Washblog

I.

STRYKER PROTEST -- VIDEO: 'Give Peace a Chance -- Tacoma Police Riot'
Joe La Sac, whose "Film is NOT a Crime" gained him fame this week as a videographer, posted on YouTube on Saturday two minutes of video entitled "Give Peace a Chance -- Tacoma Police Riot." -- The film, made in the early morning hours of Sat., Mar. 10, 2007, shows police firing tear gas cannisters on a peaceful, tranquil crowd, and then, seconds later, unprovoked and without warning, firing what are apparently rapid-fire rubber bullets into a crowd of peaceful protesters who are doing nothing but sitting in a road. -- (Earlier on the previous day, police had cordoned off Milwaukee Way and 11th Ave. to provide a protected access road for the Stryker vehicles from lot where they have been sitting and the docks, so the individuals in the film were not blocking their movement. -- No warning to the crowd of any kind appears to have been given; the first firing appears to come from the back of the police lines. -- Several protesters are seen having violent physical reaction to tear gas. -- "Do you realize you just fired on people who were sitting peacefully in the street?" shouts a man, incensed. -- "What the fuck are you doing? You just shot me in the head with rubber bullets! What the fuck are you doing? I'm a citizen of this fucking country! Who the fuck are you . . . ?" -- Even before this incident, the aggressive behavior of Tacoma police had made evident the need for a formal investigation. -- This is now a matter of pressing urgency. -- Once again citizens owe a debt of gratitude to independent videographer Joe La Sac, a student at the University of Puget Sound....

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5905/

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II.

STRYKER PROTEST -- STATEMENT: 'A protest in the best American tradition'

"The protest against the shipment of Stryker vehicles organized in the Port of Tacoma is in the best American tradition," a statement by a Tacoma group proclaimed Saturday.[1] -- On Friday, protesters massed on the Port of Tacoma to express their opposition the loading of a ship bound for Iraq with Stryker vehicles for the yet-to-be-deployed 4th Brigade, 2nd Army Division, based in nearby Fort Lewis. -- PPJH decried the cynicism of those who attempt to portray the port resistance as against the troops: "The current revelations about the shameful neglect of wounded and disabled veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center that blossomed into a full-fledged national scandal this week is one more proof of the hypocrisy of a 'support our troops' crowd that is all too willing to send our young men and women to repeated tours of doomed, dehumanizing, and illegal military service in an utterly alien culture and land where many of them are exposed to toxic chemicals and depleted uranium, and where their presence is ardently detested by the vast majority of the Iraqis they are supposedly being sent to protect. We would like to spare them that arduous experience, which for many will be permanently disabling or fatal." -- PPJH also denounced police violence and official indifference, and linked the nonviolent port resistance movement to Martin Luther King Jr.'s principed effort "to reconnect the United States of America to its roots in revolution against oppression, freedom from injustice, and genuine democracy." ...

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5904/

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III.

STRYKER PROTEST -- NEWS: Loading begins; TacPMR organizer arrested

Early Saturday, Mark Jensen of UFPPC offered a report about the largest event yet in the ongoing Stryker protest at the Port of Tacoma, where on Friday evening U.S. Army vehicles began to load a military ship.[1] -- As of 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning there had been no repetition of the use of excessive force by the Tacoma police, but Tacoma Port Militarization Resistance organizer Tom McCarthy was arrested around 11:30 p.m. for the dubious "crime" of carrying a backpack containing food and medicine. -- Hundreds expect to remain at the port through the weekend....

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5903/

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IV.

STRYKER PROTEST -- PROPAGANDA & REALITY: Ft. Lewis soldier says 'glad you were there'

Michelle Malkin's distorted, vicious column on the Port of Tacoma Stryker protest, which is being circulated on right-wing blogs and in a few mainstream newspapers, shows that the protest on the Port of Tacoma is perceived as an important one on the right. -- Her column, whose arguments we have analyzed and refuted, (http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5889/) was further envenomed Friday by the Kansas City Star when it titled its reprint "Our Troops Face Enemy Even Before Leaving U.S." -- This is a pathetic, contemptible attempt to pit troops and their so-called "supporters" (who are all to ready to send our young men and women off to a doomed, dehumanizing, and illegal year of service in an utterly alien culture in a land laced with toxic chemicals and depleted uranium, where their presence is ardently detested by the vast majority of the people they are supposedly being sent to protect) against those who would like to spare them that futile, and for many permanently disabling or fatal, experience. -- What's more, that's not how the troops see it at all. -- The attempt to oppose "our troops" and protesters is belied by the fact that on the very first night of the protests, one of the soldiers posted a message of appreciation to the web site of one of the groups involved.[1] -- "We were told to expect protesters and frankly, I was glad you were there," he said, writing under the Kafkaesque pseudonym "K." ...

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5902/

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Much more at United for Peace of Pierce County's web site:  http://www.ufppc.org/