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When Lewes resident Dorothy Greet went to Washington, D.C., last month to babysit for her daughter, she didn’t foresee that she would be arrested for an act of civil disobedience and choose going to jail.
Greet said her brief experience in custody of Washington, D.C., and federal law enforcement officials, and with the court system, were eye-opening and disturbing.
And at the same time, she said, “It was an extraordinary opportunity for me to meet women I otherwise would not have met.”
Greet, 67, is one of several people who stand along Savannah Road near the Zwaanendael Museum on Sunday afternoons, holding placards calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.
Greet said it is her belief that Bush intentionally misled Americans in taking the country to war – a war that has now stretched on for more than four years with nearly 4,000 U.S. military casualties alone.
“I care deeply about the outcome of this war,” Greet said Wednesday, Aug. 1, at the Lewes home of Rachael Grier-Reynolds and Rick Reynolds.
Greet was invited to tell her story to a group of about 15 people, several of whom are participants in Lewes’ silent vigil and impeach Bush demonstrations on Savannah Road.
Greet’s presentation, titled ‘Your Neighbor Goes to Jail – A story of civil disobedience, unwarranted abuse, political urgency,” detailed what happened to her on July 23, in Washington.
On the way to the forum
Although she had participated in numerous demonstrations and protests through the years, Greet said she had never been arrested.
She has a master’s degree in divinity from Yale University. And maybe it’s because she’s a retired clergywoman who spent years working for the United Church of Christ – and is a grandmother – that Greet tells a detailed story of her experience.
“About 400 of us gathered at the Arlington Cemetery stop of the Metro. We got out our ‘Impeach’ signs and our ‘End the War’ signs. We had on our T-shirts – orange was the color of the day, in solidarity with the prisoners in Guantanamo, the prisoners at Abu Ghraib and prisoners everywhere, I discovered,” she said.
While some wore pink, representing Code Pink, the women’s organization Greet said is working for “peaceful change and justice,” Greet said she wore pink and orange mixed on a shirt that appeared to be tie-dyed.
She fixed a ‘World Can’t Wait – Drive Out The Bush Regime,’ banner onto the belt loop of her pants. She carried with her three energy bars, a bottle of water, a spare orange T-shirt, $31 in cash, credit cards and identification. She was traveling light, as demonstration organizers had recommended, just in case of arrest.
Greet said the walk from the cemetery to the Rayburn House Office Building wasn’t planned as a high profile demonstration but was part of a scheduled meeting with Rep. John Conyers Jr., (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
“It was meant to be a statement and a pressuring of Conyers to move forward with impeachment hearings,” Greet said.
Conyers has said that Bush’s ordering of a pre-emptive strike against Iraq in 2003, rose to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” – in other words, impeachable actions.
Conyers has been vocal about pushing for impeachment, a process that begins with charges that originate in the House of Representatives.
Arrest a first for Lewes woman
Greet said when they arrived at the Rayburn building, Bush supporters were across the street where they held banners decrying Cindy Sheehan.
“They’re always picking on Cindy: she’s a marvelous figure to pick on. She was there, very, very present,” Greet said of Sheehan who gained national attention as an anti-war activist in 2005 when she spent days at the entrance to Bush’s Texas ranch in a failed effort to meet with him. Sheehan’s son Casey, an Army soldier, was killed in Iraq in 2004.
Greet said the impeach Bush group stopped just short of their destination, where organizers told them to leave their banners and placards. Michael Madden, an attorney specializing in civil disobedience law, briefed the demonstrators.
“He told us our rights and responsibilities and gave us his phone number,” Greet said. She said one woman among them wrote Madden’s phone number on her arm with a pen.
“That was a stroke of genius,” said Greet.
Greet said demonstrators were divided into three groups, each entering the building through separate entrances.
“The reason for that was not to sneak in or deceive anybody but rather to lessen the load on the security people,” Greet said.
She said a group of leaders in the impeach Bush movement including the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus; Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who has said Bush and others in the administration deliberately distorted intelligence on Iraq, and a others went in to meet with Conyers.
Greet said Conyers has a record as a friend of the impeachment movement, having contributed to the book “George W. Bush versus the U.S. Constitution,” which, she said, “exposes the lies and deception of the Bush administration – all impeachable offenses.”
“Conyers said that if Democrats were elected into the majority, that he would move forward with impeachment hearings. That’s what this meeting with him was about,” Greet said.
She said Conyers knew the group was coming to meet with him.
“We were welcomed by a whole cadre of police. They were friendly and respectful. They told us that we had every right to be there. They simply asked us that we keep our voices down and keep the hallways clear,” she said.
Greet said the group had brought with them petitions signed by thousands of people supporting impeachment. “We thought that if we gave those to Conyers that he would be convinced that now is the time,” she said.
She said about 50 demonstrators remained standing in the hallway during the meeting with Conyers. An hour later, Conyers made an announcement.
“His decision was no. He said he didn’t have the votes for impeachment. We were absolutely crushed. There had been this buoyant, expectancy in the hallway and that just turned,” said Greet.
She said Capitol Police immediately cleared the hallway of demonstrators willing to leave. About 45 people had decided they would remain.
“We immediately sat down along the wall. We didn’t obstruct the passageways. The police asked us, ‘Are you planning to be arrested? You’d better leave or you will be arrested,’ ” Greet said.
She said the group began to chant and sing and suddenly, the police sprang to action.
“Out of nowhere the police came with their equipment. The first thing they brought out were handcuffs. But they weren’t metal, they were strips of plastic, the kind used for packaging. And boy, do they hurt,” said Greet.
Next week, in part two of Greet’s story, – A basement jail cell in the Nation’s Capitol, bologna sandwiches and bug juice, making a like-minded friend, and the difficulty of getting free.
Contact Henry Evans at hevans@capegazette.com
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