updates for the anti-Bush march at YO and Parkrose school

i was arrested at around 4:00pm while standing on the sidewalk. i hate the portland police.

I was at both events and I want to say that the Infernal Noise Brigade was fantastic.

The other point worth bringing up is that when we took the streets at Park Rose it was a great moment, one that intensified and looked very serious when the riot cops came out and pushed us back.

This, and not the Yo center protest, was the most glaringly confrontational part of the day. We had, after all, blocked traffic and made a lot of racket. There was a lot of solidarity out there.

Perhaps the YO protest was, in reality, a more threatening situation, but there were more riot cops at Park Rose, and they had the tear gas guns out and ready. It was a real standoff there, one that resolved itself without real incident (other than a few people being chased by Mounted Police into a ravine and one arrest), but definitely intense.

This was great day.

were people informed that the motorcade was going to approach the YO Center from the southside? if one wanted to engage in confrontation with the police, clearly the north end was the place to be. But if people wanted to be a presence in the face of the Installed Ruler, they needed to be at the other end. This was available information, but I don't think people received it. It was lonely down there when the motorcade whizzed by!

I attended the protest on Saturday and I just want to put the author of this piece in check on a few items. There are some little discrepancies, but I will address the big one first. A woman by the name of Kathleen Jurgens--who gave us no group affliation was the woman with the microphone that announced the YO visit was cancelled. She recieved some bad information from her "contact"--I am a member of the so called corporate media, and when she made that announcement--we were all on our phones trying to confirn that info--NO ONE confirmed that information--therefore we all stayed to see the motorcade pull up minutes later. Don't blame media for your fuck ups--Face it--she screwed up and later wouldn't own up to it blabbing off about corporate media having some conspiracy over their dimise. It's an out right lie to blame us for this one. By the way--I am the first person to point out problems with media--but this one is undeserved.

we were on the south side of the blockade, and, while i'm sure the folks on the north side had a better time, i think we had the vantage position. we also had an easier time of getting accurate information. someone called one of our folks on the cel to convey the announcement about the 'cancellation,' which struck us as absurd given that law enforcement kept expanding the yellow tape boundaries & more & more of 'the man' were showing up every minute. perhaps my experiences with the infamous NYPD in the days of the koch and dinkins administration have tainted my view of cops - my friends and i experienced our share of brutality at their hands - but i found 'portland's finest' to be quite pleasant and respectful, esp in comparison to the nypd, & on our end of the blockade anyway.

having said that, we were really annoyed by the total lack of press coverage on our end, and while i'd like to think that shrub read our signs & realizes that there are lots of us out there who totally disagree w/ him, i doubt it made a meaningful difference.

Reading through these comments above, I'm disturbed by the fact that the real center of the demonstration should have been many blocks to the south of where it was located.
This is not to blame anyone; I have no idea who, when, or why the events of the day were planned as they were. But, if nothing else, this is a breakdown in community communication. No one I knew there had any idea that the southern location was closer to the motorcade route, or even that it existed. Perhaps that route was a last minute change, or maybe even that official decision was held off until the last minute, to assess the situation and act accordingly. But, unfortunately, that southern point of the no pass zone was right next to Portland Cable Access studios, who had cameras on the street and, I believe, were maintaining a live feed through at least part of the afternoon.
Not only did we miss welcoming the resident, but we lost the opportunity to adaquately compete with the stunted and web spun coverage of the corporate news. Again, not to blame anyone, we learn as we go. This was a lesson in communication, as well as in strategy and trust.
It is important for organizers to collect factual information; it is just as important for the community to pitch in, take it upon themselves to transport fresh information around, especially at an action as spread out as this one was. It might have been the protesters distrust of the corporate media which prohibited inside information from arriving in time to keep the crowd from being "chumped" by an adroit piece of disinformation.
As I posted in the comments section to an earlier post, the corporate media in the streets are, or at least CAN be our allies. A comment to this original post encouraged people to vandalize corporate equipment and prevent reporters from getting their coverage and interviews. Apparently this is one of those times when our reflex distrust of corporate news reporters might have cost us dearly.
We should value our allies; this presupposes we know who they are. And it would go a long way towards solidifying our community if we treat everyone as a part of that community, until they themselves, personally and individually, demonstrate that this is not the case. Working for the media is no more to be universally condemned than should those who stand behind the counter at Nike or any other retail front for sweatshops. All should be treated as working people, who are not necessarily sympathetic with the mentality of their bosses.
Yea, no doubt there were saboteurs and infiltrators in the mix of people on the street. Yea, perhaps some of them were or are within the inner circle of some of the organizing groups. Hey, that's how the corporate and law enforcement mentality operate. We know that.
But, in my opinion, we should also acknowledge that it is closer to our basic philosophy to trust everyone and take our lumps for this, than to trust no one and give out those lumps.

People seem to keep convienently forgetting that we didn't miss greeting him at all, there were over a 1000 of us at Parkrose when he got there. And he passed right in front of us. I guess people just need something to bitch about, god forbid we actually take some initiative and do some work on a rally before hand.

The decision to announce Bush's "cancellation" of the YO Center stop was made by some of the protest organizers after the false information was announced on thier radio frequencey. The bad information was not checked out thouroughly, but the job of announcing it was handed to Kathleen Juergens, who hesitated to announce it, but was told that it had checked out. Kathleen Juergens caught a lot of flack for this snafu, which was not of her own making, and turned out to be pretty unimportant anyhow. We had made our point, and needed all the time we had to get to Parkrose, with so many streets closed by the police. I am Kathleen's partner, and was with her when she made the announcement, and while some of the press told her that their sources contradicted the announcement, but we didn't know who to trust at that point and were trying to figure out what to do. At no point then or since then have I heard Kathleen blame this on the media! Get your facts straight, before you go making allegations like that.

We don't know who the false report came from originally. As for the media's coverage of the protests, much was made of how we were "duped" but little or nothing was said about the issues we were calling attention to, or the fact that people were denied access not only to Bush (except by special invitation) but thier own neighborhood streets, while the Republican pep rally was in town , at huge expense to the same taxpayers denied their rights. And you wonder why we distrust the mainstream press?