[T]here was plenty of hope yesterday as the twenty of us relics from the dustbin of democracy dragged our cranky asses to the office of our lone representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, Peter Welch, to officially deliver our dismay with his continued willingness to fund the Iraq war. Nothing radical there, huh? Well, we didn’t think so until we got to the office and his staff treated us like we had Martha Rainville masks on. Ouch.
We got about three and a half minutes to quickly express ourselves to his clearly contemptuous staff member before having their office doors slammed on our faces with the declaration that we would not be allowed to speak with Peter Welch via the phone and that they had work to do. Wham! Slam! Bam!
No wonder the Iraqis are so skeptical of the so-called democracy we’re trying to export to them. Because if it looked anything like the slamming doors we saw yesterday while trying to express ourselves to our elected official, I wouldn’t want anything to do with it either.
And let’s remember that the twenty of us were there to speak with Welch and/or his staff about the issue he calls his “top priority.” Geez, I’d really hate to see the reaction we would have gotten had we come to address a lower priority of his.
But we dutifully stayed until closing time – just like we promised. And then the cops came — just like they promised. And then the negotiations began.
“What can we do to end this without arrests or incident?” asked the Burlington police officer.
And to that reasonable question we made what we thought was a very reasonable proposals to end the whole thing: We would leave if Peter Welch agreed to meet with us at a time, place and date of his choosing. Quite honestly, we thought it would be over and we’d soon be leaving with a promise to meet with our congressman in the near future – a meeting that became even more relevant as the news came out during our time in his office that Bush was seeking an additional $46 billion for the war.
The police and Welch’s staff huddled in the next room to discuss our offer. Calls were made to Welch’s Washington office to further contemplate the offer. We thought they were simply trying to figure out the proper scheduling.
Silly us. Because the police officer came back with the news that stunned us: “They are rejecting your offer and they would like us to arrest you if you don’t leave now.”
Click through to see what happened after that.
I found out about this action on Sunday PM, e-mailed Michael and he filled me in on meeting time and place, etc. I told him I'd try to be there, but I just had so much to do for class that I ended up not being able to get down to Burlington.
Now I feel totally ashamed that I didn't go. As I told Michael today, I need to "lose my cherry" sometime regarding arrest and this would've been a good opportunity to do so while getting more involved with direct action. Even without arrest, it's something I should have made the time for.
Sadly, I think there will more chances for me to learn in the future. Anyway, I salute Michael, his 10yo and the score of others who fought the good fight yesterday.
ntodd
(x-posted at Dohiyi Mir)
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