They came from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Corpus Christi, Texas, from all over the country to the nation’s capital, heeding a call for a “million vets march” to protest the Government shutdown.
In the end, it wasn’t million of veterans but perhaps several hundred. And it drew far-right Republicans such as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Senator Ted Cruz, the man credited with engineering the shutdown.
But for Freddie Olivarez, 69, a military veteran who drove 2,400 km with his family from Corpus Christi to make his point, it was important to be there.
Sitting in front of the fence on Sunday at the White House, where the veterans ended up after carrying away the barricades at the World War II Veterans memorial on the Mall, his sign said: “Republicans, Democrats, We are one: America.” While the message could send a much welcome dose of common sense to the Republicans and Democrats in their ever-more-risky standoff, it was clear that Olivarez had the most disdain for President Barack Obama and Democrats.
“I believe the president doesn’t know his business,” Olivarez told dpa. “He never talks about Democrats, he only talks about Republicans being responsible for the shutdown. He doesn’t realise that veterans are Democrats and Republicans.” Until this weekend, the 13-day shutdown and the prospect of federal default on Thursday has mostly played out in Washington’s gridlocked corridors of power.
But on Sunday, there was a restless unease in the streets of the Capital. Mounted police patrolled near the White House, and large groups of people and protesters roamed in the area.
Many had started as early as 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) at the World War II memorial, where they attacked and removed the barricades that have barred the capital’s monuments and access to national parks across the country since the partial government shutdown on October 1. The cause was Congress’ failure to pass a short-term budget.
They carried the barricades to the White House, where they stacked them up against the fence. Security patrols forced the demonstrators away and used the portable barricades to keep them at bay. Protesters unfurled signs demanding “Impeach Obama”. US Park Service workers have been declared non-essential government employees as part of the shutdown. Republicans — who prompted the shutdown by insisting they would only approve a budget if Obama’s health insurance reform were dismantled or delayed — charged that Obama has targeted popular facilities to increase the pain.
Cruz, who made headlines in September with his 21-hour marathon speech against Obama’s health law and has presidential ambitions, has irritated moderate Republican colleagues in the Senate with his grandstanding.
But his tactic — attaching strings to the budget that were guaranteed to be rejected by Democrats — gained favour among Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives and the far-right anti-government Tea Party faction.
They insisted on dismantling Obamacare in exchange for budget passage, which the Democratic-controlled Senate and Obama rejected.
At the World War II memorial, Cruz and Palin charged that Obama was using US veterans as a political football and had targeted the memorials to cause maximum pain.
Larry Klayman, who founded the conservative group Freedom Watch, went one step further at the demonstration and called for Obama to “put down the Koran” and leave the White House with his hands up, according to broadcast remarks.
Even more symptomatic of the political vitriol, Greg Whalen, 47, a military veteran from Las Vegas, blamed Democrats for the political impasse in strongest terms, singling out the majority leader of the US Senate as someone he would not even help if he were in trouble.