A brother of a friend was at the die-in with Cindy Sheehan yesterday. Here are his words, unsolicited and without his permission.
Interesting to note is there were PAID counterprotesters and some personal notes about Cindy and other parents who have lost children.
"I went down to the demonstration...to get my fair share of abuse."
These words were very descriptive of today's action at the White House. A group of very obnoxious and loud counterdemonstrators gathered to taunt us. They hit way below the belt, eg a sign that read "send Cindy to Abu Ghraib" and even worse things shouted. I was interviewed by some middle eastern news organization. There were only several hundred people all told, which was frankly disappointing. When the marchers from Memorial Bridge joined up, Cindy Sheehan gave a very short, quiet (unamplified) speech only to those standing in the tight group of demonstrators on the White House sidewalk. We laid on the sidewalk, about 45 of us, for the "die in," and the very polite and efficient police gave us the requisite 3 warnings. On the third, most of us arose and filed over to the park (those w/ kids and pets and who had to be at work the next day). A handful (less than 25?) were arrested.
Cindy Sheehan walked around the crowd before things got started and quietly greeted everyone. I don't know what your opinion is of her from the media, but in person she has a calming effect on people. There were several parents who had lost children in the war. An Hispanic man carried around a "sandwich" type board of photos of his lost son; a woman, also Hispanic, carried around a picture of her husband and child, the husband having been killed in the war. We learned that at least one of the "counterdemonstrators" was actually paid (he said $1.50 over his regular wage, whatever that was) for every hour he counter demonstrated. In sum, I had the same feeling I had and so many of these things: I wanted them to be more organized, more mainstream, more on message, but mostly, just MORE!