From: Kareem El Dahab <kareem82@sbcglobal.net>

To: Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

 

 

Hi Thomas, I just cut and pasted it to the email. It won't be easy to read, but it's the best I can do.

 

--Kareem

 

 

 

Never-ending Protest

 

By Kareem el-Dahab

Wed, 6 Feb 2008

 

 

    A group of 8th graders from Michigan stand in front of the White House, clamoring, taking pictures. Except, they are turned in the opposite direction facing the White House.

 

They are actually on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue talking about the shabby-looking display of what at first looks like a pile of junk shoved under a beach umbrella with a clear plastic tarp draped over the top. On either side are bright yellow rectangular billboards with graphic photos of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

The 24-hour vigil across the street from the White House has become as much of a tourist attraction as the White House itself.

 

    Youre an idiot!

 

    No, youre an idiot!

 

    The students gasp at an emerging argument between Thomas Hollenbeck, an older gruff man with a shaggy beard wearing glasses seated on a box next to a yellow signboard, and an unidentified heavy-set man who stands feet away with his arms crossed wearing a curt smile.

 

    Im an idiot? asks Thomas. Why am I an idiot?

 

    Because youre out here, the heavy-set man says waving his arms open.

 

    It isnt clear how the argument started, but Thomas has done this before while sitting out here for the past 26 years. They all start to sound alike according to him.

 

Concepcion Picciotto, Thomass main colleague at the vigil, walks over to him to settle him down. With a smile, she gently straightens his shirt collar under his dusty blue sports coat. Thomas pays no attention and continues to glare at the man who starts to walk away by going through Lafayette Park.

 

    The guys an idiot, Thomas tells her without looking.

 

    I know hes an idiot, she replies warmly in a thick Spanish accent. I deal with them all the time.

 

    Thomas yells over his shoulder from his box to the man one more time that hes still an idiot.

 

    Thomas and Concepcion have been protesting near the White House since January of 1981. They have given up living in homes and working at jobs to sit at this makeshift encampment in a non-stop protest against the United Statess use of nuclear energy and construction of nuclear weapons.

 

They insist that they are out there rain or shine, even through hard winters. Over time, theyve also protested what they see is a constant stream of corruption by the US government that goes under the noses of the American people.

 

    Tourists to Washington dont expect to find a grass-roots vigil meant to protest against the United States waiting for them across the White House. Some choose to ignore and stay on the opposite side of the street. But its hard to miss since it stands out like a hobo in a tuxedo gala.

 

Thomas and Concepcions vigil makes an ironic neighbor to the sophisticated white columns of the White House and flowing water fountain on the North Lawn. The vigil even stands in contrast to the lush greenery that surrounds the winding redbrick sidewalks of Lafayette Park.

 

When asked what motivates them, they both say they feel they need to be there.

 

What Im doing here basically is not supporting the government, Thomas says with a distinct native New York accent.

 

He doesnt make any money to file for income taxes, which he believes are illegal in the first place.

 

Therefore, Im not supporting what I believe to bemaniacalwhats the word Im looking for he says drifting into a bout of concentration, refusing to continue until he finds the right word.

 

insane, immoral, unjustifiable, hypocriticalactions of the government.

 

Concepcion is more ardent against the nuclear weapons of the United States than anything else. She even had a brief unintentional cameo in the Michael Moore movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.

 

 Nuclear is no good for anyone in the world, not even in reactors, she says.

 

During most of the day, it is Concepcion who stands by her signs. Aside from the two yellow boards, she also holds posters of babies that were born physically deformed supposedly by uranium. She says Japanese photographers who were in Iraq during the American invasion in 2003 took the photos. According to her, the United States used nuclear weapons in the invasion. The American people were never informed.

 

    Concepcion is a native of Spain. She came to the US when she was a girl. She declined to give her age, saying she lost count. Concepcion does look closer in years to Thomas, perhaps a few years younger. Though she stands about five feet tall, she is hard to miss since she always wears a large multicolored headdress, which makes her head look disproportionate to the rest of her body.

 

Her skin is a glossy dark pink, possibly weathered after spending so many days under the sun. She often stands leaning on one of the billboards, holding one of the posters of a deformed baby. Tourists may think she is mannequin if she stands still long enough.

 

When the sun starts to set, Thomas brings himself over with his yellow 9-month-old pitbull-labrador mix, Sofia, on a leash. Like clockwork, they exchange minor greetings while he assumes his position on his usual box. Thomas doesnt stand and hold the signs himself. He prefers to sit comfortably on his usual box with his yellow dog laying only feet away.

 

Concepcion tucks away her deformed-baby signs in a spot under the umbrella where they still can be seen. She pulls out her red bicycle and rides off through Lafayette Park, in the same direction Thomas came from. Presumably she heads toward the office that Thomas and his second wife Ellen manage which is not too far from the vigil.

 

Thomas describes Concepcion as a focused individual and one tough person. Thomas tells the funny story of how they met while he rolls his third cigarette since his shift began only a couple of hours earlier.

 

They first met in Lafayette Park in 1981. He was protesting as usual when he first saw Concepcion. She was lying on the ground in pain with her legs abnormally swollen. He insisted she go to hospital, but she didnt want to go. Thomas then called a doctor friend who came to the scene who helped fix the problem. After that, the two kept in contact since they shared similar views. Eventually she joined Thomas.

 

William Thomas Hollenbeck, sometimes preferring to go by Hell-n-back, moved to New Mexico from New York with his then wife Donna where he lived until the mid-70s. He was involved in jewelry manufacturing, and had his own home, two cars and a truck. One day, he decided to make a daring trip across the Sahara desert with no money. Donna was left behind, and the two never reconciled.

 

Ground zero for Thomass protest site, what he calls a vigil, hasnt changed much since 1981, perhaps the side of the street and a few more signs.

 

The protest began directly in front of the White House on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue (it is now on the north side). Back then the street was open to traffic. Ronald Reagan had recently taken office. Thomas was in his mid-30s then.

 

Despite a number of arrests for holding the protest, Thomas felt the constitution rightfully protected him, and he stubbornly continued to sit with his vigil.

 

    Regulation after regulation was passed all under Reagans administration, all aimed to get Thomas, Concepcion and the entire vigil off Pennsylvania Avenue.    Reagan didnt like us, Thomas relates.

 

    The first regulation was against camping on the street. They solved that by rotating shifts so that not one person stayed at the site longer than 24 hours.

 

    The second regulation was the White House Sidewalk regulation, which argued that tourists werent able to take photos without one of their protest signs getting in the way, despite the fact there is always a police car parked directly in front of the White House. The vigil simply moved across the street.

 

    The third said that the signs had to be no bigger than 4X4, and the fourth stated that no sign could be three feet away from a protestor. The last two were aimed against the signs that sometimes flooded the entire sidewalk on the south side of Lafayette Park.

 

    Today, the signs still exist. There are two bright yellow signboards with photos posted all over them. The board on the left shows the pictures of Japanese women and children badly burned from atomic radiation with a dire warning printed on top: Stay the coursethis will happen to you.

 

The board on the right is mostly a testament to the ongoing efforts of Concepcion and Thomas as documented by newspaper clippings from a variety of newspapers. The two get a lot of publicity, and much of it from outside the United States. Behind the billboard are small letterboxes labeled with the names of different nationalities: German, Korean, Dutch.

 

Other signs sit underneath the tarp. Most notably is a Photoshopped picture of President George W. Bush looking like a stereotypical Arab with a long beard and head wrap identifying Bush as The Real Terrorist. Another image says I Have a Dream and both Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney are pictured behind jail bars.

 

They keep a large number of fliers to hand out to tourists. A file box is kept feet from the curb so people can help themselves and pick different fliers. Some of them are about the vigil; many are about the crimes of the US government.

 

    Indeed it has become almost automatic for tourists to visit the sidewalk curiosity. Tour groups will come and take their routine photos of the presidents home. After which, they cross the street to see the graphic images and talk with the dedicated protestors, regardless of what they believe. Not everyone argues.

 

Thomas is very personable with those who interact with him. Anyone with a camera expectedly takes a picture of the vigil shortly after taking a family portrait in front of the White House.

 

Take the picture, Thomas urges as he holds up a peace sign. Hurry and take the picture before I get carpel tunnel.

 

    When Sofia needs to do her business, Thomas walks her to a grassy spot in Lafayette Park only feet away from the statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback. He chain-smokes his hand-rolled cigarettes with no concern of the dirt Sofia kicks at his legs while she digs a hole.

 

As the late-autumn winds pick up, its easy to wonder why two people would give up so much to spend a portion of their lives outdoors in a never-ending protest.

 

Im telling people, hey I think the government is lying, Thomas says. That is where most of the tourist arguments begin. He insists he is open to discussion, and encourages people to tell him where hes wrong.

 

But if Im not wrong, maybe you can start thinking about how to change things because, if the government is lying, this results in a whole lot of unnecessary suffering, Thomas says. He points to the war in Iraq and major corporate scandals as examples.

 

Neither Thomas nor Concepcion know what will happen to the vigil when they're both gone. Thomas says hes surprised hes gone on this long with his diabetes.

 

Though their progress hasnt changed any laws or any minds in Washington, and the United States is showing no signs of giving up on nuclear weapons, they both make their routine rotations at the vigil, once in the early evening and again in the late morning.

 

They both remain ambivalent about the idea of rivaling the White House as a tourist attraction, but it is undeniable that they feel the attention is worthwhile to their cause.