I posted a diary a couple of days ago,
here. In it, KarenDC suggested that all Kossacks who want to meet up in D.C. do so at Caribou Coffee. I'm not from DC but from her description I take it she means the location at 1701 Pennsylvania Avenue, which is basically cater-cornered to the Old Executive Office Building and one block away from the mall and the White House.
Caribou Coffee
1701 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.
Directly across from the street that runs next to the Old Executive Office Building and in front of the White House. Using the Metro, just get off at Farragut West and walk down 17th to Pennsylvania Avenue--it will be on the right halfway to the Mall.
I wasn't going to go because it is supposed to rain, and I was supposed to have a root canal today. I figured I would be sore in mouth, attitude, and light in the pockets. But wonderfully, all I had to have was a cavity filled, so I am leaning toward going again.
Honestly, my energy has been sapped this week and I felt like I could not muster the four-hour drive and the hours of sitting and waiting in the rain...
Then I got to thinking about what has been going on, I got to thinking about the lies over the past five years and even the lies just this very week...I thought every thing that has motivated me since the 2004 election and I said to myself that if I miss this rally, I will beat up on myself for a long time.
So -- I am pretty sure I'm going. If any Kossacks want to meet up, the information is above. Once we leave that area, there is no telling where we will end up, so its best to just show up at the coffee shop.
According to my last diary, only seven Kossacks said they were coming and 3 said they would try. That is a decent amount, I figure, but I would really like to gauge people's attitudes toward this rally. For my part, I am a little nervous because I don't know what to expect in terms of police activity. The last protest in Sept. was quite peaceful and the D.C. police had cordoned off the hundred or so "counterprotesters" that showed up. I swore I saw the D.C. police corps smiling and nodding as the anti-war, anti-Bush marchers passed by the wingnuts and egged them on. A friend and I screamed at them that they should enlist in the military instead of standing outside calling us traitors.
I have also seen people express cautiousness or skepticism about World Can't Wait, saying that its "run by commies" or something to that effect. Well, I think the involvement of one or maybe a handful of their organizers belonging to the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade should not get in the way of the fact that this is a large coalition of all types of people (check out the list of speakers and other supporters) and never, not once, have I ever seen a communist, pro-leftist (although the group is leftist and that should be something to be proud of) message from WCW. It's all been about one thing and one thing only:
World Can't Wait is organizing people living in the United States to take responsibility to stop the whole disastrous course led by the Bush administration. We seek to create a political situation where the Bush administration's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking U.S. society is reversed.
After all, Paul Robeson had to join the Communist Party because they were the only ones at the time in America who appeared to give two shits about equal rights and respect for black people. So I would advise people who are worried about being tainted as a "communist" (as if that is really such a bad thing when you get down to the very basics) not to let that get in the way of hitting the streets and finally releasing some of that anger and expressing some of your absolute disgust at what is happening in our country. Even if that is all that we achieve tomorrow, I recommend coming out. The protest in September felt great for me - it energized me and I have become much more of an activist since then. It may not have made a big splash in the media, but we can't do everything for good publicity cause we know it will never come. We can get good publicity in our own media, but only if a lot of people show up.
I really don't want to go. Physically, I'm tired, I am taking the GREs next week and would rather spend this weekend studying, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to get my oil changed before I leave, and my car really needs it. I just got a quite unsettling call from my doctor. I could list a whole bunch of other reasons I would stay home, but I won't let any of those fairly mundane things get in the way of what has sadly been my passion for the past five years - to get George Bush, his pack of criminals and their insidious policy OUT of our White House.
