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Journal Uma Thurman's Journal: GW Bush hates free speech 47

Journal by Uma Thurman

Quarantining dissent
How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech

James Bovard Sunday, January 4, 2004
When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service
visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up
"free speech zones" or "protest zones," where people opposed to Bush
policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These
zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight
and outside the view of media covering the event.

When Bush went to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old
retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign
proclaiming, "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so
many of us."

The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a "designated
free-speech zone" on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a
third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech.

The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, but
folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path.
Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for
disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign.

Neel later commented, "As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a
free-speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who
criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind."

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GW Bush hates free speech More

GW Bush hates free speech

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  • So I went and sturred up the hornets nest (or at least I thought I would) with this post [slashdot.org]. It got a reaction all right, but more from other Bush haters than supporters.
    On the upside I did drag in your old buddy chunkwhite86 [slashdot.org] into the fray and let me tell you, he's a fun one. Ready and willing to display his utter ignorance and narrow mindedness to the bitter end.

    But what really amazes me is that noone actually proved me wrong. All the responses I got were either that "Bush is the lesser of x evils", or that

    • Beautiful. Chunkwhite86 is probably a "fathead" code, like a geek code.

      Chunkwhite86 decodes to:

      chunk: body type
      white: underwear color
      86: his intelligence
    • for someone to actually take a stand and defend Bushes policies

      Devil's advocate here: I don't hold this opinion. :)

      GWB and friends might think that they're doing themselves and the country a favour by ensuring a sure supply of oil in the next 20 years or so, given that 11/9/01 was likely to have happened with the knowledge of some of the Saudi royals, and they may not be able to count the Saudis as friends for too much longer.

      All the proto-fascist stuff, like the story above, which I'd seen before, is
  • Can they legally arrest you if you get into the pro-bush section?

    Here's what I've heard of people doing:
    Make a sing that says "Impeach Bush". Over the impeach you put tape that is the same color as the background. Over that you write "Reelect". So when you are past the police, you remove the tape. Have a friend with a pro bush sign. Have him video you and the crowd. If you get your skull cracked you have proof that you were peacefully protesting as protected under the constitution.
    • You know awhile back Bill Clinton came to Buffalo NY (where I was living at the time) and some friends and I decided to go protest the waste of US tax payers money in the Dept of Ed (ie the billions of dollars they cant find).

      While there we were asked by the secret service to move to a different location, it was not censorship these guys are charged with protecting and maybe dying for the president. We did so with a smile even though we were in our place well before the pro-Clinton people where there and

      • How far away were you though?
        • We were about 20 from where his car was going to pull out of, we were moved across the street and down the block well away from where King Bill and King Hillary would have seen us..
  • Not that I defend GWB's rape of speech (both free speech and his own speeches), but I can understand the quarantined area thing. Secret Service shows up early for a reason...to protect the President. Now, it can be safely said that the Secret Service could probably argue that one of Bush's protestors might try to take a shot at him should the authorities manage to lose track of him/her in the days leading up to the event. So they've got some justification...

    Either way though, arresting that guy for no

    • Now, it can be safely said that the Secret Service could probably argue that one of Bush's protestors might try to take a shot at him should the authorities manage to lose track of him/her in the days leading up to the event. So they've got some justification...

      Only if we assume that assissans have the IQ of mayonase :) Anyone wanting to suicide bomb/assinate/etc Mr. Bush would probably have the intelligence to hold a PRO-Bush sign so as to avoid attracting attention. Just like I would assume that any

      • Ah, Molly Ivins...a respectable choice...

        Moving along, sure, the Clinton administration had a lot of smoke and mirrors but to say he did "nothing?" If I remember correctly, the national debt improved. That's atleast one positive note...
        • Moving along, sure, the Clinton administration had a lot of smoke and mirrors but to say he did "nothing?" If I remember correctly, the national debt improved. That's atleast one positive note...

          No, it didnt. Not in real numbers, anyway.

          Look at the National Debt as a credit card.

          The debt was X amount under Clinton. he announced he was going to balance the budget! WOOHOOO! we all thought. The way he balanced the budget, was he looked at his income, and the projected balance on the "credit card" (which is
  • Strangely, you seem to have no problem with coralling anti-abortion protesters off in "free speech zones" of their own.

    The right to freedom of speech does not mean you have the right to scream under someones window at 3:00 in the morning. Nor do you have that right on private property.

    Maeryk
  • This should be fun.

    * Few conservatives have a "money-grubbing obsession". We just want to keep what we have earned. There are greedy people on both sides of the aisle though. It's just that liberals grub other people's money.

    * Conservatives are not the ones trying to create "thought crime"... er.. "hate speech". With the exception of the zones set up at recent Bush events (which I'm extremely disappointed about), we don't normally set up "free speech zones" which are really just islands in "non-free

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