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I saw the same thing when I
went to DC to cover the Inauguration. The capitol was an armed
camp, a sea of Bush supporters surrounded by tens of thousands
of protesters. At one point, I stopped for 30 seconds next
to a squad car to check my cell phone, and was immediately
confronted by three cops asking me what I was doing. Amusingly,
the security fences and cops decided not to give those protesters
One Big Spot to congregate, and instead spread them out like
butter across the entire route. The effect was to make the
protests seem much larger than they were - and they were big
- while forcing the Bush folk to elbow past them every six
feet for the entire length of Pennsylvania Avenue.
All those fences. All those
guns. All those cops. At first, it seemed like an arguably
necessary precaution; these were, after all, the two cities
to take the hit on 9/11. But the longer I stayed, the longer
I looked around, and the closer I observed the behavior of
Bush and his people, I came to a sad conclusion: This security
was not about keeping us all safe from terrorists, but was
about keeping Bush safe from his own people. The President
of the United States is flatly terrified of the citizens he
would supposedly lead to some supply-side promised land. He
is scared to death of us.
Some positive proof of this
came down the wires on Tuesday, when a report surfaced about
three people who were removed from a supposedly 'public' town
hall meeting with Bush. According to the report, the Secret
Service hustled them out because their car had a "No Blood
for Oil" bumper sticker on it. The three said they had obtained
tickets to the event through the office of Rep. Bob Beauprez
(R-CO), had passed through security and were preparing to
take their seats when they were approached by a man claiming
to be a Secret Service agent, who asked them to leave.
Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman
for Americans United, described the incident accurately: "They're
screening the people who are allowed to come and then they're
profiling them in the parking lot," he said. "It's quite extraordinary,
and disappointing."
'Disappointing' is a mild word.
'Disgusting' would be a better one. George W. Bush is petrified
of his own people, and his security goes to extraordinary
and wildly expensive pains to make sure that only a hand-picked
few, the elect, can get near him to shower him with love and
affection.
Where is all this heading?
This isolation of the President from the world, from his own
people, from any information that does not jibe with his pre-formed
opinions? Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower from the Nixon
scandals, has some thoughts on the matter he shared in an
interview with CommonDreams.org:
I think our democracy is
going to be tested to the breaking point by some very dark
days ahead and before long. I do expect there to be another
major terrorist event. Ports, the nuclear power plants and
the chemical factories are extremely vulnerable to an attack.
To a considerable event, the war against terrorism has been
a hoax because the president has not only spent so much money
on the war in Iraq, but because the war in Iraq virtually
subverts the war on terror. You cannot reduce the appeal and
the strength of Al Qaeda while we occupy Iraq. You can only
strengthen it, and strengthening it is what we've been doing
steadily for the last couple of years. This is the worst public
policy decision making, most antidemocratic and most inclined
to be authoritarian, I would say, since the Nixon administration,
but Nixon was confronting a Democratic House and Senate and
a relatively liberal population in media 40 years ago. John
Mitchell and John Connolly and Nixon himself had quite authoritarian
instincts, but they weren't allowed to act on them, and to
the extent that they did act on them -- it brought them down.
Virtually all the things
Nixon did against me that were illegal to keep me from exposing
his secret policy are now legal under the Patriot Act. Going
into my doctor's office to get information to blackmail me
with, wiretaps without warrants, overhearing me--all legal
now. The CIA supplied the burglars in my doctor's office with
disguises and with cameras and they did a psychological profile
on me. That was illegal then, legal now.
I would have said that one
thing that Nixon did against me was not yet legal and that
was to bring a squad of a dozen Cuban-American assets of the
CIA up from Miami to beat me up or kill me on May 3rd, 1973
on the steps of the Capitol. Right now there's at least one
Special Forces team under control of the White House operating
in this country to take 'extra legal actions'. Now, that sounds
to me like a White House-controlled death squad. And that
is what the White House sent against me. It's not clear whether
the intention was to kill me then, the words were to 'incapacitate
Daniel Ellsberg totally'. When I asked their prosecutor, 'does
that mean to kill me?'. He said, 'The words were 'to incapacitate
you totally.' But he said, 'You have to understand these guys
that were CIA assets never use the words 'kill'.'
I think that's the kind
of thing we do have in our future, especially when there's
another terrorist attack. In that case, I think we'll see
enacted very quickly a new Patriot Act, which I'm sure has
already been drafted which will make the first Patriot Act
look like the Bill of Rights, and the Bill of Rights will
be a historical memory.
It is not terrorism that motivates
George, or patriotism, or even profiteering. It is fear, pure
and simple: Fear of the truth, fear of the world, fear of
any data that collides with his faith-based bubble-encapsuled
worldview, and fear most of all of the people he would represent.
You can discover what your
enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten
you. Now we know, and the knowledge is deeply and profoundly
disturbing.
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