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DEAN'S QUARTERLY NEWLETTER Vol. 5, No. 4, 06/01/2002

HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIGHTS FOR SPRING 2002:

It was a mostly uneventful spring for me hanging around the Washington, DC area. I didn't travel anywhere and did little of note, other than the standard work and play. Springtime is the most beautiful time in the Washington area, and I frequently went out to enjoy its beauty. Here is one of my favorite photos capturing this -- view of Washington from a tulip garden.

Springtime in DC is also a time for political demonstrations. I often go down to check out the scene, even in cases when I don't agree with the positions of the demonstrators. The largest gatherings this spring dealt with the recent problems in the Middle East. Supporters of Israeli and of Palestinian viewpoints both attracted gatherings that were probably in excess of 100,000 people. Here is a photo from the Palestinian demonstration.

Nearly Arrested!!! -- At one demonstration I attended, I very nearly got arrested. By all rights, I should have been arrested, since I was clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing. It was Earth Day and the weather for the day was beautiful, so I rode my bicycle to work. I had read in the newspaper that there was going to be a demonstration near the Capitol building against the School of the Americas (a CIA training camp based in Georgia with a colorful history for training and backing the wrong folks -- i.e. former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega).

The newspaper said there would be a bicycle ride associated with the demonstration. I just thought I'd go down and check out the demo and join in the bike ride. The bike ride, as it turned out, had quite a different agenda, though I didn't know this when it first began. Every Earth Day, a group of folks who call themselves Critical Mass ride their bicycles through Washington's city streets during rush hour while trying to slow down and to snarl traffic more than it normally is. The group advocates for more bicycle trails in the city, for more bicycle lanes in the streets, and for people to abandon their automobiles in favor of more environmentally-friendly modes of transport. I don't have a clue as to the connection this had with the demonstration against the School of the Americas, other than that both were attended by left-leaning types.

To make a long story short, I followed these folks and their demonstration on bicycles, and before I knew it, there I was standing with them in the middle of a major downtown intersection helping to snarl rush hour traffic. I didn't really care much about the group's agenda, but since the bike ride was heading toward my home, I decided to go along for fun and to see what would happen. Policemen on bicycles had been escorting us, protecting the group's right to demonstrate, since they had a permit to do so, but after the police realized what the demonstrators were up to -- slowing and blocking traffic at every opportunity -- they started doing what they could to keep the demonstrators moving.

This went on for nearly an hour. Television traffic reporters in helicoptors were filming and reporting our actions, and we undoubtedly angered many people who were anxious to head home on a Friday evening, probably adding at least several minutes to their commute. On the other hand, most drivers in DC have a higher tolerance for demonstrators, since many of them have been demonstrators themselves at times. Here's one scene of bicyclists snarling traffic.

The fatal mistake came when the group's leaders decided to go the wrong way down a one way street. This gave the police the rationale for finally lowering the boom on us. Before I knew it we were completely surrounded by a large group of police, a few of them wielding clubs to get the demonstrator's attention. Many bicyclists managed to escape, but I was among a group of 42 who were trapped on all sides. The police began grabbing bicycles from the bicyclists and threw each one onto a big pile. The bikes were being impounded. Some of the bicyclists were forced to lie on the ground with their hands behind their backs as they were being handcuffed.

I was pretty much resigned to being arrested, and began to think about what I was going to tell my mother, and what I would say to people at work. I've never been arrested before, and I can think of a lot better reasons to be arrested for civil disobedience.

I looked for a means of escape, hoping that some opportunity would present itself. As a police woman was taking a bicycle away from a young woman who sat on the ground next to me, I found that opportunity. The young woman was very upset and helped to serve as a distraction for the police woman. Meanwhile, the line of policemen to one side of me also seemed momentarily distracted by something else going on with other demonstrators, so I decided to simply walk away quietly. Amazingly enough, I very calmly walked a quarter-block as the police were mostly looking in another direction, and I quickly ducked around a corner out of their sight. Perhaps the police saw me. Perhaps, they felt their hands were full already. In any case, I was the only one of the 42 bicyclists to get away. I couldn't believe my good fortune!

The next morning, the front page of the Washington Post Metro Section reported 41 arrests. They could have mentioned the one who got away, but they didn't. When the paper went to press, the police were still processing all of the arrests. Each were charged with a midemeanor traffic violation (a $50 fine), and in some cases of failing to obey a police order. Later, I heard that many of the demonstrators never got their bicycles back because the police claimed that the bikes weren't registered and they couldn't identify the proper owners.

In any case, I probably won't engage in such antics again, at least not for those kinds of purposes. If I ever decide to practice civil disobediance for some cause, it's going to be for something that really matters to me.

Other spring events:

-- Brief visit by my friend Peter Coldwell from Vermont, who created and manages the organization Volunteers For Peace http://www.vfp.org.

Spring 2002 movie reviews

COMING UP NEXT QUARTER: Trips to Minnesota, California, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Check in and let me know what's up with you.
You can contact me by clicking on this E-mail address: mail@deanoman.com.

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Best wishes to all,

Deano

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