Now that I've got your attention
It's true. I saw Arizona GovernorJan Brewer at Wallmart in Phoenix about three weeks before the November 2010 mid-term elections (To protect her, I will not say which Wallmart as there are many in this vast desert of strip-malls.).
Gov. Jan Brewer is an avowed bigot. Her harsh legislation aimed at illegal immigrants in Arizona represents emerging American fascism and a general anti-immigrant pathos and ethos, also fueled by Islamaphobia.
If you're different, you need to be cleansed, gotten rid of.
She should have bodyguards, and as it turned out in some kind of bizzare or surreal Salvador Dali painting, she did. At Wallmart.
I was waiting inside Wallmart's new telecom retail store, absorbed in the greater world of WM, when I notice two men in suits, shirts, no ties, standing looking at the checkout area. They were a metre apart.
I also noticed that a twisting spiral of thin plastic tubing ascended to an earplug in their left ears.
Each was large, in their late 30's, early 40's, likely X-FBI or Secret Service and as obvious as can be.
Not being particularly shy and looking a bit rough with long hair but a welcoming and friendly if not pacifictic face, I approached one of them (I had nothing better to do.) and asked, "You guys Secret Service? What's up?"
After many years as a print journalist, there's nothing quite nicer than getting in one's face about such mysterious developments. "We're here with the governnor (of Arizona)," one of them told me. Bodyguards, I thought. Short-cropped hair, large Olympic body builds and neutral American faces ready to kill on command.
Definitely body guards.
And there she was: Gov. Brewer in disguise, dressed undercover as an ordinary citizen: worn jeans, a plain shirt or blouse with a puffed out Chinese-made dark-brown vest of sorts; no makeup, roughed up hair like she'd partied all night, followed and led by members, I suspect, of her immediate family and entourage.
This was on a weekend. "I suppose she's entitled to an ordinary life," I said to one of the heavies.
She looked awfull and her 7-member entourage gangly at best.
A couple of days later, she emerged an entirely different person on state-wide TV news. But she had at least two bodyguards for a routine trip to Wallmart.
What about a well publicized gathering with the Tuscon Congresswoman and her constitutents in Tuscon?
No Secret Service or security?
I can understand the need for protecting Arizona's Governor Brewer. She sponsored a law, found partially unconstitutional, that allowed police to stop anyone they suspected of being an illegal alien and demanding proper documentation.
If I were Hispanic and especially illegal in Arizona, I would not take kindly to such a law.
When I was there in October last year, Hispanics drove slower than the speed limit and for good reason.
Does that remind you of the Gestapo?
But no comparable protection for a US Congresswoman? All this will now change. It always takes tragedy to achieve measurable change. And not all change as we know is for the common good.
Rock on and practice peace and love. See also, ArtTraveler's videos on YouTube.,
Please tag along and check out the daily adventures of Dutch walkers Joost and Rob as they make a 1,000-kms walk from Seville to Santiago de la Compostela (Via de la Plata).
Stefan, the ArtTraveler(TM)
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