Voices: Fringe Benefits
The question proved inevitable. When you tell people you’re going to a presidential inauguration the first words to cross their lips tend to be, “Are you going to see HIM?”
Even those who know me well were temporarily blinded by the royal glitter and celebrity power associated with America’s inaugural weekend. But true to form, I approached last Thursday, like I do most days — from the fringes. It’s only on the outskirts of the action that a curious mind can really see the full context surrounding an event.
Sure enough, the most mind-blowing experience of my day came when I least expected it — while sitting at the bar at John Harvard’s Brew House at 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue with a couple of Australians.
The groups of regional protesters I had accompanied had remained down by the parade route.After waiting in line at the security checkpoint for an hour and then being frisked, the diehard activists were determined to complain directly to the man himself. But I simply couldn't anticipate the benefit of standing elbow to elbow with booing strangers, seeing nothing but the backs of heads for two hours. It was cold. A disembodied Mr. Movie Phone-esque announcer recited interactive presidential trivia to humor the waiting crowd. It was beyond lame. I remembered listening to bad rock music while standing in a hot, unhappy crowd of Scrantonians waiting for the KerryEdwards/Affleck campaign caravan to arrive. I chose to escape and the brew house proved the perfect sanctuary.
There, the inaugural parade was in progress on CNN. “You can actually see it from here,” I marveled. When the closed captioning proved too much for my conflicted right contact lens, I asked the closest Aussie what the announcers had to say about “the demonstrators.” Nothing much, as it turned out, but he continued the conversation with the question that’s been puzzling political analysts for months.
How did George W. Bush win the election?
Before 2000, I was told, Australians had come to know our President Bush as John Newcombe’s drinking buddy from the ‘70s. Americans do not know that, I laughed, almost spitting my Panax Wheat. Newcombe is an Australian Tennis Player with several Wimbledon wins under his racket. He sported a trademark handle bar mustache and was along for the ride when Bush got arrested for drunk driving in 1976. Newcombe was a champion, the Aussies said, but at the end of the day he was still just an “ocker.”
“A what?” I laughed even harder. Their description of “ocker” reminded me of America’s “redneck.” In retrospect, I’ve since come to appreciate ex-pat poet Peter Porter’s 1974 definition of “ockerism“: The new Australian boorishness… from a slob-like character called “Ocker” in a television series - the embodiment of oafish, blinkered self satisfaction. Hmmm... what’s that they say about the company a man keeps?
The reason Bush won the election, I told the Australians, is because in spite of record voter turnout, an estimated 78 million eligible voters didn’t voice an opinion. And that’s when my new acquaintances dropped the bomb on me.
In Australia, it’s compulsory to vote — if you don’t vote, they fine you.
I was both shocked and awed. Why don’t we do that in the United States? I guess it would contradict that whole “freedom” thing. But then we are required by law to do things like register for Selective Service and buy car insurance and pay taxes to fund expenditures in diametric opposition to our values.
My attention returned periodically to the parade broadcast. I saw Secret Service agents walk casually along side Bush’s limo. I saw them quicken their pace as steam escaped through a manhole. But I didn’t see any protesters. I had predicted this, however, and it was by no means as alarming as the other group of people I failed to see that day — the middle class.
The social division was so ridiculous at one metro station, it looked staged. On one side of the tracks, men stood in bow ties and cumberbunds next to women in fur coats and high heels. On the other side, bohemian protesters shivered in mismatched coats, hats, and scarves. It was a disturbing sight. But it, not the president, was what I went to Washington to see. Like the Aussies’ surprising stories, that visual characterized the bizarre truths you can only find on the fringe.
-- alicia grega-pikul, 27 January 2005
Send email to: apikul@timesshamrock.com.
