e-mail: June 7, 2000

(retrospection)

I've already written about this incident twice already. Once in my journal, and once in a little article I made for media mouse. But I got a special request for this story, so I figured I could milk it a little more. This is an e-mail I sent out to Brett immediately after the event, describing the adventures. Stylistically it is a bit rough to read, but it fills in a few details absent in the other two accounts. Enjoy

Dear Brett,
I don’t know if you even have access to a computer out there in Colorado, but I just had a smashing weekend and I thought I’d tell you all about it. (I’m so excited I can hardly type).

I went to a protest this weekend in Windsor Canada (I don’t know if you’ve been following the news at all). I’ve got so many stories (we were there for 4 days, and all sorts of things happened), but I’ll try and tell you the most interesting ones. (Too bad I can’t see you in person for a while. I’d love to tell you everything about it).

Anyway, I went with Mark (Dave Baxter’s little brother). He’s 20 years old. We were told that the border patrol would be on the lookout for protesters, so we pretended we were going to Stratford to see a play. We both dressed up and did our best to look non-protestorish. We dressed preppy, we listened to hip hop music in the car, and I even put a picture of Justin from N’sync on the dash board. But the boarder patrol pulled ups over and searched our car.

They kept asking us all these questions like “Were you in Seattle? Were you in Washington DC? Have you ever gone to any protests?” All that kind of stuff. They asked us where we were staying in Stratford, and they asked us if we had any maps and stuff, and our story kind of fell apart. (Plus they found all this literature about the protest when they searched the car).

Finally the guy just said, “Listen, we’re pretty sure you guys are here for our protest” and at this point Mark starts talking about how that is ridiculous, and I’m thinking, “Oh, no, we’re going to jail for lying to the boarder patrol,” and finally, I just tell the guy the truth.

Now get this Brett: In the car was a piece of paper which had written on it: “Butterball’s cell phone number [followed by the number], activities start at 6 tonight” which was left over from the night before when Kathryn Kuipers wrote down something about our housewarming party. So anyway, the boarder patrol assumes Butterball is like a code name for some terrorist, and they spend 30 minutes asking me every question imaginable about Butterball. Meanwhile they’ve separated me from mark (we were put in separate detention cells) and they’re asking him all these same questions, and he is like, “What the hell are you talking about? Who is Butterball?”

They asked me when I saw him last, what I last said to him, what butterball does for a living, what his hobbies were, etc, etc, etc. It was really funny to hear these cops say things like, “When was the last time you saw Butterball?” “Is Butterball a member of the communist party?” So anyways, I told Butterball he might want to wait a while before going to Canada, because the cops probably have a huge file on him.

(One of the last questions they asked was when I saw Butterball last. We had both crashed in the same room that night, so I said that the last time I saw him was when I woke up and Butterball was still sleeping. The cops just looked at me weird.)

We also got checked for drugs. Me, Mark, and this other guy had to stand perfectly still with our hands out while they ran a dog back and forth in front of the 3 or us. The dog didn’t do anything to us, but it looked up at the other guy, and the cops were like, “alright, come over here sir.” Later when we say the same guy in immigration, he was complaining about being strip searched, and I said that must have sucked, and he was like, “You mean you guys didn’t get strip searched? You’re telling me I’m the only one who got searched just because that damn dog looked up at me?”

Anyway, they finally let us through, but they confiscated my dad’s garden hose, bungy cords, an empty clearisil bottle, and a bandanna. (They thought these were all weapons). I had to sign a form saying that “I do hereby abandon these items to the crown.” So if you see the crown, he should have a pretty clear face and a nice garden by now.

Sunday was the big day of protest. We blocked a bus of delegates, and the cops arrested a ton of people and the air was so thick with pepper spray my eyes got watery, even though I didn’t get sprayed myself. After Sunday most people went home (most of the protesters that is). The cool thing though is that all the cops stayed, all the media stayed, and all the undercover cops stayed. Like on Sunday it seemed perfectly normal to have all these undercover cops everywhere because it was a big protest. On Monday and Tuesday, it was weird because there were only like 75 of us and there was a helicopter following us and all these undercover cops were trying to hear what we were saying and all these TV cameras were following us.

Like Monday night, I was in the feminist theater, which is just like a small room in this second story building downtown. It’s pretty run down and stuff, and I’m with 5 or 6 Canadian students, and we’re making banners for the protest in this old run down theater, which felt pretty cool. And there were 20 cops outside we could see form the window just waiting outside, and it was like, “wow, all this just for the 6 of us.”

On Monday we tried to get students to walk out of their schools for the protest. So we went to a high school and somebody got on the loud speaker and told the students to walk out, and one of our guys ran through the school with a loud speaker, and it was just total chaos. I mean, imagine this scene Brett. We were out on the lawn screaming, “Walk Out! Walk out!” and the principles and teachers are blocking the door trying to stop the students from walking out, and the kids are climbing out the windows and everything.

The next day we sent a smaller group back to the school, and all 6 of them got arrested. I was supposed to be with them, but I got there late because the girls I was riding with didn’t know their way around their own city. Turned out to be a good thing though, because I did not want to get arrested. So anyway, I got to the school and the high school students were already doing their own march, and our people had all been arrested so the high school students had no direction. So I dropped a couple of people off to march with them, but then one of the high school students needed a ride to her house to get equipment in case of a police attack. So I drove her home and then doubled back to drop another girl off at the protest site, and then when I parked the car I met up with the high school students again at city hall, and I’m like, “What are you guys doing over here? The protest is at the riverfront.” So I lead them all the way over to the riverfront. There were still cops everywhere, and the high school students started chanting, “2,4,6,8 Windsor’s a Police state.” But by the time we got to the river, the protesters decide to just go back to city hall.

One more funny story and then I’ll let you go. We’re marching and the cops start arresting people and so everyone is like “Find a buddy! Find a buddy! Stick together!” So I got together with this girl, and we link arms, and we are marching, and she starts talking about how hot she’s feeling, and I say,
“Well no wonder you’re hot, you’ve got a black shirt on.” And she says
“You’re right. I think I’ll take it off.” And the next thing I know, I”m marching down the street arm and arm with a girl that has no shirt on. And there are TV cameras everywhere. (In Ontario, it is perfectly legal for girls to take off their shirts off, but I still felt embarrassed).

I’ve got tons more stories, but those are the funniest ones. If you want, I’ll e-mail you more later. Take care Brett. Joel

Useless Wikipedia Fact
The chorus of "Bungalow Bill" is sung by all four Beatles, a group of children, Ringo's then-wife Maureen, and Yoko Ono (providing the only female lead vocal on a Beatles recording, for a single line).

Link of the Day
This was in Sunday's Paper. I don't know how many of you caught it, but according to a recent survey, you are more likely to support torture if you've been to church recently. Or conversly, if you've been avoiding Church, you're more likely to be appalled by the idea of torture. Does anyone else find this disturbing?

This was also in the paper recently and slipped away with surprisingly little notice:
Concern about leftist victories in Latin America has prompted President Bush to quietly grant a waiver that allows the United States to resume training militaries from 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries.
The administration hopes the training will forge links with countries in the region and blunt a leftward trend. Daniel Ortega, a nemesis of the United States in the region during the 1980s, was elected president in Nicaragua this week. Bolivians chose another leftist, Evo Morales, last year.
A military training ban was originally designed to pressure countries into exempting U.S. soldiers from war crimes trials.The 2002 U.S. law bars countries from receiving military aid and training if they refuse to promise immunity from prosecution to U.S. servicemembers who might get hauled before the International Criminal Court. The law allows presidential waivers.

Anyone who is familar with the US record in Latin America, or the School of the Americas, knows this is bad news. As always, go to SOA Watch for more news.