The following report was submitted by Dan Handelman, a leader in both the Oregon and the national campaigns to end the unlawful use of our National Guard:

There has been so much in the media in the last few days regarding the Campaign to Keep Oregon's Guard in Oregon and related subjects that some things are sure to fall off the radar in this round-up and report back.

Following last Wednesday's testimony in the Oregon state legislature on HB 2556 and HR 4, the Bring the Guard Home legislation, a statewide march and rally was held on Sunday March 15, and a legislative visit day on March 16 brought hundreds of Oregonians to the Capitol.

While the weather played a huge part in keeping our numbers low (40% of the people who reserved seats on the buses from Portland didn't show up), the 400 or so people who made it marched and rallied with enough enthusiasm and good energy to wipe the clouds away on a day that was predicted to have a 100% chance of rain.

Sixty-two organizations (in the end, perhaps sixty-five) co-sponsored or endorsed the march and
rally, which coincided with the statewide progressive caucus.

Speakers included Benji Lewis, from Iraq Veterans Against the War, who railed against the system that put him into Haditha and Fallujah in Iraq, and for the Guard Home legislation. Wael Elasady spoke about the need to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict in a just way to bring peace to the Middle East. Linda Burgin, head of SEIU local 503 in Salem, spoke strongly of spending money on human needs and denouncing the misguided policies of the wars. Johanna Brenner of PSU's Women's Studies program described how wars disproportionately impact women. Ramon Ramirez, president of PCUN (the treeplanters and farmworkers union) connected the struggle for immigrants rights to the military policies of the US and the post-9/11 era, epitomizing the day's main theme "Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad!"

Music from Mo Mack, the Corvallis Raging Grannies, and, at the end of the march, Mark Iris, also kept the themes of peace and justice in mind while entertaining and moving the crowd.

The march snaked around the Capitol building, pushing its way to the heart of Salem's downtown where shoppers stood on the Mall skybridge in amazement at the dozens of "Keep the Guard in Oregon" signs and the huge front banner saying "End Wars!" In the past many marches in Salem have been restricted to the Capitol area or the sidewalks, this route took a lot of negotiation but it was worth the effort. A quick stop at the Salem Statesman-Journal office reminded us that the mainstream media does not cover issues of war and peace on a regular basis, and a second stop allowed the participants in the ROP Caucus to get back to work at the UCC Church a few blocks away. The No War Drum Corps kept the spirits up along the way. The event was over at about 3 PM and blue skies greeted the marchers as they readied to head home.

Monday was the "Democracy Bailout Day of Action," organized primarily by Rural Organizing Project and five other groups, which brought about 130 people to the capitol to meet with their legislators about the Guard Home legislation, immigrant rights, raising taxes on the wealthy to provide for the rest of us, and making health care available to all. In addition to the folks from Bandon, Bend, McMinville, Eugene, Medford, Woodburn, Salem and elsewhere in Oregon, a large contingent of immigrants and refugees from Portland's Center for Intercultural Organizing had their first experience talking to state legislators. At noon a small but spirited rally was met with heavy rain and...hail! But it continued to its very end, even with a visit from state Representative Chip Shields, chief sponsor of the Guard Home legislation and
supporter of all the issues in the Democracy bailout.

Results are still coming in from the visits, but it does feel as though there is more support for the Guard Home legislation than we were aware of, as Republican Rep. Andy Olson let us know he had agreed to cosponsor the amended version of HB 2556 (known as 2556-1, it needs to be voted on by the House Rules Committee to make that version official). Along with Dennis Richardson, who helped author 2556-1, and Jim Thompson, that makes at least three Republicans on board with the legislation in addition to at least 12 Democrats (in the House and Senate) who cosponsored the original legislation, and Salem Rep. Brian Clem, who also stated his support for the bill Monday. (There are others who have pledged to support the legislation in a floor vote, but that is not the subject of this particular report.)

Below is the article from the Monday Oregonian, which isn't bad as these things go, especially given their editorial position on the Guard Home legislation. It has two good pictures that ran in the print edition as well.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/250_protest_oregon_national_gu.html


There was also an article and pictures in the Statesman Journal, which strangely kept referring to the deployment of the "Air National Guard" for some reason.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090316/NEWS/903160340/1001

The online service Salem News.com ran extensive coverage as well:

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march152009/peace_march_3-16-09.php

Three TV channels covered the march; KATU-2 (ABC affiliate) had a crew there but never, to our knowledge, ran the story. KOIN-6 (CBS affiliate) did not have a crew there and instead used stills with a voice-over describing the "hundreds" who rallied. KPTV-12 (FOX affiliate) surprisingly had some of the best coverage, noting the streets of Salem were calm again after hundreds marched earlier in the day (I guess we were boisterous, which isn't calm...) and showing the march going up Liberty Street. The worst was KGW-8 (NBC affiliate), which showed footage from rallies of years past, ignoring the new political and economic situation we're in, making a mere mention of the bad weather, and not noting that being in Salem added to the lower numbers. On the other hand, the story was about 1.5 minutes long and included information about the Guard Home efforts, statements by Benji Lewis and JoAnn Bowman of Oregon Action, who hosted the rally, and showing lots and lots of Mikel Clayhold of PPRC's awesome signs.

At least two people posted pictures from Sunday's on Portland indymedia, with the first, Jim Lockhart, including audio of the rally.

Jim Lockhart: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2009/03/387895.shtml
Steve the Green: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2009/03/387873.shtml

Photographer Jim Lomasson, whose work "Exit Wounds" chronicles the voices of wounded veterans, posted pictures from the rally as well (Jim also testified on Wednesday):
http://www.lommassonpictures.com/March15.2009


Other media in the last few days:

The Eugene Register-Guard, for some reason, chose Monday to disrespect the Campaign with an editorial called "Keeping Guard at home Legislation doesn't pass constitutional muster," for which they clearly did not ask our opinion.

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/9595457-47/story.csp

On the other hand, the Oregonian printed three letters on Sunday, including an incredible one from Adele Kubein of Military Families Speak Out (whose daughter is permanently disabled from serving in the Guard in Iraq), supporting the campaign and complaining about the Oregonian's Wednesday editorial:
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/03/bring_the_guard_home.html

On Monday, they ran the great rebuttal to their editorial from Guard parent Dan Mayhew:

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/03/bring_the_guard_home.html


And another Guard parent, Todd Barnhart, wrote a lengthy piece on the Campaign on the Blue Oregon Blog on Sunday:

http://www.blueoregon.com/2009/03/protecting-those-who-protect-us.html
Todd notes that the Multnomah County Democrats endorsed the legislation on Thursday.

In writing this piece, I would like to thank all the people and groups who helped make this possible, including the great folks at KBOO Community Radio, and to keep the message out there that we are doing very very well on the Guard Home Campaign, to where the other states are watching us with amazement as we move forward. I hope that everyone gets some rest but also takes the next few weeks to keep the pressure on---and who knows, maybe we can keep the Guard from being deployed to occupied Iraq.

As the youth brigade from American Friends Service Committee put it at Monday's rally, we need the Guard in Oregon--it's the law!

--Dan Handelman
Portland Peace and Justice Works

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/250_protest_oregon_national_gu.html

Fewer marchers, same passion in anti-war rally

by Dana Tims, The Oregonian
Sunday March 15, 2009, 9:47 PM


SALEM -- Jen Cadotte, huddled against a bone-chilling west wind, looked across the street toward the state Capitol on Sunday and shook her head.

"This is just sad," said Cadotte, a Salem resident, eyeing the crowd of maybe 250 rallying on the Capitol's steps to mark the sixth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. "There's no way there shouldn't be many, many more people here."

But if the numbers were lacking Sunday, the intensity wasn't, as peace activists made it clear that it will take far more than a new administration in the White House to get them to put down their homemade protest signs and hand-sewn peace flags.

"I marched in the very first anti-Iraq rally in Portland and kept it up during all of the Bush years," Mary Vorachek of Salem said. "Now, from everything I can tell, Obama wants to keep doing the very same things. It's very disheartening."

In past years, rally organizers have marked the week of March 19 -- the date that U.S. troops rolled across the Iraqi border toward Baghdad -- by staging protests in Portland. The area's larger population has generally produced at least several thousand marchers.

The decision to go to Salem this year was a calculated gamble, said Will Seaman, a volunteer who helped organize the peace rally and march.

Seaman said he, too, was disappointed by the low turnout, but still said the gamble was worthwhile to bolster new efforts to keep Oregon National Guard members from being deployed to foreign conflicts.

"We'd have loved to have a teeming multitude of 30,000 people today," he said. "But taking our message directly to Salem was important, and we have a lot of hope it will pay off."

Marchers, some carrying pro-National Guard signs, said they want legislators to approve a resolution to block Guard deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The first hearing of the legislation took place last week before the House Rules Committee.

A handful of other causes also drew supporters to a rally that, with its smattering of protest songs and upraised clenched fists, carried just the whiff of a '60s-era gathering.

Ramon Ramirez, president of Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United, told the crowd the peace movement needs to expand to focus on "the war against immigrants."

Amy Dudley, a staff organizer with the Rural Organizing Project, said some people had traveled from small Oregon communities such as Coquille and Irrigon to discuss how rural interests can be better represented in state politics.

Other speakers said that any international peace talks must include discussion of settling differences between Israel and the Palestinians, and those mingling in the crowd carried signs supporting everything from environmentalism to unions.

Christa Brandenburg, an Army veteran, traveled to the rally from her home in McMinnville. Unlike some in attendance, she said she's willing to give President Barack Obama a chance at fashioning new directions for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

"He's already making a difference," she said. "We're part of a global discussion now, instead of a tirade that pits us against just about everyone else in the world."

Marcher Mike Smith said he won't be so forgiving of the new administration.

"He spent more money during his campaign than any president in history, which doesn't really speak much of change," said Smith, who carried his bullhorn in case anyone missed his point. "If people don't wake up, we're going to get nothing but more of the same."

More info:

Portland Peace and Justice Works

Areas of Focus:

Tags:

User Comments