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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (62382)	8/21/2004 8:41:57 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

Fonda and Hayden were his handlers then. Jane is keeping her mouth shut. But Tom is still out there, "inciting to riot." He wants "1968, Chicago!" CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE - NEWSDAY Dissent must come alive in New York Protesters need not fear that they will be playing into the hands of Bush's campaign strategy BY TOM HAYDEN Tom Hayden, who has been active in social movements since 1960, teaches at Occidental College. He is the author, most recently, of "Street Wars and the Future of Violence." August 20, 2004 Protest, even more than property, is a sacred resource of American society. It begins with radical minorities at the margins, eventually marching into the mainstream, where their views become the majority sentiment. Prophetic minorities instigated the American Revolution, ended slavery, achieved the vote for women, made trade unions possible, and saved our rivers from becoming sewers. Protest by its nature challenges authority. It cannot be managed or commodified without losing its essence. The first American revolutionaries were "rude and insolent rabble" to John Adams, who nevertheless became president in their wake. Abigail Adams warned her husband in 1776 to remember that "if particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion." The former slave Frederick Douglass advised the timid liberals of his time that "those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground." Shall we trade this rich heritage for the convenience of those who want to preserve their Republican authority, like the grass in Central Park, from being impacted by our marching feet? For those who would manage protesters like so many wild beasts in cages? For those who infect our culture with the false claim that in a time of terror we must fear dissent? Dissent must come alive in New York City. Dissent against an unelected government that misled us into an unnecessary war that has cost nearly 1,000 American lives and $200 billion that could have been invested in health care. Dissent against the hysteria that leads New York's Proudest to throw a hammerlock on Mike Wallace and have the impunity to claim that this 86-year-old man "lunged" at them. The Bronx Cheer should not be stilled. Certainly New York's Republican mayor and the police are doing what they can to provoke, anger and divide the groups planning to show that it's still a free country. The current permits crisis, now in the courts, will be sorted out, but lack of resolution will depress the numbers expected to participate in a vast march on Aug. 29. At the same time, the mayor's stonewalling stokes the militants of the movement while confusing or reducing their broader base of support. Adding to the preconvention tension is the floating rumor that Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's campaign strategist, is laying a trap for the protesters, counting on the very fact of disorder to bolster the president's image as a strongman. In this view, protesters are supposed to behave themselves lest they throw the election to Bush. I say Karl Rove is overrated. Despite untold campaign funds, he couldn't win a majority for Bush in 2000. His script for Iraq called for an easy "mission accomplished." His tax cuts were supposed to generate a jobs boom. Social issues like gay-lesbian marriage were to fuel a permanent Republican majority in Congress. Nominating Bush in September, uptown from Ground Zero, was to be as triumphal as entering the new Baghdad. Clearly, Rove's script is in tatters. Defending the GOP convention as if it is the Green Zone in Baghdad may not instill national confidence in the commander in chief. A confrontation in New York could be a sign that four more years of this president's policies will destabilize our country as needlessly as his Iraq adventure and trillion-dollar tax cuts for the wealthy. Many voters could conclude that Bush, if he wins in 2004, will plunge the country into strife not seen since the '60s. Presidents have been dumped before due to such failures. According to the Pentagon Papers' secret history of the Vietnam war, a primary concern of America's establishment was the domestic polarization that was tearing us apart. Called the Wise Men, a select group of senior advisers persuaded President Lyndon Johnson to resign. Then, when the Watergate scandal began to further cripple presidential authority, President Richard Nixon was forced out. Positioning the president as the protector of civilization against the barbarians of the Lower East Side will be a tough sell, since Americans believe that serious threats to our security are not homegrown but originate abroad. While some dissenters may think of New York as the apocalypse itself, many will be thinking of a strategic opportunity beyond the skirmish in New York: to turn the November election into a referendum on Iraq and democratically expel George W. Bush from power. That would truly be a shot heard 'round the world, restoring the legitimate respect for the American people which the current administration has squandered. It would be a mandate for John Kerry as well, to take us quickly in a different direction or face the opposition of an energized movement. On the other hand, if the president wins in November, by means either fair or foul, we will need the commitment and courage of a new generation of activists all the more. Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

To: unclewest who wrote (62382)	8/21/2004 1:20:20 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

I wonder what would have happened if Kerry had been honest about himself. I don't suppose you're getting the "metro vs. retro" ads out in the boonies but they're in the Washington Post print and online, and the NT Times print and online. I saw a cartoon yesterday of two Republicans in New York, looking like the couple out of Grant Wood's "American Gothic," confronting Democrats with too many earrings, women in business suits and tennis shoes, and all the other odd things you see in cities that you don't see in the boonies. I always wear black casual clothes in NoVa and DC but switch to khakis and blue golf shirts or T-shirts in the boonies, to me the divide is more about style than substance. I know that someone who might look like a black ghetto resident may really go to church several times a week and may be extremely offended by the mildest of curse words, while someone who looks like a preppy may live in Dupont Circle, Metrosexual Central, and have multiple sex partners on the weekends. You just can't tell by looking at people in the big city what they are like at home. Bush doesn't lie about being a hell-raiser in his youth, although he's not proud of it. He understands hell-raisers, he used to be one, which helps give him the common touch. Kerry ought not to pretend that he wasn't anti-war in 1971. He ought to revel in it. It is one of his strengths. If I were Kerry, I might say that I protested the war in Vietnam for reasons which have nothing to do with the War on Terrorism. Or I might say that fighting terrorism isn't really about war, the Republicans have that wrong. But pretending that I don't believe what I really believe is foolish. It doesn't fool anybody.

To: unclewest who wrote (62382)	8/21/2004 1:53:15 PM
From: Captain Jack	Respond to of 793912

Fonda and her Hollywood cronies are still his handlers.