The Bush campaign has shown us the face of a totalitarian regime. They have ruthlessly suppressed any opposing voice in Bush rallies. People have to sign a loyalty oath to get in. They cannot wear a T-shirt with a dissenting message. No citizen is allowed to question the almighty president. It has come to the point where they frightened a school kid with the threat of a sniper shot to keep him from asking uncomfortable questions.
Where is the media? This country is sliding towards fascism. It's time we raised hell.
Perry Patterson was
arrested and charged with criminal trespass at a rally for Dick Cheney in Eugene Oregon. Her crime? She said "No" when Cheney claimed that war in Iraq has made the country safer.
Sue Niederer was handcuffed and placed under arrest when she interrupted Laura Bush's speech with the demand to know why her son had been killed in Iraq.
You think the protesters were thrown out for disrupting the speech? How about this one. Three school teachers were escorted out of a Bush rally in Oregon because they wore a T-shirt with the message "Protect our civil liberties". It wasn't an anti-Bush message. It wasn't a pro-Kerry message. It just stated a fundamental American value. They weren't shouting or heckling. They were merely wearing the T-shirt. Think of this: the idea of protecting our civil liberties is so offensive to our president that these ladies had to be thrown out. Is this the face of USA?
Students at a high school in Richland County WI, where George Bush was making an appearance, were told they could not wear any pro-Kerry clothing or buttons or protest in any manner at the risk of expulsion (Kos' diary). They will get expelled for wearing Pro-Kerry clothing in Bush's presence. The mere expression of support for his opponent is not to be tolerated! What next? Does he want to wipe out even the existence of opposition?
Well read this. The Des Moines Register reports
One of the latest incidents came when John Sachs, 18, a Johnston High School senior and Democrat, went to see Bush in Clive last week. Sachs got a ticket to the event from school and wanted to ask the president about whether there would be a draft, about the war in Iraq, Social Security and Medicare.
But when he got there, a campaign staffer pulled him aside and made him remove his button that said, "Bush-Cheney '04: Leave No Billionaire Behind." The staffer quizzed him about whether he was a Bush supporter, asked him why he was there and what questions he would be asking the president. "Then he came back and said, 'If you protest, it won't be me taking you out. It will be a sniper,' " Sachs said. "He said it in such a serious tone it scared the crap out of me."
Sachs stayed at the event, but he was escorted to a section of the 7 Flags Events Center where he was surrounded by Secret Service and told he couldn't ask questions. "I was just in a state of fear," he said. "I was looking at the ceiling and I didn't know what to expect, I was so scared."
They threatened to shoot him. Stop and think for a moment. Shoot. A kid. Just because he wanted to question the president. They surrounded him with security guards as though he was a terrorist threat just because he was a democrat and he wanted to ask a question the president may not like. If it was any other administration I would have thought that the kid was making it up. But this administration is so outrageous it has sent my bullshit detection meter off-kilter. I can't trust its readings anymore. Given all the other incidents I wouldn't put it past them to threaten the kid. Of course they were not really going to shoot him. I think they saw it was only a kid and thought they could frighten him and get away with it.
I don't care. They cannot threaten to shoot a citizen who only wants to question the president. This is NOT Saddam's Iraq.
More from the Des Moines Register:
Other incidents include five protesters arrested outside an event in Cedar Rapids; black and Hispanic students frisked in Davenport; and two people denied admission in Dubuque because they either didn't support Bush or were affiliated with someone who didn't.
Iowa's stories are similar to those being told around the country. According to media reports, Missouri students were in tears after they were removed from a Bush rally because they were wearing Kerry buttons. Others in Minnesota and Wisconsin were asked to leave Bush rallies because they had Kerry T-shirts or stickers.
Thursday night, police wearing riot gear fired pepperballs at protesters gathered at a hotel in Jacksonville, Ore., where Bush was scheduled to eat and sleep after a campaign speech. No one was injured, but two were arrested on charges of failure to disperse. Participants questioned the police intervention because they said they weren't violent or disrupting traffic.
The Bush campaign says that because of limited space those helping to re-elect Bush are given priority over those wishing to disrupt. Excuse me? Limited space? Kerry welcomes 100,000 people to his rallies. He doesn't seem to have a problem with space limits.
The Bush campaign says they want the rallies to go smoothly, they want the Bush supporters to be able to hear his message without disruptions. First of all, if they are only eliminating disruptions then why are they banning people for wearing pro-Kerry buttons. And secondly, I'm sorry, Bush is not an entertainer, nor is he a religious messiah. And if they think they can manage the message and the rally as though it were a corporate event they are wrong, wrong WRONG. A democracy is not a corporation and the president of a democracy is not the CEO of a corporation. In an election rally, the president is making his case to us, asking us to elect him. We have every right to ask him why we should send him back to office. He serves us, at our will. In a democracy the government works to serve the people. It exists by our consent. The president is accountable to each and every one of us - democrat, republican and independent alike. Because he presides in our name. When he invades Iraq, he does so in our name. When he allows prisoners to be tortured it is our reputation that is besmirched. He should damn well answer our questions. Or this is no democracy. I don't care if they are within their legal limits to throw out people. Legal or not, its not democratic.
So where is the outrage? Why isn't this a major talking point on every media outlet? This is not what USA stands for. This is so un-American I can hardly recognize this country anymore. What is most disconcerting is that the media seem to accept the Bush campaign's explanations as reasonable and they move on. They seem unconcerned as we slowly slide towards fascism.
Guys, we need to do something. We cannot be quiet. If they try to silence us we WILL raise hell. Lets start a campaign. Send the links to media outlets and ask them why this is not a major issue. Ask them to look at the wider picture, the subjugation of democracy. Shouldn't the american people know that Bush does not share our basic democratic values? Write letters to editors - use the stories I have linked. Send the articles to your e-mail buddies.
If you have any other articles about such incidents please post them here.
Here is a media contact page Allows you to contact upto 5 media outlets at once.