From Craig Louis Stehr's FB entries 1st post: January 17, 2012: Occupy Congress action report

Occupy Congress Report

 01/17/12   By Craig Louis Stehr (craigstehr [at] hushmail.com )

[WASHINGTON, D.C]  "Hundreds arrived last night at both McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza encampments in Washington D.C., coming from Occupy camps from around the USA. It rained all night, and then cleared up just in time for our 9AM march. We went straight up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol building. Protest marchers assembled on the front west lawn until 3:00PM. Returning congress heard the people's dissent!  [See more photos and huffington post article]

"They trickled in last night at both Occupy D.C. encampments, from other Occupy camps near and far. Occupy Monterey CA, Portland Oregon, Bellingham WA, Atlanta, OWS, Florida, Delaware, they kept coming in all night. The temperature shot up and it rained until morning, providing a relatively warm day in the 50s, compared to the usual mid-30s

"At 8:30AM, a huge wave of anarchists came down 14th Street NW (three blocks from the White House), LOUDLY chanting revolutionary slogans.[Editor's note :4 of them were arrested later that day] They merged with us at Freedom Plaza and promptly at 9AM, we collectively marched straight up Pennsylvania Avenue behind an OCCUPY D.C. banner. It was LOUD!   

"Uncountable police from an uncountable number of agencies accompanied us. At the Capitol building we encountered the plastic green fencing announcing that the turf was being upgraded, and we ignored this stupidity of an attempt to alter our assemblage, and marched over and around the fencing onto the west front lawn. We continued to convey our feelings to the returning U.S. Congress inside until 3:00PM, guaranteeing that the voice of the 99% of the people was heard. 

"Tonight, we're having the mother of all Occupy parties at both encampments. Here are a couple of links: http://www.kctv5.com/story/16536289/occupy-congress ...No doubt more videos will be available soon...check out the DC IMC ones.

"Nota bene by Craig Louis Stehr: "My personal thanks to everyone who financially and otherwise backed up my being at both NYCs OWS and later at Occupy DC, since I arrived in Manhattan October 18th. I'm flying back to Cali Saturday morning to crash in the Compared to What jazz band's rehearsal studio in Oakland. Mission accomplished! RIGHT WING SCUM...YOUR TIME HAS COME."

A Brief History of Washington D.C.'s Olive Branch Catholic Worker House

Just sitting here in my room in San Francisco, remembering the five times I was at Washington D.C.'s Olive Branch Catholic Worker House at 11th & M Streets in the Shaw neighborhood, beginning in June of 1991. 

Initially, the district's Catholic Worker group moved out to a more comfortable location, and then claimed that they had succeeded mightily by turning over the house to the homeless whom they had taken in, thus doubling in size the Washington D.C. Catholic Worker group, housing formerly homeless individuals, and pulling off a small miracle essentially.

     Reality is that the group did in fact move to a more comfortable house in a higher income neighborhood.  Otherwise, the Olive Branch Catholic Worker House was a crack house!  The previously homeless residents never joined with the Catholic Worker volunteers who showed up to volunteer at Zacchaeus Kitchen, and who were initially unaware of the crazy situation in the house.  If that weren't bad enough, an assortment of feminists moved in, taking advantage of the rent free living situation, and none of them gave a shit about anything spiritual at all, and they did no service work.  The ensuing chaos from their aggravating anti-social behavior, (supposedly appropriate to uplift downtrodden women everywhere) made the house rat population look friendly.  At war with the crackheads, the punk bitches moved out and the rats stayed.

     And then something actually worthwhile happened around April 16, 2000.  For three days thousands shut down Washington D.C. in protest of the World Bank-International Monetary Fund policies.  We had the Midnight Special Law Collective in the front room downstairs.  We had a media center set up two blocks away in Blagden Alley in an artist collective studio.  We housed an endless stream of direct action oriented radical environmentalists and the black bloc.  We shut down Washington D.C. for three days and informed the whole world about the global situation of materialism's insanity.  Finally, the Olive Branch Catholic Worker House was important.  I guess Jesus just woke up!!

     Later, the house was used by anarchists to challenge Washington D.C. city government insofar as the mistreatment of the homeless population was concerned.  Eventually, the Metropolitan Police Department raided the house, tossed everyone out onto the sidewalk, boarded up the front door, and pressured the owner into selling the building.  Currently, the building is divided up into condominiums.  Jesus moved out.  We don't know where He went.  

~End of Story~


Craig Louis Stehr
October 17, 2017
San Francisco

Email: CraigStehr@inbox.com