From Paul Richmond, richmond4congress.com

Today is the Nine Year Anniversary of the Seattle WTO protests.

I’ve posted videos I’ve shot during the Seattle WTO Protests at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0OXEpTK27E and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcP0wYPIjrw.

The first video was my perspective on when the police cleared the street in front of the Sheraton Hotel, at 11:20 AM. Chemical agents were used on several hundred demonstrators, several hours before any property damage occurred.

The second video was a series of arrests I observed a few hours later where the police repeatedly applied pepper spray into the eyes of seated protesters.

The demonstrations were against “free trade” policies which have simultaneously lost jobs and damaged the environment here in the United States, while prompting others who’ve lost their livelihoods in other countries to migrate to the United States, creating the rationale for the insane and arguably illegal policies of our border patrol.

While there’s much cause for hope with our new president, pragmatically I have to point out that much of those who fostered these policies (and the policies that armed the police with chemical agents) are the leaders of this new administration.

My reports on the Seattle WTO protests are at http://www.olympicpeninsulalaw.com/docs/NLG-WTOReport.pdf, and http://www.olympicpeninsulalaw.com/docs/ShowLetter.pdf.

A guide I’ve written on videotaping police at Political Demonstrations is posted at http://www.olympicpeninsulalaw.com/docs/VideotapingPoliceAtPoliticalDemos.pdf.

I also will point out that one of the strongest supporters of these Free Trade policies (as well as the person who takes credit for bringing much of the Homeland Security insanity to the Northwest, is my opponent last election, Representative Dicks. I continue to explore a run in 2010. See my website www.richmond4congress.com .