Luke Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jan 20, 2018, much of the Federal government's
> non-cooercive portions shut down on the
> anniversary of Trump's Inauguration. ICE, the FBI,
> and the military are not included in the shutdown.
> Meanwhile, protesters hit the streets all over DC.
> There was a satirical vigil for a broken window at
> the same Starbucks that got trashed on J20-2017,
> another Women's March, and a culminating banner
> drop between the flagpoles in front of Union
> Station.
>
> This may have been the first time in living memory
> that a sitting US President was so unpopular that
> a second round of counter-inaugural protests took
> to the streets on the anniversary of his
> Inauguration. Last time around, counterinaugural
> protests took place over four days, and the last
> of them (the Women's March) has been reported to
> have been the largest protest in US history by
> turnout.
>
> The events of Jan 20, 2018 began with a satirical
> vigil for a broken window outside the Starbucks at
> 12th and I sts NW, "memorializing" a window
> allegedly smashed by a small number of people
> breaking from the 500+ person anticapitalist march
> on Jan 20, 2017. Although the vigil was satire, it
> made the very serious point that 50 years in
> prison over a broken window is an obscenity and a
> shocking extreme of disproportion. Anyone reading
> this who has never had to replace a window broken
> by an errant baseball, a stone kicked up by tires
> on the road, or some other accident is quite
> fortunate. One of the videographers stepped
> forward from behind the camera to announce that
> "this is not about 11 broken windows, it's about
> one broken Presidency."
>
> At least a half hour in advance of the publicly
> announced 1PM J20 solidarity cupcake Black Lives
> Matter, No Justice No Pride, SURJ, and DC area
> anti-fascist activists descended on Columbus
> Circle in front of Union Station. Two climbers,
> one a transgender woman, and one an
> African-American woman) started up the twinned
> flagpoles. By the time cops noticed anything was
> going on, they were safely out of reach. Slowly
> but surely they ascended, while cops unlawfully
> placed police lines all the way around the
> protesters on the ground supporting them. Finally
> they got high enough off the ground to unfurl a
> giant "Don't Trump Our Communities" Black Lives
> Matter banner. When cops threatened the protesters
> on the ground with arrest if they held their
> ground, they marched off, taking the street and
> circling to the opposite side of the banner, whose
> letters faced outward towards the street. Both
> climbers were eventually arrested, though they
> were reported to be out of police custody by
> evening.
>
> Much of the activist community sees the remaining
> 59 J20 cases as a strategic threat to all future
> protests if anyone is ever convicted. This goes
> double for participants in events such as those of
> Ferguson and Baltimore, where police murder led to
> wholesale urban uprisings. Even before Trump there
> was the failed attempts by a GOP state government
> in North Dakota to prosecute a large number of
> people on serious felonies for daring to oppose
> the Dakota Access Pipeline. In 2017, over 100 DAPL
> felony charges were dropped. With these dangerous
> precedents, it is appropriate that Black Lives
> Matter-DC and No Justice No Pride joined forces
> for the high profile civil disobedience and banner
> drop between the flagpoles at Union Station. It is
> also appropriate that this is in "Columbus
> Circle," named for the first of the colonizing
> aggressors in whose footsteps Trump is following.
>
> Speaking of broken Presidencies, the mostly
> Democratic Party based speakers at the Women's
> March called out Donald Trump as a failure for
> being unable to pass a budget or even keep the
> government (those parts not concerned with
> shooting or jailing people) running while his
> party controls both houses of Congress plus the
> White House. Many in the audience bore signs
> urging the Democrats to stand strong and refuse to
> back down on DACA. If Congress passes either a
> budget or a short-term spending bill with
> protection for "Dreamers" (immigrants brought here
> without documents as children), then Trump must
> either keep the "government" shut down or abandon
> his plans to deport the first 800,000 people of
> his proposal to deport up to 11 or 12 million.
>
> Unfortunately, the Women's March did contain some
> seriously sour notes. It was organized by Women's
> March VA without the support of the national
> Women's March organizers. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser
> was permitted to speak, even though much of her
> program such as more cops, more people in jail,
> and opposing raising the minimum wage is in line
> with Trump. Worst of all, Women's March VA
> (#womensmarch2018dc)blocked both No Justice No
> Pride and DMV Black Lives on all of their social
> media accounts. It's one thing not to work with
> local organizers but to actively block them and
> seek to deny their rank and file information about
> locally organized events is another story.
>
> So many things happened a year ago! All the
> checkpoints into Trump's Inauguration were
> blockaded for hours on end, Richard Spencer got
> punched in the face, the original Women's March
> out-drew Trump's own Inaugural turnout, and a
> massive anti-capitalist march took to the streets
> from Logan Circle. That march was unlawfully
> mass-arrested, and cases to date have gone poorly
> for the US Attorney's Office and lead prosecutor
> Jennifer Kerkhoff. Six defendents were acquitted
> of all charges in the first set of trials, which
> began in November almost ten months after the
> kettle. Two days before the anniversary of Trump's
> Inauguratiion, the US Attorney's office announced
> they had to drop the charges against 129 of the
> remaining defendents due in part to the jury
> verdict in that first case. Fifty-nine people are
> still facing over 60 years in prison however,
> which is the rest of their lives.
Attachments: