Code Pink photo: Build Bridges, Not Walls — from Inaugural Day marches and demonstrations

 

One group I recognized from Occupy was the black bloc.  They are anarchists, easily identifiable by their all-black ensembles, with protective padding and face masks.  Four years ago they did a good job of disrupting Occupy activities by destroying property on marches and making it look like all Occupiers were into wanton destruction.  I talked to a lot of them during Occupy. They are overwhelmingly young white males suffering from testosterone poisoning.  The ones I spoke to in McPherson couldn't, or wouldn't, tell me their plans, but anyone who has seen them in action could assume that nonviolent protest wasn't on their agenda.

 

I took a break to drop in on PoliticoHub at the W Hotel, where you could find free food and sit for a while, listening to various commentators on current events. 

 

Back out on the street I looked into the checkpoints.  The one on 14th Street led to Freedom Plaza, which is the prime protest spot at most inaugurals.  ANSWER Coalition, a small Stalinist group that has a talent for appearing bigger than it is, has turned protesting at the inaugurals into a tradition.  Long ago it obtained a court order to compel the National Park Service to grant it a permit to protest on the parade route.  Last fall the NPS denied every request by every group for permits, before, during and after Jan. 20.  It told all that they were too late – another group got there first.  ANSWER’s legal arm, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, went back to court.

 

It discovered that the "other group" was the NPS itself, which had issued itself an omnibus permit for all space in, on and around the Capitol, The Mall and the parade route. It was reserving this space so that the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) could have first dibs. Faced with legal action, the NPS quickly issued 22 permits for "first amendment activity."  It gave ANSWER not only space at Freedom Plaza, but major space in front of the Navy Memorial between 7th and 9th Streets. ANSWER shifted its primary protest to the larger spot, building a sound stage and scheduling music and speakers for all of January 20.

 

Thus, when protestors from DisruptJ20 blocked the entrance to the security checkpoint on 14th Street it was only blocking access to ANSWER's secondary site.  I checked out all the checkpoints between 14th and Union Station, where a Festival of Resistance was supposed to go on from noon to 5:00. A couple dozen protestors at some of these either stood with linked arms, or sat in front of the entrances to the security fences.

 

They weren't everywhere.  Guards redirected those who wanted to get to the parade route to those check points that weren't blocked.  In those, protestors stood in the lines with their signs but didn't keep people from going through.  The overall effect was delay.  No one was arrested for blocking, or even dragged off to the side, at least not then.

 

 

 By the time I got to Columbus Circle in front of Union Station, the Festival of Resistance was pretty much over.  Most of those who had come were marching to McPherson.  They left right before the crowds of Trump supporters who had tickets to stand and watch the inauguration on jumbotrons reached Union Station to go home.

 

I waited a while to see if anything would happen, then returned to PoliticoHub for more rest and commentators.  The only coverage of the protests I heard was about window breaking at K Street.  When PoliticoHub closed at 4:30 I walked down to Freedom Plaza.  There were no protestors and virtually no wait to go through security.  On Pennsylvania Ave. the only protest I saw was one lone sign held by a woman in barely occupied bleachers.  It said "UGH".  The few people there were watching bands march down Pennsylvania Ave. in the dark.

 

I walked up to Franklin Square, where the remnants of a concert was still in progress.  On the way I spoke to vendors, who were still hawking their Trump wares.  Business was lousy, they told me; they'd be lucky to break even.  Police and protestors were facing off in the middle of K St. where 217 people had been arrested earlier. The streets were littered with turned-over trash cans.  No one still there seemed to know exactly what had happened earlier, let alone why.

 

©2017 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com