Speaking Truth To Power
I have no idea who Harry Taylor is, but he's a brave man. That I should have to call him brave, merely for exercising his constitutional right as a citizen to speak his mind to one of his paid representatives, speaks volumes about how perilously close to the precipice of a dictatorship the US has come (Not that we in the UK are any better off).
From Think Progress (video also at Crooks & Liars):
VIDEO:Bush Event Goes Off Script
This morning in Charlotte, a Bush PR event on the war on terror went off-script when a man named Harry Taylor took the microphone. Watch the video:
“‘I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration,’ Taylor said, standing in a balcony seat and looking down at Bush on stage. ‘And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and grace to be ashamed of yourself.’”
Read below for the full exchange:
Q You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you’d like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are –
THE PRESIDENT: I’m not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what’s your question?
Q Okay, I don’t have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and –
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec — let him speak.
Q And I would hope — I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak what I’m saying to you right now. That is part of what this country is about.
THE PRESIDENT: It is, yes. (Applause.)
Q And I know that this doesn’t come welcome to most of the people in this room, but I do appreciate that.
[...]
I'll bet Bush had one almighty hissy fit after that event. No-one is to gainsay the king.
Before the next event, Republican Bush party loyalists should take a leaf out of the Tom DeLay playbook, and make sure there're enough deniably plausible party thugs around to, oops, shut the likes of Harry Taylor and any annoying old women up.
I haven't read the DeLay playbook, obviously, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it bore a resemblance to these directions for political meetings:
1. Before the meeting, the speaker should be informed of the local political situation.
2. The meeting chair, with a witness, should assume control from the host.
3. Meeting protection should be assured either by a sufficient number of local or neighboring S.A. men, or by request to the police. The latter is particularly important in the case of meetings that may turn violent, for the riot damage act requires it. The state's responsibilities begin only when damages exceed 400 marks.
4. It has proven advantageous in certain meetings and in certain places to have a part of the S.A. in civilian dress scattered throughout the room in order to deal with expected troublemakers.
That's from Stark's translated pamphlet, Moderne politische Propaganda (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher Nachf., 1930) . Read it and you can clearly see the antecedents of Republican political strategy.
Eerily appropriate, when Bush's own family, in the person of Prescott Bush, made a such a big contribution to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.
Read More: Bush DeLay Republicans Fascism Censorship Propaganda
Posted 7:17 PM by Republic of Palau
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