seattle indymedia center

be at thorne and lincoln Monday night at 8 pm, and we can really bring the war home.

The Tacoma police was simply exercising his rights like the protesters were. The Tacoma PD ain't like the Olympia Police; they do their job right and do not play around. A peaceful protest is perfectly fine, but crossing that line is definitely breaking the rule of the game. The Forest student was being a moron so he got tased; it doesn't get any more simple than that. It is wrong for you people to bend the fact and come up with false facts about the Tacoma PD. Honestly, just exercise your right by acting civilized and protesting peacefully.

We'll bring the war home without resorting to their violent tactics. Right everybody?

it is time to surround the industrial shiiping boats that get alaska fuel at a discount and then force debt while we are distracted with iraq...this is a new phenomenon from the last 5 years.... surrounding the boat would let the authoritys know that we know proper trade policy.... bothering the military after they come back is just a rebellious non effectual... blockading the cruise boats or the shipping would shed light on what is driving inflation....

Was anyone there who may have gotten and photos? What was this protest about? Who can I call for some first hand information from some who was there?

-bob

What could Forest Student possibly have been doing to merit a charge of felony assault?

The account indicates that Student was inside the "free speech zone" and the officer was in a police car presumably some distance away. How could any physical contact have possibly happened?

If by "without resorting to their violent tactics" you mean none of us will bring tasers and guns, then that sounds fine. But the time for walking around and shouting slogans no one can here has got to end tonight.

Many of the people coming to the port tonight are not a part of the group PMR, so they don't have to follow the "nonviolence" codes of PMR liberals who probably haven't been at the barricades at all.

Spoken like a true provocateur. I'm not saying you are one, just that you might as well be. Because what you've said can only have the effect of scaring people away from the protest tonight.

And people from PMR have been at the front lines. If you don't know that then you either don't know who's in PMR, or you weren't actually there. EVERYONE from ALL groups and in ALL ROLES is a vitally important part of this movement...from the sign-holders to the people doing civil resistance to the people doing jail support, press releases, passing out flyers, doing outreach, fundraising for legal fees, giving people rides, medics, independent media...ALL OF YOU MATTER, and all of your opinions matter.

I'm not forgetting those more "action-oriented" types who do what they need to do. They are also vitally important. I have complete faith in these people to keep the safety of their communities and fellow protesters in mind when they act.

To everyone else: PLEASE don't let talk like this scare you from going to the rally. large groups of people at protests keep us all safer. so-called "liberals" with their signs and chanting keep us safer. Taking care of each other regardless of rolse and not attacking each other keeps us safer. Not listening to provocateurs keeps us safer.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

I'd also like to reiterate the words of Wally Cuddeford, to bring the point home:

"Brutality like this will continue unless we stand our ground and show the establishment that repression will only help our numbers grow. We need as many people at the port Monday night as possible. A strong show of solidarity will make the police think twice about their casual brutality, and larger numbers ensure the safety of everyone (especially those who cannot get arrested and those who are susceptible to chemical weapons)."

Please read this whole thing, especially the end of the quote. And please don't be afraid to be present at the port. Your presence makes other people safe, even if you do nothing more than stand on the sidewalk on the sign. It's not 100% safe, but it's a vitally important job, and it's much lower-risk than engaging in direct action.

Though of course, the more people engaging in direct action, the better!

Upon reading my initial comment which sparked such an angry response, I can see how it might have sounded accusatory.

That was REALLY not my intent.

I think for a minute I played right into "their" hands (whoever they are).

So I should have been more clear.

Some posts on indymedia about the rally tonight seemed kinda aggressive, and seemed to be hinting that something was "going down" so to speak. It's hard for someone like me to interpret that. I assumed people were trying to do the online equivalent of stirring up a mob. But I should remember that people are very justifiably angry. I don't think for a second that any of you planning the protest actually intend to do anything that would put others in danger.

I apologize for any confusion my words may have caused. I apologize for making accusations. Recent events have made a lot of us paranoid and jumpy. I'll think before I speak next time.

Oy.

Has Forest been released?
I looked on the jail roster and he is not listed.
Called the jail and just get put on hold forever.

Hey Everybody.

I'm outta jail now. Thank you so much for all of your support and lightning speed bail.

My arraignment is tomorrow at 1:30 at the Pierce County Court House.

a verbal assassination of our imperial capitalist nation
an anti-political conversation
a few lines of anarchist versification

our masters tell us lies, hypnotize, terrorize
another Iraqi children dies
and we salute our flag with pride

9/11 propaganda, now Big Brother's on your cell phone
and in a time when I just want to be left the hell alone
to contemplate and question
and at my own discretion
evaluate this extended session
of perpetual wage-slavery and oppression

I'm a political dissident, and I'm watching our rapid descent
into a world of no consent, of greedy malcontents
in all the power positions,
who're thieving our freedom of disposition
force us to trust and obey, the American way
every day, to my dismay
corporate profits are escalating
and the bureaucracy's not dissipating

we are ruled through our fear
compelled to obey because we're insecure
to tell you the truth, in the election booth
the candidates hunger for votes
orchestrate systems of scapegoats
and don their business coats
never for the public good
their campaigns make all the issues misunderstood
instead of debating who's to fault
go outside and make it halt
the system and its tools
its enforcers and the rules
the leaders who lie, the soldiers who die
and all hierarchy by default

all these lies, perpetrated by wolves in their disguise
by masters masquerading in the elite power game
to attain authority, fortune and fame
to control our lives, and they have no shame
assassinating foreign leaders, and we say that that's "democracy"
idiocracy, of the masses, kept blinded by the oppression
all the repression, of attempts to unionize, to utilize
the solidarity of a worker insurrection

politicians and executives,
sit on thrones
built on our broken backs
on our piled bones
so when we go to throw some stones
through windows of businesses and homes
for our act of small rebellion
we get sent to detention zones

liberate the prisons and schools
go enlighten all the fools
break the chains, the cycle, the system
finally make them listen
the poverty, the sickness, the slavery
unsavory, and debasing
stand against the misery we're facing
rise up and stand with reason
the revolution is now season

the blood-fed flower's blooming
the bloodshed that has been consuming
worker struggles with murder and war
but liberty we shall restore
it is time to break our shackles
break our bonds and silence their cackles
to rise against their attack
to stand and take your freedom back

--John Large

Solidarity,
Forest

Um, aren't the vehicles all gone from the port? What exactly are you protesting about? Or are you all the sort that just protest, you know, for the sake of protesting? Cause it's cool and you can impress chicks with your earnest political endeavors?

Not everyone can make the trip to Tacoma right now, but everyone can:

-Tell their friends, neighbors, and co-workers the TRUTH about what is happening.

-Call in to local talk radio, tell the TRUTH on the air, and call upon listeners to support the Port Protesters by any and all means necessary.

-Call the Tacoma police department and city council and demand that the officer who tazed Forest be fired immediately.

-Send demonstrators to the homes of Tacoma police, city council members, the mayor, and military brass.

-Call or email your "representitive" in Olympia and demand a federal civil rights investigation into Tacoma police tactics against demonstrators. Is there any video of the incident? Post it here!

-Call the NLG or other progressive lawyers and get them to file an injunction with the court against the military to stop the transfer of weapons and armor until an enviromental impact study is completed.

-Contact the english-language version of Al-Jeezera and call upon them to send a correspondent and a camera crew. Select a spokesperson to articulate a message to the world (especially the Arab and Muslim world): some of the citizens of America are fighting this reactionary, imperialist government. And regardless of who is elected this struggle will continue.

- Organize clandestine cadres of militants to carry out actions on carefully selected targets throughout the state.

-Stop thinking like privileged Americans, and start thinking like oppressed Iraqis. What would they do in a situation like this?

Did you know that the American Revolution happened despite the fact that most of what they complained about, the stamp act, the sugar and molasses act, the quartering act, etc, were all gone or repealed by the time that shot was heard around the world?

I bet George Washington and all them just did it to impress the chicks.

Good point, but there is one slight issue with your analogy: G.W. and our founding fathers were a set of responsible establishment adults. Y'all are more or less a bunch of aimless youth who couldn't plan a revolution if your lives depended on it, from what I've seen of the "port protests." Please. I've seen rowdier parties that drew more police response. Oh, and another point: most of our founding fathers were originally interested in a restoration of their rights as Englishmen, through their proper representation in Parliament, rather than straight up independence. Those Intolerable Acts of which you speak were what convinced them of the need for this representation, which, when not granted, spurred them to seek independence. You got the right to vote, petition the government, etc. But you now what, please go on trying to water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, as I'm sure you think you're doing. I enjoy your efforts. They make me laugh.

We love you! Be careful!
Aunt Teri

Hmm . . . so let me get this straight, here. Because I interpret history differently than you, because I fail to see the parallels between yourself and Thomas Jefferson, then I must therefore be not only authoritarian but imperialist. Let's go ahead, use all three of your favorite labels for anyone who disagrees with you . . . call me a fascist. How you manage to arrive at these conclusions escapes me, but I'm sure you'll fill me in. I'll grant you the dickhead part, though. (Man, it reminds me of when I was in 4th grade, and called my teacher a fascist because she put us in detention during recess.) Seriously, thought, look at some historical instances of simplifying and labeling opponents. Stalin was a great one for that, as was Mao in the sixties. Disagree with them, and suddenly you were ideologically suspect. Same thing happened to George Orwell. He fought against Franco and Fascists in the Spanish Civil War as a member of a Socialist militia, but was forced to flee Spain when Communist militias started to purge members of other, non-Communist militias. That kind of behavior and lack of unity was in my opinion one of the reasons why Franco was able to win Spain. But I digress.

One other point. Not all British power elites saw the Americans as whiny little children. Take for instance the Parliament's repealing of the stamp tax by the government of Charles Watson-Wentworth. Franklin went to London to argue the colonies case, and was able to convince them to repeal the stamp tax in 1766. Unfortunately, the Parliment then went on to reserve the power to make laws in the colonies, which led to further difficulties. But the points I'm making are that one) the American colonies had some sympathetic friends in Britain (that's what happens when you overgeneralize) and two, your arguements, rhetoric, and so on really convinces me that you have a simplistic view of the world. You say you want revolution, huh? Do you have any idea how many people die in revolutions ? How many suffer in other ways? It better be damn bad before you think that revolution is a better solution, and quite frankly I don't believe we are there. Read up on the three major revolutions of the western world, the American, French, and Russian, and then try and tell me that things turned out well. Usually things went right back to being the way they were, with just a different set of people in power. Only exception being the American, but that was fought against a colonial power quite far away and more concerned with France and the tea trade with India than with the colonies.

In addition to your obviously well thought out arguments and enlightening opinions, I just wanted to thank you for going the extra mile and throwing in "chicks" as a way of descrbing women. We don't really hear it enough and I think that any way of dehumanizing us is really the best way of keeping us in our place. And you were spot on in your assumption that we are objects to be "impressed" by the actions of strong males. Because we aren't really capable of beliefs or ideals or opinions and CERTAINLY aren't capable of going down to the port and doing our own thing. FUCK YOU.

anon, I can't speak for all of us involved in PMR, but most of us don't want to trade one set of oppressive leaders for another. That's why many of us are anarchists and believe in building popular movements for social justice from the bottom up.

Ouch,

I think it is interesting that you speak of the American Revolution and Completely leave out the indigenous side of the story.
These were colonies; that means colonialism: Displacing people so that people who are considered more important can live on their land.

All of the Native people were opposed to the Idea of "America" because as long as it was just the British they could drive them back across the ocean.

So while all of the rich, white, land-owning, people-owning, rapist, men were having their "revolution," there were people facing real problems; trying to figure out how to rid themselves of a foreign colonialist aggressor that had been raping and killing and enslaving their people. These white people took everything they could get their hands on and gave nothing in return.

I Challenge every person who ever thought of the "founding fathers" in a favorable light. These were not nice responsible people. They were colonialists, they were patriarchs, they were slave owners, they were rapists, they committed genocide, they stole native land. Why would you look up to these people?

Re: the last post on the less than perfect nature of our founding fathers. I actually forgot to make the point that one of the things that irritated certain of the American revolutionaries was the Great Britain was not allowing settlers to move west and take the Native Americans lands! The sheer unmitigated gall of them!

And to clarify, I was mainly trying to point out that an earlier poster was in error when he attempted to compare himself and his movement as being of similar proportion to the American Revolution.

It's interesting how this article started out being about someone who was arrested, and then quickly turned into a hopelessly broad and meaningless bitch fest. Well done.

I went to high school with Forest. As a fellow activist I've been the near victim of similar things. Luckily I have yet to be hurt, but this pisses me off. Not only that it happened but that it happened to someone I consider a friend. Fuck the cops!