Jeremy Hogan

Is This 2007 Or 1965? . . .Cont.

I feel a quiet sense of rage and I see it on people’s faces. At least on the faces of the people that still bother to show up for anti-war demonstrations and others who finally became so disgusted they started showing up. I’m talking about regular folks showing up … like schoolteachers, yuppies, and construction workers, college freshman who were only 13 or 14 when all this began.

Now, there aren’t many more National Guard members to send, we’ve sent them all, our Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines are busy fighting two wars and preparing for maybe another one with Iran. So, if 50,000 or 100,000 more troops are eventually needed when these 21,000 can’t do the job who will go?

Kids who were 13 or 14 when this began?

When this war began they we’re probably just figuring out sex or going to their first dance with some nic e boy or girl. Brittany Spears was still a “nice girl,” she hadn’t even taken off her panties yet for the paparazzi. Back then looking for Osama Bin Laden wasn’t a joke yet …

General Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, was recently on the Daily Show with John Stewart and Stewart asked, “Where’s Osama?” Musharraf said he didn’t know but if Stewart found out he should lead the way. They got a good laugh … but it’s no laughing matter.

It’s something like 10 a.m. and there aren’t too many people here yet. I let the Associated Press photographer in front of me in the press line because he’s on deadline. Code Pink, a women’s anti-war group is supposed to be speaking at the Navy Memorial, he tells me and Hong Kong already wants photos because they’re on deadline. As usual, this thing isn’t too organized. A lot of the sign people are carrying are looking pretty cliché. A very Washington looking reporter is shaking his head. The corporate media will soon have the photos they need an be on to the next story … I’ve been on this story now for a few years and I understand the nuances of it in the way many reporters probably don’t.

The thing I am noticing today is people seem to have less of the energy than I’ve seen at other protests in the past. I think people are tired. I see woman at the Code Pink rally, Ann Wright, who I first met while covering the Cindy Sheehan vigil outside Bush’s ranch in Crawford. She looks really tired … like the anti-war movement has aged her about 10 years.

It’s impossible to get near the stage because I am late arriving and I walk around back when I do a double take. Here is Sean Penn lighting up a cigarette. Earlier across the street there are a few counter protesters who are as usual calling the anti-war protesters traitors.

Jane Fonda is standing next to Eve Ensler who recites an anti-war poem I wish I’d recorded. Fonda is totally unfazed. Eventually, Sean Penn walks off and the Code Pink women begin getting into Limos.

But, where was Cindy Sheehan today? Her absence is very conspicuous to me. Last time I was here some of her helpers were complaining about Code Pink. Evidently, the Code Pink women had Cindy Sheehan’s volunteers unloading their luggage at the airport. Then it was Cindy Sheehan’s volunteers, a couple people actually, one woman in particular, that nearly single handedly hammered 900 crosses into a lawn on the national mall not far from the White House. That was almost two years ago.

I head to the main anti-war rally site and I see the Iraq Veterans Against the War standing in a group. I don’t recognize any of them and I realize they’re probably people that have come home from Iraq and joined the anti-war movement since the last time I was in D.C. I feel older now, but less wise, looking at them because I was so sure this whole thing would be resolved by now and it isn’t. Things are actually much worse now and about a couple thousand more troops have died since I was out in Crawford listening to Joan Baez fill in for Cindy Sheehan during a week when Sheehan went home to see a sick parent.

But, this anti-war movement was never about Cindy Sheehan. So maybe it’s good that she isn’t here because for a while the whole anti-war movement was about her and that probably wasn’t at all what she intended though I can’t speak for her. I saw her so many time’s when I was photographing the anti-war movement that summer that it seemed normal … but now I see those few moments for what they were, history.

 

 

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