Thursday, October 05, 2006

World Can't Wait rally in Portland


Nice crowd, enthusiastic and ready to rumble. There were several good speeches especially one by a guy dressed as Ben Franklin, and (very good) Thom Hartmann.

Thom's best line was when he said we shouldn't confuse our elected officials as being our 'leaders'. Instead, he said, politicians are simply people who are always looking to see if there is a big parade going on. When they see a parade, they move to the front carrying a flag, and then say "this is MY parade." The American people need to get that parade going.

I hear on the radio that the crowd is getting out of hand, and the police are considering deploying tear-gas. I left after one young lady got the mike, and exhorted the crowd to ignore the police instructions and the agreed-upon-rules (i.e. stay on the sidewalks and don't block the streets). Apparently, many listened to her.

I left at that point, because I had a sense that trouble was coming, and it's my belief that the Police are NOT the enemy here. This is a developing story.

Meanwhile, here's a photo I took, while things were still well-behaved.

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