There is a considerable difference between demilitarizing the port and resisting the war in Iraq. If Olympia's Port was used to support peacekeeping efforts in Somalia, I would support that. The purpose of the recent activity is unclear to me. Is it about all militarization or about Iraq? Still, I'm not going to tell anyone not to act on their conscience.

It's not my intent to tell any one to do or not do anything. Everyone is free to agree or disagree. This is just an idea. A dream. Something to think about.

But everyone must agree on the beer idea [providing you're of age]. LOL!

Is in the business of making (or losing depending on how you view things) money. They would not be doing their job turning away legal, paying cargo. Where should these vehicles be unloaded? Should we abandon them in Iraq? Should they be dumped out at sea? They have to be unloaded somewhere. The port is no more militarized than I am. Of course I am an evil scary person who wears a revolver sometimes, but nobody pickets me... why picket the unloading of a cargo? Picket the policy makers, and the puppeteers who pull the strings. Don't picket the GI's and the tools they use. "Support the Troops, not the mission" Don't strike out at the tool user nor the tools they use. Strike out at the person sending the tool user out. Of course it may be more fun to block freeways than to use that energy elsewhere...

Olympia PMR had previously agreed (and stated publicly) that we would not block incoming combat units. And so far, we have never blocked incoming or outgoing units which were NOT combat units. But during the last PMR meeting prior to the first blockades, we changed our mind. Two thirds voted to contain the shipment on the quay (answering the question of where they should be unloaded, and whether they should be ditched at sea).

By analogy, we're trying to take the toy away. If your daughter (four) gets a toy train for her birthday, and your son (six) is using it to smack her in the head because she won't share, you don't let him keep the toy. You take the toy away.

These combat vehicles (or at least this unit, and most of these vehicles) have already been to Iraq and come back now, twice. The war, and later the occupation of Iraq, was illegal both times - making these criminal tools in a continuing criminal enterprise. We were simply, and nonviolently, trying to contain the tools needed to continue this war.

By the way, the woman who brought her kids to the demonstration on Friday which became a blockade, did so precisely because these were incoming vehicles and not outbound. If she had not been there, we would have seen pepper spray deployed on Friday around 3:15PM. As it was, we held barricades for the next 17 hours and effectively did contain the vehicles there at our Port of Olympia Marine Terminal. And we will likely do this whenever something comes in, or out, until the war ends.