Mmmm, not exactly Frank Capra-esque, is it? What you can't see in the above photograph is how incredibly jam-packed with citizens it is around me. Stuggling to get to the security barrier, I had to pass a group of senior ladies, one of whom had to be 90! As well, you cannot see from the photo how intense the White House police officers looked as they were formally arrayed in front of us, and you cannot also see the spotters walking the roof, although I'm thinking maybe that dark form above my head is one. The White House and Lafayette Park were, in symbolic and emotional senses, the half-way point of the march, if not in the empirical sense. Here is another photograph from the march proper on Pennsylvania Avenue, I believe, just before we came to the White House.
This really was a thing to see and experience, but I was worried at first, seeing what I thought were signs of a weak turn-out.
After spending the night on Capitol Hill, myself, my brother, Jimi45, Lynn, significant other paired with my brother, and Ginger, the peace activist, all had to shift to a hotel in Crystal City, checking in about 10 a.m., missing the DU pre-march breakfast. We head to the Metro station underneath the hotel to travel to the Mall. Preparing to purchase day passes, we are informed by someone coming from the platform that they have been told that the trains are delayed by 45 minutes. It is too far and difficult a walk to get to the Mall from there, so a number of us head up to the street to hail a cab on Jefferson Davis Highway, including a couple who offer to share a taxi with us - it is only much later in the day, when we run into them again resting around the base of the Washington Monument, that I discover that 1/2 of the couple is DUer TK2Kewl, but it is not a surprise. A car carrying a couple of right-wingers stops near us and a lively exchange is had by all. I and my crew grab a taxi that pulls up and TK2Kewl and his wife(?) get another and we are on our way. A relief.
When we get there, I am disappointed at what seems to me a sparse crowd. It is 11 a.m. and time to gather near the DU meeting point. I can find no one. Walking around we see Camp Casey II and the field of crosses. Photos of the U.S. dead are laid out on the ground in transparent covers connected with a very long piece of cord. These will be carried along the march route later by persons forming a chain of the sacrificed. From there we head over to the Ellipse because we are drawn by the sound of a voice from a speaker doing the traditional chants and many people are standing or sitting around the lawn.
Eventually our place for the next couple of hours will be right next to the stage, and as we listen to Rep. McKinney, Jesse Jackson, Cindy Sheehan, Ramsey Clark (who calls for impeachment), the Raging Grannies, one scheduled speaker after another, I come to realize that we have become surrounded by many more people and by the time of the start of the march we clearly have an ocean of humanity. Finally, a speaker dramatically gestures, pointing directly at the White House behind him, something I'm wondering why no one is doing. We are walking away by the time Ralph Nader is to speak (sorry, Ralph, not interested) and the two-too many speakers to bring up the Palestinian-Israeli) issue start to kill the energy and momentum.
We drift into the starting-point area and come across the Code Pink women and banner (hard not to see them - the pink hurts my eyes). I suddenly find myself surrounded by DUers, just by coincidence. I see EarlG and show him some of the photos on my camera. The march moves very slowly because of the volume of humans, but it is still difficult for people to remain together. No matter - the remainder of the march will be a litany of entertaining, moving, ironic and outrage-remembrance-inducing slogans and signs - megaphone chants, T-shirts, a few bare breasts at the "Breasts Not Bombs" banner. The sound "wave" comes up the street rising and subsiding several times along the march.
On coming across freeper/right-winger counter-protestors, I read their signs and think how feeble they seem ideologically - "s this the best they can come up with?" I say to Lynn and Jimi. "Hippies Smell." (Well, yeah, all people smell. And your point?) "Go Back to Canada Like You Promised!" (I never promised to go to Canada.) "Support the Troops. Finish the Mission" (Didn't they tell us the mission would be finished in a month or two, I say to my brother? "The mission was accomplished, remember?" he answers back.
Passing the Minnesotans Against The War group, a woman with a microphone and speaker calls out "Minnesotans Against The War. You betcha!" Everyone on the street laughs.
My T-shirt received many at first slightly perplexed looks and then smiles. "That's an understatement," an older man says. "Yeah, it's really an insult to shitheads," I reply. He laughs. "None too subtle," another man says. "The time for subtly has passed," I say. Exhilirating, and somehow freeing, to know that I am not alone in realizing that this administration is a nightmare that must come to an end.
(END PART ONE)
I have more photos to post, but I'm at work right now and haven't had a chance to load them. Will do that later today.
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