Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
I'm sure a number of you have heard of the Pacifica Radio Foundation. For those who haven't, it's a community sponsored progressive radio network. Their stations include KPFA (94.1 FM in Berkeley), KPFK (90.7 FM in Los Angeles), KPFT (90.1 FM in Houston), WBAI (99.5 FM in New York) and WPFW (89.3 FM in Washington DC), and their programming is carried by a number of independent affiliates as well.
An interesting thing is they archive their programming. You can hear their shows pretty much whenever you want. They use RealAudio, which for technical reasons I consider the Republican Party of audio software 
. The shows can be streamed or downloaded.
I mention this because an interesting episode of Flashpoints was brought to my attention. On August 21, they reported on a Bush $2000 per plate fundraiser in Portland, OR. Standard stuff. But afterward they took a phone call from a local who lived on the motorcade route. Seems the police taped off access to the street for the duration. Again, standard stuff. Her complaint, however, was that the tape was set up such that she would have to cross it (and be subject to arrest) to reach the sidewalk in front of her home. Her neighbors across the street, on the other hand, weren't so obstructed. They did have a big "We love Bush" or some similar sign on display, while our caller was less accepting of Mr. Bush's policies. As a known community activist she felt that was the explanation for her "house arrest".
The situation she described was not reasonable, and unfortunately quite believable.
You can hear the call for yourself, via stream or you can download the show. It's around six minutes into the program.
Posted by P6 at August 24, 2003 06:57 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1423I'm not as paranoid as Pam, the activist. I know they go overboard these days in taping off whole neighborhoods for visits from Bush. A measure of his popularity? In this case, the main street running past the Univ. of Portland is a winding twisty affair along the edge of a steep hill, and I do believe that yes they probably did tape Pam, along with a whole bunch of other people, in their houses for the duration. They also had chain link fences set up all over the place. Unfortunately, the city is in a lose-lose situation. If they had not cordoned off as much as they did, they probably would have gotten complaints from residents that they did not adaquately protect private property had some of their lawns been trampled. It's a logistical nightmare to deal with this kind of thing in a residential neighborhood. And quite possibly the reason Bush and Rove et. al. chose this venue in the first place. I'm sure had their $2000 a plate luncheon been held downtown again, a lot more than 2000 demonstrators would have showed up.
I do have to clear up one misconception on the show. There was no "state of emergency" declared at last year's downtown Portland demonstration against Bush.