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Protests not seen or heard: How polite
© St. Petersburg Times, The first political sign that Sonja Haught of Clearwater intended to bring to greet the president on Monday at Legends Field in Tampa was 6 feet long. It was dotted with oil derricks and bore the slogan: "George W. Bush National Forest." Several people in the stadium parking lot warned Haught and her friends that the authorities wouldn't let her in with a sign that big. So they stashed it in the car and went with a supply of smaller, letter-sized signs that said: "Investigate Florida Votergate." Haught, who is a 59-year-old grandmother and has lived here eight years, also carried a small sign on a stick. It said simply: "Booo!" At the stadium gate, security officers made her take it off the stick, but let her keep the sign. Once inside, Haught and her friends, who had driven down from Pasco County in a four-car caravan, found themselves outnumbered by supporters of the president. They were on the field itself, shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the pro-Bush crowd. "It felt like we were gladiators waiting for the tigers," Haught recalled on Tuesday. When one of the protesters unveiled a gay-pride sign, somebody grabbed it. Haught felt her purse being pulled -- all of her "Votergate" signs were being yanked away. Tampa police officers arrived at the scuffle. They took the signs and handcuffed two of Haught's companions; during the events one of them fell or was pushed into an 81-year-old protester from Pasco, who lay on the ground bleeding from a cut on the head. Police took them all away. "I have to say in their behalf, there was only one police officer who acted that way," Haught told me. "As a matter of fact, when Maurice was down on the ground, they gave him a drink of water from a cup. This nice police officer was in charge." Nonetheless, they all were charged with trespassing after a warning, and Haught also was charged with disorderly conduct. The official justification for forbidding Haught and her friends from carrying protest signs, and for their subsequent arrest, is that the president was speaking at a "private" event, which required a ticket for admission. Certainly, free-speech rights end at the door of a truly private event. No one has the right to crash somebody else's party. When the president is speaking at, say, a fund-raising dinner, the other side has no right to be there. But a visit by the president, for which any member of the public could obtain a ticket, is not really a "private" event. That should not be a pretext for choking free speech. This suppression of dissent is not unique to President Bush or to one political party. It is the way that modern politics is practiced. Both Democrats and Republicans, at their party conventions last year, had official "protest zones" located several blocks away. Candidates of both parties, through security forces, weeded out protesters and their signs from campaign events. So Bush's visit to Tampa was following a well-established procedure when it designated a "First Amendment zone" some distance from Legends Field, where the more well-behaved protesters could shout their messages to an unhearing president. I asked Sonja Haught why she didn't go to the protest zone like she was "supposed" to. "We had tickets," she answered. Good answer. The answer of a citizen. Protest is a rude activity. It is designed to get attention. If you try to turn protest into a polite, well-behaved thing, then even angrier protest will break out. Besides, getting booed now and then is good for a politician. I like the ones who stand up there and take it and give it right back. They say Bush is that kind of guy. Next time he's in town he should prove it. - You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Robert Trigaux Howard Troxler Bill Maxwell Gary Shelton Ernest Hooper From the Times Metro desk Howard Troxler |
