Olympia Demo

[Gar W. Lipow]

For some odd reason there was no major demo in Portland. (Some local anarchists bless there hearts put on a last minute thing with about a thousand people. That is smaller than a lot of small towns. But it was last minute in the absence of the groups who everyone expected to put  a mass rally doing so, with no publicity other than the via Internet. If it had not been for them, there would have been no demo at all. I noticed some other odd abscences. Boston, for example had nothing major. Perhaps everyone from Boston was in NY.)

So I went to the Olympia, Washington Demo instead. (My sign? "Duct and Cover".) Around 3000 people rallied and marched. There were Grandmothers for peace, and Grandfathers for Peace. There were Lesbians for peace, and Construction worders for peace and so on. (This included Poodles for Peace. Two of the Poodles for Peace began fighting. A five year old in the crowd shouted at them "Make Love not War!")

The speeches were mixed bag. Olympia had three forkin rallies! First they had speakers at Sylvester Park. Then we marched to the War Memorial. More speakers. Then we marched back to Sylvester Park. More speakers. I have to admit some of the Speakers were very good. There was a guy from the Pan-Asian labor alliance who was moving and funny, and informative, and in general had to be one of the best speakers I've heard anywhere. He is a better stand-up comedian than most stand-up comedians, and can shift between making you laugh and making you cry in seonds. He has already been to the occupied territories, and is active in the local environmental movement in addition to the anti-war movement, and anti-racist movements. So I suspect I was watching the early stages of someone who will end up a left "big name" one day. 

There were other good speakers too - Veterans who told personal stories, people who had visited Iraq. There was just an unusually large number of non-boring speakers for a rally this size.

Oh and one of them was my 81 year old mother, who has been active for 70 years - since the age of 11. Of course I wouldn't be biased in judging that particular speech.