This city, Newburyport, is supposed to be no place for hate.
But when the LaRouche people appeared again in front of the Newburyport Post Office, the police informed me that they had a right to be there.
Well ... yes, they have a right to their opinion and to assemble. But as I pointed out to one of the officers, they did NOT have the right to the table they had set up on the public sidewalk. They need a permit from the city for that.
He argued with me. I told him I had been told that by someone in the mayor's office. He told me that if the mayor had a problem with it, he (the mayor) could call the NPD and tell them.
After a while, Nancy Haverington from First Parish Church and Ross Varney from the Belleville Church appeared. I had been talking to one of the men peddling their hate and I was so creeped out that I had to leave (plus I had a lunch date).
As all this was going on, a woman I know pulled up in her car and hailed me. She told me she had sent me a message on Facebook about her encounter with these people and could I do anything?
Later I saw City Clerk Richard Jones and he confirmed that they needed a permit. yay
When I got home, I read my friend's message. One of the men had told her that Obama wants her to get breast cancer and die.
Lovely.
What happened to "No Place for Hate?"
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Gillian, be careful dealing with the Larouchies.
Way back when in 1980, fresh out of college, I was an advance person on Jerry Brown's presidential campaign.
We were under strict instructions to tell all volunteers that, if they came into contact with Larouche followers, most often it would happen at campaign events outside the gates of Seabrook Station, to NOT engage them.
They apparently had a history of becoming aggressive, even assaultive, if too directly challenged.
They are extremists not unlike the Tea Party Movement, Birthers, and sundry other right wing conspiracy theory elements.
Here's something for you and your readers to check out.
A fundamentalist Christian group is selling Tee Shirts and bumper stickers that say in big letters, "Pray for Obama".
In smaller letters it says, Psalm 109:8.
I checked out the psalm, it reads; "May his days be few, may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow."
Some of these crazies are coming perilously close to calling for Obama to be assassinated.
As one religious scholar said, "This is trolling for assassins. This is the American version of the Taliban. This is the Old Testament Biblical equivalent of calling for Holy War".
His name is Frank Schaefer. He wrote a book titled "Patience With God". Rachel Maddow interviewed him the other night and what he had to say was, truly, frightening.
Especially because so many of these crazies are getting so much encouragement from certain elements in the media, and from within the GOP.
Maybe we can have coffee when I return from Costa Rica in April.
Ciao for now.
macsurf, yes I do need to be a little less 'interactive' w/these kinds of people. I have met Frank Schaefer; I have his book "Crazy For God." Yes, let's have coffee ... but maybe not at the Whale, OK?
The Whale doesn't serve coffe last time I checked, LOL
I was thinking more like Abrahams on a mild spring morning on the patio.
But do be careful with the larouchies.
and i'm sure you were just as upset when people were spewing their hate about GW, right?
Yes, anonymous, if it had been GW's photo being defiled in that manner, I would have been just as upset.
Post a Comment