Late afternoon on Oct 25, antiwar protesters descended on the US Department of state with noisemakers-and a 2020-style car caravan. State Department employees coming out received chants of “Quit Your Job!”
On Wed the 25th of October, Jewish antiwar activists marched from Columbus Circle (itself a monument to brutal settlers) to the US Capitol against the war in Gaza. Protesters got past bike cops, then explained that the stones were for a ritual normally practiced at gravesites and not for throwing.This allowed them to pass the stones forward and lay them on the Capitol reflecting pool’s rim as though at a grave. Afterwards protesters read the names of some of the dead from Gaza, many of them children.
While this protest took place, other protesters carried out civil disobedience sit-ins in the offices of multiple members of Congress, resulting in numerous arrests
On Oct 24, DC’s famous High Heel Race returned to 17th st, with the full support of the city. Among the more notable costumes were “Trump Baby” and even “Trump Baby in Jail” along with so many stunning performers.
This is a family-friendly drag event, the kind DeSantis and other GOP bottom-barrel types want to make a FELONY.
We as a community are standing our ground against drag bans!
On the 24th of Octover, seemingly all of the area climate activists descended on the North American Gas Forum, with protesters outside and disruption inside. Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey R. Pyatt was inside hobnobbing with gas barons.
Pyatt was considered a priority target due to Biden’s fake “almost declaring a climate emergency.” Shortly after disruptors inside were expelled, he attempted to leave only to be immediately pursued and blockaded. His car was blockaded in the driveway, eventually reversing out the back as cops pushed back protesters. Protesters charged around the block, catching him before he could escape the heavy traffic and blocking him again.
At one point in the protests, the Willow project and the Mountain Valley Pipeline were singled out as projects that must be stopped.
There was some low grade police and security aggression but no serious violence on any side. There was a great deal of noise and disruption. The chant of “Natural Gas-my ass!” no doubt raised some eyebrows. The overall action was called “stop the gaslighting” as the gas industry is being charged by activists with quite literally gaslighting the public about the safety and brutal environmental costs of fracked gas.
Looks like Chris Nelson’s GAG/Proud Boys hate rally in Ft Lauderdale was an epic fail this year, drawing only FOUR fascists!
And to think I seriously considered shitcanning the rest of my DC deployment to get to Ft Lauderdale to deal with these losers..
Last year I was able to get right in the Proud Boy’s faces and none of them had the guts to do anything more than squawk at me. Total losers and cosplaying wannabe SEALS. Most of their best fighters are rotting in prison, what we got last year was the dregs and apparently this year only a shadow of even that.Photo by “Floridisto” via Birdchan
(video: confronting the transphobes, 1st person perspective)
On the 21st of October, some kind of pharmaceutical industry or medical event was held at the DC Convention Center. For some reason it drew bigoted, anti-trans protesters who denied the very existance of trangender folks.
Across the street was a second group of protester nominally protesting circumcision, but with them yelling about babies being “raped” they seemed to overlap with the Qanon/groomer protest set.
On the 21st of October, another major march for Gaza assembled near the Washington Monument and marched on the US Capitol. The march stretched for several blocks on Constitution Ave, sometimes while stretching all the way across the road
Gaza solidarity protests are continuing on essentially a daily basis in DC. On Friday the 20th of October, the noontime assembly at 3ed st on the Mall near the Capitol spawned a substantial march on the White House.Marchers carried red roses symbolic of those murdered in Gaza by Israeli rockets and bombs. When marchers arrived at Lafayette Square Park, they found cops had closed off Penn Ave in front of the White House.
Biden was singled out in several chants for enabling genocide. Attorneys have warned him that for going “all-in” for Israel he could in fact be committing genocide and face international prosecution.
On the 19th of October, Biden gave an Oval Office speech trying to link his “all-in” support for Israel’s war in Gaza to the ongoing war in Ukraine. A half dozen noisy protesters gathered as close to the White House press area as they could get with bullhorns and drum, denouncing Biden as “Genocide Joe.”
Meanwhile the war is spreading and the US is already involved. A US ship shot down guided missiles launched from Yemen at targets in Israel, and drones were used by unknown forces to attack a still-present US base in Iraq. This war could thus embroil Israel, Palestine (ALL of Palestine), Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, and the United States, and with the regime in Iran(NOT the people!) being Putin’s drone sugar daddy Russia could be pulled in too. As I said before, this stinks of 1914.
Climate Defiance has been bird-dogging Biden’s secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg. He is known as “Petro Pete” for his support of the oil and gas industries. At a protest presumably on Oct 19 (the day this video emerged), one of the staffers PUNCHED a Climate Defiance organizer in the face.
