Early Saturday afternoon I sat down in the living room, turned on the laptop to do some web-browsing while some college football blared on the TV in the background. Logging on to washingtonpost.com I quickly noticed that Marc Fisher was liveblogging from the day's anti-war protest. Kicking myself for forgetting about it -- posters had been up around town advertising the International ANSWER-sponsored event for several weeks -- I IM'd my friend Hilary about it, who suggested we go check it out.
45 minutes later I was standing outside the White House in Lafayette Park, and was disappointed. Outside of someone holding a sign in Foggy Bottom demanding Bush's impeachment (apparently she prefers Dick Cheney) and a family with tie-dye shirts and "Support the troops, bring them home" signs the mass protest was proving more elusive than I anticipated. In fact, the only protesters I spotted in the park were a handful of what looked to be College Republicans wearing Reagan t-shirts and holding signs with messages such as "Petraeus is smarter than you" on their way home. I started to think that all the liberal teeth-gnashing about the crushing of dissent under the Bush Administration wasn't just idle rhetoric.
About the same time Hilary arrived sporting an all black ensemble that she explained was the closest thing to protest wear in her wardrobe. Pondering out next move, we headed towards the Mall in search of hippies.
Walking down 15th St. I spotted a large group of people ahead. Suspecting protesters our pace quickened, but then Hilary pointed out that they were only tourists buying t-shirts and hot dogs from some vendors. Damn. Looking down Pennsylvania Ave., however, I spotted a ray of hope -- the flashing lights of a police cruiser. "Of course, they're all at the Capitol!" We headed down Penn, our quarry in sight.
Clues that the protesters had recently passed by this way literally littered the ground: a discarded pamphlet, a torn sign showing the world on fire and -- I kid you not -- a discarded sign that said "No more pancakes." Hilary and I stopped to pose for pictures with this particular sign and pondered taking it with us, ultimately electing to leave it be. It wasn't pancakes we were after anyhow.
Finally, near the Old Post Office, success -- our first protesters. Hilary asked them to pose for a picture, which they graciously did. Hilary then noted the Kucinich paraphernalia one protester had on, prompting another protester to comment "Don't get her started, she'll talk to you about Kucinich all day." Heeding the warning we continued on our way. At a crosswalk we found a discarded pamphlet with an image of George W. Bush, a condom and a crude sexual reference. A black police officer standing nearby commented on it, with something to the effect of "Can you believe these people? Disgusting." We nodded in assent and crossed the street.
Near the Navy Memorial we encountered a counter-protester who posed for a pic with Hilary. A Korean War veteran wearing his uniform and a silver helmet, he proceeded to tell us about all of the counter-protesting activities he takes part in and some constant vigil he maintains. I was starting to suspect that the counter-protesters might have a weirdness quotient similar to that of the anti-war zealots.
Closing in on the Newseum we discovered an interesting relic from the 1960s -- a bus covered in antiwar slogans and psychedelic colors that advertised itself as a representative of "San Francisco values." (will try to upload some pics of this later) The Capitol was now within sight and the clumps of protesters leaving the scene became more numerous. A guy was hawking commemorative protest t-shirts. I bought some Hawaiian punch, the closest thing to kool-aid I could find available.
Crossing First St. on to the grounds of the Capitol the first thing I noticed was the abundance of, darn it, more counter-protesters. Moving along Hilary and I could begin to hear the din of a megaphone -- the die-in was on! On the sidewalk leading the Capitol Steps people were laying down and encouraging others to do the same. The man with the megaphone started a chant of "Lie down, show your courage!"
I started wandering through the crowd on the grassy area and found it quite similar to the first few paragraphs of this account. College kids, Code Pink, the Grey Panthers, Santa Claus on stilts, etc. were all there to show their wrath. One girl flashed a peace sign for no apparent reason and a high school kid pumped his fist in the air. Lots of people just laid around in the grass soaking up the rays on a beautiful day. I tried to guesstimate the size of the crowd and came up with about 5-7K. If you look at this map you can picture the crowd as starting at the base of the Capitol Steps and extending about halfway to the Reflecting Pool. While fairly dense at the front it became much more dispersed the further back you went, with lots of people just laying around (and, ostensibly showing their courage).
I was getting rather bored but finally there was some action as people started getting arrested. It was obvious that these people had planned on getting hauled off, as almost every one of them I saw was wearing some kind of camouflage uniform. This prompted much righteous indignation amongst the crowd, with shouts of "Arrest Bush instead!", "Let them go!" and "The whole world's watching!"
This is the part that really got me. These people were getting hauled off to spend a few hours in jail and demonstrate how courageous and committed to the cause they were. It was cheap moral preening. That wasn't courage, this is.
Having seen enough, I headed home to watch some college football, which is in fact -- based on the crowd I saw at ESPNZone on the way back -- was what the whole world actually was watching.
45 minutes later I was standing outside the White House in Lafayette Park, and was disappointed. Outside of someone holding a sign in Foggy Bottom demanding Bush's impeachment (apparently she prefers Dick Cheney) and a family with tie-dye shirts and "Support the troops, bring them home" signs the mass protest was proving more elusive than I anticipated. In fact, the only protesters I spotted in the park were a handful of what looked to be College Republicans wearing Reagan t-shirts and holding signs with messages such as "Petraeus is smarter than you" on their way home. I started to think that all the liberal teeth-gnashing about the crushing of dissent under the Bush Administration wasn't just idle rhetoric.
About the same time Hilary arrived sporting an all black ensemble that she explained was the closest thing to protest wear in her wardrobe. Pondering out next move, we headed towards the Mall in search of hippies.
Walking down 15th St. I spotted a large group of people ahead. Suspecting protesters our pace quickened, but then Hilary pointed out that they were only tourists buying t-shirts and hot dogs from some vendors. Damn. Looking down Pennsylvania Ave., however, I spotted a ray of hope -- the flashing lights of a police cruiser. "Of course, they're all at the Capitol!" We headed down Penn, our quarry in sight.
Clues that the protesters had recently passed by this way literally littered the ground: a discarded pamphlet, a torn sign showing the world on fire and -- I kid you not -- a discarded sign that said "No more pancakes." Hilary and I stopped to pose for pictures with this particular sign and pondered taking it with us, ultimately electing to leave it be. It wasn't pancakes we were after anyhow.
Finally, near the Old Post Office, success -- our first protesters. Hilary asked them to pose for a picture, which they graciously did. Hilary then noted the Kucinich paraphernalia one protester had on, prompting another protester to comment "Don't get her started, she'll talk to you about Kucinich all day." Heeding the warning we continued on our way. At a crosswalk we found a discarded pamphlet with an image of George W. Bush, a condom and a crude sexual reference. A black police officer standing nearby commented on it, with something to the effect of "Can you believe these people? Disgusting." We nodded in assent and crossed the street.
Near the Navy Memorial we encountered a counter-protester who posed for a pic with Hilary. A Korean War veteran wearing his uniform and a silver helmet, he proceeded to tell us about all of the counter-protesting activities he takes part in and some constant vigil he maintains. I was starting to suspect that the counter-protesters might have a weirdness quotient similar to that of the anti-war zealots.
Closing in on the Newseum we discovered an interesting relic from the 1960s -- a bus covered in antiwar slogans and psychedelic colors that advertised itself as a representative of "San Francisco values." (will try to upload some pics of this later) The Capitol was now within sight and the clumps of protesters leaving the scene became more numerous. A guy was hawking commemorative protest t-shirts. I bought some Hawaiian punch, the closest thing to kool-aid I could find available.
Crossing First St. on to the grounds of the Capitol the first thing I noticed was the abundance of, darn it, more counter-protesters. Moving along Hilary and I could begin to hear the din of a megaphone -- the die-in was on! On the sidewalk leading the Capitol Steps people were laying down and encouraging others to do the same. The man with the megaphone started a chant of "Lie down, show your courage!"
I started wandering through the crowd on the grassy area and found it quite similar to the first few paragraphs of this account. College kids, Code Pink, the Grey Panthers, Santa Claus on stilts, etc. were all there to show their wrath. One girl flashed a peace sign for no apparent reason and a high school kid pumped his fist in the air. Lots of people just laid around in the grass soaking up the rays on a beautiful day. I tried to guesstimate the size of the crowd and came up with about 5-7K. If you look at this map you can picture the crowd as starting at the base of the Capitol Steps and extending about halfway to the Reflecting Pool. While fairly dense at the front it became much more dispersed the further back you went, with lots of people just laying around (and, ostensibly showing their courage).
I was getting rather bored but finally there was some action as people started getting arrested. It was obvious that these people had planned on getting hauled off, as almost every one of them I saw was wearing some kind of camouflage uniform. This prompted much righteous indignation amongst the crowd, with shouts of "Arrest Bush instead!", "Let them go!" and "The whole world's watching!"
This is the part that really got me. These people were getting hauled off to spend a few hours in jail and demonstrate how courageous and committed to the cause they were. It was cheap moral preening. That wasn't courage, this is.
Having seen enough, I headed home to watch some college football, which is in fact -- based on the crowd I saw at ESPNZone on the way back -- was what the whole world actually was watching.
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