[thechat] Bush visit update

Erika Meyer emeyer at lclark.edu
Fri Aug 23 15:49:01 CDT 2002


http://portland.indymedia.org/

- Indymedia says "at least 3,000 protesters."
- Portland Tribune said "1,500 protesters"
- Morning TV news: "hundreds of protesters."

These things are agreed on:

Police declared a "State of Emergency" and pulled out the clubs, the
rubber bullets, and the pepper spray.   The reasons for this were
unclear.

TV news was most concerned about their camera man getting sprayed.
Amusing morning footage of camera lens being directly sprayed by cop.

My contact with the protest was limited to my downtown bus transfer,
after the bulk of the action, cops in riot gear walking in formation
down the city street, people wandering about, cardboard signs blown
about by the traffic.

& a 102nd crusty old Vietnam vet trying to romance me with a
discarded cardboard McDonalds french fry box... he'd made two holes
in it: in one hole, a wilted rose, in another hole, a condom.
charming.   He also had a paper bag with random poetry written all
over it.

He tells me "these people don't know nothing about war.  I know about war."

Open-mic street musician poet friends got on the bus after me, saying
"we were tear gassed!"

"Why? " I asked -- causing other bus passengers laughed at me, like
"why" was a naive question.

You know, I don't remember the riot weapons being pulled out at every
demonstration 10-20 years ago.  I know in the 60's cops beat
protesters, but I don't recall it being this way in the 80's & 90's.

By the time I got off the bus, my own mucus membranes were getting
irritated from eu de pepper spray... or tear gas, whatever it was.

I saw a lot of footage, the cops were spraying, firing randomly into
the crowd, at everyone.  Children, elderly, whoever was in the crowd.
I don't think there were any arrests... I don't actually think anyone
was breaking laws... anyway... no bother making arrests, just firing
weaponry into the crowd.

What irks me... there were flyers all around town saying the protest
was to be "peaceful" and "family friendly."  I actually considered
attending and bringing my child for a moment, until reading more and
seeing people were preparing to be attacked by cops.

Which is exactly what happened.

Something changed, and I think it was the Seattle WTO protests that
changed it.  There were lots of demonstrations in the 80s,
anti-nuclear demonstrations.  It wasn't like this.

Erika
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