It's a given:
I love where I live, though its size is small, it has grand opportunities and much beauty. A small seaport called Newport, Rhode Island has history, of course the native north Americans' and of the colonial days. Newport is actually an island called Aquidneck Island by the Indians and the actual Island of Rhode Island on the map. There are only three towns on Aquidneck Island, the south end is Newport, the north end is Portsmouth and the middle is uncreatively called Middletown. I'm a transplant here, living here since I was 24 years old and now I have to admit, I'm way past those years now. Rhode Island is a tiny state...you can get anywhere in this state in an hour basically. Our biggest town is Providence, the capital of Rhode Island. The word "providence" means "God, when conceived omnisciently, directing the universe and the affairs of humankind with wise benevolence". The fact that the city of Providence has such substance and almighty meaning behind the definition of its name is humbling, or at least, should be humbling.
We have the mighty and beautiful tallships gracing our harbor right now. At night, their outlines are beautifully lit up. And PRESIDENT BUSH was here today. But none of us got to see him. The news reported that Airforce One landed on the Navy Base here at 10:30 a.m. He was invited by our Republican Governer Donald Carcieri to come to Rhode Island today. Now there is only one state left that Bush has never visited - Vermont. Rhode Island was taken off that short list today. Our two United States Senators and our two Representatives are all Democrat, and his approval rating here in Rhode Island according to one of the signs at the protest today, is as low as his IQ. Many of the signs were on that order, of say ... "insulting".
President was scheduled to speak at 11:00 a.m. I am a major activist here in RI for stopping genocide, specifically the one in Darfur that is four years and four months old. So I went with my poster
to the sight of other protesters gathered today close to the Navy Base where Mr. Bush spoke about the subject of
TERROR.
Only two of us had signs about Darfur. All of the other signs were of peace, getting out of Iraq,
not getting into Iran, impeaching Bush and or Cheney and so on.
We had around 250 people. Wal-Mart wouldn't let us park in their huge lot. But the Pizza Hut gave us permission. Afterward, I went to thank the manager for allowing us to do so. I think he was surprised that I did this. But it was apparent that he appreciated the "shout out".
Okay, we were pretty confident that President Bush wouldn't want to see us and would not drive by our little protest, but we knew the television cameras would probably come for the show. However, mostly they reported President Bush's speech on TERROR.
The real terror is President Bush and his "non-executive branch", Vice-President Dick Cheney. Did you hear about VP Dick Cheney saying that he isn't fully a member of the executive branch of the government this week? Unbelievable, but he said it.
The support of those who drove by all of our signs was overwhelmingly in support of the protesters. And when my neighbor
and I walked the streets of Newport with our Darfur signs with all of the tourists in town for the tallships, we were very much supported. People asked to take pictures of us and gave us words of thanks.
It's too bad that President Bush chooses to only represents those that he can pidgeon hole as his true supporters. His supporters have given this man license to ruthlessly strip us as a nation of our reputation worldwide with his stupidity. When he "ran" for President he only allowed people into his "town meetings" who supported him. He hand picked his crowds. What kind of democracy is it, that the Presidential candidate will only speak in front of those that he hand picks?
This guy has sold us down a political river and doesn't even care that it's polluted.
I'm not a Bush supporter because I don't agree with anything that he has done as President.
When what’s wrong is pretended to be right, we are not facing the truth. That is a problem. And that is where we are as a nation of wrongs with the current Administration.
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Genocide – Never Again
Let’s work on that.
First I went to Waterplace Park in Providence for the outside Friday night concert. The musicians were from Quebec. Then I drove back to Newport, Rhode Island. After the fireworks as a part of the tallships tonight with a full moon, I was walking past a bar that is totally open to the sidewalk. Sitting around in a circle were men singing with gusto with many of them drumming with one lead drummer. I stayed for 3 hours. What fun. No microphones, no electric guitars, just men's voices having simple fun. Twice I got pulled into the center of the men singing to dance. They apparently were the crew from the tallship from Bolivia as one of the songs made that obvious. Their singing was in Portuguese.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I mean when I say I love where I live... things like this just happen. These guys weren't hired by the bar - they were just singing with love of life. And we all got to be a part of the fun and joy.
This kind of thing rarely happens in most USA cities, especially in tiny towns like ours.