Inaugural Address - Choose Oppression or Freedom

[kach22i]

WHAT WAS ALL THE RUCKUS ABOUT?

Washington, DC police clash with demonstrators at 14th and Pennsylvania
Avenue. January 20, 2005. (Photo courtesy Indymedia)
During the conflict between police and demonstrators at 14th and
Pennsylvania that halted the motorcade, there were injuries on both
sides. A stand-off set in, riot police lined up in front of protesters
while tear gas drifted in the air. Sixteen journalists reportedly had
been pepper sprayed by the end of the hostilities.

Spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department, Officer Junis
Fletcher, told ENS that police arrested three people during the parade,
two for assaulting police officers and one for kindling a bonfire. He
said some police had been injured, but could not immediately provide
the number of injured officers.

Last night, protesters chanting, "Bring the War Home" were on their
way to the Washington Hilton's Inaugural Ball, when some 100 riot
police lined up at 18th and Belmont while all roads and alleys off
Columbia were closed. Protesters say two buses appeared on 18th street,
and four more on Columbia Road; police moved in and arrested
demonstrators while a helicopter overhead illuminated the scene.

A peaceful protester who described herself as "5'4", 125 lbs, was
carrying nothing but my cell phone" was harrassed, as she wrote on the
Indymedia website where anyone can post information. "I stood yesterday
at 14th and Pennsylvania, at about 3 PM, with no sign, not shouting,
and not approaching the fence, just to express my disagreement with
this administration's policies and stand for my right to express my
opinion."

"I looked in the eyes of the riot police ranked three-deep on the
other side of the fence."

"They shouted at me to step back, even though I was several feet back
from the barrier already. I moved back to the curb, at least ten feet
back, where I felt I was within my rights to stand quietly. There was
no one else very near me, although people were shouting and approaching
the fence farther down on my right."

"The police were repeatedly shooting them with pepper spray, firing
directly into each person's face. I was determined to simply stand
there as long as I was able. It was still a surprise to me when the man
who had ordered me to step back sprayed me in the face anyway. I stood
there, getting sprayed, for as long as I could, until there was so much
gas and pepper in the air that I couldn't breathe anymore and had to
retreat."

"This morning I heard a clip from Bush's speech," she wrote, 'All who
live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not
ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for
your liberty, we will stand with you.'"

"What I tried to do yesterday was exactly that: to stand for my
liberty," she wrote. "Apparently my liberty is not as valuable when my
oppressor is American. Is this the message? Because I disagree with my
nation's politics, I lose the right to express my opinion?"


Quote of Note

"Become intimate with your own backyard, with a bit of riverbank, with
a pond or hill. The rest of the watershed, the meta-landscape, the
continent, planet and universe will be naturally drawn into this
intimacy."
-- John McClellan, in "The Many Voices of the Boulder Creek Watershed"

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2005. All Rights Reserved.



ANOTHER VERSION OF EVENTA SELDOM READ IN THE MAINSTREAM PRESS:



Environment of Freedom Words, Not Deeds, at Bush Inauguration

WASHINGTON, DC, January 21, 2005 (ENS) - President George W. Bush took the oath of office for the second time Thursday, declaring in his inaugural address that the global expansion of freedom is "the best hope for peace in our world." But his parade to the White House was brought to a halt as police battled protesters on the inaugural motorcade route, using tear gas and pepper spray in their efforts to clear the street.

With the sun in his eyes, and his left hand resting on a family Bible, President George W. Bush takes the oath of office to serve a second term as 43rd President of the United States during a ceremony at the
U.S. Capitol. Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, and Jenna Bush listen as Chief Justice William Rehnquist administers the oath. January 20, 2005.

The theme of President Bush's inaugural address was that leaders and nations throughout the world must choose between oppression and freedom. "We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of
their own people," he said.

Human rights, he said, "must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed."

But in the streets of the nation's capital, protesters outnumbered Bush supporters on the parade route. Signs calling the president a fascist and his actions war crimes framed the presidential limousine, and on television the voices of commentators attempting to downplay the
protests were drowned out by the shouts of protesters.

Bush did not mention environmental protection in his inaugural address. Instead the agenda for his second term was stated as the reform of American institutions, such as social security, "to serve the needs of our time," to bring "the highest standards" to schools, and to build "an ownership society."

"We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance," the President said.

He told Americans to exercise their own freedom with service, mercy and "a heart for the weak." He said the United States "cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time."

"These questions that judge us also unite us," the President said, "because Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom. We have
known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes - and I will strive in good faith to heal them."

At the end of his remarks, Bush said he has complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom around the world. "Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation," but because "freedom is the permanent hope
of mankind."

[Moneyguy1]

Sounds like the old argument about how you define what "is" is.

Freedom to one is tyranny to another.

I wonder if the divisiveness will ever end.

[Superman]

It's not about people. It's about economics. To those caught up in the current wave of conservatism (AKA Capitalism), "freedom" has a specific and twisted meaning. It does not mean freedom from personal barriers, like poverty for instance. It does not mean freedom to express your opinions (as the above story, and a thousand posts here at Pelican have shown us). It does not mean freedom to live your life as you choose.

It means freedom from the responsibility of paying taxes, and it means the freedom to make as much money as you like without the incovenience of government regulations.

It used to be about people. Remember "of the people, by the people and for the people?" Now it's about economics. And we pretend that making money is a moral imperative. The more money we make, the more people you should assume we're helping.

See, the NYSE is a good measure of the "goodness" of our country. The higher stock prices rise, the greater good that's being bestowed on the people. See?

Well, I know it's hard to see, but really smart people wearing really smart business suits have been telling us this for quite some time now, and everyone is coming to believe it these days.




















....except me, I guess.

[fintstone]

Since when did we expect freedom to include the right to halt a presidential motorcade to the White House, set fires, and assault policemen guarding the President? These folks are little more than terrorists. What ever happened to peacefully protesting?

[kach22i]

Originally posted by fintstone
What ever happened to peacefully protesting?

Since bush took over the office they have been chained off from the rest of the crowd at public appearences- out of view of the TV cameras. Then if the crowd was really large they were trucked off to detention centers and jails without any charges being made. I'm not making this up, it's been going on for four years - read the paper once in a while.

What ever happened to peacefully protesting indeed.

[Mule]

Quit whining & mix the kool-aid. Four more years!!!

[kach22i]

Laughing at our pain, there are some funny spots in this commentary/article about that day.

First of all, the number of fur coats I saw today absolutely cannot be exaggerated. The city looked like it was being invaded by bears coming out of hibernation.

Published on Sunday, January 23, 2005 by CommonDreams.Org
Report from the Front Lines of the Red State Invasion
by Jamila Larson


Inauguration Day 2005. I feel nauseous. Sick to my stomach. Ill.

For years I have tried to convince myself and others that Republicans are not evil; they just have a different philosophy. But today, I have seen a face of America that I didn’t want to believe exists, and I am surprised, disgusted and depressed.

“Was the security awful?” my mom asked sympathetically on the phone, expecting to hear more tales of police brutality that have come to define protest history. No, I struggled to explain, this time the attacks I experienced came from women in fur coats. Our greatest threat to our nation tonight? REPUBLICAN NASTINESS.

First of all, the number of fur coats I saw today absolutely cannot be exaggerated. The city looked like it was being invaded by bears coming out of hibernation. There were white fur coats and black fur coats, spotted fur coats, and striped fur coats. There were brown mink coats that must have taken a hundred animals to make. There was big hair and stretched skin and a cowboy hat or two bobbing in and out of the crowd, but it was the ubiquitous fur coats that really felt like a slap in the face. WE’RE HERE, WE’RE RICH, WE’VE TAKEN OVER THE COUNTRY.

Imagine thousands of fur coats and clicking heels accompanying men who looked like they were in town for a local newscasters convention gliding past the largest homeless shelter in the country where I volunteer. They even took over the homeless people's sidewalk! My friend Gina and I spoke with a few homeless men who barely had enough energy to laugh appreciatively at our signs as they lay on steam grates in the frigid temperatures. It is an out-of-body experience to silently stand on a street corner and see these two worlds clash; a man just trying to survive, and a parade of fur coats yelling, “They need to get a job!” We must have just stood there for thirty minutes, in awe of the invasion. She was trying to explain to her friends who came from New York to protest the inauguration the amount of pain contained inside that building. At one point, we looked up and saw a little face peering out of the window at the shelter, a child. The little hand waved at us and then disappeared.

“In many ways, Inauguration Day is all about family…the AMERICAN family,” Dan Rather reassures us. The president’s image floats across my television screen pledging to heal divisions and calling on Americans to “abandon habits of racism.” He apparently mentioned the word “freedom” thirty times, and Iraq not once. The television pundits are reflecting on a feeling of “oneness” that unites Americans on this day. Obviously, they didn’t make it to the street alongside Pennsylvania Avenue where I spent six hours today carrying these signs with my friends:

“The homeless suffer from your vote. Why not give them your fur coat?”
“25,000 children in DC are poor and we have to pay for your party?”
“20,000 killed in Iraq and you’re having a party?”
“Bush Stole My Boyfriend!” (Gina’s boyfriend is being sent to Iraq next month)

Judging from the hostility of the crowd, we decided to hide our signs about the war until they warmed up to the concept of poor American children. One little boy from Kentucky caught a glimpse of the boyfriend sign and sneered, “Did your boyfriend sign up for the army? Then he asked to be there…” we smiled and waved and hid the sign better, knowing we were asking for trouble. This crowd would stop at nothing, not even cruel personal attacks against my brave friend who prefers to talk about the poor people she cares so much about rather than the personal cost George Bush’s presidency is having on her life.

We thought it was common knowledge that DC taxpayers were being asked to foot the $12 million security bill for the first time in inauguration history. We thought our sign referencing this fact was the most benign sign in the bunch but oddly enough, it attracted the most virility from the crowd. Dozens of people shouted, “you are not paying for our party!” and I rattled off the stats, encouraging them to read the paper. “Oh yeah, everything you read in the newspapers is true you know,” one woman snickered to her smiling husband. “Check out yesterday’s editorial in the Washington Post…” I recommended helpfully as they shook their heads and walked away. “Where do they get their news? From Paul Revere riding through the streets on his horse?” Gina mused. Even those who believed our sign said that “your stinking city” deserves to foot the bill!

PARTIAL LIST OF INSULTS RECEIVED TODAY


Give ‘em a fur coat? Maybe they could use some DIAMONDS!
Get a life!
Bull****!
We’re enjoying our party!
You’re not paying for our party!
Thanks for paying for our party!
Hippies!
They’re all addicts!
Why don’t you call Kerry and get his money!
Those poor kids in DC should have been aborted!
The women in DC need to learn to keep their pants up!
Are you guys lesbians?
Why don’t you give them YOUR coat!
Why don’t you give them your CELL PHONE!
Why don’t you give them your leather shoes!
Why don’t you go home to your kitchen, COOK dinner and BRING it to ‘em!
You guys are pisspots!
Lowlife scum!
They need to get a job!
You need to get a job!
Hmph. I don’t remember ever being called so many names before; I think today surpassed even what my brother could dole out growing up. People also treated us to the finger and one man actually elbowed our signs as he walked past. Another Republican reveler angrily tried to take another protester’s sign. One woman pushed the flash down on my camera, and I’m not even going to get into the million dirty looks and scowls. I expect to show up in a lot of Republican’s nightmares tonight. As they will certainly be in mine!

Where does all this anger come from? I am here to testify that there is a whole lot of repressed RAGE underneath that stretched skin. I really don’t know where it comes from. After all, TODAY WAS THEIR PARTY! We were merely providing a “public service” as Gina explained, to educate our visitors about the city we know and love. We were not screaming, we were not shouting. We literally stood and chatted with each other, holding our signs, smiling, saying hello. We were decidedly nonpartisan and managed to satisfy a few ruffled feathers agreeing that Clinton didn’t do enough to help the homeless either. When a man didn’t believe us that homelessness has risen under Bush, we asked for his business card to send him some more information. “Don’t, Stu,” his panicked wife warned, and I assured her I wasn’t a terrorist. If you ever need a Real Estate Financial Consultant in West Lake Village, CA, I can hook you up.

Continued...............................

[kach22i]

Part II:

There were a few positive encounters of arguments that turned into conversations and people who looked to be revelers whispering, “I like your sign,” as they passed us by. One woman in a fur coat even stopped to take our picture, and then pointed to her coat and explained, “It’s not real.” Some southern high school girls even posed with us for pictures, explaining, “We’ve never seen protesters before!” Our signs attracted so much attention, that all we had to do is stand there and throngs of people would come to us. We were interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, CNN.com, NBC TV, as well as by several college film projects and student newspapers from across the country. All of them were trying to fit us in a box and were surprised to learn that we weren’t with any group and had decided to mingle with the masses rather than report to the designated protest cage. They were shocked to learn all of our facts about homelessness and poverty in DC and could not believe that our city decided to shut down three shelters this winter. At the end of the day, we even met Congressman Payne from New Jersey who thanked us for being there.

Still, it was unbelievable to me to see the deep hostility, rage, and cruelty stirring beneath those bundled bodies. “Put on your soul armor,” Gina would whisper through her smile. “This group is pissed and they’re headed our way.” We tried not to laugh to underscore the seriousness of our message. We both dressed up a notch from the traditional protest crowd, and we never hurled back insults. But if they are spewing this level of hostility at two yuppie-looking white girls, imagine if we were black, gay, poor, you name it. Before my friends arrived today, I was totally alone in the hostile crowd, searching for another sign as I squeezed down the sidewalk, with verbal eggs being hurled at me in all directions. I felt much more afraid and alone than I do in the dangerous neighborhoods of our city. I noticed a black photographer taking a picture of my sign and I scurried to catch up to him. “My friends better get here soon, that’s all I gotta say,” I muttered. “I hear you,” he said as we walked quickly through the packed crowd in silence.

Our “Kill ‘em with kindness!” policy definitely seemed to confuse and diffuse our attackers. Gina smiled as she called out “Take care!” to the man who called us “pisspots” and I followed with a chirpy “Have a nice evening!” As dusk settled and we shivered in the cold clutching our signs, I looked up at the gorgeous gray capitol building with its little lights warming the darkening sky.

“You know, I’ve never been called a pisspot before,” I mused, and we burst out laughing.

Jamila Larson is a social worker at an elementary school in southeast Washington, DC. She has been an advocate for homeless children in the District for nine years and runs a volunteer play program at CCNV, the nation's largest homeless shelter. A veteran of countless peace demonstrations, she is proud to count hippies and Marines among her friends.She can be reached at jamilalarson@yahoo.com.

[Bleyseng]

Originally posted by fintstone
Since when did we expect freedom to include the right to halt a presidential motorcade to the White House, set fires, and assault policemen guarding the President? These folks are little more than terrorists. What ever happened to peacefully protesting?

In the protests I have been at, the police start the trouble by pepperspraying, pushing, intimidation. People can protest and if it stops the presidents motorcade so be it!
haha, assault policemen! ya right...you ever asault a cop in full riot gear? They charge you with that if you don't obey their confusing orders over the bullhorn. "Move back" "Move left" "Stop" .....The protesters try to by peacefull and orderly but the police always make things worse.

Little more than terrorists? They is some of the worst comments I have ever seen from you. Where would we be now if the forefathers hadn't had the Boston Tea Party, Bunkerhill, Battle of Lexington? YOU would have been a tory and the Liberty Boys would have tarred and feathered YOU!

course in podunk they don't have protests cuz all the people are rednecks anyway and agree on everything that Bush says and does.

Geoff

[Superman]

I know some of you probably hate Karl Marx. Mostly folks who have not read his works, and/or folks who have a very limited understanding of world history. He said that a society cannot sustain an ever-widening gap between the have's and the have-nots. When there is a substantial proportion of people who are struggling just to survive, and at the same time if the wealth of that society is concentrated into a small group of ultra-fortunate people (and particularly if the rich people have disdain for the less fortunate and withhold their resources from that group), then according to Mr. Marx, that society will fix the gap problem sooner or later. In France, this was called the French Revolution. In Russia it was the Bolshevik revolt. And the conditions for this are swelling in Amerika.

The poor folks outnumber the rich folks by a wide margin. But so far the poor folks have been fooled into supporting regimes like Dubya/Dick. This too shall pass.

[304065]

Ha ha ha!

True to form, just because YOU read something, you believe it!

Well, Jim, I've read Kapital. Not in the original German, I'll admit, but I'm sure it doesn't lose much in translation. Also Lenin, Hilferding, Luxembourg, Schumpeter, and a few dozen others over the years.

And do you know what? They, and you, are all WRONG.

Capitalism WORKS. It has raised more people to a higher standard of living than any other economic system in human history. The Russians REJECTED Marx after a 75 year experiment. (What the revolution brought was NOT Communism, but Marxism-Leninism . . but you knew that, right?) The Chinese are becoming more Capitalist with each passing moment. Around the world, people are eschewing Marxism, not merely for the economic benefits, but for the human freedom that Capitalism doesn't just provide, but relies on, for its existence.

Everyone, except a few folks in Cuba and, it seems, Washington state.

Viva los mano invisible!

[lendaddy]

The China example is quite interesting isn't it? I mean now that they have opened their system up to capitolism they are going gangbusters. They are developing (for the first time ion their history) a real middle class. Chang six-pack is able to buy a car! Yes capitolism works and benefits all. But people piss and moan because even though they are doing well, some are doing better and that's "just not fair". What an asinine stance. Oh yea, Sup....what do you define as "poor" in your example above? I would argue that the poor in America would be kings among the French and Russians during the periods you mention, no? Some people just need something to ***** about I guess. Hey, does anyone know what we consider poor in America for a family of three or four?

[Burnin' oil]

That Karl Marx, what a guy, what a legacy! Millions dead, oppressed, tortured, etc. It is interesting that the Marxist model is the one that is eventually over-thrown and that self-determination is of more interest to the masses than is shared poverty. . .

[Superman]

I'm not an enemy of "enlightened self-interest" stuff. Aspects of capitalism are wonderful. As Emperor, I would certainly and confidently apply some of those principles. I like the idea of people being able to reap the fruits of their labor/ideas/etc.

Further, I notice just like the rest of the world noticed that Soviet communism certainly did not work, and would never have worked. Also, given the situation in China, and now adding the opportunities that folks there have, I'd expect a powerful explosion of capitalism, advancement, improvements, etc.

If you guys think I'm for everything that's stupid and against everything that works, then you're not listening. And I think you're not. Listening, that is. But it would not be possible, for several reasons, to bring everyone up to speed here, now. Len, the story above contains reference to folks lying on steam vents to avoid freezing to death, and the closure of three shelters in the DC area. I guess if you consider "alive" and "kings" to be synonyms, then those guys are kings. Only, some of them will die this winter.

But I'm tired. Someone is going to say it's their own damned fault. Someone is going to assume that the opportunities they've had are also open to the guy on the steam grate. So, I give up.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Burnin' oil
That Karl Marx, what a guy, what a legacy! Millions dead, oppressed, tortured, etc. It is interesting that the Marxist model is the one that is eventually over-thrown and that self-determination is of more interest to the masses than is shared poverty. . .

Just want to see how this looks in print.............what if there had been a quote from Jesus - who called us to become a flock of sheep.

That Jesus Christ, what a guy, what a legacy! Millions dead, oppressed, tortured, etc. It is interesting that the Christian model is the one that is eventually over-thrown and that self-determination is of more interest to the masses than is shared poverty. . .

Yep, just as I thought, it looks pretty silly. Afterall, millions dead - oh wait throwning Christians to the lions, and the Turks murdering 1.8 million Christaian Armenians.............or would it of referenced Hitler's bonding of state and church killing millions of Jews - could go either way.

Self-determination...................? Jesus said trust the lord, follow, be part of the flock, not much for self-determination was he?

Shared poverty? Yea Jesus was big on giving to the poor, right?

Jesus or Marx.............any large movement has it's failings even our beloved capitolism.

[lendaddy]

Sup, the numbers of people living in "sleeping on vents" poverty is tiny, let alone greater than the number of wealthy as you described it. Also, from research I did years ago, a huge percentage of those living in extreme poverty have serious mental issues and no government program shy of coralling them into asylums will help them. Crazy means crazy. I am all for helping them, but raising the minimum wage or passing out needles ain't gonna help these people....they're crazy, get it?

[Burnin' oil]

Kach,

Great comparison. No, I mean it. The fact that I have no idea what you are talking about is probably more indicative of my ignorance than anything else. . .

[lendaddy]

Originally posted by Burnin' oil
Kach,

Great comparison. No, I mean it. The fact that I have no idea what you are talking about is probably more indicative of my ignorance than anything else. . .

I was lost in the "obvious logic" myself. I guess I forgot about Jesus throwing the Christians to the lions? I also forgot about Hitler bonding church to government?....!!!????

The fact that it is these ideas that bounce around in your head boggles my mind....