Convention Protesters Cordoned into “Free Speech Zone”
[Getting my press credentials] meant following an intestinally-coiled set of fenced-in paths, with uniformed guards stationed every hundred feet, and mufti-clad security people betrayed by the coils plugged into an ear. (When we can embed electronics directly into our cortexes, security folks are going to sign up to become our first ‘borgs.) The Boston that birthed our liberty is not recognizable the behind the chain links fence that line every walkway. And our Boston is least visible in the disgraceful “Free Speech Zone” that, with its barbed wire and decaying metal girders, stirs racial memories in some of us in which we can hear dogs barking as a train ominously approaches.
David Weinberger for boston.com, the web site of The Boston Globe
Other takes on the FSZ:
- LA Weekly’s Joshua Bearman finds bubbly PR executives more of a threat to democracy than the Zone
- Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” has a hysterical segment on the Zone that you can view online. You’ll need the Real Player plugin, and with the site being bombarded at the moment you may only get the audio and a slideshow.
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