Jeremy Hogan

Is This 2007 Or 1965? . . .Cont.

Jesse Jackson is up on stage now saying the same thing he’s been saying for years, “Keep Hope Alive.” There are so many people here I don’t even see him except just for a glance. The first time I ever saw him was when I was photographing Cesar Chavez funeral years ago. I wasn’t much older than those college freshmen I rode with here on a bus from Indiana. Now, he seems really old, and I listen as anti-war protester after anti-war protester speaks until their words grow into a sad sea of sounds, like the distant waves crashing at low tide off in the distance.

I think I am sad. And I go looking for those student s I rode in with on the bus. I look around and everyone else is sad too. Something has died. I don’t feel the sense of energy or hope I felt from people at those early anti-war protests before this mess even started or out in the streets of New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention. I don’t feel the sense of community the movement had when people gathered in solidarity outside George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.

I mention this to the students but they look at me kind of strange. One kid says this is the biggest thing like this he has been to. I guess I have compassion fatigue or burnout. It’s the same thing lots of other people have too … except most of them just didn’t bother to show up this time. There is a lot to be angry about and having all that anger takes away from other things, like loving others, smelling flowers, enjoying the clear blue sky on a sunny winter day, savoring each moment knowing the next one isn’t guaranteed. Being angry makes it hard to enjoy those things … but anger unexpressed is rage and it manifests itself in lots of ways.

The speakers are still speaking but the march has just begun. There is a sense of rage … a quiet rage that burns like phosphorus under water in the deep sea on a moonless night just before a 100-year storm begins. You can see it in people’s faces. These people are pissed off. They sit defiantly outside the offices of the government, which they were always told was their government when the constitution still protected things like free speech. The police tell them not to sit on the ledges of buildings but they don’t listen.

There was a conspicuous absence of counter protester today as well. Normally, somewhere on the route would be people holding, “Support Our Troops” signs. But, I haven’t seen them. Last time there was even a support our troops rally. Where are the Gold Star Families?

When I reach the Capitol after the march there are police everywhere. I guess those 30 or 40 anarchists did make a feeble attempt to smash the state. I heard the police held them off mostly, but the anarchists did manage to leave some messages for Congress.

I get into a discussion about the graffiti with a couple young anti-war activists. A young woman says it wasn’t going to help the anti-war movements cause. Then a young man interrupts her, “Congress … they don’t care what we think anyway. So what difference does it make?”

Walking away from the capitol steps I tell a couple older women about the graffiti and they nearly fell down laughing. One woman says it isn’t funny that the capitol was defaced but she can’t help but laugh anyway.

Later I speak to a woman who had protested at the Pentagon in the late 1960s. She says she isn’t impressed with the anarchists at all. She calls them “cowards” who are afraid to show their faces for what they believe in. “I saw them up there,” she said. “Look there’s one right there and she points to a teenage boy still wearing a red scarf over his face.”

“COWARD!” she says loud enough so he can hear her. “Look at his eyes, he’s just looking for trouble, it’s the adrenaline rush.

Later a woman tells me she thinks some of the anarchists were hired. They’re just here to create bad publicity for and cause discord among the anti-war movement.

“The Hill,” which is the newspaper covering only the capitol has a story about the vandalism on the front of it’s website the next day.

The headline reads read, “Anti-war protesters spray paint Capitol building.”

Notice it doesn’t say anarchists, who numbered about 30, but anti-war protesters. Hmmm? That’s a lot of spray paint.

The media said there were tens of thousands of anti-war here protesters who marched and rallied. The organizers said there were half a million. I’d say there were between 100,000 and 250,000 but it’s very hard to know for sure. Usually, double whatever the media says, and whatever the organizers say is double the number actually there since protest organizers have their reasons for wanting a high turnout and the media, is always on the conservative side.

Later around 8 p.m., it’s night, it’s dark and it’s getting cold, I find myself in the national mall all by myself (well, surely I’m being watched by security somewhere around here), but on this park bench it’s just me surrounded by hundreds of anti-war signs either outright abandoned on the ground or piled into and around trash cans.

I suppose I’ll be here again,” a protester told me earlier after the march. “And the next time people will still be protesting the war in Iraq and perhaps a war with Iran.”

Is this 2007 or 1965?

Jeremy Hogan – January 31, 2007

 

Dedicated to Molly Ivins 1944-2007

 

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www.jeremyhogan.com .