Article

Fugazi Banter: Disarmament

President JFK signs a paper on his desk, surrounded by old white men wearing suits—including vice president lyndon johnson.
President John F. Kennedy signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treat. October 7, 1963.

Photograph by Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

By Dr. Rami Toubia Stucky

Introduction

Explore the Series

Between the late 1980s and early 2000s, punk band Fugazi played several times at DC-area parks. Many of their live shows were recorded by fans and then made available. These recordings not only capture Fugazi’s music. You can also hear bandmembers Ian MacKaye, Joe Lally, Brendan Canty, Guy Picciotto, and Jerry Busher address the crowd. Sometimes they prepared monologues or spun off into impromptu musings. Other times they invited guest speakers and activists such as Mark Andersen on stage. What was said was almost always political, though.

Check out the Rest of the Six-Part Series

This page is part of a six-part series that looks at the concerns of DC punks firsthand. Use the links to the right to explore the rest of the series.
Stay here to listen to activists and band members talk about Proposition 1 and police militarization in Washington DC.

The Anti-Nuclear Movement

A red poster that shows a bomb durning into a dove - titled "The continental walk for disarmament and social justice - come to washington, and join thousands in demanding immediate & unilateral aciion towards disarmanent... (continues)
Poster for the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice, a 34-state, 8,000-mile protest that arrived in Washington mid-October 1976.

District of Columbia United States Washington D.C., 1976. Photograph.

  • Fugazi: The Anti-Nuclear Movement | January 12, 1991 - Lafayette Park

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        An excerpt from the banter in between songs at a January 1991 Fugazi concert held in Lafayette Park. Mark Andersen encourages attendees to sign a petition, advocating for legislation that would mandate disarmament.

        Audio Transcript

      “There are also folks who live in this park 365 days a year at a peace park vigil. They’ve got a petition for you to sign and some other stuff that you can do to help out with their struggle to get something called Proposition 1 passed, which is a proposition that would mandate disarmament in this country and also a massive infusion of money to poor people––people who need it to live. So please help support them.”

      Explanation

      Anti-nuclear protests often existed within the broader anti-war movement. Such activism began as early as World War II but became prominent amidst the Cold War. In 1961, a team of scientists based out of St. Louis published a study on radiation. In it, they noted how kids who born during an era of nuclear testing had increased levels of radioactive isotopes in their teeth.1 That same year, 50,000 women marched on various US cities to protest nuclear weapons.2 Such public pressure seemed to work. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev passed the Partial Test Ban Treaty. This agreement banned all test detonations of nuclear weapons except those occurring underground.3

      Smiling bearded man sits with a dog while making a peace sign.
      Activist William Thomas at his White House peace vigil. 2009.

      eschen, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

      The anti-nuclear movement continued into the 1980s. Organizations like the Nevada Desert Experience protested at prominent underground testing sites. In 1981, activist William Thomas organized a peace vigil on the White House lawn.4 A year later, a million individuals marched on Central Park to protest nuclear proliferation.5 Then, in 1986, about a thousand protesters began marching from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. When they arrived in the capital some nine months later, they organized rallies in Lafayette Square. They later blocked the doors to the headquarters of the United States Department of Energy.6

      Proposition One emerged within this larger context. The campaign to pass the law was founded in 1990 as an outgrowth of Thomas’ vigil. In 1993, the campaign achieved modest success when it helped pass Initiative 37. Originally called Proposition One, this ballot initiative asked the District’s Congressional Delegate to propose a Constitutional amendment. Between 1994 and 2023, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton did exactly that. Over the years, the proposed amendment has been slightly rewritten. However, the crux of the text is the same. Its first section calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons and “conversion of resources to energy and economic purposes.”7 The Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act continues to be put before the House. It has most recently been introduced as HR-2775.

      Military Equipment & The DC Police

      • Fugazi: Robot | August 13, 2001 - Fort Reno Park

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            An excerpt from the banter in between songs at an August 2001 Fugazi concert held in Fort Reno Park. Guy Picciotto speaker denounces spending by the D.C. Chief of Police.

            Audio Transcript

          “I do know that the, uh, police chief of Washington, D.C. is you know, uh—he’s asking for like 43 million dollars to beef up the Police, uh, Robot, uh, Armature and the rest of that s**t. So let’s give him a––let’s give him a reason to pull out all that crap.”

          Explanation:

          black and white photo of a crowd marching to the capitol, carrying boxes with a sign that says "our nuclear home, 16,000 sticks of dynamite for every person on the planet.
          The Great Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament of 1986 arriving to Washington DC. November 14, 1986.

          Photographer Jeff Share.

          Concerns about the military industrial complex never ceased. The topic emerged again a decade after the Persian Gulf War.

          One of the main issues was that the military was never short of war supplies. In fact, they had too many. In contrast, some felt local police departments had too little. The solution to this disparity was devised by Congress. In 1997, they created Program 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act. Before the passage of the bill, equipment like firearms, tactical gear, armored vehicles, grenade launchers, and explosives would have been destroyed. However, Program 1033 allowed the Department of Defense to distribute this excess military weaponry. Since its passage, agencies across the country have received over $7 billion in equipment.8

          The DC Police Department did not need this surplus military-grade equipment. They were militarized enough. A 1998 report found that DC officers had shot and killed more people per resident than any other large US city police force. In an ideal department, the rate of excessive force would not exceed two percent. In DC, it was 15. About 14 percent of these incidents involved off-duty officers. In a quarter of those incidents, the officer may have been drinking. Fabrications of “assaulting a police officer” occurred frequently. Officers trumped up charges to make their use of force seem justified as well.9

          Police dogs were also too aggressive according to the Justice Department. In a well-run police department, police dogs would bite someone once out of every ten encounters. In DC, dogs used their teeth nearly 70 percent of the time.10

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          Last updated: March 20, 2025