What do Kalamazoo, Evansville, Albuquerque, Stockton, Trenton, Phoenix, Columbia,
St. Louis, Knoxville, and Charleston have in common?
All are cities where people have been jailed for displaying anti-Bush signs during public appearances by King George the W. Is this America, the land of the free?
That’s what Nicole and Jeff Rank asked this July 4th as they were taken away in handcuffs by police. What was their crime? They were guilty of not being Bush supporters.
George W.’s Independence Day trip to Charleston, W. Va., was billed as a presidential visit, not a campaign rally. Nicole and Jeff — two patriotic, hardworking, taxpaying Americans — were in the crowd, quietly exercising their free-speech rights. They wore T-shirts declaring: “Love America, Hate Bush.”
They had tickets to the event, they proudly sang the national anthem with everyone else, they were in no way disorderly — but they were not politically correct, so they were summarily arrested, taken to jail, fingerprinted . . . and charged with trespassing. Others who wore pro-Bush T-shirts and campaign paraphernalia at this public event on public property were not arrested. It seems that the Bushites define “trespassers” by their political beliefs.
Nicole, who worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was promptly told that her services were no longer required. Technically she wasn’t fired, but she was “released” from her job and not reassigned.
Despite the financial hardship, Nicole and Jeff are fighting this un-American
assault on their constitutional right to dissent. They’re not the only ones
being denied their right to speak out — dissenters all across America are being
treated like this. To fight this autocratic lockdown, call the American Civil
Liberties Union at 212-549-2500.
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2004.
