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 in Tear Gas Clouds Bob Kunst Joins Summit of the Americas Army of Bush Foes Indefatigable Activist Reports on his Quebec City Adventures |
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Compiled by GayToday
Mr. Bush was present at the Summit, along with the leaders of 34 hemispheric neighbors, all promoting a relaxation of national rulings that might stand in the way of unquestioned corporate power. The Los Angeles Times reported that "Caribbean leaders were unable to reach a meeting with Bush at the Loews Concorde Hotel. The habitually punctual U.S. president was forced to wait 20 minutes for Andean leaders to show up, and not all made it. An opening reception was postponed for about an hour." Oral Majority's chair, Bob Kunst, unfurled his "Bush Stole the Election' banner at the center of the uprising. Around him, helmeted police advanced behind their shields. A lone young woman carrying a sunflower attempted to present the flower to the menacing guards in a scene that recalled Vietnam war protesters stuffing roses into soldiers' gun barrels. Kunst called GayToday's offices from a nearby corner, promising to provide a detailed account of his weekend's adventures. On his way home, he wrote: "Yes, I did get gassed, and yes, we did make an impact and here is what happened. "I'm typing this from Kinkos on 72nd St., Manhattan, awaiting the EARTH DAY protest against Bush at the U.N.. That will be another report. Meantime, I managed to get to Quebec on Thursday and got to the main fence with my banner: "Bush Stole The Election"
Barricades are in place to keep protesters away from the summit Photo By: Peter Boyle "CBC-TV was doing commentary and picked up on the banner both in video and with the commentator in French. It would be the beginning of a great deal of media and also the scoop on what really happened in Quebec. I haven't stayed for the 3rd day of the Summit. "Quebec City is beautiful and historic and is surrounded by a wire fence and security costing $50millions in Canadian, but which rubs in the face of the freedom loving people of Canada that this fence is the image instead of oppression and a symbol of tyranny and of corporate control, that is uncontrolled and threatening the very survival of the planet via the profiteering to destroy anything and everything in its path. "Of course this "Wall of Shame" had to come down. At Lavall University, on the first evening I would do Canada's Public Radio, and in all of the media, my approach is: Gore Won, Bush Stole The Election, is illegitimate and has isolated the U.S. from the rest of the world. Oral Majority is here to help isolate Bush from the rest of the world and to say that he does not represent the U.S. "While others had a hard time getting into Canada at the borders, including labor people from the U.S., as reported in the April 19 Boston Globe, I had no problem and of course at the main gate, Rene Levec St., I immediately made friends with the police as I always do.
"Meanwhile, not to digress, I'm getting loads of attention, but FOX News only 20 feet away ignores me, but wants to interview a guy with a 'pig mask' next to my table. Afterwards FOX comes over and asks me if I was in Tallahassee during the mayhem and I reply, "Yes" and ask him why he's ignoring me, and he says the issue is over and I remind him that my presence here means it isn't and also that the Chinese just 'tested' Bush for being 'illegitimate', and none of our 'allies' backed us up. "I also mention that the Canadian Prime Minister had only a couple of weeks ago stated that Bush was "Naive" and "Ignorant", but this comment of a head of state against a U.S. 'leader', was also ignored by the media, to protect Bushit's image and his 'coup' and in addition FOX was one of the worst and that as we spoke Oral Majority and others in Tampa were demonstrating against FOX this very minute. "Magill University Radio (Montreal); National News; Journal de Quebec came for interviews. "Then an extraordinary group with black crosses over their mouths, in very slow motion going towards the fence. This 13, drawing a great number of people and cameras and right in front of me. "A U.S. flag in now in the street and one upside down.
"So with all the yelling and cheers and then a block away the tear gas is starting and I say it's too crowded and dangerous and the need to pack up and move out of here. "I get packed but then the gas started coming directly towards us. "My car is parked below this level of the street and by the time I get my stuff down to the street a gas canister goes off right near my car but the wind is blowing right to me. "I couldn't breathe. Everyone around was in tears and choking. "It was amazing! "I load the car, and there are folks lying on the street by the car, and in pain because the gas, as well as myself. "This guy is pouring water into our eyes to wash them and I'm offering Club Soda for the lungs. "Then I get in the car and get out of the thousands now in the streets chanting that this is the 'face of democracy' and 'solidarity go, go'. " Fuck the Summit tee-shirts were everywhere. "I went to the public library to do an instant report but it wouldn't work and then went to a place called Scanners to right my report and after doing it, that too got screwed up. "So I go for dinner and then meet with one of the folks from Halifax protesting, and we talk, and decide to go for a beer in the old city. By midnight the tear gas is still flowing--clouds all over the place, and this Friday is over for me, watching all the kids and those folks, who are innocent, all suffering such pain. "Saturday, marks the anniversary of Columbine shooting by those two Nazi kids. "It's finally a gorgeous day, when two days earlier it was 20 degrees. Now it's labor's turn and I set up my booth and do a bang-up job with media and folks loving the stuff and mucho conversations as 30,000 are mobilizing here for their Summit march to plea for sanity. "Bushit meanwhile told CBC the night before he would leave the Summit if there was another incident. And now at 9 a.m. he is addressing the Summit on 'trade' being the vehicle for 'liberty' and 'democracy' (Can you believe it?), while the Canadian Prime Minister says that 'democracy' must also be 'legitimate' and 'relevant', which I see as another attack upon Bush's credibility. "As the parade moves on, there are many powerful messages and a very decidedly anti-Bushit attitude which, thankfully, I was both providing and supporting. "Yesterday someone had chalked in front of my table: "Free America-Trade Bush" and today folks had signs that "Bush Sucks", besides what I was doing and 600+ were carrying our messages to the rest of the people, besides again speaking to numerous media. "Imagine the massiveness of it all in just a few hours of this frenzy. "By that time I'd packed up, my other half is calling from Miami and telling that on TV live, is this group now getting 'gassed' and doused by water cannons (which didn't work the day before) and for no provocation. "Meanwhile, the anarchists were trying to divert the parade to come with them but labor kept them separate. "I walked a bit in the parade, and there were now 100 with bar code masks on their faces again walking in street theatre, among so many like them and Greenpeaces' four story condom, etc. These folks didn't deserve getting gassed. The whole place was reeking with it. "I spoke with 3 women and we could see on top of the hill clouds of gas, and they told me that the building covered with it was a nun's nursing home and hospital. I was shocked. "Ten blocks away, my eyes were tearing and I was coughing. "This attack and retreat scenario would go on for all afternoon and into the late hours but by then I'd already left. I was listening to the reports on 940 every fifteen minutes, and 34 police had been hurt as well as 50 protesters and 150 arrests while the 'riot squads' from around the country were being sent in. "Three media trucks had been vandalized. A bunch of CIBC bank windows had been broken. The peaceful protesters were screaming at these anarchists that none of this was necessary and they were ruining the message the rest of us wanted to present. "Meanwhile, 3000 marched in solidarity in Vancouver; 500 in Winnipeg; 1000 in Halifax; 50 in Windsor; and tunnel from Detroit blocked for 20 minutes by 40 on U.S. side and another protest at border crossing in Vt. "By 7 p.m., portions of the roadway were being broken up and thrown at the police, says this reporter on 940 and she is choking on the air from all the gas being thrown, while the fence by the cemetery has been taken down and now 100 police and reinforcements are coming. "Just before leaving I would be interviewed by a camera crew representing the steel workers, which will be on their net, and we got along terrifically and they liked my message and then told me that the police had rigged all the ATM machine cameras and hotel cameras to work with them, and 3 police helicopters at all times filming this 'Big Brother' approach to a people demanding to be heard. "I must say that I did also meet other Americans, who came to be a part of this and also that while the Canadians were decidedly against the U.S. corporations, they were totally with us and I had nothing but praise from them for even being there. "If only Americans had this passion, given that we've lost our government, our freedom, our liberty, our meaning and purpose along with this election theft. Americans seem to have succumbed to a ho hum business as usual approach. . "And yet today at the U.N. will be Oral Majority's 100th protest since Nov. 7, 2000 and today also marks the anniversary of the liberation of Elian Gonzalez and our 16 protests there afterwards in support of Janet Reno, and today I hear the right wing Cubans say that Gore lost Florida. and the election because of Elian, claiming credit to justify their Republican politics. "Since the last Summit, the Nazi/BigBrother/exclusion/right-wing/illegitimacy/issues are as large as ever, for those who are not in denial. "Yes, the Queen turned 75 yesterday as well, and Brits were protesting their government's inaction in response to Foot and Mouth. Americans are too fat and too 'not with it' to get to even first base on all of these messes, except those we've managed to reach out to a few, tips of an iceberg. "Where is our passion that should rise naturally to the occasion of this betrayal by GOP/Bushit protesting the arsenic and untreated sewage in our water among other Bush-inspired catastrophes? "Where indeed? "Yours Faithfully, Bob Kunst" |
