[Iowa-dx] Return From The September 15 March In Washington

[Green PartyRon]

I just returned yesterday from my fourth bus trip to Washington D.C.,
to march in protest of this war with my Libris Fidelis protest signs.

First of all I want to really thank University of Iowa Anti-war Committee
for sponsoring my totally FREE trip to Washington on their chartered
bus trip.  After all of the trips I have taken lately, and all of my 
political
activities, not to mention being able to buy my computer/scanner/
printer for $250 with a loan a couple weeks ago, I was totally out of
any funds at all (I have $60 left for the month's groceries and
expenses after paying for my food on this trip).  I could not have made
this trip without UIAC's and their supporters' generosity, and for the
ACLU's generous provision of a totally free trip to EVERYONE to
Washington D.C. with a FREE MOTEL ROOM OVERNIGHT prior to
their march and senatorial/representative lobbying day.

I think this was the biggest of the four marches in Washington D.C.
that I have witnessed.  Some heard 100,000 marchers from offiicial
sources, although typical "approved" propaganda placed the marchers
at 10,000, which is pure bull.  People continued to pour into the
site until we left.

We departed around 11:30 AM Friday morning and arrived in
Frederick, just about 40 miles outside of Washington D.C. at
around 5:30 AM, and found an open Denneys Restaurant for
a great breakfast off of the Patrick Road Exit (westbound exit
-- note this if you are going to D.C. and arrive early in the
morning, it's the only restaurant open that time of the morning
that we could find unless you want to go to get your teeth
rotted and your diabetes established at Dunkin Donuts).  We
waited there, some of us eating breakfast at various times, some
of us singing outside in the parking lot to a guitarist among our
group, others buying groceries at a 24 hour grocery store that I
only found out about after I purchased my breakfast, and some
of us sleeping on the bus until 8 AM.

We joined the masses who were also arriving by bus at about
9AM Saturday morning, September 15th, when our bus parked
at Mc Pherson Square, about a block north of La Fayette Park,
where the rally was to be held across the street from the White
House.  Again, I was separated from our group when I stopped
to assemble my three protest signs on my wood carrying handles,
and when I looked up, everyone had already left for the site.

I went directly to the stage to display my signs, as I was not
able to recognize anyone.  As with the last D.C. war protest
marches I have participated in, my Libris Fidelis posters were
photographed extensively by news media and protest participants
plus others with expensive still and video cameras, although the
television cameras pretty much tried to ignore my signs this time.
ANSWER (the proponents and hosts of this event) took some
videos of my posters as well.  And when I finally saw our Iowa
contingent assemble across from me, I was too involved with the
publicity of my posters, so I remained at the speaking stage, since
there was so much interest in photographing my posters.  Note
this one point: at about 10:30 AM there was an older man with
a black Korean War Veteran baseball cap who was watching me
from about 120 feet away from me along the news media fence,
with a scowling look on his face as he was observing me with my
displayed anti-war posters; he had a mass-produced anti-war
protest sign on a cardboard handle pole, and lots of military buttons
and medals pinned on his hat.  He really looked disapprovingly at
me as people were crowding around photographing my signs.

Ten, there was an odd appearance of younger people, who were
clandestine counter-protestors, in addition to the one wearing the
Korean War veteran hat, and about four others posing as news
media in the news media fenced-off section, plus one guy taking
ipod pictures also wearing a military veteran hat, all within the news
media fence, all of whom tried generally successfully to block my
signs from view by the speakers and television cameras.

The few "news media people" who caused me some trouble then
tried to stand in front of my posters -- keep in mind that I am off to
the left side of the stage facing the stage, and in front of the stack
of very large speaker amplifier boxes -- and when some people
somewhere behind me began shouting "put the signs down so we
can see", after about three hours of my standing there when
nobody complained, I lowered them down to ground level and held
them on the inside of the news media containment fence, where the
guest speakers and some of the news media could read and, hopefully,
photograph them.  Then these few "news media people" who caused
me some trouble all migrated over to the fence and sat directly in
front of my signs, laying their backs against my signs and moving their
backpacks back and forth from side-to-side against my posters, I guess
to cause some wear damage to my posters, which are painted in
durable acryllic.

When I pulled my signs out from behind them and relocated them to
the side of them a couple times, they moved too, and then they stood
up and blocked my signs for a time until Ralph Nader came to speak.

Next, the guy wearing the Korean War Veteran hat with his printed
photographic mass-produced anti-war protest sign, began moving over
to my signs and covering my signs with his own signs, blocking my
wordage; he said one thing the entire time only: "You keep moving
over", implying that I had been moving over and blocking his signs,
which is not true; he was moving over to my location.  Then very
childishly and maliciously, he began a contest to see who could block
his protest sign in front of whom's, and this escalated to his using a
sign handle from a second sign stuck in the plastic orange barrier fence
to mark off the news media area to attack my signs.  In the wind, my
large "Boy George Went AWOL" poster separated from its wooden
stick pole, so I pulled the poster against the fence and used the pole
to hold back the Korean Veteran guy's sign as I held my poster out
front to be seen.  That pretty much ended it, me holding my stick
against his sign (my free posterless stick was longer than his reach),
and I compromised slightly by moving my other two posters on the
remaining stick pole a bit over to my side, but he still tried to move
his over against mine unsuccessfully with my free stick holding his
poster.

Cindy Sheehan's address was that she wants to run for U.S. Senate,
to provide a real voice for those opposed to this illegal war.  All we
have to do if we are iin her district is support her election!  There
were some other interesting speakers of various anti-war and
veterans' groups who spoke, and one 7 year old girl who gave us a
very stirring rap presentation of her poem, but the audience noticed
and hushed quite noticeably when she made the racial statement
of us all being black-power oriented, rather than a message of our
being non-racial in our approach, but overall, what she said before
that had the audience really chanting with her and her call-and-response
technique had the audience really participating.  I forgive her for her
racial inference, she's only 7 years old and she really stood up in front
of all those people like a pro.  We all make mistakes.

Ralph Nader made his typical presentation, and I saw right through it
after my attendance as an Iowa Green Party Delegate at the Green
Party National Meeting in Reading Pennsylvania recently, where I saw
Ralph Nader first hand.  I was both alertly enthusiastic about his
message and, even though this was his anti-war presentation, I also
realized that this was not a political candidate statement, and but
then, I must admit, it was a speech in which it also was his candidate
statement, sad to say, yet without any mention of him running for
office or any "vote for me" rhetoric: he did his typical well-thought-out
presentation of the things that are wrong in our nation and our
society, the guilt of our nation for participating in this illegal war,
however, he said it in his typically divisive way, using both constructive
and actually very insightful solutions at the same time that he was
saying follow me and do what I say, typically without any delegation
of his process to others he is responsible for.

It just devastated me to have to realize that Ralph Nader REALLY
provides no solutions at all, even though he does see the solution for
us to pursue... it's just that it is RALPH NADER'S way of doing things,
not our way, and WE, as the populace, cannot support Democracy
because we must follow Ralph's play plan, do you understand me?
I do not support Ralph Nader any longer in ANY WAY ! ! ! ! ! !   He
is not pro-Democracy.

When we finally formed the march procession, led by veterans and
families of the Iraq War, already demonstrators had been at the White
House fence for the entire time, demonstrating, chanting, jeering,
and displaying their signs to a pretty much vacant-looking White
House!  Only a very few security people were seen anywhere at all
around the White House the whole time, I guess George "Warcrimes"
Shrub was, as usual, AWOL from that great residence?  After all,
President of Vice Cheney probably was running things anyway for the
international corporation mafia cult.

If I remember correctly, we marched east on G Street NW to
15th Street NW and turned south, then took E Street NW to
Pennsylvania Avenue NW and marched south-eastward to the U.S.
Capitol, where there were no signs of anyone from Capitol Hill, just
the Capitol Policement on balconies, one on a rooftop taking photos
with his very long and thick telephoto lens, but mostly there were
only a few dozen Capitol Policemen/women in riot gear who came
out of the Capitol in groups over time.  They had a motorcycle
blockade across the face of the steps and would not let anyone
onto the steps or the patio in front of the steps.

At this point, it really became quite comical.  It obviously was a
case of the anti-war protest movement having these marches
every month and not really swarming the protest sites (in addition
to the Capitol), although Pennsylvania Avenue was really filled by
protestors the whole route from 14th Street NW to the I-385
Freeway!  I mean, that wide street was filled with people, which
is why I agree with the 100,000 protestor estimate.

However, and I have been complaining about this with every
protest, including our 5:15 PM protest here at the Pentacrest at
University of Iowa at Cllinton and Washington Streets here in Iowa
City: as more and more marchers / protestors arrived at the
destination, many of them simply turned back and went home,
rather than following through and REMAINING EN-MASSE at the
protest site to make an even bigger statement!  And, as more
and more protestors arrived, more and more Capitol and federal
police began appearing, coming out of the Capitol building.

As I said, it became comical.  Except for one guy who went limp
and refused to get up and walk with  tie-strips on his wrists to
the Capitol Building detention room, it was almost appearing to be
like a joke to everyone watching:  protestors would make their
symbolic attempt to get at the steps to "die in" on the steps, and
they would be apprehended, until enough of them actually were
able to get to the patio and "die in" there, and systematically, a
few at a time, one of the protestors, a couple of the protestors,
sometimes four of the protestors at a time, were informed they
had to leave, refused, and were tie-strip "cuffed" with their
wrists behind their backs, and led individually, for the most part,
up the Capitol Building steps to the detention room.

One thing that really caught my attention was that, in this warm
but windy climate saturday, there were some really beuatiful
women among the arrestees who were dressed casually in thin
blouses and shorts, being led up the steps with their wrists bound
behind their backs, and I've not seen that at protests before!
Not to take this as a sexist statement, please do not, it is just that
usually beautiful women are busy with getting ready for and going
out on hot dates, not protesting and not participating in public
defiance, but not these very beautiful women!

Of course, there were a lot of military camouflage-uniformed men
and women being led up the steps to the detention room, some
in complete uniforms, some in partial military and civilian dress.

When I saw the riot squad Capitol or federal policemen moving
over to the grassy area where I was, along the north (west-facing)
wall of the Capitol Building front, since I am on a tax-exempt
partial disability veteran pension that is subject to be revoked if I
get arrested, I picked up my things along with a fellow demonstrator
from our bus, and we returned to Union Station for dinner and to
await our bus at about 6:30 PM Washington D.C. time.

All-in-all, in spite of the "deserters" who did not remain at the Capitol
Building when they reached it from the initial march, I think this one
march was greatly productive.  And although I do not think that I
convinced one of the Iraqi veteran counter-demonstrators who
claimed (they all do) to be history majors when I counter them with
documented history for them to research, I think that one vet who
followed along with me arguing with me about the legitimacy of
the war, actually began to see my point, and I hope his conscience
gets to him AND THAT HE ACTUALLY RESEARCHES THE FACTS I
GAVE TO HIM ABOUT HOW OUR NATION'S AND ENGLAND'S
CORPORATIONS HAVING INFILTRATED THE NATIONS AND
SOCIETIES OF THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD SINCE 1840, USING
OUR COMMERCE TO USURP AND OVERTHROW THEIR POLITICAL
AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS FOR OUR COMMERCE, thereby resulting in
retaliation against our corporations who then were being restricted
to protect their national sovereignty and societies, with our
corporations' ill-gotten property being confiscated, and their corporate
tyranny being excluded from those people's nations and societies,
ONLY TO HAVE OUR USA GO TO WAR AGAINST THOSE PEOPLE
FOR THEIR REFUSING OUR MANIFEST DESTINY CORPORATE
ENSLAVEMENT OF THEIR LIFESTYLE ! ! ! !

Of course, maybe that guy will not check out those facts, but I
somehow think he really will.  if so, one more person who had once
supported this immoral, inhuman, illegal war to testify against it !

Ronald Kinum  a.k.a. Libris Fidelis
Support Green Party, Join Green Party, Vote Green Party:
the ONLY political party in our nation that has DEMOCRACY
written within its Party Platform ! ! ! !

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