Hey Bart, here's my report from the inauguration!

I'm a screenprinting anti-bush protester in California. When Bart put up
a notice on the site that he wanted to have a "poster presence" at the
inauguration, I saw it as a chance to get some of my posters displayed
in Washington D.C.  Thanks to Bart in OK, Jim in Chicago, and Jay in
D.C., we were able to harness the networking power of the internet and
organize a project to get Bartcop posters broadcast over the news media
worldwide!

My partners Don, Kea, and Karin helped hand-screenprint the WORST
PRESIDENT EVER posters. We packed them up and, thanks to Jim in Chicago,
sent them ahead by FedEx to Jay in the D.C. area. Don and I decided to fly to
D.C. to help pass out the signs. We bought tickets on the internet from Jet Blue
for $99 each way. We planned the trip so that the whole bi-coastal adventure
could happen in less than 24 (grueling) hours!

Our flight took off from Long Beach Airport on Wednesday night at 9:30
PM, right on schedule.  Don and I had been joined on the plane by
Michelle and Connie, who are Long Beach activists from the local Friday
evening weekly anti-Shrub vigil. It didn't take long for the couple sitting
behind us to tell the whole plane that they too were going to D.C. to protest.
When we arrived at Dulles at 5:30 AM, we met another protester from our
flight in the baggage claim area. So there were at least seven of us insane
people coming in on that plane from California!

It was 18 degrees when we walked out of the airport.  We rented a car to
drive into town, but we had to park it at a Metro station and take a train
because of the security blockades. Many streets were blocked with
transversely-parked city buses at the intersections.

We finally arrived at the Metro station in D.C. at 8:30 A.M. The weather
was cloudy and cold, but bearable. We hooked up with Jay and his wife
Shawn on the sidewalk near the station. Jay had a large flat dolly with
all the posters on it.  He and Shawn had procured cardboard panels and
stapled them to most of our WORST PRESIDENT EVER signs, resulting
in a stack of posters that was about three feet in height.  The signs needed
cardboard reinforcement due to a last-minute Secret Service security
ruling prohibiting sticks or other "supports" on ANY signs.  Since our
signs were made of light card stock, they would have flopped over unless
some stiff backing was added.  Jim in Chicago made a heroic effort to get
the cardboard sent to D.C., but in the end, it was Jay who finally saved the day.

The LIARS and WAR STARTS WITH W posters were on the dolly too.
Luckily, they were already printed on stiff material.

The protest organizers, International A.N.S.W.E.R., encouraged everyone
to get to the security checkpoint by 9 AM, which was about when we
arrived.  There was already a huge, two-block-long crowd backed up on
the street waiting to get through the checkpoint. This crowd consisted
of an uneasy mixture of protesters and Bushies. We set up shop at the
tail end of the group and passed out the posters.  This mostly went
well, and people were pleased and surprised that we were giving out the
signs for free.  A couple of signs got into the hands of rethugs and
were trampled in the slushy street.

Once the signs were passed out, they mostly disappeared into the crowd.
There were lots of journalists and I personally got interviewed five times,
including by someone from the New York Times.  We had also brought
along a banner that read ELECTION FRAUD IS NOT A MANDATE
which we displayed to the checkpoint crowd, which had only grown larger.
It became apparent that we had little chance of getting into the official
protest area because the security check bottleneck was going way too slow.

I decided to try my luck at another checkpoint a few blocks away, but it
was just as crowded. There was a stream of rethugs leaving the event by
this time, and we had some fun debating with them and chanting at them.

The "pepper spray" news incident happened when some anarchists got fed
up and decided to storm the checkpoint.  This was, of course, overblown
and over-reacted to.  Nothing like a little "trouble" to give the media
something to latch onto!

One person in our party was able to get into the parade route by
accessing still another checkpoint.  However, from that entrance, it
wasn't possible to get to the protest area.

Sooo...we never did get into the official area, and it wasn't until our
flight got back to California several hours later, that, thanks to an
email from Jim in Chicago, that I saw that some of our posters had
indeed made it onto the parade route and had been picked up by the media.

We DID it! It didn't really matter that we didn't get into the parade,
beacause our posters DID! And that was the actual goal.

Thursday night, home sweet home...I slept for a LOOOONG time!

-Neal in Long beach
 
 

Neal - thanks for all you and your crew did.

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