Your last name wouldn't happen to be Perot, would it?
On a serious note, I applaud both Joel and Mr. Safire for admitting to inner political conflict. But Joel, I noticed that you did not bold the part at the end that says "I will take my teeming noggin to both conventions." Does that mean you've already decided?
Politics, Everyday, All day... morning, noon and night....
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Simply Joel
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No to the first question.Lark wrote:Your last name wouldn't happen to be Perot, would it?
On a serious note, I applaud both Joel and Mr. Safire for admitting to inner political conflict. But Joel, I noticed that you did not bold the part at the end that says "I will take my teeming noggin to both conventions." Does that mean you've already decided?
No to the third question, I haven't already decided... yet, I would hope Kerry does not appear as the capitulation candidate to the rest of the world.
To further answer your question... if the NY Times put me on an expense account, I would be at both conventions... hell, yeah!... look up Jon Stewart to party with...
Democrats... snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, daily!
slap my salmon, baby
slap my salmon, baby
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:
July 21, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Saying No to Killers
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
PORTLAND, Oregon
So what would you do if, like Carl Wilkens, you were caught in the middle of a genocide?
Mr. Wilkens, a Seventh-day Adventist missionary, was living with his wife and three small children in Kigali, Rwanda, in 1994. Then a Hutu militia began to slaughter the Tutsi, beginning with prominent figures like his banker neighbors, who threw their two youngest children to safety over a back fence before they were executed. Mr. Wilkens and his wife, Teresa, tried to distract their children from the carnage by playing a variation of musical chairs in which you could move only when there was no gunfire nearby.
U.S. officials and church leaders ordered Mr. Wilkens to join an emergency evacuation of foreigners from Rwanda, and relatives and friends implored him to go.
He refused.
Ms. Wilkens and the children left, but Mr. Wilkens insisted on staying in Kigali to try to protect Tutsi friends. His father warned him that even if he survived, his insubordination might end his career in the church. In the end, every other American left Kigali, but Mr. Wilkens remained through the entire genocide.
"It just seemed the right thing to do," he recalled in an interview here in Oregon, where he is now an Adventist pastor in the small town of Days Creek. "I could take my blue passport and go, and moments later my housegirl and night watchman, both identifiable Tutsis, were going to be butchered."
One evening the militia came to kill Mr. Wilkens and his Tutsi servants, but Hutu neighbors praised his humanitarian work and the militia went away. Death threats piled up, but Mr. Wilkens spent his days talking his way through roadblocks of snarling, drunken soldiers so he could take water and food to orphanages around town. The Raoul Wallenberg of Rwanda, he negotiated, pleaded and bullied his way through the bloodshed, saving lives everywhere he went.
This continued for three months as 800,000 people were slaughtered. During all this time, President Bill Clinton and other Americans dithered, and there was an utter moral failure around the world.
But Mr. Wilkens plodded on each day, saving lives on a retail scale. Survivors describe him as extraordinarily courageous, not only for staying in Rwanda but also for venturing out each day into streets crackling with mortars and gunfire and pushing his way through roadblocks of angry, bloodstained soldiers armed with machetes and assault rifles.
Of course, Mr. Wilkens managed to save only a tiny number of Tutsi in Kigali, and Americans sometimes ask if his work wasn't like spitting into the ocean. That's true, he acknowledged, adding, "But for the people you help, it's pretty significant."
Ten years later, it's a useful exercise to wonder how many of us would have the courage Mr. Wilkens showed. Yet we don't have to wonder idly how we would respond to such an African genocide - one is unfolding, right now, in the Darfur region of Sudan, and once again we're doing next to nothing. The World Health Organization estimates that 10,000 people are dying there each month, and again the response around the world has been abject moral failure.
Colin Powell's visit to Sudan was an excellent first step, but President Bush has remained passive. As for John Kerry, he averted his eyes from Darfur for months, but last week he finally demanded action against what he termed genocide.
The U.S. needs to send massive aid shipments and take much tougher steps, like issuing an ultimatum that will lead to a no-flight zone over most of Darfur until the Sudanese government disarms the genocidal Janjaweed militia. That would get Khartoum's attention.
To respond to this genocide, we don't need to stand up to drunken killers with machetes and AK-47's, as Mr. Wilkens did. Yet we, as individuals or as a nation, still can't muster the will to take minimal steps to save lives, like providing adequate food, water and medicine, and browbeating Sudan into halting the killing.
If readers want to help, I've listed some actions they can take on www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds, Posting 520 (but please don't send money to me). Moral choices lie not only with those who, like Carl Wilkens, risk death to help others, but also with the millions of ordinary people who are spared the risks but still face a basic decision: Do we try to save lives, or do we simply turn away?
E-mail: nicholas(at)nytimes.com
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
July 21, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Saying No to Killers
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
PORTLAND, Oregon
So what would you do if, like Carl Wilkens, you were caught in the middle of a genocide?
Mr. Wilkens, a Seventh-day Adventist missionary, was living with his wife and three small children in Kigali, Rwanda, in 1994. Then a Hutu militia began to slaughter the Tutsi, beginning with prominent figures like his banker neighbors, who threw their two youngest children to safety over a back fence before they were executed. Mr. Wilkens and his wife, Teresa, tried to distract their children from the carnage by playing a variation of musical chairs in which you could move only when there was no gunfire nearby.
U.S. officials and church leaders ordered Mr. Wilkens to join an emergency evacuation of foreigners from Rwanda, and relatives and friends implored him to go.
He refused.
Ms. Wilkens and the children left, but Mr. Wilkens insisted on staying in Kigali to try to protect Tutsi friends. His father warned him that even if he survived, his insubordination might end his career in the church. In the end, every other American left Kigali, but Mr. Wilkens remained through the entire genocide.
"It just seemed the right thing to do," he recalled in an interview here in Oregon, where he is now an Adventist pastor in the small town of Days Creek. "I could take my blue passport and go, and moments later my housegirl and night watchman, both identifiable Tutsis, were going to be butchered."
One evening the militia came to kill Mr. Wilkens and his Tutsi servants, but Hutu neighbors praised his humanitarian work and the militia went away. Death threats piled up, but Mr. Wilkens spent his days talking his way through roadblocks of snarling, drunken soldiers so he could take water and food to orphanages around town. The Raoul Wallenberg of Rwanda, he negotiated, pleaded and bullied his way through the bloodshed, saving lives everywhere he went.
This continued for three months as 800,000 people were slaughtered. During all this time, President Bill Clinton and other Americans dithered, and there was an utter moral failure around the world.
But Mr. Wilkens plodded on each day, saving lives on a retail scale. Survivors describe him as extraordinarily courageous, not only for staying in Rwanda but also for venturing out each day into streets crackling with mortars and gunfire and pushing his way through roadblocks of angry, bloodstained soldiers armed with machetes and assault rifles.
Of course, Mr. Wilkens managed to save only a tiny number of Tutsi in Kigali, and Americans sometimes ask if his work wasn't like spitting into the ocean. That's true, he acknowledged, adding, "But for the people you help, it's pretty significant."
Ten years later, it's a useful exercise to wonder how many of us would have the courage Mr. Wilkens showed. Yet we don't have to wonder idly how we would respond to such an African genocide - one is unfolding, right now, in the Darfur region of Sudan, and once again we're doing next to nothing. The World Health Organization estimates that 10,000 people are dying there each month, and again the response around the world has been abject moral failure.
Colin Powell's visit to Sudan was an excellent first step, but President Bush has remained passive. As for John Kerry, he averted his eyes from Darfur for months, but last week he finally demanded action against what he termed genocide.
The U.S. needs to send massive aid shipments and take much tougher steps, like issuing an ultimatum that will lead to a no-flight zone over most of Darfur until the Sudanese government disarms the genocidal Janjaweed militia. That would get Khartoum's attention.
To respond to this genocide, we don't need to stand up to drunken killers with machetes and AK-47's, as Mr. Wilkens did. Yet we, as individuals or as a nation, still can't muster the will to take minimal steps to save lives, like providing adequate food, water and medicine, and browbeating Sudan into halting the killing.
If readers want to help, I've listed some actions they can take on www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds, Posting 520 (but please don't send money to me). Moral choices lie not only with those who, like Carl Wilkens, risk death to help others, but also with the millions of ordinary people who are spared the risks but still face a basic decision: Do we try to save lives, or do we simply turn away?
E-mail: nicholas(at)nytimes.com
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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Rian Jackson
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DVD Burner
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Simply Joel
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i especially enjoy the melting of solid objects phase of the party... the sitting there staring into oblivian at Bianca's while traveling the world within my mind and returning to Bianca's... all in the same couple of minutes ('98 memory)...DVD Burner wrote:Now,Simply Joel wrote: ... hell, yeah!... look up Jon Stewart to party with...
Joel knows how to party. :P
or ensuring I always had Tecate in the cooler during those DPW pre-burn parties...
as I say "Work hard, party harder"
Democrats... snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, daily!
slap my salmon, baby
slap my salmon, baby
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cowboyangel
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I'm glad to see others moved by the last story I posted. Here's another issue I'm passionate about. I guess you could call me a member of the "tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show." Okay, so I drive a Nissan and I have my issues with Hollywood (mostly the tourists), but everything else pretty much applies.
July 22, 2004
GUEST COLUMNIST
Owning Up to Abortion
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
Abortion is legal - it's just not supposed to be mentioned or acknowledged as an acceptable option. An article in The Times on Sunday, "Television's Most Persistent Taboo," reported that a Viacom-owned channel is refusing to run the episodes of a soap opera in which the teenage heroine chooses to abort. Even "Six Feet Under," which is fearless in its treatment of sexual diversity, burdens abortion with terrible guilt. Where are those "liberal media" when you need them?
You can blame a lot of folks, from media bigwigs to bishops, if we lose our reproductive rights, but it's the women who shrink from acknowledging their own abortions who really irk me. Increasingly, for example, the possibility of abortion is built right into the process of prenatal care. Testing for fetal defects can now detect over 450 conditions, many potentially fatal or debilitating. Doctors may advise the screening tests, insurance companies often pay for them, and many couples (no hard numbers exist) are deciding to abort their imperfect fetuses.
The trouble is, not all of the women who are exercising their right to choose in these cases are willing to admit that that's what they are doing. Kate Hoffman, for example, who aborted a fetus with Down syndrome, was quoted in The Times on June 20 as saying: "I don't look at it as though I had an abortion, even though that is technically what it is. There's a difference. I wanted this baby."
Or go to the Web site for A Heartbreaking Choice, a group that provides support for women whose fetuses are deemed defective, and you find "Mom" complaining of having to have her abortion in an ordinary abortion clinic: "I resented the fact that I had to be there with all these girls that did not want their babies."
Kate and Mom: You've been through a hellish experience, but unless I'm missing something, you didn't want your babies either. A baby, yes, but not the particular baby you happened to be carrying.
The prejudice is widespread that a termination for medical reasons is somehow on a higher moral plane than a run-of-the-mill abortion. In a 1999 survey of Floridians, for example, 82 percent supported legal abortion in the case of birth defects, compared with about 40 percent in situations where the woman simply could not afford to raise another child.
But what makes it morally more congenial to kill a particular "defective" fetus than to kill whatever fetus happens to come along, on an equal opportunity basis? Medically informed "terminations" are already catching heat from disability rights groups, and, indeed, some of the conditions for which people are currently choosing abortion, like deafness or dwarfism, seem a little sketchy to me. I'll still defend the right to choose abortion in these cases, even if it isn't the choice I'd make for myself.
It would be unfair, though, to pick on the women who are in denial about aborting "defective" fetuses. At least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized, mostly for the kind of reasons that anti-abortion people dismiss as "convenience" - a number that amounts to about 40 percent of American women. Yet in a 2003 survey conducted by a pro-choice group, only 30 percent of women were unambivalently pro-choice, suggesting that there may be an appalling number of women who are willing to deny others the right that they once freely exercised themselves.
Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman, but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my children - the actual extrauterine ones, that is - I was, and remain, a lioness.
Choice can be easy, as it was in my case, or truly agonizing. But assuming the fetal position is not an appropriate response. Sartre called this "bad faith," meaning something worse than duplicity: a fundamental denial of freedom and the responsibility that it entails. Time to take your thumbs out of your mouths, ladies, and speak up for your rights. The freedoms that we exercise but do not acknowledge are easily taken away.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
July 22, 2004
GUEST COLUMNIST
Owning Up to Abortion
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
Abortion is legal - it's just not supposed to be mentioned or acknowledged as an acceptable option. An article in The Times on Sunday, "Television's Most Persistent Taboo," reported that a Viacom-owned channel is refusing to run the episodes of a soap opera in which the teenage heroine chooses to abort. Even "Six Feet Under," which is fearless in its treatment of sexual diversity, burdens abortion with terrible guilt. Where are those "liberal media" when you need them?
You can blame a lot of folks, from media bigwigs to bishops, if we lose our reproductive rights, but it's the women who shrink from acknowledging their own abortions who really irk me. Increasingly, for example, the possibility of abortion is built right into the process of prenatal care. Testing for fetal defects can now detect over 450 conditions, many potentially fatal or debilitating. Doctors may advise the screening tests, insurance companies often pay for them, and many couples (no hard numbers exist) are deciding to abort their imperfect fetuses.
The trouble is, not all of the women who are exercising their right to choose in these cases are willing to admit that that's what they are doing. Kate Hoffman, for example, who aborted a fetus with Down syndrome, was quoted in The Times on June 20 as saying: "I don't look at it as though I had an abortion, even though that is technically what it is. There's a difference. I wanted this baby."
Or go to the Web site for A Heartbreaking Choice, a group that provides support for women whose fetuses are deemed defective, and you find "Mom" complaining of having to have her abortion in an ordinary abortion clinic: "I resented the fact that I had to be there with all these girls that did not want their babies."
Kate and Mom: You've been through a hellish experience, but unless I'm missing something, you didn't want your babies either. A baby, yes, but not the particular baby you happened to be carrying.
The prejudice is widespread that a termination for medical reasons is somehow on a higher moral plane than a run-of-the-mill abortion. In a 1999 survey of Floridians, for example, 82 percent supported legal abortion in the case of birth defects, compared with about 40 percent in situations where the woman simply could not afford to raise another child.
But what makes it morally more congenial to kill a particular "defective" fetus than to kill whatever fetus happens to come along, on an equal opportunity basis? Medically informed "terminations" are already catching heat from disability rights groups, and, indeed, some of the conditions for which people are currently choosing abortion, like deafness or dwarfism, seem a little sketchy to me. I'll still defend the right to choose abortion in these cases, even if it isn't the choice I'd make for myself.
It would be unfair, though, to pick on the women who are in denial about aborting "defective" fetuses. At least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized, mostly for the kind of reasons that anti-abortion people dismiss as "convenience" - a number that amounts to about 40 percent of American women. Yet in a 2003 survey conducted by a pro-choice group, only 30 percent of women were unambivalently pro-choice, suggesting that there may be an appalling number of women who are willing to deny others the right that they once freely exercised themselves.
Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman, but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my children - the actual extrauterine ones, that is - I was, and remain, a lioness.
Choice can be easy, as it was in my case, or truly agonizing. But assuming the fetal position is not an appropriate response. Sartre called this "bad faith," meaning something worse than duplicity: a fundamental denial of freedom and the responsibility that it entails. Time to take your thumbs out of your mouths, ladies, and speak up for your rights. The freedoms that we exercise but do not acknowledge are easily taken away.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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cowboyangel
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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies"
-Groucho Marx
posted this in the quote thread but thought this thread could use it too...
-Groucho Marx
posted this in the quote thread but thought this thread could use it too...
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believe is false."- William Casey, CIA Director 1981
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Simply Joel
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Some timely wisdom from some dead guys
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. - Aristotle
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
- George Washington
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good. - Daniel Moynihan
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
- George Washington
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good. - Daniel Moynihan
Democrats... snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, daily!
slap my salmon, baby
slap my salmon, baby
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Rian Jackson
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Army invades Nablus, hits International Peace Activist [Nablus-Occupied Palestine, 21:30 GMT +3] The Israeli Occupation Army invaded Balata Refugee Camp, east of the West Bank city of Nablus, late Tuesday afternoon. A group of 25 Palestinian and International peace activists from the International Solidarity Movement, (ISM) stood in the street leading to Al-Quds road where the army is invading from.
The activists tried to stop the army from coming into the camp in a proactive measure. If the army couldn't enter the camp, they couldn't shoot anyone inside. The decision to act resulted from the repeated army invasions into the camp. On Monday, troops invaded the camp and started provoking the residents by driving fast inside the narrow roads of the camp and shooting in the air. Kids started throwing stones at the jeep, who replied with live fire, killing a 14 year-old boy.
Two days prior to that, on Saturday, the army invaded the area and started shooting their machine guns, killing a Palestinian youth in the camp.
Today's action, Tuesday, 20 July 20, 2004, as the activists stood in front of the jeep, the soldiers stepped out of the jeep and assaulted the activists in an attempt to disperse them. The jeep drove in the direction of the activists, who stood their ground. When they refused to move, the jeep slowly drove into one of the American activists identified as Peter.
Peter suffered an injury in his knee as half of his body was physically under the jeep.
The army returned later and tried to invade the camp from another road. The activists again faced the jeep and did not allow them to enter the camp.
Preventing the army to enter the camp also prevented clashes with the army to erupt, unlike the previous three days.
When the action ended, the residents, who only this morning attended the funeral of the fourteen year old boy killed yesterday by the Israeli army, welcomed the activists inside the camp.
www.scoop.co.nz
The activists tried to stop the army from coming into the camp in a proactive measure. If the army couldn't enter the camp, they couldn't shoot anyone inside. The decision to act resulted from the repeated army invasions into the camp. On Monday, troops invaded the camp and started provoking the residents by driving fast inside the narrow roads of the camp and shooting in the air. Kids started throwing stones at the jeep, who replied with live fire, killing a 14 year-old boy.
Two days prior to that, on Saturday, the army invaded the area and started shooting their machine guns, killing a Palestinian youth in the camp.
Today's action, Tuesday, 20 July 20, 2004, as the activists stood in front of the jeep, the soldiers stepped out of the jeep and assaulted the activists in an attempt to disperse them. The jeep drove in the direction of the activists, who stood their ground. When they refused to move, the jeep slowly drove into one of the American activists identified as Peter.
Peter suffered an injury in his knee as half of his body was physically under the jeep.
The army returned later and tried to invade the camp from another road. The activists again faced the jeep and did not allow them to enter the camp.
Preventing the army to enter the camp also prevented clashes with the army to erupt, unlike the previous three days.
When the action ended, the residents, who only this morning attended the funeral of the fourteen year old boy killed yesterday by the Israeli army, welcomed the activists inside the camp.
www.scoop.co.nz
surlier than thou
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Rian Jackson
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Peter
I know Peter. Mutual friends say he's doing ok.
I wish we had 25 people blocking jeeps when i was there. It's harder with two or three. I'm glad the technique is catching on. All the same, they never ran over me...
No news yet on who the 14 year old is....
I wish we had 25 people blocking jeeps when i was there. It's harder with two or three. I'm glad the technique is catching on. All the same, they never ran over me...
No news yet on who the 14 year old is....
surlier than thou
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Simply Joel
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Rian Jackson
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unless they have snipers, F16s, apaches. if we're referring to the projectiles of choice, this is pretty much true. to snipe they must occupy houses (though they really like the ones on the fringes best.) in situations like this they don't occupy houses because it is not an operation of any scale - they have no actual goal to accomplish. chances are you won't even see them out of their vehicles, not in Balatta.
it's just not clear, that's all. if you know the situation it makes good sense. perhaps not an airtight logical argument by academic standards, but holds water by practical ones. which, in the end, are the ones that matter.
it's just not clear, that's all. if you know the situation it makes good sense. perhaps not an airtight logical argument by academic standards, but holds water by practical ones. which, in the end, are the ones that matter.
surlier than thou
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Rian Jackson
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Rob the Wop
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cowboyangel
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McCarthyism Watch
We will be regularly updating the site with examples of the New McCarthyism that is sweeping the country.
July 22, 2004
County Supervisor Booted from Bush Event for Wearing Hidden Kerry Shirt
President Bush came to Wisconsin on July 14 and gave a speech in a town called Ashwaubenon, and Jayson Nelson wanted to hear him.
Nelson is an elected official. As an Outagamie County supervisor, he says he was notified that there were extra tickets for the event if he wanted one.
He did, and after giving his ID and Social Security number, he received a VIP pass a few days before Bush came to town, he tells The Progressive.
But Nelson never got to hear Bush speak.
On the morning of Bush's visit, Nelson, a Democrat, attended a Kerry rally and was wearing a "Kerry for President" T-shirt.
Then when he went to the Bush rally, he says he buttoned up a blue denim shirt over the Kerry one.
As he approached the final screening point, Nelson says a Republican event staffer demanded that he step out of the line and take off his top shirt.
"At first, I thought she wasn't even talking to me," he recalls, "because who tells you that stuff? So I ignored her and kept going forward and then she told me again, 'You, you, you, step out of line. You've got to take off your shirt.' "
When he did so, the screener pounced.
"She must have though I was bin Laden or something because her eyes got big and she lunged at me and grabbed the ticket and tore it up," he says. "Then she called the Ashwaubenon police department on me, and they came over and said, 'What's the problem here? Do you have a ticket?' And I said, 'I had one but they just took it!' "
She told the police to look at his T-shirt, and the police told him he couldn't be there and to get going, Nelson remembers.
"It was apparent to me that if I was going to debate it, I was going to get arrested," he says.
On his way out, the Secret Service also stopped him. "They took my driver's license and wrote down my Social Security number and telephone number," he says. "I started to ask, 'What's going on here? Is a T-shirt illegal?' And they said, 'No, we do this for all of the events, even Kerry's.' "
The Bush-Cheney campaign did not return a phone call for comment. But Merrill Smith, the Midwestern regional spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, did talk to the Associated Press, which broke this story.
"These events are for people who are going to get out and support the President and who are going to work on his behalf between now and November 2," Smith told AP, though she said she wasn't familiar with the particular incident.
The Ashwaubenon police minimize their involvement. "There was no report on that and no arrest made," says Margene Roshak of the police department. "The Secret Service asked him to leave and escorted him out."
For his part, Nelson is still angry about this. "I was almost treated like a criminal," he says.
He thinks his working class background had something to do with the treatment he received. "One reason I feel that I was really selected out is because I was dressed as a working man," he says. "We were subject to extra scrutiny. Others were mostly business types."
Nelson finds it ironic that he was excluded from the Resch Center, where Bush was speaking. "I was a foreman and superintendent in building that building, and to get kicked out of it just because I had a T-shirt on-I don't see it. No one asked who I was voting for when I built it."
But there is a larger issue involved here, as well, he says.
"We got people over in Iraq getting killed for the Iraqis' rights," says Nelson, "and I think we're going to have to start fighting for our own."
--Matthew Rothschild
beware what t-shirts you decide to wear at political rallies......"fuck everyone" will usually work everywhere...to get you tossed
We will be regularly updating the site with examples of the New McCarthyism that is sweeping the country.
July 22, 2004
County Supervisor Booted from Bush Event for Wearing Hidden Kerry Shirt
President Bush came to Wisconsin on July 14 and gave a speech in a town called Ashwaubenon, and Jayson Nelson wanted to hear him.
Nelson is an elected official. As an Outagamie County supervisor, he says he was notified that there were extra tickets for the event if he wanted one.
He did, and after giving his ID and Social Security number, he received a VIP pass a few days before Bush came to town, he tells The Progressive.
But Nelson never got to hear Bush speak.
On the morning of Bush's visit, Nelson, a Democrat, attended a Kerry rally and was wearing a "Kerry for President" T-shirt.
Then when he went to the Bush rally, he says he buttoned up a blue denim shirt over the Kerry one.
As he approached the final screening point, Nelson says a Republican event staffer demanded that he step out of the line and take off his top shirt.
"At first, I thought she wasn't even talking to me," he recalls, "because who tells you that stuff? So I ignored her and kept going forward and then she told me again, 'You, you, you, step out of line. You've got to take off your shirt.' "
When he did so, the screener pounced.
"She must have though I was bin Laden or something because her eyes got big and she lunged at me and grabbed the ticket and tore it up," he says. "Then she called the Ashwaubenon police department on me, and they came over and said, 'What's the problem here? Do you have a ticket?' And I said, 'I had one but they just took it!' "
She told the police to look at his T-shirt, and the police told him he couldn't be there and to get going, Nelson remembers.
"It was apparent to me that if I was going to debate it, I was going to get arrested," he says.
On his way out, the Secret Service also stopped him. "They took my driver's license and wrote down my Social Security number and telephone number," he says. "I started to ask, 'What's going on here? Is a T-shirt illegal?' And they said, 'No, we do this for all of the events, even Kerry's.' "
The Bush-Cheney campaign did not return a phone call for comment. But Merrill Smith, the Midwestern regional spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, did talk to the Associated Press, which broke this story.
"These events are for people who are going to get out and support the President and who are going to work on his behalf between now and November 2," Smith told AP, though she said she wasn't familiar with the particular incident.
The Ashwaubenon police minimize their involvement. "There was no report on that and no arrest made," says Margene Roshak of the police department. "The Secret Service asked him to leave and escorted him out."
For his part, Nelson is still angry about this. "I was almost treated like a criminal," he says.
He thinks his working class background had something to do with the treatment he received. "One reason I feel that I was really selected out is because I was dressed as a working man," he says. "We were subject to extra scrutiny. Others were mostly business types."
Nelson finds it ironic that he was excluded from the Resch Center, where Bush was speaking. "I was a foreman and superintendent in building that building, and to get kicked out of it just because I had a T-shirt on-I don't see it. No one asked who I was voting for when I built it."
But there is a larger issue involved here, as well, he says.
"We got people over in Iraq getting killed for the Iraqis' rights," says Nelson, "and I think we're going to have to start fighting for our own."
--Matthew Rothschild
beware what t-shirts you decide to wear at political rallies......"fuck everyone" will usually work everywhere...to get you tossed
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believe is false."- William Casey, CIA Director 1981
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cowboyangel
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Don't look if you can't stand prayer
Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennslyvania and Oregon
Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennslyvania and Oregon
Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennslyvania and Oregon
a prayer.....
Being that regardless of political beliefs, we are all united by our oneness, I know that light and wisdom surrounds these states, that the good wants desperately to emerge from all this contention, and that only the highest good for all is working right now and working especially in these states to guide this country in the highest mode possible, in a way that establishes true peace and brotherly love for all, I call this forth into the creative alchemy of positive creation and know it is already accomplished. I give thanks and so it is.
Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennslyvania and Oregon
Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennslyvania and Oregon
a prayer.....
Being that regardless of political beliefs, we are all united by our oneness, I know that light and wisdom surrounds these states, that the good wants desperately to emerge from all this contention, and that only the highest good for all is working right now and working especially in these states to guide this country in the highest mode possible, in a way that establishes true peace and brotherly love for all, I call this forth into the creative alchemy of positive creation and know it is already accomplished. I give thanks and so it is.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believe is false."- William Casey, CIA Director 1981
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Simply Joel
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Re: Don't look if you can't stand prayer
Mr, you got a frog in your pocket or something...cowboyangel wrote:we are all united by our oneness
give it fucking rest, Mr. Burn the RNC in effigy.
Democrats... snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, daily!
slap my salmon, baby
slap my salmon, baby
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Bob
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I'm not sure whether a strongly held political -p-r-i-s-o-n-e-r-, er, opinion, either gets you guys/chicks, or gets you off by proxy. Probably more of the latter.
Public displays of affectation just aren't part of my own plans this year, in either case.
Imagine wasting an entire burn by calling it "Bush" -- as if it weren't bush in the first place.
Public displays of affectation just aren't part of my own plans this year, in either case.
Imagine wasting an entire burn by calling it "Bush" -- as if it weren't bush in the first place.
Amazing desert structures & stuff: http://sites.google.com/site/potatotrap/
"Let us say I suggest you may be human." -- Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
"Let us say I suggest you may be human." -- Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
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Bob
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Disclaimer:
Didn't mean to offend any yogas in particular, just yoga in general, and the tools who use it.
Didn't mean to offend any yogas in particular, just yoga in general, and the tools who use it.
Amazing desert structures & stuff: http://sites.google.com/site/potatotrap/
"Let us say I suggest you may be human." -- Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
"Let us say I suggest you may be human." -- Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
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cowboyangel
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Re: Don't look if you can't stand prayer
ja man...ahm perplexed???ain't prayin ok for you? no matta, god loves ya anyway munSimply Joel wrote:Mr, you got a frog in your pocket or something...cowboyangel wrote:we are all united by our oneness
give it fucking rest, Mr. Burn the RNC in effigy.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believe is false."- William Casey, CIA Director 1981
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Bob
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BTW, Joel, I miss you, man. DPW's a little different, but a lot the same.
Amazing desert structures & stuff: http://sites.google.com/site/potatotrap/
"Let us say I suggest you may be human." -- Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
"Let us say I suggest you may be human." -- Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
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Simply Joel
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Thank you.Bob wrote:BTW, Joel, I miss you, man. DPW's a little different, but a lot the same.
IMHO... DPW was about the work, then the party after the work was done... then repeat the process.
I hope the youngsters volunteering understand the value of a good day's work.
and please tell Carl B hello for me.
Democrats... snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, daily!
slap my salmon, baby
slap my salmon, baby
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Simply Joel
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- Location: Land of Lincoln
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Re: Don't look if you can't stand prayer
uh... keep it to yourself.cowboyangel wrote:ja man...ahm perplexed???ain't prayin ok for you? no matta, god loves ya anyway munSimply Joel wrote:Mr, you got a frog in your pocket or something...cowboyangel wrote:we are all united by our oneness
give it fucking rest, Mr. Burn the RNC in effigy.
Democrats... snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, daily!
slap my salmon, baby
slap my salmon, baby
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Bob
- Posts: 6747
- Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 10:00 am
- Burning Since: 1986
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Carl will be back. ObTopic, I think him and a lot of people went to some other playa on J4 to burn their effigies-of-choice. So be it, if that's your thing. I spent the weekend twenty or thirty miles away.
Amazing desert structures & stuff: http://sites.google.com/site/potatotrap/
"Let us say I suggest you may be human." -- Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
"Let us say I suggest you may be human." -- Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
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DVD Burner
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