Fierce advocate.

Mmm-hmm.

First, since this is one of the first posts I don’t want it to be only negative. I fully support and give my solidarity to the action taken by these service members. The following comments are about definitions and language only and are not about whether their action was valuable or commendable. Because they were.

it’s now resorted to trying to stop press coverage of direct actions

Forgive me for being nitpicky, but it’s sort of a pet peeve of mine that there’s been a kind of drifting of language about the term “direct action”, and that it has become overly broad. If I missed some element of the action that took place that caused a direct improvement to the treatment of gays, lesbians, transgendered and bisexuals in the military, that’s all well and good, but a symbolic protest is not direct action. Protests and civil disobedience are useful tools but they are very rarely forms of direct action, as the term was introduced by us from the ultraleft. They CAN be, of course, for instance the protest in Ireland against the war in Iraq where the protesters blocked the train tracks with their bodies, stopping trains from transporting materials of war that would go to Iraq. That directly affected, though minimally, the capacity of the state to wage war. But if the goal is raising consciousness or appealing to elected leaders to change their decisions, that is indirect action, not direct action. Direct action is about taking concrete means to attain a given goal by ourselves, or directly causing trouble to something we oppose (economic sabotage, stopping military recruiters from being present on your campus, etc) so that it becomes onerous for our opponents to continue it.

For instance, in the hypothetical, if GBLT organizations somehow got organized enough that a large (almost 100%) proportion of GBLT service members started serving openly in defiance of DADT tomorrow in a way that would make it impossible for the military to continue functionning by following DADT to the letter (i.e. too many of them were out so that following DADT and removing them from the military would make the military too weak to function), that would be direct action. If GBLT and allies in the military walked out or went ‘on strike’ until DADT is repealed, that would be direct action.

I don’t get Dem strategy. Don’t polls show a huge majority in favor of repealing DADT? Couldn’t it be used as a wedge issue to paint Republicans outside the mainstream?

Democrats are perpetually running scared on all issues. Its really fucking annoying.

Why assume that it was a political move?  Frankly, it sounds more like something the Secret Service wanted to do; it’s their job to assume a threat environment.

But of course the Teabaggers have a reserved spot on the 7pm news for whatever stupid shit they got up to today.

...With an obligatory mention about how successful their movement is ‘despite the antipathy of the media’.

What are they afraid of? Obamabot progressives finding out how corporate and socially conservative their alleged savior is and directing their energy towards actually progressive candidates and movements. That’s what they’re afraid of.

Since today is Hitler’s birthday and the anniversary of the Columbine massacre, the Secret Service was probably on high alert since a lot of people have been expecting an outbreak of violence from the right wing.

Today may not have been the best day to stage this protest, unless the point was to be shut down and maximize the drama, because pretty much any large gathering outside the White House today was going to get cleared out immediately.

@7

I fully support the kicking of his and more critically the Senate on the issue of DADT, because damn straight and I fully support this action and am very proud of Autumn and the others.

But regarding Obama, I am actually quite happy with him regarding this and the earlier Hate Crimes Law.

Certainly we shouldn’t let him rest and he’s not nearly so left as I would like, but he isn’t wholly disappointing. I’m happy with him though I’ll certainly not rest with continuing to hammer him and more critically our broken f-ing Senate. When you’ve got “Presidents” Lieberman and Baucus, I’m not sure even President Noam Chomsky could push much through.

@1

Even from a purely selfish perspective repeal makes sense. We’re kicking out not only qualified soldiers when we’re having trouble meeting recruiting goals, but qualified ARABIC SPEAKERS when we’re at war against an Arabic-speaking enemy (Al Qaeda)! All over who they sleep with. It’s a national security risk.

Democrats are perpetually running scared on all issues. Its really fucking annoying.

There are certain periods in American history where there’s a lag between what the people actually want, and what the politicians THINK they want. Politicians tend to get stuck in a time warps. Look at how the Republicans think they can re-create 1994 even though it’s a completely different country now.

the really SHARP END OF OCCAM’S RAZOR…

they mix SKEPTICISM with ATHEISM…

KABOOM…
______________________

with the atheists:

they start begging when they start dying…

they PAY THE PRICE FOR ATTACKING THE SUPERNATURAL -

with their LIVES…

CRYSTAL NIGHT TONIGHT!

Atheists,

but you have NO ANSWER TO DEATH… therefore you FAIL…

THE DEATH TRAP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-8-Yxdphsg
********

THE REAL QUESTION:

DOES ATHEISM HAVE A FUTURE?

AND THE ANSWER - NO!

http://www.clubconspiracy.com/forum/f30/does-ath-ism-have-future-no-11202.html#post66570

bay @ 3:  Remember, Congress represents a minority of the US.  So it takes more than a majority of people in general, but a majority in each district and state.

Very regressive, I know.  It’s why we haven’t had an Amendment to the Constitution in so long - not that it’s perfect, but that we’re getting to another point in our history where not just a simple majority of states represent a minority of views.

Talking about the Columbine massacre, today it its 11 year after the tragedy. That brought a lot of students and faculties’ trauma. Nobody would want that to happen again. I also wonder why did the 2 boys did that? What runs through their minds? Michael Bloomberg, NYC Mayor, has chosen the Columbine anniversary to push his efforts to abolish the “gun show loophole.” The gun show loophole is a loophole in Virginia that allows everyone to buy a gun from a private dealer at a gun show without a background check. Some even believe that because of this loophole the guns used at the Virginia Tech School shooting could be purchased. But regardless of just what happens Mayor Bloomberg has my full support.

@#5 - Seriously Dana, you’ve got to be fucking kidding.  Isn’t there any issue on which you will not take an annoyingly contrarian position on?

The press said it was an extremely unusual thing to do.  The area regularly features protests.  There isn’t any evidence of a personal “threat” to the President from the protesters.

Katherine:  Why wouldn’t you think it was the Secret Service?  Unless you believe that the President and his staff are totally politically tone-deaf—something hard to believe, given that they won the election—I don’t see how you could assume that this was a political decision.

As a political decision, President Bush wouldn’t have done this; I seriously doubt President Obama would have.

@Garry:

The guns used at VA Tech were purchased at a normal gun store, not a gun show. The problem was there weren’t enough restrictions on mentally unstable people purchasing guns, not the “gun show loophole”. He got the full background check, and a licensed dealer, and could still purchase the gun. Former Gov. Kaine signed legislation that would bar people like Cho from buying guns—people who have had a certain kind of psychiatric treatment (I forget the condiions, IIRC you’re banned now even if your in-patient treatment was voluntary).

I’ve never heard of a gun purchased at a gun show being used in one of these shootings. They’re almost always either bought through normal channels or stolen. This is one of those feel-good things like the assault weapons ban which really doesn’t accomplish much.

I’d rather have a licensing scheme, based on what we have for automobiles, rather than bans.

This would make it easy for gun shows and private sellers—just check the license to see if they can buy the gun, just like you check I.D. for purchasing alcohol, or show your license before you register your car.

i worked down the street from lafayette park, during the early 80’s. it was the most entertaining part of my time on K Street. there were daily protests against the reagan administration (can you blame them?), and i don’t recall the park ever being shut down as a consequence.

if ever there was a time for the secret service to be nervous (sorry, couldn’t help myself!), that would have been it. and yet, it wasn’t. it wasn’t closed down during the nixon administration, or the entirety of the vietnam war, and i lived near washington during all of that.

this just seems like public display of weak-kneed.

Well, reading a number of accounts of this, I see:

(1) A claim that the park was closed is an exaggeration—what happened is that the media were moved about 200 feet farther from the fence than is usual, for a period of 15-20 minutes.

(2) The secret service and the police are both denying resposibility for this—each points the finger at the other.

(3) There is no evidence to suggest any involvement of the White Hosue staff or the president in this.  Looks on its face to be a screwup by a low-level functionary

(4) The whole point of chaining yourself to the fence around the White House is to get arrested, so there ought not to be any complaint about the protestors getting arrested.  That’s how civil disobedience is supposed to work.

(5) The Obama Adminstration cledarly and unambigously supports repeal of DADT, but only Congress has the power to do that.  Congress hasn’t done it yet, and it’s not clear that there are enough votes in the senate for repeal, but why that gets some of my fellow repeal supporters mad at the adminstration I don’t know.  Repal is very important, but not so important that I’m willing to see John Yoo’s views of presidential power adopted in order to get repeal.

Are we sure the park closure was in response to the gay activists? Consider there was a gun rights rally yesterday across the Potomac from DC, taking advantage of the new law allowing guns in National Parks.

Who controls Lafayette Park? If it’s the Park Service, the Secret Service could well have taken precautions against gun-toting activists rallying across the street from the White House.

Further, the GBLT folks have chained themselves to the WH fence before without prompting a park closure.

Who controls Lafayette Park?

With a little googling, you can see the edifying spectical of the Park Police claiming that it’s the Secret Service, and the Secret Service saying that it’s the Park Police.

the GBLT folks have chained themselves to the WH fence before without prompting a park closure.

As you can see in the video, the fence is across the street from the park.  The problem seems not to have involved the protestors themselves so much as the meida and other spectators.  Understandably, media and other spectators can’t be standing in the street or on the sidewalk blocking traffic, while protestors interact with the fence.  I understad the normal rule is to back up the media and sepctatotrs 100 ft. from the fence, and that all this alleged outrage amounted to was backing them up an additional 200 ft., for 15-20 minutes.

It is no accident that it’s mostly rightwing anti-Obama types—Politico, Fox News, etc., who are acting like this is some sort of big deal

This is so shocking I’m baffled.

I thought maybe they got some information that made them worry the protesters would be targeted for violence, but then, that would only explain closing ti to the general public, not the media.

Fwiw, it apparently wasn’t the WH who ordered the arrests, but the Park Service. From Metro Weekly (http://metroweekly.com/news/?ak=5098):

“Park Police Spokesman Sergeant David Schlosser told Politico’s Ben Smith Wednesday morning that Tuesday’s incident was the fault of the Park Police. Politico reported that Schlosser said, “We had some young officers who, when they were told to move the people back—which we typically do when we’re going to make arrests - they moved the people back a lot further than we typically do. . . . That was a rookie, amateur error and they screwed up on that.”

To be clear, the link refers specifically (and only) to the Park Police making the decision to push people back.  Has nothing to do with the decision to arrest, though I agree with (4) from Rea above… this is a protest move with the explicit goal of being arrested, so nothing particularly surprising there.