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Five House Democrats, including civil rights pioneer John Lewis of Georgia, were among the eight people arrested during a demonstration outside the Sudanese Embassy Monday morning. The representatives were protesting Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s expulsion last month of 16 aid groups from war-ravaged Darfur.
The other four lawmakers arrested were Donna Edwards of Maryland, James McGovern of Massachusetts, Lynn Woolsey of California and the first Muslim elected to Congress, Keith Ellison of Minnesota.
The Secret Service arrested the lawmakers and charged with them crossing a police line, which is a misdemeanor.
The three other activists arrested during the protest were Jerry Fowler, president of Save Darfur Now; John Prendergast, a co-founder of the Enough Project who worked in the State Department during the Clinton Administration; and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
You didn’t expect any “pro-life” Republicans, did you?
Well, was it covered by Fox? No need to participate otherwise.
Good one Eideard! You stay up all night thinking that up?
Maybe our new President can go apologize to them because the massacred Christians are one group we actually need to apologize to
Eideard asked, “You didn’t expect any “pro-life” Republicans, did you?”
Umm, why would you? Is the US sponsoring abortion over there?
But, good for the protesters. That gov is corrupt.
Aren’t we already at war? Do we need to add another country to the list? War with one party or the other is the only way to make those people stop killing each other.
Oh, #4, I get it. The only “pro life” cause is anti-abortion. Silly me. It’s like taking “Thou shall not kill” literally.
Keep forgetting it was our holy brothers and sisters who invented hypocrisy and the convenient rationale.
Is Darfur outside of Atlanta?
/failed geography
Nice shot Eideard. You seem to forget the Stanford University report on Bush’s AIDS policies that saved over a million Africans.
That’s OK, you can put a bumper sticker on your cars for the next 50 years saying “Free Insert_Country_Here” and feel good about yourself, but still allow those people to live under oppression for generations, because you refuse to fight, only negotiate.
You can tell those people, “Hang in there, were talking with your leaders, any day now you’ll be free, we’re on the right side of history, so it’s gonna work.” and in the meantime they are slaughtered by the thousands. You can say you detest torture, but when one of the world’s biggest torturer’s Saddam Hussein is deposed you deplore it. Etc. Etc. Being on the Left is great, you don’t have to think, and you never have to say your ideas don’t work, rather just believe that they will.
# 6 god said, “Oh, #4, I get it.”
I’m afraid you don’t. Most “Pro-life” people in the US are against the legalized murder of babies and are focused on overturning this “law”.
The hypocrites would be those at this protest who care more about murder in Darfur than murder of innocents in their own backyard…
#10–Paddy-O-Alfie==no, the pro-life conservative position is well understood. Get the Government inbetween a woman and her doctor but don’t give a shit about the fetus after it is born.
#9–Smitty==Bush deserves credit for his aids work in Africa. Too bad one exception doesn’t wipe clean the rest of his record.
The most disturbing thing about this news item is that 5, five, Five, FIVE Congress people can not effectively address this issue in Congress and take to the streets in ineffective protest.
I admire them for it and am quite despondent on how we/USA allows genocide over and over again. It would take so little effort to stop, yet we refuse to do so for various reasons.
Shameful.
There was a HUGE Republican rally in Dallas this week when a Hummer dealer closed down. No arrests.
I guess different people get passionate about different things.
#13, Dallas,
There was another Republican protest when the Indianapolis Airport Authority decided to extend the washroom cubicle separators all the way to the floor. That was ugly. Not the protest, the protesters.
😉
#12, Bobbo,
Yes. I agree, this has been an issue for several years and nothing has been done.
#12, and just what is this solution that the Congress of the United States can, with so little effort, employ to stop these things from happening? How are we to magically fix problems stemming from displacement/division of ethnic/religious groups by arbitrary, European drawn borders. Or from the decades of disastrous state-lead industrialization efforts which have created even more havoc and turned the continent into a net-importer of food, and flooded growing cities with masses of the destitute poor. Those are just human caused problems… and only exacerbate the environmental ones.
Unfortunately for these congressional folks, the problems require solutions more complex than just sending in our military from time to time to break things up. Not to worry though, political statements like these will let them feel like they’ve done something.
Wouldn’t it be nice to put a stop to genocide?
#14 Fusion..thanks for the update. These are tough times indeed for the republicans.
Also, I just heard that Arlen Specter wants to switch from the Republican to Democratic Party.
He indicated disgust with the bathroom conditions, the sex and advances made in the GOP only bathrooms in Congress. Personally, I don’t want his kind.
#18, he already did, and was welcomed with open arms by the President himself.
To paraphrase Bill Clinton, It’s the Police State, Stupid.
More evidence of it than ever…
http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html
aww Paddy-O. You’re warming my heart! Very witty.
# 21 Thinker said, “Very witty.:
Not really, just truthful.
Who cares, these places are always fighting and killing one another over power struggles to which nobody ever gets out of poverty except for government officials and corupt police. We have people in this country that need help. We do not have money or any other aid to these places. Has anyone not told these protesters that our government is broke!
Okay this is for all the clueless libs out there.
Most of Africa is populated by stone age people. They kill, kidnap, sell anyone not of their tribe/clan. It has been that way forever. For some reason they never advanced socially or technologically. If you want to really, permanently, reduce the bloodshed, take all western weapons from them and quarantine the area. Nothing else will do it. So protest and wring your hands all you want. That is the only solution.
#16 Sea Lawyer
You got it exactly right. Does anyone believe these 8 protesters are going to do any good?
Of course not. It’s something called a photo op. 8 self righteous people getting together to get arrested for the camera. Notice how each and every one was mentioned not just by name but by cause?
Worse than hypocrites. Using real suffering to further their own agendas.
Ok, bobbo. Now for you. “It would take so little effort to stop, yet we refuse to do so for various reasons.”
Enlighten me. Just what “little effort” is going to stop this widespread genocide? What besides boots on the ground will stop the killings? UN sanctions? HAR! Harsh language?
Play this “what if” with me. What if GW Bush had said “We need to stop the genocide in Darfur, and so I am authorizing a limited police action”.
Imagine what the opposition would have said! Oh, the humanity!
Oh, wait. Wasn’t that exactly what happened? Except for Darfur, Iraq.
And let’s not forget Mogadishu.
Just for grins and giggles, read this article on Mogadishu. It’s both a riot, and – well – a riot.
http://wikitravel.org/en/Mogadishu
#27, Ah Yea,
Oh how your conservative hardening of the arteries has failed your memories.
Oh how the right wingers supported Bush I in his protection of Kuwait from that evil dictator Saddam Hussein. A union that should have happened during the creation of Iraq when the lines were drawn decades ago.
The Sudan was a limited time incursion. When the first body bags showed up the conservatives (read anti Clinton folks) were the first to scream for withdrawing our forces.
The same thing happened in Kosovo. American forces went to save the local population from genocide and again the right wing nuts cried about American troops coming home in body bags.
Then these same right wing nuts supported, and still deny the artificial hype, of invading Iraq.
American lives are only valuable if their is something in it for the right wing nuts. Saving other’s lives don’t count.
RE #29,
Gee I hate seeing others make this mistake and here I did it.
First sentence, last paragraph, that should be “THERE” instead of the possessive “their”.
My apologies.
#29 – There hasn’t been a legit war for the US since WW2.
#32, Cow-Patty,
Since when is a UN or NATO sponsored peace keeping mission considered a war?