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| Activists walk down Constitution Ave, in Washington during last weekend’s anti-war protest (DP) |
The only moment I felt like a protester was in 30th Street Station, protesting my decision to take the obscenely early 4:55am train to D.C. When I boarded the train and took a seat, a quick glance at the overhead compartments confirmed my expectations: makeshift signs, protruding pickets, the arsenal of an angry citizenry.
Saturday, January 27th was a surprisingly warm winter day in Washington — the perfect day for a protest. Union Station, with its views of the US Capitol, served as the staging ground for an energized congregation — geriatrics draped in anti-war regalia, school groups straight off the bus, a couple toting an image of a Bush-Hitler hybrid. Destination: the National Mall. Goal: convince a newly elected Democratic Congress to end the war in Iraq.
The protest, organized by United for Peace and Justice , drew somewhere between ABC’s claim of “tens of thousands” and United for Peace and Justice’s estimate of “500,000″ people. But the numbers weren’t as important as the message: 64% of Americans think Congress has not been assertive enough in challenging the Bush Administration’s conduct of the war. It was time to force Congress to perform.
I found myself amongst the crowd, one of the uncountable, completely fascinated and perplexed by the madness. In front of me, four haunting words in block letters: “Bush lies. Who dies?” Haunting not because of the apparent message — but because of its simplicity, the omission of the process that transformed lies into dead bodies. Do these people actually blame Bush for our current situation? Chants of “Impeach Bush!” ended the suspense.
With the intimidating facade of the Capitol in the background, a series of speakers addressed the masses — including infamous and outspoken anti-war figures Jane Fonda and Sean Penn; House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Reverend Jesse Jackson, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA); veterans of both the Vietnam and the Iraq War; and parents of soldiers fighting in Iraq.
The speeches were laced with urgency, with anger, with repetition of indictments, with demand for change. The energy of the crowd was undeniable, but I couldn’t bring myself to clap with each point, to cry for impeachment. I only responded to claims of Constitutional transgressions, to claims of denials of habeas corpus. One thought flooded my mind: what have we gotten ourselves into?
I felt as if the protestors took the answer for granted: obviously we’re at war. We were lied to. “A Nation Betrayed,” as a hand painted sign so elegantly put it. Betrayed indeed, by ourselves and each other. The government hasn’t been stealing our freedom. Bush hasn’t been trampling our rights. We’ve handed over our freedom — delicately placed our rights at the feet of the president.
We’ve settled for mediocre representation — a Congress interested in its own self preservation. A cowardly establishment unfit to live up to the standards of our Constitution. This is the group “representing” our interests — this is the group to which the protest appealed.
It missed the point. At the inception of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine advised that, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
This war won’t end with an act of Congress — the tyranny of this administration, by Vice President Cheney’s own acknowledgment , will not subside. We’ve become accustomed to the illusion of democracy, the exaltation of American values as universally good. And at the same time, we’ve allowed the corrosion of our democracy and the negation of our values. An appeal to Congress is a superficial effort. What we need is an appeal to each other.
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February 2nd, 2007 at 2:08 am
Excellent article, scholar Standfield. But I was sorry to read about your sense of disappointment with the protest. I was overwhelmed with exhilaration when I attended the event on Saturday. I felt like I was apart of something great, something more significant than just a bunch of people carrying signs and chanting slogans. We were participating in the very heart of American democracy, beating out collectively our frustrations over an unpopular war. Saturday’s protest reinforced Tocqueville’s opinion of Americans as a “joiner society.” One of the rights we hold dear is the right to peacefully assmeble and address our grievances to Congress. To gather in such large numbers peacefully in hopes of influencing our representatives is a wonderful characteristic of a free society and is also not commonly found, unfortunately, in many other countries. In my opinion, we should enjoy the protest for what it was: a large group of people trying to express a collective will. If democracy has really become just an illusion, then why would such phenomena even exist?
Yours truly, your friend and fellow scholar,
Adam Bartolanzo