The People's March on the Pentagon - A Recap

WOWOWOW...am I pumped!!

Just back now from a highly successful and very well attended march on the Pentagon to end the stupid illegal war for oil in Iraqnam.

I started out by boarding the Orange Line subway at East Falls and our first stop was Ballston where a bunch of people with anti-war placards got on. I talked with them and found out that they were among the 4,000 Christians who encircled the White House last night to protest Bush's illegal aggression. I will admit my prejudice here because when I heard the word "Christian" I automatically assumed they were the James Dobson / Jerry Falwell sort of pseudo Christians who parade around shoving their beliefs down the throats of others. As is too often the case with prejudice, of course, I was completely wrong about these people. Instead of fitting the stereotype they were as fervent and conversant as I am.

"No where in the bible Bush talks about does it say to invade peaceful countries because of lies" the fellow from Albany New York said to me. This guy and his family, it turns out, have been fishing on Red Cedar Lake about 8 miles northeast of my home town of Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Small world time.

The subway ride went like lightning and we sooner than expected arrived at Foggy Bottom metro. A metro cop standing there said to us "welcome to ground zero."

It was a quick walk to the corner of 23rd and Constitution where people were congregating. The first pleasant experience I had there was seeing and then listening to a group from the SDS. If you remember back from my day, the Students for a Democratic Society were some of the most fervent vocal opponents of the war in Vietnam. They stood on the corner shouting out their message. God DAMN it was good to see that students are getting mobile and vocal and fired up about an unjust war again. God DAMN it feels good.

I crossed Constitution and turned left to walk to the Vietnam War memorial. I wanted to hang out there because of the venom spewed by Sean Hannity and the Reich wing nuts at www.freerepublic.com who said that we the people wanted to desecrate the Vietnam Vets memorial. My singular purpose in getting there was to keep an eye on panel 30E, line 109 that contains, in perpetuity, my cousin Dean Beranek's name. I was prepared to bust the head of any asshole who desecrated my family and the only kid from my home town who died in Nam.

I didn't have to worry.

The area surrounding the Nam memorial was surrounded by maybe 1000 or so Ditto heads who were taunting anyone and every one who walked down the street carrying an anti-war sign. Many proudly displayed the fact that they were Vietnam Vets. Unfortunately they didn't understand why we were protesting.

It was rather insightful listening to these folks spew their venom. Thanks to my friend Mike I knew to respond to their taunts with "Ditto Rush" that I said over and over to these sad individuals. One particularly vile bastard yelled at me to "go to Canada, you motherfucker." To which I replied "you must be a Christian, huh Rush?" This tended to piss him off because the bastard lunged at me. Unfortunately for him there was a US Park Police officer standing between me and him. The cop caught the ditto head and I hope he arrested him. I just walked on. As my friend Jon used to say in the Keys "I love it that just by being here I piss people off." That's how I felt.

A group of us got together right near Constitution Gardens and massed there before walking back through the gauntlet of limpets. While standing there I saw a guy with a Vietnam Vet patch on his baseball cap (I, of course, was in my "2002 A Beach Odyssey" baseball cap from the 2002 Jimmy Buffett concert series). I walked up to this guy (who was a 1967 graduate of HS, so he was in Nam at a very bad time) and shook his hand. I said to him "You've heard stories but I want you to know that we were demonstrating against Nam to get you home." He said he didn't know that at first but believes it now. As we talked about things someone yelled "all Vets over here" - an attempt to get all the pro-war crowd together. The Vietnam Vet standing next to me holding an "out of Iraq now" placard wouldn't budge. One of the pro-war Hannity fans yelled at him and called him "yellow" for standing with us. This guy said "you're a disgrace to what I almost died for motherfucker". It got a little tense.

We walked back past the jackals and got ourselves surrounded by peaceful people again at 23rd and Constitution. Just before entering the assembly, I heard this guy with gray hair yelling "1, 2, 3, 4" and my ears perked up. Without thinking twice I automatically yelled back "We don't want your fucking war!" He looked at me and said "you've been through it before haven't you?" Yup. He was selling relict anti war buttons from my era and I purchased one that was rusted on the back and the pin was rusted and the front had two peace signs on it and the numbers and letters "1,2,3,4 W D W Y F W" Immediate flash back to college...wowowoww.

Walking through the assembly area, I saw a group of students with a huge banner for the "Campus Anti War Network" and their website www.revoltingstudents.com These kids were from the University of Wisconsin which I recognized because of the website. I stopped to talk with them and said that since I was an alumnus of the U system and had done my fair share of protest at Madison, would they mind if I hung out? Being typical Madison liberals they welcomed me to join them.

One kid asked me "Whats the best chant from your days protesting?" I immediately belted out "1, 2, 3, 4, We Don't Want Your Fucking War" I then said that I had been working on and failing to come up with a modern day answer to "Hey Hey LBJ, How Many Kids Have You Killed Today?" One Madison student said "Hey Bush, What do ya say. How Many Kids Have You Killed Today?" The tradition lives on.

The Madison kids instinctively I think walked to the edge of the assembly area where a bunch of the pro-Bush people were chanting their taunts. The best chant of that situation was, "This Is Democracy. That is hypocrisy" and when we said hypocrisy we pointed at the pro-Bushies.

We stood around for what seemed like forever before finally talking off toward Memorial Bridge. I asked if I could hold up the edge of this huge banner that the Madison students were carrying and did so. We started our march. Before leaving for the bridge, while looking at all of the fantabulous placards, I have to admit that the one that won the award for the most to the point was a guy carrying a sign that read "Will Suck Cock for Impeachment." Unfortunately that's what it will take.

God DAMN it felt good.

As we walked along we were taunted by the pro-Bush wing nuts who looked so sad standing there with their ditto rings on.

Once over the Memorial Bridge and then turning south to go to the Pentagon, we were confronted by a huge sign from the Reich wing nuts admonishing us to not step foot on this "hallowed ground." which, of course, was Arlington Cemetery. Its actually quite scary to think that these poor slovenly bastards believe that our actions would any way defile the poor souls lying for eternity in Arlington. I guess I will never understand the mind of the Republic Party.

Once over the Memorial bridge the Reich wing nuts faded into the past. All along the route we were surrounded by people who put peace ahead of everything else. I will never ever understand how those pro war people think that we are anti-troop. What is more supportive of kids in Iraqnam than wanting to bring them home alive ?? Just makes no sense.

From the time we were assembled by the Lincoln Memorial until well after we started to disperse from the Pentagon, we were constantly being flown over by a helicopter that was probably FBI. More than once I stopped what I was doing and thrust my finger in the air at the bastards. This aerial harassment continued well into the afternoon.

There was tons of media coverage of the event including lots of people with press passes (but were they really??) photographing us as we marched over the Memorial Bridge. Once as I chanted "1,2, 3, 4....." one guy focused in on me and took probably 10 pictures. When he finished I asked him if he got enough. Saying he had, I stopped, wrote my name on a piece of paper, handed it to him and said "Good, send some of them to the FBI, I want them to have current pictures in my file."

There were lots of speeches at the Pentagon but I didn't really pay much attention except to Cindy Sheehan and America's mayor, Rockey Anderson from Salt Lake City. I checked in with my friends at www.inyourfaceradio.net several times to give them an update from the ground. My friend JD was broadcasting live and it was a rush being able to give the good folks there an immediate update.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was seeing how diverse the crowd was. Pick a skin color and those folks were there. Black, white, Arabic, Latino (some Cubanos also) Asian, Pacific Islanders, you name it.....folks were there saying what needed to be said. There were students from many campuses there but I have to admit that the University of Wisconsin students were the best prepared, most vocal, and made the biggest impact. I also enjoyed walking along and through the crowds earlier noticing that if there was one state represented heavily it was Wisconsin - Badger shirts, Badger jackets, Green Bay Packers coats. You name it, the great incomparable state of Wisconsin was here and heavily represented today. Makes me want to eat a bratwurst and some cheese curds just thinking about it.

There was also tons of media there. C-Span was broadcasting live and Faux Noise was there (curiously that asshole Sean Hannity was nowhere to be seen - I guess this morning's talking points didn't say to be there). I saw one van from Eurovision. I hope they were passing word back to Europe so people there realize that we are hate Bush and want to end this stupidity. Please world, know that we aren't all Bush supporters.

I was interviewed by two reporters. One was a fellow from a newspaper in Japan who asked me why I was there and what I hoped would happen. I said I was there because "killing for peace is like fucking for virginity." A little shocked he said "I don't think I can use that." I then said "I'm here because the President of this great country needs to be run from office before the constitution he swore to uphold no longer has any meaning."

The other reporter was from a newspaper in New York (not the Times). He asked me if this was my first anti-war demonstration. I said "no that happened on May 5, 1970, the day after the Ohio National Guard committed murder at Kent State." He asked me what I thought needed to happen to end the conflict in Iraq. I said "Impeach Bush" He said "do you think the Democrats will do any better?" I said "They can't do any worse." Then I added "and when Al Gore is in the White House you won't see nation after nation taking it to the streets to protest like what happened this week when Bush was in Latin America. With any democrat in power the United States will be respected again not reviled. That will bring us peace."

When it was about over...or was it when my bladder was about to explode??- I walked over to the University of Wisconsin students and said to their leader "thanks for letting me feel like a student again." He said "you haven't lost your passion have you?" Nope. I will take it to my grave.

Walking back to the Arlington Cemetery metro I talked with several people from my generation. To a person, we were shocked that we had done this 38 years ago..and never thought we would have to do it again. But here we are.

Arlington Cemetery metro was packed ...like freaking sardines. From there I connected in Rosslyn to come home and it was in the East Falls Church metro station that I saw the most poignant sign of the day - a sign that summed up why we were all in the streets. It was carried by a dad.

The sign said "Bring my son home from Iraq."

I walked over to this dad and said "we will."