BIKE: lance and george

[Patrick Goetz]

Stephen Wechsler wrote:
> 
> Not a problem.  Bush has his Secret Service (SS) purge the crowd of 
> undesirables. See below.
> 

Or here is a shorter example from last week's Chronicle (see below).

As I learned from Fred Meredith (or his 60's anti-war protest buddy, who 
might have been quoting Fred) in Bike Like U Mean It,
you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride; i.e. certainly none 
of these arrests will hold up in court, but that doesn't cancel out the 
indignity and inconvenience of being arrested, taken downtown, booked, 
and jailed.  And the woman in the article below lost her job for good 
measure - for the crime of wearing a t-shirt which said "Love America, 
Hate Bush".  Unbelievable; who thought it would ever come to this.

[Aside:  This web site includes a ton of fun videos:  www.bushflash.com; 
in particular http://www.bushflash.com/media.html, and most particularly 
this hilarious use of a presidential action figure: 
http://amurka.com/en/gall_clips.htm
And if you want to hear the bone-chilling comments of a US Marine 
officer which have most decidly not been reported by the US Media, 
listen to this interview from the BBC: 
http://www.bushflash.com/wmf/beeb.mp3]


========================================
The Hightower Report
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
IS THIS AMERICA?

What do Kalamazoo, Evansville, Albuquerque, Stockton, Trenton, Phoenix, 
Columbia, St. Louis, Knoxville, and Charleston have in common?

All are among the cities where the secret service or police have jailed 
people for displaying anti-Bush signs during public appearances by his 
eminence, King George the W. Is this America, the land of the free?

That's what Nicole and Jeff Rank asked themselves this July Fourth as 
they were taken away in handcuffs by police in their town of Charleston, 
W.Va. What was their heinous crime? They were guilty of not being Bush 
supporters.

George W.'s Independence Day trip to Charleston was billed as an 
official presidential visit, not a campaign rally. Nicole and Jeff – two 
patriotic, hardworking, taxpaying Americans – were in the crowd, quietly 
exercising their free-speech rights. They wore T-shirts declaring: "Love 
America, Hate Bush."

They had proper tickets to the event, they proudly sang the national 
anthem with everyone else, they were in no way disorderly – but they 
were not politically correct, so they were summarily arrested, taken to 
jail, finger-printed ... and charged with "trespassing." Others who were 
there wearing pro-Bush T-shirts and Bush campaign paraphernalia at this 
public event on public property were not arrested. It seems that the 
Bushites define "trespassers" by their political beliefs.

Nicole, who worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 
Charleston, was promptly told that her services were no longer required. 
Technically, she wasn't fired, but she was "released" from her job and 
not reassigned – meaning she no longer gets paid.

But Nicole and Jeff are still not bowing to King George. Despite the 
financial hardship, they're fighting Bush's absurd, un-American assault 
on their constitutional right to dissent. They're not the only ones 
being denied their right to speak out – dissenters all across America 
are being treated like this. To fight this autocratic lockdown, call the 
ACLU: 212/549-2500.