.
I was somewhat surprised on a recent trip to Washington, DC. When I was there in May 2000, I counted five anti-Clinton demonstrators along with more than 30 burnt-out hippies commemorating a battle of the Vietnam War with all the familiar slogans and chants of their era. Two years later, Lisa and I witnessed more than two dozen anti-Bush demonstrators picketing along Pennsylvania Avenue, protesting the No Child Left Behind Act, among other things.
For last week’s trip, I held the notion that the number of protestors would have grown in proportion to the vitriol against the current administration. After all, Bush-hating has turned into a national pastime. However, last week I didn’t see anyone sit, stand or shout in protest against the president or any other federal agency.
Oh sure, there were two young ladies standing at the foot of the steps to the Supreme Court praying to end abortion. The “peace lady,” Concepcion Picciotto, was in her usual spot on the sidewalk across from the White House along with an elderly African-American gentleman preaching apocalyptic doom when Jesus comes again to judge the world.
Have Americans lost their passion to exercise their 1st Amendment rights? It was puzzling to see who or what was absent from the sidewalk outside of the Department of Energy. With oil and gas prices spiraling out of control, why wasn’t there at least one person staging a peaceful demonstration? It would have been an opportunity for Americans on both ends of the political spectrum to coalesce into one united voice to raise concern over gas prices. Alas, I found not a single soul begging for a reprieve.
Where were the conservatives sitting outside of the Environmental Protection Agency protesting the department’s vise-grip of power over drilling in domestic oil and natural gas finds? Probably at work trying to make enough money to fill their tanks with gasoline made from Venezuelan oil.
Where were the conservatives outraged by the Supreme Court’s Boumediene v. Bush ruling to allow enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detentions?
Where were the people upset by higher inflation and our weakening currency? They weren’t outside of the Department of Treasury or the Federal Reserve. Surely there could have been at least one person whose spirits weren’t deflated enough to rise up against the ever-inflating dollar.
My guess is that it cost too much for posterboard, markers and transportation to express one’s disdain for high gas prices and other perceived travesties in society. Perhaps conspiracy theorists have a point. Perhaps the government is secretly raising the price of gas, the cost of manufacturing posterboard and markers to silence protestors. Then again, maybe more people are finally learning three key words to life — “deal with it.”
That’s what I plan to do.
Columnist Tim Gray, a West Salem resident, can be reached at tim.gray.matter@gmail.com.
.
Advertisement 
Advertisement 
