Are we being lied to, AGAIN?

On January 20, 2005 the world's single largest threat to freedom, democracy, and human rights, most ironically, gave a speech about the need to spread freedom, democracy, and human rights. While his motorcade drove the streets towards the publicly culminating moment of his day, Bush supporters cheered and protesters were nearly silenced. Behind barricades and near the parade path, citizens were kept out. So the truth in the question may not be, "Was the speech ironic?" Instead, the truth in question may be, "Are we being lied to again?"

While many of us thought of our answers watching TV or not paying any attention to the record-breakingly, cost-inefficient and self-gratifying Presidential Inauguration, many men and women spoke loudly with bodily presence. Still, far too many remained silent at home, at work, or in class. Conventional wisdom and sound logic said to continue the normal course of one's day. Protesting inaugurations never changes them. Conventional wisdom and sound logic, however, are wrong. That is why Mr. Bush made the city of DC pay 17 million dollars for security.

Security implies danger, danger implies malcontent, malcontent implies dis-illusionment ... division instead of unity. What caused the lack of safety: the protesters or the policies that create the ethical necessity for physically present opposition? Not all protesters agree with each other's beliefs or methods, but all were treated the same: inhumanely. It is not new for this government to treat humans inhumanely; there are still prisoners uncharged being held years later at Guantanamo Bay. If you do not believe that people were treated inhumanely in those prisons, or if you believe they deserved it, ask yourself if a man bowing to pray deserves to be abused?

Pictures on news sites as varied as The New York Times and PBS showed protesters, violent and peaceful, quiet and loud, legal and illegal, marching to show their malcontent. Pictures of police in riot gear showed the pepper-spraying of American citizens performing not simply their first-amendment-protected rights, but citizens performing the demands of conscience and civic responsibility. Bush-ordered security guards tyrannically sprayed both violent anarchists and peaceful Christians whose only crime was exercising First Amendment rights.

EMU's own Justin Shenk began a protest within the protests. Sandwiched between violence on both sides Justin without premeditation, went down on his knee and began praying. Others followed, all with their own reasons, some violent and some peaceful. The police began spraying pepper spray on them. Justin said that his pastor recently gave a sermon titled "I am Somebody" which was in his mind as he thought to himself "somebody should do something."

It is true that we are all somebody. When we pray alone against a group and their policies at an inauguration or we stand with the crowd cheering such as Hitler supporters did at the Nuremberg rallies, we can change the course of the world for both good and bad. Perhaps what we stand for will be forgotten because we prayed alone. Perhaps it will be remembered in pictures like the burning monk or the lone student standing against the tank in Tiananmen Square or Justin in the front of a group praying. What the Lord does with us in terms of history is not our concern. We are somebody but we are only somebody. Those who stand at podiums and speak often miss the point.

Justin knew his protesting would not change whether Bush would have a second term or not. That was not the point. When I asked him why he protested knowing the outcome, he said humbly, "When you have an understanding/perspective of the US from an 'outsider' perspective as well as an 'insider'...I feel compelled to give a message to those outside the US that not all Americans agree with US foreign policy."