October 10, 2002 / forward freely
Today a group of six people, predominantly NYU students, staged a nine-hour sit-in at the New York City office of Senator Hillary Clinton. They entered her office demanding that she sign a statement opposing the war in Iraq; by the time the day was through, she had done very much the opposite, voting to support Bush's war resolution in the Senate.
The protesters were not connected with any organization; this was an ad hoc and fairly spontaneous action. Yet with only 24 hours notice, they managed to assemble legal, media, and logistical support from the NYC activist community; and even more impressively, with only two hours notice, more than 100 people turned out for a demonstration outside to support them when arrests appeared to be imminent. Though the action ultimately neither changed Clinton's position nor generated attention-grabbing arrests, the participants' energy and commitment, and the extensive support their action garnered, are hopeful signs that antiwar activism is very much on the rise. And the action created a big and much-deserved headache for Clinton's office -- a welcome bit of pressure from the left.
Inside, the Clinton people were simultaneously making life as hard as possible for the demonstrators -- denying them access to the bathroom, for example -- and spinning like crazy to the media about how well the "visitors" were being treated. (They told CNN they served them lunch; they told AP that they "welcomed" sit-ins and the folks could stay all night if they wished.) The Secret Service came and extensively questioned the demonstrators; in a weasely move, they even got contact information for the students' parents from the NYU administration and began calling them; and NYU itself got into the act by directly pressuring the students not to "embarrass" the university by staying.
At 10:00pm, with the day's media cycle over and the Clinton people making it clear that no arrests would happen any time soon, the protesters decided that staying would bring little additional payoff. They left Clinton's office voluntarily to the cheers of several dozen supporters waiting outside.
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