Fifth anniversary peace march Saturday morning in PDX

When a majority of Americans has opposed the continued American military presence in Iraq since before the 2006 election, a peace march through the streets of Portland like the one in January 2003 doesn't serve exactly the same function of helping individual Americans understand that they're not crazy, that a whole lot of other people are on their side, despite what the media and our government might be saying.

But it still serves two other important functions: First, it keeps up the pressure (while also giving the local media something better to report than meth busts and suburban shootings--even if also means that they'll miraculously find and give air time to those three guys in trucker caps with the pro-war sign).

Second, the tree of liberty must from time to time be nourished by men and women who get out there and shake their booty in dissent. When they've tapped our phones, monitored our bank accounts, scanned our library check-outs, and photographed us a dozen times as we run our daily errands, there's still one annoying thing they still can't completely control--our ability to put our physical bodies out there to interfere, simply by their presence, with the smooth functioning of associations we don't support.

So have a good breakfast, wear comfortable clothes, dress for the weather. bring some water, and be there for the Peace March tomorrow, beginning in the South Park blocks:

Starting location: SW Park and Madison, Portland Oregon
When: Saturday, March 15, 2008
10:00-6:00 Action Camp featuring workshops, exhibits, performances, music and more!
2:00 Rally and March

To be filed under "Free Speech, Quick Tricks, and Small Slams"

(Updated below.)

(Updated again below.)

Purists claim that, in contract bridge play, only fifteen words are permissible: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, notrump, double, redouble and pass.

And, apparently, the six words "We did not vote for Bush" are not going to be joining that list any time soon.

From the Arts (not Sports?) section of the NYTimes comes this item:

[A] team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.

At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”

By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of “treason” and “sedition.”

“This isn’t a free-speech issue,” said Jan Martel, president of the United States Bridge Federation, the nonprofit group that selects teams for international tournaments. “There isn’t any question that private organizations can control the speech of people who represent them.”

Not so, said Danny Kleinman, a professional bridge player, teacher and columnist. “If the U.S.B.F. wants to impose conditions of membership that involve curtailment of free speech, then it cannot claim to represent our country in international competition,” he said by e-mail.

Of course, the real source of the problem may have came out:

Ms. Martel said the action by the team, which had won the Venice Cup, the women’s title, at the Shanghai event, could cost the federation corporate sponsors.

Yes, perhaps now we are down to it, although the statement from the USBL concerning "The Shanghai Incident" doesn't provide any evidence that sponsors have threatened to withdraw their support:

Certain members of VCW [the Venice Cup winners, whose actions spurred the controversy] have complained that the USBF apology to the WBF and the Chinese Contract Bridge Association for the VCW’s conduct was unwarranted. This reflects a complete disregard for the fact that the Chinese government, which does not exactly have a history of sympathetic views toward political dissent, provided the bulk of financial support for both the 2007 World Championship and the 2008 World Bridge Olympiad. Certainly, other sponsors such as Generali Group and Microsoft will not view as a positive development the hijacking of events which they supported financially as forums for political expression. Again, the VCW seem to view the interests of all other parties as entirely subordinate to their own, if they take them into account at all.

I can't help thinking that the Chinese have bigger fish to fry, in the area of suppressing political dissent, than worrying about a makeshift sign about Bush held up at a bridge tournament in Shanghai, although I'm sure they appreciate the US Bridge Federation's sympathetic efforts to quell embarrassing instances of political speech.

No word on whether Microsoft and Italian financial giant Generali Group are taking action as a result of the "hijacking."

When, in Orwell's 1984, the Party created the Newspeak Dictionary, the only dictionary to get shorter with each successive edition as the language necessary to express dissident thought was systematically eliminated, even they probably never imagined they could get the politically approved lexicon pared down to a mere fifteen words.

(Image via NYTimes.)

Update: USBL president (and corporate/state censorship enthusiast) Martel is getting her 15 minutes of fame, and then some. As of noon-ish three-ish Pacific time, her name produced 4 5 7 pages of hits on Technorati, and 7 8 Google News hits. (Ironically, every one of those Google hits begins by quoting her claim, "This isn't a free-speech issue.") We can leave it to the USBL--and their sponsors! don't forget the sponsors!--to decide who's cast their organization in a poorer light, Martel or the Venice Cup winners. I've often said that the best remedy for free speech you don't like is more free speech; this is a nice reminder that it's also a pretty good remedy for attacks on free speech.

Second Update: I expected this story to die out a little sooner than it's apparently going to. Not sure which offends me more--the lack of proportion from the crowd shouting "treason," or their total failure to understand the difference between living in America and living in China.

(Follow-up post here.)

Dissent: The new model

What Randy Stapilus said:

If your beliefs get in the way of doing, to societal standards, a job on which people’s lives, health and safety depends, then you’d better find another job to do.

He also brings up (this is all concerning the refusal of some pharmacists to fill prescriptions whose use offends their religious beliefs, such as Plan B contraceptives) the point that, once upon a time, people who objected to laws on moral grounds were willing to push the principle to the limit and face jail time to demonstrate the moral bankruptcy of the law.

Sadly, that's not the American way of dissent anymore. Sitting in Birmingham jail writing letters is for chumps. The new model of civil disobedience is to break the law to get what you want, and expect a commuted sentence.

The total-absence-of-blame game

See if you can detect the pattern here (read closely--it's tricky):

1. The problem, crisis, scandal, or disaster: Al Gore's constitutionally dubious defeat in the 2000 election, and the seven years of political and economic disasters that followed.

Who/what Maureen Dowd says is to blame: Some combination of the following: Gore himself, voting machines, Ralph Nader, Bob Shrum, Naomi Wolf, Bush, and/or Clinton.

Who/what is absolutely, positively not to blame: The elite media, conspicuously including Dowd herself, who spent most of 1990 and 2000 mocking and deriding Gore while giving Bush a free ride.


2. The problem, crisis, scandal, or disaster: Two years later, the 9th Ward in New Orleans is still largely in ruins, and has received little or no federal assistance.

Who/what Newt Gingrich says is to blame: The "failure of citizenship" on the part of residents "in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."

Who/what is absolutely, positively not to blame: The Bush administration, which took the efficient and effective FEMA organization left to it by Clinton and turned it into a repository for incompetent cronies, and starve-the-beast conservatives dating back to the "Gingrich Revolution."


3. The problem, crisis, scandal, or disaster: US military personnel getting horrifically bad care at Walter Reed Hospital.

Who/what Fox News anchor Brit Hume says is to blame: The perception that there is a scandal.

Who/what is absolutely, positively not to blame: The Bush administration, including Donald Rumsfeld and the string of administrators who've known about the problem for several years.

Things are not going to get much better around here as long as the national conversation continues to be dominated by deeply unserious and irresponsible people.

Conservatives' damnable problem

As long as I'm getting caught up:

Conservatives have a very tough time ignoring those upon whom Mammon has smiled, even if they've publicly disapproved of the president.