying to block left through another exit but people realized what was going on and ran down the block and managed to stop it for a minute.

 

The cops caught up to the crowd and broke things up with pepper spray (smells like oranges, tastes much worse) and the crowd started to run away through an empty lot and field. As people were running away the police shot pepper balls (mace filled paint balls) and rubber bullets, and threw stun grenades. Farther down the road someone put something in the road to block it and one of the officers plowed it with his car to move it, but someone else just pushed it back out. The car that had moved it had gone ahead, but now just did a U-turn and started driving back through the grass paralleling the road at about 30mph coming directly towards me and swerving all over the place. I ducked behind a tree and he got back into the road just in time. I stopped running and took cover behind a big concrete block to take some pictures, and though no one was within 20 or 30 feet of me, they threw a flash bang that landed right next to me. I had a headache all through yesterday from that. The crowd then went and blocked another intersection with dumpsters (worth noting that an Iraq war vet helped with that), and dispersed once the police pulled up. The convoy rolled straight through the roadblock. Cops and protesters returned to the port, but the rest of the night was pretty quiet.

 

The local paper's coverage of all of it was pretty nice to the police considering one reporter was maced, another was shot in the face with a pepper ball, and another was swung at with a billy club. People did throw a few rocks at a police car and some buildings, but that was one or two people out of 200, and when it did happen people around them always started yelling at them. People in the community are making it out to be a pretty violent protest, but my only negative experiences came from the pro war people, who threatened to smash my camera, and tried to get me to fight when I hadn't even said anything to them.

 

I'll post some pictures.