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| 7/8 |
| 2004/10/22-24 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34295 Activity:high |
10/22 Diversity, tolerance, and all that good liberal vibe in LA.
http://www.slate.com/id/2108561
\_ This pretty much matches my expectations.
\_ Actually, this matches the soda experience pretty well also.
\_ I thought the article was rather funny and well-written, but as
far as the social phenomenon it's not really fair. Ignoring the
strong geography aspect (people in California are either democratic,
apathetic, or too rich to care; things might be different in Texas)
I think the scorn for Bush/Cheney is appropriate-- these men have
proven themselves to be whatever people see them as, while Kerry
remains a wildcard. You can't hate a man for thinking he can do
better, but you can hate a man for needlessly taking your country
to war. See the difference?
\_ Right. Thanks for the confirmation.
\_ Right. Thanks for the confirmation.
\_ Presuming you're op: being angry with people for proven
reasons is not an indication that liberals are hypocrites,
or whatever it is you're trying to imply.
\_ Just a bit sensitive, aren't you?
\_ Only my nipples. Or were you not being sarcastic?
\_ So a guy wore a Bush/Cheney t-shirt in a liberal area, and
the worst thing that happened was a couple of people muttered
"asshole" under their breath? "Help Help I'm being oppressed!"
\_ Compare that to people attacked and beaten for being
Kerry supporters in Texas.
\_ Link please?
\_ If this is true, fucking Nazi bastards. They should
go live under Hitler, Hussein, or some such.
\_ And if it isn't? And if there are Republicans
out there getting attacked and beaten is that ok?
\_ I've been looking, but I can't find anything from the
news on this. All I found was a blog report where
some Bush supporters were assulted at a Kerry rally in
Milwaukee. Which I take with a grain of salt...
http://disjointed.org/archives/001032.html
\_ Kerry supporters are all peaceful victims. Bush
supporters are all evil and we can't trust them not
to lie about this. Not even that woman at the (R)
campaign office that got her wrist broken by some
piece of shit union thugs.
\_ Link?
\_
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=70201
What happened to that guy who was claiming a
month or so ago that only the American right
wing has a history of violence, and the left
wing is never violent?
\_ This always amuses me; the notion that because
people ascribe to one philosophy or another that
it somehow magically makes all its devotees
special and somehow superhuman. They always
seem to ignore that these are aspects of basic
human nature, and in any large enough group,
there will ALWAYS be vile, violent and unethical
people...and that this doesn't necessarily
reflect anything on the philosophy or group
(obExceptBlatantlyEvilGroupsLikeNazisOrSlavers). |
| 7/8 |
|
| www.slate.com/id/2108561 Political Poseur Pretending to be a Republican in Blue California. As a political and journalistic experiment, I decided to see how people w ho live in primarily one-party areas would react when faced with a livin g, breathing member of the opposition. I appointed myself an ambassador to bridge the Red-Blue divide and ventured into each side's territory dr essed in the T-shirt, campaign button, and tote bag of the other. I treated each foray as a run-of-the-mill busy dayvisiting malls, stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and parks. I simply lived an active consumer's life while dres sed in a great big Bush or Kerry T-shirt. I avoided any specifically pol itical place, such as campaign headquarters, and any venue where politic s would likely be discussed, such as churches or bookstores. The idea wa s not to see how people would deal with overt opposition but how the mer e existence of a political opponent would be tolerated. And so, campaign logo on my chest, and no small amount of mortal terror in my heart, I s allied forth to see if political freedom would pass the T-shirt test in our two Americas, Red and Blue. I first visit Newport Beach, Orange County's last bastion of weal thy white country-club Republicans (population, 70,032; I then travel to Bakersfield, the heart of California's agricultural Ce ntral Valley two hours northeast of Los Angeles (population 247,057; To give you a sense of the lion's den I was entering: In 2000, Bakersfield voted 608 percent Republican versus 41 percent statewide. In my Kerry-Edwards shirt, I enter Red America certain that I am on the v erge of inciting to rage a gang of angry yachtsmen who would soon be str apping me and my lefty leisurewear to their mizzenmast. Instead, I encou nter only shades of indifferencehead shaking, "crazy idiot" expressions from older, very wealthy, very white folks in Newport Beach; terse nods from the middle- to working-class citizens of Bakersfield, which seem t o indicate that people here have much bigger things to worry about than whatever is on my stupid T-shirt. In Bakersfield, surprisingly, there's little indication that we are near the eve of an election: I see a total of two campaign bumper stickers, one for Bush and one Kerry, and one el derly lady with a huge Bush button pinned to the jacket of her pantsuit. Despite a recent visit from Dick Cheney, presidential politics seems to have bypassed Bakersfield, and the locals are not about to let a mere T -shirt drag them into the muck. Toward the end of the day, I find one person on whom the election has a d eep hold. Strolling past a sunglasses booth in the mall, I am spotted by a tall and exceedingly thin man in his early 20s, with a buzz cut that makes him look ominously like a shock-therapy patient. As I walk by, he fixates on my shirt and begins to follow me, seemingly mesmerized by the power of my Kerry-Edwards logo. I look back and see him trailing behind me, mouth agape, his eyes glued to my back. Whether the shirt identifie s me as his leader or whether it is his Manchurian Candidate-like signal to kill, I can't tell. I duck into the mall's Starbucks and the spell s eems to break; In Bush-Cheney garb In Bush-Cheney garb Blue In Los Angeles' gentrifying-as-fast-as-we-can Hipstervillaka the Silverl ake/Los Feliz area on the city's eastsidethere are more coffeehouses an d alternative bookstores than churches. Here, aging, unemployed bohemian s with long, matted hair, tinted sunglasses, and affectedly dour express ions skulk along the midafternoon streets as though they have just rolle d out of bed. button, I first stop at Silverlake's ber-cafe, the Coffee Table. "The Table," a s it is known, is the daytime HQ for the area's writing communitythe be d-headed brigades of aspiring indie auteurs who hunch over their laptops , whispering pitches back and forth like state secrets. my T-shirt first makes contact with the locals as the server , a rather prim-looking Asian-American man, double-takes at my unabashed ly partisan display, his smile freezing into a look I can only describe as bracing for me to pull out an assault weapon and open fire. I order, pay, and walk with my Diet Coke through the restaurant, taking a seat on the patio that puts me and my garb on prominent display for the 20 or s o patrons. A wave of distressed glances ripples in my direction, but I r emain unmolested. On e of them, untucked shirt hanging over his jeans, gapes at my shirt and mutters, "Asshole," only slightly under his breath. Next up: Caf Tropical, the gritty Cuban coffee house in old Silverlake. I park my Bush-Cheney festooned car behind a Volvo station wagon decorat ed with a bumper sticker that reads, "Ban war without end. I order an iced espresso and sit beneath a collage of Che Guevara p hotos. Customers accessorize their coffees at the condiment station in f ront of me. Suddenly I look up to see Latino man, who appears to be in h is early 40s, rushing toward me, an enormous grin on his face. Peopl e standing nearby watch our summit with anguished there-goes-the-neighbo rhood expressions. As my new friend leaves, he stands at the front door and, raising his fist, yells, "Viva Bush!" Spasms of horror seize the st ore and pulse out to the community beyond. a two-block stretch of Sunset Blv d filled with boutiques peddling vintage 1970s lunch boxes, summer-camp T-shirts, and baby-doll dresses for grown women. So steeped are its den izens in the culture of irony that almost everyone thinks my shirt is a hilarious joke. As I browse through the Vice magazine store, a pair of g irls giggles at me. One of them comments, "I've never seen that one befo re." A 40ish man dressed in cargo shorts, flamboyant sunglasses, and a L ance Armstrong bracelet sees my shirt and bursts out laughing. Then, as I walk into a wacky gi ft shop, I hear a shriek. The woman behind the counter throws up her han ds in mock horror, "Oh no! she cackles, fei gning horror at my hilarious costume, as if humoring a child on Hallowee n On Vermont Avenue, irony fades into gentrification. A fashionably dressed woman seated at a sidewalk table makes a disgusted face at the sight of me. On line at Psychobabble coffee house, another woman in a blue velou r tracksuit rolls her eyes and grimaces at me with undisguised hatred. R ealizing there are no seats but the one next to me, she stares intently into her cup, avoiding my polluting glance, until another table opens an d she quickly relocates. Out on the avenue once again, I am gifted with my second "Asshole" of the day, this time muttered by a young man with b right dyed raspberry hair. The next day, I head to Brentwood, the lush epicenter of modern limousine liberalism and the hillside home of left-leaning Hollywood. This is whe re activists like Norman Lear and Laurie David live; a few months in res idence here and Arianna Huffington dropped Newt Gingrich like a hot tama le to become a paragon of "progressive" politics. I enter the faux-rustic Brentwood Country Mart, a collection of shops int ended to look like an olde-time barnyard. On the central patio, I pass a woman who looks up from her gaggle of children to see me passing and ex claims, "Ick! A group of teen skater boys waiting on line to buy t he Mart's famed "Chicken Basket" discuss whether Bush will be removed fr om office by the time they turn 18, thus saving them from the draft. Dining nearby is a young girl who looks to be about 6-ye ars-old; she gazes at my shirt with a look so forlorn, I expect to learn that Dick Cheney just stole her crayons. The girl starts to talk, but I can only make ou t "Bush shirt," which she says to her mother as she points my way. I start to wonder what s ort of person I am to inflict this on a poor child. Up in the San Vicente shopping area, things go even less smoothly. At the Coral Tree Organic Caf, a willowy, bookish woman seated a lone glares at me from across the room. When I smile and wave to her, sh e puts on her sunglasses. Driving home, I rip off my Bush-Cheney shirt so I can walk the streets of my neighborhood unjeered at and without terrifying little children. Ref lecting on the sting of being called "asshole" during m... |
| disjointed.org/archives/001032.html This is wh at I have pieced together from media and firsthand accounts of the Kerry rally in Milwaukee last night. a little disrepectful maybe, but not unusual at the se events. Senator Kerry thank ed "George Bush for sending out the goons to inspire them to work a litt le harder." After the usual latest line about "improving our public disc ource" with the Kerry/Edwards "optimistic attitude". Theresa Kerry added "They want four more years of hell." She then began a chant of "three m ore months" (apparently indicating some mathematical difficulty with the time between now and January when the next President would take the oat h of office). Now comes the part that is NOT being reported by the media. After the ver bal attacks from the principle speakers, the crowd turned on the Bush/Ch eney supporters. Some were asked if "they wanted to have their legs brok en". The group mentality kicked in and then others were actually physica lly assaulted, punched and kicked, as a group of Kerry supporters grabbe d the 4" x 6" Bush/Cheney sign and attempted to rip it in half. One Bush supporter was even thrown in the river by the Kerry "tolerance squad"! Can anyone imagine for just a moment if the roles were reversed here? The re is a virtual media blackout this morning on the events in Milwaukee y esterday, though the Kerry and Theresa comments are being reported by so me outlets. the libera l talking heads would be out in the media talking about how President Bu sh was responsible for some "new lack of civility in politics" or some s uch thing. so much so tha t this one event alone might kill his re-election chances. The President has been shouted down at events before, and he always responds above the fray, usually making some comment about fr ee speech, and how that's a good thing. His opponent, however, can call normal everyday Americans who have come to express an alternate opinion "goons", his wife can say they want "four more years of hell", their sup porters can physically assualt the demonstrators, and in the same speech they can talk about how they are taking their campaign down the high ro ad. They are allowed to get away with this by the media because their do uble standard continues more so than ever before! If it weren't so true it would be hilarious, and I don't kn ow what the reason is for it is. I don't think there is a grand conspiracy, but the slant is institutional . Something like 7% of the print and tv media vote Republican on a regular basis? For radio, the figures are a little higher but the fact remains that we can't get away with certain things that dems can, paricualy in the papers. That's just the way it is so we calculate it, deal with it, and move on. Arghh,class warfare from Guns and Roses and I STILL love 'em! but often had reporters coming to me about their p olitical stories because they had no idea what they were talking about a nd knew I did! jus t because that's the culture which surrounds them in the newsroom. They consider themselves to be more educated and therefore sinc e they think they understand the issue better, the other opinion (held i n many cases by most of America) is not legitimate. Most of the reporter s, however, were not smart enough to even understand their stories were liberal! John Leo wrote the best analysis I have ever seen o n this topic in 2001. a little known provision of the bill which is now in effect. and responded by saying that anyone who comes on pushing such a drastic thing should have to explain it and defend it. they were going in a "new direction" (less intelligence on the morning show, apparently ). We were driving from Detroit back down to Columbus on Sunday when I start noticing cops on every single overpass. After a few miles I take a look at the oncoming lanes and there is not a single car on I-75. Another mi le ahead there was a convoy of about 50 state troopers in a row. Behind them, John Kerry's 8 tour buses and some more state troopers. And behind all of that, mile after mile of bumper to bumper traffic on I-75. If I had been stuck in the traffic I saw on the other side caused by this , I would have voted for Bush this November. These people were not me rely peacefully holding signs expressing their views (like people I saw when Kerry spoke here in Michigan). They were setting off airhorns and a ctually trying to disrupt the speeches. I think "goons" is a pretty good description of thugg ish louts who try to interfere with a candidate's right to speak and the public's right to hear him. Those are Nazi tactics, not worthy of the U nited States of America. I haven't heard any reports of Kerry supporters acting that way at a Bush rally, and if I knew of any Kerry supporters who were *planning* to act that way, I would do whatever I could to talk them out of it or warn the organizers. Now, if Kerry supporters physically attacked them, I *don't* defend that; it sounds, though, like they just tried to tear up their signs, and whi le I don't approve of even laying a finger on someone for barbaric behav ior (I really would prefer calling the cops on them), this does seem to me like fairly mild retaliation for these guys' efforts to intimidate pe ople and ruin the event for everyone. Finally, the actual quote of Kerry's comment sounds to me like he was ver y annoyed but also determined not to be intimidated or shouted down. He didn't say "make them work harder," he said "to make us work harder" -- a statement that he just wasn't going to give in to Nazi tactics. At no time did Kerry or his wife encourage his supporters to retaliate against these people or even to make them shut up; he just said that they weren 't going to succeed in shutting him up. I want to know if you can seriously defend the idea of people trying to p revent someone from being heard. I'm not talking about disagreeing or pe acefully protesting, but actually trying to *forcibly* prevent someone f rom making themselves heard to the public. I'm astonished if these guys' behavior was legal, but in any case it's despicable. If that happened, I do n't defend it, and think the person who did that should be arrested. I d idn't see that in the Milwaukee press coverage, however, and I don't kno w for a fact that it happened. For all I know, the guy slipped and fell in while they were tussling over the sign, or something like that. In an y case, no, this Kerry supporter does not condone violence against Bush supporters. But neither do I support Nazi tactics used against Kerry. "I think "goons" is a pretty good description of thuggish louts who try t o interfere with a candidate's right to speak and the public's right to hear him. Those are Nazi tactics, not worthy of the United States of Ame rica." While I'm not a B ush fan, Bush and his supporters are far from posessing Nazi qualities. Furthermore, leftist p rotestors use those same tactics at Bush rallies all the time. In fact, I seem to recall protestors finding their way into the Abu Gharib hearin gs and interrupting Rumsfeld as he tried to give his testimony. Not ony were these protestors interrupting a government official's right to spea k, they were interfering with the justice system. NOT EVEN INSIDE THE CROWD (like they wou ld ever be let in). That said, I don't defend the one guy with the horn (I believe I said earlier the horn and even t he shouting was disrespectful). The use of the phrase "Nazi tactics", ho wever, shows a fundamental lack of understanding of history, is laughabl e and not really even worthy of this response. and that may hav e been the case on the large scale, since several scuffles broke out. Ho wever, my friends that were there were away from the group that was yell ing and blowing the horn and SOME in their group were outright assaulted . the main point was that Bush could never get away with similar comments in the press. You got roughed up by Kerry supporters---the ge neral public. At least you DIDN'T get arressted or fined for the signs y ou carried or the t-shirt you had on or the things that you shouted. So you had to go home with a ripped up sign and wet clothes. Kerry supporters at Bush rallies not onl y get beat up, but have be... |
| www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=70201 html Published: Oct 11, 2004 Author: David Postman Post Date: 2004-10-11 18:08:40 by packrat1145 Ping List: *Objective and Rational* 3 Comments Offices that house President Bush's re-election campaign in Spokane were broken into and vandalized last night, the latest in a string of crimes at Republican offices across the country. Workers arriving this morning found a hole smashed through the wall from an adjacent, vacant office. Bush campaign officials say a small amount o f petty cash is missing and a computer and television had been moved and left near the hole. "They must have gotten spooked because they ultimately left the computer and TV," said Bill Hyslop, the campaign's chairman for the Fifth Congres sional District. The computer and the TV had recently arrived in Spokane and the computer was loaded with information from the Republican get-out-the vote program . Spokane police responded this morning and took the computer's monitor and the TV, Hyslop said. "We obviously have no idea who did this and are not going to cast aspersi ons," said Hyslop, who served as US attorney in Spokane under Presiden t George HW Bush. In Bellevue last week , computers that stored the Republican get-out-the- vote database were stolen in a burglary at the Republican headquarters t here . Bush campaign officials believe the break - ins are part of a bro ader attack on the president's re-election offices around the country, i ncluding a burglary in Canton, Ohio, last night, gun shots fired in West Virginia, Florida and Tennessee and union protestors storming offices i n three Florida cities and Minneapolis. There are no suspects in the burglaries or shootings and no injuries were reported. Because the protests at campaign offices that were stormed were part of o rganized union demonstrations, Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot wrote a letter today to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney asking him to call off any future protests. "In addition to the injuries, property damage and disruption associated w ith these acts, these events have created a threatening and intimidating atmosphere abhorrent to our democratic process," Racicot wrote. The Spokane building leased by the state Republican party and serves as t he area office for party operations as well as the campaign for the Pres ident and other Republican candidates. Hyslop said that a security guard checked the building at about 6 am to day and did not report any disturbance. But when construction crews working on the adjacent office arrived within 30 minutes later, they noticed the back door of the adjacent office had been pried open from an alleyway. They also discovered that a hole appeared to have been kicked through the drywall separating the vacant space from the Bush offices. org may not have been specifically authorized by the cop yright owner. Such material is made available on a non-profit basis for educational and discussion purposes only. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 USC 107. I remember you whining something abou t a missing campaign sign. Read this while you're here: Getting Physical Union thugs target Republicans. Monday, October 11, 2004 12:01 am We may be about to experience an election unlike any we've seen in a whil e The Florida recount in 2000 raised passions and blood pressure and fe atured some demonstrations on both sides, but there was no violence. Thi s year, lots of groups are jostling with each other to monitor the elect ions in battleground states. For its part, the AFL-CIO has promised to d ispatch thousands of election monitors to battleground states to watch f or any hint of trouble at polling places. From the initial reports, they may be the ones for have to be watched as potential troublemakers. According to an Orlando Police Department report, Rhyan Metzler, a field director for the Republican Party, was at the headquarters about 1 pm last Tuesday when 60 protestors barged in. Van Church, a 53-year old pro testor, forced the door open and caused Mr Metzler's arm to be caught i n it. Police say Mr Ch urch will be charged with two counts of battery. "If his wrist was fractured, it's a result of his own actions in jerking the door the way he did," he told the Orl ando Sentinel. "He jerked the door out of my hand and cut it in the proc ess." But since it is Mr Church who is being charged, the police appare ntly didn't think Mr Metzler did anything wrong. Orlando's fracas was mirrored in Miami, where police reported that more t han 100 union protestors stormed the Bush-Cheney office and shoved volun teers aside. No one was charged because most of the protestors left befo re the police arrived. In Tampa, about 35 protestors filled the local GO P office and intimidated the elderly volunteers working there. Another Republican office, in Seattle, was broken into and had computer files stolen. She maintai ns that all of the demonstrations "were peaceful protests" designed to c all attention to new Bush administration regulations on overtime pay. He was speaker of the Florida Ho use in 2000 and knows how important it is to address election-related pr oblems early and not wait for Election Day. Mr Feeney and 49 other GOP members of Congress have signed a letter asking the Justice Department t o investigate if the coordinated protests violated any federal laws on p rotecting the rights to campaign and vote. Feeney also says the Jus tice Department needs to let people know it is watching this election mo re closely than most. "We ask that you work with state law enforcement a gencies in investigating a series of voting irregularities including for geries in voter registration forms, casting simultaneous ballots in diff erent states (double voting), and absentee voter fraud. Such activities disenfranchise those who properly register to vote and cast valid ballot s" Look for the Justice Department to become a major political football in t his election. Already, its warnings that terrorists may well try to disr upt the Nov. New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, a Demo crat, is openly asking if Attorney General John Ashcroft's warnings are part of a GOP effort to suppress voter turnout. Last week, Democrats res ponded by creating their own SWAT teams of lawyers that will be dispatch ed to any place where voting problems are recorded. One issue certain to be disputed will be provisional ballots, which are cast when someone do esn't find his name on the registration rolls. A flood of provisional ballot lists could tilt the election in close states one way or the other with Democrats demanding that officials "count every vote" and Republicans questioning the validi ty of some of the ballots. California Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, a Republican, says she has found 3,000 new duplicate registrations in her district. "The current process today is really Third World conditions," she told CNN's Lou Dobbs progra m When asked what she thinks about Democratic charges that her calls fo r investigations into the duplicate registrations will scare voters away from the polls, she refuses to back down. "You're damn right, I'm going to try to scare away the crooks." Let's hope the lawyers don't take over this election's aftermath the way they did in Florida in 2000. To prevent that the Justice Department need s to step in now and enforce everyone's civil rights. That means protect ing campaign workers from intimidation as well as preventing fraudulent votes from canceling out legitimate ballots. Allowing double voting, bal lots to be cast from the graveyard and those who have been disqualified because of criminal convictions to dilute the process only calls into qu estion the sanctity of the election itself. |