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Taking the First Amendment out for a Spin
Jan. 19th, 2005 02:22 amLook for me in your Inauguration Day media coverage. I'll be one of the disgruntled citizens turning their backs on the presidential motorcade. The short brunette in the olive green coat--that's me.
My mother called me today to see if I still really meant it about coming down. "I've been watching the local weather report," she said. "It'll be 5 degrees, with the wind chill."
But it wasn't much warmer than that in NYC during the march against the war, and I have no regrets about fighting hypothermia behind the wind-blocking bulk of my "Army Brat Against Unilateralism" sign.
A sign would be awfully handy, if only for insulation, but I'm keeping up with the injunctions about what not to bring, the sensible advice about what to carry (disposable camera, water, nonviolent protest manuals to read on the Metro).
The simple, subtle plan can be found at www.turnyourbackonbush.org. It's not too late to go to DC. You know you want to.
The novel in my brain is awfully curious about how all this will play out. One of the things I love about the Backers' plan is that it's just the sort of thing the Westmarket riot crew would come up with. Only in my novel, the plan would go horribly awry. In the aftermath, crucial beloved characters would be imprisoned, banished, forced to flee for their lives, fined at the very least. And if you write a riot in a neighborhood full of embassies, it's absolutely necessary for at least one of them to burn down--you know what Chekhov says about the pistol on the mantelpiece. Damn, I wish I hadn't had to cut the first volume in half.
The news reports of draconian security measures do worry me a little, but I suspect I will fare better than my characters do. When I was a kid growing up in DC's suburbs, I went to the South African embassy with a group from church to protest apartheid. We had our permit to protest, and at the time appointed for our arrival, the police came to remind us that we could not get arrested. We had not made an appointment to get arrested. They were very sorry, and understood that we might be disappointed, but if we wanted to be jailed in opposition to apartheid, we'd just have to plan ahead. I love DC. I will love DC no matter what happens on Thursday.
The 20th falls on a Thursday this year, and it'll be cold. So what? I've seen the war wounded with my own eyes. When my mother was recuperating at Bethesda Naval Hospital, her ward was full of injured Marines. Every time I came in, everywhere I looked, there were 18-year-olds with missing limbs. When I see kids that age, I'm accustomed to assigning them homework. Well, maybe those particular kids will be free to make use of their military college money now, but they still deserved better from us. Their colleagues who are still there, and the kids who haven't even been recruited yet--they deserve better from us, too. And the Iraqis. Who can count the ways we've failed the people of Iraq? When I turn my back on Bush, it'll be to look squarely at that.
My mother called me today to see if I still really meant it about coming down. "I've been watching the local weather report," she said. "It'll be 5 degrees, with the wind chill."
But it wasn't much warmer than that in NYC during the march against the war, and I have no regrets about fighting hypothermia behind the wind-blocking bulk of my "Army Brat Against Unilateralism" sign.
A sign would be awfully handy, if only for insulation, but I'm keeping up with the injunctions about what not to bring, the sensible advice about what to carry (disposable camera, water, nonviolent protest manuals to read on the Metro).
The simple, subtle plan can be found at www.turnyourbackonbush.org. It's not too late to go to DC. You know you want to.
The novel in my brain is awfully curious about how all this will play out. One of the things I love about the Backers' plan is that it's just the sort of thing the Westmarket riot crew would come up with. Only in my novel, the plan would go horribly awry. In the aftermath, crucial beloved characters would be imprisoned, banished, forced to flee for their lives, fined at the very least. And if you write a riot in a neighborhood full of embassies, it's absolutely necessary for at least one of them to burn down--you know what Chekhov says about the pistol on the mantelpiece. Damn, I wish I hadn't had to cut the first volume in half.
The news reports of draconian security measures do worry me a little, but I suspect I will fare better than my characters do. When I was a kid growing up in DC's suburbs, I went to the South African embassy with a group from church to protest apartheid. We had our permit to protest, and at the time appointed for our arrival, the police came to remind us that we could not get arrested. We had not made an appointment to get arrested. They were very sorry, and understood that we might be disappointed, but if we wanted to be jailed in opposition to apartheid, we'd just have to plan ahead. I love DC. I will love DC no matter what happens on Thursday.
The 20th falls on a Thursday this year, and it'll be cold. So what? I've seen the war wounded with my own eyes. When my mother was recuperating at Bethesda Naval Hospital, her ward was full of injured Marines. Every time I came in, everywhere I looked, there were 18-year-olds with missing limbs. When I see kids that age, I'm accustomed to assigning them homework. Well, maybe those particular kids will be free to make use of their military college money now, but they still deserved better from us. Their colleagues who are still there, and the kids who haven't even been recruited yet--they deserve better from us, too. And the Iraqis. Who can count the ways we've failed the people of Iraq? When I turn my back on Bush, it'll be to look squarely at that.
