Thank You from the DC Democracy Vigil!

A big thank you goes out to all the volunteers who came out to the DC Democracy Vigil. For 6 days and nights, we vigiled on the National Mall along 3rd Street, spoke to thousands of tourists about DC Democracy, and generated numerous news stories about our demand for political equality. At the end of the vigil we were visited by Congresswoman Norton, who expressed her support for our efforts.

Here’s some of the news we generated over the last week:
DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG


WNEW – Activists Call for D.C. Marijuana Law Reform on 4/20
WUSA9 – DC lawmaker joins group calling for statehood
DCist – D.C. Statehood Activists Raise A Liberty Pole, Set Up Camp In Front Of The Capitol
Washington Post – Marijuana and statehood activists are chaining themselves to ‘liberty pole’ on the Mall
Washington Post – Gyrocopter lands on Capitol lawn; pilot is arrested
Washington Post TV – Protesters describe gyrocopter’s Capitol descent
Washington Post – D.C. residents and activists light up on the National Mall for 4/20
Roll Call – Calls for D.C. Rights Mount on Tax Day, Emancipation Day
McClatchy – As pot lovers mark their holiday, ‘420 is the new everything’
CNN – Being Moody: Growing pot next door to Congress
NBC News – Watch the Gyro-copter Land on the U.S. Capitol Lawn


DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG

PRESS RELEASE: DC Residents Raise DC Liberty Pole on National Mall to Demand Equality

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, April 15, 2015

CONTACT:
ADAM EIDINGER (202)744-2671
NIKOLAS SCHILLER (202)805-1603

DC Residents Raise DC Liberty Pole on National Mall to Demand Equality

Nonstop Vigil to Hold Site without Permit Until April 20

WASHINGTON, DC – Early Wednesday morning, brave District of Columbia residents and supporters from Maryland and Virginia converged at 3rd Street on the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol to erect the 42-foot “DC Liberty Pole” to call attention to the lack of political equality for the 650,000 American citizens who live in DC. Choosing the day federal taxes are due and wearing red Phrygian caps— symbolic hats historically worn by freed Roman slaves and American colonists resisting British tyranny during the American Revolution, and pictorially shown on the seal of the U.S. Senate, U.S. Army, and numerous state seals—the disenfranchised denizens of the nation’s capital began a six-day, nonstop unpermitted DC Democracy Vigil. They seek to highlight why taxation without representation is antithetical to American values and to call on Congress to pass legislation that grants DC residents the same rights as Americans of the 50 states.

Angered by the unethical actions of members of Congress who paternalistically meddle in the lives of District of Columbia residents, the event will feature workshops and speak-outs to call attention to the plight of the only Americans who suffer taxation without representation. Unlike citizens of the 50 states who pay their taxes on April 15 and whose elected officials represent constituents’ interests in the federal legislature, the residents of the District of Columbia are denied the right to elect representatives in Congress despite being obliged to pay both federal and “state” taxes.

“Consent of the governed is a republican value that members of Congress have forgotten, and we’re here to remind the 535 members of Congress that we do not consent to taxation without representation,” says DC Cannabis Campaign Chairman, Adam Eidinger.

Over the years, numerous international organizations from the United Nations to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have called on the U.S. government to grant political rights to DC residents. The U.S. is the only country in the developed world that denies inhabitants of the capital city the same political rights enjoyed by those who live elsewhere in the country. DC residents fight and die defending freedom abroad but are denied the right to elect Senators and Representatives who send them into harm’s way.

In the 214 years that the District of Columbia has existed, Congress has sent two DC-related constitutional amendments to the states for ratification. One became the 23rd amendment, which allows DC residents to vote for the President. The second constitutional amendment, which would have provided DC residents with representation in Congress, was not ratified by enough states and expired in 1985. Activists contend that if Congress were to send another DC-related constitutional amendment to the States, it would be ratified.

“During the Revolutionary War colonists donned Phrygian caps and constructed Liberty Poles as acts of defiance against the British government’s unethical taxation of colonies without representation in British parliament, and we are here today to harken back to that original era of U.S. liberty, to do exactly as those brave Americans did, with this vigil,” says Adam Eidinger.

The citizens will use the space around the Liberty Pole as an autonomous free-speech zone and will hold daily open mics to grant those attending the vigil the opportunity to speak about why taxation without representation must end immediately in the District of Columbia. Organizers also brought a sewing machine to assist in the fabrication of Phrygian caps for visitors and decorations for the Liberty Pole.
The DC Democracy Vigil is scheduled to conclude on Monday, April 20, but may end in arrests before this date if the National Park Service objects to the vigil.
Organizers are using the hashtag #FreeDC in social media to share updates about the DC Democracy Vigil.

More information about the DC Cannabis Campaign, which successfully introduced and passed Ballot Initiative 71, can be found at www.DCMJ.org. The political committee will be disbanded later this month and convert to DCMJ, a DC-based community group.

More About Liberty Poles
A Liberty Pole is a tall wooden pole, often used as a type of flagstaff, planted in the ground, and surmounted by a Phrygian cap. The symbol originated in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Roman dictator Julius Caesar by a group of Rome’s Senators in 44 BC. Liberty poles were often erected in town squares in the years before and during the American Revolution. During this time, often violent struggles over liberty poles erected by the Sons of Liberty in New York City raged for 10 years. The poles were periodically destroyed by the British, only to be replaced by the Sons of Liberty with new ones. The conflict lasted from the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 until the revolutionary New York Provincial Congress came to power in 1775. When an ensign was raised on a liberty pole, it was a calling for the Sons of Liberty or townspeople to meet and vent or express their views regarding British rule. The pole was known to be a symbol of dissent against Great Britain. During the Whiskey Rebellion, locals in western Pennsylvania would erect poles along the roads or in town centers as a protest against the federal government’s tax on distilled spirits, and evoke the spirit embodied by the liberty poles of decades earlier. The image of Liberty holding a pole topped by a Phrygian cap appears on many mid- and late-19th-century U.S. silver coins. Source: Wikipedia

More About Phrygian Caps
The Phrygian (pronounced FRI-GEE-AN) cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward, associated in antiquity with the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia. In early modern Europe it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty through a confusion with the pileus, the felt cap of manumitted (emancipated) slaves of ancient Rome. Accordingly, the Phrygian cap is sometimes called a Liberty Cap and in artistic representations it signifies freedom and the pursuit of liberty.

In the years just prior to the American Revolutionary War of independence from Great Britain, the symbol of republicanism and anti-monarchial sentiment reappeared in the United States as headgear of Columbia, who in turn was visualized as a goddess-like female national personification of the United States and of Liberty herself. The cap reappears in association with Columbia in the early years of the republic, for example on the obverse of the 1785 Immune Columbia pattern coin, which shows the goddess with a helmet seated on a globe holding in a right hand a furled American flag topped by the liberty cap. The cap’s last appearance on circulating coinage was the Walking Liberty Half Dollar, which was minted through 1947 (and reused on the current bullion American Silver Eagle).

The U.S. Army has, since 1778, utilized a “War Office Seal” in which the motto “This We’ll Defend” is displayed directly over a Phrygian cap on an upturned sword. It also appears on the state flags of West Virginia (as part of its official seal), New Jersey, and New York, as well as the official seal of the United States Senate, the state of Iowa, the state of North Carolina and on the reverse side of the Seal of Virginia. Internationally, the Phrygian cap is used on the coat of arms of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Source: Wikipedia

The DC Cannabis Campaign is the official campaign committee for Ballot Initiative 71. The campaign is a project of residents from across the District of Columbia, Drug Policy Action, and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps.

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Volunteer at the DC Democracy Vigil

At the beginning of this year we sought volunteers to staff a DC Democracy Vigil. Had Congress moved to overturn Initiative 71, we planned to stage at 24 hour a day vigil to highlight our discontent. But after our meeting last week with Representative Jason Chaffetz’s staff, where we offered him a chance to reset relations with DC residents, we came away thinking Congressional leaders are not going to lift a finger for us! We have no choice but to escalate protests NOW to ruin their fake "freedom" brand and see them exposed for what they are: Oppressors.

Join dozens of I-71 volunteers who will start a 5-day 24/7 vigil from April 15 (tax day) to April 20 but we want thousands to join in the effort to shame our oppressors. Please RSVP in form below. The vigil location is a secret until April 15, so RSVP below to get the details.

Our DC Democracy Vigil is less about cannabis freedom and more about securing the same political freedoms as Americans who live in states have, like the right to elect Senators and Representatives, and to take part amending the constitution. The kerfuffle surrounding I-71 is just one facet of a larger struggle for genuine equality for District of Columbia residents. A status quo of no vote in Congress in the year 2015 is simply outrageous! We honestly believe that this is one of the most important civil rights struggles we can fix with enough united pressure from citizens like you.

We chose tax day, April 15, because DC’s license plates proclaim "Taxation Without Representation" and one of the most intrinsic tenants of freedom is the consent of the taxed, which we are denied. April 16 is DC Emancipation Day and many people have the day off. It’s a perfect time come protest with us!

NOT ENOUGH REASONS TO PROTEST?

Although DC citizens fight in wars abroad, we have no say in matters of war and peace at home yet we are literally putting our lives on the line. Shouldn’t we sacrifice as much here for Democracy as we are willing to sacrifice in other countries?

DC residents pay more in taxes than any other state in America, but we are denied the right to choose how our tax dollars are spent. No other industrialized nation in the world denies the residents of its national capital the right to participate in the country’s national legislature, except the United States.

With your help, this 214-year-old constitutional catch-22 will come to an end. Help put the spotlight on the District of Columbia so folks who live outside of the DMV will understand and demand change from the Republican-controlled Congress that cares little for DC, except when they want to force their will on us.

Chairmans Chaffetz & Rogers and Senator Cruz don’t deserve to be lobbied any longer by us, they deserve protests and to be given a 21st century tar and feathering in social media. They deserve public shaming, and as much disruption as possible to highlight their continued denial of our basic human rights.

So don’t just read this, take action! Join the DC Democracy Vigil and help construct a Liberty Pole with us. Then join the 24/7 open mic to FREE DC and engage those who are unaware of our plight. Please RSVP below so we can figure out how many people we can expect over the 132-hour protest. Location and instructions for the Vigil will be emailed to those who RSVP only.

You already made history by participating in the legalization marijuana despite Congressional harassment. Now let’s step up our efforts to free DC by getting fully equal to our brothers and sisters of the 50 United States.

See you April 15-20!


If you are planning to attend, but can’t volunteer for a shift, please RSVP on Facebook and invite all your friends!