I had quite an interesting day today.
By 10a.m. I was at the traffic circle on the Arlington Cemetery side of the Memorial Bridge. There were about 150 impeachniks there holding signs, feeling optimistic, and getting ready to walk 2 miles to the US Captiol to meet with the one man, in our whole vast democracy, who has the power to advance the cause of impeachment. A small barrage of media was lined up and also awaited action.
Across the street were about 20 die-hard B*shniks, many of them familiar faces from counterprotesting other actions in the DC area. Known colloquially as "Freepers"--from their connections to the conservative (organization?) Free Republic--they were holding signs as well and issuing a high-volume stream of invective towards the impeachment demonstrators, proclaiming their arch-patriotism and denigrating that of the "smelly hippies" and "communists" who dared criticize our preznit.
Without spending too much time on this Freeper madness, I will just observe that, though ignorant and offensive, they were difficult to ignore by dint of their sheer volume. Unable to hear the talks by Reverend Yearwood and Cindy Sheehan, frustrated as I was becoming, and armed as I was with a bullhorn, I made my way over to counter some of their most egregious spew.
Unfortunately my efforts were quickly nixed by some of the Camp Casey crew, and I eventually lowered the bullhorn in deference to their requests for reasons you may have heard: "It only encourages them," "We don't want to stoop to their level," "We don't want to give them any more ammunition," and finally, "Please, we're not telling you what to do, but we're asking you to stop."
What can I say? It can be hard to hear total misrepresentations, rank slander and patent lies, at high volume, and not respond. I don't honestly know if returning fire encourages them or not--I think if we kept it up it would ultimately discourage them, but I didn't get to test the hypothesis. Basically they were just throwing up a wall of sound, with intent to disrupt, and I thought the very least we could do was to defend in kind. (Or, perhaps more wisely, to simply move away--though that would still be acknowledging their disruption and might have inconvenienced the media, god forbid.) In a better world, some of the 20 or so police on hand might have recognized the Freep volume as excessive and asked them to turn it down, but they were waving an awful lot of flags and talking an awful lot of self-righteous shite, so it might've been a lot to ask of local law enforcement. Besides, you take to the streets with the police you have, not those you wish you had. . .
In any case, by 10:45 our crew, numbering close to 300 had set out across the Memorial Bridge, and by noon we were in the shadow of the Capitol. Taking different entrances we arrived ultimately in the hallway outside of John Conyers' office in the Rayburn building, lining the halls for about 30 yards in either direction and talking animatedly amongst ourselves until being shushed by the polices, inspiring impromptu rounds of whispered, "IMPEAChshhhhhhhhh"es as we pressed against the walls.
Several of our number--namely the principles: Reverend Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and Cindy Sheehan of Camp Casey, and their confidants--were inside the office of the Judiciary Committee chair, including some media (on a rotating basis). At length Mr. Conyers himself joined them, and they talked privately for over an hour. When they emerged at about 3pm, they spoke briefly, with disappointment, to the press and the hundreds in the hall outside, then invited as many of the assembled as they could to join them in the office for a sit-in. Mr. Conyers, it seems, had proved intractable on the subject of impeachment, claimed that he just didn't have the votes, and would not immediately forward the Impeach Cheney bill, H. Res. 333, down the line to the Subcommittee on the Constitution (chaired by Rep. Gerald Nadler from Manhattan). So in we sat.
I was able to ask Cindy what more had happened during the conversation. She said that he had wanted another meeting, later, in a larger space, and that was unacceptable. Then the singing broke out, and the chanting, and the readings of applicable articles from the U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 4, I believe), so I was unable to learn much more. Then Mr. Conyers' staff told us that he had asked us to leave, and we'd have 5 minutes before arrests began. At this point your correspondent made his way back into the hallway (not trying to spend the afternoon in jail, thanks), where many new police were gathering and some dedicated activists, determined to be arrested, were sitting down (against Capitol regulations, apparently--no sitting in the halls of Congress, friends). The ensuing scene is amply documented elsewhere on the site, and is relatively predictable in any case. Once you've seen one mass arrest. . .
But at this point my own frustration escalated. For one thing, there were still 100 or so people in the hallway, dedicated impeachment activists, many coming from other parts of the country (I met one bald, brawny fellow who said he was an ex-NYC cop, and who was gung-ho to meet with any other Reps he could to help spread the impeachment gospel), but the head had been cut off, so to speak, from our organizing efforts, and was being taken one by one down the hall in the other direction, ultimately to jail, so it was difficult to rally unified action and take it to another office, despite some enthusiasm for the concept.
And this is where I had cause again to wonder about the efficacy of getting arrested as a demonstration tactic. I mean, we had a LOT of intelligent, articulate, passionate and inspirational people in that hallway today. David Swanson, Tina Richards, Medea Benjamin, Kevin Zeese, Linda Schade, George Ripley, Jenefer Ellingston, Adam Eidinger, Anthony St. Martin from Pledge to Impeach, all-stars from Camp Casey, Camp Democracy, Code Pink, Greens, Blues, Purples, interns from Florida and New Hampshire, geriatrics from Georgia, I mean, there were a LOT of us, each ready to hear what John Conyers had to say, each ready to plead our case for impeachment, to him or to anyone, AND there was a ton of media around (both the network alphabet soup and the print corps, including Dana Milbank--snark king of the WashPost, who no doubt will have much derisive to say about it all on page A2 tomorrow).
But the arrests start, and that's a pretty big show--especially for those who haven't seen it before--and then some people who aren't being arrested drift away, and then some more, and pretty soon there's just this rump of people wondering where they can go pick up their arrested friends. And all that energy, and intensity, and possibility, just dissipates and disappears.
Just when almost all was lost, Tina Richards (mother of marine Corporal Cloy Richards, hallway bugaboo of Appropriations Chair David Obey, target of much resentful vitriol on this very site, and coordinator of the Grassroots America "Swarm on Congress" to stop this asinine war) appeared in time to lead 25 folk down to Nancy Pelosi's office in the Cannon building 3 long underground hallway blocks away. After a few minutes there the Speaker declined to change her mind on impeachment, evidently (not that she was in her office--she was, as almost always, in her war chamber in the Capitol building itself), so the last of the crew left without incident, and met up at Bullfeathers around the corner to sort it all out.
Well, almost without incident. One woman (Eve, who is at least 70 years young, and much more inspirationally dedicated than either you or me) was detained as she exited the Cannon building steps because the police recognized her as someone having a stay-away order from the Capitol office buildings due to her prior office occupation arrests. But she was surrounded by allies and, after a few minutes, some police officer with discretion decided that she was free to go, eliciting a hearty cheer from the assembled crowd, and some comments that maybe there is still some chance for justice, after all.
So what really happened? Our three spokes-folk apparrently didn't change the chairman's mind, nor the Pelosi contingent, and ultimately everybody went away, leaving Congress free for business as usual. The press I've seen so far has headlines like "Sheehan arrested again" with almost no focus on the reason for the arrest, and bare mention of the 300 who accompanied her. (IMPEACHshhhhhhhhh. . .the I word that the MSM abhors.) And 40 or so folk get arrested, spend a few hours in the hoosegow, pay their $75, or whatever, and go home.
So, what? No other reps were pressured. No other minds were changed. There is no further meeting with John Conyers. The media imperative is lost. Cindy Sheehan is now propelled by her own rhetoric into running a symbolic race against the House speaker that she cannot possibly win, and probably doesn't even really want to. All the other activists go home, wondering what we can do until September. . . I'm just not sure that this getting arrested thing is getting the job done. . .
I guess the good news is that a reporter from NPR did cover today's noontime Code Pink protest outside the Justice Department, demanding Alberto Gonzales' resignation as Attorney General. If you tune in tomorrow morning you may get to hear some yourself. Apparently Gonzo testifies on the Hill again (Senate side)--so we'll see what he recalls. . . All power to the people, hermanos y hermanas.