I love our country alive, celebrating its contradictions, like it did at the 55th Inauguration of the President of the United States, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005.

That the thousands of people who reject George W. Bush as president didn't take to machine guns, that all the police presence in Washington, D.C. proved unnecessary, should be cause enough to rejoice in the health of our country.

Being in D.C. for the centuries-old swearing-in ritual gave me confidence in the strength of our democratic institutions. I know that sounds odd considering that I advocate the impeachment of George W. Bush for crimes against humanity. I am certain that if our Constitution fails to outlast George W. Bush, that when history's pendulum swings back to liberalism, that which supercedes Bush's reign of terror will improve upon the Age of Reason's enumeration of human liberties.

The crowds witnessing the peaceful transfer of power represented a cross-section of America. High school students and their teachers studied civics up close. Parents and children watched the spectacle. I saw in the youth the future of our planet.

Texan men sported cowboy hats and their women wore too much makeup. I fantasized that their smug, victorious smiles masked a hubris that will lead to Bush's fall.

Reporters strutted down streets, some dressed in fur finery, other hid behind cameras, capturing it all to interpret it for a hungry, complacent television audience.

Mothers like Sue Niederer who lost a son in Iraq told crowds about the horror that awaits us all if we don't act soon. Veterans like Aidan Delgado explained how he watched his commanding officers whip Iraqi children with car antennas for fun. I wished that the audience's tears baptized a new optimism and resolve to realize peace, be it 10 or 40 years from now.

Some in the ubiquitous law enforcement contingent recoiled at the thought of being photographed by me. Cops complained, U.S. Marshals rolled up their car windows, and Secret Service agents turned their backs. Were they following orders? Protecting themselves from the threat of my film? I wondered if they were ashamed of the police state they helped create.

Like me, they saw that the social contract of our democracy survives. The side that lost showed wisdom in defeat, offering olive branches of non-violent dissent. The side that claimed the most votes employed the threat of violence, its agents gripping guns.

Police didn't need the roadblocks of buses about 16 blocks north of the capital. Nor did police need the heavily armed patrols and miles and layers of fences ringing the parade route. Nor did police need to dress undercover officers as protestors. Authorities reported only 14 arrests among the more than 100,000 Inaugural revelers.

About 15,000 of those revelers were pall bearers of the left, marching down 16th Street, carrying signs, hollering about this president's illegal war. These same protestors marched down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue February 15, 2003 to decry the imminent invasion of Iraq. It invokes Joseph Heller's Catch-22 truism: doing the same thing over and over with the same results is insanity.

"Let them protest all they want, as long as they pay their taxes," said Al Haig, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State.

Wandering our nation, I meet people who agree that what we seek doesn't yet exist. Therefore, we must listen to each other as we articulate our ideas, find common ground and build towards shared visions.

1/26/05

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"Let them protest all they want, as long as they pay their taxes,"

-- Al Haig, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State

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"Let them protest all they want, as long as they pay their taxes,"