Reply #10: Event Organizers Condemn Mayor for Using Them as an Excuse to Arrest Occupy Seattle Protesters

[Newsjock]

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/10/04/progressive-event-organizers-condemn-mayor-for-using-them-as-an-excuse-to-arrest-occupy-seattle-protesters

Now the permit holders of those events, organizers for ANSWER Seattle and Native Peoples' Alliance with Friends and Allies, are firing back at McGinn, accusing him of a "transparent attempt to pit progressive causes against each other." Here's their statement:

Jane Cutter, coordinator of ANSWER Seattle (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and Jack Whitehouse of the Native Peoples' Alliance with Friends and Allies, have stated in no uncertain terms that their organizations support “Occupy Seattle” and welcome the presence of “Occupy Seattle” in their scheduled, permitted events at Westlake on Friday Oct. 7 and Saturday Oct. 8.

Jane Cutter of ANSWER Seattle stated, “We urge no one to be fooled by this transparent attempt to pit progressive causes against each other. We see the Occupy Seattle protest as being one and the same with our planned Oct. 7 protest against the 10th anniversary of the Afghan War. In fact, our young ANSWER activists in New York City were among those arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Oct. 1 with the Occupy Wall Street protest. It's time to 'unoccupy Afghanistan' and support the poor, not the war.
“Similarly, our brothers and sisters in the Native Peoples Alliance with Friends and Allies, which is hosting the Oct. 8 Indigenous People's Day event, see the Occupy Seattle protest for social justice as interconnected with their cause which is justice for Indigenous people and political prisoners.”