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NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E, OCTO/NOVO 2002
UNPROVOKED
BY HOPE MARSTON
I went to Portland for the Bush protest Thursday, August
22. It was enormous —there were thousands of people. Hundreds
of us began at Waterfront Park, marched up to Burnside and
Park where we met thousands more activists from a wide range
of groups We took the streets, stopping traffic as we marched
to the Hilton, where Bush was to speak to a $25,000 per person
event. Suddenly, the crowd behind me stopped. We were split
into two or more groups. Although we didn't know it then, the
crowd behind us was stopped for Bush's motorcade.
We marched to the police barricade between 5th and
6th Avenues on Taylor Street. I squeezed up to the front, proudly
draping my corporate flag over the barricade. I had decorated the
red and white stripes with plastic lettering, Denying Liberty and
Justice for All. The corporate flag looks like an ordinary flag,
except, instead of stars, white logos of U.S. corporations stand
in the field of blue, representing selling democracy to the highest
bidders.
After chanting and drumming for a half hour, most of
the crowd marched to another location. I stayed. We were a small
group, maybe 50. Some people verbally challenged police as
“mercenaries." Others tried to educate them about why we were
there. I was amazed how protected they were with helmets and
bulletproof clothing, padded with polycarbonate, and Kevlar.
They were dressed as if we were terrorists.
I yelled, “We're citizens. We’re peacefully protesting.
We are not terrorists. The terrorist landed on Air Force One, and
is speaking in the Hilton." On the sidewalk nearby, the fashion
able and the suited walked through police lines to attend the Bush
gala. We were at least half a city block from the Hilton’s outskirts.
Hundreds of people who had protested at U.S. Senator
Gordon Smith’s office joined us, and we stood arm-to-arm, wall-
to-wall, up against the barricades. We continued to chant, holler
and drum. We noticed snipers on the Hilton’s roof. The police
line facing us rotated about every 15 minutes. The original group
was replaced by a bicycle unit, and later Darth Vader-looking riot
police with kneepads and plexiglass shields in front of their faces
lined up. As their name implies, they were dressed for a riot, not
a peaceful protest.
Suddenly a cop with a microphone yelled, “I’m declaring
an emergency. If you don't clear the area, you’ll be arrested!"
Before he could finish his sentence, the crowd roared, drowning
out his words. Most of the people behind me never heard the
warning.
As I learned later, pdople listening to police scanners
said they heard police say the crowd was too large, and after
being pepper sprayed, people would leave and find help at local
hospitals. Police intent was to break us up and shut us up. They
were coached by Secret Service agents who walked through
police lines with cell phones attached to their little pink ears.
They were probably the ones demanding the area be cleared.
I did not move at first. We chanted, “Peaceful protest!
Peaceful protest!" to let the cops know we weren’t threatening
them. We were exercising our freedom of speech — letting the
government know our dissent with Bush’s fascist policies. Policies
like rattling his saber about warring on Iraq, trashing our Bill of
Rights with the USA Patriot Act. Policies like military tribunals,
holding prisoners of war at Guantamano Bay indefinitely by call
ing them enemy combatants. Someone in the crowd distributed
“Enemy Combatant" bumper stickers, which many stuck to their
shirts.
Police told us they would arrest us — instead they shot
pepper spray directly into a woman named Sharon’s face, and
at her partner, Pat. They pepper sprayed citizen activist Lloyd
Marbet* and others who stayed in the front row linking arms to
resist oppression.
They should have arrested us. If they planned to pepper
spray, they should have warned us. How would Henry David
Thoreau or Mohandis Gandhi practice civil disobedience with
pepper spray in their faces? We have a right to practice civil
disobedience. Not one protester in that crowd of more than 3,000
was armed with a weapon. We were ordinary citizens in T-shirts
and tennis shoes. The riot police, dressed for combat, attacked
a peaceful unarmed crowd. After that, people were angry. Those
who hadn't heard the police announcement were bewildered to
see protesters moving toward them, with riot police and pepper
spray right behind.
The police attacked first — and everything after that
was a response to what police did to break the peace. If you
heard reports of protesters jumping on cars — think about it.
The cars charged into a crowd of peaceful citizens.
I read an AP story with this quote from Assistant Police
Chief Greg Clark: "When we’re dealing with a Presidential visit,
we have to draw very definite lines and if people cross them, we
have to react." He’s lying. Not a single protester crossed police
lines.
Of the rubber bullets police used, Clark said, “It was an
officer rescue. Those were not used for crowd dispersal." Which
is more vulnerable — people with no weapons, or a police car
loaded with armed cops driving through a crowd? Those in the
*Lloyd Marbet was the Green Party candidate for Oregon
Secretary of State in 2000 He has been the foremost
anti-nuclear activist in the state for more than 30 years
His article 'Voices Speaking Out' appeared in the Jan&Feb
2002 issue of the Times Eagle .
1fy¿/fPorM...NotLk!
THE PORTLAND ALLIANCE
Thousands of Oregonians marched through downtown Portland on Saturday, October 5 in opposition
to an invasion of Iraq by the United States. It was the largest peace march since nearly 12,000 rallied
in 1991 when Portland was a major hotbed of protest against the Persian Gulf War. Police did not attack
the recent demonstrators, unlike their violent show of force in August when George W. Bush came to
town. Hope Marston was there and wrote this article for Eugene Weekly.
car were under no threat. People stood in front of police cars to
stop the cars from hurting unprotected pedestrians.
As I backed away from the pepper spray and rubber
bullets, I saw people hurt by the pepper spray attack. They
washed their eyes, their faces, their necks, chests and legs.
They cried; they were in anguish. Sarah told me it hurt like hell
for about 45 minutes. Hours later, when she took a shower, she
forgot her hair had been pepper sprayed, so she relived the
sensation as peppered water flowed down her body.
Police call pepper spray and rubber bullets non-lethal
weapons, as if it’s okay to use them against innocent citizens
dissenting government policy. Pepper spray is the moral
equivalent of the high-powered waterhoses the racist cops
in the South used against people marching to be treated as
human beings.There is no excuse for pepper spraying unarmed
citizens.
What happened in Portland was class warfare.The rich
got in, ordinary people were kept out. Money bought the unelected
President’s ear, lack of money brought a face full of pepper spray.
Police were protected with thousands of dollars worth of boots,
Kevlar jackets and face shields; people who pay their salaries
were hit with rubber bullets.
An unelected President joked about protesters being
killed and thousands of protesters whose message he needed
to hear were shoved aside with nightsticks. Kevin Mannix fretted
about the time he spent among the masses trying to reach the
safety of his wealthy friends while infants were pepper sprayed so
severely that witnesses said the babies seemed to stop breathing.
“This is not what democracy looks like!" I yelled over
and over as the police cars shoved pedestrians aside. Earlier we
had chanted, “This is what democracy looks like!" as thousands
asserted our democratic rights of dissent When I saw my friends
pepper sprayed, and heard the rubber bullets, I knew I was not
watching democracy. For police to perceive peaceful citizens as
a threat and attack them with chemical weapons shows they have
no clue what democracy looks like.
I learned later police attacked the crowd at 6:30 p.m.
because in the hotel wanted to get out on the streets. I can’t
confirm this because I wasn’t there By 6 p.m., I left Portland.
My entire body ached from the tension in that unprovoked
confrontation with police.
Before marching, many of us heard Marbet speak.
He talked about the responsibilities of citizenship — in order to
govern ourselves, we must work for democracy. Not only march
in protest, but petition the government for change, run for office,
and work on campaigns for third-party candidates to shake up the
corporate status quo. Ae is right. I hope this protest invigorates
people to get involved, opens their eyes to see the sham of our
democracy, and propels them toward taking back our freedoms.
For some, Portland was a start, a turning of the tide For others
it is a continuation of our many years’ struggle — a struggle that
must endure until we liberate ourselves and win human rights for
the rest of our indivisible planet.
SAVE CAPITALISM FROM ITSELF
Corporate lobbyists are aware that Republicans can
be bought, but they are more expensive than other political
prostitutes and make strange bedfellows in the long run because
they become so smug after obtaining an office and think you owe
them a favor. Lobbyists only contribute about 85% as much to
Democrats. This way they have rated the race even before it is
run, regardless of who prevails. Democrats are a “cheap date,"
but they never love you after election day.
I learned this as a “grassroots” unpaid lobbyist in Salem.
If you want to talk to an elected representative as a citizen you
might get to speak to a legislative aide, if you are lucky But a
“financed" corporate lobbyist can walk into the inner sanctum, a
closed committee meeting, or be called before his turn to testify
in a public hearing any time. After the hired gun speaks, public
input is closed and the rest of the citizens waiting patiently for
their turn just get cut off. Another ploy is to have the moneyed
interests themselves filibuster (because their mouthpiece is busy
buying more lucrative legislation from another committee). The
only reason public input is asked for is because of Oregon’s
open public meeting law But that is window dressing because the
issue is generally decided in closed session Never having been
called to testify in Washington, D C., I would assume it's the
same there, only larger and more expensive (and less accessible
to non-lobbyist citizens).
The propaganda of a corporate purchased talk show
is that media are controlled by a “liberal elite" The reason we
only hear Ingram, O’Reilly, Larsen, Limbaugh and Reagan on
an AM radio station like KAST in Astoria during prime time is that
progressives don’t rate If this were true, all we would hear would
be progressives rather than well-heeled conservatives (which is
an ingenuous misnomer: they never conserve much of anything).
In reality, corporate money controls both the medium and the
ratings. So much for the Fairness Doctrine.
The progressive movement has lost the high ground
Big Business now dominates public perception with a truly color
blind policy: any individual may be exploited by a company
regardless of race, creed or color.
In regard to bigotry, civil rights, fair play, monopoly
and criminal practices, progressives (regardless of political party)
have always in the past been the first to articulate issues and
bring about reform. The present need is to point out how all
Americans are being devastated by the shenanigans of the Big
Business crowd and their paid-for political hirelings, then try to
prescribe effective action pertinent to daily life This may involve
practicing martial arts (not martial law) in the new progressive
agenda The right to keep and bear arms by an individual might
be an important progressive issue in consequence.
The time is ripe to reregulate in order to save capitalism
from itself. (Ralph Nader says corporations are doing what
communism was unable to do— destroy capitalism.) Now is the
time to impeach politicians who took contributions from Enron,
etc. Ban paid lobbyists in general, reform political contributions
and disband the Electoral College by constitutional amendment.
Not only must the accountants, CEOs, financial advisors, inside
traders and Lobbyists of Enron, etc., be sent to prison, but all
investments of shareholders and IRA accounts of employees be
returned. Only progressives have the credibility to exact justice
and restore confidence in the government and economy.
The problem with the Democratic and Republican
parties is one of corporate mandate. Let's see if either party
returns the purloined assets, let alone put any but a few
scapegoats in jail. It won't happen because both parties gladly
took tainted contributions To pursue Enron, etc., would point
directly to themselves.
Let us shed light on these issues, just as we did with
civil rights and Vietnam more than thirty years ago Now the
corporate collective owns both political parties That shall be
changed
-LESLIE MILLER