Truthdigger of the Week: Singing Obama Protesters

This week’s Truthdigger of the Week award goes not to a single person, but rather to the group of protesters that interrupted an Obama fundraising breakfast in San Francisco on Thursday with a song about the detention of alleged WikiLeaks’ source Pfc. Bradley Manning.

With small signs that read “Free Bradley Manning,” a group of about 10 serenaded President Obama:

Dear Mr. President we honor you today sir Each of us brought you $5,000 It takes a lot of Benjamins to run a campaign I paid my dues, where’s our change? We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true Look at the Republicans — what else can we do? Even though we don’t know if we’ll retain our liberties In what you seem content to call a free society Yes it’s true that Terry Jones is legally free To burn a people’s holy book in shameful effigy But at another location in this country Alone in a 6×12 cell sits Bradley Twenty three hours a day and night The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain’t right We paid our dues, where’s our change?

As shown in the video below, the song, which lasted about a minute and a half, was received with tepid applause as Obama tried to accommodate the interruption during what would otherwise have been a run-of-the-mill fundraising stump speech.

But more than make Obama stumble, these protesters showed us that dissent can be both fun and forceful. They gave us an example of how we as everyday folk can work to stop the unfair incarceration of political prisoners such as Manning and the torture and terrible conditions that he has experienced during his detention.