Blessings Darlings!
My life features a monthly road trip to central Maryland once a month for business stuff. Today was that day. Lovely day for driving (well, after the intense morning fog cleared (both in my head and in the real world)), the leaves had peak fall colors, the sun was shining, the temperature was lovely.
Instead of just my usual stops, I added OccupyDC to the list of places to go.
See, I had cooked a huge batch (75 one-cup servings worth) of Lentil Vegetable soup the night before to bring over there. It's a damn fine thing I spent a semester or two volunteering at the Maryland Food Co-op, helping prepare Vegan Lunch for 350, because I used all of that knife and big-ass cooking skill for this! It WOULD have been easier if I had real restaurant quality and number soup pots, cutting boards, measuring cups (measuring quarts/gallons?), prep bowls, etc. And I gave up cutting veggies at 75 servings, instead of making the 100 had planned, but I admit I'm out of mass-chopping practice!
So this morning I loaded up the car, the soup in re-purposed frosting buckets (Yay for prepping, which meant I had them on hand), printed out directions to McPherson Square, and headed in. Was stopped for a while due to an accident on 270. Okay, no biggie. Then, something was up on Clara Barton Parkway. Lots of police cars at the parking for the C&O Canal. Get to Canal Road - traffic is not moving. Turn on radio. Not only are the police closING Canal Road ... but they've already closed off the freeway the directions want me to take. How was I to know that President Obama was giving some speech at the Georgetown Waterfront? Oh Dear. I do NOT know this part of DC.
Inching my way forward with traffic, I think, okay, I couldn't make a right onto the freeway, I'll make a right here... Oh - I'm on a bridge going over a river. That means I screwed up, and am heading into Virginia and AWAY from my destination. Oh! A sign for the Roosevelt Bridge! Zoom! Back in DC, and on the Mall, where I could find my way easily again.
McPherson was easy to find, parking was not. Ended up parking illegally, just long enough to drop off the buckets of soup (neatly labeled as vegan and gluten-free).
I'd love to go back, catch workshops, work the kitchen or cleanup, take part in an action if one is going on. But for that, I'll need to take Metro in from Montgomery Village or something, with the Spawn dropping me off and picking me up. And even that metro stop CLOSEST to home is 50 miles away, requiring a lot of family help. Not an everyday thing. Maybe once a month? We'll see...
Frondly, Fern
Showing posts with label Occupy Wall Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Occupy Wall Street. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Washington DC & Occupy
Blessings Darlings!
I moved out of the DC suburbs under a year ago, so I feel qualified to comment on why the government of Washington DC and the OccupyDC occupation are getting along so well. So I'm going to share my unique insights with all y'all.
There are two major reasons, IMNHO. The first is the unique relationship that DC and it's residents have with the Federal Govenment, the second has to do with .... the reality of the type of folks who so often get elected in the US.
I'll start with the fact that Washington DC and its residents do not have any federal political representation ... and that the Occupy movement is focused on the relationship that corporate money has on ... the federal government. DC government can't even make their own laws without 'review' by Congress. Washington DC is a not-represented US colony. As a result, most of the city government is more than happy to help folks pressure the Federal govt about ANYTHING. Poke them! Harass them! DC Govt will stay out of your way as long as you don't cause any more problems than the constant federal motorcades cause. DC is used to protests. They've been thru' calm ones, mild ones, and everything in between. After the WTO ones, OccupyDC is a bunch of scouts camping out in a park. The police like protests, in my view. They justify keeping lot of police hired, and dealing with them is FAR safer for the police than dealing with criminals and far FAR safer than going on a domestic violence call. Back under Police Chief Ramsey the size of protests were routinely overestimated, the better, IMO, for the police to ask for more money from the city.
Sidebar - for some protests under Ramsey I'd go into DC and watch them, taking the Spawn and teaching him to estimate crowd sizes. I'm pretty good at crowd size estimation, in my opinion.
The other major reason that OccupyDC and the Washington DC city council are getting along is .... Sigh. We once again have a mayor who is under investigation of possible criminal wrongdoing. Having protestors in town and having the press give THEM attention takes media attention off of him. Personal political power is at stake, but only if the residents follow the story (and care about the story). Even if there is enough evidence to prosecute him, even if he's convicted, none of that matters. What matters is voter memory. The less the press carries the story, the shorter the memory of voters.
So, those are, in my view, the major reasons why OccupyDC is smiled upon by the DC city council. They see it as something that can only help the status of the city and/or their careers.
Frondly, Fern
I moved out of the DC suburbs under a year ago, so I feel qualified to comment on why the government of Washington DC and the OccupyDC occupation are getting along so well. So I'm going to share my unique insights with all y'all.
There are two major reasons, IMNHO. The first is the unique relationship that DC and it's residents have with the Federal Govenment, the second has to do with .... the reality of the type of folks who so often get elected in the US.
I'll start with the fact that Washington DC and its residents do not have any federal political representation ... and that the Occupy movement is focused on the relationship that corporate money has on ... the federal government. DC government can't even make their own laws without 'review' by Congress. Washington DC is a not-represented US colony. As a result, most of the city government is more than happy to help folks pressure the Federal govt about ANYTHING. Poke them! Harass them! DC Govt will stay out of your way as long as you don't cause any more problems than the constant federal motorcades cause. DC is used to protests. They've been thru' calm ones, mild ones, and everything in between. After the WTO ones, OccupyDC is a bunch of scouts camping out in a park. The police like protests, in my view. They justify keeping lot of police hired, and dealing with them is FAR safer for the police than dealing with criminals and far FAR safer than going on a domestic violence call. Back under Police Chief Ramsey the size of protests were routinely overestimated, the better, IMO, for the police to ask for more money from the city.
Sidebar - for some protests under Ramsey I'd go into DC and watch them, taking the Spawn and teaching him to estimate crowd sizes. I'm pretty good at crowd size estimation, in my opinion.
The other major reason that OccupyDC and the Washington DC city council are getting along is .... Sigh. We once again have a mayor who is under investigation of possible criminal wrongdoing. Having protestors in town and having the press give THEM attention takes media attention off of him. Personal political power is at stake, but only if the residents follow the story (and care about the story). Even if there is enough evidence to prosecute him, even if he's convicted, none of that matters. What matters is voter memory. The less the press carries the story, the shorter the memory of voters.
So, those are, in my view, the major reasons why OccupyDC is smiled upon by the DC city council. They see it as something that can only help the status of the city and/or their careers.
Frondly, Fern
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