Heavy protests expected during Bush visit to Seattle

SEATTLE – President Bush is coming to Western Washington on Friday. He is expected to get a lot of support during a fundraiser, but he will also get a lot of grief from protestors.

A lot of energy is being generated by critics of the president, who is paying his first visit to Washington state since he became president.

Environmentalists, peace activists and Democrats are gearing up for a mighty protest.

State Democrats and the machinists and metal trades unions will rally at Bellevue's Crossroads Park. Then they plan to take buses to the site of the fundraiser.

The Bellevue protest is not far from the site of a $2,000-a-ticket fundraiser at cellular tycoon Craig McCaw's Hunts Point home.

A "Beat Back Bush" rally, organized by the state Democratic Party and others, is scheduled for the Victor Steinbrueck Park on the Seattle waterfront near Pike Place Market.

"Let's give the Texas Cowboy a true NW welcome!" organizers say on their Web site, www.sbs.seattleactivist.org. They add, "100,000 of us will come together in Seattle for a peaceful and joyful celebration of our numbers and our power. We will gather for an afternoon to strengthen and steady each other in our determination to be rid of this blight. The bully has to go."

The environmental community announced plans to run anti-Bush newspaper ads on Thursday. The headline will say "Mr. President, you are in Washington to fundraise, but we the people are paying the price."

The groups, including the Sierra Club and Save Our Wild Salmon, scheduled a news conference Thursday in Seattle on the administration's policies on the environment, jobs and public health.

“He has methodically undermined our clean water and clean air protections, he is trying to increase logging in old-growth forests. His record is very comprehensive, but it’s in the wrong direction, unfortunately,” said Kathleen Casey, Sierra Club.

Environmentalists also planned a Friday morning rally at Jack Hyde Park in Tacoma.

Heavy security will be in place, but while Seattle police would not discuss security measures in place for the president's visit, they said they are paying attention to previous presidential trips to nearby Portland, Ore., where demonstrators have clashed with police often enough to earn the city the nickname "Little Beirut."

"We always examine what has happened in other jurisdictions," said Officer Deanna Nollette, a police spokeswoman. "We always take that into account for our preparations. We always prepare for the worst case scenario. We hope for the best and plan for the worst."

Republican activists plan a pro-Bush rally in downtown Bellevue on Friday While critics accuse the Bush administration of loosening or failing to support efforts to protect endangered species like salmon and whales, supporters say he made it clear during his last campaign visit to Washington that he does care about the environment.

In addition to a private fundraising event, Bush is doing one public, official event dealing with salmon habitat and conservation. No details have been released about the public event.

This letter should be printed out by the hundreds (or thousands, whatever the need is) and handed out to all the protesters. Perhaps then they would get it.

They should also be reminded that before the war we saw video's of al queda terrorist training on motorcycles. They were racing up to cars, jumping off, shooting, then jumping back onto the motorcyles with another rider and racing off. They started doing that to our troops in Iraq soon after we toppled Saddam. In a country with little to no real communication, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who is was responsible. Take all those incidents, the attacks on police stations which are well organized, the bombing yesterday which is also reminiscent of other al queda bombings, and it is obvious that our government was correct and has it right, and our troops are correct and have it right. So perhaps a simple piece of paper with the TRUTH on it would serve better than even a counter protest. Perhaps they might just read something like this womans words. Who knows.

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/940949/posts
A note of thanks to those who serve

by Christy Ferer

6/30/2003 - NEW YORK (AFPN) -- When I told friends about my pilgrimage to Iraq to thank the U.S. troops, reaction was underwhelming at best.

Some were blunt. "Why are you going there?" They could not understand why it was important for me, a 9/11 widow, to express my support for the men and women stationed today in the Gulf.

But the reason seemed clear to me: 200,000 troops have been sent halfway around the world to stabilize the kind of culture that breeds terrorists like those who I believe began World War III on Sept. 11, 2001. Reaction was so politely negative that I began to doubt my role on the first USO/Tribeca Institute tour into newly occupied Iraq where, on average, a soldier a day is killed.

Besides, with Robert De Niro, Kid Rock, Rebecca and John Stamos, Wayne Newton, Gary Sinise, and Lee Ann Womack, who needed me?

Did they really want to hear about my husband, Neil Levin, who went to work as director of the New York Port Authority on Sept.11 and never came home? How would they relate to the two others traveling with me: Ginny Bauer, a New Jersey homemaker and the mother of three who lost her husband, David; and former Marine Jon Vigiano, who lost his only sons, Jon, a firefighter and Joe, a policeman.

As we were choppered over deserts that looked like bleached bread crumbs, I wondered if I'd feel like a street hawker, passing out Port Authority pins and baseball caps as I said "thank you" to the troops. Would a hug from me mean anything at all in the presence of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and a Victoria’s Secret model?

The first "meet and greet" made me weep. Why? Soldiers, armed with M16s and saddlebags of water in 120-degree heat, swarmed over the stars for photos and autographs. When it was announced that a trio of Sept. 11 family members was also in the tent it was as if a psychic cork on an emotional dam was popped.

Soldiers from all over our great country rushed toward us to express their condolences. Some wanted to touch us, as if they needed a physical connection to our sorrow and for some living proof for why they were there.

One mother of two from Montana told me she enlisted because of Sept. 11. Dozens of others told us the same thing. One young soldier showed me his metal bracelet engraved with the name of a victim he never knew and that awful date none of us will ever forget.

In fact at every encounter with the troops there would be a surge of Reservists -- firefighters and cops, including many who had worked the rubble of Ground Zero -- wanting to exchange a hometown hug.

Their glassy eyes still do not allow anyone to penetrate too far inside to the place where their trauma is lodged; the trauma of a devastation far greater than anyone who hadn't been there could even imagine. It's there in me, too. I had forced my way downtown on that awful morning, convinced that I could find Neil beneath the rubble.

What I was not prepared for was to have soldiers show us the World Trade Center memorabilia they'd carried with them into the streets of Baghdad. Others had clearly been holding in stories of personal 9/11 tragedies which had made them enlist.

USO handlers moved us from one corner to the next so everyone could meet us. One fire brigade plucked the three of us from the crowd, transporting us to their firehouse to call on those who had to stand guard during the Baghdad concert. It was all about touching us and feeling the reason they were in this hell. Back at Baghdad International Airport, Kid Rock turned a "meet and greet" into an impromptu concert in a steamy airport hangar before 5000 troops.

One particular soldier, Capt. Vargas from the Bronx, told me he enlisted in the Army after some of his wife's best friends were lost at the World Trade Center.

When he glimpsed the piece of recovered metal from the Towers that I had been showing to a group of soldiers he grasped for it as if it were the Holy Grail. Then he handed it to Kid Rock who passed the precious metal through the 5000 troops in the audience. They lunged at the opportunity to touch the steel that symbolized what so many of them felt was the purpose of their mission -- which puts them at risk every day in the 116 degree heat, not knowing all the while if a sniper was going to strike at anytime.

Looking into that sea of khaki gave me chills even in that blistering heat. To me, those troops were there to avenge the murder of my husband and 3,000 others. When I got to the microphone I told them we had not made this journey for condolences but to thank them and to tell them that the families of 9/11 think of them every day. They lift our hearts. The crowd interrupted me with chants of "USA, USA, USA." Many wept.

What happened next left no doubt that the troops drew inspiration from our tragedies. When I was first asked to speak to thousands of troops in Qatar, after Iraq, I wondered if it would feel like a "grief for sale" spectacle.

But this time I was shaking because I was to present the recovered WTC steel to Gen. Tommy Franks (U.S. Central Command commander). I quivered as I handed him the icy gray block of steel. His great craggy eyes welled up with tears. The sea of khaki fell silent. Then the proud four-star general was unable to hold back the tears which streamed down his face on center stage before 4,000 troops. As this mighty man turned from the spotlight to regain his composure I comforted him with a hug.

Now, when do I return?

(Editor’s note: This commentary is printed with permission from Christy Ferer, a New York native whose husband, Neil Levin, was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Ferer was part of a recent United Services Organizations tour to Iraq.)

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