On Goree Island, Bush Visit Sparks Anger

[gottaB]

Rueter's reporter Clar Ni Chonghaile gives us this brilliant report on how Bush's speech on Goree Island, Senegal, was received by local residents. Well, sort of. They didn't get to actually hear the speech because they were rounded up like herd animals to protect the pResident. Protect him from what? You be the judge.

Some choice quotes:

"It's slavery all over again," fumed one father-of-four, who did not want to give his name. "It's humiliating. The island was deserted."

***

"We were shut up like sheep," said 15-year-old Mamadou.

***

Compare and Contrast

:


1. Bush came to Goree to tour the red-brick Slave House, where Africans were kept in shackles before being shipped across a perilous sea to a lifetime of servitude.
   
   He then gave an eloquent speech about the horrors of slavery, standing at a podium under a sizzling sun near a red-stone museum, topped by cannon pointing out to the sea
   
   
2. On Tuesday, shutters on the yellow and red colonial-style houses remained shut. The cafes were closed and the narrow pier deserted, apart from security agents manning a metal detector, near the sandy beach. A gunship patrolled offshore.
   
   "We understand that you have to have security measures, since September 11, but to dump us in another place...? We had to leave at 6 a.m. I didn't have time to bathe, and the bread did not arrive," the father-of-four said.

Thanks to new DUer unfrigginreal for pointing this out.

[unfrigginreal]

1. Thanks gottaB...(nt)

[Mirakul7]

2. Bush at Goree

I think we all know that this visit was all for show. Bush wants some African American support and perhaps "appreciation" for his remarks concerning slavery. Not that those remarks are helping anyone get jobs, pay the rent, etc.

He "won" (snide) the 2000 election without African American support but IF THERE IS TO BE A REAL ELECTION IN 2004, he will need some voter support from all ethnic groups, including African Americans and they are not likely to forget that the Republicans disenfranchised them during 2000.

[gottaB]

3. Yeah, he's not fooling anybody ...

except maybe white suburban undecided independents who don't want to believe their president is a fraud and a cruel fraud at that.

I like this story because it's coming from outside the pool, the bubble of reporters and secret service personnel that surrounds Our Cowboy in Chief away from the ranch, insulating him from any contact with the public. The problem for information freedom is that (1) the reporters are also insulated from the people, and (2) info flows from the bubble to those outside the bubble, not the otherway around. It's summed here in Bob Watson's report on being inside the Bush Bubble.

When's the media going to wise up, or the people wise up to the brokenness of the media? So far I have seen a few of Chonghaile's observations rolled into a couple of stories from the big name dailies--but not her most stinging ones. At this glacial pace of getting wise, Bush will have a huge advantage in 2004 and I don't even want to think about 2008.

This is such a great story to me, and absolutely newsworthy, I hope to see it propogated.