Medea Benjamin: Well, I don't go limp and have to be carried
out, but I also don't go out very easily: I try to hold on to the chairs to get
a little more time, I would hold onto bannisters or something as we go by to
get a little more time. Whatever you can
do to slow it down is good, but I also want to make sure I don't scare them - I
don't make them think I'm going to do any harm to anybody. It's important to also have an air of
peacefulness about you, because if they get scared, anything can happen. If they think you might want to harm the
President, if they think you are resisting, it could get dangerous.
Rob Kall: OK. What about what you take with you? You had a purse.. Do you have it over your neck so it doesn't
get knocked away from you? Just strictly
in terms of "gear." What kind of
purse? What do you have in it? This is something that I know that activists
who are planning to be arrested anticipate and plan ahead on, so what kind of
purse do you use? Is it something you
are wearing? And what do you put in it? What else do you take with you or wear that
is part of the planning for this?
Medea Benjamin: I try to take as little as possible, and make
sure that what I have doesn't have things like "Free Bradley Manning" stickers
on them, or other things that they could possibly be looking at when you come
in and they look through your things (which actually they didn't do this
time). But you don't want any of the
telltale stickers or other paraphernalia that we often have. Nothing with a peace sign on it, whether it's
earrings or a scarf or anything like that.
And take minimal amounts of things in your bag; because if you get
arrested, they have to go through everything in your bag, and it's just a
tedious process. They have to write down
every single one of your possessions.
I just took a driver's license, a little bit of
money, and my phone. I would say make sure
your phone is well charged, because mine went out at a very inopportune
time. But I had my purse -- you know when
you stand up, you might get immediately pulled out, so I try to have everything
with me and ready to go, so - already over my shoulder, in case I had to leave
at that moment.
Rob Kall: OK. Did you have somebody who was waiting outside
to either drive you, or tail you, or anything? (laughs)
Medea Benjamin: Yeah.
I had only told one other person that I was trying to get in, so it was
all quite hush-hush; but he was outside waiting for me. And to my great surprise, I wasn't arrested;
because I assumed he would have to find where they took me too, and you never
know if you're even going to be able to make a phone call. But I was extremely
lucky. I think, in this case (and I did
something similar when President Bush was speaking somewhere) that the higher
you get, the more they really don't want the embarrassment of having someone
arrested for Free Speech.
It's funny that, in Congress, if you just say a
word these days, you'll get arrested during a hearing. If you said something like -- whatever you
said, you really are risking arrest. But
being able to have a dialogue with the President and not get arrested, I think
is because they recognize that it will give even more play to the person
interrupting if they were arrested. And
it wouldn't look good to the rest of the world to say, "Somebody was arrested
for trying to ask a question, or have a dialogue with the President."
Rob Kall: How many
times would you say you've done something like this with different people?
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