Postcards from an anti-war protest
I sit on the edge of the tidal basin. There is not a hint of ice on the water, and its surface is so smooth it mirrors the low-lying jets passing overhead. Other than their rumble all is quiet, save for the honks of geese and the occasional chatter of a nearby game of touch football. On moments when the wind blows right, I can smell the stables of the Park Service, a refreshing odor after the cleanness of the rest of the district. Across the water tourists swarm up the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, and many of them with anti-war placards are turned away, for of course one can’t protest without the proper authorization.
It is colder on the white marble of Jefferson’s memorial. Here, thin shards of ice swirl in the water. On rare moments a shorebird tries to stand on one of these icebergs, only to quickly topple off. On my walk here I was struck by how brutal the new WWII memorial looks, naked granite, filling part of the National Mall. If humanity has a 21st century as bloody as the one we just left, perhaps the Mall will be filled with war memorials, and they will have to cut down the cherry trees to make space. As Jefferson said, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
I’m on the fringes now of the rally. The protestors haven’t yet filled up their designated area, even though it’s already 11pm. This doesn’t bode well for a massive turnout, but there are perhaps 50,000 people here, with more arriving every second. What fascinates me is the intricate ecology of these marches. The socialist and communist papers are hawked aggressively near the entrance- they are the bottom feeders of the march, the carrion eaters. Everywhere, college kids swarming, playing football, filling up the kid’s merry-go-round. Near the front is the stage, full of speakers and media types, who are mostly ignored by everybody. The exception is some of the preacher-types, like Jesse Jackson, that can still spur the crowd. Even Jesse’s speech was a little bizarre, coinciding as it did with a nearby tribal drumming rendition of “Give Peace a Chance,” complete with a sax being played in a decidedly Dixieland style. Bizarreness is the order of the day. There was a man pushing a grocery cart around selling cold pretzels. There were a group of folks with a sign that said “Arms are for hugging,” and they thus went around hugging people. Numerous cute babies walked around in activist costumes. A man wore a classic Minuteman colonial costume, except for 1980’s vintage running shoes.
I’m now happily sitting in Teaism in Penn Quarter, digesting my meal. The place has been taken over by activists, and has a hip bohemian vibe because of it. The march after the rally was exhausting, a slow-motion slog around the Capitol. It was pleasing to see us all stretched out, surrounding the building. Interestingly, the staffers in many of the Senate office buildings had put anti-war placards up in the windows, and a few staffers even greeted the crowd on behalf of their senator!
It’s nighttime now, and I’m looking out a plate glass window onto Connecticut Avenue. I marveled as I walked here how many contradictions float around the city. It is modern and clean, but there’s a homeless person over practically every street vent. One can sense the power that resides in the city when a black town car drives by, the man in the back wearing a tuxedo. And yet the city seems shockingly unsure of itself. To Americans, the land inside the Beltway has ceased to be a place where good happens, at least consistently (I still hold out hope), and instead is just a place of necessary secrets. You see this in some of the government servants who jog by on the Mall- they are proud of themselves for being in DC in a position of power, rather than for the good things they did with their power.
