Accountability in Washington, D.C.
September 15th March on Washington, D.C.
I managed to get within about 50 feet of the stage and got to here Cindy Sheehan, Ramsey Clark, Adam Kokesh, Etan Thomas, and Ralph Nader speak. I think the largest applause was for the Iraq veterans, but calls for impeachment and ending the corporate dominated government also got big cheers.
Probably the single most interesting thing that happened all day, happened as they were winding up the speakers and getting ready to march. A guy jumped on stage and just started talking in the mic. He started off by saying he respected everyone but he was a conservative. This got a round of jeers and they cut off the microphone.
At first I thought that was great, and everyone else did too. Then we all slowly started to feel guilty, especially since the guy had been polite. So someone started chanting “Let him speak!” and that took over until they turned the microphone back on. The guy thanked everyone and then said something along the lines of “You all think war is bad, right? But what if the alternative was worse?” At which point he got booed so loudly for so long he gave up altogether and left. Now thats democracy in action.
There was a great atmosphere. I don’t know how many times I got in fun conversations with random people. It was almost like we knew each other. In fact at one point some girls I was walking and talking with split off to the side and said, “aren’t you coming? you’re Eric’s friend right?”. So maybe some people thought they actually did know me.
If for no other reason I think protests are excellent for reminding people that they aren’t alone and that there a lot of like minded rational people out there. There’s this great feeling of power as a large group. Of course that same social phenomenon can be manipulated, but it’s hard to see how it could go too wrong with Peace activists.
Near the last third of the march the “counter-protesters” or “pro-war” people started showing up along the outside of the barricades. Scary to think people are actually so zealous about war that they’ll go out and attack people who want peace. They weren’t hard to pick out as the majority of them had sneers on their faces and were essentially just calling people names.
I walked my sign right along their groups and simply smiled at them when they called me names. Getting worked up is what they want. I had to tell a couple people to calm down, they were doing exactly what they wanted them to do.
One of the more inflammatory posters they brought had “Islam” followed by pictures of the planes hitting the twin towers and beneath it “Religion of Peace”. Categorically calling all muslims war-mongerers is beyond ignorant, its hypocritical. As if people in every religion on the planet have not killed for their “God” before. In fact, it could be argued the U.S. is doing just that at this very moment.
As far as street theater and big props go. I thoroughly enjoyed the funky dance moves of the guy dressed as Bush in prison stripes. He was actually a really good dancer which made it hilarious. There was also this cool thing someone made that had a spinning oil pump coming out of Bush’s head and when it pumped down Bush’s mouth would open and the word “Bla” could be seen. Pretty neat.
Maybe if my idea picks up, people will understand what the big numbers are for. Until then, I think I need to explain it. I was also envisioning a time when people from a specific community had one big sign with the number of people in their community that they’re representing. Just an idea.
The whole day was fairly anti-climatic. There were no real events planned for what happened when we actually arrived at the Congress building, except for a die-in. The Congress building looked completely empty except for the line of police with riot gear shields surrounding it.
I sat there for an hour or so and then walked over to Union Station to head home. 5 hours in the sun without water or sitting down really takes it of you. Forgetting water wouldn’t have been a big deal if I’d had some cash to buy it along the way. I’ll be better prepared next time.
I’m actually pretty upset about the lack of news coverage for the event. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I really thought with that many people it would at least be a blurb on CNN with a heavily under-estimated crowd count, but I haven’t seen anything on any of the major news outlets. If you see something somewhere, send me a link and let me know.
Check out the September 15th March gallery for more pictures and videos.
September 15th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
I was the guy who had the “deluded commies & thugs” poster (can verify over email if you care). Thought you should know that I’m actually a liberal: consistently vote democratic, have given money to the ACLU (including buying memberships for my parents) and NOW; was against going to war in Iraq (if for no other reason than it was a clear lack of faith in military deterrence), vegetarian, you name it. But I seriously can’t stand that communist front group ANSWER. And I read enough of the Koran in ‘01 to be convinced that there’s a pretty big difference between it and the Old Testament–yeah I advised the guy next to me to use that particular sign precisely because it’s a) incindeary and b) contains a real kernel of truth (even if its subtext can defensibly be called jingoistic). Without belaboring the point, here’s a blog that gives a decent first approximation of my views (I’m the second comment there):
http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/2007/09/liberal-add—-.html
September 16th, 2007 at 5:21 am
Thank you for representing Charlotte and myself. You and the tens of thousands with you were standing on some of the only moral ground in America Saturday.
I liked the way you talked about the benefits of attending. There is something that galvanizes and transforms in everyone at a big rally. Confidence, courage, conviction, comraderie grow. Everyone’s mind reaches deeper into the possible and new ideas, new more effective acts germinate.
While you were there, I was meeting with an old friend who is now the new president of a bank. We were able to talk about protesting war together. We talked about what you were doing, representing Charlotte and myself at the rally. We all, even bank presidents, get strength and feel represented by connecting with your presence in DC.
Like a forest fire that has been buring out of control and is now contained and beginning to burn itself out, the American support for occupying Iraq is dying out. Keep throwing peace water on the war fires! Make peace inevitable.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Thanks for representing Texans for Peace at the rally! Gary and I were very proud to see ourselves there with you and hope that we can make it to walk along with you one of these days. CNN did provide some coverage, not what it should have been though. I’m especially proud of the veterans who speak up for peace. Thanks again and keep up the good work!
September 16th, 2007 at 8:48 am
CNN is running the story as a line on their front page this morning: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/15/iraqwar.protest.ap/index.html
September 16th, 2007 at 8:51 am
The New York Times is also running the story on their front page: http://www.nytimes.com/
September 16th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Another good take:
http://unfutz.blogspot.com/2007/09/another-tactical-and-strategic-blunder.html
September 16th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Ramsey,
I think a lot of people miss the point when it comes to protests and marches. They see the end all, be all of the protest as whether it accomplished it’s “goal”.
Was a protest going to stop the war? Of course not, but what did get accomplished is a lot of social networking. People seeing friendly faces and knowing that there were a large number of people who feel the same way. It’s relieving and inspiring.
That type of inspiration carries people in to more action, in more grassroots ways. Those people go home and tell their friends and neighbors, they get excited and do something.
So I think you’re missing the point. It’s about the people involved and inspiration not about pressuring politicians who were not even paying attention.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:25 am
You’re absolutely right, Tao. The people who got together in support of peace did so to make their voices heard and for the camaradarie of being with others who share their beliefs. During the 1960s and 1970s when I lived in Mississippi, I knew that marching for civil rights for all people, not just for the whites, was only raising awareness, not changing policy. But being with others who felt the same gave me a sense of community, if nothing else. And I know it made a positive impression on, and provided a sense of hope and encouragement, to our black colleagues, just as the march yesterday gave hope and encouragement to the veterans who were there in the cause of peace. March on!
September 16th, 2007 at 10:58 am
I hate to be so blunt, but if camaraderie is more important to you than results, then you should be satisfied. And I’m sadly well aware that to many progressives a sense of satisfaction is very important. But a focused and disciplined rally would have accomplished so much more–I would have been on the other side of the barrier with you, and so would many more people besides. Unless you prefer your comrades to be only people who think exactly like you, y’all should really try hard to present a more moderate public face. Less “free Palestine” or “free Mumia” and “impeach Bush” and “the war was wrong” and more “here’s how we can draw down”.
But moderate leftists like me will never drink the Kool-Aid ANSWER and company is pushing, and you seem to know it and even be proud of it. The nominally open-minded anarcho-socialists marching yesterday really aren’t comfortable with opening up their passion and their movement to include Middle America. So maybe they shouldn’t be protesting, but ought to just have a drum circle or something instead. At least that wouldn’t alienate everyone else.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Obviously results are important, but you’re ignoring the fact that camaraderie is integral in forming a cohesive movement. We have to understand the other people involved who are willing to take action, whether they be grandmothers in pink or anarcho-socialists. I want to know them all and understand what motivates them, because the only way results are going to happen is to understand what stirs people to action.
When tighter social bonds are formed it makes it facilitates more focuses and organized actions. The type of actions that you seem to want. Its a process and takes time and these events are huge for facilitating that networking and movement identity.
You seem to be heavily focusing on the group of 60 or so anarchists that showed up and the disdain you have for the organizers. Thats the same disservice that the major news outlets do to these events. They completely overlook the average “Middle America” people because they aren’t interesting or different enough to spend time on. There were 10s of thousands of people there, the majority of whom were part of Middle America, they just weren’t wearing black bandannas or facial piercings.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Cohesion would be nice. But those organizers cannot plausibly hope to achieve it (yes, I am focusing on them). It is a thinly veiled recruiting ploy for a failed ideology. Even if that protest has a silver lining of getting grandmothers involved, then I say the grandmothers should take the initiative themselves rather than be co-opted by Marxist-Leninists. The organizing principle of the protest was socialist revolution, and even if there were a few thousand moderates interspersed throughout it (I saw what I took to be a few of them myself) it’s next to meaningless because they were not and are not the people with the initiative on Iraq. The far right is very good about making sure their initiatives resonate with and are appropriated by centrists. The far left is not. The camaraderie you speak of will not spread into the mainstream because of it. This protest was an excellent example of that unfortunate and sad failing.
As far as the news outlets, that’s hogwash. I am glad for (the very real) liberal bias in the media. The left has an intrinsic advantage with a generally sympathetic media yet they can’t seem to capitalize on it. In another decade the Foxes may even reverse the field. It’s pathetic. Pelosi and Reid can’t even marshal their majorities to accomplish anything. It’s pathetic. Fractious disorganization is pathetic. That’s why the news doesn’t give a lot of coverage: they are doing the protesters a favor by not making it clear to the viewers at home that the organizers are literally Communists.
September 16th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
The camaraderie built among civil rights activists as we marched and protested in the 60s and 70s did make a difference by raising awareness and the eventual changing of mainstream ideas. That’s what the march was about yesterday for most of the people there.
Also, the supposed “liberal bias” in the mainstream media is what right-wing nuts call a media that tries to tell more than the right-wing side of the story.
September 16th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
I would also encourage Ramsey to get involved in helping to organize the next peace march. Then, as he says, he can be on the other side of the barrier.
September 16th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Sue, your encouragement is well-aimed, but ill-fated. I’m not one for herding cats. And I concede that’s a cop-out, but I also point out that it’s not the proper role of a moderate to galvanize opinion. The far left is entitled to hold whatever nutty views it wants. But the responsibility that the far left has (whether they like it or not) is to pick battles–and workable strategies for those battles–that moderates are willing to fight.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
If you’re not willing to put your time and energy where your mouth is then please quit talking to me. If all you want to do is trash talk other people trying the best they can to do whats right in the world and do nothing in its place then keep your opinions to yourself, you’re doing no one else any good.
You can not use being a moderate as your excuse on not acting. If you believe that the protests are too far to the left, then clearly we need all the moderates we can get. It’s far easier to tear down others than build up one’s self. Showing up as a counter protester in order to demoralize others and then adamantly following the event afterwards to demoralize still more is the act of someone who is not a moderate. Even if you were a liberal, as you claim, you should be ashamed.
I do not have the time nor the energy to waste on responding to you. Have a good life.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I think maybe Sally Fields was inspired by all of you that gathered to say end this war.
She just won an emmy, and as she was trying to say, “If mothers ran the world there would be no damn war”
FOX cut the audio and even blanked out the screen for a few seconds.
In the America that most of us fight to defend, Sally Fields is supported and free to say what she feels.
In the America that FOX fights for, those with views different than theirs are censored.
Support those that support freedom!
September 16th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
By your logic the vast majority of protesters on either side (viz., those that “trash talked”) should have kept their opinions to themselves. I don’t doubt your sincerity and your attempt to do the best you can, or that of the communists or the right-wing wackos either. I don’t think they should have kept their opinions to themselves, but I do think that by its nature any protest reflects a failure of constructive political discourse. In that context actions such as mine, that try to highlight why most Americans view ANSWER’s actions as nonconstructive in the very limited and blunt way possible given the inherently toxic nature of a protest such as the one they themselves organized, might in fact accomplish more than you seem to think. I happened to notice several protesters nodding and saying “that’s true” while pointing at my poster. But I would clearly not have been welcome on the other side.
If you think that centrists would get up and protest for an immediate withdrawal (or a blind “stay the course”), you are mistaken: it’s simply not what they want. If you think that centrists would get up and protest for a gradual drawdown, you’re also mistaken: while that is what most want, it’s not a sufficiently black or white stance to lend itself to protest. At any rate I fail to see how it is irrational or reprehensible of me to attempt to moderate the political discourse of those further from the center than I am by highlighting the radical and (as the vast majority sees it) unsavory aspects of their position. I can however see how radicals would fail to see that a more nuanced point of view might be worthy of consideration.
Finally, I clearly put my time and energy into acting on Saturday. But on the other hand I will quit talking to you.
September 17th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Thanks for pointing out what happened to Sally Fields, Luke. And good response to Ramsey Clark, Tao. Those of us who want peace and justice can only keep trying our best to help make those realities possible. I look forward to following your quest, Tao. Your commitment, eloquence and strong commitments are to be commended. Your path is clear and you’re steady on it. The world’s a better place because you’re in it!