Next Left Notes - A News Magazine Devoted To Participatory Democracy and Direct Action

Next Left Notes Is A News Magazine Devoted To Direct Action

By Brendan Dunn
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Resisters and SDSers are pepper sprayed

"We had our first meeting and 15 people showed up. A week later we were blocking military convoys. The week after that we were spending time in jail with each other."
-Olympia SDSer Caleb

Olympia SDS held its first meeting at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA on May 17th. The fifteen students who attended the meeting had no idea that within a week's time, SDSers would join the community in direct action against the war machine.

A call was put out on May 22 that convoys from the Army's first Stryker Brigade Combat Team stationed at Fort Lewis were spotted driving through the streets of Olympia to the city's port. The Stryker Brigade, named after the vehicle of choice for the brigade which is a combination of a tank and a hummer, is currently embarking on its second deployment to Iraq. The moment I heard about the convoys rolling through town, I rode my bike to the port entrance. When I spotted a convoy coming towards the port I walked in front of it, forcing the entire convoy of over ten vehicles to stop, if only momentarily. I was arrested and brought to jail. The actions against the war machine that would engulf the ensuing weeks had begun.

The first day of protests saw a few dozen people come out in the streets. Four resisters from Tacoma SDS came for some time. As the word spread the numbers grew over the following days. On the second day, a total of six people were arrested - one when he tried to lock the port's entrance and the others when they blockaded a convoy. Of the six arrested, two were SDSers and one was a Vietnam War veteran. A few of the arrestees were excessively bruised by the pigs and repeatedly thrown on top of a squad car. The city government and city jail were momentarily shut down for "security reasons" when port resisters came to demand the release of their comrades. Everyone was eventually released that day. These were the first of many arrests.

The resistance makes its way to the port entrance.

Almost every day a meeting was held to discuss direct action, tactics and media. Usually, attendance at the meeting numbered at thirty or forty and the meetings were conducted in a genuinely participatory and democratic way. Affinity groups were formed at meetings, tactics were discussed and strategies and potential outcomes were covered at length. A group calling itself Port Militarization Resistance was established to articulate the aims of the resistance and create a resolutely anti-imperialist and internationalist response to the port's militarization. A diversity of tactics were developed at these meetings and later materialized, along with more spontaneous events, in the streets. Some of the tactics of protest included flyering, banner dropping, critical mass, establishing tent cities and rendezvous points, vigils, blockades, marches, community outreach and maintaining a 24/7 watch on the port.

As the democratic fervor of the meetings increased so too did police surveillance. A house that became defacto headquarters for a while was the target of around the clock police and Coast Guard mobile K9 Unit surveillance. Resisters were followed by pigs to and from the house and a number of resisters were confronted by undercovers on the street who made futile attempts to extract information from them. A painfully obvious undercover federal agent was spotted at the port later in the week, no doubt recording our conversations.

The next large wave of arrests came on Wednesday May 24th. Human chains were propped up on the main road leading to the port entrance. After haulting the convoy for quite some time, nine people, including two SDSers, in the first human chain were arrested and carted off to jail. A second human chain ran to the entrance of the port when the convoy made a detour. The detour occurred because Ultimate Fighter and anarchist Jeff "The Snowman" Monson refused to move; and the pigs, not surprisingly, refused to move him. The second human chain was created by people linking arms through PVC pipes. Thurston County Sheriffs eventually broke the chain apart by pushing, dragging, pulling the hair of and strangling resisters. After over an hour of preventing the convoy from entering the port, the chains were finally broken. However, the convoys stopped coming for the day. Word leaked out from a Stryker Brigade soldier that his daily security briefings were prolonged from two hours to four because of the resisters' actions.

People resisting the military took every opportunity they could to reach out to the soldiers and encourage them to disobey immoral and illegal orders. This largely failed because the soldiers refused to talk, but a number of soldiers gave the peace sign as they returned to Fort Lewis and a few soldiers even came up to resisters when they were off duty and personally thanked them for confronting the war. The precarious situation of the soldiers and their possibility of facing a court-martial if they refuse to fight must deter many from actively resisting the war.

The resistance started keeping a 24/7 watch at the port. Several students had already stopped attending classes to focus their energy on more important matters, namely actively resisting the war. More students would stop going to class in the coming days.

The death ship US Pomeroy docked at the port.

The ship US Pomeroy finally lumbered into the port on Memorial Day, the 29th. Local independent media sources notified the public on the ship's impending arrival earlier in the morning when Coast Guard boats armed with machine guns were spotted in the port. The Coast Guard was given orders to shoot people and boats that came too close to the US Pomeroy. More and more people arrived at the port entrance as the evening set in. A call to make the actions more spirited was made and dozens of musicians flooded the port plaza, playing punk, klezmer and protest folk. As more people arrived the crowd moved closer to the fence where there was a large police presence on the other side. They started rattling and shaking the chain-link fence to make noise and then started to shake the fence even more. On the other side of the fence, the pigs without warning sprayed the entire crowd with pepper spray, even spraying some people in the face at point blank range. Most of the crowd dispersed. Some people had such a bad reaction to the pepper spray that they started convulsing and shaking on the ground. The medics nearby refused to offer help for quite some time. But the resistance did not give in. They went back to the fence and some tried to take it down. The pigs came back time and time again to spray more people.

Members from independent and corporate media also fell victim to the spray and one independent journalist's camera was destroyed by a soldier who was at the port. A barricade was set up by the resistance and the riot police eventually marched in front of the fence. A group of people started a spontaneous march downtown to encourage people to join the resistance and also to divert the pigs. Things eventually calmed down and a large meeting was held in the port plaza for all the people in the resistance. Everyone reached an agreement to rest up and recuperate from the pepper spray burns and trauma and decided everyone should come back the next day in larger numbers. The ship would take at least two days to load up all the Stryker vehicles and supplies but we decided to maintain a 24 hour watch on the port to see when the ship would start loading. A few resisters were followed home by police that night but caught the cops off guard and told them off.

The next day people were down at the port early. We had come prepared this time - we brought food, blankets, plenty of water and many bottles filled with saline solution, cider vinegar and diluted maalox to help people with pepper spray burns. The ship started loading up. A call was made for people to meet down the street at a busy intersection at 4pm. Around 200 people showed up - many of them had their faces covered for protection and security. A number of people carried signs, banners and black and red flags. People soon kicked off a march and went down the main street towards the port entrance. In front, a large banner was unfurled with an image of Bush and another of bin Laden, blazoned with the statement "Against All Terrorism".

People started a few chants through the megaphone. I picked up the megaphone from someone and instructed the marching crowd to yell in unison "tear it down" after everything I said. I originally heard this in Boston at the DNC protests in 2004 and it had a very chilling affect. I went in front of the crowd and marched backwards the whole way. I started chanting:

"Police State!"

To which the crowd responded: "Tear it down!"

I also chanted: imperialism, war machine, capitalism, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, free trade, homophobia, sexism, racism, hatred and PATRIOT Act.

The port security must have become a little nervous when I started chanting "Port of Olympia! - TEAR IT DOWN! - Police State! - TEAR IT DOWN! - Port of Olympia! - TEAR IT DOWN!"

Security rushed inside the port and put up a fence in front of the entrance. This however did not prevent the resistance from tearing it down and throwing it aside. A few people threw themselves on the ground in an act of civil disobedience. More police and riot cops gathered at the scene. People were chanting demands like "Out of Olympia - Out of Iraq" and "Peace in Olympia - Peace in the Middle East!" A member from the Olympia Workers Association started passing out flyers to the port workers driving into the entrance to encourage them to refuse loading the ship. To show their solidarity with workers, the crowd started chanting "We love workers!"

A group calling themselves Strykers for Peace made their triumphant arrival to the port entrance. They were clad in makeshift cardboard Strykers and claimed that the government had ordered all the Strykers pulled out of the port and they were there to pick them up. The pigs for some reason did not believe them one bit and continued to follow illegal orders.

This resister received a number of face injuries...
He was arrested along with 21 others that night.

The pigs started dragging people on the ground away and clubbed others with batons. They then brought out pepper spray and started spraying people on the ground. One of those sprayed, an SDSer, was already in handcuffs and on the ground when a cop told another cop: "I think we should spray him now." They sprayed him in the face and dragged him to a paddy wagon. Another person who did not resist his arrest had his face repeatedly smashed into the pavement by a pig. Others received injuries as well. In total, 20 people were arrested at the port gates. One of the first arrested was a Navy veteran who felt obligated to confront the war machine that day.

The resisters who were brought to the Thurston County Jail were separated by sex and thrown into holding cells. The arrested men held a heated discussion about the Iraq War and also talked about the protests with other arrestees in the jail. Hours later, the doors from outside opened. After wondering what exactly had been happening down at the port for hours, we finally got an idea when two fellow resisters were brought in. They reeked of pepper spray. They were shaking intensely and had trouble speaking. The pigs brought them to another room to be hosed off and to discard their clothes.

When they came back, they told us they were being charged with riot despite the fact their actions were completely non-violent and there was no rioting of any sort. If found guilty, they may face up to a year in prison. Everyone else arrested faces the possibility of spending three months in jail if found guilty for criminal trespass in the second degree. Ten of the twenty-two resisters arrested that night were SDS members - one of the SDSers was one of the resisters charged with riot.

In about 12 hours all of those arrested were released. It was around 4:30am when everyone was finally let out. Many of us made our way down to the port plaza where, in our absence, a massive public art display was constructed with flags, signs, sculptures, banners, and slogans and poetry written in chalk. The watch tower had been occupied and a red and black flag hung from its roof.

Steve Niva from Evergreen State gives a teach-in at the port on the Stryker Brigade.

We found out that after we were arrested, Professor Steve Niva from nearby Evergreen State College gave a teach-in amidst the protests about the Stryker Brigade. He told everyone that the soon to leave 4,000 troops were headed to Mosul where they would be involved in maintaining a massive permanent base that was constructed to safeguard nearby oil fields. The pigs also stepped up their violence after people were arrested - they used more pepper spray, pepper bullets and a tazer on at least one person. People held a large democratic meeting during the protests and decided it best for people to come back in the morning.

The resistance did eventually come back. The US Pomeroy was all loaded up and was set to sail during high tide that morning. Over 100 people staged a die-in on the shore as the US Pomeroy was pulled out by a tugboat. When the ship left, people gathered around and several people made a few short announcements and statements about the resistance. It was followed by a brief moment of silence which was probably the toughest time for me personally during those ten days I spent on the street and at the port. I realized that we did not stop the ship - it was on its way to deliver death and suffering to Iraq. We perhaps only shook the war machine, perhaps slightly. We had a lot of work to do.

It also appears, thus far, that we had the right amount of militancy during our ten days of resistance that garnered enough media coverage. Although the corporate and establishment press were aptly incorrect and dangerously so in their coverage, we did receive a remarkable amount of coverage that made our struggle more accessible to people elsewhere. The New York Times, CNN, AP, and local corporate papers were just a few of countless outlets that picked up our story. Democracy Now!, NPR, Air America, and countless independent radio, internet and print media picked up our story, as did a number of foreign papers.

One SDSer made an irrefutable point that the reason we got the amount of media coverage we did was because of the tactics we used. "If 1000 people got together and sang Kumbaya it would not have caught the attention of as many people, or caused such a word of mouth uproar that has more people coming down to the port every day," he said. Our resistance was a refreshing change from the tried and retried spectacles of years past: sign waving, vigils and marches on the capitol.

The anti-imperialist group Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) which formed amidst the struggle held a meeting the next day where about 70 people showed up. SDSers from both Olympia and Tacoma showed up to the meeting. We knew that the ship had left but we realized the significance of our actions and agreed that the actions we took were a small part of a long struggle. That was perhaps something amazing about resisting the military and war in our city: the spontaneity of the resistance created a momentum we could work off of. The ship was gone, but we are still fighting.

At the meeting, I recommended that our resistance link up with the resistance in Iraq - namely women's groups, student groups, labor unions, and leftist, radical and secular groups. Everyone at the meeting cheered to this suggestion and PMR is currently working on linking up with the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions of Iraq (FWCUI), the Union of Unemployed of Iraq (UUI) and possibly the Iraq Freedom Congress.

To our surprise, on June 7, First Lietenant Ehran Watada from the 3rd Stryker Brigade, the very brigade whose convoys we blocked in the streets, announced in a press conference that he was refusing to fight in Iraq because it is an illegal war. Watada's actions will hopefully encourage more in the military to resist.

Olympia SDS held another meeting the other day where a plethora of issues were discussed and future actions planned. Many Olympia SDSers discovered that through active struggle, their political consciousness raised and they became radicalized. What started out as an organization similar to any other rapidly evolved into an actively resisting group of individuals immersed in the process of direct democracy and direct action.

Another shipment of arms is expected to come to Olympia again this summer. Olympia SDSers, like the last time, will be on the front lines of the battle. Hopefully, the recent events in Olympia will act to further radicalize and revitalize the anti-war movement as a whole. After all, the point is not protest but active resistance to the war machine.

For more information, check out:

http://olympiaimc.org
www.frolympia.org
www.omjp.org
www.olyblog.net
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