Boy and I marched yesterday, in Seattle, to honour the May Day General Strike action...
Interesting experience - a reality check about the state of the world really, giving me lots to think about...
We marched to bear witness to what is going on in these times...
To bear witness, and, by our presence, to send a message to the powers-that-be that we know what is going on, and it's not OK...
"If we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents and to live now as we think Human beings should live - in defiance of all that is bad around us - is in and of itself a marvellous victory."
~ Howard Zinn
We went with our school teacher house-mate and another family...
We were a little late to the event, joining the march half way through...
We weren't expecting it to be the big deal it turned out to be...
I
was impressed by, and grateful to, the young people who saw us (not
that far behind Black Block - which we had no idea would be there),
advising us to take a detour when things got 'exciting', so that the
children would not be caught up in the fracas and the tear gas, pepper
spray...
Some cars parked along the route were spray painted with protest symbols and had their tyres slashed...
I felt empathy for the owners of those cars who would come back to find this damage;
The police were positioned to PROTECT BUILDINGS/CORPORATIONS not citizens...
I didn't feel any sympathy for the owners of the buildings that were damaged - though I was concerned for bystanders...
When
a country, state and city (USA/Washington/Seattle) decides to use
military force, surveillance and unmanned drones against its own
citizenry, does it really think that the people won't feel they have to
meet force/intimidation with force/intimidation, to both fight back and
to retake their freedom?
Quite a challenge to explain all this to the boy and his peers...
Scary parts?
Talking to strangers and wondering whether or not they were infiltrators...
Noticing all the video and still cameras taking photos...
Sure there were news crews doing their thing and private individuals taking photos of cool signs and their group participants...
But who were all those other unidentified people, walking around click, click, clicking away without asking the people they were photographing if it was OK?
How the world saw what went on in the US yesterday:
And for us here in the US - we are not alone:
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