Portland, Oregon May-Day 2013 rally coverage with speeches, march,
street theatre, music, and spoken word. The event was preceded by an
unpermitted march and both events netted no arrests under the watchful
eyes of Portland Copwatch, Portland Indymedia, JoeAnybody.Com, Occupy
Portland members, and LiveStreamers- as well as independent media
journalists and photographers from around Portland.
The world’s shortest march, in silence. Protesters covered their faces
Join us for the May Day March and Rally!
with masks & tape. Photo by Jason Sayre.
You might call it the world’s shortest march. You might call it a
real-life trolling of the police state. Both the police and the
corporate media had learned of this event via social media…
just as we had intended. Unfortunately, we weren’t there to sate their
desire for tragedy, but rather, to have a conversation as concerned
citizens. Corporate media reporters, descending on the scene in
expectation of a replay of last year’s police violence, kept asking,
“When is something going to happen?”
Clip from last year’s May Day protests in
Portland, OR. Police unleashed unprovoked, sadistic violence to suppress
peaceful assemblies throughout the entire day. Video by Jess Hadden.
This time around, we were assembled to protest the FBI’s simultaneous harassment of activists in Portland, Oakland, Olympia, and Seattle, just prior to this year’s May Day. That, and them driving an Armored Personnell Carrier full of federal combat police
through SE Portland, with similar militarized deployments in those
other three cities. An over-arching theme of our protest was the right
(and necessity) of silence in the face of state repression, so we
covered our mouths, with masks or with tape, to signify this. I admit it
— I referred to the APC as a “tank.” Somebody on Twitter split hairs
about the difference… I swore at him in my reply.
Corporate
media cameras swarm. Officer Sarah Westbrook, right, approached me to
make the usual subtle implied threats if we didn’t stay on the sidewalk.
In keeping with the day’s theme, I only responded by asking if I was
being detained. Photo by Jason Sayre.
We marched in silence in the street just long enough to raise the
police state’s hackles — and then, just as quickly as we had taken to
the streets, we were suddenly assembled in silence in front of the
Federal Building. The police showed just how ready & willing they
were to swoop in with overwhelming force. But, they didn’t have the
opportunity to hurt or arrest anyone. And, to me, they looked quite
foolish, as they stood around, in great numbers, doing nothing… for the
entire hour.
The
world’s shortest march route, from Terry Schrunk Plaza, to the corner
of SW 3rd & Madison, to the middle of SW 3rd & Madison, to the
front of the Federal Building. Sourced from Google Maps.
Surrounded on two blocks by local & Federal police, I observed,
in conversation with the Oregonian reporter, that there were some
obvious ways that the city could make up for its budgetary shortfall.
She asked if I had seen the report of the PPB’s $100,000+ salaries.
A
protester stands in front of the row of bicycle police, flanking us on
SW Madison. Her sign reads, “Proof the cops have too much money.” Photo
by Hart Noecker.
I was informed by those monitoring the police scanner that there were
multiple units of cops staged in various locations throughout downtown,
as far away as Voodoo Doughnuts. It sure did seem like overkill for a
crowd of 50 people.
Federal
and local police also watched us from across the street, on SW 3rd Ave.
The PPB’s SERT “ice cream” speaker truck was out, further down on 3rd.
Photo by Hart Noecker.
Our silence was lifted, and the protest transformed to a dance party, by the “surprise!” arrival of the music of bike swarm.
Nicholas
Caleb arrives with music, transforming our silent protest into a dance
party, before leading us to O’Bryant Square. Photo by Hart Noecker.
Finally, we marched from the Federal Building to O’Bryant Square, to meet up with the May Day main event.
We walked right past the bicycle cops, waving, continuing along the
sidewalk in front of the Justice Center. We ended up remaining on the
sidewalk the entire route, given that our small group was tightly
escorted by a small army of bicycle & motorcycle police.
We concluded our protest by marching to O’Bryant Square, to join the main May Day event. Photo by Hart Noecker.
While the Oregonian did vaguely pick up on the message about FBI
repression of activism (sorta), none of the corporate media outlets that
reported on this event said a damned word about the tank. The corporate
media reporters seemed to lose interest when it became clear that no
activists were going to get beaten or arrested. A disappointed KOIN
reporter was overhead telling his colleague to go elsewhere to seek some
exciting footage — but promised to stay just in case this protest got
“rowdy.”
A
“friendly” escort of motorcycle police, to augment the bicycle police.
Separate units followed us a block away. Not overkill in the slightest…
Photo by Hart Noecker.
The
lifeless bodies of Afghan children lay on the ground before their
funeral ceremony, after an airstrike on their extended family household
by order of President Barack Obama killed several Afghan adults and at
least ten children in Shultan, Shigal district, Kunar, eastern
Afghanistan, Sunday, April 7, 2013. (AP Photo)
An Associated Press photograph brought the horror of little children
lying dead outside of their home to an American Audience. At least 10
Afghan children and some of their mothers were struck down by an
airstrike on their extended family household by order of President
Barack Obama. He probably decided on what his aides describe as the
routine weekly “Terror Tuesday” at the White House. On that day, Mr.
Obama typically receives the advice about which “militants” should live
or die thousands of miles away from drones or aircraft. Even if
households far from war zones are often destroyed in clear violation of
the laws of war, the president is not deterred.
These Obama airstrikes are launched knowing that very often there is
“collateral damage,” that is a form of “so sorry terrorism.” How can the
president explain the vaporization of a dozen pre-teen Afghan boys
collecting firewood for their families on a hillside? The local
spotter-informants must have been disoriented by all those $100 bills in
rewards. Imagine a direct strike killing and injuring scores of people
in a funeral procession following a previous fatal strike that was the
occasion of this processional mourning. Remember the December 2009 Obama
strike on an alleged al-Qaida training camp in Yemen, using tomahawk
missiles and – get this – cluster bombs, that killed 14 women and 21
children. Again and again “so sorry terrorism” ravages family households
far from the battlefields.
If this is a war, why hasn’t Congress declared war under Article 1,
Sec. 8 of the U.S. Constitution? The 2001 Congressional Authorization to
Use Military Force is not an open-ended authorization for the
president. It was restricted to targeting only nations, organizations or
persons that are determined to have been implicated in the 9/11
massacres, or harbored complicit organizations or persons.
For several years, White House officials, including ret. General
James Jones, have declared that there is no real operational al-Qaeda
left in Afghanistan to harbor anyone. The Pakistani Taliban is in
conflict with the Pakistani government. The Afghan Taliban is in brutal
conflict with the Afghanistan government and wants to expel U.S. forces
as their members view occupying-invaders, just as their predecessors did
when they expelled the Soviet invaders. The Taliban represent no
imminent threat to the U.S.
President Obama’s ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron P. Munter, used to
complain to his colleagues about the CIA’s drone attacks saying “he
didn’t realize his main job was to kill people.” He knew how such
attacks by whining drones, hovering 24/7 over millions of frightened
people and their terrified children produce serious backlashes that
fester for years.
Even a loyalist such as William M. Daley, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff
in 2011, observed that the Obama kill list presents less and less
significant pursuits. “One guy gets knocked off, and the guy’s driver,
who’s No. 21, becomes 20?” Daley said, describing the internal
discussion. “At what point are you just filling the bucket with
numbers?”
Yet this unlawful killing by a seemingly obsessed Obama, continues
and includes anyone in the vicinity of a “suspect” whose name isn’t even
known ( that are called “signature strikes”), or mistakes, like the
recent aerial killings of numerous Pakistani soldiers and four Afghan
policemen – considered our allies. The drone kill list goes on and on –
over 3000 is the official fatality count, not counting injuries.
In a few weeks, The Nation magazine will issue a major report on
U.S.-caused civilian casualties in Afghanistan that should add new
information.
Now switch the scene. The president, filled with memories of what his
secret drone directives as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner
have done to so many children, in so many places, traveled on Monday to
Newtown, Connecticut for the second time. He commiserated with the
parents and relatives of the 20 children and six adults slain by a lone
gunman. Here he became the compassionate president, with words and hugs.
What must be going through his mind as he sees the rows of 10 Afghan
little children and their parents blown apart in that day’s New York
Times? How can the president justify this continued military occupation
for what is a civil war? No wonder a majority of the American people
want out of Afghanistan, even without a close knowledge of the grisly
and ugly things going on there in our name that are feeding the seething
hatred of Obama’s war.
'Unless the American people come to realize
that a president must be subject to the rule of law and our
Constitution, our statutes and treaties, every succeeding president will
push the deficit-financed lawlessness further until the inevitable
blowback day of reckoning. That is the fate of all empires.'Sometime
after 2016 when Barack Obama starts writing his lucrative
autobiographical recollections, there may be a few pages where he
explains how he endured this double life ordering so-called precision
attacks that kill many innocent children and their mothers and fathers
while mourning domestic mass killings in the U.S. and advocating gun
controls. As a constitutional law teacher, he may wonder why there have
been no “gun controls” on his lawless, out-of-control presidency and his
reckless attacks that only expanded the number of al-Qaeda affiliates
wreaking havoc in Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Mali, North Africa and
elsewhere.
Al-Qaeda of Iraq is now merging with an affiliate called “al-Nusra”
in Syria that will give Obama more futile exercises on Terror Tuesdays.
The CIA calls the reaction to such operations “blowback” because the
unintended consequences undermine our long-term national security.
Obama is not like the official criminal recidivist, ex-Vice President
Dick Cheney, who misses no chance to say he has no regrets. Obama
worries even as he greatly escalates the aerial attacks started by
George W. Bush. In his State of the Union speech he called for a “legal
and policy framework” to guide “our counterterrorism operations,” so
that “no one should just take my word that we’re doing things the right
way.” Granted, this is a good cover for his derelictions, but it
probably reflects that he also needs some restraint. Last year he told
CNN it was “something you have to struggle with.”
Not that our abdicatory Congress would ever take him up on his offer
for such legal guidance should he ever submit a proposed framework. Nor
would Congress move to put an end to secret laws, secret criteria for
targeting, indefinite imprisonment, no due process, even for American
citizens, secret cover-ups of illegal outsourcing to contracting
corporations and enact other preventive reforms.
Mr. Obama recognized in his CNN interview that “it’s very easy to
slip into a situation in which you end up bending rules thinking that
the ends always justify the means. That’s not who we are as a country.”
Unfortunately, however, that’s what he has done as a president.
Unless the American people come to realize that a president must be
subject to the rule of law and our Constitution, our statutes and
treaties, every succeeding president will push the deficit-financed
lawlessness further until the inevitable blowback day of reckoning. That
is the fate of all empires.
This is the speeches [only] filmed in Shemanski Park on May Day in Portland Oregon.
No one was hurt by the police due to a permit was given for the speeches and the park to be used by the people of Portland.
More footage from May day is posted here on Portland Indymedia and on http://www.joeanybody.com
Updated: 11:45 AM–
Updated with additional video footage of the first incident. If you
have footage of this or any other incident that you would like to share,
please email us atportland.occupier@gmail.com.
It’s
been a long day out at the various May Day events, and we are still
processing all of our video and photos from the day. However, videos
have surfaced that are such egregious examples of the Police violence
that was unleashed against protesters today, that we wished to publish
these videos without delay.
The
first shows a woman being thrown to the curb, and her head being
slammed into a bicycle. It was taken during the General Strike march,
between 12 and 2 PM on May 1. After the police see the camera man
filming, they charged him with police horses, to which he reacts,
understandably upset at almost being trampled.
Another
piece of video shows the same scene, from a different angle, and
clearly shows the police pushing horses onto people standing, doing
nothing more than filming the arrest and being upset.
The
third piece of footage shows police attacking people standing on the
sidewalk, throwing them to the group, and then assaulting a young woman,
including pulling her hair very forcibly. Then, they drag another
person across the Light Rail tracks. Again, in this situation, the
camera man was attacked while in the process of documenting the arrests.
It
is very troubling that this sort of violence is used to attempt to
enforce traffic infractions. Furthermore, the threatening gestures made
towards the media, on a day when several members of the media were
beaten by police and arrested, is very concerning.
We
thank our brave media people who braved this violence, so that the
people can see what their police force is paid to do to the citizens of
Portland. The first video is by OPMC’s Mike BH, and the second is by
John W. The third is by a person whose name I unfortunately forget, but
who stopped by the media van, concerned that this video would not be
seized by the police if he were to be arrested. Thank you all, for
helping tell the truth.
This year's celebration, International Workers Day, May 1st, 2012 will be the combined efforts of a broad swath of the 99%: including The American Federation of Teachers, American Friends Service Committee,
B-Media, Carpenters Local 156, Civil Liberties Defense Center, International
Socialist Organization, KBOO, Labor Radio Collective, Laughing Horse,
Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán, Occupy Portland, Oregon New
Sanctuary Movement, Painters Local 10, Portland Central America Solidarity Committee,
Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition - PIRC, Portland Jobs with Justice,
Comite de Solidaridad de Apoyo Mutuo, The Portland Alliance Newspaper
& the NW Alliance for Alternative Media & Education (NAAME),
UnionResource.org, Veterans For Peace CH72. VOZ Workers Rights Education Project, other existing
May Day organizations, and new and old groups, organizations, unions,
schools, nonprofits, foundations, and everyday people who stand for
peace, justice, & freedom on International Workers Day!! Take it to the streets and celebrate!
We can build solidarity and grow movements against injustice of all kinds.
We can heal the divisions among us and attract more people into organizing. Join us!
"Quick and Dirty" May Day draft organizing proposal:
The
May Day coalition proposes to build the broadest possible march and
rally on May 1st for immigrants' rights, workers' rights, and civil
rights. We can all work in solidarity with PDX organizations and groups
from around the world. We can all coordinate effectively to employ a
range of direct action and civil disobedience tactics in addition to,
not conflicting with, the march and rally. We recognize the
contributions of Occupy Portland, Unsettle Portland, Jobs with Justice,
the Portland Action lab, and other movements. We are excited to build
new relationships and
move forward together before, during, and after May Day. Si se puede!
Liberate space on May Day!
The Portland Liberation Organizing Council (PLOC) would like to invite
all members of the community join us on May 1st, 2012 in the
Liberate.MayDay project where a neighborhood will be liberating a
currently unused building in the City of Portland and transforming it
into a vibrant people-powered community center.
Liberate.MayDay intends to demonstrate and begin to address the vast
contradictions that we face each day – that buildings sit empty while
our neighborhoods lack free, accessible indoor spaces, that banks
continue tearing people out of their homes while 1 in 7 houses in the
country sit vacant, that basic healthcare is unaffordable for many while
corporations reap incredible profits from the industry.
We
have seen that the systems creating these problems are not capable of
providing real solutions. We are done waiting! Solutions come from our
minds, our hands, our relationships, and our irrepressible creative
capacity to build a community (and a society) that works for us. On May
Day PLOC will enact one solution – to reclaim property and put it to use
with the community.
Portland needs a space where communities can grow together and
nurture a healthy political system — where gardens grow food and sow the
seeds of resistance; where classrooms are based on popular education;
where there is free space to celebrate and organize. We will no longer
stand for developers holding land and buildings hostage for maximum
profit. Community control and self-determination are more important than
profit and endless growth.
We are inspired by those that took over a church-owned abandoned
building in San Francisco in March, by foreclosure defenders in
Minneapolis, by the Landless Peasant Movement in Brazil [MST], by the
Space Liberated community in Madrid, and many more. We follow in the
footsteps of those that have reclaimed buildings from greedy developers
in order to keep community control of our neighborhoods. We stand on the
shoulders of those that take direct action to elevate the rights of
people above the right to keep property vacant. These social movements
show us that liberation of land is not only possible, it is happening!
The broad anger against the banks that the Occupy movement has
revealed demonstrates a profound willingness among ordinary people to
act for our collective well-being regardless of the formalities of the
law. The whirlwind of movement in the past year has renewed our belief
that when we act together – we are powerful.
The community center PLOC will be founding is rooted in a
collaborative community effort, building relationships and partnerships
that we hope live far beyond May 1st. Supporters are encouraged to come
join the reclamation effort with a mind toward the collective rather
than the autonomous individual. Alerts will be blasted out over email
and social media on the morning of May 1st with a meetup location.
Gather round! Liberate.MayDay!
PLOC is a collaboration of radical organizations who believe that
the current economic system and its systems of oppression are
fundamental problems that create the disparity of wealth and resources
that we see in our neighborhoods today. We work to organize and
mobilize to dismantle these exploitative systems while creating
alternatives with our communities. Capitalism is not broken, it is built
for someone else.
ploc@riseup.net @LiberateMayDay #LiberateMayDay
PLOC is a collaboration of radical organizations who believe that
the current economic system and its systems of oppression are
fundamental problems that create the disparity of wealth and resources
that we see in our neighborhoods today. We work to organize and
mobilize to dismantle these exploitative systems while creating
alternatives with our communities. Capitalism is not broken, it is built
for someone else.Liberate space on May Day | Portland Liberation Organizing Council www.liberatepdx.org
BREAKING NEWS AT THE ALLIANCE:
SYSTEM GRAVELY BROKEN:
RESPONSES TO CHASSE DISCIPLINE REVERSAL
The two officers who had been disciplined in the brutal beating death of James Chasse, Jr. were ordered to have their
records expunged and back payments made for the 80 hours each was suspended.
As long as we continue without police accountability in Portland, avoidable killings of innocent people will continue.
e-mail: 
homepage: 
This year's celebration, International Workers Day, May 1st, 2012 will be the 
combined efforts of a broad swath of the 99%:
The
May Day coalition proposes to build the broadest possible march and
rally on May 1st for immigrants' rights, workers' rights, and civil
rights. We can all work in solidarity with PDX organizations and groups
from around the world. We can all coordinate effectively to employ a
range of direct action and civil disobedience tactics in addition to,
not conflicting with, the march and rally. We recognize the
contributions of Occupy Portland, Unsettle Portland, Jobs with Justice,
the Portland Action lab, and other movements. We are excited to build
new relationships and 
We
have seen that the systems creating these problems are not capable of
providing real solutions. We are done waiting! Solutions come from our
minds, our hands, our relationships, and our irrepressible creative
capacity to build a community (and a society) that works for us. On May
Day PLOC will enact one solution – to reclaim property and put it to use
with the community.
Liberate space on May Day | Portland Liberation Organizing Council 
For all we can know
Local actions, events, rallies, etc.
