One of the biggest challenges of any movement is getting the attention of the politicians and the nation for the ideas it is trying to push. But Take Back the Capitol found a way that was very effective; they tied up traffic in the Capitol.
If you have never lived in the District or around it, then you probably don’t appreciate how bad traffic is. Even with a world class mass transit system there are long delays on the streets and highways around the Capitol on a normal day. When you add in eight hundred or so people carrying banners and walking down the heart of the cities streets, well you can imagine the disruption.
The protest started at the National Mall where the TBC folks have been set up since Monday. There were four teams as they called them, the purple, brown, green and blue teams. Each consisted of about 200 people.
Again I have to give the organizers of this event a ton of credit. There were safety vest clad “Marshalls” for each group on all sides, to keep the crowds together and safe. They did a very good job as the groups walked on the sidewalks up to the 14th Street where they split in different directions with the intent of converging on K Street and 16th avenue in sight of White House and in the center of the lobbying industry.
On the way there the group your humble (well, not really) reporter followed went to the Wells Fargo building and set up outside for a chant of “Shame on you Wells Fargo”.
They then proceeded to walk by the Occupy DC encampment. This is where things got a little out of their control. They had not planned on the ODC folks participation (while these protests have similar goals, they are not in any way coordinated) but some of the Occupiers got their banners out and decided to join the protest. But that is all good, when you have the same goals.
Starting at 14th Street the protest took to the actual streets, instead of just covering the sidewalks. This was done with the coordination with and permission of the police. It was a planned and permitted protest so that was a good thing. It did get out of hand but we’ll get that in a minute.
The four groups became two and then the two groups met in the middle of K Street and held the intersection for about 35 minutes (it was planned for 10, but the police did not seem to be in any hurry to move things along.
Then the TBC folks formed up, the marshal’s leading and following and instructing and they marched back on different routes. All along the way there were Washingtonians observing and getting the message.
At K Street the windows of an office building were filled with folks looking down and even taking pictures of the protestors, many of whom were chanting “Join us! Join us! You are the 99% too!”.
Not everyone was happy about the protest. One fellow in a very nicely cut suit bustled right through the protestors on the street and called them assholes and told them to get a life and get a job. Needless to say this fella missed the point that jobs were what these people were protesting for.
There were also quite a few irate drivers. Not the least of which was a garbage truck driver from a private company who felt that laying on his horn was going to make a planned protest go faster.
Even though it was raining a steady drenching rain the spirits of the protestors was high and they felt that they were being heard by their actions. In talking to them I heard over and over that this was the start of the movement not the end, that raising awareness was the issue of the day. I have to say that they certainly made a lot of people aware.
Let’s talk about the arrests. The arrests were mostly of Occupy DC protestors, not the TBC folks. It is the difference between an ad hoc protest and a tightly organized one. When the march went by the Occupy DC site at McPherson Square many of the ODC folks also spilled into the streets there. They did not have a permit and were being closely watched by the DC police.
When the TBC protestors left, that left the ODC folks on their own hook. It seems they decided that they could continue to make their point by keeping traffic tied up. Once it became clear that the TBC protest was over the DC police moved in to make sure that traffic started moving again.
Most of the coverage you’re going to see is going to conflate the two groups and that is a mistake.
I talked to several folks just watching the protest and what I found was mostly a bemused tolerance and a lot of tacit support for the goals of the protestors. One security guard for a hotel and one traffic officer told me they understood that they were also part of the 99% and that they were happy to see so many people out in the pouring down rain making their voices heard.
If they are going to be heard and not be just a one day wonder, then they will have to have more and more of these kinds of events. Which is well known to the organizers. Bryan Heartson, an organizer from Jobs Now Huston made a good point to me.
“Think about the Tea Party for a minute” he said “They started with a one rally on tax day and then followed it up with more events over a year and half. By doing that they made their message heard and got politicians to act on it. That is what we will have to do if we want to have the same kind of impact.”
It is unclear if the coalition of labor and advocacy groups that have made the Take Back the Capitol movement happen will be able or even want to stay together long enough to get a cohesive movement going.
There is certainly enough frustration and anger out there in working class of the nation to achieve such a goal, but anger and frustration are only part of the mix of getting a movement off the ground.
For now we can be sure that this week, at the very least, the Take Back the Capitol protest has had some impact on the conversation, but for real change to happen it needs to be more and more often that the voices of the 99% are heard.
The floor is yours.