Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Say what you like about the ANSWER Coalition, but you’ve got to admit their activists are dogged in organizing and unafraid to confront members of either major American political party. In San Francisco on April 20, ANSWER is working with other organizations to mount a protest against the war policies of Barack Obama. When a conservative friend of yours works up a smirk and asks where all the anti-war protests are now that Obama is President, send ‘em to the ANSWER website.

I like the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Really, I do. I can prove it – I’ve clicked “Like” on the Facebook page for the Fourth Amendment.

What, is that not enough?

Luckily, I’m doing more. I work with Irregular Times, for one thing, and for years we’ve been writing about laws like the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act, begun under George W. Bush and have been continued under Barack Obama, that violate the guarantee the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable search and seizure. We also have designed the lawn sign of the 4th Amendment that you see here.

I happen to know that this yard sign has had at least a little impact on discussion of Fourth Amendment issues. For one thing, this photograph of our Fourth Amendment yard sign is being used as the profile photo of the Fourth Amendment Facebook page I like.

One particularly current thing we’re doing at Irregular Times to show that we like the 4th Amendment to the Constitution is that we’re initiating a protest against the Patriot Act in Washington D.C. this coming Saturday, March 12, at noon, in front of the U.S. Capitol. As you’ll see in the link in this paragraph, there’s a Facebook page for that too.

The question in my mind is whether all the people who have indicated that they “like” this protest will actually show up. We’ll see how much Facebook social networking is really worth.

Today, in the Winona Daily News, Nathan Hansen of the town of Rushford identifies a startling gap between rhetoric and reality on the part of Minnesota’s two United States senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken.

Both of these Democrats claim to be devoted to the defense of Americans’ constitutional rights, but talk is cheap. In practice, both of them voted last month to renew the worst aspects of the plainly unconstitutional Patriot Act – without any attempt at reform. Hansen notes:

“Franken in committee and in public denounces the Patriot Act provisions, including the one roving wiretaps that was extended by his vote. But his voting record does not agree with this. The vote marks the second time that he violated his principles, and his promises to his constituents in Minnesota, and the American people as a whole.

Klobuchar, too, has publicly opposed Patriot Act provisions, but abandoned them in order to keep from rocking the boat. It is sad that this illiberal bill passed by 86-12 margin, but the truly sad part of the story is that Minnesota’s out-of-the-box senators have not really been doing anything out of the box.”

We don’t have to just sit and take it when public officials like senators Klobuchar and Franken fail to live up to their responsibilities. We can, as Hansen would put it, get out of the box.

This coming Saturday, there will be an opportunity for Americans who oppose the renewal of the extraordinary surveillance powers of the Patriot Act to get out of the box and be heard by Congress. There will be a protest demanding repeal of the Patriot Act on Saturday, March 12 at Noon outside the west side of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C. Bring a sign of protest to show that America will not be silent while its constitutional right are sacrificed!

This Sunday, a march to protest BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling oil spill will take place in Franklin County Florida. The march will start soon after 5:30 PM at the Apalachicola City Hall and will end at the Franklin County Courthouse.

Call D.T. Simmons at 323-0344 for information before the march.

If you start looking into the Tea Party protests, you’ll find that there are a few protest sign memes that have spread quite effectively. You see them over and over again, at Tea Party events in places separated by a great physical distance.

One of those memes is the idea that the protester, for the first time ever, is ashamed of the President. In the case of this sign, it’s expressed, “First time in my entire life I’m ashamed of my President!” This particular message is supposed to communicate the profound degree of discontent against anti-Obama activists.

Is the discontent truly so profound? I have my doubts.

The key to evaluating the honesty of this meme is the phrase “first time”. Is it really the first time that these protesters are ashamed of their President, or are they just pretending it is?

10 years ago, the President of the United States was Bill Clinton. As I remember it, a lot of right wingers, the sort of people now populating Tea Party protests, were expressing outrage at Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

The hand holding this sign certainly doesn’t look very young. Its skin is starting to sag a bit, and is showing signs of mottling. Let’s be generous, and say that the hand is 30 years old. If that’s the case, then the protester was a 20 year-old adult during the Presidency of Bill Clinton. Others carrying similar signs were even older.

Either these people were not ashamed of Bill Clinton, or they’re liars. I’d love to hear from someone who has carried one of these protest signs explain to me which one it is: Does the Tea Party love Bill Clinton, or do its protesters just express outrage at any Democrat who happens to be sitting in the White House?

It just doesn’t sound as persuasive to state, “This is the second time in my life I am ashamed of my President!” It makes the protester sound like a habitual malcontent. That would be a rather inconvenient perception for the Tea Party, wouldn’t it?

A week after Laurent Gbagbo, the President of the Ivory Coast, dissolved the government of that nation, police there have shot and killed 5 protesters. Those killings in turn have provoked intense, and sometimes destructive, anti-government protests.

For more information, visit:

- Afrol News
- allAfrica Cote d’Ivoire

Why attend an Inauguration demonstration? This pro-Constitution demonstration is a good pick, because as much as Barack Obama has inspired the trust of the American people, we know that the power brokers are waiting for him, with tools of persuasion that are difficult to resist.

Attend this demonstration on the route of the Inaugural Parade to send Obama a message: The American people want their full constitutional rights restored.

Please, President Obama – follow your Oath of Office. Uphold the Constitution.

January 20, 2009, corner of 9th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington D.C. – Noontime – Be there.