Editor’s Note: We offer this story not out of sympathy for the subject’s political position, but rather as an exploration of an extreme in the culture of protest and an exemplar of the human condition.
Here are some pictures of Washington, D.C.’s longest running protest.
Across from The White House in Lafayette Park, Conception Picciotto and William Thomas have been continuously manning an anti-nuclear protest since 1981, spanning the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
Picciotto told Home in Henderson that she has great hopes for the upcoming administration of President-Elect Barack Obama.
According to security officers in the park, the protest site actually violates current regulation as to how close a protest can be to The White House. Because the protest pre-dates those regulations, it has been grandfathered in, but must be continually occupied in order to retain its exempt status.
Here is some literature that is being distributed by the protesters.