MayDay 2003 in Olympia (a real I witness account)
I walked up to the convergence around 12:34pm and saw an American flag! My first thoughts were that the fascists took over the Oly May Day. When I walked closer I saw that it was the Adbusters corporate flag—to my somewhat relief.
The crowd, or unruly mob as some will paint it, was unusually small this year. About 300 people made a quick turn towards the 4th Ave. Bridge, which is forbidden to protesters since the anti-capitalist earthquake destroyed it a couple of years ago. The "protest police", actually the die-hard liberals, heeded the pig's advice and moved the parade the other way. The INB drummed us in a "nicer direction". The black bock of two were thoroughly discouraged by this move.
We paraded in a snake march around Oly, stopping traffic and disrupting business as usual. We headed to the National Guard Armory by way of City Hall and Mickey D's. Organizers wanted to point out the militarization of our community, and that if we ever did get out of hand, these assholes would be the first ones to try to fuck us up. Not on this day though.
Ironically, the Oly Poly guarded the National Guard (read the book Strike! and almost laugh.)
People danced, children played, and we got some sun in Oly. Joey Casio rocked out as well as another band with the former lead singer of Rainbow Sugar out rapping the white boy rappers on hand.
I regretfully inform you that the people on hand were not up to transforming the Armory into a community center or an ice cream depot. The Armory was not touched this year.
All in all, this day shows us that resistance to the corporate war machine is not dead, and we will keep on fighting until we are Free. But this day also shows us that we might need to update our tactics to change things in the immediate future.
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here are the photos from the olympian of mayday:
hopefully someone will bring copies of the mayday messanger down to portland so people can see independant media coverage of it.