“Out of Olympia, Out of Iraq”: Geography, Direct Action, and the Anti-War Movement in Olympia, WA

8/14/2019 Out of Olympia, Out of Iraq: Geography, Direct Action, and the Anti-War Movement in Olympia, WA

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Out of Olympia, Out of Iraq:Geography, Direct Action, and the Anti-War Movement

in Olympia, Washington

Jeanette RoachGeographyApril 2009

Senior Thesis

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirementsfor the Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography

________________________Adviser, Joseph Nevins


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AB S T R A C T

Scholars have increasingly examined the geographies of contentious politics. A spatialperspective afforded by attention to geography illuminates the mobilization, practices andtrajectory of the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance (OlyPMR), an anti-war groupcommitted to direct action against the militarys use of ports in and around Olympia,Washington. Through interviews with OlyPMR participants and documental research,this paper shows that place and scale are co-implicated and contingent spatialitiesinextricably linked together in important ways for collective action.


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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Acknowledgements.4

Introduction: Space, Place, Scale and the Olympia PortMilitarization Resistance5

Chapter 2: Geography and Direct Action I:Mobilizing the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance18

Chapter 3: Geography and Direct Action II:Limitations of the Olympia Port MilitarizationResistance..33

Chapter 4: Context, Contingency, and Diffusion:Building the Anti-War Movement Around Fort Lewis45

Conclusions: The Implications of a Geographical Perspective andFurther Directions In Exploring Community inContentious Politics51

References Cited53


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AC K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

This paper would not exist if it were not for Phil Chinn. Thank you for being an enthusiasticparticipant in the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, a dependable chauffeur and

personal assistant during my research trip to Olympia, and above all, for being an amazingfriend.

I am grateful to Joe Nevins for encouraging me throughout the writing process, and forstressing the benefits of being a deskbound radical.

Thank you Susan Blickstein for teaching the seminar that inspired my focus on geographyand social movements.

Finally, I would like to thank Addie Barnwell, Sam Boyce, and Riane Harper.


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moving out. The Olympian, the newspaper for the city of Olympia, framed the situation

as such: The change in tactics from the groups initial strategy of a passive protest

was met with a stronger police presence and the use of batons and pepper spray (Hill

2007).

While denouncing the actions of the OPD as police brutality, protesters continued

their efforts and vowed to do so when future military shipments moved through the Port

of Olympia. As one Olympia resident and community activist stated, Despite the horror

of the police response to our peaceful demonstrations, OlyPMR will continue resisting

the use of the soldiers and resources of our community to support an unjust, immoral

war (Olympia Port Militarization Resistance 2007). This avowed commitment in the

face of aggressive police response points to an underlying claim that the protestors, as

part of the community they invoke, have the right to determine the business occurring at

the Port of Olympia.

The confrontations suggest that interactions between protesters and the police are

the manifestation of a struggle over spacea struggle over the meaning and use of the

port. The protestersincluding various anti-war, social justice and student activists

construct the port as part of their community, thus implicating them and their fellow

denizens of Olympia in a war they see as unjust and illegal. As a result, certain local anti-

war activists have engaged in public education efforts and direct action1 in order to

prevent military cargo from moving through the port. Why have these actions taken place

1 Direct action is a somewhat ambiguous term referring to political action that must bedistinguished from constitutional and parliamentary styles of activity on the one hand,and from guerilla warfare on the other (Carter 1973: 3). Methods of direct actioninclude, but are not limited to, strikes; sit-ins; civil disobedience such as the deliberatebreaking of laws considered unjust; and financial sanctions imposed by non-state actors,such as a run on the banks.


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in Olympia, as opposed to a different locale? Considering that social relations and

processes, including the struggle over the port, are constituted in and through

geographical space, I apply and extend the constructivist perspective on place and scale

to pursue this question. Accordingly, how do place and scalealongside inter-place and

inter-scale relationsfacilitate OlyPMR efforts, and how do they illuminate OlyPMRs

successes and limitations? In order to answer these questions, I examine how those

involved in the struggle are both employing and negotiating place and scalar dynamics.

These questions entail complex socio-spatial relations that necessitate an

examination of the dynamic material and discursive practices of the significant actors

involved in the strugglenamely, OlyPMR participants, the Olympia Police Department,

and the Port of Olympia Commissioners. To engage these questions requires situating the

campaign to resist the militarization of the port and the actions of both protesters and

other actors within the literature on the geographies of social movements, and more

broadly, literature regarding space and contentious politics. First, however, the term

space and the related spatialities place and scale require clarification.

Toward an Understanding of Space, Place and Scale

Martin and Miller (2003: 145) note widespread agreement in the discipline of

geography that space is socially constructedit is socially produced and constituted as

it, in turn, dialectically constitutes social production and reproduction. In the words of

Massey (2005: 9), space is the product of interrelations; as constituted through

interactions, from the immensity of the global to the intimately tiny...predicated upon the

existence of plurality...[and] is always under construction. This definition points to the


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implications of two other spatial concepts, place and scale. Place operates as a moment

of intersecting spatial flowsincluding investment and disinvestment, conflicting

meanings and values, and the exertion of political control (Martin and Miller 2003:

148). Thus, place is an open constellation of processes rather than a thing, (Massey

2005: 141) imbued with meaning as well as power (Leitner et al. 2008). Furthermore,

place is constituted in part by the interaction of sociospatial processes operating at a

variety of scales as they articulate in specific contexts. Accordingly, issues of scale are

implicit in the concept of place.

Geographic scale is commonly conceptualized as a nested hierarchy of spaces

created through social relations, ranging from the local to the global. It is not

ontologically given, and scale differentiation establishes and is established through the

geographical structure of social interactions (Smith 1992: 73, in Marston 2000: 221).

Delineating geographical scale as a social constructionone that is context for and

constituted by social processescalls attention to the politics of scale, since scale is

never constructed outside the field of power relations and is thus always the product of

struggle, negotiation, compromise, or co-operation (Silvern, 1999: 643). Importantly,

scales are more than the product of social processes, for they are also enmeshed in these

social processes. As a result, some political actors will try to shift the scale of struggle to

gain advantage, while others, favored by an extant scale, will attempt to lock it in

(Miller 2000: 18); the former strategy being one that Smith (1993: 95) calls scale

jumping (in Silvern 1999: 644). To illustrate this last point, Miller points to Herods

(1997) examination of the shifting of labor bargaining from the regional to the national

scale, and also to corporate overseas expansion. Actors such as labor organizers,


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corporate executives, and political activists strategically engage scale in order to

legitimize or challenge existing material and social processes; they draw on and attempt

to negotiate scalar relations to favor their claims. The significance of scale in social

struggles, and the implications of scale in the concept of place, demands that attention be

paid to the geographies of social movements and collective action.

Theorizing Geography and Social Movements

Miller's (2000) effort to bring a geographically sensitive perspective to the study of

social movements presents one of the earliest concerted efforts to address the

implications of space in social movement mobilizations, practices, and trajectories. In

doing so, he demonstrates that social processes operating at a variety of geographic

scales articulate in different ways in different places, thus producing an uneven

landscape of collective action and protest (2000: 66). Other scholars have expanded on

the geographies of contentious politics in order to argue that spatiality is both context for

and constitutive of dynamic process of contention such that it is necessary to pay

attention not only to the pertinence of particular spatialities in particular contexts, but also

to their co-implication...how they shape one another and, thereby, the trajectory of

contentious politics (Miller and Martin 2003: 149; Leitner et al. 2008: 158). Explicitly

addressing and expanding upon this body of literature through conceptual and empirical

analysis, Leitner et al. suggest that a variety of spatialities (place, scale, networks,

positionality, and mobility) matter for the imaginaries, material practices and trajectories

of social movements, and should not be reduced to one single spatiality (2008: 169).

They thus put forth a call for research with a greater engagement of the spatialities of


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contentious politicsresearch that interrogates the co-implications of such spatialities in

shaping political mobilizations and trajectories. It is this demand for such an approach to

social movements that my examination of the geography of the Olympia Port

Militarization Resistance fulfills.

Other literatures on geography and social movements have drawn on social

movement framing literature to investigate how actors utilize spatial categories to frame

problems and solutions. Martin (2003) analyzes the discourse of the goals and agendas of

neighborhood organizations via a place frames perspective. This approach allows for a

more effective understanding of how place informs collective action; however, it is but

one step in understanding how spatial categorizations provide a framework for purposeful

action. The limitations of this framework include inattention to the inter-scalar and inter-

place construction of place and place frames, though this is overcome by employing

Kurtzs (2003) scale frames approach to understanding collective action.

Also drawing on the framing literature, Kurtz analyzes environmental justice

politics through the concept of scale frames and counter-scale frames. Her approach

is particularly useful for understanding the scalar narratives used by social movement

actors to strategically represent social grievances in order to identify issues, assign blame,

and determine solutions with meaningful reference to particular scales. It is further useful

for examining how social movement actors struggle to alter existing social relations and

power established at one geographical scale to another in order to create a more favorable

political opportunity structure (Staeheli 1994; Silvern 1999). It is my contention,

however, that the attention to scalar politics afforded by this framework has more

analytical and practical value when it is coupled with attention to the place and place-


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based conditions enabling collective action. Moreover, this coupling facilitates an

analysis of the relationship between scope and scale and their negotiationwith scope

referring to the territorial extent of localities and actors brought into the purview of

contentious politics.

Entering the Scale Debate in Human Geography

In pursuing an understanding of why Olympia has emerged as a site of opposition

against the war in Iraq through a focus on place and scale, this project enters into the

debate around the concept of scale in human geography. Marston et al. (2005) argue that

scale should be jettisoned in favor of a flat ontology because the dominant conception of

scale is inherently hierarchical, and thus diminishes the possibilities for progressive

politics. I disagree with this conclusion, arguing that scalar identities and discourses,

alongside the material implications of scalar relations, are constitutive of social

movements and political struggle. Through this project I wish to demonstrate that scale

matters greatly for contentious politicsscalar identities and scaled discourses are

constitutive of social movements. In entering the discussion, the implications of my

examination are two-fold, both practically and conceptually. This thesis elucidates how

the spatialities of the struggle empower and constrain the Olympia Port Militarization

Resistance's efforts, while demonstrating the complex ways that place and scale are co-

implicated with one another, and the importance of moving beyond both place as a form

of embedded relations and the representation of contentious politics as solely a politics of

scale. Such an examination reveals that the deployment of 'community' as a site and scale

offers a means for materializing dissent and resistance, but is limited in its ability to


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translate to other locales, scales, and attain a larger scope given the place-specific

conditions enabling and limiting such mobilization. I assert that the exertion of material

pressures through direct action must go hand in hand with efforts by OlyPMR

participants to enlarge the scope of the struggleby engaging more individuals and groups,

which, to use the geographic corollary of scope, requires scaling up the struggle

(Nevins 2004). In other words, OlyPMR participants need to bring new parties into the

struggle to demilitarize the Port of Olympia and into the anti-war movement more

broadly. This process must take into consideration the inter-scalar and inter-place

relations that constitute other locales given that the discourse and material actions of

OlyPMR are context-specific and thus unlikely to resonate with potential participants in

other locations. OlyPMR participants draw upon specific spatial and temporal narratives

in their place and scale framescommunity, the implications of the militarys use of

the Port of Olympia for this community, and the history of the Pacific Northwestto

justify their actions; however, I will demonstrate that this is also playing a role in limiting

the efficacy of their efforts to expand the scope and scale of the struggle.

The Conceptual Complexity of Community

The construction of community is central to the struggle over space examined here,

and necessitates a review of the literature exploring the concept of community, in

particular the relationship between 'community' and political mobilization. Martin (2003),

in her examination of how the constitution of a neighborhood informs and enables

political organizing and activism, presents one such exploration through her discussion of

the ambiguous relationship between neighborhood, place, and community. She notes that


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place, as a setting for and situated in the operation of social and economic processes

that also grounds everyday life and experience, embodies the concept of neighborhood

she draws on in her research. She in turn discusses the implicit connection between

neighborhood and community that exists as both become meaningful...because of the

interactions among people in them or from shared values and interests (732). She

thereby articulates 'community' as a potential site and scale for generating meaning and

mobilizing activism.

Miller explicitly addresses the issues regarding the complexity of 'community',

focusing, however, on the conflation of the terms 'community' and 'place,' arguing that

they are not equivalent and affect collective action in very different ways (2000: 56). In

contending with the ambiguities embodied by conceptions of community and place, he

notes that community can be place-specific (in the sense of being constituted in a

discrete geographical setting) or geographically extensive (shared by dispersed

populations) (57). This falls in line with and expands upon Martin's elaboration on

place, neighborhood, and community. As Miller (2000: 57) notes, meanings,

understandings, and sense of 'existential belonging' developed in a place-based

community are rooted in communicative action; this in turn can have implications for

political action. Debates regarding the conceptual and practical relationships between

neighborhood, place, and communityespecially in regards to collective action and

contentious politicshighlight the importance of engaging directly with the spatialities

of social movement actors.

Operationalizing Place and Scale: Extending the Place Frames Approach


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how effective larger scale mobilization would require that place and scale frames

resonate with the diverse localities that are inherent to broadening the scope of the

struggle. In doing so, I also extend and build upon Martins framework in order to shed

light on the importance of inter-place and inter-scale relations, as well as on the

negotiation of scope and scale.

In order to employ this framework in examining the struggle over the Port of

Olympia, this project draws upon OlyPMR press releases, newspaper articles, and

ethnographic research to discern the narratives employed by participants. In January 2009

I conducted face-to-face interviews with twelve OlyPMR participants, all of whom

witnessed and/or participated in at least one of the direct actions. The majority of

interviewees were students or former students of Evergreen State College, but also

included a professor from the college, a U.S. Navy veteran, and two long-time activists

who have lived in Olympia, WA, for many years. The nature of the actions that most of

the interviewees engaged in requires that a few of them are not identified by their full

names. An understanding of the spatialities implicated in the struggle requires that the

actions of and discourse used by actors contesting the efforts of the OlyPMR also be

examined. This entailed analyzing the newspaper reports about OlyPMR's protests at the

port and the criminal charges leveled at protest participants. This is supplemented by

interviews with Commander Tor Bjornstad of the Olympia Police Department.

Chapter Outline

In chapter two, I explore place and scale as spatial categories implicated in the

facilitation of OlyPMRs activism. I first discuss the place-based activist community that


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precipitated the emergence of OlyPMR. I then discuss Olympia and the port as spatially

and historically contingent places wherein participants are able to draw upon the history

of the region in their motivational narratives and thus legitimize direct action. I follow

this with an emphasis on the importance of the built environment in facilitating and

shaping the struggle; and finally the co-implications of space, place and scale in the

framing discourse employed by OlyPMR participants.

In chapter three, I argue that because Olympia offers a unique context in and

through which the materialization of antiwar resistance occurs, and because place is

spatially and historically contingent, place and scale also act as constraints to the

collective action of OlyPMR and to the diffusion of their specific ideas and practices.

Such an examination reveals that the deployment of community in relation to the Port

of Olympia is a means for OlyPMR to shape and legitimize their actions, but is limited in

its ability to translate to other locales, scales, and to attain a larger scope given the place-

specific conditions enabling such mobilization and the broader-scale processes and

political opportunities that act as constraints.

Within the fourth chapter, I focus on place and possibility for the broader antiwar

movement through the lens of Olympias Port Militarization Resistance. Several

OlyPMR participants interviewed recognize the potential for coalition building between

the civilian peace community and the military community in the Olympia area given the

proximity of the two communities, and especially since Fort Lewisthe largest military

installation on the West Coast of the United States located 15 miles from Olympiahas

emerged as a center for American GI dissent in connection to the war in Iraq. In doing so,

I argue that Olympia has great potential for the building of this particular coalition. I


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discuss briefly GI resistance around Fort Lewis during the Vietnam War in order to

situate the importance of such potential. Throughout, I emphasize the significance of

context, contingency, and spatial diffusion of ideas and practices.

By way of a brief conclusion, I reflect on place and scale as co-implicated and

historically contingent spatialities, arguing that they are inextricably linked together in

important ways for collective action. To favor one type of spatiality over another

weakens analyses of contentious action; in the case of OlyPMR, place and scale reveal

community as both a site and scale with significant implications for collective action. I

also attend to the limitations of my own analysis, and conclude with ideas for future

research into OlyPMR and the anti-war movement in Olympia, Washington.


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Chapter Two: Geography and Direct Action: Mobilizing the Olympia Port

Militarization Resistance

People are tired of being ignored by politicians and the media and areready to take their actions to a higher level. For many, military convoys

returning to Olympia would provide the perfect opportunity for CD [civildisobedience].-Port Militarization Resister Sandy Mayes

In 2004, the Port of Olympia began processing military shipments moving between Iraq

and the Fort Lewis military base, located 15 miles north of Olympia, Washington. As

soon as local anti-war and social justice activists received this news, they demanded that

Olympia officials not permit the port to be used for military cargo going to and from Iraq

as a stand against the war. They employed a variety of tacticsincluding letter-writing

and petitioning public officials in open forumsto oppose the U.S. occupation of Iraq

and Port of Olympias profit from it (Olympia Port Militarization Resistance 2006). In

May 2006, upon hearing the news that military weapons cargo would again move through

the port, members of the various anti-war and social justice groups formed the Port

Militarization Resistance (OlyPMR) organization to coordinate actions around the U.S.

militarys use of the port. The organization's strategy from the beginning has included

public education about the war and how the military's use of the port supports the military

occupation, and a commitment to non-violent civil disobedience through direct action

(Bohmer 2007). Protest participants and bystanders at the port emphasize direct action as

the main tactical approach of OlyPMR and perceive this as rare and unusual in the

current anti-war movement context. Grossman, in describing the November 2007

demonstrations at the Port of Olympia, commented

Many rallies Ive attended around the country since the Iraq invasion havefit the stereotype of a privileged peace movement led by hippies or


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yuppies, and largely dominated by men. But the recent port protests feltdifferent, with new faces, perspectives and life experiences. I noticed aslight increase in participation by people of color, especially women ofcolor who participated in the street actions. There may be more peoplewho are bored or frustrated with just attending vigils or listening to talking

heads, but who come out of the woodwork to join an action (Grossman2007).

How, and why, has Olympia, Washington, emerged as a site of direct action against the

U.S. occupation of Iraq? I attempt to answer this question by examining the actions and

discourse of OlyPMR with attention to spatial and historical contexts. In doing so, I seek

to understand how geography matters to the mobilization, practices, and trajectory of the

Olympia Port Militarization Resistance rather than to provide a causal explanation.

Looking At and Beyond a Place-Based Activist Community

The events that unfolded in November 2007 at the Port of Olympia involved a

series of human and structural blockades of the two entrances to the port that slowed

down, and, for two periods of twelve hours or more, stalled the unloading of military

cargo from the USNS Brittin. The tactics used to achieve the disruption did not

spontaneously transpire and become acceptable to the majority of participants; rather, a

process of mobilization both before and during the actions resulted in the use of

disruptive tactics.

A meeting of about sixty people preceded the November 2007 demonstrations,

where a conversation ensued regarding whether actions should occur, given that the

shipment was returning from Iraq and not going there. The opinion to act won, but a

portion of the participants felt a certain amount of unease. Pointing to the change in

discourse over the time of the demonstrations, Khanna noted that by the next day people


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started acting, and instantly opinion moved further in that direction. So it wasnt a

question of are we going to act but how are we going to act and what [tactics] are we

going to use? (personal communication). The discussion turned into a contentious

debate regarding the acceptability of building structural barricades, but after a few days

of demonstrations, divisions between those favoring physical barricades versus those

who have favored sitting down in front of the trucks leaving the portdiminished as both

tactics were seen as having value by most participants (Bohmer 2007). Direct action was

the result of a process involving place-based face-to-face interactions among participants

not just a singular event at the port.

The process of building up collective engagement in direct action both before and

during the November 2007 port actions speaks to the concept of capacity building

developed by Welsh (2000 and 2001) and elaborated by Wall et al. (2002). This concept

describes how direct action creates the resources for further direct action and says that

the construction of the capacity for societies to engage in non-violent direct action [is] a

result of a process of solidarity building that occurs mainly in centres of intensive local

mobilization, that is, mainly in specific locations (Wall et al. 2002: 2). This solidarity

building is an extension of social movement theorist Meluccis (1989) concept of

submerged networks. Melucci argues that social movements cannot be understood

independently of the submerged networks of everyday life from which they emerge and

that these below-surface relations are rooted in place. These invisible networks, argue

Walsh (2000 and 2001) and Wall et al. (2002), are situated in specific physical locations

that facilitate interactions between individuals and groups, and establish activist

communities (Wall et al. 2002: 1). The development of OlyPMR collective efforts


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signal the existence of this type of place-based communitya community that is also

referenced by many of the participants interviewed. As long-time Olympia activist Patty

stated, the community within Olympia is compact enough wherein its easier to build

those networks without having to rely on a larger network that will define [activism] for

you (personal communication). In reflecting on the port protests and the development of

local antiwar activism as a social movement, Evergreen State College professor of

Geography Zoltn Grossman noted,

In Thurston County [where Olympia is located] we have a situation uniqueto the entire country: the juxtaposition ofa large antiwar progressive

community next to one of the largest Army bases in the United States.Students, soldiers and other local residents are making a stand that is beingnoticed in the rest of the country and the world (2007, emphasis added).

The existence of this anti-war community as a submerged network rooted in place with

the capacity to create resources for direct action is obviously critical to the emergence of

OlyPMR and the struggle over the port. Grossmans quotethe juxtaposition of the

activist community to the Army basesuggests that the geography of the struggle

extends beyond social relations within Olympia. I contend that a focus on place

embeddedness does not go far enough in explaining the emergence of social movements

and collective action. Attention to the multiple and interrelated spatialitiesin particular

place (as open and fluid rather than closed and static) and scaleof the struggle yields a

more nuanced and comprehensive analysis of OlyPMRs mobilization and trajectory. In

the following section, I will approach Olympia and the Pacific Northwest through a

perspective that emphasizes place as both a geographic location and as a dynamic

constellation of social, political, and economic processes (Massey 2005). I focus on the


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spatio-temporal processes and relations that shape the struggle and inform many of the

narratives employed by OlyPMR participants.

Setting the Scene for Direct Action in Olympia and the Pacific Northwest

Olympia, Washington, is located at the southernmost point of the Puget Sound, in

Thurston County. Located on Budd Inlet and thereby having the advantage of a port,

Olympia emerged as a major waterborne transportation center with an established

mercantile trade by the early 1860s. The vast forests surrounding the Sound that tied the

developing economy to timber were central to this trade. Wood products became the

major export and primary driver of the local economy as a result of this abundant natural

resource. The economic dependence on extractive industries has not been unique to

Olympia; rather, it characterizes all of the Pacific Northwest, where mines, fisheries,

farms, and ranches have been at the heart of the regions economic productivity. As the

Pacific Northwest developed into the twentieth century, the extractive industries

produced more than the regions population could consume, thus becoming dependent

upon outsideand to a very significant degree, internationalmarkets. The region has

therefore been particularly vulnerable to national and international market fluctuations

(Schwantes, 1996; Stevenson, 1997; Rainey).

At the turn of the twentieth century, the forest products market was notoriously

unstable, with logging and milling firms working with very thin profit margins. As a

result, their labor practices entailed frequent wage cuts and a high annual rate of labor

turnover, especially in the lumber camps. This condition led to the migratory habits of

Northwest loggers. Regardless of the instability of the timber market, Washington was


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the number one lumber-producing state by 1910. The centrality of lumber production was

accompanied by an equally important focus on ports, which have been of great

significance to the Pacific Northwest for transporting goods between American and Asian

markets, even with the advent of other modes of transportation (Schwantes, 1996;

Stevenson, 1997).

The working conditions involved in logging and dockside work, and the

importance of these industries to the Pacific Northwest, in particular along the Pacific

coast and around the Puget Sound, contributed to the defining characteristics of the labor

force there in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The distinguishing

features of the wageworkers frontiernotably the predominance of manual labor and a

large nonfactory work forcewere reflected in the character of the Pacific Northwests

labor movement according to Schwantes (1996: 335). The rise of organized labor in

western Washington was characterized by militant radicalism more so than in other parts

of the United States, such as the East coast, where unions tended to have less power and

importance. Most workers were longshoremen and loggers, with the longshoremen

workforce consisting mostly of former seamen and loggers. The radical propensities of

these laborers were partly a result of their extraordinary geographic mobility, which

converged with some of the roughest and most arbitrary working conditions in the United

States at that time to produce a strain of militancy within organized labor (Kimeldorf

1988; Schwantes 1996: 335). Of the various Northwest labor organizations, the Industrial

Workers of the World (IWW), an anarcho-syndicalist organization whose members are

referred to as Wobblies, has been one of the more well known. Their founding goal was


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to promote worker solidarity in a revolutionary struggle to overthrow the employing class

through on-the-job direct action and strikes.

Kimeldorf (1988) attributes the Wobblies success in the West to the occupational

recruitment of the dockside labor force that drew from former seamen and loggers.

Unorthodox organizing tactics, colorful protest songs, and the Wobblies reputation for

defiance gained the IWW widespread notoriety and made them vulnerable to vigilantism

and other forms of repressive action. Labor-related violence in the region occurred

frequently during the late 1800s, and appeared to cease with the 1919 shoot-out between

the Wobblies and American LegionnairesWorld War I veterans and members of the

local American Legionin Centralia, Washington. Though violence marred labor

organizing in the Northwest, Schwantes argues that the Wobblies did not initiate a new

and violent era of labor-management relations. The IWW merely elaborated on a

tradition of militancy and radicalism that already existed among Northwest

wageworkers (1996: 341)a tradition that provides a frame of reference for activists

today. Though the predominance of non-factory wageworkers and labor organizing in the

Pacific Northwest dissipated between the two world wars due to technological, political

and economic changes that diminished the power wielded through labor organizing, the

worker responses to the unpleasant realities of life has had a continued impact on the

social realities of the region (Schwantes 1996). This history has left a legacy of militancy

and radicalism that individuals and groups draw on to inform their narratives about

activism and protest in the Northwest. For example, several OlyPMR participants

explicitly reference this history in relation to their participation in resisting the militarys

use of the port in Olympia, with one participant connecting it to the Northwests


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rich, radical tradition from labor unrest with the Wobblies, and militancythrough the civil rights era and the anti-Vietnam War era, thenIn themid to late-nineties with the forest-based actions and environmental-typedirect actionThen obviously with the protests at the [World TradeOrganization] conference in Seattle [in 1999], theres a rich tradition of

that (Berryhill, personal communication).

The legacy of radical and militant organizing is reproduced through in the Port

Militarization Resistance, in which participants have cited the regions rich, radical

tradition as one impetus for their direct action against the Iraq War. Participant Katherine

Olejnik noted that OlyPMR is occurring in this place where direct action, while not

always accepted, is more acceptable than in other places (personal communication).

Another participant, Shyam Khanna, corroborates this embedded history of direct action:

I think part of it [OlyPMRs tactical repertoire] is that the Northwest andespecially Olympia has this really long history of direct action, soitssomething [that has been] rooted in the culture for a long time, butespecially the past couple of decades, like Seattle [the 1999 WTOprotests] and a lot of the forest [actions] that were going on. Andtherehas been a long history of organizing, especially anti-capitalistorganizing in Olympia and in this area, [such] that these ideas arecommonplace (personal communication).

This spatially situated historical narrative and the anti-war community in Olympia does

not, however, sufficiently shed light on the emergence of OlyPMR. A more explicitly

spatial approachincluding a focus on the material space of the city and portmoves a

step closer to an explanation, as I demonstrate in the ensuing section.

Strategic and Tactical Importance of the Built Environment

The built environment of Olympiawith the presence of the Evergreen State

College and the location of the porthas played a very important role in shaping the

mobilization and trajectory of efforts to demilitarize the port and the community. These


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factors, alongside the proximity of Olympia to Fort Lewis, are important for

understanding the place and scale dynamics of the struggle.

The majority of OlyPMR participants interviewed mentioned the importance of

the Evergreen State Collegea public liberal arts school with a reputation for attracting

both progressive students and professorsto the struggle. The existence of this

institution within Olympia has had manifold consequences for the resistance to port

militarization, with a large portion of the participants either being students at the college

or formers students. Additionally, as participant Berryhill points out, a number of the

professors are politically radical, and since many of them stay in town, they bring this

radical consciousness, so to speak, and tend to be involved in various projects that are

politically motivated, politically inspiredradically inspired, and thatencourages this

sort of thing [OlyPMR efforts] to unfold (personal communication). The proximity of

such a progressively oriented school to a large military installation generates a unique

opportunity for anti-war sentiments to be acted uponone that renders the war a more

locally experienced conflict that can therefore be addressed locally. Additionally, the

location of the Port of Olympia in the downtown area of the city has contributed to such

opportunities for direct action against the war.

In discussing the emergence of port actions, participant Katherine Olejnik pointed

to the small size of the city and the centrality of the port in downtown Olympia as

important factors contributing to creation of Olympia Port Militarization Resistance

(personal communication). Other participants have also pointed to the spatial

configuration of the port and the city as factors that have contributed to the successful

mobilization of the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance. The proximity of businesses


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and residences to the port not only make the port more visible and accessible, but it also

offers a layer of protection because OlyPMR participants tend to be familiar with the area

and the people who live and work nearby (figure 1). The spatial setting of the city and the

port and the social relations embedded in this setting are especially relevant to an analysis

of the actions prompted by the arrival of the USNS Brittin at the Port of Olympia on

November 5, 2007. The spatial configuration of the area is inextricably linked with the

specific direct action tactics used and the trajectory of events. The material

manifestations of place and space, even alongside a spatial and historical examination, do

not adequately explain the emergence of OlyPMR. Hence, I follow this with an

examination of how place is employed discursively by OlyPMR participants by applying

and extending Martins (2003) place frames approach.

Figure 1. Spatial Layout of Olympia, WA (Thurston County GeoData Center 2009, adapted by author).


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Framing Place and Mobilizing the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance

The reference to community by anti-war activists involved in the struggle

ostensibly refers to all residents of Olympia, Washington. As this reference is deployed in

relation to the port, the fact that the port is a municipal corporation and that the Board of

Commissioners consists of three elected officials at the city level justifies, for OlyPMR

activists, the connection between the community, the port, and the occupation of Iraq

(Port of Olympia). As a result, those opposed to the occupation are able to frame the port

and its position within the 'space of flows' (Castells 1999) of military cargo as implicating

the community of Olympia in the broader-scale processes of war and occupation. This

allows the participants to make the war more locally obviousconnecting the

community of Olympia to a war occurring in an entirely different part of the worldand

therefore generates a motivational place-frame that connects the daily-lifespaces (rather

than just daily-life experiences, as Martin [2003: 736, emphasis added] suggests) of the

community to the war. This motivational place-frame reveals the co-implications of

space, place, and scalehere, events occurring in different places (the direct, physical

violence occurring in Iraq, and the business taking place at the port as a component of

this violence) and processes occurring at different scales (the inter-scalar relations of

local anti-war activism and international warfare)in the generation of meanings

attached to the port. This is intended to mobilize members of the community to resist the

militarization of the port and thereby engage in strategies to end the occupation.

Several participants interviewed point to the material environment of Olympia as

critical in making the war a more locally obvious occurrence. As mentioned, Olympia

itself is located 15 miles from Fort Lewis, the largest military installation on the West


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coast of the United States (figure 2). This proximity has allowed the war to be seen and

heard everyday: residents see Chinook helicopters and Stryker vehicles, and hear 155mm

howitzer fire on the artillery firing range at Fort Lewis. As Grossman asserts, Theres a

reality that the anti-war movement here faces, that the war is real, its here, it involves

real human beings in a way that elsewhere in the country you can abstract (personal

communication). These conditions offer an opportunity for anti-war action that is not

available to other progressive towns, and with that there is a responsibilityto

cateractivities to what the regional dynamics offermeaning that the spatial and

material configurations of the region are central to the mobilization of OlyPMR

(Berryhill, personal communication). This material environment is historically

constructed, and regulates and mediates the social relations and daily routines within the

city and Thurston County, and is thus imbued with power (Leitner et al. 2008).

Consequently, this materiality provides the context in and through which the discursive

strategies employed by OlyPMR facilitate the mobilization, practices, and trajectory of

their efforts to demilitarize the port.

Figure 2. Proximity of Olympia, WA to Fort Lewis Army Base(Google Maps 2009).


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In order to parse the discursive aspects and practices of OlyPMR, I employ Martins

(2003) place-frames approach to collective action. Following this framework, I now turn

to the diagnostic place-frames employed by OlyPMR. Diagnostic frames refer to when

collective-action organizations describe problems that they purport to address and assign

blame or causes for the problems (Martin 2003: 739). In approaching the OlyPMR

campaign, however, the diagnostic place-frames diverge significantly from the

neighborhood place-frames analyzed by Martin. Rather than assigning the blame for

locally experienced problems to either larger-scale processes or to individuals, OlyPMR

participants scale down the international war so that grievances against it can be

articulated and enacted upon locally. Scaling down refers the process through which the

international war is framed in its local manifestation of military cargo moving through

the Port of Olympia. It is important to highlight the relational and contextual interplay of

place and scale for collective action in this situation. It speaks to what Leitner et al.

(2008: 158) argue: that Participants in contentious politics are enormously creative in

cobbling together different spatial imaginaries and strategies on the fly, without deep

reflection on the philosophical implications. Anti-war activists draw upon and shape the

dynamic relations of place and scale without reflecting on the philosophical implications

of these spatialities. The participants share grievances against the U.S. military

occupation of Iraq, and what they perceive as their communitys complicity in this, by

framing the problem as one that can be addressed through a focus on the militarys use of

the port. Thus they are able to take specific actions around the port based upon a

particular framing of the problem.


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Directly related to the motivational and diagnostic frames employed by OlyPMR

are the prognostic frames, or how collective action organizations identify the actions

that collective organizations take, the solutions that they propose to solve the problems

that they have identified (Martin 2003: 742). As Martin (2003: 745) notes, the

separation of these frames is somewhat artificial; however, she demonstrates that doing

so is beneficialto a certain extentfor examining the construction of place-based

agendas for activism. In the case of OlyPMR, Grossman argues that the protests are

directed in part at the port and the military, but also at silence and passivity in regards to

the occupation of Iraq (2007).

This points to the prognostic framing by protest participants in which they see

problems arising out of inaction against the occupation of Iraq and conceptually and

discursively decrease the scale of the problem to the local community in such a way that

they are then able to counteract such passivity. This discursive strategy is interrelated

with the material conditions in Olympia; however, their analytic separation is necessary

to examine the place-framing process. The particular framing of the problems as brought

into play in the struggleproblems that include a broad scope of issues ranging from

human rights abuses to the dangers posed to American soldiersallows for them to be

experienced and acted upon locally. Additionally, in focusing on the use of the port

rather than just focusing on it as a military installation, the actions have been able to

educate people in the community about the place and the interrelationships of the fort

and the port and the larger community (Grossman, personal communication). The place

framing of OlyPMR has thus allowed certain inter-scalar relationships to become visible

as they emerge in place. In other words, OlyPMR participants frame the military cargo


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moving through the port as a local manifestation of international warfare. This

motivational discourse legitimizesfor participants and supportive bystanders at least

direct action, which in turn reveals the connections between the cargo, the community,

and nearby Fort Lewis (and consequently the U.S. military and its broader operations).

I have applied Martins (2003) place frames approach to social movements as a

way to analyze the mobilization of OlyPMR and its related spatialities. In doing so, I

have extended the framework by looking beyond place embeddedness and by bringing

attention to the inter-scale relations central to their framing. I have also sought to

highlight the scalar strategies used in this framingthe scaling down of the war in Iraq to

the local level of Olympiathat are inextricably linked to place and inter-scalar relations.

Through this I have sought to highlight the complex co-implications of space, place and

scale as they shape and articulate the struggle over the Port of Olympia, and demonstrate

that to favor one type of spatiality over another would detract from analyses of

contentious politics.


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Chapter Three: Geography and Direct Action: Limitations of the Olympia Port

Militarization Resistance

The Olympia Port Militarization Resistance mobilized to stop the movement of military

cargo through the Port of Olympia, and over the course of time OlyPMR participants

have attempted to do the same at ports in nearby cities, including Tacoma and Aberdeen,

Washington. These actions have successfully garnered limited but noteworthy media and

public attention. The military has, however, begun to play a shell game with cargo by

using different ports for each shipment, undermining efforts to stop the flow of military

goods (Grossman, personal communication). In addition to the goal of preventing the

militarys use of the Port of Olympia and other regional ports, OlyPMR participants have

sought to expand their geographical and political reach by inspiring other communities to

resist cooperation with the military. This goal has also been met with limited success.

Each of these unrealized goals indicates the central role that geography plays in the

limitations of OlyPMR endeavors. Accordingly, how do space and the related spatialities

place and scale illuminate the limitations facing OlyPMR?

In this chapter I discuss the factors that undermine OlyPMRs efforts to stop the

militarys use of the Port of Olympia and to expand the scope of the struggle. I begin with

a focus on the historically and geographically constituted interrelationships of the port,

the military, and the communities in Olympia. This provides the context in and through

which critics of OlyPMR frame their opposition and counter the claims made by

OlyPMR participants.

Socioeconomic Context of the Pacific Northwest: The Military and Ports Since WWI


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The commencement of World War I brought far-reaching changes to the entirety

of the Pacific Northwest. One of the more sudden changes was the drastic increase in

shipbuilding industries, which swelled to rank second in size only to the lumber industry

in Washington. In Olympia, shipbuilding commenced in 1917. In addition, the war

brought about the construction of Camp Lewis in 1917upgraded to a fort in 1927

fifteen miles north of Olympia. Though the end of the war brought with it a severe

reduction in shipbuilding employment, lumber and plywood mills sprung up around the

southern end of the Puget Sound and heralded renewed efforts to develop the Port of

Olympia. A rising state government in Olympia accompanied by a boom in construction

also meant growth in the county economy. The building spree in and around Olympia in

the 1920s signaled government-fueled prosperity.

In 1922, a considerable civic effort resulted in the creation of a port district in

Olympia to protect and enhance the communitys vital waterborne trade by establishing

public management of maritime facilities wharfs, warehouses and rail (Port of

Olympia 2008). This was a result of the 1911 Washington State Legislature authorizing

the formation of ports as municipal corporations of the state, classified as special purpose

districts with taxing authority. This was an important change for the Port and for

Olympia, but the onset of the Second World War and its accompanying mobilization of

resources would bring about even greater changes.

World War II wrought important and lasting transformations in the Pacific

Northwest. The full extent of wars impact is still unaccounted for, but by the early 1940s

a substantial construction boom greatly transformed the Puget Sound area, one of the

regions two main centers of war-related production. The region converted from


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peacetime to wartime production in a unique manner, with the war superimposing large

manufacturing industries over existing extractive industries. Additional changes wrought

by the war included profound population changes. In the state of Washington alone there

came to be than fifty relatively large army and navy bases, with the greatest concentration

of military personnel being in the Fort Lewis-Camp Murray-McChord Field area south of

Tacoma and in close proximity to Olympia (Schwantes 1996). During the war, operations

at nearby Fort Lewis increased several fold, forcing soldiers and their families into

Olympia and its suburb Lacey for housing and other services (Rainey). Additionally,

once the war ceased a significant number of discharged and retired military personnel and

their families settled in Thurston County, thereby establishing a military community. The

military and Fort Lewis have since become an integral part of the social and economic

fabric of the region encompassing Olympia.

The impact of World War IIs end included an immediate increase in

unemployment; however, the Northwests postwar economic adjustments did not disrupt

the region as greatly as predicted (Schwantes 1996). Economically, the region kept its

close ties to extractive industries. At the Port of Olympia and in its environs, activity

continued despite the massive decrease in military shipments, and the port remained

profitable for the city. The Korean War saw military cargo moving through the port yet

again, and lumber exports remained a major source of revenue for the port. The year

1957 was the high-water mark in postwar lumber shipments, with 161 million board feet

of lumber leaving the docks (Stevenson 1997).

The 1960s saw multiple changes that signaled an eventual end to the lumber trade.

Between the closing of the Olympia Canning Company, a move toward small shipments


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of scrap logs to Japan, and the passing of the Jones Actwhich effectively eliminated

inter-coastal trade between the eastern and western U.S. portsthe Port of Olympia

developed a primary dependence upon log exports. These log exports continued to be the

ports main cargo into the 1980s, but 1988 marked the peak export volume. As fewer and

fewer log ships made Olympia port calls, though, the Port committed itself to an

extensive comprehensive planning process beginning in 1992 (Stevenson 1997). The

plans and subsequent efforts included converting the marine terminal industrial area into

mixed use, publicly accessible property. The changes have been minimally successful,

and the Port of Olympia continues to make every effort to become a lucrative asset to the

city of Olympia once againa financial motive that is central to port officials opposition

to the campaign against the militarys use of the port.

No Longer an Asset: Recent Financial Troubles at the Port of Olympia

In setting out to fulfill obligations as the only government [agency] whose

primary responsibility is to foster economic activity for their communities, the Port of

Olympia has made efforts to promote economic development while remaining profitable

(Port of Olympia 2008). This latter task proved too difficult in October 1998 when the

port suffered financially because of the abrupt closing of the Sunmar Shipping Lines,

leaving the port with about five million dollars in debt accrued to develop a terminal

specifically for the line (Gibbs 2001). This fortune was slightly reversed in 2001,

however, when the Plum Creek Timber Company moved its log yard from Tacoma,

Washington to Olympia.


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The added revenues from Plum Creeks move to the area were significant;

however, the revenues could not compare with the height reached during the 1980s when

annual log exports were at their zenith. In 2004, these revenues were supplemented by the

renewed acceptance of military shipments by the Port of Olympia after a 17-year hiatus

(Szymanski 2006). The resumed relationship between the port and the military came

about when shipments moving between Fort Lewis and the Middle East overwhelmed the

Port of Tacoma. As a result, the military needed to use other local ports, and the Port of

Olympia, being in financial straits, was eager to accept military cargo.

In November 2007, the military shipment coming in on the USNS Brittinthe

13th military vessel to dock at the Port of Olympia since 2004earned about $400,000

for the port, which represented nearly 40 percent of the revenue earned by the ports

marine terminal that year (Hill 2008). Even with the revenues made from military

shipments, some Olympia residents have questioned the ports economic viability given

that the port still saw financial losses in 2007. The losses were the result of myriad

factors, including the postponed relocation of the major log export company

Weyerhaeuser to Olympia that promised to bring financial gains to the municipal

corporation. The company made an agreement in 2006 to move to the Port of Olympia

with a five-year lease, but lawsuits and petitions regarding the environmental hazards of

the business relocation postponed the move until January of 2009. This contributed to

the $500,000 financial loss the port suffered in 2007 (Szymanski 2008). As a result, the

port has become economically dependent upon military shipments.

The resolution of the port to maintain the business relations with the military was

made clear in October 2008, when port commissioners passed a resolution to pursue


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appropriate damages and all available remedies through civil actions against protesters

who block port roads, refuse to disperse, interfere with port business and/or damage

public property (Olympian 2008). This decision was aimed at OlyPMR participants, and

is revealing of the port commissioners framing of the struggle over the port.

The response of port commissioners to OlyPMRs actions is one of the many

condemnations voiced by local denizens antagonistic to OlyPMRs anti-war stance and

direct action tactics. The condemnations are often formulated in terms of what is good for

or representative of the communityfor example, the port and its business transactions

are portrayed as assets to the community of Olympia. According to OPD Commander Tor

Bjornstad, disruption at the port disrupts everyday business in the Olympia community

(personal communication). The deployment of community is inextricably linked to the

context in and through which critics of OlyPMR frame their opposition in order to

counter the claims made by OlyPMR participants

Countering the Framing Discourse of OlyPMR

The anti-war community active in the OlyPMR is defined both spatially

(territorially) and by shared interests and values (relationally); however, the community

they invoke in their place framing brings multiple audiences with distinctive political

dispositions and solidarities into the purview of the struggle. Not every denizen of

Olympia is sympathetic to the interests and values of the anti-war community, and

OlyPMRs efforts have met with opposition from a significant portion of Olympia

residents alongside the ports Board of Commissioners and the Olympia Police

Department. These actors, involved in the struggle over the port in differing ways,


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counter the attempts of OlyPMR participants to stop the militarys use of the port with

their own framing discourses and actions, which are henceforth termed counter-place

frames.

The term counter-place frames is derived from Kurtzs conceptualization of

counter-scale framesdiscursive strategies directed at undermining one or more

elements of scale-oriented collective action frames (2003: 896). Counter-place frames

differ from counter-scale frames by shifting the focus away from a single type of

spatiality. Place is constituted in part by the interaction of sociospatial processes

operating at a variety of scales as they articulate in specific contextsthus the adaptation

of counter-scale frames to consider place brings scalar relations and strategies into the

scope of concerns, yielding a more nuanced understanding of the discursive and material

processes of the struggle.

The interaction of the place frames and counter-place frames within the struggle

over the Port of Olympia plays an important role in shaping the trajectory of OlyPMR.

The differences in frames among port officials, OlyPMR participants, and the OPD

speaks to Nicholls (2007: 616) contention that struggles over space are often motivated

and justified by different ways for valuing place. The different ways of valuing the port

are significant factors shaping the claims and counter frames of actors involved in the

struggle.

By invoking Olympia and Fort Lewis as part of their framing strategy and through

their actions, OlyPMR activists provoke the involvement of people who understand these

places as symbolic of patriotism and other values consistent with the military community.

One way that these counter frames have been articulated in Olympia is summed up by the


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response of Darcy Mugarteguian Olympia resident whose husband is a military veteran

and has twice deployed to the Middle Eastto the port protests: Fort Lewis is a big part

of our area and provides many services to these communities...It is the business of the

port, not the protesters, to say who should access the port (Hill 2007).Some of the

individuals at odds with OlyPMRs anti-war stance appear at port actions to voice their

disagreements as counter-protesters. Several of the counter-protesters were present during

the November 2007 actions at the Port of Olympia, expressing their disapproval by

holding inflammatory signs (including one that said Arrest Them) and shouting

derisive statements about OlyPMR participants. In doing so, they were communicating

that OlyPMR protestors are not representative of the larger Olympia community.

Port officials portray the port as an economic asset to the community. As publicly

elected officials, the Board of Commissioners wields more social and material power

than OlyPMR participants. Their framing of the port undermines the demand made by

OlyPMR participants to stop the militarys use of the port. Port officials, largely

unsympathetic to the claims made by OlyPMR, legitimize their refusal to yield to

OlyPMR claims by deploying counter-place frames. The officials material resources and

social agency reinforce the legitimization processwhich itself is inextricably linked to

the geography and history of the area and broader scale processes.

Place valuesas shaped in and refracted through spatial and historical contexts

inform the scalar discourses used to frame the struggle for all involved parties. OlyPMR

participants focus their frames on the site and scale of community and act upon this

framing in order to render the interrelationships of the community, the port, Fort Lewis,

and military operations abroad more transparent. Port officials also ground their framing


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of the port at the site and scale of community, but the place values motivating and

justifying their framing works to undermine OlyPMRs frame.

My cursory examination of the counter frames employed by various actors in the

struggle over the Port of Olympia points to issues that arise within contentious politics at

a local scale and, more specifically, at the site and scale of community. OlyPMR activists

in Olympia invoke community in their framing, but this invocation is far from

universal. Community is also a central to the counter-frames deployed by local actors

antagonistic to OlyPMR. Communityas a local scale (constituted both territorially

and/or relationally) and the related yet distinct concept of community as a site

(constituted through embedded social relations)does not provide uncontested terrain in

and through which contentious politics emerge. Contingent interactions of diverse

(sociologically and geographically) actors occur at the site and scale of community,

leading to diverse and contingent manifestations of contentious politics. These

manifestations are further complicated when actors engaged in contentious politics

attempt to shift the scales of contentiona process attempted by OlyPMR.

Scaling Up the Struggle: Understanding the Socio-Spatial Limitations

Originally formed to specifically protest the militarization of the Port of Olympia,

the scope of OlyPMRs objectives has broadened to include actions at other ports and the

goal of galvanizing other communities to take action against the militarization of their

ports. Peter Bohmer expresses the latter aspiration in his reflections on the strategy and

actions of the November 2007 Port of Olympia protests:

We hope by our actions to inspire direct and militant action against theU.S. war in Iraq and to end the complicity of local communities, e.g., our


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ports in the carrying out of this war. Growing non-cooperation with thiswarby more and more communities is one key part of a strategy to getthe U.S. to withdraw from Iraq (2007).

This goal has been pursued through protests largely involving OlyPMR participants at the

Port of Tacoma and at Grays Harbor in Aberdeen, Washington. Examining these actions

through the lens of place reveals key factors constraining an emergence of port

militarization resistance as a broad-based movement.

The role of spatial and place-based contingencies in facilitating or limiting the

efficacy of scaling up contentious politics is demonstrated through a focus on the March

2007 actions at the Port of Tacoma. Coordinated by OlyPMR, these actions were part of

the effort to demilitarize other ports in the region; however, the dynamics of the action

differed from those that took place at the Port of Olympia. Many of the participants I

interviewed felt that the actions in Tacoma were less effective than actions in Olympia.

The demonstrations in Tacoma suffered from a smaller protester turnout and harsher

police repressionissues directly tied to the spatial constitution of OlyPMR efforts.

One of the most oft-cited reasons for the issues that arose during demonstrations

at the Port of Tacoma was the spatial context and built environment. News of a protest to

resist the movement of military cargo through the Port of Tacoma mobilized mostly

OlyPMR participants, who largely reside in the vicinity of Olympia. The general lack of

familiarity with the Port of Tacoma reduced the number of participants engaged in the

March 2007 actions (Maggie, personal communication). Additionally, unlike the port in

Olympia, the port in Tacoma is located in an industrial area, removed from densely

populated areas. OlyPMR activist Maggie described the setting of the Port of Tacoma,

noting that the desolation of the area created a very real sense of vulnerability that the


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riot police on the scene were able to take advantage of and be more repressive, using

more force, more pepper spray (personal communication).

The aggressive police response in both Tacoma and Olympia has been one of the

most prominent concerns voiced by OlyPMR participants. One of the other prominent

concerns voiced by anti-war activists within the local Olympia community has been that

preventing the movement of military cargo through the Port of Olympia merely means

that it will just pass through other ports. They wonder if the relocation of shipment

activities to other ports should be considered a success in the anti-militarization efforts.

There is basis for this concernas it has turned out, shipments going in and out of Fort

Lewis have moved through the Port of Tacoma and Grays Harbor in Aberdeen,

Washington. Coe notes, many attribute the militarys shipment of the convoys through

the Port of Tacoma as the direct result of last years campaign against shipments through

the Port of Olympia, some thirty miles to the south (2007). There is debate around the

exact causal relations behind this, however. Protesters say the military chose the Port of

Grays Harbor because Aberdeen is a rural community where there is likely to be less

commotion than has arisen in at Tacoma and in Olympia. Contrary to this assertion, the

newspaperThe Daily World, which reported on the protest at Grays Harbor in May 2007,

stated that

In fact, the protests here were far less dramatic than in the larger cities andcaused no disruption of the shipments. While the Port of Tacoma is thestrategic port for military shipments from the Pacific Northwest, GraysHarbor was chosen for this shipmentsimply because of its availability andthe type of mission, officials say (Horton 2007, emphasis added).

Hence, officials give no credence to the claims made by protestors that their actions had

any real effects. This does not mean, of course, that the protests did not have any such


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effects. This merely points to one more aspect of the struggle over the space of the Port

of Olympia and other ports in the region. The debate around this issue also consists of

discussion regarding the symbolic benefits of the port actions, even if materially they do

not manage to stop the functioning of the 'war machine.'

In discussing the merits of the Port Militarization Resistance in regards to

bringing about genuine change and 'shutting down the war machine', Coe focuses on the

ambitious if unproven, theory behind the actions initiated by OlyPMR, arguing:

Whether or not cutting off the supply of Strykers heading from FortLewis to Iraq would deal a deadly blow to the occupation, as

Cuddeford [a Navy veteran and protest participant] suggests, iscertainly debatable, but one thing that is certain is that such actions,on a coordinated and national level, could easily bring the U.S.military machine to a screeching halt. Strategic infrastructuralcomponents such as production points and transport systems(including truck, rail, air field, and sea port), are highly vulnerable tolabor strikes, occupations, and sabotage. The U.S. war machinedepends on the unimpeded operation of these key gears and enginesof industrial militarism, and if they are brought to a halt, the illegaloccupation of Iraq will not be possible. Only a large-scale andstrategically coordinated effort on the part of the people is capable ofsuch an accomplishment, and this level of decentralized andautonomous coordination is sadly lacking in the U.S. anti-warmovement today (2007).

In this quote, Coe brings attention to issues involving scale. While place has informed

and shapedand in turn been shaped bythe activities of the Olympia Port

Militarization Resistance, the movement runs into an issue of translating to other locales.

That is, if Olympia is a unique placea contingent manifestation of sociospatial

processes operating at a variety of scalesfor such materialization of resistance, then

place also presents a constraint to the diffusion of such collective action. As a result, port

militarization resistance actions have manifested largely as localized events.


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Chapter Four: Context, Contingency, and Diffusion: Building the Anti-War

Movement Around Fort Lewis

Fort Lewis has become a national center of G.I. dissent against the Iraq War, asit was during the Vietnam War.

-Zoltn Grossman, 2009

Many critics of the war in Iraq have lamented the absence of a robust anti-war movement.

As the above quote from Grossman signals, however, there are glimmers of hope for the

emergence of a reenergized anti-war movementcentered on G.I. dissent and

resistancearound Fort Lewis. A great deal of recent G.I. dissent has been connected to

this base. It is where Lieutenant Ehren Watada was tried in February 2007 for being the

first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. It is where local peace activists

staged a Citizens Hearing tribunal to present Watadas case that the war is illegal. The

stockade at Fort Lewis has held other Army refusers, including Spc. Suzanne Swift and

Sgt. Kevin Benderman. Furthermore, G.I. Voicean anti-war veteran-led nonprofit

projectoperates locally, and members helped start up the second G.I. coffeehouse,

Coffee Strong, to open since the start of the Iraq War right near the base (Grossman

2009). Why is Fort Lewis an emerging epicenter of the G.I. movement and what are the

implications of this emergencealong with the establishment of a local G.I.

coffeehousefor OlyPMR anti-war efforts? In seeking an answer to these questions, I

emphasize the roles of context, contingency, and the diffusion of ideas and practices,

spatially as well as historically. To begin, I briefly contextualize G.I. resistance during

the Vietnam War and the history of this resistance around Fort Lewis.


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GI Resistance, the Anti-War Movement and Fort Lewis: Past and Present

Cooperation between the civilian peace movement and anti-war military

community members was a significant component of the overarching anti-war movement

during the Vietnam War. During this turbulent period, GI anti-war organizations

emerged as one of the most dynamic forces within the American peace movement, with

specific spaces such as GI coffeehouses playing important roles in facilitating this

emergence (Cortright 2005: 62). In Soldiers in Revolt, Cortright points to the important

role played by civilian radical organizations in sustaining rank-and-file dissent in the

emerging GI movement, noting that one of the first examples of this cooperation was the

GI-Civilian Alliance for Peace (GI-CAP) and the newspaperCounterpointat Fort

LewisGI-CAP developed into one of the most successful early GI-movement groups

(2005: 62). The basis for civilian-soldier collaboration laid by GI-CAP was followed by

the success of the off-base Shelter Half Coffeehouse in Tacoma, WA, which was the fifth

such coffeehouse in the nation, begun in October 1968. At Fort Lewis, the development

of the GI movement was facilitated by the formation of this coffeehouse and the

distribution and publication of underground newspapers and newsletters (Kindig 2008).

The interdependence of the GI movement and the civilian peace movement during

the height of the broader anti-war movement in the Vietnam War-eraand the role that

GI coffeehouses played in facilitating this relationshipsets a historical precedent for the

possibilities arising out of the current, gradual re-emergence of GI coffeehouses. In the

past, the coffeehouses provided space where veterans, active-duty soldiers and civilians

could talk openly about the war, the antiwar movement, and GI rights and resistance

inside the military, as well as music, art and politics (Johnson 2007). These spaces have


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the potential to facilitate the building of an alliance between the civilian peace movement

and the G.I. movement in the area around Fort Lewis. Seth Manzel, director of G.I. Voice

noted, I think this [G.I. coffeehouses] is going to be a real link between the peace

movement and soldiers on the bases that these are outside of (in Grossman 2009).

The establishment of this link would potentially allay Seth Manzels concern that

soldiers understand the reasons for the large direct actions at the Port of Olympia and

Port of Tacoma, and that anti-war protestors understand that G.I.s are not their enemy

(Grossman 2009). When asked about the weaknesses of OlyPMR, several participants I

interviewed raised concerns regarding the perceptions soldiers have of local anti-war

protesters. For example, Berryhill discussed the failure of OlyPMR to formulate ways to

engage members of the nearby military community and build solidarity:

With the setting [of Olympia] there are a lot of military people who live in[the nearby towns] Lacey, Tumwater, and further northweve failed todevelop a message or an outreach program [to these members of themilitary community] to illustrate why we engage in what we have [theport actions], and hopefully well do that in the futurewithout that ourmovement isnt going to be as effective as it could be (Berryhill, personalcommunication).

Indeed, the actions of OlyPMR have had the unfortunate consequence of increasing the

polarization between the large military community and the local anti-war community in

Olympia and surrounding areas. The need to link the two communities in order to build a

more effective movement has become more evident to some OlyPMR participants as the

area around Fort Lewis emerged as a site of G.I. opposition to the war in Iraq.

Contingencies and Diffusion: Fort Lewis as a Site of Opposition to War


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Fort Lewis has emerged as a center of American G.I. dissent against the Iraq War

through organizing and mobilization around specific cases of G.I. resistance. At the base,

Lieutenant Ehren Watada came out against the war in Iraq, making him the first

commissioned officer to do so. Though Olympia was incidental to his resistance his case

has helped to produce Fort Lewis and Olympia sites of opposition.

The emergence of Fort Lewis as this site of opposition has impacted anti-war

activity for some OlyPMR participants. In the summer of 2006, Lt. Watada was

scheduled to deploy with the unit accompanying the first Stryker brigade resisted by

OlyPMR. Coincidentally, this was when he refused to deploy to Iraq. Though Olympia

was incidental to his protest, Lt. Watadas protest impacted the nature of anti-war activity

in Olympia. With his refusal, certain local civilian anti-war activists began to mobilize

around G.I. resistance. As participant Berryhill commented, the newfound local

emphasis on GI resistance, [and] supporting of GIs whove refused to go to Iraq

converged with the direct action at the Port of Olympia and pushed a different

perception of what anti-war activity could take place (personal communication). These

coinciding events created a distinct and exciting anti-war movement environment in

and around Olympia (Berryhill, personal communication). Through social and spatial

contingencies that facilitated the co-presence of the two movementsthe civilian anti-

war movement and the GI movementin one locale, certain prospects have opened up

for the future of the anti-war movement in and around Olympia and Fort Lewis.

Additionally, the establishment of Coffee Strong has created a potentially critical

venue for people from both movements to come together, genuinely communicate, and

act collectively. This potential is the result of myriad events and processes, including the


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long, deep history of radical activism in the area. Importantly, it is also the result of

spatial diffusion, by which I am referring to contingent processes in which practices and

ideas travel across space and between locales. The birth of Coffee Strong was not only

influenced by the radical history of its location, but also by the first G.I. coffeehouse to

emerge in the Iraq War-era near Fort Drum in Watertown, New Y

Documents

“Out of Olympia, Out of Iraq”: Geography, Direct Action, and the Anti-War Movement in Olympia, WA