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Hail
To The Thief:
Commemorating Inaugural Theft, January 20, 2001
PART I: GATHERING STORM CLOUDS
A
TWO-PART RETROSPECTIVE
Exclusively
for Buzzflash
by Hallie@womanhattan
Introduction
January 20, 2003, marked the second anniversary of the ascent to the office of President by a man who was chosen on a 5-4 vote after losing by more than 540,000 votes. On the day of his inauguration, there were massive protests in Washington, D.C., that went almost totally unreported by the mainstream media, even though protestors outnumbered Bush supporters in many areas of the Inaugural route. It was as if we were living in a nation with a Communist controlled media that was told not to report any news that was not favorable to the head of the Politburo.
It is difficult to recall the betrayal of democracy that occurred when George W. Bush was illegitimately sworn in to the highest office in this great land of freedom. It is also difficult to recall that the media largely refused to report what was clearly news: widespread demonstrations against the man who was put into power by Tony "The Fixer" Scalia and his accomplices on the Supreme Court.
To commemorate the Washington, D.C. protests of January 20, 2001, a longtime BuzzFlash reader forwarded us a two-part account of her experiences on that day.
* * *
Two years ago on January 20, a letter I wrote was published in the Times as follows:
Re "Selling Point Is a Sore One" (news analysis, front page, Jan. 19): Many citizens who feel that their voices were not heard during and after the election will join peaceful protests both in Washington and around the country on Inauguration Day. As Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist administers the oath that makes George W. Bush president, I will be marching for election reform and voters' rights. I have never marched on Washington or even seriously considered doing so before. But by protesting peacefully, I and others hope to make it clear to the incoming administration, as well as to the legislative and judicial branches, that the voice of the people should never be ignored again.
By the time the January 20th Times containing my (edited) letter went to press, I was standing on 31st street (NYC) among hundreds of protestgoers boarding a line of buses that stretched from 7th to 8th avenue. I made my way through the crowd, and located the buses chartered by the group I had signed up with, Democracy March. I was seated next to a volunteer I had spoken to the night before, who was selling T-shirts that said "not my president." (By the end of the day they were sold out.) I noted the demographic makeup of the bus: diverse in both age and ethnicity, and clean-cut like me. This was the type of crowd I sought, not career protesters or students, not out of prejudice, but simply because I figured it would improve my chances of passing the checkpoint without being harassed. The two other major groups were more "hippie": dreadlocks, nose rings, Mexican ponchos. My group could have been mistaken for educators headed to a teachers' conference. I found out that my bus comprised mostly Gore voters, putting me in the minority. Regardless of political affiliation, we were all united for the day to protest a crooked electoral system.
If dawn usually draws the morning with rosy fingers, today she was ill: her gray fingers drew ugly, lowering gray storm clouds. The air was frigid and damp.
The closer we got to Washington, the more furiously the bus window wipers slammed against the windshield. As we approached Washington, the volunteer team leader for the bus stood up and gave us the drill. As most of us already knew, the signs were subject to regulations reached by court order: the signs must be regulation size or smaller, and the poles holding up the signs must be cardboard and not more than 1/2 an inch thick, supposedly to protect the protesters from getting clocked by other protesters. Nobody was sure how these rules were going to be enforced on the ground, but the protest organizers' guess (which turned out to be correct) was: inconsistently. If our regulation-size sign was rejected at one security checkpoint, we were to try another checkpoint rather than arguing or getting the sign confiscated. I myself was so paranoid about having my sign confiscated that the night before I hatched a plot to create a sign that I could fold up and conceal in my backpack. I had gone to the drugstore to buy poster paper, but had decided on white shower curtain liner and a laundry marker. It turned out to be a wise choice, and I got a lot of praise for my appropriate choice of poster material.
There were several large rallies planned -- one at DuPont Circle, a "shadow inauguration" at the Supreme Court building, and small group protests planned on the periphery of the inauguration itself. We were free to go where we pleased, but, our team leader (I'll call him "Perry") told us, our groups' game plan was to canvas the parade route, since that was where the media would be. The media, of course would contrive to ignore us, but we were to contrive to make that impossible. At the poster party the day before, volunteers had made a couple of dozen regulation-size cloth banners saying "ILLEGITIMATE," attached to long thin cardboard tubes and designed to be held by pairs. The plan was to spread the pairs the entire length of the parade route, so that everywhere the media convoys' cameras pointed, the signs would confront them.
The weather, Perry informed us, was actually on our side, since it would deter regular paradegoers, but not hardcore, concerned citizens, i.e. us. It was highly likely, he told us, that we would outnumber Bush well-wishers on the parade route.
At a rest stop a thoughtful protest-goer requested a pile of cardboard crowns from the Burger King counter, wrote "Boy King" on each one and distributed them on the bus.
As we pulled into a parking lot near a stadium, we were instructed to pair up with a buddy, and given Metro directions. We had several options, but those who wanted to do the parade route were instructed to get off at a certain stop. Being a good worker ant, I chose the parade route and picked a buddy accordingly, a nice young man I'll call Mike. We decided not to take one of the large cloth "ILLEGITIMATE" banners to avoid checkpoint hassle. He took a leftover sign from the postermaking party that said "The Man with No Mandate." I had not yet decided yet between potential sign messages: "LOSER"? "ILLEGITIMATE SON"? In the parking lot, I unfolded the curtain liner and made a hasty decision: "STOP THIEF!" Clever, but I can't take credit: the message was stolen from a New York Post headline during the Florida crisis. The Murdoch-owned, ultraconservative New York Post ran the headline in protest of a hand recount of ballots in Palm Beach County (a recount that was rejected by Katherine Harris). Well, if the Bush campaign could steal the "Leave No Child Behind" slogan from the Children's Welfare Fund (a group scorned by the GOP), I could return the flattery. I cut the sign from the rest of the liner with my scissors, as well as a couple of extra swaths for other protesters. One borrowed my laundry marker and made a quick drawing of storm clouds, lightning, and rain; no written message, just a picture of the day's weather.
Our numbers grew as we approached the Metro stop. We passed a tent where an inaugural party was sited. A police car passed and the cops inside cheered us and gave us a thumbs up. On the metro I stared at a familiar face, which stared back at me in my Burger King crown: turned out to be a girl I had gone to elementary and junior high with, Liz S. We quickly caught up and parted ways, as she was headed to the voter rights march at Capitol Circle.
As Mike and I waited in the crowd behind one of the checkpoint bottlenecks, I looked past the fence at a riser that had been colonized by protesters. The most memorable signs said "Laura, My Bush is Better Than Yours!" I took a silent moment to thank anti-abortion protesters who, on supreme court appeal, had won the right to protest along the inaugural parade route in 1996, overriding alleged security concern from the secret service. But the 1996 inauguration had no checkpoints, perhaps because there weren't that many protesters. The checkpoints were part of a court-ordered compromise. At the bottleneck, young protesters practiced their chants: "No justice, no peace," something about power to the people, etc. After about 20 minutes we got to the front and got a cursory bag check. Once we passed, I put my Burger King hat back on and walked up the parade route in the direction of the Capitol, away from the riser, since it was full of protesters and we wanted to fill gaps where protesters were sparse. We walked a couple of blocks in the direction of the capitol until we reached Bush country: a spot where we were outnumbered by tourists and Bush supporters. We made our way to the front and I opened my backpack and unfolded my piece of shower curtain. Although the parade had not officially started, a formation danced by in cowboy hats and chaps, some kind of rodeo dancers. A marching band practiced a block away. A handful of printed color "Bush/Cheney banners could be spotted in the sea of umbrellas. When a police motorcade rode by, I raised my sign for the first time. Stop Thief! I was instantly nudged by the woman to my right. "Your sign is in the way! I can't see!" The shower curtain sign was no larger than arm's length, but I tried to maneuver it out of her way. By then, the crowd behind me had gotten wind that someone in the front was holding a protest sign. "Hey, put that down!" "Hey! You with the sign!" "Who?" "That asshole in the burger king hat!" Since they called me an "asshole" and not another epithet, I figured they had confused me for a guy. This doesn't happen to me often, but I guess the view of the back of my head covered by an aviator helmet and the thick padding underneath my ski jacket confused them.
Luckily, when I paid them no attention they found another target to verbally intimidate; I later found out that it was Mike with his "Man with No Mandate" sign, but I didn't turn around at the time. The woman to my right nudged my sign again. "Your sign is in the way--I can't see!" she said. I believe that my sign could not have been more obtrusive than the preprinted Bush/Cheney banners, or the myriad umbrellas, which were much wider and no lower (I held the sign up with my hands and I am of average height). "Free speech!" I replied lamely. She nudged at the sign again and said "You can say whatever you want lady, but get it out of my way!" I looked straight ahead, holding my sign. "Count my vote or kiss my ass" I replied. She gave an indignant "tuh!," but disappeared.
It was only 10 a.m., and the parade didn't start until one. But as it turned out, that was the sum of the abuse I got from the crowd. That's because, within an hour, the crowd dynamic changed markedly. The legions of Bush well-wishers had not thinned (yet), but had been diluted. And as the morning wore on, the protesters continued to overtake the Bush supporters in numbers. As they lost the moral upper hand that comes with being in the majority, they got far more polite. Perhaps a half hour after I got called "the asshole in the burger king hat," the guy next to me said, "look lady, I don't care what your sign says. I just want to see the parade." I maneuvered my sign as much as possible out of his way, and that was the last time anyone complained. By the end of the morning the Bush supporters were invisible. (Occasionally Mike and I were able to pick out a supporter in the crowd, but that was only because we recognized them from earlier.)
Go to PART II
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