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| Scenes from last Thursday and Friday by Thanks for this great pictures Ken Schles |
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| Jennifer Hadlock |
We’ve been told for months it was impossible. Our hearts sank when Justice Kennedy retired and this unqualified, ultra-conservative political operative was nominated to the Supreme Court by an even more unqualified President. Opinion leaders told us, “you can’t win this one, move on” — but you didn’t.
Because of relentless activism and the heartbreaking bravery of Dr. Blasey Ford and so many more who have come forward, this nomination is on the ropes. Our so-called president was forced to delay the vote and launch an FBI investigation Trump, Kavanaugh, Grassely and all the malicious white man Senators like Graham and Hatch desperately wanted to avoid.
We. Can. Win.
.
Sign up for actions in DC the first week of October. Buses from NYC. bit.ly/WECANWINCenter for Popular Democracy Women's March Housing Works Inc. #believewomen#lbelievechristineblaseyford #cancelkavanaugh Photo of protester on their way to a rally at the United States Supreme Court, September 27, 2018.
Like a lot of people, I tuned into the
Kavanaugh hearing Thursday. Ford
testified first. Dignified and nervous, she was a terrific witness. Kavanaugh
followed, confirming the image people already had of him as short on honestly
and long on bluster, aggressively challenging assertions, interrupting
Senators, diverting questions, blaming, and pouting, not characteristics one
wants from a Supreme Court justice who could be creating laws for generations.
By the time, I got done with class at six,
it looked like the world had embraced Kavanaugh’s temper tantrum.
My friends from Center for Popular
Democracy and Housing Works had been in DC all week long, organizing
testimonials, bird dogging politicians, and committing civil disobedience.
Paul Davis, of Housing
Works, wrote an email to everyone:
“Today’s
hearing has been heart wrenching and traumatizing. At the same time, the hordes
of activists swarming the halls were amazing. Check it: when the police shut
down the *entire floor* of the Senate office building where the hearing was
being held, birddoggers packed and filled every single elevator.
Even
after the profoundly damming testimony today, Republicans leading the Judiciary
Committee STILL have scheduled to a vote tomorrow (Fri, Sept 28) on this
reprehensible nomination.
We
will not let this vote happen. Show up tomorrow. Bring rape whistles. Shut this
down for good.
Everyone:
please meet at 7:30am at the Hart Senate Office Building Atrium.
We
especially need more folks who can join a peaceful, non-violent civil
disobedience. There are also important support roles to be played for
non-CDers.
Thank
you for being absolutely heroic during these exceptionally trying times.
Paul
(from Housing Works) and Jennifer (from CPD-A).”
I got home from our
union rally and meeting, watched Rachel Maddow and got ready for the
action, leaving at 115 AM to catch the two AM bus from Union Square.
Austin, Judy, and Eric Sawyer were on the bus to greet me
when I stumbled on at 215 AM.
Eric and I caught up. Sitting in that dark van in and out of
sleep, we talked about all those battles through the years. He recalled hearing
about the Stonewall Riots when he was in college and then meeting some of the
guys in Gay Activist Alliance and then Larry Kramer when he got to New York. He loved to New York watching whole cohorts
of his friends get sick, many guys dying.
Watching them fade out of this life, he flashed back to images of their
bodies, their struggles, sensuality, civil disobedience and years of arrests.
One year in 1994, Eric and Charles King challenged each other
to see who could have more arrests.
Charles had some 52 busts that year, while Eric came close at 47.
My friend Marc from our union was on the ride on the other
side, chatting about trade unionism and the transit strikes of history.
By 7AM, we arrived at a church outside the city.
Do you want good news or bad, Jennifer Flynn asked when we
arrived, pointing out that it looked like Kavanaugh’s support was swelling. Kavanaugh’s speech succeeded.
What’s the good news?
We’ve changed the narrative.
Ken and Zack were at the church.
They’d been here all week.
FoodNotBombs was
passing out food.
On the way from the Capital Skyline Hotel to the Hart Capital
Building, Vanessa, an activist from Peekskill NY, and I talked about why she
was there.
“I’m here because I want to make sure Kavanaugh
is not confirmed to the Supreme Court. But its around a lot more than that,”
she said. “Its about patriarchy and other deep-seated issues that haunt the
country, including an imperialism that came to the continent. This is not the time to sit down. It’s time to act.”
We
were driving past the Watergate, noted Zack.
And
we got to talking and planning for the action.
“We
Do Not Consent!”
We
are trying to push off or disrupt the vote with whistles outside the hearing
room.
Eric
Sawyer provided a rationale for his participation.
“I
am disgusted that the senate is supporting a liar, a predator, and someone
committed to support Trump for obstruction of justice. The senate is trying to
ran this predator down the throats of the people. It’s a travesty America. Wake up.
Our democracy is in peril.”
Inside
the Hart Senate Office building, the hallways were buzzing about, with
birddoggers chasing politicians, priests & rabbis making speeches, etc.
I
ran into my friend David, who was arrested four earlier times in the week. “The
most powerful part was the individual stories” he said. “many people were
sharing stories about assault for the first time, well mostly women,
interconnection expanding as we build allies.” The last time I was in DC, I arriving in the
police holding area and there was David by himself with plastic cuffs on, hands
in the air, laughing away. I asked about his first actions. “It was during the
Poor People’s Campaign in 1968,” he told me.
On the way home, he was arrested for crossing state lines conspiring to
riot. `They kept me in jail for a week.
Three days into I saw some priests walking through. I grabbed one and
told him I’ve been in here for three days without seeing a lawyer. And they got
me out.
As we were talking, Paul called for a mic check announcing we
were all going to walk over to the hearing. On the way, some women were
confronting Jeff Flake, one of the three republicans on the fence, as he went
up to the chamber, where the committee was voting.
We’ve tried to lobby, call, set up meetings and none of these
politicians want to hear from us, especially the leadership.
We got as close to the hearing room as we could and pulled
out whistles. A piercing noise filled
the hall as some of us sat down. Others took pictures.
“We believe Christine!” we chanted, hundreds of us there, ten
women for every guy.
Police rushed us to pull away the whistles.
Hundreds of us were there, sitting in, chanting, blowing
whistles as the police moved to forcibly rip them from our mouths.
“November is coming,” we screamed, echoing the sentiment that
women are mobilized and ready to push back against those who rob women of
choices and autonomy, those who fail to hear their pleas or acknowledge the
long history of violence against women, by men such as judge the Judiciary
Committee was debating.
I looked around and several women were holding hands.
Others were welling up with emotion.
The rape hotlines of women calling in to talk about their
histories have been clogged since the hearings with Dr Ford testifying about
her experience. Calm and controlled, her voice hinted at terror as she
testified. “I
Thought Brett Was 'Going To Kill Me' ... I believed he was going to
rape me. ...”
Even if the man does not remember what happened, he could
still acknowledge her pain. If he can’t
acknowledge her pain, imagine his lack of empathy for those who will be
impacted by his decisions.
“We’re not going back!
We’re not going back!
We’re not going back!” we chanted.
The police began arresting people, giving us warnings,
pulling people away as they continued to scream.
This is the face the country will see if they continue attack
Roe.
Floods of bodies of women and their allies, disrupting, not
ready to go back.
I found myself thinking of my kids and the world I hope for
them to inherit.
Like all parents, I want them to grow up in a world with
clear air, water and skies, full access to health care and reproductive
autonomy. I want them to grow up with
more freedoms than I’ve had. And that means
to be able to control the way they have or do not have families. Its their life
and choice, not Brett’s.
Looking around, many of the women were tearing up as they
were arrested.
And their sisters were supporting them.
“Shame, shame, shame!” they screamed, everyone supporting
each other.
You ok, a friend from several of the arrests said looking at
me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“Women united will never be defeated!”
“If you do not get up you will be arrested,” noted a police
officer standing over me.
I kept chanting before standing up, putting my hands behind
me.
He put my wrists in plastic cuffs, pulling extra tight and
walked me away.
“We believe Christine!” I screamed passing a host of
reporters. “We believe Christine!”
And so the sonata of those excluded from the hearing room and
official channels continued, one line after another in a slow choreographed
dance, as the police searched us, put our stuff in plastic bags, grouped us up,
the police rubbing and checking all our sensitive parts, putting us on police
vans and taking us back to the police holding center where they search us again
and processed us.
People chatted with their arresting officers. Zack and I recalled the 18 years we’ve been
doing this together, wondering if we were over fetishizing arrests.
Are we moving the dial at all, we wondered.
“I think so,” noted David. The resistance is just getting
stronger.
“I’d rather go down fighting, noted Charles King.
“This is nothing,” said King, my old civil disobedience
mentor, talking about his hero MLK. “In King’s day, people were taking real
risks, spending weeks and weeks in jail, losing their jobs for it, etc. But King helped them believe in themselves,
got them to be heroic.”
For the last few years, Charles has been going to the Museum of Lynching in Montgomery,
Alabama. I try to talk about it in every speech I give. That sickness is in
all us of us. Its impending the progress
on HIV, pulling us deeper and deeper into amnesia. The museum maintains: “Lynching created a fearful environment in which racial
subordination and segregation were maintained for decades. Most critically,
lynching reinforced a legacy of racial inequality that has never been adequately
addressed in America. Public acknowledgment of mass violence is essential
not only for victims and survivors, but also for perpetrators and bystanders
who suffer from trauma and damage related to their participation in systematic
violence and dehumanization.”
As we were talking they called Charles’ name. And he left.
My name came up soon afterwards.
Walking outside Darius and Judy greeted me.
“How’s it looking inside?”
“Well, they have not voted yet.”
“You think Jeff Flake might pull a McCain?” I wondering,
asking about his old friend’s last minute vote to save the Affordable Care Act.
“What’s in it for him to support Trump?
If he goes against it, he gets on TV, sells more books, and honors his
friend’s legacy.
Walking inside the Capital Skyline hotel, a few activists
were watching the committee deliberations on TV.
Several of the women getting out noted they had talked to
Jeff Flake.
We all started looking at the news.
“BOOM!!!! Ana Maria Archila Gualy and Maria Gallagher just flipped Flake, who is now
calling for FBI investigation! This birddogging stuff works!!!!!”
The
news started reporting that:
We all watched the committee vote.
Working with Collins and Murkowski,
Flake insisted on an FBI investigation for the next week before he could vote.
Its democracy, I can’t be mad at
him, noted Lindsay Graham.
Monday is the first of October and
Kavanaugh is not on the court shouted one women, just out of jail.
We bought some time. But the limited
scope of the FBI investigation is troubling.
But regardless, we can see this man
does not have the temperament to be a judge on the highest court in the
land. His petty display on Thursday,
chalk full of half truths, deception and lies should disqualify him.
Can democracy endure such a tilt to
the right on the courts?
Its not easy to know.
Democracy demands an independent
judiciary.
Emily Bass and I grab a ride Union
Station. And talk for a second about our ongoing struggles and overlapping
movements, as the Center for Popular Democracy dovetails along the long road
from ACT UP to the WTO, the Civil Rights movement Charles King admires to the
Housing Works organization he still runs, as is straddles between AIDS services
and radical civil rights missions. Jennifer Flynn and Paul
Davis got us here, reminding us that the victories around women’s autonomy,
AIDS, and healthcare happened because people put their bodies on the lines.
Direct Action gets the goods.
But
we always have to reinvent it.
As
Emily Bass writes in “How to Survive a Footnote”:
The struggle over the Kavanaugh
confirmation is far from over. I thought about it all the way home, watching
the sun fade into the evening as we made our way through Delaware, past Philly
and Newark.
By the time I got there, Paul had
already posted another dispatch calling for more bodies to flood Washington DC
in the upcoming week.
THIS
IS IT. We've seen that all your work over the past weeks and months have made a
difference, but now we need to come out in huge numbers. If you've been looking
for the right week to call in sick, cash in those vacation days, THIS IS THAT
WEEK. Build a group from your area, work to put together carpools/shared trips
as much as you can, and sign up below. #WeBelieveChristine #BrettBye #SavetheACA
#DefendRoe #WomenDisobey
JOIN US • Oct 3/4/5, 2018 • Washington DC
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