i'm back in reno. i'm going to head out to the desert for burning man tomorrow or sunday. i've got a couple of old blog entries to add but they're stuck on my palm, the sync cradle is in portland but my laptop and palm are both here. it's kind of a bitch being half moved.
while i was in portland i got to goto the george bush protest. he came to town to raise money for a republican senator, $1000 a plate kind of thing. a couple thousand people turned out to welcome him with signs ridiculing just about every part of his administration's policies. it was great to see so many different people coming out to give bush a hard time. there was a march over to the hilton where the dinner was being held. the cops had closed off the streets a block away in all directions so people just kind of marched up to each barrier and stared at all the cops in riot gear.
it was a peaceful demonstration until the cops tried to push everyone back half a block. the ended up pepper spraying a ton of people in the crowd with no warning as they started pushing people over with their batons. the cops decided driving two squad cars through the middle of the crowd to the barricades was a rational and safe idea. as they were practically running people over some people started jumping up on the car and trying to vandalize it so the riot cops started firing rubber bullets into the crowd. one guy who'd been hit by one showed me his welt, it was the size of a softball.
on the whole the cops were pretty well behaved. the could have done a lot better but they actually showed more restraint than i'd expected. when big bush came to portland back ten years ago protesters brought the city to a halt and he christened it portland "little beirut". hopefully it's retained the title.
Posted by drewish at August 24, 2002 02:26 AMhey man. i was there too. crazy stuff. i was glad to see so many people out there sticking up for what they believe. i felt high about it for days afterward.
Posted by: chris joyrider at September 2, 2002 08:04 PM
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