[Vision2020] Celebrate Bush's Last Day in Office

[Tom Hansen]

With special thanks to a fellow Viz subscriber for providing me this link.

Courtesy of "Shoe Bush" at:

http://shoebush.org/
 
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JOIN US IN WASHINGTON, DC ON PRESIDENT BUSH’S LAST DAY IN OFFICE FOR A 
SHOE HURLING ACTION
 
Why Shoe Bush?
Our president stood in a nation he had illegally invaded and occupied, 
where his actions had caused over 1.2 million deaths, 5 million people 
forced out of their homes, millions more deprived of electricity or clean 
water and afraid to walk the streets.  He stood smiling in a nation he had 
transformed into a living hell, a place where everyone had seen loved ones 
and neighbors killed.  And when Muntadar Al-Zeidi threw two shoes at him, 
our president remarked “I don’t know what his beef is.”

But billions of people around the world believed that the pretended 
obliviousness of George W. Bush to the pain and suffering he was 
inflicting had gone on as long as they could stand if not much longer, and 
Al-Zeidi became a hero overnight.  His two shoes punctured the Bush veil 
of separation, the distance Bush pretends to imagine exists between his 
decisions and the human limbs scattered in the sand of his colony.  And 
while the U.S. media pretended to wonder whether the water torture 
was “really” torture, the United States and its puppet government in Iraq 
inflicted on Al-Zeidi one of the more commonly employed torture techniques 
of the Bush regime: they beat him and broke his bones.

In an ideal world, it would be enough to present the evidence of crimes 
for Bush, Cheney, and their criminal subordinates to be prosecuted and 
convicted.  In this world, we’ve presented that evidence ( 
http://afterdowningstreet.org/keydocuments ) for years, and we are still 
in a climate in which Bush and Cheney blissfully admit their crimes, 
apparently believing that they render prosecution less likely by declaring 
their own crimes acceptable.  While lies may take hold more easily the 
bigger they are, big lies also collapse quickly, as when a child points to 
a naked emperor, or a journalist throws his shoes.

We have a president-elect who can save himself from engaging in criminal 
wars and occupations, in torture and other war crimes, in warrantless 
spying and other violations of our Constitution, only by prosecuting the 
actions of his predecessor.  Not to prosecute is itself a crime.  If we 
are going to persuade the president elect, we must first persuade the U.S. 
media, and the U.S. media is not attracted by facts and information.  The 
U.S. media is attracted by throwing shoes.

Bush’s last act is expected to be the unprecedented pardoning of crimes he 
authorized.  This has never before been done, and to do so is to drop all 
claim to being a nation of laws.  Thanks to the example set by Al-Zeidi, 
since emulated by people all over the world, we will know exactly how to 
make our response visible when those pardons come.

–David Swanson

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Jamilla El-Shafei, the organizer of the Shoes For Bush protest in 
Washington, D.C., enjoys a light moment as she tosses some shoes in the 
air, by hundreds of pairs of collected shoes on her dining room table in 
Kennebunk, Maine, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2009. El-Safei asked people to 
protest on Monday Jan. 19, which is President Bush’s last full day in 
office, by throwing shoes at a fence outside the White House.

http://tinyurl.com/Shoes4Bush
 
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What started as an act of defiance in Baghdad has evolved into a movement 
in the US.

God bless America!

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapsed Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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