March on the White House 19 April
All together, now
As promised I was at the Washington Monument today, causing some good trouble as several thousand of us listened to some inspiring speakers before peacefully marching to the White House to give its occupants a piece of our minds. Although I did not find out about the demonstration until the night before, and do not agree with some of the stated aims of the organizers, I was happy to take part, and would have come downtown even had I been alone.
As luck would have it, I had the choice of three demonstrations in DC today. One might think that to be a bad thing, not least because while I was downtown there was another going on at 34th and Mass, i.e. the former Naval Observatory, home of the Vice Felon. But I would disagree, because the object of the exercise is to bring as many of us as possible together to make heard our common objective: Removal of the current President from office.
If you read Jeff Tiedrich's Saturday post you know that James Carville, that great philosopher of the Democrat Party, is calling for progressives to leave and form a party of their own. Likewise, someone at the demonstration I attended today said that another group had complained about the organizers of today's event, inferring they were somehow encroaching on the other, and warning their members that today's event was going to be violent. In a way, one can forgive the other group – neophytes that they are, but what Carville is doing is unforgivable. As Heather Cox Richardson related at the end of her post on Thursday, the Republican party and thus the conglomeration of people who defeated the slave-holding oligarchs in our Civil War was composed of a multitude of groups, each with their own favorite causes, often at each others' throats, who shared a love and respect for our Country, and a determination to prevent its dissolution[1]. That is the situation today, my friends: We must put aside our differences long enough to defeat the threat to our very existence. So Mr. Carville is ignorant of history and wrong, so much so that he has destroyed his credibility as a political advisor.
Perhaps some day, when the current lot of traitors are no longer a threat, we can re-form our two major parties and perhaps find a way to make a multi-party system work. I think that would be nice. But in the mean time, whether you are a neocon or progressive, traditional Democrat or -Republican, Libertarian, social democrat, Green or whatever, if you believe in due process, equality of all before the law, and the separation of powers in our democracy, you are welcome to march with me to restore our constitutional government.
Here's an idea from one of today's speakers that anyone can adopt – especially if you live in a city or town. At 6:00 PM on the dot, every day, open a window, go out your front door, or stand on your balcony, and beat on a pot or pan with a spoon for one minute. Let the cities, towns and countryside resound with the thunder of resistance! [2]
Notes
[1] Following Lincoln, perhaps our symbol could be “a scythe – a pitchfork – a chopping axe, … – a butcher's cleaver”
[2] This is not a new idea – it's been used with good effect in Quebec, Latin America and Europe. As best I can tell, it started in France in the 1830s. Do a search on Cacerolazo.