Joy First: Calling for Peace in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda

(Photo: Participants in a 2009 "die-in" inside the U.S. Capitol, organized by National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance.)

On March 19, 2011, we marked eight long horrible years of war and occupation of Iraq. All of us in the United States have blood all over our hands. We are responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people, many of them children who should have had the chance to grow up and decide how they wanted to live their lives. Many children of Iraq never get that chance – and we are responsible for that. We continue to allow our government to engage in the illegal and immoral war and occupation of Iraq. And at the same time, we are fighting an illegal and immoral war in Afghanistan, sending drone bombs to kill the innocent in Pakistan, and bombing Libya. How do we bring an end to these horrors?

Looking at my responsibility in this is something I struggle with everyday. I believe we all must stand up and act in resistance, doing whatever we can to call on our government to end the suffering of so many people around the world. As the U.S. engages in more and more military actions around the world, it becomes more important than ever that we act in resistance.

It was with a heavy heart that I went to the U.S. Capitol on Thursday March 17 with my dear friend Malachy to do an action in the rotunda. Our friends, David and Betsy. were with us for support, and Bill Hughes joined us to videotape the action. The only way we can get into the U.S. Capitol rotunda is by joining a tour group, and so the five of us signed up for a tour.

The tour began with an orientation movie which explained that the U.S. Capitol is the “temple of liberty”. The Capitol is supposedly where the people have a voice through their representatives in Congress. The message of the film left me feeling sick to my stomach as I remembered the many times we have called on our members of Congress to stand for the people and bring an end to the wars.

I continued to feel queasy as our tour group left the theater and walked into the rotunda. I sat on a bench along the wall for a few minutes to pull myself together and then, while our tour leader began to talk about the rotunda, Malachy and I walked to the center of the majestic space. This small area in the center, where presidents lie in state, is cordoned off with posts and ropes. A police officer was standing right there to make sure no one entered the area.

Malachy unhooked the rope and we walked into the area. I laid a black funeral shroud on the floor. I laid a copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights on top of the shroud and pulled the shroud over the documents. Malachy began to read the statement that we had prepared (see below). We took turns reading. We were immediately surrounded by about five Capitol Police Officers. One of them shouted at me that what we were doing was illegal and we had to stop. As I continued to read he said, “Oh, so I see you’re just going to ignore me.”

Malachy and I continued to read our statement and at one point while I was reading, Malachy told one of the officers that we would leave when we finished reading our statement. When we completed the statement we started walking away. One of the officers called out and asked us where we thought we were going. The officers took us to a hallway just outside the rotunda where we were questioned for about 30 minutes by a U.S. Capitol Intelligence Officer. He asked us why we were there, if we knew the president was currently in the building, if we were going to do anything else, if we had ever been arrested before, and a number of other questions. After questioning us, they said they were not going to arrest us. We were escorted out of the building.

We had expected that we would be spending the night in Central Lockup and were surprised that we weren’t arrested. We didn’t have anything on us because we didn’t want to have to retrieve our property at the Capitol Police station after we got out of court the next day. We had even photocopied our driver’s license so that we would not have any valuables to retrieve at the police station. We couldn’t find David and Betsy, our support people, and so Malachy and I had to walk back to the hotel where we were staying because we didn’t have money for a Metro pass.

We were exhausted and a bit let down. When we do an action we are engaging in civil resistance. Our goal is to act in resistance to the illegal actions of our government, and though we know we are doing something where we are risking arrest, it is not our goal to get arrested, but to speak out. We are not breaking the law with any of our actions, though we are usually arrested.

When we prepare for an action where there is the possibility of arrest our adrenaline and endorphins get flowing. We decide what we should carry on our person. When I risk arrest, it is the only time that I remove my wedding ring because the police make me remove it. We think about how much we should drink so that we are not dehydrated, but we don’t want to need a restroom. We prepare to spend the night in Central Lockup, sleeping on a metal bed with no food or water available when we sit in a cell in the courthouse the next day waiting 12 hours to see a judge.

We also think about the larger picture and though we may suffer in extremely small ways by risking arrest, our hearts are aching as we remember why we must take these actions, as we remember the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world who are being tortured, starved, living in separation from their loved ones, and killed because of the actions of the United States. We realize that at some level we have no choice but to act.

Over the next few days following our action in the rotunda, Malachy and I talked a lot about what we had done and the meaning of our action. What difference does it make that two people go to the rotunda, laying the Constitution and Bill of Rights on the floor, and reading a statement calling for peace? Did our action do anything to stop the wars?

It may seem our action did not make a difference. Yet, what else can we do. We cannot remain silent and do nothing. The next day we went to the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker vigil that is held every Friday at noon in front of the White House. We talked to other activists about our action. Every Friday for many years Art Laffin and others have stood in front of the White House calling for peace. When we talked to Art about our action he said, “Every little bit that we can do makes a difference.” We do not really know who sees us or what kind of impact we will have. We have to continue because speaking for peace in a world filled with war is the right thing to do.

Two days after our rotunda action, on Saturday, March 19, marking eight years of war in Iraq, Veterans for Peace organized an action in front of the White House. Over 100 veterans and supporters were arrested for standing in front of the White House calling for peace. I was there in witness and solidarity. It was a beautiful and powerful action with men and women who had participated in wars standing there calling for peace.

We are part of a larger movement that will not stop until peace is achieved. I have hope that we can and will make a difference and we are not going to give up. We remember Dr. Martin Luther King telling us that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

I will be back in DC for an action at the Pentagon on April 8. If you are interested in joining the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance as we continue our call for peace and justice, please email me at joyfirst5@gmail.com for details.

Statement read by Malachy and Joy in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, March 17, 2011

Attention fellow citizens, members of Congress, and friends. We are here today to express our call for peace, our broken heartedness over our wars, and the brokenness of our political system that does not listen to the will of we, the people, but to the military-industrial-corporate-security-congressional-complex which impoverishes us in so many ways.

After 20 years of bombing and waging war on Iraq, almost 10 years of war with Afghanistan, the drone bombing of civilians in Pakistan, illegal detention and torture in Guantanamo, Bagram, and black sites, our violent intervention in the Americas, and military plans for Africa, we come to the Capitol Rotunda, referred to as “The Temple of Liberty” because liberty and justice are values our government does not share with its people.

For years we have in so many ways petitioned our congress calling for peace to no avail. They have depleted the people’s treasury because of their moral bankruptcy and service to wealthy corporate special interests and a war economy causing suffering and death to millions of innocent people all over the world.

From the heartland of our republic to North Africa and the Middle East, to the actions of Veterans for Peace, the people are crying out for justice, showing the way to a better world. We are all a part of that interconnected struggle. Working people know that a sustainable world cannot be built through war and empire.

Today we symbolically bury our Constitution and Bill of Rights to show that our elected leaders have abandoned the principles embodied in these documents. It is our hope that the people will now show the way to peace by raising up true justice and liberty from the ashes of war and destruction wrought by our leaders.

It is clear. Now is the time. We must act!

Joy First is a member of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice and of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance.

Steve Burns: Walker's blunder

The standoff over public access to the Capitol may be over for now, as protesters who had been part of the two-week long "Solidarity Sleepover" agreed to leave en masse Thursday night, and a court-negotiated settlement ordered the building to open to the public as of 8am Monday. Whether Scott Walker's Department of Administration will actually abide by this agreement is anybody's guess.

Now, the debate has shifted to money, with Walker's DOA promoting an outlandish claim that it will cost $7 million to fix unspecified "damage" caused by the protesters. The same DOA also told a Dane County judge that the cost of hiring police to "secure" the building came to more than $2 million. One of those figures is actual taxpayers money, paid out to "protect" the Governor from students, teachers, firefighters and grandmothers, and the other is a completely imaginary number which will never be paid out to anyone. Can you guess which is which?

But before our attention wanders from this remarkable example of nonviolent popular resistance, we should reflect on how a group of protesters inside the Capitol led Scott Walker into a ham-handed decision to ban the people of Wisconsin from their own Capitol, a tactical mistake that may have significantly weakened his position and strengthened ours.

From the outset, the initiative had been on Walker's side, as unions and their supporters reeled at the scope and audacity of his union-busting plan. But the Capitol occupation shifted the initiative to our side - at least this once, Walker was forced to react to our actions. It was Walker who had to struggle with police commanders of doubtful loyalty while also trying to grapple with the "problem" of hundreds of peaceful protesters who stubbornly refused to commit even a single provocative act that could be used to justify a police crackdown.

Faced with this conundrum, Walker chose to break the law. In clear violation of the Wisconsin constitution, he locked the people of Wisconsin out of their Capitol, a move that hasn't happened in decades. And then, once ordered by a judge to reopen the Capitol to the public, Walker chose to defy the court and continue his law-breaking for five more days.

Here, it's important to recognize that the powerful generally prefer to fake an attitude of tolerance towards dissident views. "Well, the great thing about America is that everyone has a right to express their opinion, and, while I recognize these people have their strongly-held views, I respectfully disagree with them." The previous sentence sums up pretty accurately all that George W. Bush ever had to say about the massive antiwar protests that took place during his presidency.

The powerful can usually get away with pretending to be tolerant of dissent because dissent in our country generally takes a form that doesn't seriously inconvenience the powerful or impede their plans. People march, then they go home, and the policy they oppose moves forward, as if the protest never happened.

That's the script as it's played out for decades. So when you see a public figure drop their pose of fake tolerance, it's a genuine sign of progress, because it means dissent has become enough of an impediment (or at least enough of an inconvenience) that the mask of tolerance must be taken off and true contempt for democracy and free expression must be made public.

And if a protest so inconveniences the powerful that they not only have to stop pretending to tolerate us, but then have to go so far as to break the law, then you know you're really on to something. No matter how much contempt for the law a person like Scott Walker may display, it is never the first choice of those in power to break the law. Acting within the law is always the first choice for those who can generally arrange the laws for their convenience. If power means anything, it means being able to pursue your agenda openly and within the law rather than outside it.

Walker's lockout also had the benefit of bringing into stark relief a problem that can, at times, seem abstract and hard to pin down: the fact that, whether the doors of the statehouse are open or not, working people have been locked out of our government for decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. In normal times, this virtual lockout is done quietly, through campaign donations, special access for lobbyists, and self-funded millionaire candidates who are increasingly not available for their constituents.

But when he chose to put thousands of Wisconsin citizens literally out in the cold, Scott Walker clarified a systemic problem that goes far beyond the specific issues of Walker's budget, and even beyond Walker himself. I stood with thousands of Wisconsinites on the State Street entrance to the Capitol while Walker gave his budget address to an audience of hand-picked campaign contributors, and I could feel the righteous anger that coursed through the crowd as we shouted, "Let us in!" and "Whose house? OUR house!" A sense of moral clarity is like fuel to a movement, and I can't help but give Scott Walker some credit for fueling our movement that day, and in the days ahead.

And finally, there's the effect that Walker's actions have had on a sometimes shaky Democratic caucus inside the Capitol. The Capitol lockdown and the dozens of petty and arbitrary rules applied during it, enacted in the most blatantly partisan manner possible, helped to solidify the line drawn between the two parties, and will only make it more difficult for the one Democratic Senator Walker needs to cross over to the Republican side. Denying a Democratic legislator permission to meet with his constituents fits in well with a list of petty and vindictive measures taken by Walker and Republican legislative leaders to bring pressure on the 14 absent Democratic Senators. Will the denial of parking privileges and copying privileges for their staffs and $100-a-day fines really break the "Fightin' 14", or will it only strengthen their cohesiveness as a group? Walker and the Fitzgerald brothers seem not to have considered the second possibility.

What's going on in the mind of Scott Walker? He may be a petty tyrant, but Walker's mindset is far from unusual. Walker is simply another member of the Church of Force. Members of this strange church hold a quasi-religious faith in the use of force, believing a sufficient application of force can accomplish anything. And if force doesn't work, that only means you haven't applied enough force.

And the idea that the application of force might actually backfire, that force might actually strengthen the resolve of those you are trying to subjugate? This thought never crosses the minds of true followers of the Church of Force. Comparisons between Madison and Cairo may be overwrought, but Walker and Mubarak have this in common: They only have one tool in their toolbox, that tool is a hammer, and if it doesn't work, they only know how to look for a bigger hammer.

Will Walker continue to commit provocative acts that only serve to undermine his legitimacy as an elected official, to galvanize popular opposition, and strengthen a sense of cohesiveness and solidarity among legislative Democrats? Of course he will; it's simply who he is, and he can do nothing else.

Steve Burns is Program Director of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.