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May
8, 2003
Julie
Hilden
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Mickey
Z.
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Mark
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Evil is as Evil Does
David Lindorff
The Coming Senior Revolution
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Tripp
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May
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May
10, 2003
Dividing America
Mr. Bush Comes
to Santa Clara
by KHALED EL-BIZRI
Mr. Bush's character and personality still elude
definition. It may be the Florida flap that touched on American
sensibilities and put him beyond curiosity. It may be the shock
of 9/11, or the long wait for tangible results in his war against
terror; say, catching up with the latter day Moriarty, or discovering
the location of the underground evil empire from confessions
of the thousands of Muslims rumored to be in jail, or ferreting
the mastermind of the Taliban from among the hundreds of the
unnoticeable and silent foreign prisoners languishing in Guantanamo
sun braised blocks.
It may be waiting for the news that the
illusive link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qa'ida is now really
in hand, or the discovery of those weapons of mass destruction--the
principal if not the sole reason for the devastating war. Someone
inevitably retorts: "Or, were they?" and much of the
disinterest begin to turn into distrust, and a natural consequent
dislike.
Californians, and Northern Californians
in particular, have crossed that distrust line, as a public meeting
at the Unitarian Universalist Church in quiet Palo Alto showed.
The speaker, a journalist on a major San Francisco Bay newspaper
reveled in loud laughter and feverish subsequent applause when
he reminded his packed audience of their inner feelings. But
he told them to nurture their pains, egg their determination
to continue the masochist game of uncovering problems they perceive,
and pondering hopelessly at the inevitable disastrous consequences.
They appear lonely and leaderless even in their uniting fears.
Mr. Bush, they were told, flushed with events in Iraq, is touring
their heartland. But it was not a victory tour, as newspapers
insisted. It was a fund-raising effort for his 2004 reelection
bid.
At 8:00 am people, singly and in groups
began to converge on a car park in the sleepy town of Santa Clara.
Silicon valley is basically a sprawl. It stretches from San Mateo
in the North to San Jose, the self-acclaimed capital of the valley,
in the South straddling both sides of an ancient route, El Camino
Real. Santa Clara is the county seat of the southernmost county.
It is a tidy industrial town typical of the Valley's: opulent
engineering and commercial buildings on one side, incredibly
beautiful and chic homes in one green corner, and in a remote
other, less beautiful, and at times down right derelict dwellings,
for the 'less fortunate,' mostly Latino immigrants, without whom
much of Silicon Valley would be just that!
Almost everyone arriving at the car park
had a banner, or was presented with one from volunteers who made
some probably the night before, but some were being made there
and then too. A banner could be a placard held across one's chest,
and waved up high at moments of excitement, or stuck at the end
of a stick, which required piercing the sky a few times when
similar moments of excitement take hold. Most of the banners
were home made, although familiar organization-issue banners
were present as well but not in the quantities one saw in other
demonstrations.
The handmade banners betrayed a strong
desire to be original--and one is in Silicon Valley. A
man in his late fifties wearing a Downer hat and hanging by his
wife's arm smiled gently to a photographer as his wife displayed
her hand-written banner that said: "My Husband, a Computer
Scientist has been out of Work for 16 Months, Mr. Bush."
But the feeling amongst the marchers was that Mr. Bush doesn't
even care!
Caring or not, the board the woman carried
was the kind of white boards that dazzles one's eyes into sleep
at meetings. This woman invented a multi-use banner with an eraser
and a stock of erasable ink pens bulging out from her pocket,
to boot.
Other banners weren't so polite. Younger
participants used the occasion to establish their right to adulthood
by using words not usually reserved to greet anybody, let alone
a President. Judging by letters to the editors of newspapers
in the area, the use of such a language evokes amongst supporters
of officialdom a pre-Vietnam sense of self-righteousness, and
a biblical subservience to authority. "The President represents
his office and not his person," said one letter writer.
"Sorry," one could imagine a reply, "I meant to
insult the person."
Asking Mr. Bush to take his troops out
of Iraq seemed to be a recurrent theme of the banner writers.
It was a colorful scene. Some were thoughtful and others laughing.
Some had a grim look of determination. Others had a defeated
look of an underdog--but none were hesitant or unsure, and all
marched under the banners and to the welcome rhythmic beat of
a jazz band that appeared from nowhere amongst the crowd and
colored the morning.
One thousand protesters marched to the
industrial part of Santa Clara. The target was a United Defense
Corporation factory where a troop carrier, the Bradley, is made.
These carriers did not brake down as often and as frequently
as other land and air transports such as the Abraham tank and
the Apache helicopters in Iraq. Russian intercepts during the
war spoke of round the clock maintenance activities and disablement
of hundreds of tanks and helicopters due to the (patriotic?)
sandstorms in Iraq.
Mr. Bush was to make his a staged and
choreographed appearance in the factory, before one such a troop
carrier. He was to deliver a speech before the workers who are
under the strong impression that they will get a share of the
$4 billion paid so far to their employer.
"Not so fast." the demonstrator's
frontline was told. At least half a mile from the dreaded weapons
factory a line of black-clad policemen stopped the demonstrators.
Horses, mostly good tempered were mounted by very menacing looking
characters, wearing peculiar sunglasses and helmets seen so often
in the bravado shots of US troops attacking Iraqi cities and
civilians. These were, however, black helmets. For some reason,
one of the policemen covered it with a camouflage cloth that
can only be a reflection of this person's desire to treat the
demonstrators as combatants who are likely to drag him into a
battle between the bushes, where his camouflage will presumably
save his life!
The horses, obediently--though not exactly
happily - danced under the hesitant rider's confused instructions
on the tip of their hooves the ballet only horses can perform
so majestically. One remembered the Arab princes and their flowing
robes fluttering in a rushing wind to charm one's sense of rhythm
to exaltation--as decaying Hollywood movies pictured Arabs, Iraqis
included, in the long gone past when Rudolf Valentino sought
to improve his image by pretending he is an Arab! The scene has
changed The elegant Rudolf is replaced by an impossibly fat policeman,
wearing a frighteningly black evil-looking raincoat that covers
his struggling belly, who can perform such dances--thanks to
a clever, nimble and dutiful and noble animal, who had the misfortune
of having to give a ride to a beast.
There are a lot of immigrant policemen amongst the predominantly
white collection. They look even fiercer than their white colleagues.
While all maintain an aggressive, ready-to-jump-on-you look,
we have long uncovered this white man's trick and found out that
no damage they can cause cannot be repaired by a hospital or
an undertaker--but those brown faced Asian policemen are a threatening
mystery that goes beyond injury and death. They wear glasses
that cover their entire eye-sockets, lending them an extra terrestrial
look and their clear anger a serious moment of crisis--since
one has not committed, to one's perception, any wrong--or has
one? The aggrieved look, the yard-long baton, the big boot dangling
from expensive Spanish-style stirrups, the continuous charge
at the crowds sideways with the horse. All convinced one that
the right to demonstrate is not a right. It is done at the sufferance
of these police persons, and that incredible apparatus behind
them called the state--who supplied them with such fancy leather
goods and armor as well as the batons, and all those gadgets
underneath the voluminous coat, flowing leisurely on the back
of the horse.
Well, one of those aggrieved policemen
was aggrieved. And he decided to use his baton to push the crowd
off to the side pavement. He did not speak. He just kept pushing
his horse sideways--and the horse moving obediently, but so gently
against the crowds. When the horse would simply not go further
out of concern for the people in its way, well the policeman
lent a hand, and jabbed one old woman spectator in the face.
She screamed and moved back--and the horse was made to take her
place and the place of her companions rushing to help her. The
policeman murmured angrily--probably upset that the horse couldn't
do the jabbing without bothering the rider!
From afar, a couple of golden-striped
policemen appeared. The stripes run down the side of their dark
blue trousers. Their police shields, the metallic star policemen
carry, are golden. Their demeanor is that of superior officers--may
be even lieutenants. They were directing the operations from
a distance. Soon, they waved to some two hundred policemen standing
near them, and the latter proceeded with great haste towards
the demonstrators. One thought for a minute that a charge is
afoot. No. It was just another demonstration of numbers. The
horses, which cleared the street and pushed the demonstrators
to the side pavement, were withdrawn to the back of lines of
policemen carrying yard-long batons, stood between them and the
demonstrators. They did not have the menacing look of the horse
riders although they had appeared to enjoy performing their duty
standing to attention, and holding the batons across heir chests
with both hands. Soon, one of the golden-striped policemen appeared
and gave instruction to a police sergeant. The latter gave instructions
to a lesser policeman, who came over and moved the entire line
two steps to the right. This was not good enough to the second
striped policeman, who, through the usual, though different channels,
moved the entire line one step to the left. Well, this time the
initiative was in the hands of the lower echelons. A sergeant
orders the line to move back two steps to the right. That last
move must have brought some satisfaction since no further changes
in the readiness of the forces against the demonstrators seemed
necessary--or that the matter was being discussed by higher-level
police captains?
A counter demonstration soon appeared
on the opposite side pavement. Some fifteen persons scattered
across a hundred yards carrying American flags--the sign of the
war supporters. This is unfortunate but seems almost a part of
the American traditions. Some carry the flag and others evidently
prefer to burn it. A wise man once told me that when fairness
and justice prevails, the reverse would happen. I wondered.
But the counter-demonstrators had to
stand next to a splinter group from the main body of the protesters,
who were already there. The situation became confusing. A banner
urging "Hail to the Thief," rather than to the 'Chief,'
was raised next to one asserting 'Bush--the Right Man in the
Right Place' failing, however, to specify: doing what?
Then, right in front of the protesters
there appears a man pushing a peculiar pram with three very young
children in it. The other hand carried a fluttering flag as he
paraded hurriedly up and down. The police asked him remarkably
gently to refrain from doing so. He obliged good-naturedly and
went off with his infant cargo that was meant to solicit police
protection while he intimidated the demonstrators.
But not for long. Undeterred he crossed
over to the demonstrators' side and began placing his big flag
in front of their banners. A very childish (right of speech?)
contest ensued. The flag would cover a banner and get entangled
with it. The banner holders would untangle it and move it forward.
The flag would then cover it again, and so on. The police watched
and paid no attention. He obviously has the right to 'say' what
he wanted, and it did seem that his right superceded that of
his opposition. Soon, other invaders showed up. More flags migrated
from the other side of the street to take its place amongst the
demonstrators. They were too few to make a difference, especially
when a surprise object made its appearance.
A giant rocket-shaped blimp made of rubber
and filled with a light gas appeared. Demonstrators held it down
while its position amongst the demonstrators was being secured.
As it lifted above the heads of the demonstrators carrying a
huge anti-Bush slogan that could hardly be covered by flags,
or the amassed police.
It was not long before sudden movements
amongst the police signaled the end of the 'state of emergency.'
The President must have moved on. The policemen began to withdraw,
looking rather unhappy. Was it the cowardly demonstrators who
failed to do battle? The horses evidently relieved and provided
evidence to that effect, some of which made some demonstrators
distinctly unwell and prompted some theorizations about Police
plots. But both, the horses and the demonstrators must have felt
good.
Did Mr. Bush take notice? If he did,
he probably brushed the whole thing off the way he reacted when
millions took to the street against the war with Iraq. He said
then that he does not run the country by 'focus groups.' Those
who understand what focus groups do failed to understand the
analogy. But his was a muted anger compared to that seething
wrath emanating from the eyes of his National Security Assistant
like a pair of devastating laser beams shooting out their green
rays in parallel every time she shook her head. She demanded
that the demonstrators "go, and demonstrate in Baghdad"
rather than in their own country against policies of their own
Government. This was somewhat expected. The only strange thing
about it was that it was too early to declare America divided
into 'you' and 'us.' The return of this division is frightening.
It certainly characterizes the people surrounding the President,
but he, the President, still defies characterization.
Khaled El-Birzi lives
in Palo Alto and can be reached at: elbizri@pacbell.net
Yesterday's
Features
Julie
Hilden
When It's a Crime to Visit Your Son
Mickey
Z.
Partisan Protests?
Mark
Zepezauer
Evil is as Evil Does
David Lindorff
The Coming Senior Revolution
Abu
Spinoza
The Detention of Dr. Huda Ammash
Ben
Tripp
The Other "F" Word
Norman
Madarasz
God in the Service of the Security
State: a Dispatch from Brazil
Stew Albert
Pushovers
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/08
Website
of the Day
Department of Sexual Security
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