Every event is a prison
First, this note from Popville: all for a bunch of PED bros, friends of Donny — and a whole other kind of PEDo at that: Boatload of Street Closures and Parking Restrictions for the UFC Freedom 250 Bout at the White House Starting Thursday: “Residents and Visitors Should Plan Ahead, Ride Metro”.
At the same time, the Mall is riven by fence lines everywhere, setting up for mostly partisan-backed Freedom 250 events (the “state fair,” preparation for the 4th, the Indycar “race”). This turns a grand public space into balkanized compartments that are inaccessible and unlikely to be hospitable for most of those who care to participate, except, of course, VIPs most likely to be of one persuasion: monied brownshirt bootlickers and their guests.
I’m not naive about the need for security, but I question how we provide it and suspect most of it is theater that serves other ends rather than effectively keeping regular people safe (imagine how vacating a crowded, constrained area would go?). I feel pretty certain that there is not proportionate attention to inclusively addressing root causes.
I don’t see many of these events as being truly constructed with the public in mind. That said, my one photo is of the free “FIFA World Cup 2026 Fan Zone,” not a “Freedom 250” event (but it is one of the many balkanized chunks of the mall). This event and space might actually have ecumenical popular interest — but does it need a fence? Is there a good reason why one can’t just stride through open space that’s the whole point of America’s front yard?
