Thousands of Activists March to Capital to Get Money Out of Politics for 'Democracy Spring' Protests; Many Arrested

Alexandra Rosenmann
,
AlterNet
and
Alexandra Rosenmann
April 11, 2016 | 02:57PM ET

Beginning on April 2, the campaign marched from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. where thousands engaged in a massive sit-in at the Capitol.  

Between April 11-18, over 3,000 pledged to risk arrest on April 11 during the largest civil disobedience actions in a generation, including the The Young Turks’ host Cenk Uygur, who was particularly disappointed in campaign financing during the 2016 election. 

"I'm risking arrest today at our nation's capital because our representatives don't represent us anymore. We have asked them to take action countless times to get money out of politics. We want something very simple - restore free and fair elections. Because of their inaction we take action today. It is obvious that Congress is awash in corruption. Today we begin civil disobedience against that corruption," Uygur said, noting "Hillary Clinton takes money from donors [so she would never] want to get money out of politics. The whole system is corrupt—and I’m not putting it all on the DNC—the RNC is more corrupt.”

"We have got everybody from Greenpeace to AFL-CIO and also crucially the NAACP and civil rights movement. We're really wedding together money-in-politics efforts with voting rights efforts, which I think is the beginning of a great new stage in the democracy fight,” Rob Weissman of Public Citizen told RT’s Thom Hartmann.

Other notable personalities endorsing the action include Mark Ruffalo, Gaby Hoffman, Lawrence Lessig and Talib Kweli. 

 

By mid-afternoon, arrests by the hundreds were well underway.

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