I winked at Clinton once.

Glad I didn't get plugged :D

I'd be more worried about a different sort of "plugging" with Clinton, Lebell...;-)

Well, he did give a little wave back.

And I thought he was just being friendly.

Hrmmm...

you dont think they'd be doing this if it were Kerry or anyone else sworn in? You'd better belive in this day and age post 9/11 it most certainly would.

The only difference would be that the bush supporters would be complaining about it.

I see no problem with it....so what? big damn friggin deal

I'd complain about it one way or another.

Sounds like you've got it all figured out! Hell, maybe you should be heading up security. :)

Although, these 5 simple steps fail to account for other material safety risks besides someone wielding a firearm in plain view (you might want to rethink those simple steps a little).

By the way, it may be true that people are being ordered not to look at the President, and I'll admit that I don't understand the logic behind it. But I'm not going to get all worked up about because one reporter slapped it into an article.

hey, when you see clinton you've got to do the thumb tip thing
saw him on cspan greeting a crowd, sure enough, several people had it whipped out

but no looking at bush? that's pretty minor.
here are some real demands:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstagetour

RD:
Diplomatic security ( from the sharpshooters perspective, anyway ) is simple. Hard, yes; that kind of precision observation and engagement is damned hard. But the concept is simple: identify threats by verifying that they are behaving in a concretely threatening manner, and neutralize them.

And that's fair enough.

That's a whole new thread right there! Australia had a referendum to become a republic and it failed to pass. The reason was not that most Australians support the monarchy (they don't), but that the Government, led by John Howard who is a monarchist, offered the people a poor choice. The President wasn't to be elected by the people, but appointed by the parliament; ie, the Government. In other words, just more "jobs for the boys" kind of bullshit that permeates Australian politics. If Labor ever get into power they've promised another referendum on a directly elected president. And that will most definitely pass.

Mr Mephisto

Ummm...how is the marchers not looking at the President destroying the checks and balances of government?

I'd like to point out that they are not there to look at the President, they are there to march. Now remember, the only people being told to pay attention to what they're doing is the marchers. People coming out to watch can look at whomever they want.

Have you ever seen the results of an entire marching band being distracted? I have, at a parade where a woman along the parade line flashed the band. It was priceless....dropped instruments, almost no semblance of order, (the girls tried to keep going, the boys stopped and drooled, and a bunch of them ended up on the ground from tripping) it completely stopped the parade until order was restored (and the woman was arrested).

Dude, the crowd can look at him all they want to.

All this is is the Secret Service telling people that are ACTUALLY MARCHING to keep their minds on what they are doing. It's no different than an "eyes front" order in the military.

Remember that woman who hiked up her shirt and tried to get Clinton to sign her impressively filled bra? He ran away, and the SS arrested her.

Yes it is different. They're not in the military.

And it's being explained as a security measure, not an aesthetic one.

Where did I last hear of civilians marching in such pristine and military fashion at a large political rally? Oh yeah, that's right.

It was Nuremberg.




Mr Mephisto

Its a wonder that the president goes outside at all. I dont think America has ever had a more paranoid leader.

I do agree it's pretty crazy, but can you diasgree with this environment.

There were a lot of people off by the elections this year, some to the point that they want to move our of country because Kerry didn't win.

It only takes one person with a gun out there to think he will be a hero to all these disenfranchised people.

Let me say this guys, and I'm not pointing a finger at anyone on the board.

Sometimes the person pointing out the zealot, is the zealot himself.




Also on another note, it's Parade Performers guys not the spectators. THe performers are paid, and they follow the rules of their employers. So really no rights are being taken away.

Nicely put.

Well, I called for this inauguration to pass off peacefully. I don't agree that there should be large protests at all.

But I do believe that "ordering" them not to look directly at President Bush is just silly.

If we accept that these people are employees (as you state), then they should be known to the organizers. SIGNIFICANT background checks will have been made, before they are let take part in this inauguration. In other words, the likelihood of their being an assassin is low. And more importantly, their being ordered to not look at the President is unlikely to increase his safety.

And sometimes making a pithy soundbite doesn't really mean anything. I believe this "order" is stupid. I don't see how it improves safety and I think it only opens up the Administration for more ridicule. It's just silly and I don't know why many of you are defending it.


Mr Mephisto

Has silly as this is, it's just a pathetic attempt to attack Bush. This is an erosion of our civil liberties and nullifying the constitutional checks and balances, in what reality?!

I wholeheartedly agree, this makes me feel like i'm watching Equilibrium to a certain point for such a draconian rule.

Concerning what you said about Employees Mr. M, yeah I agree about the background check but there are lots of instances where even a thorough check doesn't find out everything.

Are you really being paranoid if people are actually trying to kill you?

Can you think of a higher value target for Al Queda to go after? How about what's left of the Fedayeen Saddam?

He's not being paranoid. A lot of America's enemies would dearly love to harm him. And all peace-loving people better HOPE he stays in excellent health, because God forbid something happens to him... and the Inauguration is a HUGE target.

I for one am GLAD that they're going for maximum security. Better to be heavy handed and keep something bad from happening than to go too light on security and allow something bad to happen. Plus, given that the International ANSWER people are supposed to be out in force, and that they are a very thinly disguised front for America's enemies, it's not paranoia, it's prudence.

You DO realize that the people marching are from all over the US, and that it's really not possible to screen the thousands of people involved, right? Plus, what are they going to do, say that an invited high-school band can't attend because there's the odd communist or anarchist or black bloc or DemocraticUnderground.com poster there? Look at all the assmunch highschool students that supported Kerry...Are they keeping all of them out?

As for the protests, International ANSWER has an area where they are in control of seating. They're rabidly anti-Bush, and the organization has extensive ties to Saddam Hussein's former regime and to those fun-loving peaceniks the Palestinians. I'd say that, if anything, the Secret Service has been RESTRAINED in it's security procedures. If it was me, I'd have that area surrounded by tanks and APCs and loaded for bear.

Yes I agree security should be tight. No one is disputing that.

But orders not to look at the President?

Well, that will certainly protect him from those killer laser eyes Al Queda scientists have developed.

LOL


Mr Mephisto

Then the kindest thing I can say to you is that you must not get out much. BTW, the Nurenburg rallies? Those were only attended by military and paramilitary groups like the SS, SA, and HJ.

Please feel free to continue with your "Bush=Hitler" analogies, though. It's good to know who we are dealing with.

Actually no. They were attended by tens of thousands of civilians and party members as well. Oh, and lots of "performers"... You need to brush up on your history a bit.

Well, it was actually meant as a sartirical comment. I don't equate Bush with Hitler. I do equate his most paranoid security personnel with... well, I don't know; other paranoid security presonnel?


Mr Mephisto

That was you? Good job. Better luck next time.

Sorry, you're wrong. They were set up as a showcase of various arms of the State. If you weren't part of the State organism, you didn't get to go. And virtually ALL of the State organism was either military or paramilitary in organization and design. For example, the HJ, while technically a group for children, ran military training programs, kind of like JROTC, except a lot harder. Even groups like the German version of the Teamsters (the NSKK) were paramilitary, to the point that they issued them sidearms with a NSKK logo on them.

Sorry, you're wrong.

Party members attended. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands of them. By 1938 nearly a million members of the party (not Government employees or members of the military or paramilitary organisations) travelled to attend the week long events.

How did the League of German Girls or the German Labor Front (for example) exist as "various arms of the State"?

You may have had to be a member of the SS to march in the SS march... but that's kind obvious, eh?

Let me quote Adolph Hitler himself.

Speech by Hitler, 6 September 1937.

You may want to read Alan Bullocks Hitler, A Study in Tyranny or the rather more recent The Third Reich - A New History by Michel Burleigh. I can also recommend The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans. This latter title is the first of a planned 3 volumen history.

So, in summary, I'm not comparing Bush to Hitler. I'm not even comparing the inauguration to the Nuremberg rallies. I simply made a satirical comment. But I'm tired of you posting untruths as if they were fact and no one correcting you. To state that "If you weren't part of the State organism, you didn't get to go." is just wrong. It's untrue. :)


Mr Mephisto

Ummm...dude.....the Party WAS the State. And yes, even the League of German Girls was organized along paramilitary lines, and routinely marched in formation. Which makes sense, since they were part of the HitlerJugend. You remember the HitlerJugend, right? No paramilitary basis there, right?

Here's a regimental guidon from the League of German Girls: http://atlasgeo.span.ch/fotw/images/d/de_bdmuw.gif

Here's a company guidon for the League of German Girls:
http://atlasgeo.span.ch/fotw/images/d/de_bdmgw.gif

And here's a pic of them meeting with Hitler...IN UNIFORM.
http://www.fatherryan.org/holocaust/nyouth/girls.gif

As for Organization Todt and similar groups, fer chrissakes, they even went as far as to have their own FLAGS made. Even the railway employees were issued military-style uniforms.

Please feel free to post a pic of a 1 May rally where ANY part of the people are in civilian "streetclothes". Just one.

Not before 1934 it wasn't. And the first rally took place in 1927.

Which doesn't make them part of the "part of the state organism".

They were political rallies. They were propaganda exercises. Claiming that the League of German Girls marched in uniform does not make them "part of the state organism".

So what? The fact that they wore uniforms would mean, in your reasoning, that they were part of the state, when in fact they were just employees.

Mr Mephisto

http://history.acusd.edu/cdr2/WW2Pics4/91080.gif

Mr Mephisto

the president has nothin to fear
honesty is the only thing to be feared

It's a real shame you didn't post the caption with that. The caption reads: "Hitler at Nazi party rally, Nuremberg, Germany, circa 1928 (NWDNS-242-HAP-1928(46)) from NAIL"

Here's a link to the page you got the photo from:
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2T...erg-pics1.html

The important phrase is "circa 1928"...

You posted a picture of Hitler in Nuremberg all right, but not at a 1 May rally, and years before he rose to power. Are you trying to be disingenuous, or did you simply not know the difference?

WTF are you talking about?

Now you're trying to put a contemporaneous condition upon your (incorrect) statement that no civilians were allowed at the Nurember rallies?

How about this one then?

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/photos/p03/p9/p03966.gif
The caption reads "Flag-bearing members of the Nazi party paraded through Nuremberg during the 1935 Reich's Party Day ("Parteitag") celebrations. Nazi propaganda experts designed the spectacular event to express German unity under Hitler's leadership."

Or how about this one?

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/photos/p03/p1/p03108.gif
This was taken at the fourth Nazi Party Day at Nuremberg.

Or then there's this one.
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/photos/p01/p9/p01924.gif
The date for this picture is unknown, but it reported as being from a party rally at Nuremberg.


Mr Mephisto

Your pics are showing them marching through the city of Nuremberg on their WAY to the rally (hence the apartment buildings, et cetera), NOT the rally itself. No, they didn't evacuate the city of Nuremberg prior to the 1 May rallies, but the parade grounds are a separate and distinct location, and your pictures are not showing it. If you'd ever been there, you'd know what I'm talking about. In order to get into the actual parade grounds (you know, that big field with all the mammoth buildings that you keep seeing the Swastika being blown up in the old newsreels) where the 1 May rallies were actually held, you had to be in the Party or it's sub-organizations, which were organized on a military or paramilitary structure.

It's kind of like the circus coming to town...you can watch them march from the railhead to the venue, but that doesn't mean you've actually been to the circus.

All you're doing is obfuscating.

you might want to find a copy of Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", which documents one of the 1 May rallies. It'll give you a much better idea of what went on there.

Those were essentially campaign rallies. There's a considerable difference between a campaign rally and a 1 May rally.

So you're saying that the HJ wasn't part and parcel of the German State? Or that it wasn't a paramilitary organization?


Yup, and people in the Heer were just employees too, right? I think you don't understand just how deeply militarized and regimented the Nazis made Germany.

Right....

First you had to be part of the "state organism"
Then being a party member was sufficient
Then wearing a uniform made you part of the state
Then it was only rallies after he came to power
Then it was rallies held on 1 May (the Nuremberg rallies were actually held in September)*
Then it was only those actually in the stadium.

And I'm obfuscating?

*
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Eur...hoto127674.htm
More references available upon request.

The only mention I can find of any rally in May was in Berlin in 1939, and that was an original caption a Nazi propaganda picture.


Mr Mephisto

PS - I'm no longer going to give this topic any further attention.

This "zealot" respectfully requests that you both take your "Nuremberg debate"
somewhere else.

The original intent of this thread is to continue to expose the mediocrity of the current inhabitant of the white house, and of his administration. Bush himself
could announce that he is grateful for the lengths that the security apparatus
will go to in an effort to protect him, but that ordering parade participants
"not to look directly at him", is excessive and divisive.

Bush won't do that, though. He sees nothing amiss now, just as he pretended
that it was not out of the ordinary to speak only at campaign appearances
populated by carefully pre-screened, ticket holding, loyalty oath taking, audiences.

If being a "zealot" means regarding Bush and his conduct of office with a
combination of outrage, incredulity, and disgust, is not to be confused with
being a patriot, are true patriots, people who give their mostly unquestioning
support to this uncurious, inarticulate, incompetent, northeastern born and educated elitist, with an over emphasized Texas drawl and a feigned "born again" image that earns him 20 million extra votes ?

If a "zealot" is someone who can recognize a counterfeit phony when he
sees one, I am a "zealot". I also weep for the dead and wounded around
the world as a result of the faith and support invested in the "pretender".
Ignore all of the harm that your fool still has left to do. Explain it away,
denounce me for making you do it. Everything he steals or degrades in terms of life, liberty, and the strength and influence of this nation, impacts all of
us. You are slower to see what is so obvious to me. The damage will continue
to escalate until you withdraw your support from your misguided choice of
Bush as leader of the free world. It makes me wonder how low your regard is of youselves and of your country to persuade you to support this faker
through two elections.

Duly noted. Apologies for the thread hijack. I get carried away sometimes when addressing blatant mistruths. :)

Agreed 100%. I'm all for security, but that final order was just a little OTT.

To be fair, was Clinton any different? I honestly don't know. I have heard it said that he held a lot more press conferences, and didn't impose "no free speech" zones. But did he engage in unprepared Q&A sessions?

We've moved on from silly and paranoid "security measures" to general criticism of Bush's dealings with the media.

Mr Mephisto