Kennebunkport, Maine Rally and March for Peace

[Insurgent]

Looks like a "poison pill" post has been thwarted on this thread! A provocateur/saboteur can hijack a thread (a group, a movement) and divert the discussion away from ideologies, tactics, resolutions, etc., but ONLY if you let them - only if YOU take the bait.

In this case, it was probably more of a cognitive problem than active planned sabotage, though the effect was identical and nearly as masterful.

The plan of a conscious provocateur:
a) plant false information (with credible-appearing quoted authority) that diverts attention from issues to style (bad behavior, in this case),
b) associate the freedom proponents with the alleged bad behavior,
c) put freedom proponents on the defensive
d) proponents take the bait, assume the information is true
e) freedom proponents begin defending their allies who "all" behave badly, resulting in
f) freedom being associated with bad behavior (since no matter how much you defend it you won't win that false battle),
g) fascism being associated with kindness and gentility, resulting in
h) people prefering fascism to freedom, because "those freedom people are so nasty and ill-mannered"

The success of the op:
diverted thread from discussion of real issues, the subject of the speakers, their resolutions, the resolve of the people, their follow-on plans, and how we can advance our movement.

Dénouement:
The info is revealed to be false;
well-meaning conservatives are recognized to be sad apologists for fascism now (though sadly, again, they don't even recognize yet that they've been incrementally led down the rosy path to hell);
we move forward and resume talking about the issues

This is all in the Bad Guys Manual, and we've got to get wiser about it. This isn't the first time this has happened and it won't be the last. Be on your guard - Re-read the posts at "Don't feed the trolls."

And, PS, the struggle for freedom won't always be "nice."

Wow, you said a mouthful, there!

[CNHT]

Just who is apologizing for fascism?

Those of us who aren't on the public dole and have decent homes, cars and can support ourselves are your criteria for being fascists?

Wow pretty shallow I'd say. Pretty sad indeed.

Class warfare rears its ugly head again.

Redux of the 1960s...

[CNHT]

What a mountain made of a molehill, and hypocrisy defending violence for freedom...

The plan of a conscious provocateur:
a) plant false information (with credible-appearing quoted authority) that diverts attention from issues to style (bad behavior, in this case),

I have no reason to believe people are lying or that Kennebunkport bobbies on bicycles dressed up like hippies and 'provoked' anyone.

b) associate the freedom proponents with the alleged bad behavior,

People who promote violence are NEVER promoting freedom and are in fact, the true fascists. I doubt highly they are 'freedom proponents'. They are just like ill-mannered children who want to call attention to themselves.

c) put freedom proponents on the defensive

If the shoe fits, my dear. No need to have been put on the defensive if it wasn't you who was involved?

d) proponents take the bait, assume the information is true

Because it is unfortunately, because as I said, it happens a lot, in any group.

e) freedom proponents begin defending their allies who "all" behave badly, resulting in

No need to defend..there is where you went wrong...no one said 'all'.

f) freedom being associated with bad behavior (since no matter how much you defend it you won't win that false battle),

There is no excuse for bad behavior..and freedom is not being associated with bad behavior. I would never have associated them with freedom ever to begin with! (And never said I did)

g) fascism being associated with kindness and gentility, resulting in

HUH?  I don't see where that was proposed.....geesh you're really going off the deep end now.

h) people prefering fascism to freedom, because "those freedom people are so nasty and ill-mannered"

No one said anything about preferring fascism to freedom, just preferring not having to deal with the 'I'll stamp my feet and hold my breath til I turn blue immaturirty' such as these folks were apparently demonstrating...

The success of the op:
diverted thread from discussion of real issues, the subject of the speakers, their resolutions, the resolve of the people, their follow-on plans, and how we can advance our movement.

You've been reading too many 007 fantasy novels... LOL Who is the op?

Dénouement:
The info is revealed to be false;
well-meaning conservatives are recognized to be sad apologists for fascism now (though sadly, again, they don't even recognize yet that they've been incrementally led down the rosy path to hell);
we move forward and resume talking about the issues

This makes NO sense whatsoever...the info was not revealed to be false. Oh true we had a few people deny they believed it, but it was not false. We also have people who think the holocaust never happened either...are you one of those?

This is all in the Bad Guys Manual, and we've got to get wiser about it. This isn't the first time this has happened and it won't be the last. Be on your guard - Re-read the posts at "Don't feed the trolls."
And, PS, the struggle for freedom won't always be "nice."

The Bad Guys Manual? More like the ill-behaved children who need a slap on the butt..funny.

Really, come down off that perch Jack, or you'll make yourself seriously sick again.  And that isn't funny.<sigh>

[mvpel]

Well they kept chanting fight the rich not the war or something..

I thought it was "fight the kitsch, not the war..."



As for the description of the "casual attendee" - I find it perfectly believable and right in alignment with what I've experienced myself at these kinds of events.

I was among a group of folks in California who wished to catch a glimpse of the President as he visited the manufacturer of the Stryker armored vehicle, and we wound up in a bit of a pig pile with the loud, angry, bongo-drumming protesters.

One guy shoved his megaphone right in my face and the face of the middle-aged woman who was standing next to me as we were standing against a crowd control barricade, backed up by a crowd of his friends, and he was carrying on through that megaphone in my face about the deficits in my personality and character that I would dare to decline to angrily protest the offensive presence of the President passing by in a bulletproof limo a hundred yards away.

This megaphone treatment got real old, real fast - and the instant I pulled the megaphone down away from my face and pushed it back towards him, he began whining at the top of his voice to the police standing behind me in riot gear about "assault! assault!"

"Fight the power," except when it can be used to brutalize people who don't vigorously agree with you, I guess.

What a f***ing jackass.

[jaqeboy]

Looks like we have a candidate for viewing Sir, No Sir. I'll be looking for a local venue where it can be shown.

I may have exceedingly foreshortened my note about the carrier crews - I apparently understated the problem. This is a quote, though, from Soldiers Revolt; GI Resistance During the Vietnam War"
[sump'n hoppend to this link - see other refs at bottom]

As in the air force, resistance within the navy increased dramatically when its giant aircraft carrier task groups assumed increased responsibility for the air war. By 1970 underground newspapers and protest actions began to appear at major naval bases and even aboard ships. One of the earliest GI movement groups in the navy was the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM), a network of loosely connected radical groups that appeared at San Diego, Long Beach, and Alameda in California and at the navy's Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago.

By 1971, as aircraft carriers left their California ports for combat duty in the South China Sea, protest demonstrations, rather than the traditional cheering crowds, greeted them. In October 1971 sailors and antiwar civilians in San Diego organized an informal election to decide whether the U.S.S. Constitution should sail for Vietnam. Thirty-five thousand San Diegoans voted in this unofficial referendum, including 6,900 active-duty men and women. Eighty-two percent of the civilians and 73 percent of the service people voted to keep the vessel home. A similar movement, initiated entirely by active-duty sailors, emerged at the same time aboard the carrier U.S.S. Coral Sea at Alameda. Twelve hundred sailors--one-fourth of the crew--signed a petition opposing the war in Indochina and urging that the ship stay home. Another below-decks movement emerged in opposition to the sailing of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk a few months later. Each time one of these ships sailed, a small contingent of sailors declared that they could not in conscience participate in the war and publicly refused to go.

The Nixon administration's response to Hanoi's Easter offensive in 1972 placed even greater pressures on the already heavily committed navy. During the remainder of that year, as many as four carrier task groups remained on combat station in the Gulf of Tonkin. Normal operations were disrupted, as already overworked crew members faced greater hardships and morale plummeted. While many sailors expressed opposition through acts of political dissent, others resorted to more extreme measures of disobedience and obstruction.

Perhaps the most shocking manifestation of the disintegration of morale within the navy in 1972 was the growing problem of internal sabotage. In its 1972 report on navy disciplinary problems, the House Armed Services Committee disclosed "an alarming frequency of successful acts of sabotage and apparent sabotage on a wide variety of ships and stations," and reported "literally hundreds of incidences of damaged Naval property wherein sabotage is suspected." The most dramatic and important of these internal acts of disruption occurred in July 1972 when, in the space of just three weeks, attacks from within put two of the navy's aircraft carriers out of commission. On 10 July 1972, a massive fire broke out aboard the U.S.S. Forrestal in Norfolk, causing $7 million in damage. This blaze, the single largest act of sabotage in U.S. naval history, was responsible for a two-month delay in the carrier's deployment. Three weeks later, another act of sabotage crippled the carrier U.S.S. Ranger as it was about to depart Alameda for Indochina. A paint scraper and two twelve-inch bolts had been inserted into the ship's reduction gears, causing nearly $1 million in damage and forcing a three-and-one-half-month delay for extensive repairs.

The sabotaging of the Ranger and Forrestal set the stage for one of the most violent internal uprisings in the history of the navy--the rebellion aboard the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. In October 1972, after a grueling eight months at sea and constant bombing missions in the Gulf of Tonkin, the huge ship pulled into Subic Bay in the Philippines for a rest stop before returning home. There the crew received the unexpected news that they would be returning to combat operations in the South China Sea. According to the House Armed Services Committee report on the incident, "this rescheduling apparently was due to the incidents of sabotage aboard her sister ships U.S.S. Ranger and U.S.S. Forrestal." With tensions already high among crew members due to declining morale and rising racial conflict, the order to return to Vietnam was the spark that ignited violence. On the evening of 12 October, as the ship arrived at Yankee Station off the coast of Indochina and resumed air operations, a riot broke out. Hundreds of African-American sailors clashed with armed marine guards in a brawl that left dozens injured and seriously disrupted ship operations.

A few weeks later, another major rebellion--this time nonviolent-occurred aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Constellation in San Diego. Described by the New York Times as "the first mass mutiny in the history of the U.S. Navy," the rebellion aboard the Constellation grew out of the efforts of an organization on board known as the Black Fraction to resist repression and discrimination. In early November more than one hundred sailors, mostly African-American, but including whites, staged a sit-in and dockside strike to protest racism and the threat of unfavorable discharges. Seeking to avert violence and prevent another incident like that on the Kitty Hawk, the captain allowed the dissident group to stay ashore as a beach detachment. Despite refusing a direct order to return to the ship, the rebels received light treatment. Although several were quietly discharged, most simply received reassignments to shore duty.

In the wake of the Constellation and the Kitty Hawk incidents, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, chief of naval operations, called together eighty leading admirals and marine corps generals for an emergency meeting at the Pentagon to address the problem of race relations. The assembled commanders were urged to be more sensitive to the needs of enlisted sailors and to give greater attention to the human relations councils and other reforms that the Pentagon had recently introduced. In some places commanders responded by sponsoring educational programs on African-American history and culture, while also promoting sensitivity sessions and discussion groups. These attempts at reform, however, did little to address the structural injustices within the military. Moreover, as long as the war in Vietnam continued and American servicemen remained engaged in the military conflict, the GI movement and the internal rebellion within the armed forces continued. Not until 1973, when the U.S. combat role finally came to an end, did resistance within the ranks began to ease and military life slowly return to normal.

references:
http://www.citizen-soldier.org/cortright.html
http://www.akpress.org/2005/items/soldiersinrevoltgiresistanceduringthevietnamwar
http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Bibliographies/GI_Mvmt_bib.html

[jaqeboy]

I suggest corrections be forwarded to the author. I'm sure he'd want to keep his work accurate.

Thanks for the clarifications, but they seem to be off the mark of the author's claims. The point observed at Kennebunkport and other confrontations with actual, real-life veterans and chickenhawks seems to be made, though. Vietnamization (of the soldiers) is happening (in the sense that this generation seems to be getting wise - after 4 years - to what the war is really about)!

[jaqeboy]

From someone in the peace movement (Carol Moore, a libertarian):

I watched the Gathering of Eagles (GOE) speeches on CSPAN and it was pretty scary how their leaders said they want to STOP the anti-war movement! See a "GOE" fan's videos Part 1 - 3 here for an idea.
http://youtube.com/user/tomburrell2006

And later some GOE members tried to do just that. Allegedly there were several attacks on antiwar protesters who were marching from the White House to Congress! But can't find video off hand.  This shows GOE being obnoxious...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HqKuRIJqFFU

This shows them taking away a Vet for Peace guys' Flag
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NbV9VNrvbE8

This is a funny take on that scene
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SZsa04z9pJY

So much for these "nice" people being pro-American. They take actions, no matter what they claim their beliefs are, to restrict Americans' right of free speech, assembly and expression - ie, they are anti-American!

[jaqeboy]

Another report on those "nice" Gathering of Eagles goons:

"Here are photos of members of "Gathering of Eagles" who assaulted gold star father Carlos Arredondo in broad daylight in Washington, D.C., on September 15, 2007, throwing him to the ground and kicking him..."

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/20/gold-star-father-who-lost-son-in-iraq-allegedly-beaten-by-members-of-pro-war-group/

[jaqeboy]

I got an email announcing another Kennebunkport protest, but now I cant find it. Anyone have the details on this years Bushie bashing?

[John Edward Mercier]

Why waste the time? With the election upcoming and a newly elected clown... plenty of time to enjoy the circus.

[jaqeboy]

OK, so far I have this: arrive 4 July, Friday and camp over. Protest on Saturday. Still looking for the official details.

[jaqeboy]

Kennebunkport July 4th/5th info:

REMINDER - REVISED:
----------------------------------------------------------
Friday, July 4, at 12 noon: Redeclaring Our Independence and Camp Alex Reunion
-  a July 4th picnic with speakers at Laurie Dobson's farm (which was Camp Alex last August), 78 Old Cape Rd. in Kennebunkport, Maine.  Please arrive before noon on Friday and bring your own food plus food to share.  Overnight camping is available at the farm on Friday and Saturday nights - bring firewood for campfires if you plan to camp. Breakfasts of blueberries and granola with coffee for a nominal fee are a possibility. Campers need to RSVP to Laurie Dobson (contact info at the end).

Speakers: USAF LT. Col. (Ret.) Dr. Robert  Bowman, Star Wars Missile Defense Shield Director under three presidents, will speak out for Bush-Cheney Impeachment and Indictment for war crimes. Other speakers include Harold Burbank, drafter of the legal ordinance for Bush's Indictment in Kennebunkport for war crimes, (which will be on the ballot in November once the signatures are collected), Kurt Daims, organizer of the Brattleboro Indictment Resolution which passed last year, and Laurie Dobson with updates on the Bush Indictment in Kennebunkport.

Fireworks! The Town of Kennebunk will be having fireworks on Kennebunk Beach at dusk on Friday. Campers may want to carpool to someplace, such as Parson's Way, on the Kennebunkport side of the river, where the fireworks will be visible.

Directions: From North: 95 exit in Biddefored to Rt. I South toward Kennebunk. At Arundel Flea Market take left onto Log Cabin Rd. and at junction go left onto Walker's Lane. Straight to Old Cape Road #78.
From South: 95 to Wells to Rt. 9 toward Kennebunkport. Cross Bridge into Kennebunkport from Lower Village, Kennebunk, and go through Dock Square, staying on Rt. 9, as it turns right at T with Maine St. and then Left onto School St. Go straight until American Legion Hall on left--take that left onto Old Cape Road. House is about a mile on right, #78, yellow house, yellow barn.

Admission is free, but a donation will be requested for The Patriots (Bob Bowman's nonpartisan organization of patriotic Americans seeking to return our country to Constitutional government based on truth and in service of the people). Sponsored by the Laurie Dobson for US Senate campaign, The Kennebunk Peace Department, Seacoast Peace Response, the Bush Indictment Project, the Burbank for Congress campaign and the Seacoast 9-11 Questions Group. Contact Laurie Dobson at <contact@dobsonforsenate.com> or 207-967-0432.
------------------------------------
NOTE:  Postering needed!  The poster in the attachment can be printed out and posted to bulletin boards in your towns. We already have people postering in Dover, Rochester, Wolfeboro, Portsmouth and Durham in New Hampshire and in Kittery and Wells in Maine. We could use some more posters, especially in Maine. Please let me now if you can put up posters in your town. Thanks. Dave

[jaqeboy]

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Two additional speakers at Redeclaring Our Independence on July 4th in Kennebunkport will be Carlos and Melida Arredondo of Gold Star Families for Peace and People United for Peace <www.freewebs.com/peopleunitedforpeace/>. Carlos Arredondo has traveled the country with a picture of his son and an empty flag-draped casket, giving an impassioned plea for the end to the war that his son died in.