Bush gave a speech today in Eisenhower Auditorium on Penn State's campus (to the Pennsylvania Future Farmers of America -- high school kids). The local progressive community distributed an "Ike was Right, Bush is Wrong" flyer to over a thousand townspeople before and after the speech, and well over a hundred sign holding
regular folks turned out on a hot and humid afternoon to voice their opposition.
Click on the thumbnail to see all the determined Central Pennsylvanians!
More on the flip side...
Here is Bush explaining how they had contained the protesters in their pen, but the voices of the opposition were heard.
This Centre Daily Times article mentioned "more than one hundred protesters" who "appeared mannerly."
My friend who took the top photo from afar (from a nearby glass walkway in a building) reported being surrounded by knee-jerk Republicans when he took the shot. When the crowd all turned toward him to show their signs, my friend commented, "They're a responsive group."
The other guy was a real wise guy...he cracked, "So can you make them go away then?"
My friend shot back, "As soon as you go down to the recruiting station and sign up. Asshole."
The clown was stopped cold in his tracks.
I was especially moved by the Veterans for Peace in the shot below.
The text of the flyer was pretty powerful. It featured this photo of Ike and the following quote, along with several bullet points on why Bush's Social Security scheme is bad for rural America.
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are...a few...Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is neglible and they are stupid.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 8, 1954
The bottom of the flyer read:
As George W. Bush speaks in Eisenhower Auditorium, we ask the question:
What would Ike do?