9/11/2005 03:47:00 PM|||kim|||

We've been following the "Freedom Walk", the "Truth Tour", and other movements of pro-war propaganda over at dcdl. Ordinarily, I'd blog this there as well, but I don't have my login info with me.

At any rate, I wanted to make a few quick notes about what I saw of the Clint Black portion of today's "September 11 Show":

• Security was indeed tight. The entire area between the Lincoln memorial and the edge of the reflecting pool was fenced off. Guards were at every point of entry, some with high-power rifles. Since I hadn't registered, there was just one point of entry by which I could see the Show. Remember that all the logistics, like how the public could get in, went unpublished, since the Pentagon had wanted to keep the parade route a secret.
• Juding by those who registered (they had wrist bands and "Freedom Walk" t-shirts, so you could tell) there must have been something on the form about being Caucasian, preferrably of the lilly white variety.
• By contrast, the other half of the Mall hosted Black Family Reunion Day. This was not intended to be September 11 related, per se, but from what I gathered, this has been an annual event for about 20 years. This was relatively unguarded (there was one police car by the American History Museum), and no registration was required.
• Clint Black has a very pleasant voice, and his version of Eric Idle's "The Meaning of Life" would have made the author proud. That said, the choice of Mr. Black by the Pentagon's Office of Media Outrage, I mean Outreach, seemed to reflect Bush's base more than the musical taste's of the military, much less the citizens of the District, or most importantly, me.

I went into this event with the impression that the Pentagon was once again trying to associate the Iraq War with September 11. I have a different impression now. The purpose was more to get people to feel good about the Iraq War. Or, to put it in the perspective of a George Lakoff, it's about family. The kind of family where a man is in charge. And that man is George Bush, War President.

It's not clear who decided to fence off the very section of the Mall where Martin Luther King spoke to the March on Washington. The effect was to give one of the most sacred public grounds the feel of a military base. If that's what "everything changed after September 11" means, I say we change it right back.

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