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The DC trip was quite a whirlwind. First of all this whole idea was from a friend of mine from undergrad, Anna. She lives in LA and asked her when would be a good weekend visit. She suggested we go together to DC for the World Bank and IMF protests. Heck, OK, I'll do that. With the help of her Mom who is a travel agent off we went.
We met in St Louis briefly and flew to Baltimore. We stayed with my highschool friend Beth (who lives a block from the Library of Congress!) The second night we stayed with Michigan friend Shawn and her husband up in Rockville. Very nice accommodations from both!
Instead of discussing the ideas of protests which are frustratingly underreported and ignored I will continue that trend and mainly talk of the mechanics of the protests. They are a bit easier for stories anyway (I have and will of course oblige policy discussion requests, I have a lot to learn on this stuff.)
Picking out some stories... on Saturday Anna and I went to the convergence center to find that it was closed due to a fire marshal's order. Basically the police had tried to take the organizational heart out of the protests. All the food and medical supplies that had been stockpiled were out of reach now. Not to mention the pipes for making linking human chains and the puppets (I guess like the turtle costumes.) The next day in a big press show the SWAT team 'released' the puppets to waiting demonstrators. Much of the organizational work spread to numerous nearby churches.
We went to a non-violent workshop for a little while at a local Unitarian church. Now I went in with the expectation that it would stress non-violence and be warm and fuzzy and all that, but it really went beyond my expectations. Suffice to say I was very impressed with their emphasis on acceptance and nonviolence. Also: four rules: 1. No violent actions or words. 2. No drugs (including alcohol). 3. No weapons of any kind. 4. No property damage, except barricades.
Another highschool friend (Greg) had breakfast with Anna, Beth and I. He even drove the three of us to the protests, asking if he should drop us off a little further away since it might look bad emerging for the protests from a leather seated car (we didn't take him up on his offer.) Lots of sights and sounds, tens of thousands of people. The three of us walked seeing the sights. The police had not merely kept access from the buildings where the meetings were being held, but cleared at least three blocks in every direction. With the White House and its security zone in that radius they created a massive perimeter that protestors tried to block. A typical scene had a line of riot geared police behind a light metal barricade and 50 or so protestors stationed in a line. It was interesting talking to the officers, when I asked one if they were getting overtime, he replied, "Oh yeah."
The papers would quote police chief Ramsey (who apparently walked amongst everyone quite a bit) saying that the protestors were remarkably well organized. To me this has a connotation of hierarchical organization which the protesters did not have. Protestors worked in groups of friends numbering 5 to 15 called 'affinity groups.' Each group would have a spokesperson and try to stay together. Some would barricade certain streets (assignments by affinity group affiliation) and some would roam. Information was passed by cell phones occasionally or by bicycle courier.
Later in the day we watched what I term an 'immature turf war' on Constitution Avenue between some cranky protestors and police. We helped some people prepare a little First Aid center for the feared scuffles. Fortunately no major ones occurred though many of the pictures I saw in the paper the next day were from that scene. Anna and I eventually realized we were just waiting for somebody to lose their cool and make a mess which is not why we went to DC (Beth left a few hours earlier.) So we walked to the Vietnam Memorial (always a moving sight.)
The impromptu parade arrived to a large intersection with a small park in the middle. All but one of the exit routes were lined with police. We asked one of the riot geared policeman if we are safe from arrest by staying away on the sidewalk away from the main group he said no. Asked if there would be any warning he replied, "I'm not in charge." We played some politicized versions of duck-duck-goose and red-rover with some other people which was a lot of fun. Again realizing we were staying to see if anything bad was going to happened Anna and I left via the one open street and went to the Holocaust Museum. (There we couldn't go to the main exhibit since they ran out of passes - like they do everyday - but the other parts of the museum were good to see. Also apparently the situation back at the protest was diffused peacefully with several hundred people "volunteering" to be arrested by crossing a line.)
Anna and I took the Metro back up to Rockville and took a shuttle on to the Baltimore airport - where we were bumped up to first class (wheee!)