author : Peter Bohmer
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June 2008
By Peter Bohmer
The planning for the Olympia May Day and the resulting rally and march were a very worthwhile effort to connect the anti-war movement and GI resistance to the immigrant rights struggle within the context of the celebration of May Day--International Worker's day. I am very appreciative and supportive that the organizers made the focus and center of the May Day rally and march the Sanctuary City proposal, probably the first proposal in the country that calls for a city to be a sanctuary for both GI's and immigrants. It calls for Olympia to not arrest or detain GI’s who refuse to . . .
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December 2007
by Peter Bohmer,
Updated, December 9, 2007
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
--Mario Savio, the steps of Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley, December 2, 1964
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March 2007
[Speech given at Ehren Watada rally by Peter Bohmer]
Growing resistance inside and outside the U.S. military, together with the Vietnamese resistance to the U.S. occupation in Vietnam forced the U.S. to withdraw from Vietnam. We can and will do the same in Iraq, hopefully sooner than later.
The Bush administration has given many reasons for its invasion and occupation of Iraq:
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January 2007
by Peter Bohmer
The anti-homeless sidewalk ordinances passed [on] Nov. 28 are one more pinprick in the war against the poor, against homeless and street people. It is part of the ongoing attempt to criminalize the poor rather than to determine causes and solutions to poverty, racism, homophobia, the lack of affordable housing and the lack of meaningful work at livable wages.
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August 2006
by Peter Bohmer
On Monday, July 3rd 2006 in Olympia, more than 600 concerned community members from Olympia and the surrounding Puget Sound region rallied to oppose the presence of a neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Movement (NSM).
Our rally began at 1:30 p.m. at the Washington State Capitol campus, near the steps of the Legislative Building and concluded a little before 4:00 p.m., when the NSM left. The NSM had only thirteen members for their rally although they invited their members and other white supremacists from California and the Northwest to join them. Their main speaker was . . .
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May 2006
by Peter Bohmer
On Sunday, April 2, a counter-demonstration, led by the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (omjp), ran the neo-Nazi, National Socialist Movement (nsm) out of our town. The nsm has targeted Olympia as a major location for demonstrating their white-supremacist and anti-Jewish message and as a place where they hope to recruit disaffected white youth.
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February 2006
by Peter Bohmer
On Sunday, January 21st, 150 to 200 people rallied at Noon by the Texaco gas station on the Eastside of Olympia, near where the National Socialist Movement - an openly Nazi organization - was supposed to rally. When they didn't appear, we left at 12:45 to head to Sylvester Park where an anti-racist, anti-Nazi rally had been planned.
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October 2005
[The following is an edited version of a speech delivered by Peter Bohmer on 9/23/2005 at Latrati Park in Dupont. Bohmer, along with Nikki Miller, was a key organizer of the march from Olympia- and rally at the gates of Fort Lewis. The event was sponsored by the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace.]
We are here to protest war and tell people around the world that we oppose this immoral and illegal war. We are part of a renewed growth of activism against this war and for economic and social justice at home.
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September 2005
by Peter Bohmer, member of Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (OMJP)
On Friday, September 23rd , The Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace(OMJP) invites you to join us in an 18 mile walk from Sylvester Park in downtown Olympia all the way to Ft. Lewis. The purpose of this march for peace is to make a strong and visible stand against the U.S. war and to build a movement calling for the withdrawal of the United States from Iraq. We believe that the time is ripe to connect the growing anti-Iraq war feelings in the U.S. to visible protest and a growing anti-war movement. We have the . . .
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August 2003
by Peter Bohmer
[Late Breaking News- On July 30th, as Works in Progress was going to press, Billy Nessen's trial was still in progress but drawing to a close. The prosecutor asked the judges hearing the case for a two month prison sentence for Billy Nessen.]
U.S. journalist, Billy Nessen, is currently on trial in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, currently part of Indonesia. Billy is on trial for two counts of immigration violations and faces a maximum of six years in Indonesian prison. At the first day of the trial, July 23rd, all of the testimony by witnesses had to do with Billy . . .
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