There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #24: Sit-in

We in the peace movement in October of 2002 wanted our elected federal officials to oppose the Bush/Cheney plan to invade Iraq. We knew that Saddam had no nuclear weapons, which was the excuse Bush, Cheney, Rice, and the others were offering. Indeed, as Hans Blix of UNMOVIC and Mohammed al-Baradi of the International Atomic Energy Association would later testify to the world, UN inspections of any potential nuclear weapons sites--enriched uranium, missile construction, etc.--were ongoing since Desert Storm (Gulf War I) and were the most intrusive of any inspections ever done anywhere. So it looked very much like George W. Bush was lying and about to get us into a war for nefarious purposes. 

With the vote coming to authorize military action, we in Oregon knew that all our elected Democrats might be convinced to vote against such authorization. We knew the two Republicans--one senator, one House member--almost certainly would back Bush, so we visited the Portland office of Senator Wyden, asking them to tell us how the senator planned to vote. There were about eight of us. We were shown into the conference room and the Chief of Staff came in to let us know that the Senator hadn't decided. He held the door, expecting us to politely leave. Instead, we politely refused.

After we sat there for about three hours, the Chief of Staff returned. "The Senator will vote the way you want him to," he announced. We thanked him and left. Were we the reason? That seemed dubious, but we took the victory. 

After the war was waged for about three years and was worse than ever, the Bush regime took a beating in the mid-term elections and even our Republican senator stood on the floor of the Senate and said he was very sad but he could no longer support the war. Nevertheless, he kept voting for huge supplemental packages to continue funding the war. We knew he was up for reëlection that year, so his motives looked less than honorable.

We decided to offer more nonviolent resistance.

We met in my living room and about a dozen of us committed to offering civil resistance and we went first to the Democratic senator once again. We said we planned to stay in his office until he agreed to take a public stand against the war or until we were arrested. At closing time we were cited by Homeland Security officers. 

Within days the Democratic senator had made a speech against the war on the Senate floor and refused to vote for any funding for it. 

Then we went to the Portland office of the Republican senator. We were arrested six times there and each time sent letters to editors of newspapers in the parts of the state where he got most of his votes. We were courteous and simply said versions of "your man isn't doing what he promised you." 

Sure enough, he lost. Did our multiple sit-ins make a difference? When taken together with our messaging to his people via newspapers, we believe it did. We may have not changed many votes, but he lost by very few. Sit-in can be a great way to participate in democracy.