May 10, 2004
KVI-AM radio rallies pro-war fanatics for assault on free speech in Seattle
View the pictures. Read the report in the Beacon Hill News & South District Journal
and the report on the Green Left Weekly website
In an attempt to silence dissent against the war in Iraq, flag-waving followers of KVI-AM radio hurled racial epithets and threatened violence in a multi-ethnic Seattle neighborhood on April 30. The pro-war advocates were responding to ultra-right talk show host John Carlson who called for protest against a single sign posted in the window of New Freeway Hall, home of the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) and Radical Women. The offending sign reads "Victory to the Iraqi Resistance." It is posted under a large banner proclaiming, "End the U.S. Occupation of Iraq" and a picket sign saying, "Bring the Troops Home Now!"
" 'Traitors' is the nicest thing KVI's macho jingoists have called us," said FSP organizer Luma Nichol. "We are being vilified for standing with the Iraqi victims of U.S. aggression in a war that Congress never declared and millions of people tried to stop. We don't want the lives of U.S. soldiers destroyed any more than those of Iraqis. The way to stop the bloodshed is for the U.S. government and all its contractors to pull out of Iraq."
More than 50 people turned out with only an hour's notice to defend the Hall, a longtime center of free speech. They chanted "KVI, you love war; peace is what we're fighting for!" and "No blood for oil; U.S. off Iraqi soil." Members of the Hate Free Zone Campaign brought their banner; women from the nearby Unitarian Fellowship waved peace flags; a local African merchant closed his shop to join the defense; Somali business people talking with Vietnam war veterans and anarchists found common ground in opposing the war enthusiasts. Representatives from Sound Non-violent Opponents to War (SNOW), Workers World Party and the Revolutionary Communist Party also took part. International Socialist Organization was present and sent a solidarity message.
In the course of the demonstration, Nigel Keiffer, a former city of Seattle employee, departed the pro-war group after yelling, "f-ggot" and "n-gger" at a Black photographer. Several others crossed the street trying to provoke physical altercations. They demanded to know where one man, originally from Guatemala, was from. He answered quietly "I am from planet Earth, and you?"
Throughout several hours of protests on both sides of the street, the multiracial community where the hall is located made their anti-war views known. They honked loudly for a FSP banner draped from a pick-up truck which read "Stop the War on Working People at Home and Abroad." Low-riders and young people, families and many other drivers flashed the Hall's defenders a victory sign as they passed.
Only the local police seemed perturbed by the anti-war picketers. They insisted that FSP needed a permit to use a bullhorn, the very first time anyone had ever heard of this city regulation. Plans are underway to challenge it as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.
A Campaign to Squash Dissent
This demonstration was the culmination of a harassment campaign that began a few days earlier when someone identified only as "patriot62" posted a notice on the Internet about the New Freeway Hall sign. This person also posted the Hall's address and phone number on a far right web site. The posting elicited threatening responses such as "The proper procedure for dealing with them ("Reds")...is a matter of serious and reasonable public debate: some prefer shooting...others hanging...Others say the bayonet is preferred as it is less noisy..."
The next day, when conservative on-line news service WorldNetDaily published an interview with Nichol, the phones at New Freeway Hall rang off the hook. Not only were radio stations from around the country clamoring for interviews, Seattle's notoriously inflammatory radio station, KVI, had organized a call-in campaign. FSP's web site, www.socialism.com, was also under assault with hate-filled Internet threats.
"The message is clear: we are supposed to shut up and fall in line behind the war. If we don't, these militia types promise to make our lives hell. It's not very sophisticated, but we've seen it before when we've organized against the Aryan Nations," says Chris Smith, who works at the Hall.
"But the sign is staying," Smith says." We have an obligation to those who are dying in Fallujah to speak out. For us, the Iraqi resistance is composed of striking workers, women who are fighting imposition of Sharia laws, the unemployed fighting for jobs, and people in Baghdad sending food to those under siege in Fallujah. The resistance is not just military, it's many, many ordinary Iraqis."
The Far Right Troops On
Within days of the confrontation at New Freeway Hall, KVI-AM was at it again, mobilizing for an anti-homeless protest and an anti-gay marriage vigil.
Both the station and its host, John Carlson, are well known in the Puget Sound area. Carlson gained fame by leading a successful statewide initiative campaign to rollback affirmative action in 1998, but lost a bid for governor in 2000. The station has a cadre of faithful who proudly declare, "We work for John (Carlson)."
Two days after their demonstration against the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women, KVI radio urged its followers to join busloads of fundamentalist churchgoers at a "May Day for Marriage" rally in the baseball stadium. Over 1,000 supporters of same sex unions counter-demonstrated. Next, KVI rousted their numbers to denounce a tent city for the homeless slated for vacant county land between Kirkland and Bothell, well to-do suburbs of Seattle. Some of the same men who vilified anti-war activists at the hall were seen on the evening news two nights later yelling at a panel of homeless people . A few months ago, KVI gathered hundreds in another suburb to denounce the creation of a symbolic graveyard for slain U.S. soldiers from Iraq.
In addition to the KVI followers, the pro-war demonstrators appear to come from the "Free Republic" website. According to Political Research Associates (PRA), a group that monitors far-right organizations, www.freerepublic.com is part of the "Patriot" movement and "occupies a middle ground between the Christian Right and the Extreme Right." In the 1990s, the movement was the backbone of "citizen militias." "Pat Buchanan is a key figure in this Patriot sector, where his brand of xenophobic nationalism finds an enthusiastic audience," according to PRA.
"These roving demonstrators are not the tie-a-yellow-ribbon-on-the-tree types," says Guerry Hoddersen, a co-founder of Seattle's United Front Against Fascism. "They are rightwing bullies who take out after socialists, Blacks, immigrants, queers, feminists, and the homeless. Take a look at them and you can see how a fascist movement could take root in the U.S."
Meanwhile, anti-war activists at New Freeway Hall continue to safeguard their headquarters and their First Amendment rights. If you are targeted by KVI-AM or www.freerepublic.com and need assistance, or for more information: call 206-722-2453; email FSPseattle@mindspring.com.
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Freedom Socialist Party National Office
4710 University Ave. NE, #100
Seattle, WA 98105 USA
Tel: (206) 985-4621
FAX: (206) 8965
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