In The Pink: Day Two

Another exhilarating day.  Not getting much grading done, so I'm not joining tomorrow's actions since I have to get final scores submitted by midnight Thursday.  Anyway, some pictures, several of which are in my usual blurry idiom.

Outside the Senate Judiciary Cmte room.  I'm in the middle.

Rep Jack Murtha spoke with us for quite a while this evening after the House approved the appropriations bill.

NTodd in this afternoon's outfit, reflected in the cop car that took Des away.

If you weren't scared off my me and my fuzzy hat, there are a bunch more pictures (not of me) below...

Sen Hatch salutes Liz when she greeted him before the hearing with Deputy AG nominee Filip.

Filip in the hot seat.

Filip supporters apparently were kinda bored when the nominee was talking about waterboarding.

I missed a chance to take a pic of Des being put in the cop car, and then we didn't get over to the police station fast enough to get a shot of her being escorted in for processing.  So here's Liz calling one of the lawyers by the prisoner entrance.

Yeah, it's overexposed, but I liked its ethereal quality.

A lot of Reps walked by very fast, including this one who answered George's questions with, "spare me."

Janice Schakowsky (D-IL9) wished us peace, then misunderstood George and told him not to criticize someone who just wished them peace.  I guess the Dems are a bit defensive.

I thought you had to be 25 to be a Representative.

Mazie Hirono (D-HI2) said to us after voting no on the appropriation: "It did not go the way I would have wanted."

Soundbite highlight of the night came from Jose Serrano (D-NY16), who said as he zipped by us: "I voted no.  But I'm still in your Hall of Shame because I didn't sign your stupid letter."

Big Bear Hug from Murtha.  Then we (Des, George, Liz and I) got a group hug.

Murtha was very passionate as he spoke about the war and what we need long-term.

Papers, please!  A little later Bike Cop Brown decided to harass Des "to get the story" about her arrest and status.  George acted as counsel for her today and explained the situation, and Des carried a copy of her "arrestee advice" (indicating that she was not, technically, arrested!) and other documents showing she was allowed to be on Capitol grounds.

On our walk back to the Pink house.

Xmas tree in front of the Capitol.

Got back home and met Sgt Adam Kokesh, Geoff Millard, and the dude responsible for this, who are wicked cool.  I think that's all I can muster tonight.

Oh, wait, I can at least link to articles in the Times and Globe about the FCC hearing yesterday that Medea, Gael and George crashed.  Couple good pics of the Pinkers.

ntodd

Comments

[The Kenosha Kid]

You have never looked as good as you do in that first picture.

[charley]

Des is a hottie.

but i already knew that.

not quite groking the whole sit. but thanx for the pics.

if you shoot raw you'll never have to worry about overexposure again.

you're a wild man, fight the good fight.

[jawbone]

Hhhmmmm--so now Verizon and AT&T can, somehow, offer terms to apartment renters which will be real competition? Maybe, but I haven't really seen it here in Northern NJ for regular householders.

Commission officials said the rule aims to put an end to some common practices of landlords and tenant associations that have deprived tenants of choices. They said that in many communities, there has been only one cable provider, and while landlords and tenant associations could select a satellite television provider, the competition from those companies has not led to lower cable prices.

[white house lawn gnome]

Great seeing you all tonight at the CODEPINK house! Keep up the good work shaking up our so-called "elected officials!".

[LaFajita]

Hey Todd,

From the photographs, it looks like the Pink Marine finally retook her Hill. Good on her.

[LaFajita]

Ooh! I can post here! This is so much better than the Code Pink site, as it seems to have become the Happy Troll Fun Park and Petting Zoo. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Enjoy your stay at the House. I always do, and all I do is hang out over there in the evenings and offer myself as the living proof that there is nothing or nobody the Ladies will not hug, nor is there a fool they will not suffer.
Truly a remarkable group.

[doggril]

Why is it that many among the Left seem to believe it to be mandatory to show up to protests dressed like clowns? And, no, I don't mean that figuratively. And, yes, I'm serious.

[NTodd]

doggril - why do you not find value in guerrilla theater and mocking authority? Should we all dress up in 3-piece suits to be "serious"? I think not.

Learn more about the 198 Methods on Nonviolent Action and consider that clowning is not the only way to resist, nor is it mutually exclusive with other channels into the apparatus.

[doggril]

When I think of effective voices of dissent, I think of Digby and Greenwald (neither of whom I've seen pictured in 3 piece suits, btw). I don't think of...actually I can't think of a single individual who has successfully caught the attention of the larger community by dressing like a clown.
Frankly I wince when I see the singing antiwar grannies (or whateverthehell their official name is) because, while their goal may be to mock authority, I think the only mocking going on is pretty much directed AT the grannies.
I agree that there is more than one way to skin a cat; and there are some incidents of street theater I've found to be very provocative (I was at one of the WTO protests in Seattle, and the street theater there seemed to elicit pretty positive responses, even from the press). But people dressed like clowns seem only to invite ridicule. If I were a politician, no matter how sympathetic I was to their cause, I would never, ever have my picture taken with some of those folks in the pics above. That is a dream pic for a conservative opponent. It's not that it's wrong; I just think dressing like that doesn't send the message you seem to think it sends.

[NTodd]

Yeah, Digby and Greenwald sure ended the war fast, didn't they? WHOOHOO!

Enjoy being polite along with the status quo. Some of us are going to continue putting psychological pressure on people while being in their faces, even if it makes you wince. No, strike that: BECAUSE it makes you wince.

[doggril]

A million years ago (or so it feels) I belonged to an evangelical church. I was never really comfortable with a lot of what they did, especially their aggressiveness in recruiting new members. Their strategy was to pester people they knew to try to wear them down so that they'd eventually come to church. They'd usually get a polite "no, thanks" after the first invitation. Same for the second and third. By the fourth invitation or so, if someone hadn't come around, the invitee would often start being a little curt in their refusal. And they would get more and more curt, after the 10th and l1th invitation. Eventually, they would inevitably break and tell the churchmember, in no uncertain terms, to leave them the hell alone.
This progression, as predictable as it was, generally didn't slow down the churchmembers. For them, it was a win-win proposition. If the person joined the church (which rarely happened), that was good. If the person ended up yelling at them (which was common), that was also good as such "persecution" "proved"the church person was doing the Lord's work.
You see, they had deluded themselves into thinking they were accomplishing something, when, in fact, they were simply being annoying.
So, if you really think that dressing up as clowns is working to get us out of Iraq, knock yourself out. I clearly have a different perspective.

[NTodd]

You see, they had deluded themselves into thinking they were accomplishing something, when, in fact, they were simply being annoying.

Yeah, because proseltyizing is just the same as petitioning your government who would otherwise TOTALLY PAY ATTENTION TO YOU AND THE POLLS AND ELECTIONS!

So, if you really think that dressing up as clowns is working to get us out of Iraq, knock yourself out.

Strawman. It's one channel, and unless all the other 200 million antiwar people join us in the streets, we gotta do whatever it takes to stay in the faces of our employees. That includes civil disobedience, war tax resistance, general strikes, etc. Join us and we can take off the funny hats.

I'd also just note that you started with another strawman: that there are always clowns at protests. If you took the time to look around here and elsewhere, you'd see that much of the protest is done without such theater. But the theater sure is memorable, ain't it?

Hell, when we dressed up as Dick and George, kids were coming up to us, begging to try on the heads, excitedly accepting impeachment stickers, as were their parents, restaurant staff were cheering, and other spectators gave us thumbs up, etc. They even started chanting "freedom of speech, this is a democracy!" when we were asked (nicely, by very sympathetic cops) to leave the premises.

Bottom line: it has psychological impact. It stays with the officials, who whine about being in the Hall of Shame, or accelerate past us because they fear the questions and funny hats, or in many cases, they stop and converse with us because we're there every day, showing them that we have not given up.

Emerson asked Thoreau when he was in prison for tax resistance, "Henry, why are you in there?" His friend replied, "Ralph, why are you out there?"

Join us, or stay home and "wince" and think your methods alone will work. We can't all be lion tamers...

[doggril]

"I'd also just note that you started with another strawman: that there are always clowns at protests."
Your defensiveness is clouding your reading comprehension. I was very careful to stay away from the word "always," as that would have been a mischaracterization.
Try to argue against what I actually wrote, rather than your attempt to misquote me. You may find that a bit harder.

[NTodd]

Interesting that you think I deliberately misquoted you out of defensiveness.

The implication is still clear: in your world there is no room for theater in dissent. So I recalled your comment as saying "always" because that's the usual context when people complain about protesters' choice of costume. Big deal. My points yet stand, with revision of the word "always" to "so many."