 |
| scenes from the women's march and over inauguration weekend - the largest protest in us history. |
Life gets weird. I was not looking forward to inauguration
weekend; dreading it is more like it.
Nonetheless, it was
coming. There had been other weird inauguration
weekend trips, 2001 when we dressed as mock fascists, in docile obedience of
the new Bush, the Students for Undemocratic Society, carrying mock signs with
the words, “Obey” and “These Colors Don’t Run” over images of Bush and Excel
Mobil. My friend Jason Grote wrote:
“Something strange happened on January 20, 2001. I don’t mean George W. Bush, although that
was weird too. There was a fleeting
moment when I (and about 50 other people dressed like me) stood bellowing at a
National Organization for Women rally.
Behind them was a barricade, then Pennsylvania Avenue, then another
barricade, then Republicans, and behind them the Capitol Building, its bland
white concrete blending into the great gray sky above us all. And while I screamed “JOHN ASHCROFT DOESN’T
DANCE!” in my fake British accent, boogieing spastically like some amalgam of
Charlie Chaplin and a member of Devo, the hard brick ground seemed to turn into
the boards of a stage. The Capitol
seemed like nothing more than pricey set dressing. Everyone, from the NOW protesters to the
fur-clad Bushites to the forced-to-be-avuncular Secret Service agents, was
transformed, simultaneously, into actors and audience. It wasn’t as if DC had been suddenly
transmogrified into a theater: it’s always a theater. It had, temporarily at least, been
transformed from a bad play into a good one.”
We laughed (and cried) at lot at the tragicomedy of
2001. Sixteen years later, it was hard
to imagine that we could transform that bad play into a good one. But we had to.
Three things were certain before inauguration day:
The
inauguration of Trump would be nauseating.
2 The
women’s march would rock.
And
I was going to feel terrible all day.
But I did not know what to do about it. I didn’t think
the blockades planned for inauguration would do much.
Still, I was drawn to come to DC on the 20th,
just to see it, to be part of things. There are moments in history when we need
to speak out, if even to history. Its important to say we were on the right
side of things.
When I heard Rise and Resist had tickets to get inside
the inauguration, I my mind was made up.
I had already bought a ticket for a bus trip to DC at
1230 am on Friday before the inauguration.
The feeling was surreal on the streets of New York
City on Thursday night. The police, the
celebrities, the darkness seemed to envelop the evening.
The day before a policeman we’d all seen a few times
in Times Square jovially told us he loved our protests. He loved protest in general. Then his mood
changed. “When we had protests, we used to burn things. Remember the moderate
Germans who thought that Hitler would chill out once he got in there. And then he was even more crazy. Now its like that with Trump. We thought he
was going to be more mellow once he got in there. But now we’re seeing he’s
anything but “that.”
That was the feeling everyone had Thursday night at
the rally in central park.
A few hours
later I got on the bus to DC, meeting my friends with Rise and Resist and ACT
UP at west 13th street, driving into the night. I mostly slept on
the way there, dozing in and out, thinking about the fifteen or sixteen trips
to jail over the past eighteen years since I have been involved with
non-violent direct action. These expressive actions were always a useful means
for a hyper active emotional kid to act up and do something with that well of
emotion inside. They were ways to scream when my friends were getting sick or
the city was bulldozing community spaces or restricting civil liberties or
unions or starting wars or police were beating people, whatever the issue
was. Civil disobedience opens a
delicious form of defiance and expression. Its always been an outlet for
emotion and communication. Hopefully it
could be one again.
As my friend Savitri D wrote:
“When arrested there is
a moment in which it registers that you are "arrested" followed
by the remarkable realization that you are not free. This explicit lack of
freedom makes you wonder if you are ever "really free." So in
addition to being boring and frustrating jail is thought provoking,
confounding. And if you are a person of color, an immigrant, a trans person, a
queer person, a person with disabilities- all this is amplified by a dangerous
and sometimes deadly threat.
Jail is filthy. The floor almost always has piss on it, trash, detritus. Sometimes it seems like more than could occur naturally and you wonder if the police put it there.To what degree do they curate your discomfort? Maybe you can avoid the grime enough to do some standing up yoga, or sit on the bench with your eyes closed and imagine the wind on the ridge above the tree line. Light on the waves. Maybe you remembered to eat a big breakfast.
The shared experience of being arrested can be powerful, also weirdly intimate. When you are arrested with people you suddenly have a great deal in common. Make of that what you will. Actual Solidarity can be an overwhelming sensation, as we are sorely out of practice.
All of this is to say, Take Heart! Make Ready! and when the Earth calls go ahead and get in the way of that bulldozer. Block the sidewalk, interrupt a meeting, sing over those shoppers.”
Jail is filthy. The floor almost always has piss on it, trash, detritus. Sometimes it seems like more than could occur naturally and you wonder if the police put it there.To what degree do they curate your discomfort? Maybe you can avoid the grime enough to do some standing up yoga, or sit on the bench with your eyes closed and imagine the wind on the ridge above the tree line. Light on the waves. Maybe you remembered to eat a big breakfast.
The shared experience of being arrested can be powerful, also weirdly intimate. When you are arrested with people you suddenly have a great deal in common. Make of that what you will. Actual Solidarity can be an overwhelming sensation, as we are sorely out of practice.
All of this is to say, Take Heart! Make Ready! and when the Earth calls go ahead and get in the way of that bulldozer. Block the sidewalk, interrupt a meeting, sing over those shoppers.”
Riding through the night I was getting more and more
excited about the weekend. I would not be wondering aimlessly. I would be going
straight at the darkness.
The sun was nowhere to be seen when we arrived in DC
at 5 AM.
With butterflies in our stomachs, we grabbed a train
and made our way to the Inauguration. Walking to get a coffee at Judiciary Square, I
started to run into Trump supporters. The city was filled people in red “Make
America Great Again” hats. These were
not urbanites. Mostly men white men and
a few women, the line to get inside the Inauguration was filled with them, all
white. Obama seemed to be the only person of color inside.
I was supposed to meet Tim Murphy, a New York writer, whose work I
adore. He’s written about drug use and HIV in the past, AIDS protests I’ve taken part in,
etc. For the Inauguration, he seemed to
move into the mindset of one of the Trump supporters New Yorkers seem to know
very little about. We made our way inside and through security. Tickets were
easy to come by. Few wanted to actually
attend.
It was 645 AM and we’d have to stand there for five
hours waiting for the magic moment when we’d seek to disrupt the inauguration,
without getting found out first.
I kept blowing the cover.
“Benjamin” Tim scolded me when I told him about us
talking about his book at my Marxist reading group.
“Look around you.”
Looking I saw a sea of red hats and white people, not
a person of color in sight.
We found our standing room only spot by 7 AM,
meeting up with Jaques and Jackie and Yougourthen.
“This is going to be a real test of
endurance,” moaned Tim.
I concurred, pulling out some work and
starting to read.
Tim, on the other hand, was going undercover,
to get the story of why everyone had voted for Trump in the first place and
what they thought Obama had done wrong.
“Too PC?” smiled Tim devilishly, seemingly
provoking the crowd. “I have held my
tongue for two years. Perhaps we should bring back the word ‘uppity?’”
He was engaging everyone in our section, snapping selfies, ] talking about the
meaning of ‘bigley.’ Few would bite at his argument that it was time to scale
back on rights. But many agreed with his point that too many people were voting
and health care was too accessible, “especially Medicaid,” noted one Trump
supporter. Talking about Planned
Parenthood, several repeated the point that “Healthcare
is not a human right…” “Abortion is not
in the constitution.” There was a lot of
talk about “those people” who get too many benefits.
Tim asked one man what he would say if he could
speak with Trump.
“Don’t fuck
us!” he replied, weary that Trump is not perfect, that the office is too
powerful. “I would have voted for a potato over Hillary!” he concluded.
“You libtard,” Tim mocked me, doing his best Roy
Cohn imitation.
“I think he’s liking this too much,” I whispered to
Jaques. “Like Ed Meese condemning the porno he’s documenting. I think he’s
getting Stockholm syndrome.” Murphy was
at it for hours.
“Things that happened in the past do not matter,” he
declared.
“Its been dark for eight years,” one of his new friends
replied, shaking their head.
The crowd was getting more and more excited as the jumbotron
showed Trump’s limo making its way to the Capital.
“He’s coming.
He’s coming,” a woman to my right cheered, looking at the image of the
limo.
It felt like Triumph
of the Will.
“USA USA USA!” the crowd screamed.
“It would sound better in the original German,” I
moaned to Jaques.
By 11:30 AM dignitaries were being introduced. Bill
and Hillary, even Jimmy Carter received boos.
“You guys can’t boo Jimmy Carter!” I followed. Most agreed.
But this did not stop the crowd from booing as the
reverend read from the Sermon on the Mound during the inauguration.
“God blesses those who are poor …
God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the
whole earth.
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they
will be satisfied.
God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown
mercy.”
Things only got worse when the minority leader Chuck Schumer read a civil war soldiers' letter to his wife.
“Boo!!!” “Sit Down!” “Get off!!!” “You’re
killing me!” the Trump supporters screamed, sounding boorish. “Drain the
swamp!”
Jaques recalled: “There was
one funny moment in there. After a bout of yelling, in a pause, I heard a voice
behind me say "This is deplorable." His buddy must have asked him
what he meant. "What we're doing right now, it's actually
deplorable." This was, for me at least, the only detectably human
expression in our whole 6 hours.”
A hushed silence filled the air as the
president elect begin his oath of office.
And screams filled the air.
“Inept
illegit” we bellowed as Trump began his oath of office @ The Capital. “
“Not my president!”
A commotion
ensued. I was worried we were going to
get beaten up. There were thousands of them there. One man put his hand around my
neck. And another grabbed the whistle I was blowing.
“You elected a
fascist,” screamed Tim.
And the police started
to pull us out. I was more than happy to oblige, walking with the policeman.
“Thanks for being cool
about it,” the policeman told me.
“No problem. You guys
have your hands full today.”
People all over the
inauguration had acted up in union, one woman declaring: “pussy grabber;”
another man stayed when the police did not come and the crowd took him down,
strangling him.
The police escorted us out of the
Inauguration, confiscating our tickets and not sending us to jail, where I
thought we’d at least spend the night.
Adrenaline was oozing out of my ears.
But it felt ok. I was glad I had taken
part in the big action. It was better than staying home, more empowering.
These are the people hell bend on
drilling on public lands, doing away with climate regulations, who were busy
scaping language about civil rights or LGBT rights off the White House Website
as we were speaking.
Across town, people were marching,
blocking, and for a while even dancing.
That felt best to me after the toxic atmosphere of the days before. So
we all joined the march/ party.
So a few of us went to go get a bite
at Dupont Circle to Kramerbooks and Cafe.
There Jaques interviewed Mark Milano, one of the prime organizers of the
event, whose done this stuff for years now with ACT UP.
“As a long term survivor of HIV
/AIDS, I have to find ways to create meaning in my life. Fighting HIV, overpriced
medicines, has kept me alive. And now
I’m dedicating my life to stopping Trump.”
Eating and debriefing, images of
police in riot gear and teargas filled the tv.
“Lets go check it out,” noted Jaques
and Mark.
So a few of us walked toward the riot
by Mcpherson Square. Members of the
black bloc were everywhere, police in riot gear, some kids sitting on a limousine
with broken windows. The smell of
teargas everywhere.
Standing there, a teargas canister flew
above me.
Some kids grabbed it and threw it
back.
“They were throwing mace and
concussion grenades,” noted one man standing taking in the scene as some kids
in black dragged out two trashcans and lit them on fire.
I ran into my friend Brandon from ACT
UP who told me about his day with the blockades.
“The police were charging into the
crowd and trampling them, trampling protesters,” he explained. Many of the women took the lead on holding
the space.
We talked about what was happening in
the street, where we stood.
“We are standing in front of the
Washington Post where protesters have set a bonfire. I know there were flash grenades and teargas
was set off earlier. I saw a police van tried to approach the crowd of about a
few hundred and protesters started throwing stuff at it. And the police threw it in reverse and it
shot out into the crowd, almost hitting people for sure, going down a really
long block, way in reverse with a few protesters chasing it.”
As we were speaking, I was getting
emails about the White House taking down all its language about civil rights, LGBT,
and climate. Around me people rioting. And I was wondering where the real violence was coming from – a few
smashed windows or deregulations that will leave people dead.
“That’s infuriating,” noted Brandon.
“I think its all going to be reflected back in the attitude and the mood of the
protesters.”
So we’re gonna have to fight it off.
There is no transition in power for those in the streets. We are still here and we’re getting stronger.
There is no transition in power for us.
At the same time, the new president ordered the erasure
of climate issues and queer people from the federal front page and replaced it
with a direct attack on the Black Lives Matter movement via the new front page
emphasis on a renewed effort into policing. Yesterday it became known that he
is proposing to end domestic violence funding. We aren't 7 hours in yet.
If a busted Starbucks window or an offended Trump
supporter is your concern right now then there's a lot of shit for you to go figure
out.
DC:
STATEMENT FROM DETAINEES IN THE 12TH STREET KETTLE
From Crimethinc
From a video taken inside the kettle at 12th and L Streets.
Detainees, who have been held for hours, are currently being processed–some
arrested and some released.
Below, a transcript of two of their
statements:
Mic check
Statement #2
From the ungovernables
Detained by the police at 12 and L
If you agree with us please add your voice
Fuck Trump
Fuck all politicians
With a country built on white supremacy and patriarchy
No politician can serve anything else
That goes for his police pawns, too
We may be arrested here today
But we will not be silenced
We call on communities threatened by Trump to defend themselves against fascists and racists
We won’t back down and we will only grow stronger
If you hear this, we call on you to become ungovernable
And build a new world in the ashes of the old
Statement #2
From the ungovernables
Detained by the police at 12 and L
If you agree with us please add your voice
Fuck Trump
Fuck all politicians
With a country built on white supremacy and patriarchy
No politician can serve anything else
That goes for his police pawns, too
We may be arrested here today
But we will not be silenced
We call on communities threatened by Trump to defend themselves against fascists and racists
We won’t back down and we will only grow stronger
If you hear this, we call on you to become ungovernable
And build a new world in the ashes of the old
Mic check
Statement #3
From the ungovernables at 12 and L
If you agree with what we say, add your voice
Well, we’re going to jail
But we aren’t going silently
As we’re seeing today, Trump indicates a new level of repression
But the tide of repression has been rising for some time
2 million in prison, a new Jim Crow Surveillance on your email, surveillance on your phone, surveillance in your home
All governments imprison and police
Cops love Trump, but to get rid of both, we have to get rid of the government
From the threat of white supremacists to the threat of the police
Our safety lies in building bonds with each other, outside of state control
For freedom, for anarchy
Statement #3
From the ungovernables at 12 and L
If you agree with what we say, add your voice
Well, we’re going to jail
But we aren’t going silently
As we’re seeing today, Trump indicates a new level of repression
But the tide of repression has been rising for some time
2 million in prison, a new Jim Crow Surveillance on your email, surveillance on your phone, surveillance in your home
All governments imprison and police
Cops love Trump, but to get rid of both, we have to get rid of the government
From the threat of white supremacists to the threat of the police
Our safety lies in building bonds with each other, outside of state control
For freedom, for anarchy
Calling for No Peaceful Transition,
Crimethink posted the following statement:
#DisruptJ20: Call for a bold
mobilization against the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, 2017
On Friday, January 20, 2017, Donald Trump
will be inaugurated as President of the United States. We call on all people of
good conscience to join in disrupting the ceremonies. If Trump is to be
inaugurated at all, let it happen behind closed doors, showing the true face of
the security state Trump will preside over. It must be made clear to the whole
world that the vast majority of people in the United States do not support his
presidency or consent to his rule.
Trump stands for tyranny, greed, and
misogyny. He is the champion of neo-nazis and white Nationalists, of
the police who kill the Black, Brown and poor on a daily basis, of racist
border agents and sadistic prison guards, of the FBI and NSA who tap your phone
and read your email. He is the harbinger of even more climate catastrophe,
deportation, discrimination, and endless war. He continues to deny the
existence of climate change, in spite of all the evidence, putting the future
of the whole human race at stake. The KKK, Vladimir Putin, Golden Dawn,
and the Islamic State all cheered his victory. If we let his inauguration go
unchallenged, we are opening the door to the future they envision.
Trump’s success confirms the bankruptcy of
representative democracy. Rather than using the democratic process as an alibi
for inaction, we must show that no election could legitimize his agenda. … If
there is going to be positive change in this society, we have to make it
ourselves, together, through direct action.
From day one, the Trump presidency will be a
disaster. #DisruptJ20 will be the start of the resistance. We must take to the
streets and protest, blockade, disrupt, intervene, sit in, walk out, rise up,
and make more noise and good trouble than the establishment can bear. The
parade must be stopped. We must delegitimize Trump and all he represents. It’s
time to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and the world that sustains us as if
our lives depend on it—because they do.
In Washington, DC
DC will not be hospitable to the Trump
administration. Every corporation must openly declare whether they side with him
or with the people who will suffer at his hands. Thousands will converge and
demonstrate resistance to the Trump regime. Save the date. #DisruptJ20
Around the US
If you can’t make it to Washington, DC
on January 20, take to the streets wherever you are. We call on our
comrades to organize demonstrations and other actions for the night
of January 20. There is also a call for a general strike to take place.
Organize a walkout at your school now. Workers: call out sick and take the day
off. No work, no school, no shopping, no housework. #DisruptJ20
Around the World
If you are living outside the US, you can take
action at US embassies, borders, or other symbols of neocolonial power. Our
allegiance is not to “making America great again,” but to all of humanity and
the planet. #DisruptJ20
Spread the word.
Join the fight. #DisruptJ20 Facebook: tinyurl.com/disruptj20
All over the world street
actions were only getting stronger. Many were confounded by the violence they
saw in the streets, the arrests, and lack of messaging. The same could not be
said for the Women’s Marches, that some five million people around the world
participated in, supporting an abundant image of what can be.
Women March.
The next morning we took the subway
in with thousands and thousands of people throughout Washington. A festive
feeling filled the air.
A sea of pink pussy cat hats filled the
street. The word “pussy” and or references to it were everywhere. “Eat more pussy”,
“Our pussies are not for grabbing”, “Pussy grabs back,” signs everywhere, many
accompanying images of cats or women or the statue of liberty with the
president groping it.
“Its just a party,” smiled a young
woman carrying a sign with the words: ‘Socialist, Feminist Black Girl Magic!”
Another carried a sign connecting
struggles, declaring: “Rosa didn’t stand for this and I won’t stand for it!”
Others had a more sartorial tone.
“Mitch McConnell I wish your mother
had had birth control.”
“You’re so vein, you probably think
this protest is about you.”
“I’m so angry I made this sign.”
“We want a leader, not a creepy
tweeter.”
"You can't comb over misogyny."
"I would call Trump a cunt but he has no warmth or depth."
"You can't comb over misogyny."
"I would call Trump a cunt but he has no warmth or depth."
A young boy carried a sign declaring:
“Hands off my uterus.”
Others were somewhat tragicomic.
"Menopausal women nostalgic for choice."
Others were somewhat tragicomic.
"Menopausal women nostalgic for choice."
Others were more humble.
“Love thy neighbor” read Eli’s sign.
His mom Karina carried a sign with
the words, “SAD!”
That seemed to say it all.
Eli’s cousin Chlou, a seventeen year
old college senior explained: “I marching because we are women. I have a right to health care. I want a right
to my body.”
“I’m glad to be here with my nieces
who I hope can grow up in a better world than this,” explained Caroline
Waterlow, walking with our kids and their mom Caroline.
 |
| My heros and sistas in action! |
Amazing energy was everywhere. “Racist
sexist anti-gay. Donald trump go away!” people screamed.
At the mall, members of ACT UP and
Rise and Resist chanted: “Women we love, under attack, what do we do? ACT UP
fight back!”
When ACT UP joined the LGBT march in
Washington in 1987, they transformed the way we understand queer people in
their rights in the US, changing both laws and social mores. The same thing felt like it was happening on
Sunday.
Throughout the crowd of people, a
feeling pervaded the space that something extraordinary was happening. A movement was awakening, connecting the Suffragettes
who marched during President Wilson’s inauguration in 1913 and those
wearing their pink pussy cat hats fighting for reproductive autonomy.
A group of young women were singing
and chanting, smiling and inviting everyone to join them:
“no pushy grabbing. no patriarchy, no fascist usa!”
There were so many people I could not
move for portions of the day, as reports indicated that crowd estimates were
far higher than originally expected, hundreds and hundreds of thousands higher.
Some said five million marched worldwide, a million in DC alone.
Looking up, I saw Angela Davis
speaking and I was filled with happiness to be there with her.
Some grumbled about the speeches and
the gap between the people wanting to march and the speakers droning on and
on. It created a feeling of a gap between
the body of the movement and its head. But we’d always rather have more people
than we want.
“Let us march! Let us march!” we screamed and so we did.
Without police in sight, the people
coordinated their own paths to the White House.
There were too many people to go just one way. So people found other
routes.
As the march opened up around 2:45
waves of bodies filled the streets, row after row of streets filled with
marching bands, pink hats, grandmoms, kids, people smiling, dads, their daughters,
sisters; women’s rights are human rights, people calling for more education,
and interconnection between waves of movements. If anything, this movement is
intersectional, with links between women and healthcare - “healthcare is infrastructure” declared
another sign – connections between Black Lives Matter and civil liberties
groups and so on.
By the end of the day, I never found
the kids. But Caroline texted me saying our bus was about to go. So I ran down
the mall, four miles in total, past street after street, making their way as I made
mine.
I have never seen so many people
filling the entire mall, not at the aids quilt display in 1996, the IMF actions
in 2000, antiwar march in 2002, never.
A new spaces was opening.
Arriving at the bus, it seemed my
whole neighborhood was in there, kids from all over Brooklyn, many of whom I’ve
known since they were first born. They were there with their families, some first
time protesters, many veterans, everyone was glad they had gotten on board and
spoken out.
The same sentiment filled Judson
Church in NYC where my whole congregation seemed to have just gotten back from
DC.
Micah suggested the joy of the moment
pointed to where we need to go, defiant pleasure, and joy among bodies over
time.
Somehow we’d make it, if we kept on
connecting with each other. Maybe that was the better storyline we were all
looking for.
Returning
home, Caroline Shepard posted a link
stating that
the march was the largest in US history: “What this
proves, more than a repudiation of Trump, is that women are tired of
politically taking the back stage. The time has come to move our issues and
power to the front.”
"This is just the
beginning!" women screamed @ The Mall (Washington DC). Its just the beginning.
+++
 |
| Not as many people attended the inauguration. Gary Armstrong tweeted
I'm told that this REAL picture is VERY upsetting to @PressSec & @POTUS so whatever you do, DO not SHARE this photo.
|
 |
| Scenes from a very strange weekend and a march for the ages. Always glad to be back home. |
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Interview
People With HIV Infiltrate Trump Inauguration, Causing Disruptions During Oath of Office
http://www.thebody.com/content/79217/people-with-hiv-infiltrate-trump-inauguration-caus.html?getPage=1
Tim Murphy and Mark Milano Explain Why They Took Action
January 24, 2017
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