Come out and support Bread & Roses!

The wonderful owner of the Brotherhood, Pit, has offered B&R half of the bar from 7-10, so please come out and show us some love.

The weather is getting colder and the nights are getting longer and we need to be able to purchase supplies in order to keep folks healthy and safe this winter.

Shelter space is again inadequate this year, so it's important that we stock up on gear. If you have items you want to donate, we will have a van there to take your items. Or, bring your checkbook and get your holiday donations out of the way.

And don't forget to tip your bartender!

(please help us by printing and posting the flier somewhere a lot of people will see it, like your office, or you favorite coffee shop, but ask permission first)

SEE YOU THERE!

It's probably rude of me to say this, esp. since I've posted so rarely of late....

But I'm so bored with the port resistance thing. Every freaking post I've seen in my feed reader all week, with one or two exceptions, has been about that.

Is there nothing else interesting going on in Olympia? Nothing?

Anybody?

(Me, I ran my first Eastside Neighborhood Assoc. meeting this week; rode my bike a couple of times, and discovered that the Southern Kitchen in the Governor Hotel is totally lame compared to the one in Tacoma. So help me god, sometimes I miss living in Tacoma.)

 The little red balloons on the map represent the communities that have established citizen oversight of law enforcement.

Here is a link to the website for the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. 

Citizen oversight of law enforcement is an idea whose time has come.

Police Chief Magazine has an article about citizen oversight in their October 2003 edition. You can read it here.

It's written from the pov of law enforcement and is largely interested in the appearance of accountability instead of the burden of accountability. 

Nonetheless, I encourage folks to read it. But I will quote this section because it speaks to the question about whether citizen oversight of law enforcement is a reasonable idea:

The issue of whether some form of citizen review is appropriate may have been settled from the public's viewpoint. Three-fourths of the largest cities in the United States have established some form of citizen law enforcement review.3 These actions represent a de facto public finding that the civilian oversight is an appropriate response to the problem of law enforcement malpractice.

Police Assessment Resource Center is another valuable and informative website.

I think that some basic footwork and research to identify the best model for citizen oversight would help the community decide what model of citizen oversight makes sense for Olympia.  We would not be inventing the wheel here.   

How many people are on OlyBlog and work for a government entity?

If you're comfortable with stating which entity, that's fine. If not, that's fine, too.

I'm just curious how much each person has to give up in order to work for the public.

I work for the U.S. Army (federal government.) While I'm probably afforded the largest amount of protections, I also voluntarily surrender and suspend constitutional guarantees.

It was really heart warming when the first few cars slowed and went around the peace sign. Then one determined driver made her feelings clearly known by making certain she drove right over it. To my astonishment, the citizens with the flags cheered like they were at a football game, and cheered more loudly at the next car to rumble over the sign. One woman remarked "how's that for blowing in the wind." "What extraordinary ugliness," I thought, but kept my mouth shut as did everyone on the anti-war side. There was discussion of taking turns walking over to hug the woman, but no one stepped up for that duty.

Suddenly the peace sign gave me an inspiration. Peace became pizza. So I went to Old School, purchased two giant pizzas and delivered them to the protest site. The left got the vegetarian Garden and the right got the meat laden One Ton. All the anger melted away like cheese and dissipated.

From Bangnvolvo

How can we make it so the Olympia Police Department will stop preventing the prevention of this war?

We need to get the cops on our side somehow. Or we need such an overwhelming show of support in the street that the cops do not have the means of exercising authority over our actions to stop the war.

Let's stop the war and prevent further harm to our soldiers, our military, our nation, the nation of Iraq, and the world...

link to set

TJ Johnson, Austin Kelley and others vigiling at a busy intersection in Olympia this Thursday report that a Non Commissioned Officer wearing fatigues pulled over, got out of his car, came over, shook their hands and said, "I just want to thank you people for what you're doing." He told them that he had been deployed to Iraq twice before and found it to be a "hopeless situation." He said that he and other soldiers wished that they could speak out against the war, but military regulations prohibited them from publicly opposing the war.

Olympia activists stands firm against continued military shipments through Port

Port of Olympia: Round Two

In my own opinion, eventually everything comes down to the fact that we are all human beings, deserving of basic rights. Even if I disagree with what someone is doing, when they are injured, they are injured, and reducing harm is ideal.

I don't revel in anyone's pain. For instance, if anti-abortion folks who are doing a public protest are pepper sprayed and batoned - I don't get a thrill, I don't say they deserved it and more. They are human beings, we are all humans, and there is something beyond the "they asked for it" and "they had it coming to them" and all that.......and I say this as a pro-choice woman.

I personally don't call cops "pigs". I don't want to be dehumanized so I won't dehumanize others. Nor will I call anti-war activists names. Nor will I assume what the motivation is of anyone. Or their income, or class, or anything else.

I don't know. I don't know who you are and why you are doing what you are doing, why you believe what you do. I do know that I'm into harm reduction and that it is apolitical. You don't have to agree with me about anything to also be into this.

Harm reduction. So, how to deal with pepper spray? Wally for instance writes that he is going through some breathing difficulties. He is taking care of himself and taking a break.

You might be directly sprayed, you might have caught a strong whiff by being downtown, what can you do? How can you prepare for next time? Black Cross has some ideas on this and on after care and more, follow those links given at bottom of pages.