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Episode II...

 
 
schmee
21:30 / 15.09.03
"..ideal for the modern film student in documentary or editorial form.."
-- some dude on the internet

>> the naked return (mp3)



We need more war. We need more war.
That's what all these expensive tanks are for.
We've been training millions, and millions more,
for settling these scores and fighting all these wars.

Hell, I suppose you could say it's our job.
It's kind of like running a crew for the mob.
You see, we have to maintain credibility.
So, we flex some muscle, and end all hostility.

There just isn't any way better.
We're going to have to make sure they're hurting.
We'll provoke them into anger,
then we'll send in Halliburton.

-->> the goose (mp3), follows.<<--

Ashcroft booed at meeting

“Imperial Death March” accompanies Ashcroft into Boston meeting

By ALLISON BROWN
The Daily Free Press, Boston University

BOSTON - With fists and middle fingers upraised, a booing, hissing and chanting crowd of about 1,200 people awaited United States Attorney General John Ashcroft when he arrived at Faneuil Hall at Boston University Tuesday morning, decrying his support of what some protesters called government policies undermining civil rights.

Ashcroft was bombarded by cries of "Shame!" and the sound of the "Imperial Death March" from the movie "Star Wars" as he entered a meeting with law enforcement officials in Faneuil Hall.

The meeting, which was closed to the general public, was billed as a briefing on the particulars of the USA PATRIOT Act, a federal anti-terrorism initiative, according to The Boston Globe.

The act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, allows government officials to, among other things, step up surveillance and increase information sharing between government agencies.

Many of Tuesday's protesters called the act an assault on American freedoms.

Andrea Dourenus, a Brighton resident who stood outside Faneuil Hall, said she believes the government's current practices threaten civil liberties.

"It's an insidious distortion and manipulation of the war on terrorism to attack basic civil rights," she said.

Vernon Supreme, another protester, sported a rainbow-colored clown wig, foam nose and rubber butt and shouted taunts as he marched around the building.

"John Ashcroft, come out with your pants down — we've got the place surrounded," he said through his bullhorn, prompting laughter from several onlookers.

Supreme, a Cape Ann, Mass., resident who changed his name in 1997, described himself as "the most dangerous clown in America" who attended Tuesday's rally to "protest this fascist scumbag."

"I think he's another cog in a very dangerous machine we've got going on," Supreme said.

David Kittlestrom, another protester who said he had also protested against the war in Iraq, said he opposed the closed-door nature of Ashcroft's Boston visit.

"I objected to the way this was held in secret," he said.

Yesterday's rally also featured speeches, including one by City Councilor Chuck Turner, D-Roxbury, who, to cheers from the crowd, outlined a measure objecting to the USA PATRIOT Act that he and co-sponsors Felix Arroyo, D-At Large, and Charles Yancey, D-Dorchester, plan to introduce at Wednesday's City Council meeting.

"Therefore be it resolved by the City Council of Boston that ... any efforts to end terrorism not be waged at the expense of the fundamental rights of the people of Boston ..." he said, reading an excerpt from the proposed resolution.

A similar measure went before the City Council last year and failed,

but he expressed hope Tuesday that such a provision would pass this year.

The rally also featured a speech from a Massachusetts Library Association member who criticized the USA PATRIOT Act for allowing government monitoring of the materials patrons check out from libraries.

Though the crowd swarmed around the metal fences which had been set up around three sides of the building and protesters often joined together in angry jeers, Boston Police reported no arrests.

Officers were involved, however, in a brief scuffle with protesters who were attempting to block the placement of new barricades as Ashcroft was preparing to exit.


Copyright 2003 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 150, No. 12 (Thursday, September 11, 2003), on page 13.

USC Daily Trojan
 
  
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