NYT editorial, Squelching the Citizenry’s Back Talk: "vigilante squads out of place in a democracy"

[DeepModem Mom]

Squelching the Citizenry’s Back Talk
Published: August 25, 2007

....“Do not fall into their trap!” warns the presidential manual in hypothesizing that protesters really want to be physically restrained and attract media notice, not merely exercise their right to complain. Instead, the roaming squads’ task is to use their own “signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform.”

Noisy protest? The rally squads’ response must be immediate choruses of “USA! USA!” to muffle the moment with patriotic chaff. These vigilante squads are out of place in a democracy.

The chamois-tight precautions of the White House’s presidential visit manual surfaced in The Washington Post because of a First Amendment lawsuit involving two people who refused to cover up the message of their T-shirts at a Fourth of July presidential event. “Regime change begins at home,” was the familiar shirt message of one protestor who was handcuffed and taken to jail.

The manual magnanimously advises local police to tolerate dissenters — providing they are barred from the event through an ultra-loyalist ticketing process and then cordoned well off from earshot and sight of the president and his passing motorcade.

Every White House stage-manages presidential events, but this level of obsession with silencing the vox pop is a symptom of this administration’s broader problem honoring Americans’ constitutional freedoms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/opinion/25sat4.html?em&ex=1188187200&en=b03a2101be951b7e&ei=5087%0A

[PSPS]

1. I'm tired of these 6-years-late editorials. The NYT is largely responsible for our situation.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. The NYT editorial page, to my knowledge, never supported Bush.

The news pages are a different matter.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

2. self delete