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I volunteered downtown at the rally again today. I realized I might be involved in the peaceful removal of the protesters. The volunteer group is organized from various groups of unions, but I was there as a Democrat. Today I was an usher inside the Capitol, where the plan was to clear the third and second floors. People who were unwilling to leave would be asked to go to the first floor, and people who were ready to leave could go to the ground floor to exit. No new people were being allowed to enter the Capitol, and no food could be brought in. The plan and timing for closing the Capitol to protestors has apparently been discussed between police, unions, and protesters for about 4 days.
I attended the protest a week ago and I volunteered outside yesterday, but I hadn't seen the Capitol inside since the protests began and it was pretty amazing. It was full of sound and people. Posters everywhere. It was ornate and beautiful, full of life. I didn't realize how much the people staying inside had bonded to each other, giving speeches, singing songs, and telling stories. It was a very connected group, and some of them were saying tearful goodbyes to each other this afternoon. About 200 people left, maybe more, while I was there between 2-4pm.
The role of the "flushers" was to look for people hidden away on the "forbidden" floors and tell them that they had to move off the floor. The "ushers" would help people carry their stuff down and prevent anyone from going upstairs except media. I was an usher. A photographer from the Wall Street Journal asked me what was going on and I gave him the rundown plus my opinion on the main stream media not covering this well enough. I also let someone from the New York Times go by. I met the bomb-sniffing dog used to check out the 2nd and 3rd floors.
Clearing the top two floors was no big deal. However, about 800-1000 people decided to stay on the first floor. These were people willing to be arrested. There were lots of state patrol on the higher floors and when I asked they said they were not going to be involved in arrests at all- they were just there to secure the upper floors. So the police intended to carry out the arrests would have to be the Madison police on the ground floor which numbered about 100 at most. Well, 100 police do not arrest 1000 people...and besides there is no place to put them. And besides, the WSJ and the NYT are there. We (the volunteer marshalls) were told that we were no longer needed.
Our group went back to the hotel and had a nice dinner together. We were told that there would very likely be no arrests tonight. I walked back past the Capitol and asked people outside if anyone had come out in the last half hour and they said no. I could hear people inside singing "We shall overcome". There is great strength in numbers.
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