17th & K

I went to an anti war demonstration last week in DC. My local friend and I popped downtown on the war’s 5^th anniversary to check out a couple of the day’s numerous planned anti-war activities.

From suburban Maryland we took the subway downtown to McPherson Sq. - about 4 blocks from the White House. From there we quickly joined a group from Students for a Democratic Society who marched west on K Street.

There may have been 500 protesters. We stretched for a half city block. Behind & in front of us police cars, lights flashing, strethced literally as far as the eye could see. Marching with the group, boxed in front & rear by cops in slow-rolling cruisers and by 5-story buildings on each side, left me unsettled by the realization that they could crush us at will - and seemingly wanted us to know it.

But it was, for the time being, a legal demonstration. So the DC police were there ostensibly to protect our Constitutional right to redress grievances against our duly elected government.

There was all manner of chanting & screaming. Walked alongside a group who looked to be anarchists with bandanas wrapped stick-up style around their faces. I for one get along generally well with anarchists - especially if they’re criminals too.

One of the anarchists pulled a wagon with an amplifier that blasted some manner of derelict music - punk rock I think. It sounded brazen; jangled yet melodically forboding.

The amplifier was covered in a clear plastic bag; we marched in a steady & warm early spring downpour.

We went for two blocks, under heavy police escort, until we reached the corner of 17^th Street. That’s where the anarchists started to get unruly.

I’ve seen this happen before. I lived in San Fransisco during the first Gulf War. They got mad anarchists out there. Shit when Bush 1 started bombing Iraq we swelled angrily through the streets & all the way out to the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Whose fucking bridge??”

We chanted.

“OUR FUCKING BRIDGE!”

Mobbed right up on it & shut the fucker down, we did. Thousands of people planted their butts flat on the highway & refused to move. Stopped traffic in both directions for hours. Except ah, well it actually was the Oakland Bay Bridge. I mean we wanted to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge.

Much more impressive. Better view.

But the Bay Bridge was closer. So we went for that one instead. It’s even bigger & busier than the Golden Gate bridge actually - to shut it down was no small feet.

Whose fucking bridge?

Now. People went to jail when we shut down the Bay Bridge. Not me - at the time I had a bench warrant in California because I blew off my court date for…something else. So I steered clear of the cops while I cheered people on as they got hauled to the paddy wagons.

Our fucking bridge!!

We chanted & screamed.

“Whose fucking intersection?!” A small group of anarchists chanted last week in DC.

No one answered.

The front of our procession up K street had halted. The back of the pack quickly quickly caught up. It was not a large procession - no more than the number of people who can fit comfortably in the middle of a busy Washington DC intersection.

The police were still in front & behind us, cruisers with lights flashing far as the eye could see. Students for a Democratic Society had attained the required permits to hold the protest; K Street was closed of for the march.

But 17^th street was not. The protesters bunched up in the intersection of 17^th & K Streets. City busses & cars with people going home from work waited at a red light on 17^th street. The light turned green. The cars, trucks & buses didn’t go.

There was a wet bunch of wet anarchists in the middle of the road.

“Whose fucking intersection?”

Finally a lone voice answered.

“OUR fucking intersection!”

The light turned red again.

Then green.

The protest did not march forward as scheduled.

Traffic jammed up on 17^th.

My buddy & I were compelled to pose to ourselves a question. Do we want to go to jail? Because if we stayed in the middle of that intersection it seemed we surely would. But first we’d likely be maced, Tazed and/or cold clocked with batons.

What’s the point? To protest I mean. I guess people protest in hopes that if enough people scream loud enough they’ll hear us. But what if they do hear us - but plain don’t give flying a fuck?

That’s why they wanted to shut down the intersection. Because our so-called President is a 2-time loser who plain don’t give a flying fuck. So maybe by disrupting business as usual, the anarchist-types reason, then they’ll be forced to hear our message.

And it’s a good message: We do give a fuck.

Still to get arrested would be such a gigantic pain in the ass and really - who would care? Not George W. Bush. I mean we shut down the Oakland Bay frikkin Bridge & his daddy didn’t care - and the elder Bush is, frightfully, the wiser of the two.

It was futile. The first Gulf War was hugely a hugely popular US military adventure. You know…ever since then I just haven’t been much of a protester.

Me & my buddy split the scene at 17^th & K and walked a few blocks to Lafyette Park. Code Pink had an event planned; they hoped enough people would come & scream so loud, there in front of the White House, that the president would hear.

As we left the intersection a bus-sized paddy wagon made it’s way up K St.

Code Pink mustered maybe 15 people together. They stood on the sidewalk in front of the White House and screamed. No one cared.

It was a sad wee bit of a protest. With stark journalistic objectivity I determined that it accomplished just about - but not quite - jack shit. I don’t know how to stop the war. I only know that screaming loud enough for the President to hear is tactically ineffective if the President doesn’t care.

That’s why last week’s protests against year # 6 of the Iraq war were sparsly attended. Maybe it’s wrong. Maybe everyone should march on Washington anyway. But I understand why people don’t; it was kind of depressing.

Plus the fact that no one can afford the gas money to get to DC.

My friend & I figured it best to take our gloomy moods to a more congenial surrounding. We marched off to find a drinking establishment.

On the way we passed by K St. again, a couple blocks down from 17^th. The street was still bursting with cop cars; the bus-sized paddy wagon loomed omenously up ahead. We wondered what manner of carnage had ensued and decided to go have a look.

Eyewitnesses reported that, when the paddy wagon rolled up, police decended batons- drawn on the intersection. They ordered the group to disperse or face arrest. The protesters locked arms and refused to budge.

The cops slapped their batons into the palms of their hands menacingly. Again ordered the group to disburse. Acted all bad ass like they were going to crack some skulls.

Whose fucking intersection?

By the time we got there mayhem had broke all the way loose. It was like total anarchy! The intersection was still altogether clogged. 17^th street traffic remained at a stand-still. Electrically celebratory house music - like they used to play at raves - now blasted from the amp in the wagon.

The DC police, it seemed, were keen to avoid any embarrasment that might result should footage of them bludgeoning protesters appear on the evening news. Perhaps they preferred that the protests not be shown on the evening news at all.

What those protesters did was illegal. But the cops had Orders - to not interfere. They warned the protesters again. Ordered them to disburse “or else.”

Or else what? The protesters called their bluff.

Then danced in the street.

Danced hundreds-strong in the middle of the intersection of K St. & 17^th.

What can a poor boy do? My friend & I meshed into the crowd & got our boogie on in the middle of the intersection with the protester chicks.

Soon the house music stopped. Everyone groaned, like “shit the party’s over?!” A protester chick got on the microphone. Said she was from the DC chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. Thanked us for coming out in the rain. Then summed up what had just transpired as such:

“This is a Win.”

The house music came back on.

My buddy & I split for the bar. Clearly our work there was done.

I sipped my Jameson on ice & thought on it. A win? Was it really. Well? We did dance unlawfully in the street - 4 blocks from the White House - while the cops watched impotently.

Maybe we didn’t Win Big. There is still cruelty & war on Planet Earth. Still we eeked out a few smiles on that cloudy day. Perhaps that alone strikes a sound blow on behalf of Peace?

In any event we for damn sure didn’t get beat.