Rice got "Abu Ghraib'd" at Davies Hall

[paineinthearse]

Ref http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3743356&mesg_id=3743356&page=

An odd thing happened during Herr Rice's speech to the Commonwealth Club yesterday at (the presumably rented) Davies Symphony Hall), a brave sole or soles, the Chronicle and Reuters articles are not clear, had the audacity to interrupt with street thearte. It was not the usual pie in the face, it was such to make her knees buckle and voice quake (see the video at www.cspan.org).

Imagine standing on the stage in the position of Herbert Blomstedt, facing the cherubic faces of the local Commonwealth Club - http://www.commonwealthclub.org/governors.html -, you know the type, solid global corporatist citizens like
Robert Saldich President and CEO (Retired), Raychem Corporation,
Anna W.M. Mok, Partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Intl.,
Karin Bauer, Retired, Director of International Marketing, eBay,
Angela M. Coffee, Senior VP and Managing Director, Greater Bay Bank, Contra Costa,
Charles Geschke, Chairman, Adobe Software, Inc.,
Ken Hausman, Managing Director, Mirador Capital,
James Hormel, Former Ambassador to Luxembourg; founder and Chairman, Equidex, Inc.,
Mary Huss, Publisher, San Francisco Business Times
Lata Krishnan, President, American India Foundation & CFO, Shah Management
Hon. L. W. Lane Jr., Former U.S. Ambassador to Australia & Retired Publisher, Sunset Publishing
Don J. McGrath, President and CEO, Bank of the West
Marcela Medina, Vice President and General Manager, Univision, KDTV-14
Barbara Z. Otto, former Group Executive Vice President, Bank of America
Toni Rembe, Partner, Pillsbury Winthrop, LLP
Skip Rhodes, Corporate Community Engagement Manager, ChevronTexaco Corporation
George W. Rowe, Senior Advisor, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Connie Shapirom Principal, Connie Shapiro & Associates
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Senior Research Scholar, Stanford University
Tiffany Shlain, Director and Founder, Webby Awards
Charlotte Shultz, Chief Protocol Officer and Director of Special Events, City of San Francisco
James Strother, Executive VP and General Counsel, Wells Fargo & Company
G. Craig Sullivan, Former Chairman, President and CEO, Clorox Company
Ray Taliaferro, Talk Show Host, KGO Radio
Tad Taube, Director, Taube Investments
L. Jay Tenenbaum, Partner (Retired), Goldman Sachs & Co.
- and seeing this?

http://www.dw-world.de/dwelle/allgemein/bilder_show/0,3772,109149_7,00.jpg

That would make my knees buckle, too, and I didn't design *'s plans for the war on Iraq or approve the current US torture policy.

It turns out the spector was not a ghost of tortured prisoners, it was a protester.

In her coverage - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/05/27/rice27.TMP - San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci mentioned the disruption but both she and the photograph captioning editor failed to identify the protester:




Police detain a demonstrator who disrupted a speech Friday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club. Shortly after Rice started speaking, at least two protesters wearing black robes and black hoods stood up -- an apparent reference to U.S. abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The crowd applauded as the protesters were taken away. Associated Press photo by Paul Sakuma


Protestors who interrupted a speech by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are led out of Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, May 27, 2005. Chronicle photo by John Storey

Look familiar? She should:



Thank you Medea for bringing high thearte to the low-life corporate elite, who, at the point of the disruption, applauded Herr Rice's improvised words "Isn't it wonderful that we live in a country where people are allowed to speak?"

Maybe some day they will understand.

[JohnyCanuck]

1. CondieLIEza forgot to ad "for the time being."

to her statement.

"Isn't it wonderful that, FOR THE TIME BEING, we live in a country where people are allowed to speak?"

[leveymg]

2. Wonderful, we live in a country where people are allowed to speak

for about 2 seconds, until the big guys in black combat fatigues pounce, tie you up, and haul you away to jail.

Was Condi referring to herself as the person whose rights were being violated? How unintentionally ironic.

This had to be a scene from "Brazil." Monty Python meets George Orwell.

:eyes: :bounce:

[donco6]

3. "Brazil" is coming to life

. . . right before our eyes. That movie was flat-out prophetic.

[Ian David]

4. Yeah, isn't it great?

Doesn't look to me like this person was "allowed to speak."

[paineinthearse]

5. Ian, I see you have no forum boundaries, either!

:pals:

[Democrats_win]

6. Rice-A-Phony's statement is a real mind f*ck SF treat.

"Isn't it wonderful that we live in a country where people are allowed to speak?"

But like every dictatorship, those who speak are immediately arrested!

Do you think they didn't arrest the protester before the event because she removed her "No oil for food" bumper sticker?

They'll never understand. The fact that no BA official resigned after Abu Ghraib shows that they are nothing but criminals.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Give Condi a break on this one

Medea knew what she was doing. She was going to be arrested and she accepted that when she went in.

Of course, that Medea was rightly arrested for disturbing the peace doesn't mean that Condi shouldn't be arrested for crimes against the peace.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. The world would be a much better place

The world would be a much better place if Medea Benjamin were Secretary of Sate and Condi Rice were in handcuffs.

[leveymg]

8. Hear, here! Second! n/t

[pissed_American]

10. Kindasleezy Rice...

Check your supermarket isles soon !!!

[Tsiyu]

11. Good for you, medea

Awesome.

[Kerrytravelers]

12. I wonder.

"Isn't it wonderful that we live in a country where people are allowed to speak?"

Were the prisoners who were taken by American soldiers-for-hire allowed to speak?


Exactly.