The Evergreen State College versus The Police State

I want to first say that regardless of your politics, regardless of your ethics, please don't judge me. I have my own set of politics and own set of ethics and I fight my fight the way I fight my fight. Okay now I'm going to preface this with a quote from Malcolm X and we will go from there.

"The white liberal is a wolf in sheep's clothing. We don't go down and protest with the white liberal because those protests are non-violent and no Muslim brother is going to be non-violent when the police come to brutalize us. That is just not intelligent." -Malcolm X (1962)

Now lets take it from 1962 in New York when Malcolm said that quote and it move it into 2007 where the United States government is illegally occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, parts of Iran, parts of latin America, parts of Africa, etc. Since 1996 when congress under the Clinton administration passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 there has been a declining trend in the protection of both American civil liberties and the civil liberties of anyone who is suspected to be involved in anti-government activity. In October 2001 the Bush administration picked up where the Clinton administration left off and wrote into law the Patriot Act which further stripped the constitution and has since been responsible for controversial surveillence on American citizens. Essentially because of these two acts there is very little one can do to dissent against the state. On one hand there is legislation that gurantees you the death penalty for being involved in "terrorist" activity and on the other hand there is legislation that permits the state to have you under surveillence by any means necessary. Aside from all of that there has also been an estimate of 76,701 to 83,571 Iraqi civilian deaths, 3863 U.S. troop deaths and not to mention countless dead reporters, contractors, and other industrial workers all resulting from the illegal occupation of Iraq.

Before the occupation of Iraq began there had been protests across the nation warning the Bush administration that a large portion of America was not willing to support military intervention in a country like Iraq. The administration did what any respectable government would do and ignored the wishes of the people in order to push a different agenda of U.S. "interests". This government has seen consistent protests since the notion of invading of Iraq became public and no matter how much we beg the Democrats to put a timetable out there-- they are unable to do it, no matter how many democrats we vote into congress-- they are unable to do it, no matter how often we protest, no matter how often we write letters and no matter how hard we fight for justice within the system-- it just doesn't work.

And this brings us to the past week in Olympia, Washington where Port Militarization Resistance and the Evergreen State College has been involved in direct action against the military industrial complex, the Thurston County PD, the City of Olympia PD, the City of Tumwater PD, the City of Lacey PD, the SWAT team and as of last night the National Guard (that was a rumor that has yet to be confirmed). Now let me bring context to the situation... the port of Olympia is one of many U.S. ports in which military weapons, military vehicles known as Strykers (which are responsible for the highest rate of U.S. military deaths due to inefficient design) and other vehicular weaponry go in and out of during their transit to and from Iraq. The Evergreen State College protested the use of Olympia's port for military reasons and beginning on last Monday there has been a peaceful prescence down at the Port expressing our discontent with both the war and the use of the port for reasons of war. Now Evergreen students know better than to rely on protesting to make difference so as of Wednesday night last week there had been organized Blocs established in order to peacefully block the roads so that the Strykers could not get to and from the Port.

This resulted in riot police spraying pepper spray and tear gas at all those involved in non-violent direct action along with the media and innocent by-standers. The police pulled the goggles, gas masks and bandanas off of protesters who had their arms locked and sprayed them directly in their eyes. For me personally one police officer after trying to break me from a Bloc pulled my glasses off my face sprayed me in the eyes with pepper spray and if it had not been for my glasses falling on the ground and me and him scuffling to get them I would have been detained. People were also beaten with clubs and this was all prior to us actually fighting back. The intention of the Bloc was to symbollically block strykers, have a high rate of arrests to draw media attention and most importantly to cost the state as much money as possible. This was all accomplished but we made a point of having a continued prescence till all the Strykers were removed from the port. We have been participating in a mix of direct action and protesting since last Wednesday and for the most part we had remained peaceful until last night.

Last Night's Battle Against the Police State

Last night we organized an ALL FEMALE bloc in order to bring gender equality to the movement and had 30 women lock arms in solidarity and block the main entrance from the port to the streets. Every girl in the bloc was detained and they used public transportation to transport those arrested last night because we broke the 100 person mark since the beginning of our resistance. After the last woman was arrested the police and military attempted to move out of the North exit which was where our bloc was set up. I also would like to point out that the police used counter-protesters in an attempt at inciting violence in the anti-war protesters and it almost worked after "queer", "faggot", "go back to mexico you illegal alien", "n-gger", and a whole lot of other disgusting ignorance was spit in our direction. Counter-protesters made fun of us for being TOLERANT of all things and one of them even spelled terrorism.. terorism.. which shows that the funds going to military occupation of impovershed countries could easily be going to better public education.

ANYWAY, as the convoys moved out of the North exit.. Police forcefully surrounded us and physically moved us which was illegal because we had not moved into the street yet. We were all on the sidewalk which was public property waiting for the cop cars to move but they deployed in riot gear on us before we could get around them. I stood there and said nothing.. a cop pushed me with his baton, hit me twice and I realized we had to run if we were going to set the Bloc up, up the road and we all took off. We locked arms in the road and went face to face with giant military vehicles. The troops driving the first two military vehicles that I stood in front of SMILED and GAVE US PEACE SIGNS.. we made it clear we were against the state and not them and they seemed to be enjoying the chaos. But this is when I had my glasses pulled from face and had pepper spray, sprayed directly in my eyes. I hit the floor grabbed my glasses and as the cop struggled to grab me, we were already running down the road. We moved dumpsters, couches, rocks, flower pots, trash, whatever could move into the road in an attempt to stop the movement of military vehicles. We were combatted with rubber bullets which hit one innocent girl who was not involved in the action in the face, blowing her nose up.. at least thats what it looked like.

At this juncture it was war... light bombs had been let off by police and all you could hear was explosions of tear gas and screams. The anarchists, specifically Black Bloc, were tactically on it, moving everything they could into the road only to be combatted by the police??? No, they were combatted by pacifist peace activists. I was physically pulling peace protesters off of those involved in direct action as they attempted to stop the anarchists from stopping the movement of the vehicles. People shouted, "Remember to be Peaceful!!" but I had been shot in the eyes, beaten, and been shot at with rubber bullets and I knew that this was not a battle of morality. I was not trying to prove I'm a better person than anyone, I was not trying to prove that I'm more ethical because I'm non-violent.. I was trying to stop the convoys and defend myself. Rocks went flying at cops, hitting them and distracting them enough to hit very few people with rubber bullets. Cop cars we're spraypainted and hit with rocks by unknown assailants. Everyone was masked, there was tear gas everywhere and the situation went on for a good minute as people ran back and forth from the port to downtown doing everything they could to stop the movement of military vehicles.

We did not stop the military vehicles. It wouldn't have been possible but we did cost the state a ton of money, we did get media attention, we did resist the occupation of our port and we will continue to do so. Unfortunately our movement divided last night as it did in Seattle in '99 and as it will always in the future. It divided into a group of people who were more concerned with the procedure of getting to our goal and another group of people who was more focused on the outcome of the situation. This is where Malcolm's quote comes into play... the white liberals that protected dumpsters last night were wolves in sheep's clothing. They did not have the interests of Iraqi children in mind instead they held the interests of the state that they protected by protecting big metal dumpsters. The reality of the situation was... the police were going to brutalize us for going up against the state whether we started it or not, the media was going to portray us as the enemy whether we were peaceful or not, the pro-war protests were going to get good media coverage and be protected by the police whether they were racist or not and because some of us couldn't get over the fact that some of us truly wanted to win.. that some of us wanted to do something far bigger than screaming.. we lost and we will continue to lose.

Here's some video footage (I will post last nights footage when it is uploaded to youtube.. should be later today):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dgi5ESpueX8
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SOkn2Fg7R8w
http://youtube.com/watch?v=x7-ljrcBRiQ
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7I_4hXggjjc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hsDZHg71g
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kf4Mpckw9hg

Free up the prisoners!


Also here is some more media coverage:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/olypmr101107.html
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/11/18460070.php
http://www.omjp.org/Port2007.html
http://www.omjp.org/arrests11Nov07.txt <--- Josh Elliot is a Veteran who served in Iraq
http://community.theolympian.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=17381&g2_page=4
http://community.theolympian.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=17966
http://seattle.indymedia.org/
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2007/11/262686.shtml