[pjw] REPORT BACK: Friday rally #21 under stay-at-home orders

[Peace and Justice Works]

Hi supporters of peace and justice

Hope you are keeping cool on what's expected to be a 100 degree day. 
Yesterday the heat wasn't so bad as the 21st Friday Rally under the 
pandemic once again drew honking horns and other thumbs-ups. The five of 
us were "masked up" and held down the corner of Pioneer Courthouse Square 
from about 5-5:20 PM, then four of us took a march that led us over to SW 
3rd and Main rather than our usual return to the Square. We were able to 
get up close with the "nightmare elk" statue that has replaced the iconic 
"regular" elk statue on Main Street. Here's a picture of it from Twitter:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EfWz4DIUcAMAK2Q?format=jpg&name=large

At the original corner we held signs about ending US wars and promoting 
police accountability, ran the Ann Huntwork Memorial sign with its 
messages about those topics,* and handed out a few leaflets to curious 
passers-by.

We talked about the US' recent deal with the United Arab Emirates, in 
which they recognized Israel, which reportedly is being seen as a quid pro 
quo so that Israel can now back down on annexing the West Bank.

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/13/902186439/uae-israel-move-to-normalize-relations-as-israel-halts-planned-west-bank-annexat

One of our regulars pointed out the side benefit to the UAE, which is that 
they will enjoy the ability to get better grade weapons sold to them by 
the US if they're not seen as a threat in the region.

https://news.yahoo.com/israel-uae-deal-could-open-214918049.html

We also talked a little bit about the ongoing escalation of relations with
China, and the article I sent out last weekend about the National Guard 
restructuring to make it easier to deploy if the US goes to war there.

https://www.stripes.com/news/army/army-guard-begins-to-reorganize-force-into-eight-divisions-to-prepare-for-possible-fights-with-russia-and-china-1.63 9671

The topic of the State Police pulling back from their role guarding the 
Federal Building downtown also came up. They said they'd only committed 
to being here two weeks but also blamed DA Mike Schmidt's plan to only 
prosecute violent criminal behavior at protests, exaggerating and saying 
the County would not prosecute any people arrested.

https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/08/state-police-pull-troopers-out-of-portland-return-troopers-to-regular-assignments.html

I guess they really are deputized federal marshals.

For extra points we noted that the notorious Elliott Abrams of Iran Contra 
fame is now the special envoy for both Venezuela (as before) _and_ Iran 
(as of about a week ago).


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/06/brian-hook-iran-envoy-quits-tehran-un

Along those lines the US says it seized four Iranian tankers full or fuel 
that was headed to Venezuela.

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/14/902532689/u-s-seizes-iranian-fuel-from-4-tankers-bound-for-venezuela

Along the march route, we handed out more literature and brought up issues 
such as President Trump's undermining of the US Postal Service. We noted 
that in other countries, strongman (usually men right?) leaders have fixed 
the elections in their favor... most recently in Belarus.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/09/belarus-election-lukashenko-landslide-victory-fixing-claims

Updates on the mystery of the electromagnetic pulse that knocks out the 
readerboard sign: 1) Tri Met engineering called Monday, said they work 
really hard to be "good neighbors" with no harmful leaks but they would 
check it out (also saying it COULD be power company lines under Yamhill 
St), and 2) because we avoided heading back on our usual route, the sign 
continued running all the way until we got to SW 4th and Main where we 
disbanded.

We hope some more people can start coming down to join us-- while we still 
want to keep the crowd size limited for social distancing we could use a 
few more "regulars" down at the rally!!!

Peace

--dan handelman

*- The sign still had the message about Hiroshima/Nagasaki on it because I 
misplaced the remote control until after the march ended...

Peace and Justice Works
    Iraq Affinity Group
    PO Box 42456
    Portland, OR   97242
    (503) 236-3065
    iraq at pjw.info
    http://www.pjw.info/Iraq.html
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