The train to DC by Elaine Meinel Supkis

[Joanne98]

The train to DC

September 25, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis


I’m sorry I couldn’t post everything as it happened. I haven’t been to Washington, DC since 2000. Setting up shop with a laptop and using it in Congress takes some planning and the knowledge as to how they do security and process people there. What you are allowed to use or do has to be learned and I spent the first day learning the ropes and figuring out how to deal with things not as a lobbyist or as a citizen but as a reporter.

Here is the refurbished, huge Union Station in DC:

By the way, this station is far, far more beautiful than NYC Penn Station. Inside the station and outside but not on the actual platforms. The platform is pathetic and ugly. But Penn station looks like Dracula's castle on the dark, dank, dungeon platforms there!


By the end of the second day, I not only got to pass myself off as a reporter but also set to get a real reporter’s ID next time. Security in DC is very tight. Several years ago when we had the several massive antiwar demonstrations, the government didn’t let the buses discharge the demonstrators in the usual slots around the Central Mall. They forced us to park many miles away at the very furthest end of the subway system.


Then, knowing full well there would be a quarter million demonstrators, they put the trains on the holiday schedule. So getting back to the busses was nearly impossible. This was maliciously done to discourage future demonstrations and note that there have been no mass demonstrations concerning any issues at all.

The segregation of the public from the center of government is increasing. The building of a bubble around everything is continuing. It is very difficult, getting in and out of Congress buildings or the White House which is now nearly totally isolated in a security bubble. There are underground tunnels connecting many important facilities but virtually no signs indicating where they are.

Because I was either with someone who knew these secrets or knew these things myself, I was able to evade most security check points. But the great mass of Americans have no idea at all. Because of the suddenness of this $700 billion bail bill, there were very few people outside of lobbyists running in the halls, banging on doors. But the phones were ringing in all the offices.


THIS WORKED. All the Representatives I visited said, this flood of calls coupled with media polls showing Americans were unhappy with this large largess for Wall Street. It gave the Representatives the courage and the power to resist the Bernanke/Paulson coup.


I cannot emphasize this enough: contacting representatives works. It does fire them up. But only if they are already inclined to act. If they are against it, one has to push much harder. Since few are against eternal war and eternal empire, we can’t pressure them to undo this.


Then, the power we possess is not enough. In this case, we have to educate the public. I can plainly see, whenever I talk about the limits of US funding and US imperial powers, people look at me funny. Suggesting that Europe, which is huge and rich, should pay for Georgia’s $1 billion in aid that Bush is handing to them, people look at me like I am crazy.


When I apply simply logic, namely, that Europe can afford to do this and the pipeline being built there benefits Europe, not America, this is hard to accept. The GOP refuses outright to accept this information. They want imperial powers.

Continued>>>
http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/money_matters/2008/09/im-sorry-i-coul.html