Seven Arrested at White House for War Protest

By MIKE FERNER | Counterpunch | 2.28.06

Holding a banner that read, "GOD FORGIVE AMERICA," seven peace activists were arrested yesterday in front of the White House, in a civil disobedience protest against the war in Iraq.

*****

The seven were charged with the federal misdemeanor of demonstrating without a permit, fined seventy-five dollars, and released yesterday evening. The action was part of VCNV's "Winter of our Discontent" demonstratons in the month leading up to the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 20.

Terrell organized the group of 15 from Iowa that included students from Loras College, a. hospital worker, and a farmer from Missouri who drove 140 miles to Des Moines to join them

"If not now, when?" Terrell replied when asked why they drove 20 hours overnight to get arrested in the nation's capital. "Some people consider civil disobedience an extreme measure for extreme times. If these aren't extreme times I don't know what are."

*****

The entire group demonstrated on the sidewalk in front of the White House fence, walking slowly with placards and banners for about 30 minutes. The seven who were arrested took their signs to the portion of the fence ruled off-limits to protests where they stood, attracting the attention of Park Police who warned them they risked arrest.

When they refused to move, police called in a large team to make the arrests which included six officers on motorcycles, one on horseback, and over a dozen in patrol cars and unmarked vehicles including several command officers, with four Secret Service officers observing.

After police roped off a large, square area in front of the protesters, a lieutenant, speaking through a patrol car loudspeaker, warned the seven that "You must leave the enclosed portion of the White House sidewalk. All those not leaving will be arrested." Three warnings later, officers approached the activists and began handcuffing and searching them one at a time. To cheers from supporters and under the eye of dozens of tourists, the arrestees were lead into a large police wagon and taken away. The whole operation took about 90 minutes.

Last night, Leys said they had been processed, fined, and released later in the day around 5:00 pm.

*****

Mike Ferner is a freelance writer from Ohio. He can be reached at: mike.ferner@sbcglobal.net

Nationwide Anti-War Protest 3.18.06

NION
March 18-20: US Out of Iraq NOW

The world still says no to the U.S. led war and occupation of Iraq!

Just over three years ago, 8 million people worldwide came into the streets in unprecedented demonstrations to register their overwhelming opposition to the illegal and unjust war plans of the Bush administration. Three years later, the horrors in Iraq continue to mount. New released photos remind us of the prisoner-abuse scandals at Abu-Ghraib, as well as Guantanamo, and other secret detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan that are operated without outside scrutiny, a secondary invasion of Iraq by war-profiteering Western corporations, by most accounts over 1 00,000 Iraqi civilians dead, and now over 2,200 U.S. troops killed and thousands more seriously wounded.

The situation in Iraq is grim. As people of conscience living in this country, we must find ways, big and small, that work toward stopping this course in its tracks.

One such way will be taking to the streets on Saturday, March 18 as part of marches, rallies, and other protest events across the county. Check our calendar for the event in your city or town -- if your event is not yet listed, please add it!

[zombienote: Post totally stolen from Dag of Smirking Chimp on the March 2006 Call to Action: Confront the War Machine thread. March 18th is as good a time as any.]

Missions Accomplished

From Bill Gallagher's essay -
BUSH'S HOUSE OF CARDS COLLAPSING

Welcome to Democracy Row
Just outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
This is where our greatest freedoms
Once cherished -- now worn out, washed up and
Discarded like empty gin bottles -- have hit the skids.
There's Freedom of Speech
Curled up in a ball under a tattered American flag -- rocking
Silently back and forth.
Freedom of Expression is nearby trying to warm -- huddled under two T-shirts that read
"Support the Troops" and "2245 Dead How many more?"
Wiretapping walks by fresh from a party at the White House
Reeking of arrogance and undeserved superiority
He spits on Privacy and Privacy whimpers in despair.
Lies come running out like a pack of wild dogs
Tearing Truth to shreds.
Fear and Ignorance chase after them
Drunk with power
They kick dissent a few times
As they pass just for fun
The Liberties watch in disgust
Waiting for We the People to wake up.

The Enemy

William Rivers Pitt | t r u t h o u t | Perspective | Friday 17 February 2006

Excerpt:

We hear a great deal about enemies these days, and many of them are quite real and quite perilous. It is difficult to imagine a more perilous enemy, however, than the one operating out of Washington today. This enemy would set itself on high, beyond control or censure, and create of itself that permanent faction James Madison so earnestly warned us of. This enemy deletes or hides evidence of its calumny, or simply alters existing laws that would otherwise derail its plans. This enemy destroys lives out of hand, lives by the tens of thousands, and reaps a pretty profit in the process.

The difference between the enemies we hear about and the one in Washington is simple and deadly: only the enemy in Washington can annihilate the constitutional government we have enjoyed for more than two centuries. The idea that is America cannot be terminated by terrorists or rogue states. Were the nation entire to be somehow obliterated, the idea that is America would endure. Only its keepers can kill it completely. They are well on their way.

"As nightfall does not come at once," wrote Justice William O. Douglas, "neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness."

We must deal with the enemy within the halls of our government, the enemy whose power to destroy far outstrips any enemy beyond our borders. In doing so, we save that which is unique in the world. In doing so, we deal a death blow to all other enemies. In doing so, we save ourselves from that darkness.

This greatly summarizes the whole idea behind the concept of Camp Liberty.

Now Iraq Centcom Visits

VISITOR ANALYSIS: 15th February 2006
Referring Link ____________No referring link
Host Name ____________vict-cache.iraq.centcom.mil
IP Address ____________214.13.130.100
Country ____________United States
Region ______________Ohio
City ______________Columbus
ISP ______________Dod Network Information Center

The DOJ has visited Camp Liberty

Look who's been sniffing the Camp Liberty Blog - (from the sitemeter stats)

VISITOR ANALYSIS

14th February 2006 13:08:58

Referring Link________ No referring link
Host Name________ wdcsun25.usdoj.gov
IP Address________ 149.101.1.125
Country ________ United States
Region ________ District Of Columbia
City________ Washington
ISP________ Us Dept Of Justice

Oakland Settles Anti-War Protest Lawsuit

Portland Anti-Bush/Anti-War (same thing) Protest in Oakland 2003

Feb. 9, 2006 | Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- A dozen anti-war protesters who accused police of using excessive force to break up a raucous demonstration three years ago have settled with the city for nearly $400,000, lawyers said.

Protesters said police fired wood bullets and bean-bag rounds at them without provocation and failed to allow them to disperse during the 2003 rally at the Port of Oakland.

The city "admitted no wrongdoing" from their violent and unprovoked attack on people demonstrating - or TRYING to demonstrate - against the illegal invasion and "war" against Iraq.



Note that this took only 3 years to get wrangled out.

Our rights gets shot and tasered and people get arrested and tear-gassed, shot, and assualted when they demonstrate and "Justice" is "delivered" 3 years later and only after a series of expensive lawsuits.

This is why a large team of lawyers would be absolutely essential for Camp Liberty efforts.



We KNOW exactly the sort of treatment we will get - everything we saw in Oakland, in Miami at the FTAA, and in NYC at the RNC protests. THus it seems a moot point that an entire platoon of lawyers would be desirable. Young, eager legal types, paralegals, and seasoned lawyers who understand the threats presented by Team Bush should step up for a semi-coordinated pro bono effort to build a wall of legal injunctions in advance of planned protests.



Or maybe the entire idea of protesting should center on/revolve around pre-emptive lawsuits with the intent to totally hobble law enforcement allowing the People to simply exercise our Constitutional writes as they are already written. I can't pretend to know, not being a constitutional scholor or lawyer, but this seems to be where we are headed.

Surveillance Prompts a Suit: Police v. Police

The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.

Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's "1984."

"That's Big Brother watching you," the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.

Mr. Liddy's complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.

Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.

A lawyer for the city said the police union members were treated no differently than hundreds of thousands of people at other gatherings, with public safety and free speech both protected. The department observes all constitutional requirements, the city maintains.

So funny! Everybody's rights were equally trampled. That's what passes for fairness in America now.

Welcome to the party, cops. Tell me, how does it feel?

This occured right as half a million Americans poured into NYC to protest the GOP's convention. The infamous protest where cops - maybe even some of the same ones whining about the trampling of their rights in this incident - rounded up large groups of people with orange netting and threw them into "Gitmo on the Hudson" by the hundreds.

I also seem to remember that some of the real protestors joined in with the cop's protest. (Not that cops can't be real protestors, but it seems a bit surreal, given all that cops to do stifle protests.)

Obviously as long as Team Bush is in power, what goes around will come around and Bloomberg is part and parcel of Team Bush.

Why not join us at Camp Liberty? You already know the score: you can't really exercise you First Amedment rights to Free Speech without a completely Orwelliam outpouring of police repression, surveillence, and threats of arrest if you even look at a cop wrong.

Please, join with us in protesting the Bush Administration. You know they are screwing you blind. Just admit it.

Join us.

The Origin of Camp Liberty

In my deep concern and festering anxiety about the rapid decay of my country I have launched my own idea of what may help interrupt the process.

I am not any sort of "professional protest organizer" and won't even begin to be such a thing. However, I can no longer sit by and watch the "professionals" - no names mentioned but about any organized group of any size is who I mean - bicker and split hairs while Team Bush and the Neocon Cabal (remember, that's what they call themselves!) systematically destroy my country and ruin what is left of the world in which I have to live out my days.

We do not have time to organize a politically correct event in which the needs of 10,000 different sub-issues - my own cannabis relegalizaton included - are fit together in a way that pleases everybody. It's not going to happen, folks.

What I think people need to see for the time being is that Team Bush is the single biggest threat we all face and if we do not interrupt their plans to eliminate our freedoms to gather, to speak out, to dissent, there won't be ANY protesting anything.

Got it?

I have set up this blog in anticipation of actually getting some cooperation with my idea to have a huge number of people gather in Washington DC and stay for awhile.

As described in my first post, Team Bush has control of the TV and this has been the biggest challenge to all protest activities and intentions. The antiwar protests in 2003 and the RNC Protest in 2004 were large-scale and very successful...except they were minimalized and marginalized very successfully by the TV media talking heads.

Interrupting the control of the TV has to be one of the biggest prizes for those of us who want to take our country back from those who have utterly hijacked it.

So I assert it is both necessary and correct to have a large-scale ongoing protest presence inside the so-called "Washington DC Beltway". It has to be big and it has to last more than a week in order to begin to garner the attention of the US media. It's apparently not difficult to get the attention of foreign media, but as nice as that is, it does not get through to Joe and Betty Average American.

Americans have a dependency on the Television that is simply not healthy. Essentially, if something is not on TV (such a Team Bush and the GOP used Diebold machines and other tactics to steal the elections in 2000 and 2004) then it is just not "real". On the other hand, if it IS on TV then it is the gospel truth, as can be evidenced by the number of people who STILL believe that WMD's were found in Iraq and that still believe Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.

Thus it is important to find a way to force the media to cover a protest event that lasts longer than a few hours. And thus I have stolen - unabashedly - Cindy Sheehan's Camp Casey model. Her protest was brilliant in it's simplicity and extremely successful. Yes, it generated a media circus and that's exactly what is needed to rouse TV-addicted Americans out of their hypnotic slumber.

A date needs to be set and ideas need to be generated as to how to support such an action as this. Thus this humble little blog for now.

If some big influential group - ANSWER, World can't wait, NION, etc - can make it work, so much the better. I'm not in this for fame or fortune. I'm 45 and in good health. I expect to live for some time and am appalled and terrified by what Team Bush is doing to the country in which I will have to live out my days.

So come on; put the bickering and hair-splitting aside and join me this spring or summer in Washington DC and let's make a stand against those who intend to snuff out what America has been.

Use the comment sections to add your ideas or perspectives and feel free to contact me so I can set up direct blogger access for those of you who are interested.

Thanks!

Camp Liberty

Because America is our country.

Camp Liberty | 1.30.06

Those who make peaceful protest impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy, 1962

America is in grave danger.

Many Americans believe their country is under siege - and it is - but not from what they read about in the newspapers. Not from what they see on their TV’s.

The single biggest threat to their country and their futures comes not from foreign “terrorists” or Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden or other adversaries, but from the Administration of George W. Bush.


A Runaway Train of Abuses
The damages caused by this Administration are far-reaching and difficult to summarize in a brief manner, but include a severe tarnishing of America’s reputation in the world through the illegal occupation of Iraq, support for torture and “extraordinary rendition”, maintaining a gulag of secret prisons similar to the well-known Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The bellicose and arrogant actions of the Administration have enraged a multitude of people’s around the world, and especially in the Middle East. The warmongering actions of this Administration have placed Americans in harm’s way deliberately. This is why “terrorists” want to damage us.

Here at home there is a severely damaged economy, relentless spying on Americans, and a wholesale muzzling of our press. There is sufficient evidence that the election process has been compromised, to engage in polite understatement. The Bush Administration has laid siege to our rights and freedoms as enumerated in the Bill of Rights. They use the American media and press to spew lies and deceit and to distort reality in the most Orwellian fashion. They have succeeded in placing rightwing extremist judges on various important Supreme Courts, creating a generation’s worth of slanted decision-maiking in a coordinated effort to eliminate the progress made in the 20th Century. They seek to outlaw dissent and any other opposition to their agenda.

These actions collectively spell out a crystal clear and very present danger to American Citizen’s immediate futures as well as our attempts to intervene in a Federal Administration that is now completely out of control and above the law.

There are very important mid-term elections coming this November and there are many unanswered questions and currently no way of getting these resolved by the legal means available to Americans.


Necessary Intervention
What I think is needed and what I am proposing is a Camp Casey-styled “sit-in” protest against the Bush Administration as well as the GOP-controlled government and it’s horrendous and destructive agenda.

Call it what you want, the bottom line is the need for a sustained presence of over a million Americans in Washington DC long enough to get the attention of the news media and the People of the USA.

The protest would necessarily have to take place in Washington DC as this is the epicenter of most of the problems. We have to protest INSIDE the “Beltway”.

There’s little need for discussion about what to protest – protest whatever you want. As progressives are not defined by a fascist-style “lockstep", such as that which defines the GOP, there are constant disagreements about how to do this or that. Really, folks, we don’t have the luxury of time to ferret out such trivia. We need a mass of warm bodies occupying a very prominent area of Washington DC for an extended, indefinite period of time. Team Bush is a bigger threat than anything else.


Keeping it simple
I am suggesting 2 very simple actions - Camp Liberty in Washington DC, as near to the Steps of Congress as we can get, and ongoing collaborative/solidarity protests in every city near media outlets. (Such as CNN in Atlanta)

Camp Liberty should run indefinitely – this is why I make a comparison with Cindy Sheehan’s Camp Casey sit-in. A one-day march won’t do anything for us. Team Bush enjoys de facto control of the media (despite the incessant blather of the right that somehow liberals control the media) and that media marginalizes, downplays, minimizes and explains away what the people on TV see happening.. The necessary protest absolutely has to be indefinite. A month or 2 or 3, I don’t know and that’s also unimportant. Getting a huge number of Americans to gather in Washington DC for more than a weekend would be the most general and simplest way to describe what its intended.


Protesting in Shifts
This has a lot of advantages. It will allow for many, many people to come and join in and will facilitate “protesting in shifts”. I believe many people were excited about Camp Casey because they could actually go on and work within the schedules of their busy lives. People can come and go as they wish and as they need to.

There would be needs for all sorts of supports such as food and water, sleeping arrangements, trash and waste disposal, and more that I cannot think of. I suppose, since we are so “free” there would have to be some sort of “permit”, a process that would clearly get used to deny such an action, but it has to happen, permission or not. There are a lot of very experienced organizers who know more about this than I probably ever will; my point in this writing is not to recreate that wheel, but to throw out the suggestion that we do this and get started.

After Camp Casey there was a period of time where Ms. Sheehan and the Iraq War Veterans for Peace toured the country on their way to the “big” Anti-War demonstration in DC on September 24th. People were arriving in DC well before the actual protest march. That’s the model for this idea: people just showing up in DC and gathering together near Congress. I am unfamiliar with DC but I imagine protesting anywhere near the White House is impossible and Bush doesn't care anyway. Congress is where the law makers are. They will HAVE to see us.


Protesting the Media
The media is the other component of this huge problem. Scared, apathetic, embedded, or fully in agreement with the Administration’s systematic takeover of our country, the media has failed so miserably in reporting what is happening. It is abject failure and should be the focus of study in the future to ensure it never happens again.

The media is the apparatus that has marginalized and downplayed the actions of We the People when we have attempted to protest this administration’s drive to the invasion of Iraq.

Basically, there should be regular protests in every American city with a significant media outlet. It should be at least weekly or more - as well as definitely every weekend - and they should endure as long as Camp Liberty. Think of it as a temporary lifestyle adjustment - a new hobby - not an isolated one-time event. Team Bush doesn’t give up.


If we build it the People will come
It should not take too long before the effort garners attention in a roughly similar manner to that of Camp Casey. It will likely take off on the internet first where the flow of information has yet to be significantly compromised. American media will ignore it or denigrate it at first – that’s the media’s “job” now.

But if we hold out for even a few days, and get a few celebrities and “important people” (such as good Democrats running for office – hell, I’d welcome “good Republicans” because there are even some of them who are quietly as disgusted as we are, but are not allowed to express themselves) we will get media attention. Global media attention will be good but is not as important as getting the attentions of Congress and our fellow Americans.

It's too soon to suggest a concrete date or a place. I only want to ‘catapult’ the idea of what might make an impact on the problem at hand. This is a general call to action but it is essential that people understand that in order for the “rubber to meet the road” with this the Activist Community in Washington DC probably needs to make the suggestion for the best-fitting date.I am asking for them to begin talking about this.Spring might be good and sooner rather than later seems like a wise idea.

A site will emerge to begin coordinating the best date and location and other logistical information.

So please, spread this around. I am posting it on Smirking Chimp as well as Daily Kos. Info will get posted at those locations when it becomes available.

Time is running out.

Set it off.

Doc
xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com

Postscript

Before I posted this publicly, I did request the feedback of a few people I trust to understand the dynamics of activism and making something like this work. I very much would like for this to get off the ground and believe that it can but I believe the activist communities would be much better at picking a date and a place far better than I can.

Whenever I have seen large protests scheduled and advertised I have noticed a lot of peripheral carping and hair-splitting about that is organizing what and what this is and that means and this group doesn’t want to protest with that group. We don’t really have time for that anymore.

What seems missing and what I intend to come from this is a growing consensus that a People’s Occupation of Washington DC is a viable and desirable - and (hear me!) non-violent - avenue to address the threats being presented to our country at this time.

The Bush Neocon Cabal – whatever you want to call it/them – is the single biggest threat to our lives and freedom: both our immediate and long-term futures. If we do not stop the juggernaught, if we cannot interrupt their plans to dismantle our country, there won’t be protesting ANYTHING. You can just kiss those freedoms good-bye.