liberty or death

At the Liberty or Death political rally held in Seattle, WA on August 18, 2018, there was a man who looked like a wizard from a Tolkien novel. 

Seattle, Liberty or Death Rally, August 18, 2018, Marchers Through Seattle Streets

At the Liberty or Death political rally, held on Saturday August 18, 2018, in downtown Seattle, Washington, at Seattle City Hall, many Washington State residents openly carried their firearms. The various types of firearms on display and being carried by citizens ranged from modern handguns, to large caliber bolt action rifles, to modern sports rifles, such as AR-15 Armalite type rifles. The rally was sponsored and hosted by the Washington Three Percent political group. 

Notably, across the street, some of the counter-protesters were also carrying firearms. The socialist/communist/anarchist counter-protester organizations have their own armed firearms group called the John Brown Gun Club. The so called "mainstream" political stereotype is that politically left people and countries are primarily anti-gun, gun prohibitionist, in stance, policy, and belief. However, many people with far-left political belief systems appear to also support firearms rights, and they exhibit that belief by openly carrying their firearms at public political events. 

In downtown Seattle, on Saturday August 18, 2018, at the Liberty or Death rally sponsored by the political organization Washington Three Percent, hundreds of police officers attended the scene. There were officers from the Seattle Police Department, the Redmond Police Department, the King County Sheriff's department, and more. The officers on duty included Seattle Police bicycle patrol Sergeant James Dyment. It seems like most of the work that the Seattle Police had to, involved policing the counter protestors, many of whom were associates of the communist/socialist/anarchist Antifa Black Bloc domestic terror group. As the these photographs also demonstrate, most of the officers who stood watch over the rally demonstrators who had a permit to demonstrate on the Seattle City Hall courtyard spent their days mostly just watching and smiling.

Sometimes a series of photos tells a story that a single photograph probably cannot tell alone. While taking photographs of the politically "left" counter-protesters at the Liberty or Death political rally held in Seattle, WA on August 18, 2018, at first it was the handheld, and hand painted, sign that said "please stop killing us" that was eye catching. However, still photography at events such as political protests is a process. This process involves staying focused on a single subject and working, very quickly, repeatedly, to capture various aspects of a single focus, as well as to obtain correct photographic mechanism such as focus and framing. Of course in situations like political rallies, the subjects are constantly moving, and sometimes that might rather not be photographed, despite the fact that they have arrived at a public event for the specific purpose of being paid attention to and to try to communicate their message. 

During the just describe process, photographs of different aspects of the "please top killing us" sign, and the woman holding it provide varying insights about the relevant politics and the potential politics being communicated by the woman holding the sign. In this instance, surely a viewer must wonder if the woman displaying that she doesn't shave her armpits has unshaved armpits to communicate a message, just as her sign is intended to communicate a message. One is left to wonder, what, if any, politics are related to women in America who don't shave their armpits, since armpit shaving among women in "Western Culture" seems like a pretty well solidified cultural "norm". 

Meanwhile, the sign itself seems clearly meant to send a message to someone. Unfortunately, the political left, who often espouse extreme socialist/communist/anarchist don't want to be interviewed and they don't want to be identified. They express their reluctance with additional cues such as wearing masks as this woman does. In the case of this woman though, the mask doesn't seem to obscure her identity in the least. Notably, the people across the street from the counter-protesters were willing to be interviewed. According to the people at the rally across the street, who had a permit from the City of Seattle to use the City Hall courtyard, they were not the people the counter-protesters believed them to be. The people at the official rally across the street from the counter-protesters, who included Jewish people, African American people, Asian American people, and so on, insisted that they are not the "Nazis", "KKK", "Fascists", and so on depicted in the signs of the counter-protesters. This stark dichotomy make photojournalistic recordation of these types of events all the more fascinating, since the signs, the signals, the attire, in additional to the verbal and visual messages all tell complex truths that present day corporate fake news mass-media doesn't think is newsworthy. Notably as well, corporate mass media attended the August 18, 2018 event, but very little of their reporting, disclosed much of anything relevant about what transpired at the event politically. 

This series of three photographs, which are presented in the sequence they were photographed, first shows just the "Please Stop Killing Us". the second shows the woman holding the sign, but it doesn't clarify what sign she is holding. The last of the three photographs includes both the woman's face, and enough of the sign to identify it. However, mostly importantly, in the third photograph, the woman stared directly into the center of the camera's lens as the shutter snapped!

At the Liberty or Death rally in downtown Seattle, on Saturday August 18, 2018 by the political group Washington Three Percent, this counter protesting woman carried a stick labelled "Anti-Fascist", which she held up closely in front of her face. The woman and her stick struck an interesting political chord. This young woman with the "Anti-Fascist" labelled stick kept tugging at the bandanna she was using to cover her face. The question repeatedly arose while photographing these masked people -  why did she believe she needed to hide her face? What is the implication in the U.S., where people supposedly have a constitutional right to free speech, that some people who seem to want to say they are "anti-fascist" appear afraid to openly take that political stance, as they hide behind masks while publicly espousing it?

In this gallery of Studio 2.8 photography exclusive photographs produced on August 18, 2018 in downtown Seattle, WA at a political gun rights rally called "Liberty or Death", that was organized by a political group called the Washington Three Percent, the female communist extremist in the Studio 2.8 photos above held aloft a large hand lettered sign with the phrase "if you do not oppose fascism you're a fascist" on it. The sign is significant because the rhetoric and propaganda employed by the various active U.S. communist groups that utilize this rhetoric, is that anyone who isn't a communist must be a "Nazi" and a "fascist", despite the irrationality of the ploy. American neo-communist rhetoric and propaganda is dominated by the political truism that surely everyone opposes "fascists" and "Nazis", which the communist groups use as part of their recruiting tactics and their public rhetorical stance and political debate tactics.

At a subsequent political event, an event in June 2019, the Studio 2.8 photography team proudly photographed, as the 2019 Seattle Trans Pride March and Rally held on Friday June 28, 2019 in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, the same communist extremist woman pictured above had been engaged by the group that runs Seattle Trans Pride, the Gender Justice League, was one of the Seattle Trans Pride 2019 staff members. After a Studio 2.8 photography team photographer had spent five hours diligently producing photographs of the 2019 Seattle Trans Pride rally, the female communist extremist pictured above, was part of an unlawful vigilante hate mob that attacked the LGBTQ woman of color who was covering the 2019 Seattle Trans Pride rally. During this female communist extremist's unlawful assault and battery of a Studio 2.8 photographer at the 2019 Seattle Trans Pride event, the female communist extremist in the photographs above, falsely accused the LGBTQ Studio 2.8 photographer woman of color photographer who produced these photos and video of being a "racist", a "Nazi", a "White Supremacist", and worse. In the high resolution Studio 2.8 video excerpt below, the female communist extremist pictured above can be seen, and can be heard shouting "... you are with patriot prayer and you know it ..." (see link), as the communist extremist pictured above participated in the unlawful vigilante hate mob that harassed, assaulted, and battered, the LGBTQ Studio 2.8 photojournalist who produced these photographs and this video.

The high resolution Studio 2.8 video excerpt above was produced by the Studio 2.8 photography team on Friday June 28, 2019 at the 2019 Seattle Trans Pride march and rally, held at Seattle's Cal Anderson Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.

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