peacefully surrounding the white house is not as crazy as it sounds

[mopaul]

a show of peaceful force, a vigil, a campsite, a presence, a symbol, a movement.

walk right in the front door of OUR WHITE HOUSE, and throw the cockroaches out.

sounds crazy don't it?

[JuniperLea]

1. Yes, but they drove us to this kind of crazy

You have to fight with opposites. Fire is fought with water, hate with love, war with peace.

Splendid idea.

[Dunvegan]

2. Cindy Sheehan doesn't think so...

...she said when she was just here in San Francisco it's the only sane thing to do: SIT DOWN.

Vigils were version 1.0.

Sitting Down in Front of the Bricks and Mortar of Power is version 2.0.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. I think

they are both saying the same thing? :shrug:

[Dunvegan]

7. Yep

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. If we could do Camp Crawford

there are enough people to do this.

[H2O Man]

4. Martin's last project .....

I think it is the best idea for progressive people at the grass-roots level.

[meganmonkey]

6. We did that once

On September 26th, 2 days after the big march in DC. We legally (with permits) marched aroung the WH and there were about 1000 of us. Then we gathered in Lafayette Park and about 400 of us sat on the sidewalk in front of the WH (where you CANNOT get a permit to sit) and we got arrested (including Cindy). I wonder what would have happened if there had been 4,000 or 40,000 of us there that day? Could they arrest us all? Would the press have covered it then, instead of just getting ridiculed by Jon Stewart?

[Burning Water]

8. I don't know, but

I suspect that if you tried to lay hands on the President, you might get shot. Just a thought you ought to consider.

[mopaul]

12. i never said anything about 'touching' the president

i'm sure he'd be long gone out the back door when he saw the crowd

[H2O Man]

13. No one had......

that strange little comment came out of right field.

[Burning Water]

18. What does

throw the cockroaches out imply to you? Obviously to throw you need to physically grasp something first.

He wouldn't resign, no matter how many people you had marching.

[H2O Man]

19. You are silly. n/t

[Burning Water]

20. And you should

pay more attention to your use of language.

Or are you admitting that your plan will be ineffective in removing President Bush from office. God, I wish somebody could come up with a plan. The best so far in impeachment, and the odds of that happening are above zero, maybe, but not by much.

[meganmonkey]

21. And you should pay more attention to who you are responding to

since H2O Man isn't the one who made the original post :shrug:

[Burning Water]

22. My bad, but

perhaps he should pay attention to what was actually written, then.

[Burning Water]

17. Probably not,

he'd just have to get the Secret Service, and the Marines to move you out when you started to approach the non-public areas of the White House.

Even if he left by the back door, he would still be President, and could order the troops to remove you to jail.

[meganmonkey]

23. Wouldn't it be cool, though, if

the Marines were so fed up with him and his perpetual war and the deaths of their fellow military folks that they were on our side? If they all remembered that they are here to protect our nation, that they are ultimately loyal the US, not to the bastard who happens to live in the WH right now?

I wonder how long until that could happen?

Wasn't it Jefferson who said that we should overthrow our gov't every twenty years or so? I'll have to look up that quote. Because I think we are WAY past due on that.

:patriot:

Here's the quote:

"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion...And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?"

Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Burning Water]

27. Cool, indeed,

and very surprising.

[meganmonkey]

16. LOL - This is what we looked like

As a 31 year old, I was on the young end. This was a peaceful event,

[H2O Man]

9. It's been done numerous times.

One of the most interesting marches on Washington happened in the mid-1890s. The country was having serious difficulties with industry leaders' greed that left thousands of people unemployed. People were losing their homes to banking interests. It was an ugly time, particularly in the northeastern states.

A man known as Commander Coxey organized a Poor People's March on Washington. The idea was to create a "tent city," and hundreds of people began to head to the capital. It appealed largely to the poor and to the railroad unions. Coxey was, of course, arrested and jailed. This long-forgotten event would be recalled by some of the black railroad union workers in the 1950s, and then would become the foundation for the March on Washington in 1963. Of course, JFK was abled to manipulate the leadership of the civil rights movement, as documented in numerous places, including by Malcolm X.

In 1968, King was prepared to go back to the roots of the "March on Washington," which was Coxey's Army.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Do it on a Friday or Saturday

and not the day after a whole weekend of events and you would probably get a better turn out. Most people who came to DC didn't even know about the events scheduled for that Monday.

[meganmonkey]

15. On the other hand, on a Saturday protest

the rest of the city hides out. People don't really pay attention, they are used to weekend protests and events in their city. And a Saturday protest is like the Friday news dump - people don't pay attention to the news on the weeekend as much.

But on Monday, it was a totally different situation then the Saturday event - we stopped the normal flow of traffic and business, we had folks at the VA bldg and the WaPo bldg leaving their offices to come out to the sidewalk and wave and cheer, city bus drivers who had to stop to let us go by and all the bus passengers giving us thumbs up - people saw us and we broke the routine of a normal DC business day.

And the point is, we NEED to get out of our comfort zone, we NEED to go out of our way to do this. If no one is willing to take a couple days off work and take a chance, we will never get anywhere. And there were several events on Monday - PDA had a lobbying day planned, there were other things going on. They were advertised all over. I started a few threads here on DU about the civil disobedience, and barely got any responses. Why not? Why won't people take a chance?

I don't feel like I made a huge sacrifice using my vacation time to do it, we need to step out and take chances or we will be stuck in endless war. Keep in mind what it is like for kids in Baghdad who hear bombs going off at night, or our soldiers who never know who has a bomb strapped under their clothes. Taking a few days off to protest is relatively easy :shrug:

[mopaul]

11. the russians surrounded their white house 3 million strong, no shots fired

[tyedyeto]

24. But did this part of the OP's post happen? :

walk right in the front door of OUR WHITE HOUSE, and throw the cockroaches out.


Surrounding the fence line could but anyone trying to enter would be arrested. Not one person would even be allowed on the grounds, even tho we, The People, own it.

[meganmonkey]

25. What if there were 400,000 of us

instead of 400? Maybe it would have worked :P

[tyedyeto]

26. Sorry, I probably should have replied to the OP

My point was that we wouldn't be able to 'throw the cockroaches out' even if the place was surrounded.

I followed the Sept protest and was truly thankful to you and the others who sat down and refused to move. But I knew it wouldn't really mean anything to the thugs who have squatted inside those fences.

[Marleyb]

14. peaceful revolution

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/01/j31.pdf

“Where the people fear the government
you have tyranny;
Where the government fears the people
you have liberty.”

–Thomas Jefferson

[Marleyb]

28. It worked in the Ukraine

how about this American leader?