DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Well, this is disturbing.

When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones,” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event. (Source: How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech)

Why is it disturbing, other than the loathsome same-old-same-oldness of it all?

1. This has been going on for at least six months, yet this is the first I’ve heard of it. I read Google’s news page and the SF Chronicle daily. I skim the NYTimes and LA Times frequently. I’m not uninformed. And yet a story as ugly as this has escaped my attention. Is the media complicit with its own manipulation? I guess the media isn’t as liberal as conservatives claim.
2. I find the Bush administration’s sarcastic use of the term “free speech zone” despicable. Bush’s supporters are allowed to line the roadways, but dissenters are evacuated to a cage a half-mile away, far from the view of TV cameras. How is that “free speech?”

   The precedent of naming something for what it is not is an old Bush (or, really, Orwell) trick; it worked well with Bush’s “Clean Air” act. For my part, I’m not fooled… just disgusted.

3. What Bush is doing is probably unconstitutional. Imagine that, a US President ordering regular and frequent violations of the 1st Amendment. Then again, I shouldn’t assume Bush is aware of any of this. This is more likely the work of the puppet masters.

The obvious solution is to stealth-protest: show up at Bush’s next rally with pro-GOP signage, but then after the Secret Service has sanitized the crowd of dissenters, strip away the “more blood for oil” text (or whatever such a feel-good Bush rally sign would display — really, I can’t imagine) to reveal something more honest and heartfelt like “I’m about to be arrested for exercising my 1st Amendment right to assemble peaceably!”