FC: Replies to Lisa Dean's "treason" claim for anti-war protester

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:
"Free Congress' Lisa Dean: Anti-war protester committed treason"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04603.html

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From: "Singleton, Norman" <Norman.Singleton () mail house gov>
To: declan () well com
Subject: RE: Free Congress' Lisa Dean: Anti-war protester committed treaso
        n
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 08:30:13 -0500

Under Lisa's leadership, Free Congress was heroic in the battle against Know
Your Customer and the National ID card. They where also one of the few
conservative groups to oppose Ascroft's drive for a police state. This is
sad, very sad.

Norman Kirk Singleton
Legislative Director
Congressman Ron Paul
203 Cannon
202-225-2831

"Everywhere there rises before our eyes the specter of a society where
security, if it is attained at all, will be attained at the expense of
freedom, where the security that is attained will be the security of fed
beasts in a stable, and where all the high aspirations of humanity will have
been crushed by an all-powerful state."

J. Gresham Machen

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Reply-To: "JRConklin" <janconklin () isp2k com>
From: "JRConklin" <janconklin () isp2k com>
To: <declan () well com>
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20030330002942.01ea8268 () mail well com>
Subject: Re: Free Congress' Lisa Dean: Anti-war protester committed treason
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 00:28:22 -0700

Declan,

Lisa Dean is not only tossing about the term "treason" loosely, she is also 
misstating several facts in her efforts to vent her own lack of 
appreciation for other people's opinions.  First and foremost, those troops 
are NOT over there fighting for me; they are there at the direct command of 
Bush and his administration, and unless one has one's head firmly rooted in 
the sand, one has to admit that the basic reasons for the war are many and 
varied.  It is not accepted as universal fact that our loyal, hardworking 
troops are laying their lives on the line simply for freedom; it is a well 
documented fact that U.S. involvement of any type in the middle east, and 
Iraq in particular, has always been involved with oil.  If Iraq did not 
command the second largest reserves of oil in the entire world, I doubt 
many would care about the freedom of that little country or its people - 
certainly not the likes of Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft.

Secondly, if you want to criticize somebody for irresponsibly putting 
others' lives at risk, take a long, hard look at the risk those same troops 
are taking on.  Can you honestly say each and every one of them would be 
willing to give up their lives for every hidden agenda that is a factor in 
this war?  If that were so, then Bush would not have had to put a "freeze" 
on the active status of all the forces shortly before he began pushing the 
war.  Even members who were due for discharge before this war was publicly 
known to be inevitable were not allowed to leave.

It is a pity that a member of the Free Congress Foundation should 
demonstrate such an inability to free her mind from popular rhetoric.

Regards,

/jan

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Subject: RE: Free Congress' Lisa Dean: Anti-war protester committed treason
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.0.5762.3
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 10:35:35 -0800
From: "Clinton D. Fein" <clinton.fein () apollomedia com>
To: <declan () well com>

Lisa Dean's atrocious article is typical of a group who thinks they have
it all so down they can afford witty anecdotes to make what they
consider a serious point.

Germany's own justice minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, compares Bush's
tactics to Hitler's so protestors carrying "Bush is Hitler" signs are
hardly an inappropriate sentiment, let alone a treasonous act.

I've been seeing and receiving plenty messages from furious "patriots
who want to rip protestors in two," none of whom have actually ventured
anywhere near San Francisco, let alone confronted the protestors. Dean's
barely veiled condoning of their sentiments renders her accusations, of
supporting free speech but not fighting words, somewhat hollow.

While casually lumping diverse and varied agendas of protestors is in
and of itself enough to preclude one from making intelligent opinions
about their motives, flinging accusations of treason should be frowned
upon more than carrying slogans in peaceful protests.

Next time Dean is altruistically serving soup to the homeless, she may
want to consider that some of the very protestors she's assailing are
perturbed by mainstream media reports, that the cost of the first 25
Tomahawk missiles launched in the first hour of the first day in the war
with Iraq was more than fifty times the annual HUD budget to End
Homelessness in America.

She may pause to think that many of the same protestors, right or wrong,
would sooner die than drink coffee from Starbucks, and who blame
"comfortable lifestyles" of SUV drivers as more responsible for the war
than free speech advocates.

While many protestors do not support the war against Iraq or the troops
fighting it, there are those among the protestors who have family and
loved ones in the military who are fighting this war, and want to see
them home safely.

Dean's admonishment to: "remember that these men and women are serving
their nation and as a citizen of their nation, they are serving YOU.
They are putting their lives at risk FOR YOU.  They aren't doing this
for publicity, or for some other self-serving reason, they are doing it
FOR YOU.  And in case you didn't hear me, let me say it again, THEY ARE
RISKING THEIR LIVES FOR YOU!" is in one abbreviation, BS.

They are doing it because they don't have a choice, and whether they
support the war or not. They are doing it because they signed up for
whatever social, economic or personal reasons they did. They are doing
it because they are trained and obliged to follow orders.

For many of the protestors, the troops, following orders, are destroying
America's image in the world, sapping up any sympathy garnered by the
unrelated terrorist attacks of September 11, inviting more terrorist
attacks, killing innocent citizens, and destroying America's economy.
For some they are clearing the landscape and paving the way for fat
contracts to be awarded to organizations like Halliburton. For some they
are attempting to realize the dangerously misguided vision of Richard
Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby et al.

Further, for many, the leaders of this war have irreparably damaged the
notion of a global peacemaking body, and given more power to the
government to threaten and damage constitutional rights than any other
in America's history.

Perhaps those who do not support preemptive wars and are fearful of the
precedents they set, are pissed off that this war is micromanaged by a
Secretary of Defense that has never dug a foxhole.

Perhaps, as much as people, like me, don't support this war -- or the
President for that matter --  we don't like what we are seeing anymore
than we would like Saddam Hussein or some such dictator to "liberate" us
from him by tomahawking our families.

The last thing we care about, or need, is a Lisa Dean telling us what we
should be grateful for, whom we should support, and how we ought to do
it, as much as we support her right to express herself without pledging
allegiance to Tony Blair.

If Lisa Dean supports the troops, demonstrate it by signing up, not
using them to support an argument to squelch speech whilst
simultaneously bragging that it's the very reason they're over there
dying for us.

If speaking out, loudly if necessary, against what we perceive as wrong
is treasonous, sign me up.

_____________________________________

Clinton Fein
Editor & Publisher
Annoy.com
555 Florida Street, Suite 407
San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone: 415-552-7655
Fax: 415-552-7656
http://annoy.com

---

From: "Nathan Cochrane" <ncochrane () theage fairfax com au>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: Free Congress' Lisa Dean: Anti-war protester committed treason
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 11:06:09 +1000
Message-ID: <00e001c2f721$bace2a10$405002a0 () theage jfh com au>
MIME-Version: 1.0

Hi Declan

That is the beauty of free speech. It has to allow the people calling Bush
Jr "Hitler" and those who call those people "traitors".

Let them cry "Treason!" from the highest edifice, Declan.

It gives them further to fall.

---

From: "Thomas Leavitt" <thomasleavitt () hotmail com>
To: <declan () well com>
Cc: <lsdean () freecongress org>
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20030330002942.01ea8268 () mail well com>
Subject: Re: Free Congress' Lisa Dean: Anti-war protester committed treason
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 03:37:25 -0800

Declan,

When I took philosophy in high school, one of the basic rhetorical
techniques we were taught NOT to use was ad-hominem attacks, as an attack on
the messenger, and not the message, proves nothing - yet, this technique
seems to be a particular favorite of a certain style of conservative pundit
(unfortunately, American media doesn't provide me with a lot of left-wing
pundits for comparison).

The ideological desperation implicit in attempting to smear the entire peace
movement with the brush of a few loose cannon street punk leftists is
astonishing... or to label us all disgruntled latte-drinking yuppies. Have
these people even seen a peace march, to know what they're talking about?!?
Most of the peace activists I know wouldn't go near a Starbucks (both for
ideological and economic reasons)!

The most noticable thing about the last caravan I took up to San Francisco
was the fact that the overwhelming majority of the protestors had gray hair!
I'm thirty-one now, and there were damn few people even within ten years of
me! There were more little old ladies than twenty-something hippies (most of
those were fourty or fifty something).

I think that sign was stupid, and if you surveyed the protestors in that
march, probably 98% of them would agree. Furthermore, if you surveyed the
protestors, I'd bet you'd find (like most of the ones I know) that for most
of them, this is only one in a long string of community
activist/organizing/service work they've done. Many of the peace activists
in my community have a record of community service and service to the poor
and otherwise needy that qualifies as heroic, and extends over decades. Lisa
S. Dean is totally off base, and by her rhetoric, she displays her ignorance
of who is out there on the streets (and elsewhere) protesting this war.

Which is fine with me: if the pro-war forces want to badly underestimate
their opponents (and they appear to have done so, which I think is the cause
of the level of outrage being expressed), that is fine with me. I don't thin
k any of us (other than the same radical loose cannons carrying these signs)
underestimates them: we know they're determined to perpetrate this war at
any cost.

And Lisa - I didn't ask these men and women to risk their lives for me, and
I'd much prefer it if they'd go do something else... serving in a soup
kitchen sounds like a great idea. Let's take the hundreds of thousands of
soldiers now being deployed in Iraq, and turn them loose to do good works
here, and elsewhere. Building a house (ala Habitat), digging a well, and
feeding a hungry child does a damn hell of a lot more for America's national
security than lobbing another $1 million Tomahawk into Baghdad.

Regards,
Thomas Leavitt

--
Thomas Leavitt, Sr. Systems Admin For Hire
Resume at http://www.thomasleavitt.org/personal/resume/
Phone: 408-591-3342 / Email: thomas () thomasleavitt org / Fax: 815-371-2804

Wired since 1981. Internet-enabled since 1990. Web-enabled since 1993.
Older, wiser, and poorer, post-crash. :)

---

Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 00:56:57 -0600
To: declan () well com
From: John Haas <johnh6 () cox net>
Subject: Re: Free Congress' Lisa Dean: Anti-war protester committed
  treason

Declan,

This is a first time reply on my part, but I couldn't let this pass.

I wonder how long it will take you folks on the Libertarian side of things
to recognize the extreme (and dangerous) nature of those on the right today.
They have a perpetual war in the war on terrorism, and if that doesn't hold
people's attention...well, Iraq is only the first of three in the "Axis of 
Evil".
Enough to keep us rolling for years to come. And the worst part is that they
appear to have discovered what they consider the ideal means of suppressing
any and all disagreement: accuse the dissenter of terrorism (as Richard Perle
has done) or treason! And the echo chamber of right-wing press, radio and
talking-heads on TV are there to re-enforce this idea.

Isn't it just amazing that the "conservatives", theoretically dedicated to
a strong support of the Constitution and what it means, now seem to be
working the hardest to undermine it?

And as an aside, reprehensible as the banner may have been in San Francisco,
just how far off was it from a member of Congress saying 10 years ago that
a sitting President of the United States wouldn't leave his state alive, should
he ever visit there? And while Republicans are demanding total and 
unquestioning
support for George Bush these days, are their memories really so poor that
they've forgotten the many statements made by DeLay, Lott and others when
Clinton had US Forces involved in Kosovo? Statements which were identical
to Tom Daschle's in meaning and intent, if not in word?

Frankly, I grew more and more concerned that what we know as "democracy" may
be steadily dying under this administration, with its addiction to near 
total secrecy.
An administration which has shown itself to be totally willing to make 
totally contradictory
statements from one day to the next, confident that a willing press will 
not question
them, will not even point out the contradictions to the readers. And the 
administration's
friends (such as Free Congress, better knows as Freepers) are totally 
willing to
make any accusation in an attempt to silence all dissent and disagreement.

FYI - have you read the article in www.editorandpublisher.com regarding the 
failure
of the media to educate the public prior to the war? Most interesting, I 
thought, was
the paragraph pointing out that on 1/7/03, 44% of Americans thought "most" 
or "some"
of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis, and that only 17% knew that none of them 
were.
The amazing part was that in polls taken about a year earlier, most 
Americans knew
that the hijackers were almost entirely Saudis. So how did Americans come 
to change
their minds? The article notes how often (and successfully) the Bush 
administration
would speak of 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, not only in the same speech and 
paragraph,
but often literally in the same sentence. Yet rarely did any newspaper or 
TV station
followup the statement with a clarification that there were no Iraqis 
amongst the hijackers.
Or that 41% of Americans were "certain" that Iraq already possessed nuclear 
weapons
and that this had been confirmed by the UN Inspectors (which of course is 
not true).
Yet dispite being so terribly off, the poll found 66% of Americans consider 
themselves
to have a "good understanding" of the issure for and against the war. Have 
we ever gone
to war with our citizens being so totally ignorant of the actual facts, 
except perhaps
the Spanish-American War, with it's yellow journalism?

Cheers,
John Haas

---
From: "KAT MAN" <katman0 () hotmail com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Anti-war protester committed treason - NOT
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 19:05:37 +0000

I'll happily witness against Bush & co.

Katman



NWO NOT NOW, NOT EVER!







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