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![]() Just Above Sunset
February 5, 2006 - The War of the Shirts (and other matters)
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One of the more interesting
events at the Tuesday evening State of the Union address was, before the president spoke, this – Cindy
Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was arrested and removed from the
House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush's State of the Union address, a police spokeswoman said. Her own account of what
happened is here, and of course this caused some alarm among the civil libertarian crowd. She wasn't unfurling a banner. It was a t-shirt,
basic black, with the words "2245 dead. How many more?" I
am second to no one in my public disgust for Cindy Sheehan. She has, in my opinion, brokered her legitimate grief over the
loss of her son for more than her fair share of limelight, which she has used to gallivant across the globe spreading her
idiotic political beliefs while trashing this country at every opportunity, all the while shmoozing with every odious scumbag
and dictator who will embrace her. Suffice it to say, I am not a fan. So his readers did fill
him in, noting 40 USC 5104 (e) (2) (C) might apply – (e)
Capitol Grounds and Buildings Security. - ... But then one has to decide
there was an "intent to disrupt" and there things get muddled - in the broadest sense, how do you differentiate between disagreement
and disruption? Note this circuit court ruling – Believing
that the Capitol Police needed guidance in determining what behavior constitutes a demonstration, the United States Capitol
Police Board issued a regulation that interprets "demonstration activity" to include: parading, picketing, speechmaking, holding
vigils, sit-ins, or other expressive conduct that convey[s] a message supporting or opposing a point of view or has the intent,
effect or propensity to attract a crowd of onlookers, but does not include merely wearing Tee shirts, buttons or other
similar articles of apparel that convey a message. Well, that's a kick, and
someone must have looked that up after the speech. As we see here, within twelve hours the Capitol Police say they will ask the US attorney's office to drop the charges, and a top Capitol
Police official, speaking off the record (no name, for obvious reasons), added, "We screwed up." She didn't violate any rules
or laws, and neither did the congressman's wife. Later the head of the Capitol
Police say the same thing officially. It
isn't okay just because two women had their constitutional rights thrown over the balcony last night at the State of the Union.
That just makes it worse. It suggests that what happened to Cindy Sheehan wasn't an accident. We have a government in power
that tolerates NO dissent. And making these arrests in the moments before the president's State of the Union address is simply
sickening in its symbolism. Over the top? Maybe, but
in terms of "atmospherics" the whole thing becomes emblematic of something or other. It feels like late-thirties in Germany
must have felt. And there's a lot of support for the original Sheehan arrest out there (see this). Anger and fear. They're wonderful things. And as tools of power, as effective as you could want. This
is nothing more than a naked attempt to stifle dissent and to create a criticism-free bubble around George Bush. Presidents
routinely use all sorts of propagandistic imagery at the State of the Union to decorate their speeches with an aura of regal
patriotism. We always see weeping widows and military heroes and symbolic guests of all sorts who are used as props and visuals
to bolster the President's message both emotionally and psychologically. The State of the Union speech is hardly free of visual
messages and propaganda of that sort; quite the contrary. Well, it showed something.
And the late apology and
dropping the charges may be simply a wink-wink nudge-nudge to the "cult of personality" in support of the president - they
did get her out of there, didn't they? Yet
there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything
but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy. Digby
-
Nice
trick. Speak with candor as long as you support me. It's the same trick that rhetorically conflates dissent with treason,
using the phrase "aid and comfort." In this case, his speechwriters very deftly forced the entire congress to leap to its
feet to applaud their own irrelevance - they ended up cheering the assertion that "second-guessing" in "hindsight" is unpatriotic
and that their only option is to do as he orders. Nice democracy we've got here. Well, it's what we've got.
Tonight
I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating
or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos. Human-animal hybrids? What
the heck was THAT about? Down
syndrome is a very common genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21... We would love to have an animal
model of Down syndrome... So what scientists have been doing is inserting human genes into mice, to produce similar genetic
overdoses in their development. Have to stop such things,
right? Drum say Bush is trusting that everyone will think he is banning monstrous crimes against nature, "but what he's really
doing is targeting the weak and the ill, blocking useful avenues of research that are specifically designed to help us understand
human afflictions." President
George W. Bush is right when he says the US should add a dose of market competition to its health-care system. But giving
the wealthy a big new tax break for tummy tucks may not be the best way to do it.
Business Week? He's lost them? That's cold. Of course, the man did confuse an individual
investment strategy with national healthcare policy. Prime
time in the United States falls in the darkest hours before dawn in the Middle East - prayer time, in fact, for the Muslim
faithful, the moment when the muezzin calls out (most often on a cassette tape over loudspeakers) that prayers are better
than sleep. So only a few people in the region listened to President George W. Bush deliver his State of the Union address
last night. But they know the message, now, almost as well as they know the call of the muezzin; it has been repeated so often,
so relentlessly, and so mechanically. The difference is that many believe the muezzin, and few believe Bush. Now why would that be?
We
shouldn't be surprised. The State of the Union, perhaps more than any other speech the president makes, defines the way the
administration wants to see its world. But its narrative is so foreign to the thinking of most people in the Arab world that
they've come to hear Bush's language as a kind of code: "liberation" means occupation, "freedom" means war, "victory" means
victims, "reconstruction" means chaos, "democracy" means following directives from Washington. Bush, whatever his intentions
- and I think he should be credited with some good ones - has come to be seen as a caricature, talking about strength and
determination, projecting an image of stubbornness and confusion. Dickey provides far more
detail, but this is the core. We talk about strength and determination, and project an image of "stubbornness and confusion."
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This issue updated and published on...
Paris readers add nine hours....
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