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."