I am a professional linestander. This means, I arrive on Capitol Hill at 6 am and stand in line outside a congressional hearing to spare a big shot corporate lobbyist that indignity. I'm a mercenary and don't know who I'm working for each day. The Salvation Army, the NRA, the Nazis, it's all the same to me.
Yes, that's right folks, at the nation's legislative seat there exists an exchange of money ($10/hour) and power (a coveted seat in a hot hot hearing) that is far from ethically pristine. With the exception of a 2007 attempt by Missouri Senator McCaskill to quash this practice, linestanding is a thriving business that is an accepted and legitimized norm.
The beauty of the work is that you are given a chair and the rest is yours to make of it what you will. Supply yourself with a book or a notepad or a newspaper or an ipod. Beyond breathing and sitting, how you employ yourself is up to you.
Well you can imagine the rag tag crowd such "work" draws. We are misfits, laid off NGO workers, bike messengers, homemakers and the homeless. We are also Sudanese refugees. At least today we were. Today our boss introduced us to three African men and explained that they were among the 27,000 boys who were displaced and/or ophaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War. They escaped the horrors of one of the deadliest wars of the 20th centuy, crossed the Atlantic, made a new life for themself in the United States, and today they would be working alongside us.
I saw a black man in the line holding up a sign that said "Rich White." I was kind of like wtf? until I realized thats the name of his client. Rich White needs a spot in a hearing. As it turns out there are a lot of rich whites in Washington that need a spot in a hearing. Fear not, we got your back.
Man, this blog is good.
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