Free Rick Larsen!

By Victoria Marx, mother of Iraq Veteran 

Today was a sad day for democracy.  I couldn’t make it because I had to baby sit, but I made the meeting afterwards, listened to the debrief, and  I was in contact with Wyoming, by cell phone, while she and the others were forced to sit in the hallway outside of Rick Larsen’s office.

That’s right. Luke (Rick’s assistant) would not let them in the office.  Our congressman’s door was locked and a sign that said Please Knock.  Luke told them he would meet with them for 15 minutes only and it would take place in the hallway. He refused to let them in Rick’s office. Read the rest of this entry »

Rick Larsen’s Everett office made the decision on Friday, October 13, 2006 to ban the seven people arrested from his Bellingham office until the end of the year (after the election)!

Four of the women participating in the sit-in in Rick’s office are mothers of US soldiers who are either serving in Iraq now or have served in Iraq. They just want to talk to him and get some answers as to why he would not sign the Congressional Declaration of Peace…and why he continues to support this war.

The ages of people arrested range from people in their twenties, up to their eighties.

Locked Out! And a Baffling New Arrest 

We resolve to continue our reading of the names of the U.S. and Iraqi dead. Some of the soldiers’ mothers are having a particularly hard time right now. Rick will not sign the Declaration of Peace.  He’s made that clear. There is one course that must be stayed, and that is the course of making peace. We hope we’ve made that clear.
 
So we once again climb the stairs and head for Rick Larsen’s office, but when we get there the door is locked. Luke seems gleeful as he comes out the back door and tells us he will give us 15 minutes in the hall but we can’t come in. Ellen wasn’t going to go in anyway, as her Notice of Trespass said she was excluded from 104 W. Magnolia, #206. She was going to stay outside to tell newcomers of our solemn task today. But now we are all religated to the hall so we sit down on the floor and begin to read the names of the dead. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ellen Murphy 

Bellingham mothers of Iraq soldiers read names of slain U.S. troops in Rep. Rick Larsen’s office.
From left: Victoria Marx, Eileen Herring, Anna Lawson, and Dominic Coulet du Gard.
(Oct. 10, 2006, Photo by Robin Dude).

 More Photos of Free Larsen action by Robin Dude

Day six occurs on Friday the 13th of October.  The day the Norse god Loki crashed the party at Valhalla.  Darkness and mourning followed, supposedly because Loki was malicious in crashing the party. Our darkness and mourning precedes and precipitates our crashing of Rick’s party, and we do not do it maliciously. Friday the 13th is a lucky day for women, and it is the day of the trickster, who changes gender roles, appears the fool, takes risks, turns things around. Read the rest of this entry »

For Immediate Release
October 13, 2006
Contact:  Ellen Murphy  715-9197

For the fourth time in recent days, constituents were arrested in Rick Larsen’s office.  Lisa Marcus, Ellen Murphy and Stephanie Countouros were arrested at about 5:20 P.M. on October 13, 2006, for refusing to leave the office at closing time, saying that they were waiting for an appointment to be made with their representative to ask him what happened to cause him to change course after voting against the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  “As members of freelarsen.org,” Ellen Murphy said, “we are concerned that our congressman is being intimidated or held mentally, emotionally or financially hostage by persons who wanted him to reverse his position on the war.” Read the rest of this entry »

When I ask a young musician to come and play at our next freerick sit in, his reply is in a different key. “I just don’t believe in governmental processes.” We do harmonize in the discussion that follows: he loves my activism. I love his music and I understand his renunciation of the system.   I think maybe he’ll show, but when we file into Rick’s office all in black, for the Day 6 naming of the dead, it is sans my young friend and his guitar. Read the rest of this entry »

[sung to ‘Do Re Mi’]
Words by Carolyn DeSilva
 
Dough that’s spent to fund this war,
Rays of hope we do not see.
Me, I want the troops home now.
Far, how far we’d go for peace.
So we stand here to resist.
La, and Larsen needs to know
Tee, we’re teed off and insist
That he vote to stop the dough,dough,dough,dough…

(Repeat until Larsen’s votes change.)

[sung to ‘Making Whoopee’]
Words by Carolyn DeSilva
 
We write him letters.
We try to phone.
Stop by his office.
He’s never home.
We think we know why
He doesn’t reply-
Rick Larsen’s crazy. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday we met at Fantasia’s to get organized.  We were all dressed in black to represent our mourning the lives lost in Iraq, both US soldiers and Iraqis.  There were about 15 of us. We all walked to Larsen’s office.  All of us took turns reading, out loud, the names and ages of soldiers that have been killed in Iraq.  There were four mothers of soldiers in the group and when we came across a name of soldier that had been killed in the same area our sons were or had been in Iraq, we read where, when and how that soldier was killed.
 
It was so emotional. Some of us could hardly get though our lists.  There were a lot of tears.
 
After several names had been read someone from the group would speak up and reiterate one of the questions we have been asking Rick for the past several days. Of course we got no answers and no meeting scheduled with Rick.  We also gave Trip, one of Rick’s office workers, a list of the questions to which we have repeatedly asked Rick for answers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Later in the day, one of our group went into Rick Larsen’s office and told Luke, Rick’s aide, he had lied to us. Luke told the group, all of us, all three days we were in Rick’s office that Rick would NOT be in town before the 6th of October, and that the 6th was completely book solid.  Rick would have NO time to meet with us–his constituents.  Yet when the woman pointed out that Rick had been in town that morning (Wednesday) being interviewed at KVOS Luke said that didn’t count because it was campaign related.

Also, at some point during the day a banner was hung from the 3rd floor of the Federal building. It read GOP LOVES RICK LARSEN. The originator of the sign is unknown.