Portland, OR m-20 photo essay

[rivertext]

My photo essay begins as the rally & march began -- with veterans and the families of soldiers who have died or who are now engaged in battle.



her son is now fighting in Iraq



numbering our dead



her brother is now fighting in Iraq



the pig is pleased



a Bush supporter



not a Bush supporter



Bush -- an American Nero



the red and the black

I'll be honest, I'd rather that the best picture I took yesterday featured a young man with a John Kerry for President shirt on. However, although there were around 10,000 people at the march I saw no one with a Kerry sign. That is until the end when someone was handing out free John Kerry bumper stickers. (And there were lots of takers.) There were a lot of Kucinich signs. I wore my "canceled W" DemocraticUnderground.com shirt. I was glad to see all the Kucinich supporters, but as Kerry gets closer to being the official nominee I hope to see a lot more visibility for Kerry at demonstrations like this.



Bush is still lying



Amber Hicks of Love Makes a Family speaking at the close of the rally.

Amber is also one of the peace activists who was attacked by the police when President Bush was last in Portland. You can read my introduction to the film that tells the story of that afternoon and of the rise of the Bush regime (and download the film itself) here:

 http://rivertext.com/million.html




all photos can be re-used for any non-commercial purpose

all photos copyright Brian Thomas, 2004


http://rivertext.com/stuff.html

[corporatewhore]

1. you would see more kerry visibility at anti occupation/colonization events

if he adopted an anti occupation/colonization policy

[rivertext]

2. The red and black flags have nothing to do with Russian communism/fascism.

My pictures are linked from the http://portland.indymedia.org/ site where they were originally posted. I thought I should repost a correction/comment that was made about one of the photos there. I titled one of the photos "the red and the black" because at 5:50 am (after being up all night) I was stumped about what kind of comment to make about that photograph. Because I knew so well what the red and black flags meant I didn't think things through and, at the time, foolishly thought I was making a clever but neutral comment about the color scheme. However, now I realize that the photograph suggests that there were a lot of young people present in the march who were in some way associating themselves with a Marxist or communist symbol when there is actually only one person who is doing that.

The above photo is a good example of how a photograph can mislead rather than enlighten.

repost:


The red and black flags have nothing to do with Russian communism/fascism.
The photo with the kid with the soviet flag on his shirt with the red and black flags in the back make a connection which isn't there.

Red and black flags = anarchism. Sometimes anarcho syndicalism, or anarcho communism also. Nothing to do with authoritarian communism.

find out more:
www.anarchyfaq.org
anarchist people of colors website : www.illegalvoices.org/apoc
Portland's anti capitalist action website : www.pdxaca.org