Freeway Blogger - Speaking Truth on the 10 UPDATE (5/13 12:53 a.m.) below
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Slogging through bumper-to-bumper traffic on the eastbound 10 this morning to pick up press creds for E3, I got a refreshing reminder of the brute broadcast power wielded by the Freeway Blogger.
He (she?) or one of his followers had posted a new protest banner on the western face of an overpass near Crenshaw, visible to more than 175,000 motorists a day. Like his other work, it was a brutally simple slab of irony:
The freeway blogger strikes again. Click to ENLARGE
"THE WAR IS OVER", it read - the first two words and last two words screaming from either side of the immense black silhouette of a peak-hooded Abu Ghraib torture victim.
KCRW was airing the Senate hearings on Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse as I crept beneath the banner. I shuddered.
Call me biased, but these hearings seemed to be populated by three types of people: Democrats hammering needlessly, if evenly at the witnesses.
Republicans making absurd apologist statements - "Let's not forget that our soldiers are suffering and making sacrifices over there to get rid of a regime that did far worse than what's alleged here" - before lobbing a few softball questions at the witnesses.
And the witnesses themselves, led by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba and Defense Undersecretary Stephen Cambone - carefully, factually detailing the damning, systemic abuse at Abu Ghraib, but coldly, professionally disagreeing on who to blame.
I can't decide what's more appalling:
A) The Republican senators' performance - trying to brush off the abuse that's ruined the last shred of U.S. reputation as "isolated cases;" repeatedly mangling pronunciation as if none of the details are worthy of concern ("Abu Guhreeb," "Aba Gaba," Abu Garrib", etc.); and one dismissing the whole hearing from the dais before witnesses and microphones as "just a fundraiser for the Kerry campaign;" or
B) The likelihood that all we're haggling over is whether to let white trash like leash-yanking abominatrix-in-training PFC Lynndie England take the fall for the shady war criminals from the intel community and private sector hired and effectively sanctioned by the Bush administration. Suddenly, Clinton's lies about an intern's blowjob seem worthier of a fix-it ticket than the sort of full blown impeachment hearings the Bush camp deserves today.
Okay, off of my high horse, I'm getting a nosebleed.
Just keep an eye out as you grind through your commute: Freeway Blogger is out there, yelling to anyone who will listen: Among his latest hits, the simple gems "RUMSFAILED" and "CHIMPEACH;" and a Halliburton banner flanked by the messages, "Thanks for all the money. Sorry about your kids."
But in leaning-Democratic and decidedly anti-war Los Angeles, he's preaching to the choir. Homeboy needs to move to the heartland to get the know-nothings who "back the war 100%" to start questioning their ignorant belief that the rest of the country is with them.
And all of us need to do whatever we can to see that Bush and his venal handlers lose in November so that we have at least a fighting chance of cleaning up the wreckage they have made of Iraq what was left of the U.S. reputation after we invaded.
UPDATE: Vigilant street crews have torn down the banner as Wednesday morning at around 8:30. But not before AP shot and circulated a photo of it: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040512/D82H709O2.html
Posted by: mack_reed on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 11:35 PM
Slogging through bumper-to-bumper traffic on the eastbound 10 this morning to pick up press creds for 
