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Ear to the Ground

A Handy Guide to Gagging Pesky Protesters

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Posted on Aug 22, 2007

The American Civil Liberties Union has obtained a “sensitive” handbook,  the “Presidential Advance Manual,” which details the Bush administration’s favored tactics for clearing the president’s path (and line of sight) of demonstrators who may disagree with his leadership policies.


The Washington Post:

But that does not mean the White House is against dissent—just so long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police “to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route.”

The “Presidential Advance Manual,” dated October 2002 with the stamp “Sensitive—Do Not Copy,” was released under subpoena to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a lawsuit filed on behalf of two people arrested for refusing to cover their anti-Bush T-shirts at a Fourth of July speech at the West Virginia State Capitol in 2004. The techniques described have become familiar over the 6 1/2 years of Bush’s presidency, but the manual makes it clear how organized the anti-protest policy really is.

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By purplewolf, August 23, 2007 at 8:23 pm #

#96405 farmertx:
the word macho=chickenshit-excuse my french. That’s what the word means in weedboys case. Also the middle name of one of my dogs. At least my dogs name fits him, Little Eyes(he has) Chickenshit(he is) Pondscum(he likes getting a bath and if I say no he delibertly gets into the pond and gets all scummy so he can get a bath), thus he has earned his Indian name and rightly so.
G.W. on the other hand could be “Good for nothing Worthless BUllSh—er” as that is all that he is.

#96445 socks:“we know that only special people are allowed at Bush events.” Does this mean special as in mentally defective, or as in “special olympics, education and/or needs. Not meaning to disrespect people with mental disabilities.

Do you think if a large group of is non-fans showed up they would just pay us to leave? I mean a really really LARGE group, one they couldn’t possibly contain or drag all of us away? Besides the Homeland Security shirt with the Indian warriors on it I have a shirt that could be called my Dicko Cheney shirt. It shows a left hand, with legs and arms walking away from the person looking the design and it is flipping it’s middle finger on both the hand and the arm’s other hand,so it is a double flipoff for Dicko.I bet this administration wouldn’t have appreciation for that either. Man they got no sense of humor.

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By Matthew, August 23, 2007 at 3:45 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Why is this not surprising?  Pathetic.

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By farmertx, August 23, 2007 at 10:17 am #

Re:#96498 by 127001 on 8/23 at 6:17 am
(61 comments total)

The only one I can think of would be Nixon.

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By 127001, August 23, 2007 at 8:17 am #

The Twig is a wuss.

Even if any prior President did anything to avoid dissenters, I’m not aware of it.

It’s not worse, just becoming public I suppose.

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By vet240, August 22, 2007 at 9:14 pm #

Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Furors Propaganda Minister understood the effects of visual stimulation of the masses. Bring lots of flags and hide the dissenters.

Has the “Imperial Decider” or any of his henchmen ever had an origional idea?!

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By socks, August 22, 2007 at 8:51 pm #

Curious about how many of those events are open to the ‘public’ and funded by taxes, or is that ment to be ‘perferred public’,instead?

We have known, for years, that only special people are allowed into Bush’s events. It is only the willfully ignorant or the dissasemblers that refuse to acknowledge it.

I’d bet that Bush’s handelers know that he would errupt into angry fits of temper if he had to publicly account to his citizens. So they only allow his worshipers to attend his photo opertunities.

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By purplewolf, August 22, 2007 at 8:32 pm #

I can’t wait to wear my,“HOMELAND SECURITY” t-shirt I bought at a powwow several years ago if weedboy is on the scene.Under the title are four Apache men armed with rifles,one of them is Geronimo.Under the picture is says “FIGHTING TERRORISM SINCE 1492”. My comment to that is,“Didn’t work then, what makes them think it will work now?”
Well weedboy and his out of touch with the real world reality entourage better not show up at a powwow as many vendors sell them and many more people are seen walking around wearing them. I bought two shirts that weekend when the famous homeland insecurity comment got started.
Why must bubbleboy be sheltered from anything that might offend him.He needs to WAKE UP to the real world, not this fantasy self wriiten view of it.If a shirt saying peace on it is so offensive to these rejects from the human race they need to get out of this job as they obviously are unfit to do it.You cannot censor the whole world G.W.
There is always going to be something out there that someone might not agree. Deal with it like all the other real people do. What is really a form of dissent is what this group of power hungry idiots have done to the whole planet. Now what makes more sense to try to protect 1 person against the everything on the whole planet or to protect the whole planet from 1 psycho from Texas?

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By mary, August 22, 2007 at 8:05 pm #

This administration can’t be over soon enough for me.  A little sunshine after the election will go a long way to disinfect this awful injury to our country and Constitution…..

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By Outraged, August 22, 2007 at 4:57 pm #

Quote: “Advance teams are advised not to worry if protesters are not visible to the president or cameras: “If it is determined that the media will not see or hear them”

This is a blantant propaganda use of the media.  However, why did “the media” allow it? They were there, wasn’t that part of the story also?  Really makes you wonder how in touch “the unpresident” really is with reality.

They say WE’RE conspiracy theorists and then talk this trash:
Quote: “Most often, the demonstrators want a physical confrontation. Do not fall into their trap!”

Sure, we WANT you to beat us up, typical abuser philosophy. Not only do we want them to beat us up, but we’re setting them up, to fall in our “TRAP”!

So I was wondering, have you set anyone up lately to fall in your “TRAP” of MAKING them beat you up!

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By farmertx, August 22, 2007 at 4:22 pm #

I have an elderly aunt who was a firm believer in ‘out of sight/out of mind’. When the TV news had an item that disturbed her idea that America was an Ozzie and Harriet type place, she changed the channel.
Sadly, she now (at 93) suffers from dementia.
Hard to understand how such a macho guy as the Shrub claims to be is disturbed by protester’s, especially since they aren’t throwing things at him, just holding signs or wearing T-shirts.
Really surprised that the Government released that Manual. I would have thought that it would have been classified as Top Secret because of National Security. We are learning that classification actually means embarrassing to the Shrubs’ image.

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