From The
Winter Palace (Oops White House) Archives-When The Cossacks Kept The Peace-Of
The Graveyard
By Brad Fox,
Junior
Nobody wanted to
touch this archival piece with a ten-foot pole. Not because anybody was afraid
that they might be taken away in the dead of night although that is a greater possibility
now that previously given the police-military state like atmosphere displayed on
July 4th 2019 in front of Lincoln Memorial but because nobody had
anything but bad or hurtful memories from being within a mile of the White
House, or even in Washington in the old days when one only went to that town to
bait the bear, so to speak. That is anybody who was old enough to have been
around when this publication (in hard copy form) first started to spin news and
commentary and sent guys, mostly guys but a few bravo women too, to Washington not
only to cover the actions but get knee -deep in them (with arrests to show for
their efforts and expense reimbursements.)
So it was left
to a younger guy, me, not tarred by any direct experience but plenty of “war” stories
from my father Brad, Senior. According to him this photograph (since verified
as correct) was taken in the Spring, March or 2011 when the Obama, get this the
Obama administration, he of the Nobel Peace Prize and such, when some veterans my
father was connected with, and acted in this case as press agent for, decided to
handcuff themselves to the White House fence (a legal no-no, okay)to oppose yet
another escalation in troop levels in Afghanistan after short drawdown.
The Obama administration
like all previous ones and subsequently too since we are in never-ending war
mode in Afghanistan and elsewhere did not take kindly to this very active form
of protest by a band of what by any definition were winter soldiers in the best
sense of that word, akin to those who saw what their duty was in Valley Forge days.
This day though maybe because of the early season hot spell, the Cossacks, the
horse coppers who are part of every round-up of protesters decided to press the
issue at least among those not tied to the fences. As in the days of the Russian
Revolution that Leon Trotsky, a participant, so eloquently wrote some people
had to scramble under the horses to get away (since they were not committed to
arrest). Some things never change and as Trotsky also pointed out the role of
the coppers, on foot, in wagons, or on horse is the same. Also the same is the
hard fact that reporter Brad Fox, Senior was one of some one hundred plus protesters,
arrested, booked, and fined that day. Thanks, dad, you did good.
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