FREE SPEECH BANNED WHEN BUSH APPEARS

[Guest guest]

FREE SPEECH BANNED WHEN BUSH APPEARS

 

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/editorial233.html

We hope that Congresswoman Louise Slaughter will get behind

California Rep. Pete Stark and call for an investigation into the

arrest of Cindy Sheehan and the ejection of Beverly Young prior to

President George W. Bush's mind-numbing State of the Union address

last week.

 

Cindy Sheehan is a Gold Star Mother whose crime was wearing a T-shirt

bearing the slogan " 2445 Dead. How many more? " Beverly Young is the

wife of conservative Republican Congressman Bill Young. Her T-shirt

bore the words " Support the Troops -- Defending Our Freedom. "

 

Each of the slogans contained more truth than could be found in

Bush's rambling diatribe. And, as Rep. Stark points out, there are no

rules against wearing T-shirts with writing on them in the House

Gallery. Both women had tickets to the event, and neither did

anything untoward.

 

" President Bush regularly requires his audiences to be screened and

sanitized before he will appear before them. But this is supposed to

be the people's House, " Stark said. " The president should not be able

to override our governance and make us part of his Gestapo regime. "

 

The day after the State of the Union, Capitol police dropped all

charges against Sheehan, cold comfort considering she'd been

manhandled, handcuffed, fingerprinted and had a mug shot taken while

spending much of the previous evening in jail.

 

But this is what our nation has come to. A place where even the

mildest forms of what used to be called " free speech " can result in

public humiliation and criminal arrest.

 

Not, of course, if you're a right-wing nut bag like Pat Robertson

calling for the assassination of the democratically elected president

of Venezuela, or a loony Bush groupie such as Ann Coulter, who

suggested recently that someone should poison Supreme Court Justice

John Paul Stevens.

 

Bush believes he should have the power to read your e-mail, tap your

phone and know what books you've checked out of the library, all

without a warrant. And if you don't think he's using such power for

political purposes, you're delusional.

 

And Cindy Sheehan needs a new T-shirt. The day after her arrest, five

more brave soldiers died in Iraq.

 

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Feb. 7 2006