My 23 year old daughter just returned from Bush's Inauguration in Washington. This trip was the first one she had taken without any parents in tow, and she learned a whole lot more about this country from that one trip than all the educational vacations I had planned for her in the past.
She traveled with six other students from St. Augustine, Florida to the nation's capital to protest their dismay over another four years of Bush as president.
"I told myself, 'if he becomes president again, I'm going to be up there screaming with my fists in the air,'" she told me the week after her return. "There's a war going on in this country against personal freedoms and rights as citizens. It's a war on rights as human beings."
And so she went despite the ice and snow, and she came home even more motivated to continue her protests. But she also came home to questions. Many asked her what she thought she proved by going.
"It's horrible if these things happen and no one yells," she said. "It's fueled me more to improve the community I live in and to fight against what's happening."
She saw first hand what the police do when confronted with anyone who disagrees with those in power. Mainstream media reports about injured policemen upset her because she saw the protesters being beaten and kicked and sprayed for simply marching in the streets. She marched toward the inauguration route with thousands shouting, "Who's streets? Our streets."
Tomorrow I will share what she saw and heard on January 20, 2005, as King George sat on his throne in front of his paying guests.
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3 comments:
I received this email from a friend today after reading my blog on the Inauguaration protest. "I wanted to tell you how much this political situation begins to have similarities with those I remember so well from Argentina Uruguay and Chile. I do not know if you were able to read my short story. That one is a reflection of what happened there then. I was with my son in that specific demonstration, when that violent act of aggression from the police happened.
Good for your daughter and her ideas and shame for the people that had to ask the why."
love
Chiche
Here's another comment:
"Pat...
This is very sad. I just wanted you to know someone is reading.
Penny"
My friend Penny just returned from a trip to Panama and has decided to move there she is so upset about the election. Here's an email I received from her:
"Pat….
As I told you, the people I spoke to in Panama said “Don’t you know that what Bush is doing is exactly what a dictator does before exercising his dictatorship? We’ve lived it….but it seems Americans are blind to what is happening to them”.
Penny"
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