A mix of 1773 and 1968: What's REALLY Happening in NYC and Boston

[Dancing_Dave]

Jimmy Breslin is on quite a roll, 3 pieces about NOW as good as anything Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the '60's and '70's.

In 1773, They Risked Their Lives to Speak Out

In Boston in the morning I am walking by the Old South Meeting House, which has a sign on the front saying that it was at this spot in 1773 that Samuel Adams gathered 5,000 people and started the Revolutionary War.

I know it from grammar school, but when you see it here, even for the hundredth time, the effect causes the heart to vibrate. Adams and the 5,000 put their bodies up. Looking at the simple words on the sign caused you to wonder how many people could get together today, even with no threat to their lives as in Adams' group, for a cause that would upset the government....
MORE at http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nybres253906301jul25,0,2797442.column

In Boston, Jailhouse Blues

He became rank when walking by the fencing to keep protesters from being seen by people entering the Fleet building. Breslin announced to authorities that it was hideous. He announced that he had never seen anything to match it except in old Nazi movies. The smallish gathering of protesters yesterday were under an overpass and behind a wire fence that glistens with barbed wire. They cannot be seen clearly in the dimness under the overpass. Then a canvas was placed on the fence to make sure that nobody can see the protesters. There are not enough of them to make any significant noise. Yet outside the fence there was a line of police officers standing with legs apart, ready for great action. Nobody knows precisely what the protesters are for or against, but they are performing the most important role of a citizen: criticizing his government.

Theodore Roosevelt announced, "To announce that there should be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, it is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
READ MORE at http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nybres273908018jul27,0,7450509.column

Personal Politics on a National Stage

Mary Kate came out of the muggy evening and into the convention hall with a delegate's badge around her neck, a hardhat on her brown hair and a bricklayer's union shirt. She had two objectives:

Helping to make John Kerry president.

Finding a man.

"I'm old. I'm 39. I gave up the search and built a house." Then she started looking again. Maybe Prince Charming needs a roof over his head, she thought.

She lost 132 pounds and announced that she wanted to have a baby. Still, today, in Scranton, that is a shocking idea. The people are old, their church, ancient Roman Catholicism. She did meet a man in Scranton. His name was Lew and he seemed all right.

In Scranton, she is one of the neighbors' children and they love her for her union work. She walks into politics with a sweet face and a sledgehammer hidden behind her back. She received the highest vote in Scranton in the primary for delegate. "My 28,380 votes are more important than all these millionaires," she was saying.
READ MORE AT http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nybres293909737jul29,0,6069665.column

[Dancing_Dave]

1. RNC Protest--Revolutionary Spirit Rises in New York!

Check it out!
http://www.counterconvention.org/
:think: :hippie: :toast:

[Dancing_Dave]

2. OMG, RNC will be hit with the most intense protest event since Woodstock!

http://www.notinourname.net/rnc/media-links.htm

This may be the activist moment of a generation or a lifetime. Anyone who's a WRITER will just have to find a way to NYC, join the protest against the Republican Convention, and try to write something as great about it as Norman Mailer's "The Armies of the Night" about a colorful intense 1967 protest at the Pentagon.