Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/08/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]B. D. Colen8/4/04
>The thought that a Presidential campaign would even think to ask the
>race of a reporter or photographer being assigned to cover an event is
>appalling - as is the idea that they would want to know how the person
>was registered as a voter.
Add to the appalling trends the isolation of of dissent by both parties and
I believe we have some serious problems.
Bush Zones Go National
by JIM HIGHTOWER
[from the August 16, 2004 issue of The Nation]
At the 2000 GOP nominating convention in Philadelphia, candidate Bush
created a fenced-in, out-of-sight protest zone that could only hold barely
1,500 people at a time. So citizens who wished to give voice to their many
grievances with the Powers That Be had to:
(1) Schedule their exercise of First Amendment rights with the decidedly
unsympathetic authorities.
(2) Report like cattle to the protest pen at their designated time, and only
in the numbers authorized.
(3) Then, under the recorded surveillance of the authorities, feel free to
let loose with all the speech they could utter within their allotted minutes
(although no one--not Bush, not convention delegates, not the preening
members of Congress, not the limousine-gliding corporate sponsors and
certainly not the mass media--would be anywhere nearby to hear a single word
of what they had to say).
Imagine how proud the Founders would be of this interpretation of their
revolutionary work. The Democrats, always willing to learn useful tricks
from the opposition, created their own "free-speech zone" when they gathered
in Los Angeles that year for their convention.
Once ensconced in the White House, the Bushites institutionalized the art of
dissing dissent, routinely dispatching the Secret Service to order local
police to set up FSZs to quarantine protesters wherever Bush goes. The
embedded media trooping dutifully behind him almost never cover this
fascinating and truly newsworthy phenomenon, instead focusing almost
entirely on spoon-fed soundbites from the President's press office.
An independent libertarian writer, however, James Bovard, chronicled
George's splendid isolation from citizen protest in last December's issue of
The American Conservative (www.amconmag.com). He wrote about Bill Neel, a
retired steelworker who dared to raise his humble head at a 2002 Labor Day
picnic in Pittsburgh, where Bush had gone to be photographed with
worker-type people. Bill definitely did not fit the message of the day, for
this 65-year-old was sporting a sign that said: The Bush Family Must Surely
Love the Poor, They Made so Many of Us.
Ouch! Negative! Not acceptable! Must go!
Bill was standing in a crowd of pro-Bush people who were standing along the
street where Bush's motorcade would pass. The Bush backers had all sorts of
Hooray George-type signs. Those were totally okey-dokey with the Secret
Service, but Neel's...well, it simply had to be removed.
He was told by the Pittsburgh cops to depart to the designated FSZ, a
ballpark encased in a chain-link fence a third of a mile from Bush's (and
the media's) path. Bill, that rambunctious rebel, refused to budge. So they
arrested him for disorderly conduct, dispatched him to the luxury of a
Pittsburgh jail and confiscated his offending sign.
At Bill's trial, a Pittsburgh detective testified that the Secret Service
had instructed local police to confine "people that were making a statement
pretty much against the President and his views." The district court judge
not only tossed out the silly charges against Neel but scolded the
prosecution: "I believe this is America. Whatever happened to 'I don't agree
with you, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it'?"
This was no isolated incident. Bovard also takes us to St. Louis, where
George appeared last year. About 150 sign-toting protesters were shunted off
to a zone where they could not be seen from the street, and--get ready to
spin in your grave, Jimmy Madison--the media were not allowed to talk to
them, and protesters were not allowed out of the protest zone to talk to the
media.
Now meet Brett Bursey. He committed the crime of holding up a No War for Oil
sign when sensitive George visited Columbia, South Carolina, last year.
Standing amid a sea of pro-Bush signs in a public area, Bursey was commanded
by local police to remove himself forthwith to the FSZ half a mile away from
the action, even though he was already two football fields from where Bush
was to speak. No, said Brett. So, naturally, they arrested him. Asked why,
the officer said, "It's the content of your sign that's the problem."
Five months later, Brett's trespassing charge was tossed on the rather
obvious grounds that--yoo-hoo!--there's no such thing as a member of the
public trespassing on public property at a public event. But John Ashcroft
is oblivious to the obvious, so the Justice Department of the United States
of America (represented in this case by--can you stand it?--US Attorney
Strom Thurmond Jr.) inserted itself into this local misdemeanor case,
charging our man Brett with a federal violation of "entering a restricted
area around the president." Great Goofy in the Sky--he was 200 yards away,
surrounded by cheering Bushcalytes who were also in the "restricted area."
Ashcroft/Thurmond/Bush attempted to deny Bursey's lawyers access to Secret
Service documents setting forth official policy on who gets stopped for
criticizing the President, where, when and why. But Bursey finally obtained
the documents and posted them on the South Carolina Progressive Network
website, www.scpronet.com; they reveal that what the Secret Service did goes
against official policy.
Then there's the "Crawford Contretemps." In May of 2003 a troupe of about
100 antiwar Texans were on their way by car to George W's Little Ponderosa,
located about five miles outside the tiny town of Crawford. To get to Bush's
place, one drives through the town--but the traveling protesters were
greeted by a police blockade. They got out of their cars to find out what
was up, only to be told by Police Chief Donnie Tidmore that they were
violating a town ordinance requiring a permit to protest within the city
limits.
But wait, they said, we're on our way to Bush's ranchette--we have no
intention of protesting here. Logic was a stranger that day in Crawford,
however, and Chief Tidmore warned them that they had three minutes to turn
around and go back from whence they came, or else they'd be considered a
demonstration, and, he reminded them, they had no permit for that. (Tidmore
later said that he actually gave them seven minutes to depart, in order to
be "as fair as possible.")
Five of the group tried to talk sense with Tidmore, but that was not
possible. Their reward for even trying was to be arrested for refusing to
disperse and given a night in the nearby McLennan County jail. The chief
said he could've just given them a ticket, but he judged that arresting them
was the only way to get them to move, claiming that they were causing a
danger because of the traffic.
This February, the five were brought to trial in Crawford. Their lawyer
asked Tidmore if someone who simply wore a political button reading "Peace"
could be found in violation of Crawford's ordinance against protesting
without a permit. Yes, said the chief. "It could be a sign of demonstration."
The five were convicted.
The Bushites are using federal, state and local police to conduct an
undeclared war against dissent, literally incarcerating Americans who
publicly express their disagreements with him and his policies. The ACLU and
others have now sued Bush's Secret Service for its ongoing pattern of
repressing legitimate, made-in-America protest, citing cases in Arizona,
California, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas--and coming
soon to a theater near you!
If incarceration is not enough to deter dissenters, how about some
old-fashioned goon-squad tactics like infiltration and intimidation of
protesters? In May of 2002 Ashcroft issued a decree terminating a
quarter-century-old policy that bans FBI agents from spying on Americans in
their political meetings and churches.
Not only were federal agents "freed" by Bush and his attack dog Ashcroft to
violate the freedoms (assembly, speech, privacy) of any and all citizens,
but they were encouraged to do so. This unleashing of the FBI was done in
the name of combating foreign terrorists. The Bushites loudly scoffed at
complaints that agents would also be used to spy on American citizens for
political purposes having nothing to do with terrorism. While officials
scoffed publicly, however, an internal FBI newsletter quietly encouraged
agents to increase surveillance of antiwar groups, saying that there were
"plenty of reasons" for doing so, "chief of which it will enhance the
paranoia endemic in such circles and will further service to get the point
across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
Likewise, in May of last year, the Homeland Security Department waded
butt-deep into the murky waters of political suppression, issuing a
terrorist advisory to local law enforcement agencies. It urged all police
officials to keep a hawk-eyed watch on any homelanders who [Warning: Do not
read the rest of this sentence if it will shock you to learn that there are
people like this in your country!] have "expressed dislike of attitudes and
decisions of the US government."
MEMO TO TOM RIDGE, SECRETARY OF HSD: Sir, that's everyone. All 280 million
of us, minus George Bush, you and the handful of others actually making the
decisions. You've just branded every red-blooded American a terrorist. Maybe
you should stick to playing with your color codes.
Last November, Ashcroft weighed back in with new federal guidelines allowing
the FBI to make what amount to pre-emptive spying assaults on people. Much
like the nifty Bush-Rumsfeld doctrine of attacking countries to pre-empt the
possibility that maybe, someday, some way, those countries might pose a
threat to the United States, the Bush-Ashcroft doctrine allows government
gumshoes to spy on citizens and noncitizens alike without any indication
that the spied-upon people are doing anything illegal. The executive
directive gives the FBI authority to collect "information on individuals,
groups, and organizations of possible investigative interest."
The language used by Ashcroft mouthpiece Mark Corallo to explain this
directive is meant to be reassuring, but it is Orwell-level scary: What it
means, says Corallo, is that agents "can do more research." "It emphasizes
early intervention" and "allows them to be more proactive." Yeah, they get
to do all that without opening a formal investigation (which sets limits on
the snooping), much less bothering to get any court approval for their
snooping. A proactive secret police is rarely a positive for people.
With the FBI on the loose, other police powers now feel free to join in the
all-season sport of intimidating people. In Austin, even the Army was caught
snooping on us. At a small University of Texas conference in February to
discuss Islam in Muslim countries, two Army officers were discovered to be
posing as participants. The next week two agents from the Army Intelligence
and Security Command appeared on campus demanding a list of participants and
trying to grill Sahar Aziz, the conference organizer. Alarmed by these
intimidating tactics, Aziz got the help of a lawyer, and the local newspaper
ran a story. The Army quickly went away--but a spokeswoman for the
intelligence command refused even to confirm that the agents had been on
campus, much less discuss why the US Army is involved in domestic
surveillance and intimidation.
In California an antiwar group called Peace Fresno included in its ranks a
nice young man named Aaron Stokes, who was always willing to be helpful.
Unfortunately, Aaron died in a motorcycle wreck, and when his picture ran in
the paper, Peace Fresno learned that he was really Aaron Kilner, a deputy
with the sheriff's department. The sheriff said he could not discuss the
specifics of Kilner's infiltration role, but that there was no formal
investigation of Peace Fresno under way. He did insist, however, that there
is potential for terrorism in Fresno County. "We believe that there is," the
sheriff said ominously (and vaguely). "I'm not going to expand on it."
If the authorities think there is terrorist potential in Fresno (probably
not real high on Osama's target list), then there is potential everywhere,
and under the Bush regime, this is plenty enough reason for any and all
police agencies to launch secret campaigns to infiltrate, investigate and
intimidate any and all people and groups with politics that they find even
mildly suspicious...or distasteful.
The attitude of police authorities was summed up by Mike van Winkle, a
spokesperson for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (another
spinoff of the Homeland Security Department--your tax dollars at work).
After peaceful antiwar protesters in Oakland were gassed and shot by local
police, van Winkle [Note: I do not make up these names] explained the
prevailing thinking of America's new, vast network of antiterrorist forces:
You can make an easy kind of link that, if you have a protest group
protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is
international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can
almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act. I've heard
terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact.
Terrorism isn't just bombs going off and killing people.
Fond regards,
G e o r g e L o t t e r m o s e r, imagist?
<?>Peace<?> <?>Harmony<?> <?>Stewardship<?>
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