A View from the Front:
Washington DC; Jan 15, 09:
The troops had hunkered down.
They were a ragtag lot.
College students, out of work twenty year olds, lab assistants, single mothers who left the kids at homes, college professors—none of whom looked cut out to participate in anything more harrowing than a computer game. Or a quick game of tinker toys.
But they were resolute.
And positioned outside of Washington, queing up for the buses that would take them to the Nation’s capital.
It would not be easy.
They were there for an abstract concept: Democracy.
All of them for one reason or another, thought that there was sufficient reason to move on to Washington to try to settle their differences equitably.
Some had tried before but weren’t allowed in or snubbed at some high panjandrum’s office that served as a gateway to the so-called “important people” those who decided policy.
We had fallen far in eight years—to a depth that many of us could not mentally assimilate.
For many, it seemed like nothing major had changed/.
But it had in ways that were below the radar.
It began with secret deals conducted in the privacy of government offices.
It had happened behind the scenes and was never reported on, or just slipped into the weekend editions knowing that nobody would ever read about what really happened.
But it happened just the same.
What was the starting point?.
It was hard to know.
Some thought it had to do with renouncing our agreements with foreign powers.
Now, we had preemption which meant it was possible to go to war if and when we felt like it without the need for proof or the approval of Congress….
That was the first blow.
And there were others along the way—so many that the mind was boggled.
Most of these people had no intention of going to war—to do anything that might endanger them or their families.
But it was almost as if there was a need.
And that there could be no turning back.
They would go forward and plead their case no matter what happened.
Some of them had experienced having their families spied on.
Several others had family members taken to unknown bases overseas and tortured—all perfectly legal after 9/11.
And when nobody responded to the letters or the petitions, one man—a virtual nobody from nowhere—said ‘we have to do something about this’ and they knew he was right.
And gradually a consensus built and they started meeting at various locations around the country and started talking about what made this country ‘special.” And why it was important that we preserve that “specialness.”
Many others just took it as another day. There was bread to be put on the table; mortgages to be paid. There was no time to scrutinize government.
And the leaders in charge took advantage of their “disconnect” to further their own ends.
Eventually, it became “them” and “us.”
Many of us have already disappeared into containment areas as they call these prisons set up all over the country originally to house those who had contracted flu symptoms that we did not have the vaccines for.
But by the same token, others filled our ranks.
It was the first time, that the people were so organized, so intent on saving their country.
It had taken a long time….but the deciding factor was the War on Iran and the decision that because we were in a period of War that voting rules no longer applied and that the current government would stay in power indefinitely.
That was the last straw—especially for the Constitutional lawyers who were already marginalized by a vicious right wing campaign to disenfranchise them.
In the end, one person’s voice did matter.
If anyone, the original protests emanated among the educated; those who were totally put off by the sleaziness of these tactics designed to maintain power among a new “elite,” an elite that had profited widely from being in power.
The first blows had come at the quadrangle near the Washington monument.
The pioneers, a younger version of the “New Minutemen” as we were called, had advanced down to the Old Executive Office building to speak with the minions of the Vice President.
They were turned away and then somehow things became physical.
Two or three Young Pioneers were cut down by rubber bullets and the rest were hosed by high power hoses resulting in additional injury.
The results have paralyzed the rest of our efforts until now.
We had been warned by the power structure to stay away.
But we must restore our democracy and our way of life and many of us are willing to lay down our lives for what we believe in.
We are beginning our march now and we can see the bastions of the powerful looming out there before us….
Rumors have circulated indicating that others in the front lines are being assaulted and there have been injuries.
So this may be our last post until we lick our wounds.
For now,
Ron Marcus, former social sciences teacher; now a soldier for Peace in the New Minutemen…
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