[mobglob-discuss] Anti-Bush protests - The Battle of Portland

[Jill M]

Fwd. from RK Moore

The face of fascism grows more plain each day.
The specific parallels with the Third Reich exceed coincidence.
We must remember that folks like Allen Dulles were Nazi collaborators
...and were also architects of postwar US foreign policy.

We've now had our 'Reichstag Fire' (on 9/11) and our 'Sudentland
annexation' (Afghanistan) and now we're ready for a 'defensive'
'invasion of Poland' (Iraq).

We've got our 'Jews' (those of non-Jewish Middle-Eastern extraction)
who can be rounded up and imprisoned with impunity. We've got our
first(?) concentration camp (Guantanamo), and below we hear about
our storm troopers in the streets...

rkm

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Family Pepper Sprayed at Anti-Bush Demo

http://www.gulufuture.com/portland/

Followed by "Statement by Pepper Sprayed Family"

"We Are Not The Enemy!" - The Battle of Portland
by William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Saturday, 24 August, 2002

The image is chilling. A middle-aged woman, plainly
dressed, with a puff of auburn hair, is clutched in a
hammer-lock by a Portland police officer dressed in
full riot gear. His riot baton is jammed high under her
chin. Around her, three more armor-clad police officers
swarm in, face-masks down. The woman's face is
contorted in terror. In her hand is a sign protesting
George W. Bush.

This was the scene on the streets of Portland, OR, on
the evening of August 22nd as captured by a
photographer for the Associated Press. Thousands of
peaceful protesters had descended upon the Hilton Hotel
where Mr. Bush was attending a political fundraiser for
Senator Gordon Smith. They held signs reading, "Drop
Bush, not Bombs," and other similar slogans. Among the
protesters were pregnant women, parents with infants
and small children, elderly citizens, and citizens in
wheelchairs

According to a report by CBS News, the protest became
unruly when some of the fundraiser attendees were
"jostled" as they moved through the crowd towards the
entrance to the hotel. At that point, the riot police
swarmed in, swinging clubs and dousing the crowd with
pepper spray. Rubber bullets were also fired into the
crowd, and snipers were seen on the roofs surrounding
the scene. The protesters responded by hammering on the
hoods of police cars and screaming, "We are not the
enemy!"

A man named Randy, who attended the protest, reports
the sequence of events as follows:

"I was between 5th and 6th on the sidewalk. Maybe the
ones in front were warned to move, but I didn't hear
any warning. It had been a peaceful protest. Suddenly
the police came forward spraying pepper spray. A man
nearby with an infant in a backpack got hit real good.
The baby's face was so red I thought it had quit
breathing. From the other direction came cop cars
through the crowd and rubber bullets were fired at
those closest to the cars. I kept retreating but the
cops kept spraying. Lots of people were sprayed,
including the cameraman from Channel 2 KATU."

Other eyewitness accounts from the streets of Portland
similarly describe what appears to have been a
terrifyingly violent response from the police to a
peaceful protest by assembled American citizens.

This is a profoundly disturbing turn of events. Mr.
Bush is protested wherever he goes these days, and the
crowds which attend them are growing. These are not
black-clad anarchists kicking in windows, however. The
woman who was attacked by the police looked as ordinary
as any small-town librarian, and anarchists are smart
enough to leave their children at home if there is a
riot in the offing. The streets of Portland were filled
on August 22nd by average American citizens seeking to
inform the President of their disfavor regarding the
manner in which he is governing their country. They
were rewarded with the business end of a billy club, a
face-full of pepper spray, and the jarring impact of a
rubber bullet.

If America needed one more example of the cancer that
has been chewing through the guts of our most basic
freedoms since Mr. Bush assumed office, they can look
to Portland. The right to freely assemble and petition
the government for a redress of grievances has been
rescinded at the point of a gun.

The imperative is clear. Such violence by the
authorities cannot go unchallenged. The next time Mr.
Bush appears in public, there must be even more
concerned Americans to greet him. They must face the
baton and the pepper spray, they must stare into the
shielded faces of the police, and they must stand in
non-violent disobedience of the idea that they are not
allowed to be there. The men and women who faced the
brunt of police fury in Portland are to be lauded as
American patriots, and their actions must be duplicated
by us all. The groups which organized this protest, and
the ones to come, deserve our praise.

The media, which spent much of the evening reporting
that only a few hundred protesters were in attendance,
must be browbeaten into reporting the facts from both
sides - from the police, who reportedly detained people
like the woman in the picture "for their own safety,"
and from the protesters who took a savage beating for
daring to stand against Mr. Bush. If the battle of
Portland is allowed to cast even more fear into the
hearts and minds of Americans, we have lost yet another
swath of freedoms. Stand and be counted if you can.

The whole world is watching.

-------

William Rivers Pitt is a teacher from Boston, MA. His
new book, 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence,' will be
published soon by Pluto Press.

  © : t r u t h o u t 2002

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Statement by Pepper Sprayed Family