Inauguration
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I would tell you about all of the protests I went to, but I’m afraid there isn’t time. We have got to get to work on #fixingcapitalism. And to be honest, protesting is a really small part of it.
But there is time for one more protest story. It’s from George W. Bush’s first inauguration. If there was one event in my life worthy of protesting, that was it. If our protest had somehow prevented him from becoming president, the world would undoubtedly be a better place than it is.
But the protest movement initiated at the Battle of Seattle was petering out rapidly. The mainstream union and human rights NGOs were not bringing the large numbers like they had been early on. One result was that punk-rock inspired anarchists were gaining more influence in the movement.
I decided to join them.
We started by marching rapidly around downtown DC, circling near the inauguration site. As we got closer to the motorcade route the police became hostile and began trying to break up our march by driving their vehicles between us. We responded by slashing their tires. Then we smashed the front window of a bank branch office. I can’t remember which kind of bank it was.
Then, truckloads of riot police appeared. They began maneuvering around us and trying to corral us. At one point they managed to box us in on both ends of a wide street. There were lots of them and not enough of us. They could stand shoulder to shoulder, three deep, all the way across. I thought we were all going to get arrested, and I was fine with that. But they just kept us contained for an hour or so.
Then they moved, but not methodically like they wanted to arrest us. Instead they charged at us with their body armor and their billy clubs like the orcs out of a Tolkien novel. However, I didn’t see any firearms drawn and they weren’t using all the other weaponry like tear gas and rubber bullets. They beat the hell out of anyone who didn’t run away fast enough, but they only arrested a few people who tried to hold their ground.
We scattered and then regrouped along the motorcade route. We were discussing a plan to try to block it as a stunt. I suppose we were feeling invincible after our prior “escape.” This would be our only opportunity to get significant media coverage. Skirmishing with police away from the inauguration site, where the cameras were, wasn’t going to do it.
But as we speculated over the possibility of being run over by secret-service vehicles or shot at from the rooftops, we decided it was a bad idea.
This was 2001, so I never considered the possibility of being labeled an “enemy combatant” and disappeared to a CIA black-site and tortured for years and years. Having even the writ of Habeas Corpus revoked. I assumed we would either die right there or be treated as citizens with rights.
It was an assumption based on a privilege that no longer exists. That’s why it was such an important moment to protest. But it was also futile. And way too late.
Did I mention I voted for Ralph Nader?
Yea. Don’t be like me kids. You’ll regret it.
With hindsight it feels like they were provoking us, staging us even. They might have used us to tell a story. A story about how we needed government to protect us from the scary anarchists that slash tires and smash windows and threaten the President of the United States.
But we were college kids wearing hoods and bandanas. We didn’t have the stuff to play that part. We weren’t really ready to die. We didn’t really hate capitalism enough.
And that was a good thing.
