By Beauty Damned

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HIGH LEVEL OF ALERT FOR THE INAUGURATION
By David Johnston and Michael Janofsky
The New York Times
January 12, 2005

WASHINGTON - Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, said Tuesday that even in the absence of any specific security threat to next week's presidential inauguration, civilian and military forces had been ordered to an extraordinarily high state of alert.

"You can well imagine that the security for this occasion will be unprecedented," Mr. Ridge said at a news conference. "Protective measures will be seen. There will be quite a few that are not seen. Our goal is that any attempt on the part of anyone or any group to disrupt the inaugural will be repelled by multiple layers of security."

In his first detailed outline of inauguration security planning, Mr. Ridge said that more than 6,000 civilian and military personnel trained in crisis response, crowd control and dignitary security would be in place, with thousands more available to respond if necessary.

At the heart of the plan are tightly controlled security zones that will restrict pedestrian and vehicle access to the streets around the Capitol, where Mr. Bush will be sworn in, and over the route of the traditional parade along Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

Before the inauguration events, security teams will sweep through hotels and office buildings along the parade route, in some cases barring office workers from sitting near windows overlooking the procession.

Even now, security teams are working to ensure the safety of food that will be served to President Bush and other guests at inaugural events. Caterers are being instructed to arrive for work at 7 p.m. the night before the inauguration.

For next Thursday's swearing-in ceremonies, sniper teams will be in position on rooftops. Specialists in chemical, biological and radiological terrorism will mingle with the crowds, carrying hand-held detection devices designed to pick up any sign of unconventional weapons. Squads of plainclothes agents, with federal prosecutors among them, will move along the parade route scouting for potential problems. Armed Coast Guard boats will patrol the Potomac River.

Security will be tighter than at recent high-profile events like last year's political conventions.

"Our system of government is rooted in the sovereign principle of democratic authority bestowed by the people," Mr. Ridge said. "And the people, both the inauguration participants and city residents, are resolved to go forward with an event that so deeply reflects that ideal."

Mr. Ridge said that the security for the inauguration would cost millions of dollars but that he did not know the total amount

Costs have created at least one conflict between the federal government and the District of Columbia. The city is underwriting about $17.3 million of the cost, and Washington officials are not happy about it.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams has asked Mr. Ridge and Joshua B. Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, why the city should cover security costs out of federal grants that are otherwise used for everyday needs, like protecting buildings, bridges, subways and waterways, as well as for emergencies and events like the funeral of President Ronald Reagan last year.

City officials say this is the first time that the federal government has not promised to cover all of the district's inauguration expenses, leaving open the possibility that district taxpayers might have to pay.

"We're delighted to be part of this; it's a great honor," said Gregory McCarthy, Mr. Williams's deputy chief of staff. "But we shouldn't be raided for something as predictable as this."

Asked about the issue, Mr. Ridge said that city governments of Boston and New York had agreed to spend federal security money to cover costs associated with protecting last year's political conventions in their cities.

Even as Mr. Ridge emphasized the urgency of preventive steps, several senior security officials said in private that planning for security at inaugurations seemed to be growing beyond the precautions that could be justified based on the threat level.

They also said that security planning for the inauguration was a well-rehearsed responsibility involving agencies whose roles were well known from past inaugurations.

"There's not much about this that we haven't done before," a senior law enforcement official said.

In part, the officials said, the extraordinary security arrangements at this year's swearing-in, parade and related events represented a chance for the nearly 50 federal agencies involved to show newly bought exotic equipment, specially trained antiterror units and communications networks put into place after the September 2001 attacks.

The military will play a more visible role in this inauguration, with 2,500 troops involved in security, said Maj. Gen. Galen B. Jackman, commander of the Joint Task Force-Armed Forces Inaugural Committee, which coordinates military operations for the inauguration.

"We believe we are ready to deter any type of attack," General Jackman said before Mr. Ridge's news conference.

The general wore camouflage gear as he spoke with reporters in front a group of battle-dressed soldiers who carried automatic weapons.

The security plan for the inauguration is based on a system of overlapping zones. Vehicular traffic will be restricted from an outer zone about six blocks from inauguration sites. Pedestrians will be screened at 22 checkpoints set up around an inner zone perimeter about two blocks from event locations. An even more restrictive area in the vicinity of the swearing-in and the parade bleachers will be closed to anyone without a ticket or an invitation.

In a break with past inauguration parades, protest groups are being assigned specific areas for their demonstrations in a way that protest organizers say will enable law enforcement agencies to exert tighter control over them.

Access to the presidential entourage itself will be limited to people who have been subjected to fingerprinting and criminal background checks.

Security is under the control of the Secret Service, which will manage the event from a central command center, known as the Joint Field Office, in a Virginia suburb. A number of federal agencies will open operations centers in a network being coordinated through 13 subcommittees, each with responsibilities ranging from the processing of drunken revelers to a nuclear attack.

Not everything is working smoothly, officials said. At one training exercise this week designed to test the complex communications network that links federal, state and local agencies, personnel were handed a 10-page phone directory of agencies listed only by acronym. The directory was so confusing -- even to emergency workers -- that officials ordered a new phone book with the names of agencies written out in full.

Mr. Ridge said that the nation's color-coded alert level would not be raised for the inauguration. The alert level is at yellow, for a heightened but not imminent threat.

"This is the most visible manifestation of our democracy," Mr. Ridge said, adding, "So there's very little intelligence, but we're as vigilant as ever."

Mr. Ridge has said that several factors may help explain the absence of threats, among them efforts by the United States and its allies to disrupt terrorist networks overseas and initiatives by the government to reduce the nation's vulnerability to attack.

Some intelligence officials have offered other reasons for the fewer reports of threats, including the possibility that planning for an attack might be going on undetected or that extremists might be turning their attention to other objectives like interfering with Iraqi elections scheduled this month.

Posted by: Tara Carreon at January 14, 2005 09:38 PM

This post is by Charles Carreon. I'm posting it on his behalf.

Bush's inauguration is a military display disguised as security, and an affront to ordinary people of extraordinary magnitude. This insult comes complete with sharpshooters patrolling above the crowds, and security squads evicting people from their own homes and offices on the flimsy excuse that they overlook the parade route! My papa liked to read poetry aloud, and often did so on visiting Sundays when he came to see me out at the Catholic military school where I was interned for three years. He particularly liked this poem by Carl Sandburg, and could read it with real style. Please do read it aloud to someone and revel in the feeling it inspires. Just check out these rhymes:

"Two kaisers backed by ten million bayonets
Had their crowns in the gutter, their palaces mobbed,
In fire, chaos, shadow,
In hurricanes beyond foretelling..."

The gusto my father put into reading this poem epitomized the spirit that was in him, of loving people, of wanting them to prosper and do well, and of knowing that they are just not smart enough. I loved the poem with very little depth of understanding of the concepts involved, and with much fascination with the striding rhythm, the shocking images shot in lightning flashes, the rhythm as of many people marching together. This poem is worth reading over and over, so I commend it to you with much love as an antidote to the seasickness that afflicts one when witnessing something as luridly self-indulgent as this horrific inauguration folly. Mark my words -- the end is nigh.

The People Speak
by Carl Sandburg

The people, yes, the people,
Until the people are taken care of one way or another,
Until the people are solved somehow for the day and hour,
Until then one hears " Yes but the people what about the people? "
Sometimes as though the people is a child to be pleased or fed
Or again a hoodlum you have to be tough with
And seldom as though the people is a caldron and a reservoir
Of the human reserves that shape history. . . .

Fire, chaos, shadows,
Events trickling from a thin line of flame
On into cries and combustions never expected.
The people have the element of surprise. . . .

" The czar has eight million men with guns and bayonets
Nothing can happen to the czar.
The czar is the voice of God and shall live forever.
Turn and look at the forest of steel and cannon
Where the czar is guarded by eight million soldiers.
Nothing can happen to the czar."

They said that for years and in the summer of 1914,
As a portent and an assurance they said with owl faces:
" Nothing can happen to the czar,"
Yet the czar and his bodyguard of eight million vanished
And the czar stood in a cellar before a little firing squad
And the command of fire was given
And the czar stepped into regions of mist and ice
The czar traveled into an ethereal uncharted siberia
While two kaisers also vanished from thrones
Ancient and established in blood and iron
Two kaisers backed by ten million bayonets
Had their crowns in a gutter, their palaces mobbed.
In fire, chaos, shadows,
In hurricanes beyond foretelling of probabilities
In the shove and whirl of unforeseen combustions
The people, yes, the people,
Move eternally in the elements of surprise,
Changing from hammer to bayonet and back to hammer,
The hallelujah chorus forever shifting its star soloists.

The people learn, unlearn, learn,
a builder, a wrecker, a builder again,
a juggler of shifting puppets.
In so few eyeblinks
In transition lightning streaks,
the people project midgets into giants,
the people shrink titans into dwarfs

Faiths blow on the winds
and become shibboleths
and deep growths
with men ready to die
for a living word on the tongue,
for a light alive in the bones,
for dreams fluttering in the wrists. ...

Sleep is a suspension midway
and a conundrum of shadows
lost in meadows of the moon.
The people sleep.

Ai! ai! the people sleep.
Yet the sleepers toss in sleep
and an end comes of sleep
and the sleepers wake.
Ai! ai! the sleepers wake! . . .

The storm of propaganda blows always.
In every air of today the germs float and hover.
The people have the say-so.
Let the argument go on.
Let the people listen.

Tomorrow the people say Yes or No by one question:
" What else can be done? "
In the drive of faiths on the wind today the people know:
" We have come this far and we are going farther yet" ...

The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas. ...

The people is a tragic and comic two-face:
hero and hoodlum: phantom and gorilla twist-
ing to moan with a gargoyle mouth: " They
buy me and sell me. ..it's a game. ..
sometime I'll break loose. .,"

Now the steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother the earth over may yet line up with brother:

This old anvil -the people, yes
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can't be bought.
There are women beyond purchase.
The fire born are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise.
You can't hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher .
Who can live without hope?

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for
keeps, the people march:
" Where to? what next?
Where to? what next?"

Posted by: Tara Carreon at January 14, 2005 09:43 PM

That ruling in Georgia...what a relief..I was starting to get worried about my home state.

Posted by: Sandy at January 15, 2005 06:43 AM

That ruling in Georgia...what a relief..I was starting to get worried about my home state. -- Sandy

Yeah, well I doubt it's over yet.

Posted by: Tara Carreon at January 15, 2005 01:54 PM

Maria:

This is a rather facisnating topic to discuss. It is one subject that really makes for a great conversation without fraying the nerves of people and hurting feelings as we see with politics.

I do not think it is so much there is more evil, hate, and nastiness in the world than ever before. I tend to believe that there is a finite but equal amount of good and evil. And it has been such ever since the begining of time.

The difference is, never before in human history have we ever been able to be so close so quickly to every bad thing that happens somewhere. Thje invention of the telegraph and Morse code changed it all. To be able to report back in real time what is happening from one point in the world to another. It has only evolved over the years. With the Net, digital video and photography, satelite tv and phones - we can now be all right smack in the middle of things as they are happening.
It used to be when you wanted to get video news pf events, you would have to go to the theater and watch such events. These events could be weeks old. Then tv came, but broadcasting still wasn't real time.
However, our attnetion span continues to to shorten - a good example of that is to refresh yahoo.com ever half hour or so. The headlines keep changing. There are few things that can really hold our attention for more than a couple of minutes at a time. When I say that, I am referring to the "shock value" of an event. While some more tragic events can make us sit down and think, there are not too many folks who really can continue to be as horrified from an event as when they saw and heard of it for the first time.
Sept. 11th was a prime example of such. I know most of can recall the horror of watching those towers collapse. And to see it again still hits us hard. But, it will never have the same effect on us as it did that first time we saw it.
You may say "that is because we know what us about to happen, its not a surpise." True, but you would be surprised at how little effect the "surprise" factor really plays a part in the equation that "shocks" us.
While the current technology we have can deliver these events to us with more detail, crispness, inforamtion and all in real time, I often wonder if this is not to our detrement. I like the fact that we are more "connected" to the rest of the world. But I fear that we are becoming more "disconnected" from one another. More importantly, more disconnected from our own families.
I did a study on a few families who each have their own computer and I was surprised to see how much time they spend online, isolated from one another, communicating through instant messages. The first result I could come up with was we are losing our ability to function in a live, face to face society. From a family to our own co-workers. I tied these result into the jist of the topic at hand, and realize with that being said, we are losing touch with our own humanity. Wars, disease, death, evil - we see so much of it on a computer or tv screen, but not in real life, the only shock value we get from it is the information of the horror itself. Because we do not expierence it first hand, we can not really know the realities of it. This will be a deterement to us all.

It also explains a great deal why more of us support pointless wars. Because most of us never really experienced it close up. The VietNam war had such detailed coverage, for the first time, a war on tv in real time, seeing dead soldiers on tv, or seeing the astrocities of the war, had enough of an impact to make people stand up and say "this isnt the answer, there has to be another way" thus creating the anti-war movements.
But alas, we have become desensitized through more and more pictures of this, video games in such graphic detail, movies, tv shows, etc. To the point that it doesn't bother us like it should. Unless we see it first hand, I am afraid we will have these "chicken hawks" screeching for more bombs to be dropped.

After all, it isn't them.

On a side note - I had this friend who was a researcher doing studies on genocides. Of course, the holacaust was one of the worst of all time and his indifference to the magnitude of what went on bothered me. Of course, he was a wonderful scientist and his indifference stemmed from his philosophy of "keep emotions out of it, and only study the facts." We talked at great lengths about those facts and I told him he is missing a key point. The human factor. He asked me what he should do to try to tie that element into his studies and I told him to visit the concentration camps. Visit survivors. When he went to Auschwitz, visiting on research, we was allowed to enter one of the few standing structures that was a gas chamber. He stood in there for a long while thinking about the vast amounts of people who died in those chambers. When hee exited, he said he could physically smell the death in the air. A great rush of what really took place at that horrible place came to him and he stood there and wept and sobbed like a child. Not so much for those who died at that site. But for the overwhelming feeling of the reality of all of the things he has studied were merely words in a book, or accounts of events. These words, pictures, even sound and video clips could not capture nor desribe the horrific events. Only standing in a chamber of death or experencing the longer smell of charred bodies could touch a place in ones soul so deep that when they think about it from then on, it takes on a whole new meaning.
I bet if these chicknhawks were to experience the devistations of the war in Iraq, hear the cries of a family who has just lost everything in the world, see w child wandering aimlessly in the street, naked holding a charred doll, so the anguish on a soldiers face who has just killed another man, I really think they would take a giant step back and re-evaluate their outlook on the entire situation.
I have seen it myself. War is never NEVER the answer no matter what the reason you may think. Madmen and radicals will always be around. They will always try and sometimes succeed. We will have other 9-11's here and elsewhere in the world. We will never be able to stop these people. Not with war. If we allow killing to beget more killing, no matter what justification we can think of, than we can never progress as a race of peoples.

(sorry no spell or grammar check on this machine, nor do I have the time to proof read this long post).

Posted by: theRAWdeal at January 15, 2005 02:12 PM

Every now and then, a person suffers a deep affront that is hard to forget, that begs for vengeance. While the matter may appear trivial to an outsider, the affronted person's blood boils, and thoughts of hostility toward the source of the affront refuse to leave the mind, fueling fantasies of retribution.

Sometimes an entire people is affronted by a leader who engages in a vast act of self-worship at massive public expense.

Sometimes military leaders lend their men-at-arms and their nostalgic uniforms, medals, and flags to purify the event with martial solemnity.

Sometimes religious leaders join with political leaders, sanctifying the excess as some sort of primitive potlatch to the Father Deity.

Sometimes such gross displays happen when the nation is engaged in armed predation on defenseless people, to display the depth of the sense of self-assurance and self-righteousness that animates the nation's policies.

Sometime is today. In what will be the most expensive, over-policed act of masturbation ever performed in public, the Republican Roosters will crow louder, expose themselves, short hairs and all, and give the entire nation a money shot right in the face.

The entire event is an insult to every American who has a net worth of less than $50 Million. If you're worth more than that, I hope you contributed to the inauguration, because you owe the rest of us.

Sure, sure, you tell me, it's gross, but that's the way government is. That's the way business is, right? And all these government guys are in business, right? So where's the surprise -- you're lucky they didn't move the inauguration to Vegas.

Well, I'm sure all the Vegas people and the New Jersey people, too, will be in Washington, so same difference.

Okay, okay, you tell me, but they're not breaking any laws, are they?

Well, I'd have to ask how familiar you are with the laws, particularly the Constitution.

Constitutional government is founded upon the complete elimination of all distinctions between the nobility and the rest of us.   The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, provides:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present Emolument, Office, or Title, or any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Now excuse me, but there can be only one reason for someone to be given an incredible ass-kissing ego-boost of this type, in the course of which he will receive millions of dollars in donations from people who seek to curry favor with him, and advantage for their friends and relations, while taxpayers foot the bill. As the article from the NYT explains, the poor, overtaxed, abused citizens of Washington D.C. will have to fund over $17 Million dollars of this latter-day Napoleonic orgy of self-adulation. There is only one reason to go overboard like this -- because Bush is crowning himself King. Read it and weep, ladies and gentlemen. Democracy is dead, and there isn't even a democrat left to identify the corpse.

But after you read the news, you should read the old. Carl Sandburg's poem "The People Speak" is a reminder that even when "the czar has eight million men with guns and bayonets," still, the people can change the course of history, sending the czar and his family to their own private Siberia, turning the palaces of the ruling class into the random galleries of chaos. The poem is quoted in full above. Read it out loud to a friend, to a coffeehouse, to a crowd, to a mob, if you can find one!

Posted by: Charles Carreon at January 15, 2005 06:38 PM

Thanks so much dad for these posts and that amazing poem. It deserves a thread of its own.

Posted by: Maria at January 15, 2005 06:52 PM

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