Category Archives: Network News/Events
Bursey files for relief from free speech conviction
Today, attorneys for SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey filed a writ of coram nobis, usually translated as “the error before us,” in Federal District Court in Columbia, SC. A coram nobis petition applies to persons who have already been convicted and have served their sentence. Such motions cannot be used to address issues of law previously ruled upon by the court but only to address errors of fact that were not known at time of trial or were knowingly withheld during and after trial from judges and defendants by prosecutors, and which might have altered the verdict were they presented at the trial.
The writ argues that the government withheld evidence of White House involvement in segregating peaceful protestors from from supporters of President Bush at presidential rallies. Bursey was arrested at a Bush rally in Columbia in October 2002 for refusing to be segregated from the general public.
“I said at the time of my arrest that the Secret Service was being used as an armed political advance team by the president,” Bursey said. He filed discovery motions and subpoenas during his trial for any White House directives to the Secret Service, but the government successfully moved to deny his efforts, calling them a “fishing expedintion.”
A recently discovered Presidential Advance Manual instructs the Secret Service to do what Bursey alleged they did to him. “There are several ways the advance person can prepare a site to minimize demonstrators. First, as always, work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferable not in view of the event site or the motorcade route.” (pg. 32, Presidential Advance Manual, see below).
At Christmas, remembering those lost to war
By Wade Fulmer, Columbia
War veterans and other victims bombed, maimed, or mentally disabled may be able to tell you where he or she and fellow soldiers were on a Christmas Day, what they were doing, or what they were remembering about their last time at home with family. Often, they may not remember details of their destructive traumas, may not want to return to where one was, or may only numbly exist while still in the politicians’ war that bleeds them and their families. They were, are, so far away, and if they return they yet dwell in that war place of interventionist hell. Soldiers seek to serve by noble duty, to move one more day closer to home, and to return to family. In faith and horror they live to survive one day at a time, to come home, and to bring their fellow soldiers home, at least alive if not well.
Partisan holiday wishes
(Received from a Republican friend.)
To my Democrat(ic) friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.
To my Republican friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
NOW’s naughty list: stereotyping toys
by NOW President Kim Gandy
For what I hope is the last time in 2007, I find myself asking: What year is this again?
I’m not talking about abstinence-only education, or Bush’s appointment of birth control opponents to high ranking reproductive health positions, or even “purity balls” (although I may have to get to those someday soon). No, I’m talking about toys.
‘Tis the season for abundant toy advertising and shopping, so naturally the NOW office has been abuzz about the ubiquitous “Rose Petal Cottage” TV commercials. If you haven’t seen these ads, count yourself lucky. Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I would think they were beamed in from 1955, via some lost satellite in space. Or maybe it’s a deeply subversive parody that a clever (and rich) band of feminists snuck onto the airwaves in heavy rotation.
Obama, nuclear power, and freedom of speech
Dear Friends,
We wanted to let you know how the Obama campaign treats people concerned about his position on GNEP and nuclear issues…
At the big Obama-Oprah rally here in Columbia, South Carolina on Sunday, a few of us decided to hold up signs at the entrance to the venue (university football stadium) against Obama’s support of research into GNEP. You may have noticed at the Democratic debate two weeks ago in Las Vegas that he said he supported nuclear power and that Argonne lab in Illinois was conducting promising research on how to manage nuclear waste (uh, GNEP that is). If GNEP goes forward, South Carolina (Savannah River Site & the old Barnwell reprocessing plant) is perhaps the main site being considered to receive the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.
When we arrived at the stadium entrance with a few posterboard signs the Obama people were all over us, trying to kick us off the property. They said we could go to the “free speech” area that was several blocks away. Hm…sure sounds like a tactic of a certain president who could care less about free speech. We didn’t leave and they got the police to come, who forced us off the property and to the sidewalk across the street (where people entering the stadium could still see us). The stadium, they said, was rented by the Obama campaign and it was not a public area any more. Hunh?! One of us returned to the stadium property with a sign and a police officer pursued her and shoved her in the back, making sure to be out of camera range.
So, we wanted to let you know about these tactics of the Obama campaign to stifle free speech. Is the campaign really about the change it claims? The reaction was shocking and unanticipated by us. If anyone has heard of his campaign applying this tactic at others sites please let us know. And, if anyone has heard him say more about GNEP and reprocessing please pass it on. And, how much money is he taking from the nuclear industry (while claiming to take no money from special interests)?? And Oprah, is she also pro-GNEP and anti-free speech? Say it ain’t so!
Regards,
Tom Clements
Leslie Minerd
Elaine Cooper
(now headed to the Obama offcie to talk about this.,..if you don’t hear from us again send a search team…)
Sewer politics
This is just the opening of a long and vulgar email sent around today, with email addresses exposed. I recognized many of them, and could tell they’d culled our online list of Network members. We won’t dignify and perpetuate the trash by copying more of it here or identifying their web site. But it’s useful, I think, to know what we’re up against.
*********
Dear American Friend,
I have attached my “Hillary file” which is culled from the 205+ books and other media that I have on Hillary and Bill. The Clintons are thugs. On the campaign trail in 2007 Hillary and Bill are play acting as the loving, respectful couple – singing each other’s praises on stage and engaging in public affection as they troll for votes.
In order to understand Hillary and Bill, one must first understand the wildly dysfunctional Jerry Springer lifestyle they have lived for 36 years. Hillary has covered for Bill who not only has had HUNDREDS of women, but also perpetrated several rapes and vicious sexual assaults, often involving biting the lips of the women victims. In order to cover up this Jerry Springer chaos, Hillary has often used Sopranos tactics: a secret police and criminal intimidation tactics to harass, intimidate and terrify Bill’s sex victims and girlfriends.
WE’VE HAD ENOUGH “EXPERIENCE” WITH HILLARY; CLINTON BLACK OPERATIONS MUST STOP
**********
We should all do what we can to resist this brand of gutter politics. Ret. Lt Col USAF Bob Ross did. He sent this out in response to the original email:
For starters, I am NOT your friend.
It is people like you who give politics in the United States the smell of rotten eggs. It is you who are irresponsible. Who is paying you? …the same people who “Swift-Boated” John Kerry? The same people who spread the lie in South Carolina about John McCain having a black, illegitimate child and that his wife was a drug addict? The same people who lied about Iraq having WMDs? The same idiots who would have us bomb Iran?
Shame, shame, You are beneath contempt.
Bob Ross
Lt Col USAF Retired
RESIST Remembers
Since 1967, RESIST has funded groups working for social change, including the SC Progressive Network. To celebrate its 40th year of growing the grassroots, RESIST premiered this slide show.
Thank you, Ruth Thomas!
Ruth Thomas chats with Jeff Koob at the Free Speech Pay-In outside the courthouse in Columbia in 2004.
Today’s paper featured a front-page profile on Ruth Thomas, the 87-year-old activist and founder of Environmentalists Inc. She has been a longtime member of the Network, and it’s great to see her get the recognition she deserves.
She calls our office about once a month, and I know it will be a longish conversation with her talking way over my head about some environmental crisis or other (this state has so many it’s hard to keep up with it all). She is passionate, very bright, and a force to be reckoned with, as so many hired suits have discovered in hearings over the years.
If ever there were one, Ruth is an argument for cloning. If we had more of her, imagine what we could accomplish.
Be inspired; read Sammy Fretwell’s story in today’s edition of The State.
Becci Robbins
On World AIDS Day
By Becci Robbins
He has full-blown AIDS,” she said. The sound of it, like air escaping.
Full. Blown. AIDS.
The social worker handed over his file, a single sheet of paper with some handwritten notes on it, mostly addresses and phone numbers, which I scanned for clues to what might be coming.
Mark was 41. He had been in Columbia only a few months, since being forced to leave his home in Los Angeles after having grown too ill to care for himself. With nowhere else to go, he had moved in with his sister, who was stationed at Fort Jackson.
It was far from an ideal living arrangement. “Dysfunctional” was the term the social worker kept using. The sister was often gone; Mark was increasingly bedridden. She had an alcohol problem; he had a coke habit. She resented Mark’s intrusion on her life; he, in turn, was humiliated, lonely and raging mad.
After she had left him alone for three days, knowing he was too sick to make it down to the kitchen, Mark had called Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services to ask that someone be sent over to make sure he didn’t “starve to goddamn death” in his upstairs room.
As a PALSS volunteer, that was to be my job. To make sure Mark didn’t starve to goddamn death.
Read the rest of the story