[Dryerase] The Alarm!--Op-Ed: Caltrans banner ban

[The Alarm!Newswire]

Freedom of speech demolished by new Caltrans ban on banners

by Patrick Letellier
The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor

Last week, I hung an anti-war banner, “WAR IS TERRORISM,” on the 
freeway overpass at 41st Avenue. A man from San Jose helped me, each of 
us holding it tight in the wind, using plastic fasteners to secure it 
to the fence for all the world to see—or at least all the traffic going 
south on Highway 1.

I felt particularly attached to this sign, among many others with 
equally provocative messages, because I painted this one myself. I 
spent a couple hours last Sunday in the parking lot behind the Resource 
Center for Non-Violence turning this white, thrift-store sheet into my 
own personal message against war.

Before hanging the sign, I attended a press conference led by two local 
anti-war and free-speech activists, Amy Courtney and Cassandra Brown. 
With others’ help, I held the sign in front of this and that camera, 
and this and that reporter, hoping it would appear on TV or in a news 
story.

The press conference was well organized, spirited and fun, 
quintessentially Santa Cruz, but I have to confess: all I wanted to do 
the whole time was get my sign on the freeway.

I realized then how hungry I am for messages in the media that reflect 
my opinion about this ever-expanding so-called war on terrorism: that 
it’s patently unnecessary, unjust and immoral. That it’s a war based 
more on election-year politics, a stubbornly reticent economy and 
corporate profit than it is on weapons of mass destruction, security in 
the Middle East or the exporting of democracy.

But opinions like mine, hardly revolutionary or radical, particularly 
when it comes to protesting a war, have been almost entirely absent in 
the media. In an era of flag-waving nationalism and simplistic 
approaches to complex international problems (“You’re either with us, 
or you’re with the terrorists”), there is little room for serious 
discussions of peace. If you’re against this war, you’re likely to be 
labeled out of touch with reality, just plain stupid or anti-American.

This monolithic view paves the way to war without a vigorous and 
healthy debate, and leaves millions of peace-loving Americans without a 
voice in our national policy. In response, some of us have filled the 
streets in protest, in San Francisco, Washington DC, and other cities. 
Others, as was the case last week, have taken to the freeways.

Yet there seemed little room even for my freeway sign. We had only 
begun to hang it when a man in a pickup truck drove by screaming, 
cursing and gesturing wildly. I wondered if we were going to be 
assaulted. Countless other people “saluted” us in a similarly obscene 
fashion, while others honked their horns in approval, smiling, waving 
and flashing us the peace sign (it’s amazing what a difference one 
finger makes).

Eleven anti-war banners were hung that morning on freeways around Santa 
Cruz, but when I checked on some of them not an hour after hanging 
mine, three had already been taken down. So threatening are these 
messages of peace, and so vehement are the war’s supporters, that 
motorists stopped and ripped them down.

Now Caltrans has announced that, for safety reasons, it will prohibit 
all signs on freeways across the state. Given the past year, in which 
thousands of pro-USA, pro-war signs and countless American flags have 
been posted on freeways without incident, Caltrans’ reasoning is 
dubious at best. I can’t help but wonder what has been deemed unsafe: 
the signs themselves or their message of dissent?

Freedom of speech sounds great in theory, but when the rubber meets the 
road, so to speak, it takes nerve to express a less-than-popular view. 
I will continue to make freeway signs, if only to remind people it’s 
not only okay to speak out for peace, it’s absolutely necessary. As 
necessary as any other freedom we enjoy in this country.

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