Skip to main contentFor some (call them the Protest Protesters), the end of the war in Iraq brings not just the prospect of peace but peace of mind: At long last, the streets may be free of traffic-snarling activists.
Others applaud anti-war activism and hope it will spill over into sea change for progressive politics.
The war may be over, but in Portland the battle has just begun. This is certainly true for the local chapter of Code Pink, a national movement of female anti-war activists founded last autumn in Washington, D.C. It came to Portland in March, and the local group is ramping up even as the war in Iraq is winding down.
Last week, for example, the group's schedule was packed--the pink ladies moved from a May Day march on Monday to a Free Mike Hawash Day rally Wednesday to a rush-hour demonstration on Burnside and a library leafleting about the Patriot Act on Friday. And about 15 of them found time last Thursday to blast boomboxes in front of ClearChannel's Portland office, protesting the way the national radio company (which owns KEX AM and KKRZ 100.3 FM) muffled anti-war voices like the Dixie Chicks'.
"We've got a lot of energy," explains member Terri Grayum.
"A lot of us are middle-aged women who maybe have not felt really comfortable in activist roles," says Grayum, a 52-year-old county health worker. "I think having an affinity group makes a really big difference. [For] a lot of the women, this is the first rally or march. We range in age from 17 to mid-60s, but most of us are over 50, so there's an element of nonthreatening appearance. I think we can get away with things more than the black bloc."
All of this pink-think doesn't wash with Andrew McCargar. Fed up with activists of all stripes, the 24-year-old Portland State University graduate student has formed a response he calls a "protest protest."
He and others have begun distributing leaflets that mock the protesters and showing up at rallies with signs bearing nonsense slogans. At the weekly Friday rally in Pioneer Courthouse Square on May 9, McCargar milled about in head-to-toe green--an outfit that was, naturally, apropos of nothing. He carried a sign that read "Free Quebec."
"Protesters take themselves too seriously, and if they really care, there're far more productive things to do with their time," McCargar says. "It really makes me feel it's gotten to the point where it's basically another form of entertainment."
Code Pinker Grayum politely demurs: "He might think it's useless, but we think if one or two people get some information by seeing us, it's worth it."
WWeek 2015