Dispatch from Ground Zero (4th in a series)

I thought that I’d have some sort of emotional feeling at "ground zero", but I really didn’t. There wasn’t a feeling in the air that was recognizable at all, to me. We didn’t know what was going to happen on the 10th – the day Bush was meant to lay a wreath (conjuring up Reagan at Bitburg to some of us).

We got to Ground Zero maybe 3 or 4 hours before Bush was supposed to be there. We expected a madhouse, but it was relatively empty. There were a lot of “us” there, and some other anti-war protesters, a few tourists, and that’s it.

It started to get more crowded but there were few police, and they were across the street. I thought maybe I’d feel like I have in the past at the AIDS Memorial Quilt or at Arlington when I was little: reverential, quiet… something. But the pervading feeling at Ground Zero was aggression and volatility. It felt overwhelmingly dangerous – which I usually don’t feel at demonstrations. The people who were milling around seemed like they’d just shot up a bunch of testosterone and were looking for a fight. That’s what the atmosphere felt like. Every so often a screaming match would break out – once there was almost a physical fight. People didn’t seem to feel like this was the “hallowed ground” that we keep getting told it is. It was frightening. We left after a couple of hours, and shortly after we left, one of our friends got arrested. She was wearing a t-shirt which read “we will not be silent” and was holding one sign which read “arrest bush” and another which read “waiting for peace”. She was told to leave by a cop when they started to clear the area, and she refused. They asked he what right she had to stay there and she pulled a copy of the constitution out of her pocket and said that this is her right, and they arrested her.

She had been there since sunrise holding her signs silently. Her point was simply that Bush keeps talking about making the world “safe for freedom and democracy”, yet the simple (constitutionally guaranteed) act of standing in silent protest is prohibited.

I have posted pictures and short video from all of the events we attended.