Live from Little Beirut.
Aaron, the Demented Lawyer, fights the good fight. Here’s his play-by-play of the President’s recent visit to Little Beirut: who got arrested, and how, and why. (Upshot? Precious few. Downside? Still brutal, still needless, still overly confrontational. Keep those feet on the sidewalk, citizen!) Emma Goldman has more, plus photos, and a link to the blog maintained by Shut Up O’Reilly’s old stomping grounds; she also tells you why it’s so cheesy to breeze into town for a $25K-a-plate fundraiser and stiff the 8% unemployed city with a $200,000 bill. (Do note the Democrat has paid up; the Republican has yet to return the city’s calls.) —The nut graf of it all, as it were:
I guess I don’t really know what to make of all this, except to say that—again—two thirds of the media told a story that didn’t happen to sell fear and anger for profit. This is a city in which something like 75% of the population voted for Gore (that stat comes from memory from The Emerging Democratic Majority). The folks at the protest were exercising their right to tell their president—their president—what they thought of his policies. They were overwhelmingly telling him his priorities were wrong and that he’d better serve the people better. But what do the local media show? The chilling tale of radicals barely kept in check while defiling the good name of the republic. Too bad we can’t vote them out of office.
If you wanted to put some money where it would do some good, you might think nationally, and consider MoveOn.org’s million dollars for democracy; you might think locally. Or you might decide to moon the people’s White House. Act accordingly.
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We Didn't Like His Daddy, Either
My old stomping grounds in St. Johns, OR, were invaded yesterday by a Bush fundraiser—$2,000 a plate, and $200,000 for us taxpayers to provide security even though we weren't allowed in to see a President we didn't elect anyway, but...