Free Speech Zones: Is This America?

[Joyce in the mts.]

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/m...rticle&sid=489

Snip<

As Bush spreads lies throughout the land, dissenters are corralled into “Free Speech Zones” –- is this America?
By Mick Youther

Did you see the coverage of Prime Minister Tony Blair arriving to testify at the Royal Courts of Justice last week? The street was a mob scene with police, security vans, motorcycles, and protesters. The protesters greeted Blair by chanting “Shame on You.” and banners accusing him of using “weapons of mass deception.” “Bliar” T-shirts and Pinocchio-style noses were the fashion of the day for the protesters collecting signatures demanding Blair's resignation. All and all, it was rude, rowdy, disgusting display of British democracy in action. America doesn’t have to worry about that kind of ugly scene anymore.

• “Anyone with an anti-Bush sign is relegated into what is euphemistically called a Free Speech or Demonstration Zone -- a swath of land usually off the main thoroughfare and chained off so as to make it virtually impossible for the targets of the protest to read the signs or hear the chants.”
--Robyn E. Blumner, St. Petersburg Times, 10/13/02


....was just remembering that the End the Occupation and Bring the Troops Home March in DC is coming up October 25th.

...Joyce in the mts.

[Els' 3 Ones]

JITM, you are such a well-informed person to have around.......thank you for your efforts.


Could you post more info on the march? And any others you may be aware of?

I am feeling the dark veil of hopelessness descending upon me and I MUST start doing something besides contacting my sit-on-your-hands-and-look-suprised congress. kwim?

Doubt I can make DC, but am interested.




El

[Joyce in the mts.]

(I don't think it will violate copyright, but if so, please mods, remove this post and leave the links at the bottom, if it gives you the hee-bee-jee-bees, mmm'kay?)

UFPJ (United for Peace and Justice) and A.N.S.W.E.R. have both organized antiwar demonstrations numbering in the hundreds of thousands (and that is true since I was in one last fall that was over 200,000 people) in the last year and have now agreed to join forces for the purpose of organizing the October 25 National March on Washington, D.C. under the banner: End the Occupation of Iraq, Bring the Troops Home Now!

The protest will also condemn the vast cuts in vital domestic social and economic programs and demand: Money for jobs, education & healthcare, not war and occupation.

As the October 25-26 weekend is also the second anniversary of the passage of the so-called Patriot Act, authorizing political arrests, indefinite detentions, domestic spying, and religious and
racial profiling, the demonstration will also be a call to
Fight Back Against the Patriot Act.

By working together we are optimistic that this
mobilization will be an expression of the wide-spread
opposition to the ongoing occupation of Iraq. We urge you
to do everything possible to help bring massive numbers of
people to Washington, D.C. on October 25th!

Statement Issued by A.N.S.W.E.R. and UFPJ, 9/5/03.

For more information:
http://www.internationalanswer.org
http://www.unitedforpeace.org

[Marlena]

• “Anyone with an anti-Bush sign is relegated into what is euphemistically called a Free Speech or Demonstration Zone -- a swath of land usually off the main thoroughfare and chained off so as to make it virtually impossible for the targets of the protest to read the signs or hear the chants.”
--Robyn E. Blumner, St. Petersburg Times, 10/13/02

I can't believe I only recently heard about this, myself. A "free speech zone" - as if (indeed, it's true) the rest of the area around the President is not subject to the First Amendment!

I don't shock easily, but, for the second time in recent weeks, I am jaw-droppingly shocked.

[AnitaAddict]

They did that here for the big frankenfood conference. Protesters couldn't get anywhere near the convention center, where the meetings were. Bush came here to do a invite-only republican fundraiser speech and they did the same thing then too.

Both times the protest area was blocks away from the event being protested.

[SpiralWoman]

I am feeling the dark veil of hopelessness descending upon me and I MUST start doing something besides contacting my sit-on-your-hands-and-look-suprised congress. kwim?

oh my friends, We should all be burrowed into Marlena's facism thread very studiously.

[Delilah]

It has been said that

GHWBush 41 used to get easily spooked by protestors. He was always trying to put them out of sight. At one point during Gulf War I Bush was delivering a speech and CNN or another major network was showing a slpit screen of the speech and the return at Dover AFB of some caskets with soldiers and their Color Guard receiving them. He heard about it afterward and that was the beginning fo news blackout of caskets coming home. Bush43 has imposed the same blackout.