[Iowa-dx] Washington D.C. September 15th Peace Rally, March, and Capitol Hill Die-In Nr. 2

[Iowa GreenRon]

I have edited and re-written my account of my trip to
Washington D.C., and posted this on Iowa Green
Discussion list serve.  This version may interest those
who have already read my posting, as this contains a
more clear and more informative presentation:

>From :  iowagreenron <iowagreenron@hotmail.com>
Reply-To :  IowaGreenDiscussion@yahoogroups.com
Sent :  Tuesday, September 18, 2007 11:05 PM
To :  IowaGreenDiscussion@yahoogroups.com
Subject :  [IowaGreenDiscussion] Washington D.C.
   September 15th Peace Rally, March, and Capitol Hill Die-In

I just returned yesterday from my fourth bus trip with the
University of Iowa Anti-war Committee trip to Washington
D.C., for the Washington D.C. September 15th Peace Rally,
March, and Capitol Hill Die-In. I went with 52 other peace
activists on board our bus, to march in protest of this war
with three of my Libris Fidelis war protest anti-Bush signs.

First of all I want to really thank University of Iowa
Anti-war Committee for their sponsoring of my totally FREE
bus trip to Washington, on their Windstar chartered bus
trip. After all of the trips I have taken lately, and all
of my political activities being rather expensive, not to
mention my recently being able to buy my computer/
scanner/printer for $250, with half of a loan I received a
couple weeks ago (I returned the other unused half of
the loan), I was totally out of any funds at all for the trip
(I only have $60 left for my month's remaining groceries
and living expenses, after paying for my food on this trip).
Things in my life have been compounding in effect, and
so I could not have made this trip without UIAC's and
their supporters' generosity, which also was only possible
because of the ACLU's prior generous provision of their
totally free bus trip for EVERYONE to go to Washington
D.C. for my third trip, in which ACLU also provided us
with a FREE MOTEL ROOM OVERNIGHT prior to their
march and senatorial/representative lobbying day to
restore Habeus Corpus and Democracy to our nation.

I think this was the biggest of the four Washington D.C.
marches that I have participated in and have witnessed
this year. Some marchers heard a tally, coming from
offiicial marching sources, that 100,000 marchers
participated, although typical "approved" propaganda on
the radio placed the marchers at 10,000, which is pure
bull. People had continued to pour into the protest site
until we left on the march itself!

We departed Iowa City at around 11:30 AM Friday
morning, and arrived in Frederick, Maryland, just about
40 miles outside of Washington D.C., at around 5:30
AM. Searching for a place to "lay-over" until the march
rally time, we found an open Denneys Restaurant for a
great breakfast by taking the Patrick Road westbound
exit -- note this if you are going to D.C. by charter
bus, and arrive early in the morning, it's the only
restaurant open at that time of the morning that we
could find, unless you want to get your teeth rotted
from sugar and carbohydrates and to establish your
diabetes at Dunkin Donuts.

We waited there in the shopping center parking lot,
behind the Denneys Restaurant, 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 departed Frederick and joined the masses who
were also arriving by bus at about 9AM Saturday
morning, September 15th. Our bus parked at
Mc Pherson Square, one block north of La Fayette
Park, where the rally was to be held across the street
from the White House.

Once again, I was separated from our group when I
stopped to assemble my three protest signs onto my
wood carrying handles. When I looked up, everyone
had already left for ralley the site.

I went directly to the ralley site, and found myself at the
stage, where I decided to display my signs, as I was not
able to recognize anyone from UIAC.

As with the last D.C. war protest marches that I have
participated in, my Libris Fidelis posters were popular
with fellow activists, and they were photographed quite
extensively by news media and protest participants, plus
unknown 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 at this one point: at about 10:30 AM
there was an older man with a black Korean War
Veteran baseball cap, who was quite intently watching
me from along the barrier net-fencing about 120 feet
away from me; he stood along the news media fence
with a scowling look on his face as he was observing me
with my displayed anti-war posters, handing out my
cards with my Libris Fidelis motto about Democracy;
he held a mass-produced anti-war protest sign that
was mounted on a cardboard pole handle, and his hat
had lots of shiney military buttons and medalions
pinned on the front of his hat. He really looked
disapprovingly at me, as people were crowding around
and photographing my signs.

Then, there was an oddly conspicuous appearance of
younger people, who were obviously clandestine
counter-protestors, in addition to the one wearing the
Korean War veteran hat, who assembled in front of me,
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, and all of whom tried
generally with success to block my signs from view by
the speakers and television cameras.

The few "phoney news media people" who caused me
some trouble then began 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 to "put
the signs down so we can see", after my standing
there for about three hours and nobody had once
complained, I lowered my signs 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 them 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 rigid 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 those people a couple
times, they moved too, and then they stood up and
blocked my signs for a time until Ralph Nader came to
speak, whereupon they approached the stage and
began photographing him.

Next, the guy wearing the Korean War Veteran hat
with his printed photographic mass-produced anti-war
protest sign, began moving over to my location and
began encroaching with his signs by childishly covering
my signs with his own signs, blocking my wordage; he
said only one thing the entire time he interfered with
me: "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 nearly combative
contest, to see who could block whose protest sign in
front of whom's, and this escalated to his using another
sign handle, from a second sign that had been stuck in
the plastic orange barrier fence, to attack my signs. In
the wind, the staples of my large "Boy George Went
AWOL" poster separated from their wooden stick pole,
so I pulled the poster against the fence and used the
pole as a lever to hold back the Korean Veteran guy's
sign, as I held my poster out in front of his poster to be
seen. That tactic pretty much ended it, with me holding
my stick out against and in front of 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 poster over against mine
unsuccessfully, with my free stick quite successfully
holding his poster back. I only mention this because
the news media was observing the entire incident.

Cindy Sheehan's address was about Congress' total lack
of interest in addressing this illegal war, and 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 in her district is to support her election!

There were some other interesting speakers of various
anti-war and Iraqi veterans' groups who spoke, and
there was one 7 year old girl, who gave us a very
stirring rap presentation of her poem. Yes, it was rap,
but it was very melodic and rhytmic, not the
monotonous chant of typical rap, and she had quite a
lonog presentation, but then the audience heard and
hushed quite noticeably when she made the racial
statement about her message being black-power
oriented, rather than a message of our non-racial
assembly, but overall, what she said before that had
the audience really chanting with her, and her
call-and-response chant 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 his message, after my prior attendance as
an Iowa Green Party Delegate at the Green Party
National Meeting in Reading Pennsylvania recently. So I
already had seen and heard Ralph Nader first hand.

Where I was both alertly enthusiastic about his message,
even though this was his stirring 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 posturing statement,
sad to say, but even yet without any mention of him
running for office or any "vote for me" rhetoric, it had
that quality of saying "I'm your man!" He did his typical
well-thought-out presentation of the things that are
wrong in our nation and our society, of the guilt our
nation has for perpitrating 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 you have to follow him and do what
he says, typically without any delegation of his processes
to others whom 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 is just that it
is by RALPH NADER'S WAY of doing things, not OUR
DEMOCRATIC 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, he will set up
another tyranny.

When we finally formed the march procession, led by
groups of veterans and families of the Iraq War, already
peace 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! And only rarely, a very
few security people were seen anywhere at all around
the White House the whole time, as if they were hiding.
I guess George "Warcrimes" Shrub was, as usual, AWOL
from that great residence? And, after all,
President-of-Vice Cheney probably was running things
anyway, busy working for their 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 elected as our "representatives"
from Capitol Hill. There were only the Capitol Policemen
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 visible,
almost all of them in riot gear, who came out of the
Capitol building in groups as protestors arrived over time;
they had a motorcycle blockade across the face of the
steps and would not let anyone onto the steps, or enter
the patio in front of the steps.

At this point, it really became quite comical. It quite
obviously was a case of the anti-war protest
movement having these marches being peacefully and
non-violently repeated every month, and not really an
army of protesters angrily swarming the protest sites
(as well as other sites in addition to the Capitol),
although Pennsylvania Avenue was really filled by a huge
number of protestors on the entire 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. The Capitol Police
found more and more people arriving, and they had to
deploy more and more reserve officers, from within the
Capitol Building.

However, and I have been complaining about this with
every protest, including our 5:15 PM protest here at the
University of Iowa Pentacrest at Clinton and Washington
Streets here in Iowa City: as more and more marchers /
protestors arrived at the ralley 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 anti-war protest
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 to walk with his
tie-strips on his wrists. He refused to go willingly to the
Capitol Building detention room, and I was told he was
roughly put down on the patio and then picked up,
and I saw him being carried by about four officers. But
otherwise, it was almost appearing to be like a joke to
everyone watching: protestors would make their
symbolic attempt to get to the Capitol steps to "die in"
on the steps, and they would be apprehended. This
continued rather casually by both sides, until enough of
them actually were able to get to the patio and "die in"
there, then 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, the protestors refused, and they were
tie-strip "cuffed" with their wrists behind their backs,
and they stood up and were willingly led individually, for
the most part, by individual officers up the Capitol
Building steps to disappear into 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, pretty
women who were dressed casually in thin blouses and
shorts, each 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 too busy with getting ready for and going out on
their hot dates, not protesting and not participating in
public defiance that will get them arrested, but these
very beautiful women certainly did!

Of course, there were a lot of men and women who
wore military camouflage-uniforms, and these men and
women were arrested and led up the steps to the
detention room, some in complete uniforms, some in
combinations of partial military uniforms and civilian
clothing.

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 at
about 6:30 PM Washington D.C. time, since I am on a
tax-exempt partial disability veteran pension that is
subject to being revoked if I get arrested, I finished
eating my lunch of Progresso canned soup and picked
up my things, and along with a fellow demonstrator
from our bus, we returned to Union Station to have
dinner and to await our bus.

All-in-all, in spite of the "deserters" who did not remain
at the Capitol Building after they first reached it from
the march, I actually think this one march was greatly
productive. And although I do not think that I was very
convincing to one of the shouting Iraqi veteran
counter-demonstrators who claimed (they all do) to be
a history major, when I countered him with
documented history for him to research, I think that
one particular vet who followed along with me, arguing
the whole time with me about the legitimacy of the
war, I think he actually began to see my point that if
he was a true history major, then he would not be
saying the things he was saying, and I hope his
conscience gets to him AND THAT HE MUST ACTUALLY
RESEARCH THE FACTS I GAVE TO HIM ABOUT HOW
OUR NATION'S -- AND ENGLAND'S -- CORPORATIONS
HAVE 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 THE PROFIT
OF OUR COMMERCE, thereby resulting in THOSE OTHER
NATIONS' retaliation against our corporations, who then
were being restricted from their exploiting tyranny, and
that the other nations' "hostility" toward our nation is
simply their national sovereignty to protect their national
sovereignty and their societies from our corporations by
confiscating ill-gotten property, 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 since he continued to stay with me in our
debate, I somehow think he really will get the notion
to check up on those historical facts. If so, we will
have one more person who had once supported this
immoral, inhuman, and 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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