Silly Thinking
*with Jim Farris*
2011192 Curiosities served
AP on the Protest Today
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Here's an excerpt from an AP story about the protests in Portland today, including the one I had a hand in organizing.
Protest or spring festival?
Some 2,000 people hit the Portland streets dancing, singing, cartwheeling
By Peter Zuckerman
The Associated Press
PORTLAND - About 2,000 people marched, shouted, danced, skipped and even cartwheeled through downtown Saturday to protest the war with Iraq and what they say is an erosion of civil liberties under the USA Patriot Act.
Around 2 p.m, about 400 people stopped at the steps in front of Multnomah County's Central Library. Kathleen Juerguns strummed her guitar and sang a song titled "Patriot Act Blues" into a megaphone.
The audience clapped to the beat while children threw paper airplanes and several people wearing pink tie-dye shirts waltzed down the sidewalk. Some people let out loud cheers, but one man fell asleep on the grass, snoring.
---
Nice, eh. I didn't see the man snoring. And the people in pink were a part of Code Pink, a woman's peace group.
---
After a poetry reading, several protesters checked out books that, according to several activists, the government might not want them to see.
The Patriot Act, the anti-terrorist legislation passed by Congress soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, allows the government to ask libraries to turn over their records, and has expanded telephone and computer wiretaps.
The act also allows police to conduct searches without immediately notifying the suspect.
"People should think twice before checking books out," said Nancy Cole, a library assistant.
After the book checkout, the march continued through the city. Dozens of police on bicycles weaved through the crowd. No arrests were reported, and demonstrators occasionally stopped at intersections to let buses through.
The focus on the loss of civil liberties is a change in tactics for the anti-war movement, several activists said. The activists said they couldn't stop the war and it was important to focus on things they could change.
--snip--
Click Here for my side of the story, or at least part of it.
Protest or spring festival?
Some 2,000 people hit the Portland streets dancing, singing, cartwheeling
By Peter Zuckerman
The Associated Press
PORTLAND - About 2,000 people marched, shouted, danced, skipped and even cartwheeled through downtown Saturday to protest the war with Iraq and what they say is an erosion of civil liberties under the USA Patriot Act.
Around 2 p.m, about 400 people stopped at the steps in front of Multnomah County's Central Library. Kathleen Juerguns strummed her guitar and sang a song titled "Patriot Act Blues" into a megaphone.
The audience clapped to the beat while children threw paper airplanes and several people wearing pink tie-dye shirts waltzed down the sidewalk. Some people let out loud cheers, but one man fell asleep on the grass, snoring.
---
Nice, eh. I didn't see the man snoring. And the people in pink were a part of Code Pink, a woman's peace group.
---
After a poetry reading, several protesters checked out books that, according to several activists, the government might not want them to see.
The Patriot Act, the anti-terrorist legislation passed by Congress soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, allows the government to ask libraries to turn over their records, and has expanded telephone and computer wiretaps.
The act also allows police to conduct searches without immediately notifying the suspect.
"People should think twice before checking books out," said Nancy Cole, a library assistant.
After the book checkout, the march continued through the city. Dozens of police on bicycles weaved through the crowd. No arrests were reported, and demonstrators occasionally stopped at intersections to let buses through.
The focus on the loss of civil liberties is a change in tactics for the anti-war movement, several activists said. The activists said they couldn't stop the war and it was important to focus on things they could change.
--snip--
Click Here for my side of the story, or at least part of it.
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