Levitate The Pentagon! Wanna Try Again?

In a comment on a previous post of mine about this weekend's March on the Pentagon, Neil asks the question: Why the Pentagon? I think his point may be: Why not the Capitol Building, the Halls of Congress,? although I'm not really sure that's why he asks. The reason for the Pentagon as the site of choice seems to be to tie this march in with the huge march on the Pentagon in October of 1967, to demand an end to the war in Viet Nam. This was Time Magazine's take on the march forty years ago: The Banners of Dissent.

The Washington Post's Washington Century article on those historic days: The VietNam Protests: When Worlds Collided, gives us this:

The Pentagon march was the culmination of five days of nationwide anti-draft protests organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam -- "the Mobe." But a singular spark was provided by the Youth International Party (Yippies), a fringe group whose leaders, Abbie Hoffman and
Jerry Rubin, had announced that they planned an "exorcism" of the Pentagon. They would encircle the building, chant incantations, "levitate" the structure and drive out the evil war spirits.

The crowd drawn to Washington for the March on the Pentagon and a rally at the Lincoln Memorial numbered more than 100,000. For the first time, there were significant numbers of hippies, with long hair and fanciful garb. Hoffman donned beads and an Uncle Sam hat. Speakers included Mailer, poet Robert Lowell and pediatrician Benjamin Spock. Protest signs now brimmed with counterculture wit: "LBJ, Pull Out Now, Like Your Father Should Have Done."

Mailer and Hoffman were among the 681 arrested, most for disorderly conduct and breaking police lines. More than 2,500 Army troops protected the Pentagon, which did not levitate (although Hoffman claimed to have urinated on it). Hippies pressed forward to place flowers in the barrels of soldiers' bayoneted M-14 rifles.

Different times, different cultures, I don't think anyone's suggesting levitating the Pentagon this time. But I sure wouldn't mind if we succeeded in driving out some of the "evil war spirits" however.

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