Okay, back to work. As I wrote to a friend this morning, the past two days completely exhausted me in the true sense of the word. I was unable to post Friday or Saturday due to my need for sleep at the end of each day. Truth be told, I also needed time to process what I had experienced and have not fully done so while writing, right now. It will take some time and writing about these past two days will help. So.......... let's dive in.
Early call on Friday. The check points to allow people into the secured perimeter were scheduled to open between 6 & 7am, so I made sure to get on the metro by 5am so I could be at the check point a little before six. It turns out that that was important. The check point closest to where the protest site I was going to be opened at 6am and it took until 7 to get through. For the most part, all of the people waiting at this check point were protesters. We all got along nicely and of course were of like minds about what we would witness later in the day. Of course people had signs and banners.
After passing through the check point we all moved to a site at 8th and Pennsylvania, at the Naval Memorial and across from the National Archives building. The site permit was procured by The ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition. There was a thirty foot long stage with large PA speakers on both ends. There was a steady stream of speakers, chants, musicians and recorded music. There was also, off to the side of the area a tall column of speakers (maybe 20 feet high) to broadcast the inauguration itself.
Some of the chants were as follows:
- No Trump, No KKK, immigrants are welcome here (or everyone, or refugees)
- No justice, No peace
- What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? NOW!
- Power to the people, Power to the people, Power to the people, Power to the people, right on (John Lennon)
- Heh heh. Go home. donald trump has got to go.
There were others, but I just can't remember them right now. There's was just so much input that it's hard to recall it all. It's in there and will come back to me over time.
The speakers covered many of the ideas that you have read in my posts. Some of what they had to say was too radical for me. You need to know that just because those of us at this site were all protesting, that does not mean that we are monolithic in our ideas. One of the concepts I had an issue with was suggesting the rejection of the Democratic Party. I am not a fan of the two party system and I am not so naive as to believe that Democrats in the Party apparatus are without fault. Nor am I so cynical as to think that just because the same people are politicians that they are all without a moral structure. For the most part I feel the same way about Republican politicians, just shifted a little more towards the cynical side of things. Having said that, the two party system is what we've got right now and for the foreseeable future, so we need to work inside of this system. Trying to change it is an honorable idea, but reality is we're not going to any time soon. In fact, a lesson that can be learned from the Tea Party movement is that a sub group within the Republican Party changed that Party drastically. The Republican Party looks very different than it did at the turn of the century.
Throughout the morning, a lawyer from ANSWER's legal team kept us updated on an issue that had developed. The site that we were at could hold many more than the 3,000 to 5,000 that were there, but The Secrete Service had closed the check point closest to us at approximately 10am. Then it was reported that they opened it again, but the pace was extremely slow. It was reported that the four lines to enter the site, were two to three blocks long, well over 10,000 people. It seems to have stayed that way even when I was leaving at about 4:15pm.
When the inauguration ceremony came on over the column of loud speakers, we all, spontaneously and without prompting, did whatever we could to drown out what was being broadcast. It was like some surrealistic dystopian scene, this faceless broadcast that just suddenly started streaming over these speakers. For the duration of the ceremonies, between canned music and chants, we were able to not hear what certainly seemed to be this propaganda machine. I understand it was so all gathered within the perimeter could hear, it just struck me as, again, dystopian, kind of Soviet.
The ceremony did not take long, and then we were back to speakers, chants and music until about 3:45 when the parade started to pass our way. We were near the beginning of the parade route and it was scheduled to start at 3pm, but I guess it was delayed until the drizzle that was occurring, stopped. When Trump and all of the dignitaries passed, we of course screamed all sorts of derisive comments at the motorcade. The only person that I could definitely identify was Paul Ryan. He had his window down. What I noticed, as he was looking directly at us, was that he looked truly concerned.
Tomorrow, The Woman's March.
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