posted on August 7, 2002 05:46:34 PM new
I was so happy to see over 150 demonstrators at the Commonwealth Club where he was to speak. Even a couple sneaked in and started shouting "corporate crook" as he was speaking.
What a nice little scripted speech he gave. Of course, no questions from the press were allowed. Questions were submitted from the audience, and even those had to be approved by him so he would know the right answers. When asked about Halliburton he suggested to go to their web site for information. He said he couldn't comment because of the SEC investigation. Oh yea, he's pretty sure he will be on the ticket in 2004, if his wife lets him.
Good going San Francisco! We are finally taking to the streets in protests, and the demonstrations will be louder and larger as time goes by.
posted on August 7, 2002 06:38:09 PM new
Protests are seldom covered much by the media anymore. Dissent just doesn't exist.
A few weeks ago, the day before we left on vacation, we went to a party for a friends' brother who was visiting from Paris. I especially wanted to go in order to talk with him a little bit about the French perception of Bush. The French were among the first to express their horror about 9/ll and convey their deep concern and sympathy for the American people. They are not particularly fond of Bush however and one of the behaviors that they found appaling, rather surprising to me, was that he would only accept pre-approved questions when he visited Paris. Also, the fact that he kept calling their president Jack. The French also don't understand exactly how it came about that Bush won the election. I told him that that was a widely shared quandry, even in the States.
posted on August 7, 2002 07:36:52 PM new
The demonstrators that you mentioned were not shown or mentioned on the news, chococake. It's good to know that they were there!!!
While hecklers chanted "Cheney is a corporate crook" in San Francisco, Bush was in Jackson, Mississippi talking about "shady" practices that had let down the poor people of Mississippi, (employees of WorldCom}. He said that his administration was "investigating, arresting and prosecuting" errant executives. LOL!
Dodging questions, Cheney said, "... there are editorial writers all over America poised to put pen to paper and condemn me for exercising undue, improper influence if I say too much about it ..."
posted on August 7, 2002 09:11:20 PM new
Helen, I knew they wouldn't show the protesters outside on anything but our local news. They couldn't help but show the hecklers, because it was right in the middle of his speech. There were about 15 pro Cheney demonstrators but they couldn't even show them without acknowleging the others. Is there any doubt who owns the media?
At the same time Cheney was speaking, Simon was across the bay in Oakland. The news said they were trying to keep the two crooks as far apart as possible. Usually, the president or VP would meet with the Republican candidate for governor if in the area.
With Bush, Cheney, and Simon all speaking at the same time today in different places, all I could think of was, here are three hypocrites. How on earth could anyone be fooled by them? The answer....Republicans!
posted on August 7, 2002 09:47:53 PM new
there is no doubt that the protests were downplayed and even ignored in the media.... that Cheney is just another corporate maggot trying to escape the light of day is becoming increasingly clear..but hecklers shouting him (or anyone) down is another form of tyrrany, and makes those who would engage in reasonable dissent look foolish....
posted on August 7, 2002 10:56:29 PM new
There are public demonstrations at almost every speaking engagement and visitions by high ranking government officials of both parties. You all know that, or maybe you don't. They are as American as apple pie and baseball.
Protestors are not seen as representative of the majority and not worthy of the sound bytes as far as reporters go - and that goes for both parties.
posted on August 7, 2002 11:58:42 PM new
The media's failure to cover protests in their filming or reporting, however briefly, is fairly recent and is a disservice to the American public through its lack of accuracy in conveying the event, just as reporters' subservience to following all the scripted appearances of this administration are. Journalists have buckled under the weight of the corporate buck, for the time being anyway.
It's interesting to note that in the international coverage of events not including top U.S. administration officials protests continue to be included in the coverage. Just no longer here with our new and improved definitions of freedom.
sp
[ edited by antiquary on Aug 8, 2002 12:01 AM ]
posted on August 8, 2002 05:31:29 AM new
I heard it on the radio news yesterday and this link is to this morning's Washington Post (one sentence though).
Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 8, 2002; Page A01
<snip>
"Cheney's prepared remarks were mostly about the economy, and they closely followed the remarks made yesterday and in recent weeks by Bush: that the problems were inherited from the Clinton administration and that the fundamental health of the economy is sound. The vice president's speech was briefly interrupted by hecklers calling him a "corporate crook" and opposing intervention in Iraq." <snip>
posted on August 8, 2002 07:27:28 AM new "At the same time Cheney was speaking, Simon was across the bay in Oakland. The news said they were trying to keep the two crooks as far apart as possible. Usually, the president or VP would meet with the Republican candidate for governor if in the area.
In a few days, Bush will be in California. It will be interesting to see how close Bush gets to Simon...the dance of corporate crooks. lol!!!
posted on August 8, 2002 08:57:15 AM new
Sorry to disillusion everybody but there is no additional grand conspiracy. Drawing 150 protesters in SF just isn't news. We get more than that when people want a stoplight in NYC.
posted on August 8, 2002 10:31:34 AM new
It won't be long before these forms of "Free Expression" will be met with millitary force, participants aressted and detained incommunicato. The Republicans and the Bush Camp are well aware that Americans are talking armed rebellion. They are now looking into how to subvert the Posse Comitatus Act and allow regular millitary troops to "enforce the peace" on American soil!
posted on August 8, 2002 10:36:49 AM new
One line coverage is progress, but the Bushbots will probably have fits about it and try to minimize the growing disgust with our elected officials unethical, and perhaps illegal, behaviors.
posted on August 8, 2002 02:14:14 PM new
Hmmm! Looks like the British people and parliament aren't fond of their leaders assuming dictatorial powers either.
posted on August 9, 2002 08:57:29 AM new
Is it just the state that I live in - Oregon?
I mean, everywhere I go, I hear people I've never met talking about armed rebellion!
Even my barber is organizing a group of hunter-buddies and they want to go hunting down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. That surprised the hell outta me. And it's not just a few wackos and weirdoes, or some weird fringe militia groups like we had in the 1990s. These are ordinary working class folk without extreme politics - except that they want the Constitution to be left alone and completely unmolested by any government officials, whether Democrats against the 4th Amendment or the Republicans against the entire Constitution!
And it has also spread up into Washington State and into northern California. Maybe the West is about to secede in order to protect our rights, more likely, there's about to be a lot of bloodshed. And it's no exaggeration on my part that these sentiments are running rampant out here!
You can be sure that the Republicans aren't deaf. They know that Americans won't take this dissolution of their Constitutional Rights lying down. That's why they are not counting on the OHS to protect them, but are counting on using U.S. military to kill and subdue Americans who rise up on American soil!
I'm not advocating an armed rebellion or full-scale revolution. I think that our politicians, both elected and UNelected should back off: repeal the Patriot Act and dissolve the Office of Homeland Security, stop the War on Terrorism or make a Constitutional effort to Declare War legally, and to clean up their act altogether. Because if an armed rebellion or full-scale revolution happens here in America, the participants won't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican or which branch of government it is that you lead - you'll all have to fly from the country or hide!
So, how is everyone in your area? Are they all singing away about how they love Bush while collecting wild flowers to throw at his feet as his motorcade rushes by in bulletproof plating?
Borillar
"Friends don't let friends vote republican"
posted on August 9, 2002 09:37:17 AM new
Borillar, no I haven't heard anything here, but I'm not suprised. When we talked about it here a long time ago, we were told we were crazy. Remember?
To those who posted in this thread saying, big deal demonstrations have been around for ever. Yes, they have! But, with this administration, and because of 9/11 people have been afraid to even speak out.
These protesters are among the first to speak out loud and clear that we won't be silenced any longer!
posted on August 9, 2002 09:47:19 AM new
Ok, Ok, I'll write this one down too, but if neither this or any of the last 500 predictions doesn't come true soon, I'm gonna get me a new swameee.
posted on August 9, 2002 11:07:50 AM new
I'm surpized at that, Chococake. Everyone I've casually met in the course of the day, the mention of the Office of Homeland Security elicits a one-word reply: Gestopo! You haven't heard that wherever you're at? Mentioning the Patriot Act and Bush's sweeping new dictatorial powers often doesn't elicit words, as sedition is a crime, but the look on the faces of those you ask says it all: you don't want to be a politican right about now. And so, the people you talk to are all for it or no opinion whatsoever over there, chococake? Maybe it is just a west coast phenomena. And everone else is enjoying licking Bush's and Ashcroft's boot heels like some posters that we know of ...
edited to add UBB link
[ edited by Borillar on Aug 9, 2002 11:50 AM ]
posted on August 9, 2002 11:20:20 AM new
Borillar, oh no, there is plenty of dissent! But, I haven't heard talk of taking up arms.
However, as the demonstrations grow larger we both know some blood will be shed.
I see thousand's of people at the flea market and hear remarks about hiden cameras, and do we have to be careful of what we buy and sell. There is more security, but a lot of people think it's not for our protection.
posted on August 9, 2002 08:21:28 PM new
Now that I am not working in the shops I don't get in contact with the "gun nuts and survivalists" much. But one shop I worked at was raided by the BATF 3 times in 5 years.
However the kind of guys that were being arrested were the sort that know that once you have a conspiracy of two you are in danger and when it is three the probability of one being a police informer approuches unity.
Those most likely to DO something are very very quiet.
The sort I am talking about don't even invite anyone to their home unless they are very sure of them. The kind of guy with silent motion detectors around his perimeter
and active defenses.
posted on August 9, 2002 08:26:08 PM new
Everyone I talk to is a dissenter but like Choco, I've not heard any talk of taking up arms. I think most people want to go the regular route and try to vote the bas***rds out.
Of course that may change now that Ken is a Washingtonian....if he's done moving that is.
posted on August 9, 2002 10:30:45 PM new
I was watching Cheney's speech in S. F. when the hecklers broke in. I shouted hooray at the TV--at last, some real protest! Good for them. I hope Cheney is enjoying his heaven on earth, because it's the only heaven he's going to see. The damned crooks.
Many many of us are seething--just seething--but holding it in. I hope to God that the voters this November teach the Republicans a lesson. It's interesting to me to see that even some of the die-hards, like Bill O'Reilly, are beginning to ask questions and aren't as doctrinaire in their total support of Bush/Cheney as they used to be.
A friend of mine was told in the dentist's chair by a dental assistant how glad she was that Bush was in charge, and Cheney too. "Can you imagine if we'd had GORE in office?" When my friend could speak again, she asked casually what is it you like about Cheney? The assistant said "Well, he's had so much experience!" My friend said, "So has a safecracker."
posted on August 9, 2002 11:00:13 PM new
"Of course that may change now that Ken is a Washingtonian....if he's done moving that is."
It won't change much, bunz, as I'd more likely be as Gravid described. Although I appeared in a widely published photo protesting with Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971, it wasn't hard then to see that that activity was heavily infiltrated by the FBI, and some of my friends and brothers did prison terms, others are dead, and the rest are tired I think. The government is without scuples as far as what it will do to trump charges and problems for people and this one is by far the most dangerous that I've seen.
We aren't done moving, but we can't bring ourselves to leave again to go back and retrieve the rest of our stuff. Keep putting it off. Just this afternoon I got an online ability back that's tolerable to me, and I'm only now figuring it out. I had to get a direct satellite service with my very own antenna as there's not even DSL available here. The local dialups are using 2400 modems, I think, and I couldn't stand it after years of cable service. Got the tractor purring though.
WASHINGTON — One could hear the exhale of relief from the conservative multitudes — and the "Ruffles and Flourishes" playing in the gladdened hearts of Republican graybeards.
For Cheney, Mighty Cheney was advancing to the bat.
A question mark had been quivering over the White House. There had been a frenzy of speculation and an outpouring of analysis among the capital cognoscenti.
Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution was teetering on the brink of observing that the Bush presidency was "teetering on the brink." Ibid., Norman Ornstein.
So Republicans were thrilled to hear the vice president tell a worshipful crowd of white, wealthy people at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last week that he would be willing to run with the president in 2004.
He called his White House tenure — incognito, undisclosed, classified and unavailable — "the high point of my professional life." The humility in his tone was unmistakable.
Republicans had been worrying about the health factor — not that Mr. Cheney's was getting worse but that Mr. Bush's was getting better.
The more buff the president grew, the more party solons fretted that he was frittering away time in the gym that could be better used formulating clear policies in a roiling time.
Last week, the president had his best checkup ever, with doctors swooning over his lissome lipoprotein, taut triglycerides, sleek homocysteine, A-plus C-reactive protein levels and thin body fat.
In a city where being a grind is better than being a glamourpuss, suspicion falls on those who are too modish or too toned. Are they spending more hours cross-training than studying the Law of the Sea Treaty?
So it is with the president. He looks too good.
Even Republicans have begun privately admitting what Democrats have been whispering: Mr. Cheney is running the country. He can't get off the ticket because Mr. Bush won't get off the treadmill.
While hobnobbing near Nob Hill, Mr. Cheney waved off inquiries about accounting irregularities at Halliburton during the time he was paid over $45 million as chief executive.
He referred the curious to the Halliburton Web site, where nearly all traces of his existence at the company have been inexplicably scrubbed. In a master stroke that easily threw the press off the scent, Mr. Cheney said that a transcript available at www.halliburton.com would satisfy all remaining questions.
But there is no transcript on the Web site, only a link to a conference-call recording that lets those with audio software listen to barely audible, tinny voices proclaiming that Dick Cheney did nothing wrong.
Republicans are most grateful to Mr. Cheney. With the time he saved by not explaining administration policy to the president and the country, and the time he saved refusing to answer reporters' nitpicking questions about his past business schemes, he has been able to fly around raising more than $12 million for Republican candidates.
On Tuesday, he'll interrupt his monthlong break in Wyoming to preside over the president's Waco economic forum, which is designed to present Mr. Bush as a leader who is engaged with the country's economic fears, rather than one who is on a monthlong vacation from them.
Like a buoyant Dr. Evil holding a napping Bush Mini-Me in a Snugli, Mr. Cheney seems to relish running the world alone. Consider how primary the secondary man is.
Without Mr. Cheney, America would not be planning to invade Iraq. Who else understands why the U.S. is starting a war without provocation for the first time in its history?
Without Mr. Cheney, and his reverence for oil and the House of Saud, wouldn't Foggy Bottom demand that the Saudis, like other allies, nurture democracy and women's rights and stop coddling terrorists?
Without Mr. Cheney, might there be a real economic policy, not just all-tax-cuts-all-the-time?
Without Mr. Cheney, who in the West Wing would have resisted tougher corporate responsibility laws?
Without Mr. Cheney, who would have had the secret contacts in the energy industry to help formulate federal energy policies?
Only one question remains: Will the vice keep the president?
posted on August 11, 2002 05:20:08 AM new " Like a buoyant Dr. Evil holding a napping Bush Mini-Me in a Snugli, Mr. Cheney seems to relish running the world alone. Consider how primary the secondary man is."
posted on August 11, 2002 10:24:49 AM new"He called his White House tenure - incognito, undisclosed, classified and unavailable - "the high point of my professional life." The humility in his tone was unmistakable."
