Andrew Wimmer was handcuffed and taken to jail on January 22, 2003 because he refused to protest in a ““designated protest zone”” that was out of sight of the President as well as local and national TV news cameras.
A woman, armed with a ““We Love You Bush”” sign showed up at the same corner shortly after Wimmer’s arrest. Wimmer asked the police if they were going to arrest her if she didn’t move and they said, ““no.”” The police also allegedly blocked the national press camera crews and an AP reporter from approaching the protest zone to do reporting.
https://www.aclu.org/documents/dissent-forced-be-out-sight-and-out-mind
US media loves to go on about the horrible working conditions in China, claiming 11-hour days and all kinds of other sweatshop working conditions because nothing sells like a good tragedy, but nobody talks about the working conditions at home and talking amongst ourselves is often made difficult, either by cultural or business practices. It’s illegal to punish employees for talking about how much they make with each other, but that doesn’t stop businesses from doing it anyway, because people here simply don’t know their rights as a worker and companies love to take advantage of it. So we think we have a clear grasp of how the Chinese live while still believing that people here work 40-hour weeks and somewhere in the cultural zeitgeist is still the belief that people can afford a house with a white picket fence, a dog/cat, and 2.5 kids on one person’s salary.