Photos from the World Can't Wait's Protest in Washington D.C.
Activists Rally at White House to Demand Bush Step Down
Washington D.C. - Several thousand protestors converged on the White House on Saturday, Febuary 4, 2006 to demand the resignation of George W. Bush. The rally was organized by World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime, a coalition of groups and individuals who are mobilizing support for Bush's ouster. Speakers included radio personality Joe Madison, The Black Eagle, David Swanson writer, activist and founder of the website AfterDowningStreet.org, Juan Torres and Missy Comley Beattie of Gold Star Families for Peace, Doris "Granny D" Haddock and NADIR who performed his song "Guantanamo".
19 comments:
The people clearly need a visit from Uncle Georgie's spies--whom I'm sure were monitoring this rally closely.
You know, before I saw these placards, I supported Bush's war. I subscribed to the view that establishing a democracy in an historically trend-setting nation with multiple outstanding UN violations would lead to the first occurance of prosperity in Arabia, and inspire muslims to focus on educating themselves and building indoor plumbing, etc., rather than seeking prosperity via attacking Isreal and the US. But now that I've seen these "World Can't Wait" placcards, it occurs to me that I was all wrong. My new view was solidified by a speach I just watched on my iPod by Cindy and Martin Sheen.
Tom: I agree that the feds shouldn't bother monitoring Cindy Sheen-style protests. But what about rallies staged by people behaving like the muslim protesters in London, with placcards exclaiming such slogans as "Freedom Go To Hell" and "Behead Those How Insult the Prophet"? Do such people scare you? Do you think that your fedl govt should monitor people expressing such views?
How about people holding placcards such as:
"Death to Abortion Doctors!"
"Death to Blacks who move into white neighborhoods"
Six: Nadir would only urge these people to disband and zip their lips if a bunch of republicans started making death threats.
However, I remain more upset by these protesters for their liklihood to demand censorship of people like Dr. Laura for making comments that they deam "hate speach" (unlike, of course, their own comments!), and the rightits who demand the firing of the anti-US Colorado professor.
I just got off the phone with my sister. She's a leftist, but I think she might support flat taxes and school vouchers (she's also something of a minimalist). She despises all religious zealots, including the muslim kooks. However, she informed me that she does not regard the muslim kooks as any worse than the Christian kooks in this country. She claimed to me that Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell would try to kill infidels and blasphemers here also, but could not explain to me why they don't if "they are just as bad." Via email I will challange her and report back. (She refuses to read this blog.)
Sara is right. Falwell and Robertson don't murder non-Christian heathens because of the laws that would require them to lose their fortunes. However, Robertson has certainly called for assassination, or did you forget that?
And there are Christian extremists who have blown up abortion clinics and government office buildings in Oklahoma City as well...
Nadir: I'll go burn a bible in front of any christian church you target, and you go burn a koran in front of any mosque you like. Only one of us will be putting our life at risk.
Robertson only *suggested* the possibility of assassinatiinga person that he believes to be a tyrant leader of a nation, as a way of freeing that nation's people. And not a single person anywhere supported his statement, or even his assessment. Then he retracted the statement.
Is this the best you got? Where are the mobs of christians, and the endless examples of christian clergy calling for assassinations of cartoonists and filmmakers?
Nadir: You and my sister can read minds. Poor Six and I are left only to comprehend what we can document. *We* know that thousands of muslims and their clergy want to "massacre those who blaspheme the prophet" only because that is what these people have written and stated in news media which we can document, refer to and verify. Please offer the documentation for these views that you and Sara ascribe to Fallwell and Robertson.
I was waiting for you guys to bring up the abortion terrorists. Is that the best you got? Of course it is. And it proves my point.
First of all, the targets here are people killing a fetus vs. people drawing pictures of a religious figure. Second of all, how many people have been killed by the abortion terrorists in the last ten years in the US, vs. muslim terrorists in the past year?
You guys are claiming that the christian terrorists are "just as bad as" the muslim terrorists, whereas I say they are both bad, with one Godzilla stomping through manhattan and the other a rabid pit bull. One is much worse than the other!
The best you can come up with is:
1. A single US preacher who responds to Hugo Chavez claiming that US agents are trying to kill him by saying, "maybe they should," zero people support the preacher, then the preacher retracts his statement.
2. Ten or so abortion clinic employees getting assassinated in ten years 1980 - 1990 (and maybe none in the past 10 years!), with effectively zero public support for the killers, including almost no christian clergy. (And Nadir, you have not insisted that these doctors stop aborting in order to avoid more bloodshed! Why not?)
3. The Oklahoma City Bombings, which had zero to do with religion, but you cite it because the killers were christian. Please justify this inclusion. If those killers were targetting blaspheners and adoption of the bible as the US constitution, then it belongs here and you have a point. But if these killers targetted a govt building because they oppose big govt and its employees (which all the evidence I've seen shows this to be the case), then this incident does not belong here.
4. You forgot to cite the Olympic bombing, which was an act of anti-abortion terrorist. However, no christian demonstrators or clergy supported this, and nobody even died.
=====Nadir==========
Falwell and Robertson don't murder non-Christian heathens because of the laws that would require them to lose their fortunes.
===================
Well, what about all the christians who don't have fortunes? Where are the mobs of christians demanding death to people to blaspheme Jesus? We have absolute proof of how US tyrantical christian nuts behave when people blaspheme in public. They write letters and stage boycotts. They often win. We saw this last week with the Will and Grace show, wich has backed out of a scheduled episode that would have parodied the crucifiction.
Tyranical? Yes. Nutty? Yes. Retarded? Yes. Backwards and uncivilized? Yes. Just as bad as the muslim nuts demanding death for cartoonists who portray mohammad? No way.
Drawing this moral eqivalence again, are we?
These are 2 incidents. Two. Incidents which were immediately and widely condemned by Christians, non-Christians and secularists alike in this country. And the committers of these heinous acts were tried and punished appropriately.
On the contrary the countless killings, murders and slaughters than occur in the name of Islam daily...
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
...go on with scarcely a word of condemnation from the Muslim world, let alone any punishement handed out.
That you would draw this moral equivalence just proves to me your ignorance and stupidity.
Six: Can you imagine in the US Martin Scorsese gets stabbed to death in the chest with a kniefe embedded in his chest holding a note damning him for blaspheming Jesus in "The Last Temptation", and threatening the actor who portrayed Jesus? That's one of many things that the idiotic christians would have to do to get their game up the level of the kooky muslims living in the west. Meanwhile, the kooky christians would have to also found several large nations in which they used the bible as their constitution, and used their courts, police, prisons, and execution chambers to enforce the rules of the bible.
When all this happens, then I will agree with Nadir and Sara. Meanwhile, I can't accept the results of their mind reading that the US christians wish to make those abhorrant images (which are realities with regard to islam) happen, but just haven't done so, for such reasons as their wealthy preachers don't want to lose their wealth.
I hope that our police departments will harness the powers of Nadir and Sara to read minds, so they can identify all the would-be killers and rapists who really *want* to commit these crimes, but are restraining themselves.
Six: I think you should retract your "ignorance and stupidity" comment. I know it's hard to comprehend how others cannot reach the same conclusions as you given the same data. I don't understand, either. "Ignorance and stupidity" of course would explain it, though. However, we really don't know why Nadir and my sister (born of my same whore mother) believe as they do. I can't even explain why I used to agree with them. But I think it hurts your plea to follow all your facts and logic with name-calling. Plus, it denies you cover when someone explains your support for school vouchers as deriving from "racism" and "white supremacy"!
You're probably right. How about disingenuousness? Or obtuseness?
I can go along with disingenuous, but I reckon "obtuseness" is just a nice way of saying stupid. I believe you should leave your debate opponent room to change his mind. I do of course believe in ugly language directed against people who aren't in the room, like the crazy muslims and christians. But if one of them respected me enough to join me in a discussion, I would stop calling them crazy, and focus on facts and logic.
Fair enough. Disingenuous it is then.
Nadir: How about finally answering this question: What if some right wingers declared that y'all "offended" them with your words and placards and images so much that they were going to kill you? By your logic, ya'll should shut up, right? To continue speaking out, you would be "overtly provoking" these right-winged tyrants, and their killing of you would only "be expected", right?
You would send emails to your fellow leftist, begging: "STOP THIS SHIT BEFORE YOU GET US ALL KILLED"?, right? You would call of your protests "bullshit", right, since some tyrants were propared to shed blood to stop y'all from "offending" them?
I have pictures of the counter protestors as well. A group of about 7 people stood behind the police holding up signs that said, "New schools built in Iraq" (ignoring the fact that Bush destroyed the old schools" and "We support our troops" (ignoring the fact that Bush's lies put the troops in harm's way in the first place).
Paul, if you burned a bible in front of many a Southern Baptist or Pentecostal church at 12:15pm on a Sunday, you would be beaten severely by the congregation that is leaving their morning worship. Try it. I'll watch.
A lot of Christians support the bombing of abortion clinics. I'm sure there are right wing nuts who supported the bombings in Oklahoma city as there were certainly right wing nuts who applauded the 911 attacks.
The US government shouted down Robertson's comments probably because they drew attention to real efforts by the Bush regime to kill Chavez. They have already tried to get him out of office twice.
For centuries Christians have killed millions of people all over the world in the name of Christianity. Because they have curtailed those efforts in the last three years, doesn't mean that it isn't a characteristic of these nuts. Your beloved Ann Coulter wants to forcibly convert people to Christianity herself.
The fact that you guys advocate the violent overthrow of the Iraqi government because the people of that nation are "backwards" and "uncivilized" is another example of murderous advocacy of principles.
I just want honest, effective leadership in the White House. Why is that too much to ask?
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