May Day 2008 in Olympia Washington went down with a bang when a (fractional) faction of the protest turned violent. Members of the "Black Bloc" threw rocks at several windows on at least two different bank buildings. Bank employees and customers were inside the buildings when this happened.

I was there - the whole afternoon. Up until the broken windows, the protests were peaceful and nonviolent. Although some of the speeches made me uncomfortable, and some of the speakers made statements that I certainly wasn't in complete agreement with, I felt enough solidarity to stick with the protest even after the Capitol Building was defaced with graffiti.

In fact, I wasn't really uncomfortable with the demeanor of the protest (besides the graffiti on the Capitol Building) until about 10 minutes prior to the first rock throwing incident. I noticed feelings of discomfort in regard to the tone of the protest when a certain vocal group (identity unknown to me) decided to lead the march down a one-way street directionally opposed to the flow of traffic. This move seemed somewhat unsafe, and it also seemed antagonistic toward drivers on 4th Ave, who had varying degrees of understanding about, and appreciation for, the protesters who were marching. I would have felt more comfortable and would have preferred, for example, to take State Ave. West, instead of marching in opposition to the one-way flow of traffic, and then to do a loop back toward the East on 4th Ave. My discomfort makes me curious; I wonder if anyone else was made uncomfortable by this decision to march against the flow of traffic. I was also additionally uncomfortable with the antagonistic and hostile chanting (yelling) of the slogan "Tear it down". Does that slogan possibly scare people and does it turn people off to the movement?

Here are a few videos and photos from yesterday's May Day Events:

link to photoset

On the eve of the Iraq War, retired Army Colonel Ann Wright resigned from the State Department, telling then-Sec. of State Colin Powell that without UN authorization the invasion and occupation would be a disaster. She was one of dozens of government insiders and active-duty military personnel who spoke out, leaked documents, resigned, or refused to deploy in protest of illegal government actions.

Col. Wright is one of the country's most prominent critics of the Iraq War and Bush's foreign policy. In her new book, Dissent: Voices of Conscience, Col. Wright and Susan Dixon tell the stories of these men and women. Peace Action is sponsoring her Puget Sound tour:

Col. Wright's Western Washington appearances:

Sponsored by: The Center for Community Based Learning and Action and the Peoples Legal Defense Fund

WHERE: The Olympia Center - 222 Columbia St NW in downtown Olympia

WHAT: This will be a moderated conversation for the whole community on what happened at the port and why. Various groups will be represented and willing to answer questions. The goal is to achieve some closure on the events around the protests and to move into the future, not divided, but as a community.

Hope to see you all there.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Share the Dream of
A World Without War

Join the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action for a traditional vigil and direct action at the gates of Naval Base Kitsap, Bangor, on Saturday, January 19. Honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as together we resist nuclear weapons, the occupation of Iraq, and the bombing of Iran.

Twelve Arrested in Des Moines as Obama Campaign Hinders Press Coverage of Protest

by Michael Gillespie for publication

1/2/2008

Josh Earnest, Iowa communications director for U.S. Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL), is running scared in the final few days before the Iowa Caucuses. He must be, otherwise he would not have risked the consequences of ejecting half a dozen media workers from Obama's Iowa campaign headquarters on Wednesday, Jan. 2, and barring entry to several more.

Reporters and photojournalists representing news organizations in Japan, Germany, Great Britain, and the USA were hindered in their efforts to report on a bona fide news event when Earnest insisted they work outside in the sub-freezing single digit cold while inside a group of eight antiwar activists from Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV) and the Iowa Occupation Project questioned Obama's positions on the war in Iraq, military spending, and U.S. Middle East foreign policy.

Though he knew who the protesters represented and why they had come to Obama campaign headquarters (this reporter heard an Obama staffer say, "We knew they were coming and we have a plan to deal with them"), Earnest told one Iowa newspaper, "They basically just sort of came into the front office and were talking loudly and being disruptive."

I came across this quote about activism from a 2003 interview and it made me think of you folks on Olyblog. Bonus: the author quoted, Ursula K. Le Guin, is even semilocal! Oregon-based, I think she lives somewhere in Portland. Here is what she had to say:

[Interviewer Erika Milo]: I’ve read that last December you were part of a writers’ and artists’ anti-war delegation to Oregon congressman David Wu, and in April participated in a protest against the USA Patriot Act. Were there ever any responses to those protests, beyond the initial news coverage?

[Ursula K. Le Guin]: The response to such protests, to demonstrations and vigils, is mostly invisible and usually pretty slow-moving. We learned that, all the years demonstrating for civil rights and against atomic bomb tests and against the war in Viet Nam. If you want an immediate response you throw a stone. Civil disobedience may be the only way to address an urgent wrong, but it is likely to backfire and cause dismay and disaffection among the very people you are trying to win over. Walking and standing are awfully, awfully slow. You feel like a fool standing there with your sign saying Bush Lied, and people go by in cars yelling things like "Why do you hate America?" that they learned from Rush Limbaugh. But you go on standing there. It worked before. It will work again.

Anyway, I thought she expressed my feeliongs more elegantly than I ever could. From this article in the magazine West By Northwest.

[Phan Nguyen's op-ed in today's Olympian:]

For two weeks in November, the Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) confronted war operations in Olympia's backyard. Depending on one's perspective, it was either a show of the determination of concerned residents standing up to an illegal and immoral war and occupation, or it was simply all hell breaking loose. The perspective depends on what one chooses to focus on.