We all remember the images from the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, the local sheriff turning fire hoses and dogs on peaceful marchers, many just kids. It was these images of police using violent force against nonviolent protesters that helped turn the tide of public opinion nationally, eventually leading to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 respectively.
That era seems so far away now, a time when tear gas was used indiscriminately against anti-war protesters, and police seemed to take pleasure bashing in the heads of the hated “hippies.” Perhaps no incident of American-style police state violence is more iconic than that which occurred on the campus of Kent State University on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students protesting the US invasion of Cambodia, shooting 13 and killing four, some of whom were just watching or walking by.
Student photographer John Filo, who took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the dead body of Jeffrey Miller, describes the inevitably chilling consequences that come from a state sanctioning violence against its own people:
The bullets were supposed to be blanks. When I put the camera back to my eye, I noticed a particular guardsman pointing at me. I said, “I’ll get a picture of this,” and his rifle went off. And almost simultaneously, as his rifle went off, a halo of dust came off a sculpture next to me, and the bullet lodged in a tree.
Whatever it is that allows a citizen-soldier, sworn to protect his fellow Americans, to fire live ammunition at an unarmed photographer, that state of mind is not arrived at overnight. The Kent State Massacre was the culmination of a divisive decade in which the government not only refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of public dissent against an increasingly unpopular war, but relentlessly branded the dissenters as enemies of the state. It was the culmination of a decade in which the state routinely relied on illegal wiretapping, domestic spying, and physical force to achieve its political ends.
Three and a half decades later, is history preparing to repeat itself?
Civil disobedience can be a disruptive tool for creating awareness and effecting change, but in a civil society we should always expect our law enforcement officers to respond proportionately. If I disobey a lawfully given order, and choose to peacefully occupy an area from which I am instructed to disperse, I should have every expectation of being handcuffed and arrested, but as long as I do not actively resist arrest or threaten violence, I expect the police — whose salaries I pay — to treat me respectfully and humanely.
But as has been repeatedly demonstrated during the anti-war protests at the Port of Olympia, “nonlethal violence” has apparently become the preferred response to disobedience of any kind, no matter how peaceful. Tear gas and pepper spray are routinely used to disperse and subdue the crowd; unarmed civilians are methodically lined up and maced. Perhaps lulled by the marketeers of these “nonlethal” weapons, physical force is fast becoming the first resort of law enforcement officials everywhere, apparently oblivious to the fact that violence breeds violence, and that it is a short step from a taser to a billy club to a loaded rifle.
Of course, police prefer to use these “nonlethal” weapons because they are efficient, effective and economical. But they are not always nonlethal. Dramatic amateur footage was released yesterday of a recent incident at Vancouver Airport, were a confused and distraught Polish man died shortly after being tasered by police. Police had claimed the man fought back, but the video proves otherwise, and clearly shows the taser being used as a tool of convenience.
Eventually, such policy will backfire, as individual citizens and mass protesters begin to understand that their peaceful actions are routinely answered with physical — sometimes deadly — force. There is only so much abuse that the average person is willing to take before they respond in kind. It may be inconvenient to tolerate the protests in Olympia. It may be downright disruptive to the Port. But if the police continue to ratchet up the violence, lethal or not, they will eventually find their batons soaked in blood.
Peaceful? Maybe
Unlawful? Definately
Freedom of speach does not allow for vandalism, criminal trespass and unlawful blocking of a public thoroughfare.
Also, take your Kent State analogy and stuff it.
Rhetoric and hyperbole aside, NOBODY espouses the use of guns against protestors.
I agree W/#1 the the Kent State part of the post is over the top.
Police used the same things last spring in the Port of Tacoma, when they weren’t needed and the local paper ignored it. They also shut down filming of the event, the paper did report on that, but only under pressure and made the person doing the filming out to be some sort of fringe bad guy. Truth be told he was a rich white kid from the University of Puget sound.
Just reread the post. Scratch that part about me agreeing with #1 about the Kent State comments.
I agree with the central thesis that the police have been more willing to use weapons such as tear gas, pepper spray, and tasers because they are considered “non-lethal force”. But in some circumstances, they are indeed lethal. The police should use such devices only when the ONLY other alternative is the use of lethal force, and ONLY when the risk of death is in proper proportion to the harm/danger caused by the protester’s non-compliance.
That being said, I think those who practice organized civil disobedience should do it right, recognizing that the police are just trying to do a difficult job, and some may even be in agreement with their aims. I saw one protest, decades ago, where one of the protest organizers met with the police in advance and worked out an agreement with them, to wit:
“We will mount a demonstration on the side of the road, with signs and chants for the benefit of the TV cameras. Upon a signal, some of us will cross the road, block traffic, and then sit down. Then you read us the riot act, and order us to disperse. We will not disperse, and then you can come in and make arrests of those individuals who refuse to clear the roadway. They will not resist, they will expect to be handcuffed and led to a waiting bus. Upon arrival at the police station, they will produce identification, cooperate with booking proceedures, agree to sign an appearance bond, and show up for any required court hearings. In return, we expect you to treat the protesters with respect, and not use any force other than what is necessary to handcuff the protester, lift him/her to his feet, and escort him to the bus. We expect (insert number here) to participate in the sit-in, you can use this number for the purpose of arrainging adequate transportation.”
Anyway, seems like a win-win solution for all involved, except for those who are trying to create a conflict for their own benefit (either police or protest leaders).
But at least we have come a long way since the Kent State shootings, where the governor issued a statement afterwards pretty much to the effect that the protesters had it coming, and implied that he hoped more would be shot in the future.
Sam Adams-you mean the beer right? From Wikipedia about the real Sam Adams.
(Vandalism and criminal trespass))Adams played a prominent role during protests against the Stamp Act, and in the events of the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
(Unlawful)Adams called for the colonists to defend their rights and liberties. Adams was instrumental in garnering the support of the colonies for rebellion against Great Britain, eventually resulting in the American Revolution, and was also one of the key architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped American political culture.
Nobody, at this time, may be espousing the use of guns against protesters now, but should the pepper spray and batons and rubber bullets prove ineffective in quelling protests is there any doubt that this government is morally capable of shooting citizens down in the street? If your answer is no-then you are naive or just plain uninformed.
“Whatever it is that allows a citizen-soldier, sworn to protect his fellow Americans, to fire live ammunition at an unarmed photographer, that state of mind is not arrived at overnight.”
It’s fear, Goldy. The National Guardsmen were relatively untrained and totally inexperienced, and they were in a threatening situation. Some of the students were throwing rocks at them. Also, the shooting occurred quite some time after authorities had warned the crowd they were “an unlawful gathering” and ordered them to disperse, which ws ignored. No one remembers hearing any officer giving an order to fire. There is no evidence there ever was an order to fire given. What apparently happened is that one of the Guardsmen panicked and fired, and then everyone else started to fire. It was a breakdown of military discipline, and a collapse of military command and control, of the sort that happens on battlefields among inexperienced troops. This wouldn’t have happened if Regular Army troops had been used that day; but, of course, the Army isn’t used to control civil disorders, that’s what the National Guard is for, and the National Guard is usually the most ill-suited group of people for the task.
I’m not trying to justify what happened that day. It wasn’t justified, and even less justified was the whitewash that followed. Nobody was prosecuted, and the parents’ wrongful death lawsuits against the state were thrown out. That was wrong. The shooting wasn’t ordered by the officers in charge, therefore was an illegal act, and the soldiers who fired without authorization should have been court-martialed. You can’t maintain a disciplined military organization that follows its orders if you don’t punish breaches of discipline as serious as this one was.
Kent State will forever remain an ugly black stain on the Ohio National Guard. And the reason why it was all swept under the rug, and no heads rolled in the Ohio National Guard, of course, is because Ohio had a rightwing Republican governor at the time.
@4 These types of negotiated actions are still done. The anti-nuke group Ground Zero in Bremerton pretty much follows the script you lay out. Everybody wins? The government certainly does. Ground zero doesn’t have shit to show for years of following this script.
Those kids at Kent State died for your civil liberties; the First Amendment includes more than freedom of speech (or is that Speach?), but of course one would actually need to read it!. We cannot simultaneously praise the defenders of democracy in the streets of Beijing in 1989 while condemning the non-violent demonstrators on the streets of the US in 2007. Well i suppose the hypocrits can because then they would be defending their own selfish above all others. For me Kent State is personal, and any fucking idiot who wants to suggest that it is irrelevant and part of something that must never be discussed, needs to come for a visit. The National Guard troops (just like those from WA fighting in Iraq): marched onto a US university campus, too aim, and felt perfectly justified gunning down children who were shouting slogans and standing on a grassy knoll. Yeah, we definitely do not want to be reminded of that behavior on the part of our national leadership; because what, it could never happen again??
But in case you can’t grasp the aspect of “peaceful” and respectful as part of the behavior of the protesters and “violent” and abusive as part of the behavior of the cops, then view this video. In the meantime, learn to spell.
http://videos.theolympian.com/.....id=1562999
“Dramatic amateur footage was released yesterday of a recent incident at Vancouver Airport, were a confused and distraught Polish man died shortly after being tasered by police. Police had claimed the man fought back, but the video proves otherwise, and clearly shows the taser being used as a tool of convenience.”
We have come to learn that the police almost always lie in these situations. We have also come to believe that when cops commit illegal acts of violence against citizens, their employing organizations not only can’t be trusted to discipline and correct them, but almost always lie and cover up and defend the misbehaving cops. And, finally, police departments, police unions, and individual police officers invariably fiercely resist any and all efforts at civilian review and control.
All of this is very disturbing. America’s cops have a tough job, and for the most part, deserve our respect. But they’re also out of control. That needs to be corrected. When police cross the line, there needs to be accountability. We, as citizens and voters, have the power to make that happen. We must insist that it does happen.
Sam Adams:
Looks like you don’t know who your moniker is (or what he stood for) and you can’t spell. As far as your arguments – it is true that freedom of speech doesn’t allow for criminal activities – but protesters from the revolutionary times on to the present have sought to do more than just LEGALLY protest – and the reaction (overreaction) of those in charge has often led to the vaildation of a movement.
Read up on Ghandi – He led peaceful and non-violent protests that were also ILLEGAL. So, doing illegal things (like a sit-in at an all-white lunch counter) can bring about legal change….
@8 hypocrits , i, too for took, (needs?)
Let’s not make a big deal out of mis-spelled words. Everyone does it.
@1 “Rhetoric and hyperbole aside, NOBODY espouses the use of guns against protestors.”
No? What a crock of bull. The rightwing blogosphere is full of violent fantasies directed against … not vandals, or even protesters, but simply anyone who disagrees with their twisted, totalitarian, ultra-violent political views.
@1 In fact, you need look no further than our very own local rightwing-jihadist blog, (un)Sound Politics, for a stunning example of a rightwing violent fantasy directed against INNOCENT AMERICANS as an electoral strategy:
“Congratulations Speaker Pelosi, now let the bombs fall where they may. My prediction: terror attack on domestic soil passenger aircraft within the next six months. Casualties in the 2-300 range. AND, UNFORTUNATELY, MAYBE THAT’S JUST WHAT WE NEED. It’s obvious people don’t remember what happened 5 years ago. Posted by FullContactPolitics at November 8, 2006 10:52 AM”
http://blog.usefulwork.com/cgi.....ry_id=7430
(Emphasis added by Roger Rabbit.)
And this wasn’t just any wingnut idiot who posted this hateful, un-American, piece of rhetorical violence. Yes, it came from someone with a criminal mind, but that someone happened to be no less than a Republican Party candidate.
@1 By the way, your flippant use of a Revoluntionary War era patriot’s name as a screen name to cover your rightwing hatemongering is vile beyond words.
@6 “Nobody, at this time, may be espousing the use of guns against protesters now”
Are you kidding? The vile right would open fire on anyone they perceive as a “leftist” in an instant if they thought they could get away with it.
They’ve been saying for years what they would like to do to liberals: Put us in “concentration camps” and “execute” us. And so-called “mainstream” Republicans stand up and cheer this kind of rhetoric, which shows how far out of the mainstream the GOP has actually become.
A Jewish friend of mine points out that Hitler told the world what he was going to do years before he did it. He laid it all out in his book, “Mein Kampf,” which was published in the 1920s before Hitler came to power. No one believed he meant what he said. They should have, because he really meant it.
I think liberals should listen when rightwing haters tell us what they would like to do to us. I say that because, like Hitler, I think they really mean it. And I believe we would be fools to ignore their plainly expressed intentions.
Liberals must arm.
Given the political climate that exists in America today, and the ultra-craziness of the right, I don’t think we’re so far removed from police breaking down citizens’ doors to arrest them for their political beliefs or for perceived disloyalty to the regime in power that it couldn’t happen in the foreseeable future.
We’ve placed entirely too much reliance on the Constitution and the rule of law. We already know that Republicans neither respect nor obey our Constitution or laws. We also know that some Republicans go around publicly saying liberals should be arrest and even killed, and other Republicans applaud when they say it.
Look what happened in Pakistan last week. That country still has the same president, but it no longer has a Constitution, and the lawyers and judges are in jail. Anyone who thinks that couldn’t happen here in a heartbeat is dangerously naive.
I spent 30 years working in state government, and I know from experience that laws aren’t self-executing. Laws that aren’t enforced don’t exist, period. That’s why I had a job. A lot of what I did had to do with enforcing society’s rules. Without employees like me enforcing them, there were no rules, and people did whatever they pleased. That’s why they paid my salary, benefits, and retirement.
A government is a government because it has a bigger army than anyone else. When it loses the ability to control rivals, it ceases to be the government, and is replaced by another group. That’s what happened in Russia in 1917, and in Germany in 1932. What makes a government a government is not its ability to pass laws, but its ability to enforce its laws.
Much of our national government is now under Republican control. What if they refuse to leave when their time is up? Or what if Bush decides to pull a Musharaf, and declares martial law, or simply proclaims himself dictator? I don’t think the odds favor that happening. But I think it COULD happen. I used to think a coup d’etat was impossible in our country. Given the mentality of many Republicans, I no longer think so.
I can tell you what will happen if it does happen. If a cop kicks my door down and attempts to arrest me for “political crimes” (i.e., being a liberal), in my mind he is no longer a cop but a kidnapper. If that awful moment ever comes, what will be in my mind is the thought that if those people ever get me into their squad car and ever haul me off to their police station, that will be the end of me. In other words, I will equate such an attempted arrest with an attempt to murder me. I will believe that’s what they intend to do. And I will defend myself. The cop who kicks my door down to arrest me for “political cops” will no longer be a cop, he will be a dead kidnapper.
You see, I have already armed myself against that possibility. I hope to God I’m just paranoid. But I think of my guns as an insurance policy.
to arrest me for “political crimes” will no longer be a cop
When they came for the Jews, the Jews didn’t resist, and look what happened to them. We should learn from that. When the rightwing haters come for you, don’t wave flowers at them. You can’t afford to. Pull the trigger. You can’t afford not to.
Liberals must arm!
Ha ha! Just kidding! Isn’t wingnut humor funny? That there Ann Coulter is a side-splitting riot of laughs! So is Mark Grisworld, and so is Jonathan Gardner.
@7 How much more would they have to show for it by inviting the cops to split their skulls with billy clubs?
Those trains are carrying nuclear weapons. Trust me, the government is going to kill people, if they have to, to make sure there are no security breaches, and to make sure those trains get through.
Spoiled self absobed narcasistic IDIOTS!!! Boo fucking hoo!!! I hope the cops blow pepper spray undiluted straight up their nostrils and into their eyes.
Conflating the 60’s Democrat war against Civil Rights with rock throwers in Olympia. Nice touch. Perhaps Goldstein was putting too much of his body on the line and smearing too much concrete on the tracks at the riot; perhaps he’s become irretrievably unhinged.
Regarding Civil Rights, let’s deconstruct Roger Racist who imputes racist Nazi-fascism to others and who wants unhinged liberals to get guns. A good place to start the deconstruction is with a recent book, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution. Note the timeline, children. Civil Rights didn’t begin with the 1964 and 1965 legislation (laws supported by a greater percentage of Congressional Republicans than of ‘Crats) cited by Goldstein. It began with the second greatest president of the last century, a Republican, second only to Reagan, a Republican.
The book’s author is David Nichols, who admits that he’s been part of the echo chamber that filters the past and skews it left. To repeat, history isn’t written by the victors; it’s written by the Democrats.
Democrat Truman is given credit for starting the civil-rights revolution by integrating our armed forces, but he didn’t. He signed an order and refused to enforce it. Military integration was effected by Eisenhower by 1954. He achieved more in two years than Truman achieved in seven.
Eisenhower desegregated the District of Columbia, a jurisdiction directly subject to Federal control. Eisenhower concertedly put civil-rights liberals in positions of power. He knew how Earl Warren would vote on Brown before making the recess appointment. He knew because his AG was, like Warren, a civil rights activist.
Eisenhower enforced the ‘all deliberate speed’ of Brown with the deployment of the 101st to the Democrat riot of Little Rock. Roger Racist says that Kent State was a conseqence of our pro forma use of untrained Guardsmen instead of trained military units for civilian riots? Roger Racist, as everyone knows, eats shit and talks shit.
But I belabor the obvious. The take-home message to take home is that one Republican president accomplished more than the two progressives who came before him or the two who came after. Eisenhower got the first civil-rights laws since Reconstruction, the Act of 1957 and the voting rights act of 1960, and he got them past obstructionist LBJ and the Democrats who refused to repudiate the Klan in 1924. Eisenhower, better with deeds than words, got results. You Democrat dipshits got the credit.
Unlike Roger, the fuzzy little bugger, Ann Coulter is funny. Not her problem if stupid Seattle doesn’t get it, but it’s our problem if Roger is vamping as the new Ann Coulter. Ann has a brain. Roger has turds.
Message to WingNutz, Inc.(tm):
nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular
nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular nukular
Not nukular, NUCLEAR….
#24 — Yeah! She’s a riot, just like Republicans Charlie Manson and Ted Bundy.
Goldy, I like the discussion. But I totally disagree with you on the Olympia protests.
I think the police are doing a great job. They are giving fair warning to the protesters, and following up on their warnings. I find it hard to believe that protesters donning gas masks are ‘alarmed’ when they actually get sprayed with pepper spray.
I rode through downtown last night, and was upset that windows in the bank were broken by protesters, that garbage cans were flung everywhere, and that police had to direct their attention to the protest instead of the rest of the community.
I fully agree with civil disobedience as a protest, but these protesters have gone far beyond that.
ATTENTION PROTESTERS: The correct term is CIVIL disobedience. You are making no friends.
I know, I know…. Charlie Manson wasn’t a Republican.
@23 The portion of this historical narrative you conveniently leave out is that the Democrats kicked the racists out of their party, and they’re all in the GOP now, and it’s rightwingers who are fomenting racism, hate, and intolerance in our country now.
And it’s been so ever since the days of Nixon, a Republican president who deliberately aligned his party with the blue collar and southern racists, as an electoral strategy.
@27 “ATTENTION PROTESTERS: The correct term is CIVIL disobedience. You are making no friends.”
I totally agree.
@24 “Unlike Roger, the fuzzy little bugger, Ann Coulter is funny. Not her problem if stupid Seattle doesn’t get it, but it’s our problem if Roger is vamping as the new Ann Coulter. Ann has a brain. Roger has turds.”
Ann has brains enough to know how to make money by pandering to the animal instincts of idiots. She also has enough brains to understand she’s in it strictly for the money, and to not take herself seriously. Unfortunately, her legion of adoring fans aren’t nearly as smart as her.
It is humorous to watch the old guard protestors come out in their tie-dyed t-shirts and dresses from Vashon and Port Townsend, but you can understand their enthusiasm. Most of them have largely wasted their lives…accomplishing nothing.
Their few years of excitement protesting against the Vietnam War was the be-all and end-all of their existence. They yearn for those halcyon days of their youth, and have forgotten completely what Pol Pot and others were able to accomplish due largely to those same efforts.
Now they instead show their ignorance, somehow believing that this war is about “US Imperialism.”
What this war is about is Wahabbism, and the rise of fundamentalist Islam. The people they are silently (or sometimes loudly) rooting for are people who would kill them in a heartbeat, just for espousing such things as freedom of speech, freedom of (or from) religion, and equal rights for women under the law.
I’d find the whole thing pathetic, if it weren’t so damn laughable……
#28 headless lucy says:
Don’t worry. NO ONE expects the truth from you.
Interesting pictures above.
I agree that force applied should be proportionate to the presented situation. In the picture above, how many officers are there vs protesters? How do the officers know that the protesters are peaceful? We have seen many anarchists “hide” within these peaceful protesters before unleashing their mayhem. How many times have the officers given the legal order to disperse and been ignored? I am all in favor of the use of pepper spray, as it gives the officers a “stand off” means of dispersal. In Goldy’s scenario above “If I disobey a lawfully given order, and choose to peacefully occupy an area from which I am instructed to disperse, I should have every expectation of being handcuffed and arrested, but as long as I do not actively resist arrest or threaten violence, I expect the police — whose salaries I pay — to treat me respectfully and humanely.” By not complying with the instructions of the officers, you are actively resisting. IMO
One other note. Once you decide to break the law, ignore lawful police instructions, you are willingly putting yourself at risk. Officers are very deliberate when taking someone into custody for very good reasons, not the least of which is their own safety.
Protesting is a freedom/right which has been earned in blood.
George Bush didn’t cause this problem, ladies and gentlemen. Nor was 9/11 the first serious attack on American soil. The first attack on the World Trade Center occurred eight year’s earlier….on Clinton’s watch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.....er_bombing
33 – You are correct in your assessment, but I’ll also add to this the fact that there is a segment of the extreme left in this country that not only opposes the war…..they actually want the US to LOSE in Iraq. They are rooting FOR our enemies!! That’s the part I just don’t get. Rooting against their own country, that’s the part of this that is so unbelievably insane and illogical.
You take the risk…you bear the consequences.
http://www.time.com/time/magaz.....18,00.html
Throughout the summer, antiwar demonstrators have used their bodies to block the movement of munitions at the naval weapons station in Concord, Calif. Last week that classic act of civil disobedience ended in tragedy when a weapons train plowed into a group of peace activists, mutilating one of them. As other demonstrators leaped out of the way, S. Brian Willson, 46, was caught sitting cross-legged on the tracks. Willson’s wife and stepson watched in horror as the train dragged him 25 feet, fracturing his skull and severing his right leg below the knee. Surgeons later amputated his other leg below the knee. The Navy claimed that the train was traveling at 5 m.p.h. and its civilian crew did not see the group.
And I’ll also throw in the 9/11 “truth” conspiracy kooks just for shits and giggles. Any of you fringe fuck whack jobs want to make the case that 9/11 was an inside job by the Bush Administration? I know you fuck wads are out there!!
You can fix poor eyesight with laser surgery.
You can fix poor hearing with teeny-weeny hearing aid chips.
BUT YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!
Perhaps another Rachel Corrie Pancake Breakfast will result from these unwahed, godless heathen hippies stupidity.
Bull Conner @23:
Wrong on Truman/Eisenhower, regarding the integration of the armed forces. It wasn’t that Truman didn’t enforce it, it just took a little time.
My father was in an integrated unit in Korea BEFORE Eisenhower took office. Somebody thought it would be a neat trick to put a white Lt. from Alabama in charge of a mixed unit, because “he would know how to make the nXXXXX’s work.” But my Dad had worked alongside blacks all his life (alongside, not over them), on a farm, in construction projects, and even digging holes for lightpoles (by hand) for the Alabama Power and Light Co. during the summer. He saw pretty quickly that the white soldiers expected the black soldiers to do all the dirty work, and the black soldiers (many of them from the north and west) resented it. He took off his shirt, jumped in a hole, and showed them he knew how to dig a ditch in a hurry. Then he supervised to make sure the white soldiers worked just as hard as the black soldiers did. Word spread pretty fast, and he didn’t have much trouble after that. (This story wasn’t told to me by my father, who didn’t talk much about Korea. It was told to me by someone who was there, who showed up at my father’s funeral – a very dignified black man who served under my father, and read his obituary in the paper).
Anyway, I know this incident didn’t happen during Eisenhower’s presidency, because it wouldn’t match with my father’s service record. He came home from Korea in 1953, and he served his last nine months there as G-2 for his battalion. He didn’t have construction duties at that time, that would have occured before he was wounded and hospitalized for several months.
But Eisenhower does deserve credit for his enforcement of the desegregation orders at Little Rock and elsewhere. Funny thing about Eisenhower, he seemed to believe in the rule of law, and an order was an order. He also was a fiscal conservative, but pushed through one of the biggest domestic transportation bills of all time (creating the Interstate Highway System). He also warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. I dare say, he would not be very welcome in today’s Republican Party.
But by the early 1960’s it was the Democrats who had taken over the banner of supporting civil rights, and the Republicans who were trying to cash in on white backlash in 1968, 1972, and onward.
Funny, I just read that George Wallace’s shooter was just paroled. It reminded me of the 1972 campaign, in which Wallace was campaigning for the nomination. There wasn’t much chance of him getting the nomination, but there was a chance he could split off and form a third-party challenge. Such a challenge would have, at that time, drawn more votes from the Republicans than the Democrats. Funny how he was assasinated by yet another one of those “crazy, lone gunmen” before candidates for the nomination had secret service protection, isn’t it? Wasn’t Howard Hunt in charge of the plumbers unit at the White House at that time, the same person who is alleged by his son to have uttered incriminating comments about complicity in the Kennedy Assasination? I used to not believe in conspiracy theories, but after the past few years, I’m becoming a believer.
“T)hey’re all in the GOP now …” Unless he changed party affiliation after my Kwik Kwiz of two weeks ago, Senator Kleagle, Democrat, West Virginia, is still a Democrat.
As for Nixon’s tilt toward blue collars, most of them were in the North, paying dues to George Meany. And note that between 1960, the year of Ike’s second civil rights act, and 1968, the year of Nixon’s squeaker election, things had changed. Civil rights, for instance.
Martin Luther King’s force as a leader of a valiant struggle (a struggle the Kennedys impeded) had died long before King died. Violent variations on the themes of riot we see now in Olympia had taken the movement away from King by about 1965. Nixon’s calls for law and order, mischaracterized by the Left as code-work racism, were calls for law and order. They put Nixon at variance with the burn-baby-burn successors to King and the peaceful revolution Eisenhower helped.
Thank you, 6033. I’ll stay with what I wrote earlier, but with a caveat: these events were before my time, so I’m trusting lib historian David Nichols’ interpretation. He writes that the only branch of the service during Truman’s years to attempt integration was the Army, under Eisenhower’s control or influence as commander of NATO. Truman’s executive order reordered nothing else (almost nothing else?) until Eisenhower as president pushed it.
“When we came in, in ’53, it looked to us like it was time to take the bull by the horns and eliminate it all; and that is what we have done.” … The armed forces had become the most integrated institution in American life and a beacon for progress in the larger society. Given his popularity, Eisenhower could have ignored the unfinished task of desegregating the armed forces, but he used his military prestige to effect compliance. Ike achieved in less than two years what President Truman had failed to accomplish in seven. [This paragraph is quoted directly from Nichols’ book, page 50. Published this year.]
The tender concern of 60s radicals for suffering Vietnamese and Cambodians ended at about the moment Nixon ended The Movement by ending the draft. It’s said that, of all the lock-step countercultural wailers of those years, only Joan Baez tried to alert her post-conscription brothers and sisters to Pol Pot’s genocide and to the deadly re-education camps of Ho Chi Minh City.
32: Well, I mean, Coulter is, after all, a sidelined lawyer, like you.
Extra Credit: Check out a book by Robert Parker, who ran the Senate mess (so to speak) during LBJ’s tenure as Majority Leader. Think this is the title: Capitol Hill in Black and White / by Robert Parker with Richard Rashke.
Caro, in his bio of Landslide Lyndon, discusses Parker’s master-slave relationship with our preeminent Civil Rights Democrat.
6033: Again, 1968 was not 1957 or 1960, for Nixon, King, Eldridge, or anybody else.
Wallace survived the assassination attempt. Hunt the Plumber, busted down and broke, died recently. His last book is a last look at his CIA posting to Mexico City in Ike’s ’50s, at his unfortunate involvement in JFK’s Bay of Pigs, and at Watergate. Hunt, as I recall, was across the street during the break-in, doing sigint.
He notes that Rosemary’s 18 minutes wasn’t the only mystery gap of those years. There was a big documentary hole in the record of Diem’s murder. Hunt believed to the end that JFK ordered or permitted the murder of an American ally, so Hunt helpfully helped the truncated record by manufacturing a smoking-gun memo implicating Kennedy.
Those were the days.
Itchy Goldy: Cheering for the enemy, or sleeping with the enemy, is another atavistic throwback to the ’60s: Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh/ NLF Is Gonna Win.
“(W)ho didn’t talk much about Korea …” The forgotten war, indeed, perhaps because it was an elective non-declared police action.
Amazing that there once was a war even worse than the one we’re in now, and a president even more unpopular than the one we have now. Truman blundered into war, just as Bush did, but with more destructive results. Truman’s Korea was such a bitched-up blunder, we were so mired in quagmire, that only Eisenhower could get us out. A task he accomplished by the end of business, 1953, his first year in office. (Of course we’re still there, 54 years later. Another compelling reason about being very wary of Democrats in positions of power. Were it not for Truman and Acheson screwing up, there would have been no Korean War then and no US soldiers in Korea now.)
John Dean writes in one of his books about the NSC meeting that immediately followed the Kent State incident. He describes how J. Edgar Hoover blathered on for an excruciating length of time about how the first priority should be to find out whatever they could about the girl in the photo so they could discredit her “morals”. He went on and on about “morals” until most of the other people in the room were glancing uncomfortably at each other. Afterwards, Dean went to John Mitchell and told him that someone needed to go to Nixon and make sure he understood that the FBI director had apparently gone completely off his rocker. Mitchell just shook his head and said, “OK, you think it’s so important, you tell him.”
From the swift-boaters to Ann Coulter, one might think our present-day neocons would have considered Hoover not only sane, but heroic.
So protesters aren’t supposed to do anything “illegal”? Well, if Bush’s executive orders are to be considered law, there’s one of ’em that declares any activity that interferes with whatever “the mission” in Iraq is (you tell me, I’ve about given up) is criminal, and that a person or organization doing so is subject to seizure of all of his/her/their assets.
Absent that, it seems that an increasing number of participants in protests are finding they’re no longer allowed to leave the country. It’ll be interesting to see how many of us find that out the next time we head off for a weekend in Whistler.
good god goldy….are you this desperate? sheesh! what a relief it will be when the last 60’s wanna be drops dead….or grows up. whichever comes first.
what part of ‘martial law’ do you not understand?
the 60’s were a time of pure crap. i am old enough to know and i had a good front row seat. peaceful? my ass. there was nothing peaceful about any of it. it was a childish, destructive, PHONY time and for you to connect kent state with civil rights is beyond the pale, really.
you ,as a 60’s wanna be, do not know what the hell you are talking about.
but, what else is new really?
and this classic from you:”I expect the police — whose salaries I pay —”
oh give me a break! you??? pay??? good grief!
for you to compare a bunch of spoiled stupid evergreen state morons to the civil rights movement and then to stretch as far as your little arms can to connect that to kent state? get real. admit it goldy…you got an “F” in connect the dots in grade school, didn’t you?
how can you forget that your ‘illustrious’ governor was the head of a WHITES ONLY sorority LONG AFTER everyone knew that wasn’t a good thing to do.and she has made so many comments to the effect that she had to belong. nope. she didn’t. she was just as disingenuous back then as now……..
phony phony phony…….
good luck on that governor’s race.
Roger Rabbit says:
“@1 By the way, your flippant use of a Revoluntionary War era patriot’s name as a screen name to cover your rightwing hatemongering is vile beyond words.”
Hatemongering? Isn’t that rich?
Did I touch a nerve? Judging from the personal attacks I must have.
NOBODY lawfully espouses the use of guns. I’ll ignore lefty extreme blog hatespeach for what it is: Rhetoric and hypebole…just as the righty examples given are.
The jump from riot control methods that are now used to the use of bullets IS a possibility..albeit a very unlikely one. It’s also one reason for the 2nd ammendment so loved here.
Don’t take my Screen name to mean anything more than you would, say perhaps, a cartoon character. I didn’t say unlawful discourse is not part of what demonstrators (and patriots) do. I’m saying that they should expect to be arrested if they resort to such measures. Sam Adams faced much worse that pepper spray and perhaps a fine.
BTW: The “peaceful” demonstrators in Oly are NOT the martyrs they are made out to be. They are unruly, rude and in some cases maloderous. To often they do not show the respect for law enforcement they expect in return.
I stopped by the site earlier this week and got the impression that some out of town anarchists are in with the group of (mostly)local protestors. They misrepresent the cause and probably really don’t care about it either. They are here to promote anarchy….hence the name.
Also: I didn’t know I had to appease the spelling nazis. S-P-E-E-C-H satisfied?
Finally: I’ve been hearing and seeing: “Bring our troops home” Yet when they return the process is disrupted. What’s up with that?
great post…wish i saw it earlier.
as long as politics are being portrayed as a my team vs. your team contest we will get even closer to reliving this day.
i know the Donkeys don’t want to hear it but it is time to stop supporting a party that does not represent your views…same with the elephants.
the sooner that the public realizes that the party has left the american people behind the better off we will all be
Yep, it’s WTO, the reprise. Tart up the anarchic pig in Olympia as you will, with inappropos comparisons to the struggle for civil rights, but it’s still an anarchic pig. Try to blur distinctions between non-lethal response and the other kind, but Olympia is again confirmation that Amerikkka treats most of us better than we deserve.
And, when a non-lethally treated crypto-anarchist gets flattened into Rachel Corrie by a Stryker busting loose from its flatbed, you’ll have a martyr. Who could ask for anything more?
Well, Roger would, the Rabbit with Guns. He wants to be Ann Coulter, who has a gun. I’ve said lo these many years that Coulter is our Al Sharpton, a gaudy dangerous ornament. (BY ‘our,’ I refer to politics.) Her books run the gamut from not bad (Slander) to bad (Treason), but her blatant persona is her monument. And it gets on my nerves. After Rabbit gets his estrogen, he’ll handle that part of Coulter just fine. It’s the brains part he’ll have trouble with, unless he can buy a transplant from the Chi-Coms.
Roger,
Your espousing, hatred, and ‘vile’ disagreements with common problems that we all have with extremists (both right and left) only show that you are putting you are putting your emotions as a Rabid Rabbit way ahead of common sense. Many of your postings are intelligent with a lot of thought behind them but some them reveal your “Rabbit” background.
The example of your extreme rhetoric is:
“They’ve been saying for years what they would like to do to liberals: Put us in “concentration camps” and “execute” us. And so-called “mainstream” Republicans stand up and cheer this kind of rhetoric, which shows how far out of the mainstream the GOP has actually become.
A Jewish friend of mine points out that Hitler told the world what he was going to do years before he did it. He laid it all out in his book, “Mein Kampf,” which was published in the 1920s before Hitler came to power. No one believed he meant what he said. They should have, because he really meant it.
I think liberals should listen when rightwing haters tell us what they would like to do to us. I say that because, like Hitler, I think they really mean it. And I believe we would be fools to ignore their plainly expressed intentions.
Liberals must arm. ”
Should you chose to disagree that you were totally off in your discussion then you are agreeing that you are spreading fear and hate with absolutely no basis on facts other than you hate anyone that disagrees with you and that you are a “NeoProg”
Rhp6033: “But by the early 1960’s it was the Democrats who had taken over the banner of supporting civil rights,”
Ummm… I posted the truth over and over and over here on ASSWipes (TM). The Russell, Gore Sr, Byrd democrats did everything in their power to stop Civil rights in 1964 and 1965. Republican Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen made it happen.
Hmmm… Isn’t that the mid 60s? John Kennedy was originally against Civil Rights and Martin Luther King Jr was given lip service. I posted this too.
I realize this doesn’t jive with your “revisionist” history so I have to come back and correct it.
Please denounce the cowardly “kids as human shields” tactic. It’s a very strange tactic, as I still wonder at that they will do that, thinking that no one wants to hurt kids, but will support the tearing of limbs of a baby in the womb aka abortion. Go figure.
@52
you got an “F” in connect the dots in grade school, didn’t you?
You went to a school where the kids had to be graded in connect the dots? Let me guess, you also rode in on the short bus, right?
10 Days That Shook Olympia
by Peter Bohmer,
Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace,
November, 15, 2007
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
–Mario Savio, the steps of Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley, December 2, 1964
For 10 days, anti-war activists in Olympia, Washington have slowed down and for two different periods of 12 hours or more, stopped the flow of military weapons and military cargo that were unloaded from a Navy ship that had returned from Iraq. For 24 hours a day, we have used a variety of tactics and actions. They have included sitting in front of trucks carrying Stryker vehicles and other military equipment from leaving the Port of Olympia, building barricades on the roads where these military vehicles were traveling, anti-war demonstrations through the streets of Olympia and vigils, downtown. A hearing was held at City Hall, last Sunday, November 11 th, 2007 to document the excessive police force used against people who participated in these actions. We testified at the Olympia City Council and at a hearing of the elected Port Commissioners demanding that they take a stand opposing the U.S. war against Iraq by not letting our Port be used to transport war supplies. About 500 people have taken part in some or all of these protests.
History
For three years, various anti-war, social justice and student groups such as Students for a Democratic Society, SDS, have demanded that Olympia officials take a stand against the war by not permitting our Port to be used for military cargo going to and coming from Iraq. To make this a reality people have put their bodies on the line each time the port has been used with the most recent actions being the longest, largest and most successful in actually stopping shipments. Lt. Ehren Watada, who was the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq, was in part, inspired by anti-war Port protests in 2005, in making his decision to refuse to go to Iraq. There have also been protests against and resistance to military shipments to Iraq in spring, 2007 in Aberdeen and Tacoma, WA, which is the main Port used by the military. We hope by our actions to inspire direct and militant action against the U.S. war in Iraq and to end the complicity of local communities, e.g., our ports in the carrying out of this war. Growing non-cooperation with this war and the possible future war with Iran by more and more communities is one key part of a strategy to get the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq and not attack Iran.
The major group coordinating the current actions is the Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) organization. It was formed in May, 2006 when Olympians outraged by the war attempted to block outgoing Stryker vehicles and other military equipment in advance of the deployment of the 3 rd Brigade Stryker team from Ft. Lewis, Washington, 15 miles north of Olympia. The troops from this Brigade returned to Ft. Lewis in October, 2007 minus the 48 soldiers who did not return; they were killed in Iraq. PMR’s goal is to “end our community’s participation in the illegal occupation of Iraq by stopping the military’s use of the Port of Olympia”. Its strategy from the beginning has included public education about the war and how the military’s use of the Port supports the military occupation, and a commitment to non-violent civil disobedience. PMR has tried to work with the Longshore Union (ILWU), Local 47, although this has been difficult because the members of this small local are dependent on military shipments for a significant proportion of their work and few feasible alternatives to contracts with the military have been put forward. In the most recent protests, the union or at least its leadership was not supportive of our actions to close the port.
About two weeks ago, PMR found out from a City Council member and major peace activist, TJ Johnson, that the USNS Brittin would dock in Olympia and unload its cargo. The original PMR position was that we would try to block outgoing shipments but not incoming military equipment. However, on November 4 th, 2007, the night before the ship landed in a very long meeting, PMR voted 29 to 14 to try to stop the Stryker vehicles and other military equipment to leave the port. The reasoning was that the military equipment was part of the ongoing war against the Iraqi people, that is was being refurbished and repaired at Ft. Lewis to be used again in Iraq, that it was part of a revolving door of war materials coming from and going back to Iraq. In addition, participants at this and the next meeting pointed out that the Depleted Uranium (DU) on the returning military vehicles was a danger to the Longshore workers unloading the ship, to the soldiers and truckers transporting the equipment and to the residents of Olympia. We shared the information on DU that we gathered with the ILWU although they proceeded to unload this military ship.
10 Days of Actions
On November 5th and 6 th, there was a vigil and a march through Olympia of 160 people and a rally at the Port, where two of the main speakers were Iraqi vets. As pointed out by local activist and geographer, Zoltán Grossman, there are few if any other locations in the U.S. where a major military base is near a progressive community. We have been making the argument that ending the war and working for economic justice such as health care for all, free college education, and a living wage is a principled way to support the troops. Members of Veterans for Peace have played a major role in PMR. On Wednesday, November 7 th , as military equipment and Stryker vehicles left the Port, almost 100 people sat or stood in the streets to block the vehicles. The Olympia police cleared the streets using pepper spray and their clubs. One participant in this action, with no warning, was hit directly in the face by a policeman’s club causing his chin to split open.
Over the next few days divisions between those favoring physical barricades versus those who have favored sitting down in front of the trucks leaving the port have diminished as both tactics were seen as having value by most participants. All of the people who originally opposed physically blocking the supplies changed their minds and by the third of actions, November 7 th, supported and participated in slowing down and/or stopping the weapons and military cargo from leaving the Port. Gender dynamics have improved. Initially some of the men opposed women meeting separately and a few were disrespectful. Mutual respect has grown through these actions that have gone on 24 hours a day with people leaving and coming back. Positive has been the growing intergenerational unity. Although most of the participants in these 10 days of actions are under 25 years old, the majority of these are students at the Evergreen State College, there are many older participants. Although there have been some tensions over definitions of non-violence and over tactics and goals, anarchists, socialists, people who define themselves primarily as peace activists, and black bloc people are working together in a functioning alliance.
On Friday, November 9th, about 60 courageous people sat down in front of a truck inching forward, endangering the people sitting down. The driver finally stopped as did another truck carrying military cargo. Barricades were built at the other exit and for 17 hours no military equipment moved out of the Port. This is longer than the WTO was closed down in November 1999 in Seattle. The next day, Saturday, riot police shooting pepper spray into people’s eyes, eventually forcing us away from the port entrance. The military equipment was temporarily blocked from moving through downtown Olympia and onto the main entrance to the freeway to Ft. Lewis. 16 people were arrested and many more were pepper sprayed or butted by clubs. Olympia resembled an occupied city with police spread out in riot gear and military convoys on the streets. Activists including key medical and legal support teams from surrounding communities including Portland, Tacoma. Grays Harbor and Port Townsend joined us in acts of solidarity.
Protest continued Sunday and Monday, Veteran’s Day, as did the transport of the Strykers although the majority of military cargo remained within the Port. Riot police surrounded protesters limiting direct action.
Tuesday, November 13th will be a day long remembered by many in Olympia. In the morning about 20 people sat down at the Port entrance blocking military equipment from moving. For 13 hours no military equipment moved out of the Port. Hence, for a minimum of 30 hours, we stopped Stryker vehicles from returning to Ft. Lewis, a major action and statement. In the evening about 200 people gathered at the Port of Olympia entrance to resist by various and complementary means the war and the militarization of Olympia. In the midst of this action, a GI from Ft. Lewis who was supposed to be involved in the transport of these military vehicles to Ft. Lewis, walked out of the Port, saying he was against the war and refused to transport the war equipment. This was a really powerful action and reminded me of the increasing resistance to the Vietnam war by active duty soldiers. Civilian anti-war and GI cooperation and solidarity is a key to ending this war. This is a victory for Port Militarization Resistance organization (PMR) and the anti-war movement as a whole.
Also, in the evening of the 13th, 38 courageous women sat down, linking arms, at the entrance to the port and the women refused to leave even as riot police told them they would be pepper sprayed. They were all arrested by the police beginning at 9 P.M., and held for seven hours although it is not clear whether they will be charged. Beginning around 10 P.M., a large convoy of Stryker vehicles left through a different Port exit with the connecting roads being cleared by police shooting tear gas, projectiles, and pepper spray. Some of the vehicles were delayed by barricades hastily constructed by protesters as we moved though Olympia trying to stop this movement. By 1:30 A.M., Wednesday, November 14th, the resistance slowed. Vigils have continued as most but not all of the military equipment has left the port. Over the last 10 days, 63 people have been arrested, many more have been hit by pepper spray.
On Sunday, November 11th, 100 people attended a forum at the Olympia City Council where protesters spoke up about the excessive police violence—pepper spray in their eyes, being arrested for no cause, being hit with a police club. Olympia, Washington is divided. Participants and a few non-participants in these protests have seen first hand, totally unjustified police force at some of the actions. For example, last night, November 13 th, a non-participant in these actions who was skateboarding at a local park was hit in the face with rubber bullets and tear gas. He decided not to go to work today at a local children’s museum because he was afraid his appearance would scare the kids. On the other hand many residents believe that the demonstrations are wrong and that the police are justified in the force they are using.
For the most part, barricades and human blockades have been aimed only at military vehicles, e.g., non-military cargo has been let through. Although residents have been occasionally inconvenienced, it is important that this not be an aim of an action, that “No Business as Usual” does not mean disrupting people’s lives unless that cannot be avoided when directly interfering with the war machine. People decided not to throw anything at the police even when attacked and that has been upheld with very few exceptions. These few exceptions have occurred only in direct response to excessive police violence.
Strategy
Although there were and are ongoing tensions in discussing and acting on effective tactics and actions, the majority of participants believe or at least accept the idea that a variety of actions from vigils to forums to rallies to legal demonstrations to civil disobedience to sit-ins at politician’s offices to direct action have value– that all of these tactics combined are stronger than each one separately, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A strategy of many of the SDS members has been to raise the dollar costs of the militarization of the port and of sending war supplies through Olympia- police costs, transportation costs, etc. These costs have been quite large for a small city. I believe instead that our aim should be to raise the social cost of waging this war in every community—to make the war less legitimate by building stronger social movements with more popular support that challenge not only the war but also make increasingly illegitimate those in power and the unjust economic system behind it; and contribute towards building movements for a fundamentally different society. This will scare those in power, maybe not Bush but the next President who probably does not want to withdraw from Iraq but will be “forced” to do so.
Has this strong and powerful, “10 Days that Shook Olympia”, helped build a stronger anti-war movement in Olympia? Many, mainly younger people, took major physical risks in blocking Stryker vehicles from moving and sitting down in front of them. Hopefully, this courage and commitment will continue as we build a stronger movement that integrally connects the war to economic injustice, repression and racism at home and to U.S . corporate domination abroad, that the primarily white student protesters act more in the future in solidarity with the repression and oppression faced by Muslims, African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinos/Latinas, poor people and workers in their daily lives. It is hard to assess the support for this port resistance in Olympia, probably the majority does not support it. More outreach needs to be done. Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) needs to talk to and explain our actions to the general public and make it easier for people to be involved in our actions who are not already on our listservs. Hopefully, the militancy, courage, tactics, spirit, of these very strong actions will inspire others throughout the United States to stand up and not be complicit with the torture and occupation being carried out in our name.
It is very likely the military will not use the Port of Olympia again for military shipments during the duration of the occupation of Iraq. This is a victory. A bigger victory and ongoing task is for PMR to educate ourselves and others about how Olympia is being militarized, e.g., by challenging military recruiters in the schools and the deployment of the National Guard to Iraq. It also means working with the Longshore Union, and other communities in Washington State and nationally and with military resisters to raise the social cost of this war and make it impossible to wage. Now is the time to increase militant and dramatic action against this war as well as more traditional demonstrations where 70% of U.S. residents oppose the war while those in power continue to wage it and most of the Democratic Party leadership acquiesces to it. NOT IN OUR NAME!!
Some of the wingfuck postings in this thread subsequent to number 50 seem to go a long way to support what I postulated in my last sentence.
I fear we’re still going to be flapping out gums about this when once again 50,000 or so brave Americans have sacrificed their lives in a purposeless war and their bretheren are once again killing citizens on our own streets.
Hey, Ghost…I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that Governor Gregoire has learned a thing or two since her sorority days. It’s a damned shame that you haven’t.
Free speech doesn’t mean a right to yell fire in a crowded theatre. And peacable assembly doesn’t mean blockades and vandalism. Just like Rachel Corrie, these people deserve whatever happens to them for their illegal and seditious behavior.
Goldy, please show me where the civil rights demonstrators being hosed down and getting the dogs run at them locked their hands together inside pipes so that the police couldn’t pry them apart without breaking their arms.
No, nothing to show there?
Well then, please show me where the Kent State students used infants and toddlers as human shields because they knew what they were doing was criminal.
No, can’t do that either?
Your analogies are crap as is your reasoning.
Can non-lethal methods sometimes be lethal? Does a bear sometimes shit in suburbia?
Your overly emotional attempt at absolute moral authority fails whenever placed directly up against logic and reason.
The Port of Olympia protesters should first have their children taken away for child endangerment and have them placed with DSHS after a thorough medical examination to see just how neglected they are.
Afterwards they should be arrested and the appropriate criminal charges should filed.
You or they can protest all day every day, but a child cannot make the decision to put him or her self in the path of a 80+K pound truck.
Pouring concrete on in use railroad tracks is not only vandalism/property damage, but is an attempt to derail a multi-million pound railed vehicle, endangering the driver and everyone within 50ft of any car attached to the train.
You and the protesters have zero moral authority in this matter. They have overstepped their boundaries and you have overstepped whatever good sense you might have had with your written support of their life-endangering antics.
Hey, Ghost…I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that Governor Gregoire has learned a thing or two since her sorority days. It’s a damned shame that you haven’t.
oh art…you are such an idiot.but, hey, i’ll bite. just what haven’t i learned….hmmmm?
and lee@59……….WOW. you nuts never cease to amaze me. in between begging for everything you need or want versus WORKING FOR IT you always manage to call someone either retarded or gay. and here i thought you were the party of tolerance. funny how 2 little letters can make such a difference huh? as in INtolerance.
short bus. that’s the best you have? if it is, right back at you sweets….59 MUST be your IQ.