Is it Possible That We Still Have the Right to Dissent

In the movie "A Guide For A Married Man" a man, apprehended by his wife while in a compromising position with another woman says something resembling "... are you going to believe what you just saw with your own eyes or what I tell you that you just saw?"

This does not exactly relate to this story, but it is close enough for me, and anyway, I love the quote, and I use it at every opportunity.

This accurate quote is from the song "The House I Live In."

"The place I work in, the worker at my side
the little town or city where my people lived and died
the "howdy" and the handshake the air of feeling free
the right to speak my mind out, that's America to me."

It is difficult for me not to conjure up these words being sung by Frank Sinatra so many years ago.

The Bush Administration has put placed our country in the unbelievable place of denying our freedom of expression, or "the right to speak my mind out."

I loosely quote an article published on August 16th datelined Charleston W. Va.

"Feds pay $80,000 over anti-Bush T-shirts"

A man and a woman who refused to cover T-shirts that bore anti-President Bush slogans settled their lawsuit against the federal government for $80,000, the American Civil Liberties Union announced Thursday.

The couple were handcuffed and removed from the July 4, 2004, rally at the state Capitol, where President Bush gave a speech. A judge dismissed trespassing charges against them, and an order closing the case was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Charleston.

They had spent a night in jail following their arrest.

"This settlement is a real victory not only for our clients but for the First Amendment," said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia. "... Public Officials will think twice before they eject peaceful protesters from public events for exercising their right to dissent." Sorry Andrew, $80,000 is mot nearly enough to deter these guys.

White House spokesman Blair Jones said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing. He could have said"... are you going to believe what you just saw with your own eyes or what I tell you that you just saw?"

How about this for parsing words?

Blair Jones went on to say "The parties understand that this settlement is a compromise of disputed claims to avoid the expenses and risks of litigation and is not an admission of fault, liability, or wrongful conduct,"

Disputed claims? They were arrested and jailed for a protest. What disputed claims?

The front of the homemade T-shirts bore the international symbol for "no" superimposed over the word "Bush." The back of one T-shirt said "Love America, Hate Bush." On the back of the other T-shirt was the message "Regime Change Starts at Home."

The ACLU said in a statement that a presidential advance manual makes it clear that the government tries to exclude dissenters from the president's appearances. "As a last resort," the manual says, "security should remove the demonstrators from the event."

Someone should advise Blair Jones that when the President or his people say or do something absolutely horrid that they should take responsibility for the event and say the magic words in society of "I am sorry, we made a mistake, and we are taking steps to insure that it does not happen again.

And now I present my usual venting of a usual upset with the people who should have the responsibility of reporting ALL violations of press freedom in our country to the citizens of our country. This of course would be The NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox Television Networks. This type of violation by the Government should not be treated so cavalierly by the media.

I have not observed a mention of this recent incident on television, and it should be reported with the same fervor used when dealing with the really important events like Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton, and Lindsey Lohan.

Most of the other Constitutional violations can be blamed on "we must protect Americans from terrorist activities." But what could they possibly say about this one?

Norman Horowitz