From: [j p g 3196] at [tahoma.UUCP] (James P. Galasyn)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism
Subject: The First Illegal Flag Burning:  Oct 28, 1989 (was Re: Flag Burning)
Summary: I was there.
Date: 27 Feb 90 19:18:21 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc

John Berryhill asks:
>
> Look, let's cut through the crap.  Does anyone out there seriously believe
> that flag burners should go to jail (provided it is their flag and is
> done safely &c.)?
I was there that Friday night/Saturday morning on Capitol Hill in Seattle.
It was a strange scene.  A crowd of maybe two hundred were closely packed
in front of the post office, spilling onto Broadway.  Cars inched by, but
no one blew their horns.  Police cruised through the Jack-in-the-Box Drive
Thru, apparently unmindful of the scene.  Undercover agents rushed around
the crowd and spoke into mikes that coiled from their jackets.  News
cameras weaved and jockeyed among the people.  Other cameras were evident,
carried by silent and grim men.  The Men in Black.
My roommate and I stood across the street to get the best view.  A pair of
plainclothes cops were standing on a mailbox about twenty feet away.  One
panned a camcorder over the scene while the other inexplicably told
passersby, "You're going to jail, you're going to jail."  The people
chanted "Burn baby burn" as a pile of tiny paper flags caught fire.  One
protester climbed the post office flagpole and tried unsuccessfully to
ignite the big cloth flag with a lighter.  Smarter protesters untied the
rope and lowered the flag.  This time it burned.  A man next to us raged
inarticulately, "These are the REAL patriots, not that Oliver North shit,
these are REAL PATRIOTS."  Young men whose blood seethed with the
excitement of rebellion, all ignorant of the horrors of civil war.
Unfocused anger.  I spoke with a guy from CISPES who maintained,
"I'm ready for revolution.  It's time."  Which of course is true, but these
people have no idea what they're getting into, or what fell enemies they
truly face, or what KIND of revolution there could be which isn't financed
by Them.
A skinhead climbed the pole to the roof of the building.  He produced
another flag.  The crowd, mistakenly assuming he was a NAZI skinhead, began
chanting "Fuck the NAZIs," etc.  He screamed back at them, taunted them,
then demonstrated his solidarity by throwing the flag down and pissing on
it.  This was met with applause.  The skinhead (Darius Strong) then climbed
down and walked away.  People milled around for awhile, then wandered
off.
Overall, a frightening experience.  Though the Flag Protection Act is a
totalitarian abomination, these people were behaving exactly as McGovernment
WANTS them to behave:  mob mentality.  Angry sheep.  McGov WANTS these
scenes on the nightly news to terrify the sleeping tubeheads.  And as an
interesting aside, no arrests were made during the demonstration.  The
secret police just watched and videotaped,  marking every demonstrator for
future reference.  No doubt my FBI optical disk is a little more full.
Apparently the four protesters were arrested LATER, IN SECRET, out of the
watchful eye of the news cameras.
I have the highest admiration for U.S. District Judge Babara Rothstein.
But in the end I'm certain McJustice will be served.  When we're in the
North/NSA Federal Emergency Reserve Act camps, shoulder to shoulder with
the gays, junkies, Latin Americans, homeless, and dissenting judges, I hope
I have the opportunity to tell her.