D R A N T: DRANT #221: LIVE FROM THE PENTAGON: DC REPORT #2

Live from Washington DC and The MARCH TO THE PENTAGON:
An anti-protest protestor-- 3-17-07 Photo by DR

"If people don't wanna see a movie, ya can't keep 'em away."
Samuel Goldwyn

We joined tens of thousands of people of every kind from all over in Washington's freezing wind today to March on The Pentagon, after a week of multiple actions and protests, including The Encampment at the Capitol, arrests inside the Rayburn building where none of We The People were allowed into Our House to witness the Co-Conspirators' cha cha cha, and an action by 3,000 Christian Anti War Activists with multiple arrests in the sleet and snow Friday night.
Brave and hearty souls, all of 'em. But.
If we want the war to stop, if we want seriously to cause change, we're going to have to dump these worn out old models, and the obsolete 1967 style Protest March. What worked in 1967 works no more.
We took one last ride in the old sedan this afternoon, and -- as well as the old boy has served us over the years, as comfy as it is to ride in, as much as it revives warm memories of granpa and granma and how we did so much Good when we were kids- it's time to stuff it and hang it on the wall.
In truth, these "demonstrations" and "marches" do more to harm our cause than to serve it.
The marches are full of bonhomie, solidarity, and spirit, but essentially are easily ignored marches to nowhere. The demonstrations or rallies are boring, endlessly verbose and hopelessly diffused affairs, run apparently more to satisfy the egos of their promoters than to provide lightning rods or impetus for change.
The major pimp media and the enforcers of the status quo use the meager attendance at these events to prove their case: that those against the war are a marginal few, and a motley disjointed few at that.
It was not the bad weather, or the logistical difficulties, or the lack of media exposure that kept tens of millions away from this and many other demonstrations this weekend, most notably in DC. It was that the event itself, like so many before --- was going to be one more unfocused and unproductive snore.
What exactly was the POINT ?
The organizers accepted the restrictions laid out by the cops, started on the outskirts of town, and then left town completely.
We needed to be in the middle of town, in the middle of the week, and on the doorsteps of those funding, running and supporting this war, not on a weekend in a dingy inconspicuous parking lot well out of the earshot and view of anyone even slightly involved with the war. We did not need speeches, we needed to stop the machine. Stop business as usual.
What is it that compels people to repeat acts that do not work ?
What is it that causes pretty smart folks to rely on and invest expectations in others, like those in Congress, to end this war for us, when we all know that they have done and will do nothing of the kind ?
Of course, we show up and feel better because we see people who share our views, and can vent some feelings about the way things are being done-- in a supportive environment of like minded souls.
But damned few of us are showing up, and when we do, nothing really happens, and absolutely nothing changes.
So, if we want to make ourselves feel better, we can keep marching and chanting and carrying smart signs and we can continue to write or email or fax or call our Congresspeople.
If we want to change anything, we'd better do something new, and be quick about it..

Along the march route, we encountered a good sized group of Pro War demonstrators, many of them Vietnam Vets.
These are people who cannot accept that what they and many of their buddies and families sacrificed for was meaningless, who are stuck -- in that period of their lives when they could feel strong, powerful, potent; with life and death in their hands, and shared purpose in their daily lives.
Who have never again felt as good as when they could strap on the M-16, and kick some slope ass.
There was more real dialogue about the War in the confrontations between these vets and the protestors, than we have heard or seen in Congress or the major media in six years, including the last three months under Pelosi's Poseurs.
Is there more self-delusion possible than the sign "Safe since 9-11" ?
Or another that read "There or HERE" ?
Well, just about as much as the self-serving illusion that another XX thousand people marching with signs and hearing harangues and going home will do one single thing to change the course of this war or alter our precipitate descent into fascism and planetary destruction.

Here is what I think needs to be done:
We need to take care of this ourselves.
No Congress, no newspaper, no court, no silver tongued candidate, no messiah. No logos, no "organizations."
We need to mobilize, we the people of the country, one body and one conscience and one will at a time.
And we need to walk -- starting from wherever we are-- to Washington DC.
And walk into Washington DC, and to the White House, and Congress, and the Pentagon and all along K street-
and fill the streets with our bodies, and lie down and not allow another minute of this bloody business as usual.
We need to take Gandhi's march to the sea as our model.
Every day, we walk, and we gather others, and day after day we gather more and more- and the media cannot ignore us, and people along the way will take us in, and feed us and join us.
I nominate and have tried to ask Cindy Sheehan to lead the walk, she would be ideal, but we don't need her.
We need you and me, and our kids and friends.
And we need to start now.
The weather is getting warm. If we leave California in April, we can get to DC in 3 months or so, maybe even by July 4.
What do you say ?
After the marches and protests of this weekend are over, how about we all take a walk ?
I'll tell ya what. If you will join me, I will stop everything I am doing - every thing -- and do only this.
Will you ?

"We're here in the shadow of the war machine,"
said anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Iraq.
(Watch Sheehan march with a throng of protesters Video)
We need to shut it down. We need to stop paying our taxes to fund this war."