Three of us from Vancouver were at the Olympia port Tuesday under sunny skies. Marion and I were there 5 hours. We watched the cargo ship being loaded with heavy military gear from behind the fence. Then everybody walked up to a point where we signed on 4 corners. After almost an hour of that we marched all together down and in the street to the vehicle entry to the port, all the while chanting.
Police gathered on the other side of the fence, but some protesters pulled the swing gate out and threw it aside in the field. They entered, but layed down nearby. Police dragged them away to the jail van, one by one. At one point the police sprayed at least 2 protesters in the face and medics helped them nearby. Then the spray came into the crowd and as I moved clear back, the smell irritated my sinus and I sneezed.
An Evergreen State College professor told the situation in Iraq, and protesters sat cozily listening just outside where the gate was, as police faced them. Not wanting to face the protesters, the police mechanically moved a 10' wall side of some container into place to block it, but it wasn't long enough and there was about a 4'hole, so they moved some sort of containers (pizza? no) to fill the gap.
We left at 7:30 and police were moved into a side of the port entry, and protesters were milling around. Hope nobody else was hurt. It was a grand action!
In peaceful solidarity.
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Of course, with corporate hegemony over the media, public protest has become more important than ever. I suspect that's one reason the FBI wants to spook Mayor Potter in Portland--besides the unforgivable sin of thumbing his nose at the utterly unnecessary JTTF, he has done establishment-questionable acts such as supporting his lesbian daughter and riding with Critical Mass.
If ridiculous and unnecessary force were NOT brought against peaceful protest, then we'd have the utterly unacceptable situation of having people think about what the protest message might be.