The Manhattan Project
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Compromise Uncertain on Same-Sex Marriage Law
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Sculpture Garden Ice-Skating Rink Remains Closed
Although 192 protesters were arrested Saturday during the March to End the War and competing counter-protest by the Gathering of Eagles, by most measures turnout was low. The Post's Marc Fisher notes in his column that the small numbers of people who marched over the weekend is more a measure of a lack of enthusiasm for protesting in this country, rather than a lack of strong feelings against the war -- just visit any popular political blog. Flickr user philliefan_99 snapped this photo on Saturday of Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, being arrested after jumping a police barricade at the U.S. Capitol. This week the city will see more actions by ANSWER, including activists visiting local high schools and military recruiting centers, and marching through Rayburn.
Voting Rights Fight Comes Down to Wire: Mary Beth Sheridan has more details on tomorrow's planned Senate floor action, where lawmakers will first vote on whether the Senate should consider the voting rights bill -- a required first step before an actual vote on the legislation, and one supporters still aren't sure they have the required votes to get past. As we told you on Friday afternoon, a rally is planned for 11 a.m. this morning in front of Dirksen for a final show of support before tomorrow's vote.
City Agrees to Invest in Greater Southeast: Specialty Hospitals of America and Mayor Adrian Fenty have reached a deal to invest $79 million in public money to make possible the sale of beleaguered Greater Southeast Community Hospital to the company, according to the Post. At least $30 million of the total money would serve as a grant for infrastructure upgrades at the hospital that would not be paid back. The deal still requires Council approval, but Mayor Fenty is reportedly considering using its portion of the federal tobacco settlement fund to pay for it.
Briefly Noted: Mother and son killed in Emerson St. NW fire ... Smithsonian to hold public meeting tonight on its search for a new chief executive ... Two Oakland officials offered top jobs in D.C. Schools ... Protesters gather outside BET CEO's house to object to stereotypes.
This Day in DCist: In 2004 we bid farewell to Visions Cinema and noted the opening date of the New York Ave. Metro station.
Photo by philliefan_99
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So if the Park Police estimated the crowd at 10,000, does that mean there were really 25,000 people there?
And I wonder if someone shouldn't do a study of how many more arrests the Capitol Police have been making since people have begun protesting the war...heh.
I, for one, did not participate as a protest against ANSWER. While I completely against the war and participated in anti-war rallies here and in other cities in the past, I am appalled by ANSWER's behavior in that it defaced public property throughout the District to publicize the march, refused to pick up the clean-up bill--socking DC taxpayer's with the tab. Then, on top of it, appealing a court decision in which it was ordered ANSWER pay for the cleanup of its signs--costing DC taxpayers even more money for attorney's costs and court fees. ANSWER really alienated a lot of (former) supporters this time around....
you missed a protest:
http://lifein.mountvernonsquare.org/index.cfm/2007/9/11/Shut-Down-Fun-Fair-NOW
I'm appalled by a lot about ANSWER.
But it hardly defaced anything. It sucks that ANSWER is the vanguard for the local issue of free speech in DC -- because (ad hominem alert) they're a bunch of jackasses with strident, formulaic tactics. (This weekend did sort of push the envelope though.)
They're authoritarians, I guess. They're associated with rhetoric that is unconstructive, quite frankly not radical enough in many ways, and have an internal structure that is opaque and seemingly undemocratic -- despite the vestiges of democracy they'll pronounce (a lot like the Soviets that way).
That's my problem with them but the anti-authoritarians and the capital-L Liberals don't have their shit together to turn out people like they do.
Its an interesting dilemma.
###
It is interesting that reportedly Park Police bothered to estimate the crowd. Ever since 9/11 (and perhaps before -- though shortly after I heard at aleast one bullshit excuse cite 911 as a reason) they've refused to release numbers.
The Park Police gave up estimating crowd sizes around the time of the Million Man March, due to numerous disputes with numerous organizations regarding estimations of crowd size. Naturally the organizations were always b*tching that the numbers were undercounted, so there was always a huge discrepency between the Park Service estimate, and the organizers estimated.
There was life before 9/11 ya know. Nothing to do with 9/11.
It'd be awesome if some of those actions we can expect to see from ANSWER this week involve cleaning up the fucking wheatpaste mess they left all over NW.
Albeit a conservative site this link has a ton of pictures of the day:
http://mediumatlarge.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/the-march-on-the-capitol-9152007/
None of my friends are going to take part in an ANSWER event, so stop acting like this represents the anti-war movement.
I can understand why people would be blase about protesting anymore. After all, who are they protesting TO? Is someone supposed to hear the protests and then change national policy? All the politicians and beaurocrats have scampered back to the VA enclaves. Federal employees are at home. Only people out there are the protesters and the tourists who stumble on their idiotic antics by accident. What a recipe for success! Their only hope is that people will take photos of their leaders getting arrested, so that bystanders without a clue will feel sympathy and then support for their cause. Blah!
"None of my friends are going to take part in an ANSWER event, so stop acting like this represents the anti-war movement."
Seriously. Also, none of my friends are Mongolian, so please stop acting like Mongolia exists.
I wish the city could work something out with the protestors. Rather than them do stupid stuff that costs us a lot of money just so they can get arrested and write grad papers about the militaristic police force, maybe we can circulate a mailing list to them, and we can send them Certificates of Oppression. That way they can stay home and not stick us with a huge bill.
I hate this word generally, but the "paradigm" of street protesting has been beaten to death. They are overused, overreported on, and an utter waste of time and our city's resources. They exist purely to make the participants feel good about themselves that they're actually "doing something". They primarily consist of aged hippies reliving their past, and young nostaligic hippies trying to recreate that same apocryphal past.
For the record, ANSWER plastered all over DC, not just NW. I live in NE and it's placarded plenty along South Dakota Ave. Eastern Market area is plastered too. If they were to clean up (HA! never gonna happen) and only did it in NW, I'd say there'd be even more reason to screw em. They have no sense of history, no direction, and think screaming is cogent argument.
Also, why poster DC at all? We have no vote in Congress and a fair percentage off us are either working related to gov't (lobbyists, hill staffers, military personnel) or are disenfranchised lower-income folks... neither are great targets for marchers or volunteers.
I weep for the waste of all that wheatpaste.
"I, for one, did not participate as a protest against ANSWER."
Yeah, my wife and I would have been there if it wasn't for the general ass-suckiness of A.N.S.W.E.R.
Free Mumia!!11!
Guest12:
Nice. Supporting the cause of a cop killer. Mumia Abu-Jamal is one those causes that liberal types love to take up cause it has all the stereotypical elements of oppression (black man in jail because system screwed him). The problem is that the guy did kill a person. Maumia actually shot an officer and while the officer was laying on the ground he walked up to him and fired his gun several more times. And you want someone like that walking free?
MS, you might want to work on your sarcasm detector ... I think it's pretty clear Guest 12 was pointing out the lack of focus on the part of the protestors by ironically referencing the calls to "Free Mumia" that frequently pop up at these events.
As far as the Park Police estimates go, the reason that they stopped providing them was not simply because protest organizers were "always bitching about the numbers" and disputing the Park Police stats. The way I remember it, in the wake of the dispute over the attendance at the Million Man March, the Park Police actually revealed that they had deliberately been using estimation techniques that undercounted protest crowd sizes ever since the Nixon administration. Rather than come up with more accurate estimation tools, they decided to stop estimating numbers altogether.
MS: #12 was mocking the free mumia types.
FYI there's going to be more anti-war protests next week, culminating in a September 29 march. The Troops Out Now Coalition is a little broader than the ANSWER Coalition, more labor-oriented and regional antiwar groups.
Here's to hoping they leave the wheatpaste at home.
i feel guilty about not protesting, i admit it... but i also dont know what marching is going to do to change bush's mind. it is like taking cough syrup for pneumonia. i keep thinking of sean connery's character in "the untouchables" when he asks kevin costner (eliott ness) "what are you prepared to do?"
those of us who consider ourselves, ah-"progressives", let this administration off the hook. when it comes to dissent, this nation is now truly soft.... this saddens me
The thing is, protesting on a Saturday while nothing else is happening in the city does nothing. It's like going to a movie. You might as well march ten thousand people into the middle of the Mojave Desert and scream "Impeach Bush" into the wind. (In fact, that might be more effective.)
How about some sacrifice? How about a work stoppage? If you want to generate serious debate and show how strongly you oppose the war, call for a national strike during a weekday and shut the machine down. Start fucking with their money and then they know you mean business.
Saturday protests hold about as much political sway as a college football game.
Saturday protests hold about as much political sway as a college football game.
Less, much less; people are pretty rabid about their college football.
"MS, you might want to work on your sarcasm detector.."
Damnit, I really need to get one. Sorry about that. :(
guest 18 hit it on the head. In fact it almost is like a college football game: Saturday morning amusement. Doing it during the week - when the city is full of people who actually make a difference (i.e. VA and MD residents who have a congressional vote, lawmakers at work on the hill, etc.) might mean something. But it's too... impractical.
"Oh man, my asshole boss won't let me take off work to go protest.. how inconvenient. Can't we do it on Saturday? And let's do it early, so I can go catch a pickup game of kickball afterwards and then watch the 6 o'clock news to see myself on camera."
"Saturday protests hold about as much political sway as a college football game."
Which is funny, because I frequently ask what is significant about 20 thousand people showing up for a protest when 90 thousand people show up for every Redskins game. At both events you have people giving up their free-time to cheer on a cause and have fun at the same time. Yet the marches get undue attention because newsmen have a softspot in their heart for covering protests. If they would just start holding them to the newsworthy standards of other recreational events (which, let's face it, is all these protests are), they'd probably wouldn't get any coverage at all.
That's not to say you shouldn't take political action; it's just to say you need to get out of the 1960's anti-establishment "heroic protestor" mindset to accomplish anything.
Reid,
you're wrong in both your posts.
Ok I'll admit it, Mongolia does in fact exist.
Mongolia is so important to taking Asia in Risk! How could you act like it doesn't exist???
And if it didn't exist, what was it that Flash Gordon kept crashing into?
And it's incorrect to refer to them as the "alien slave camps on the moon" since residents live there of their own accord and can leave at any time. Also, they function as "exotic escorts" and are not prostitutes.