Physician who told off Cheney lost home in Katrina, detained, selling vide

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Fri Sep-09-05 02:40 PM
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Physician who told off Cheney lost home in Katrina, detained, selling vide

Edited on Fri Sep-09-05 02:54 PM by Pirate Smile

Physician who told off Cheney lost home in Katrina, detained, selling video on eBay

by jacksonthor
Fri Sep 9th, 2005 at 12:34:13 PDT
By Jackson Thoreau

Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side, needs our help. Since he was the one who told Dick Cheney to "go fuck yourself" on Thursday, that's the least we can do.

Marble is a complex guy, to say the least. Some of the lyrics he writes can be considered harsh by some - personally what I've heard is very much on target - but he has a softer side as an organizer of breast cancer fund-raisers, not to mention an ER doctor.

When he, like thousands of others, lost his home due to Hurricane Katrina last week, it was the single most traumatic week of his life. That led to his confrontation with the man who best represents the worst of the most callous, heartless, shittiest administration in U.S. history on Thursday.

jacksonthor's diary :: ::
As Marble explains, he was driving to his destroyed house Thursday in Gulfport, Ms., when military police refused to allow him to cross a barricade that was about 200 feet from his home. They forced him to drive an extra 20 minutes and spend even more on gasoline.

"Thanks to Dubya Gump and Mr. Cheney, gas is really expensive and extremely hard to get anywhere Katrina has destroyed," Marble wrote. "So needless to say, I was extremely aggravated that they wouldn't let me pass."

Suddenly a long line of dark cars pulled up, and they honked at Marble to back up to let them through the barricade that supposedly no one could drive through. That only made Marble madder so he did what most of us would do - or at least consider doing.

"I waved a middle finger at the caravan," Marble wrote.

After driving the extra 20 minutes and filming video of destruction along the way, he made it to his home. Marble overheard a neighbor say that Cheney was down the street talking to people. That's when he got the idea to go meet Dr. Evil himself.

"I am no fan of Mr. Cheney because of several reasons," Marble wrote. "For those who don't know, Mr. Cheney is infamous for telling Senator Leahy 'go fu** yourself' on the Senate floor. Also, I am not happy about the fact that thousands have died due to the slow action of FEMA, not to even mention the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, i.e. Iraq."

So Marble asked a couple police officers if he and a friend could walk down to Cheney. They told him Cheney was "looking forward" to talking to "the locals."

"So we grabbed my Canon digital rebel and my Sony videocamera and started walking down the street," Marble wrote. "And then right in front of the destroyed tennis court I used to play on Dick Cheney was giving a pep rally, talking to the press. The secret service guys patted us down and waved the wands over us, and then let us pass."

As he stood about 10 feet away from Cheney and his friend and some camera operators from CNN and other media filmed the scene, Marble suddenly yelled, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney! Go fuck yourself, you asshole!"

Hey, at least Marble was polite. After all, he referred to Cheney as "Mr. Cheney."

"I had no intention of harming anyone but merely wanted to echo Mr. Cheney's infamous words back at him," Marble wrote. "At that moment, I noticed the Secret Service guys with a panic-stricken look on their faces, like they were about to tackle me, so I calmly walked away back to my former house."

His friend videotaped a little bit longer and then came back to Marble's house. As they were salvaging a few things from Marble's home, two military police waving M-16's showed up and said they were looking for someone who fit Marble's description who had cursed at Cheney.

"I told them I was probably the person they were looking for, and so they put me in handcuffs and 'detained' me for about 20 minutes or so," Marble wrote. "My right thumb went numb because the cuffs were on so tight, but they were fairly courteous and eventually released me after getting all my contact info. They said I had NOT broken any laws so I was free to go."

So let's get this straight: A physician with a newborn baby loses most everything he owns in the hurricane, does what most of us WANT to do and "echoes" Cheney's words he spoke on the god-damned Senate floor last year, walks away harmlessly, mission accomplished, and then once the media cameras leave, he is treated like a foreign terrorist as Cheney's goons waving M-16s handcuff him in front of his destroyed home? Had it not been for the media cameras filming the initial scene, I doubt Cheney's goons would have just let Marble go after 20 minutes.

America, land of the free?

Marble and his family have been in the media spotlight before, including his wife, Lisa, and baby, Sofia Grace, who was born shortly after the storm, on CNN. Marble has also been interviewed in art magazines and the Biloxi Sun Herald about his concert fund-raisers and musical success -- one of his bands, dR. O, has had at least 20 No. 1 songs on the MP3.com charts.

"The truth is even with all our losses, we are still luckier than many people down here because at least we didn't die," Marble wrote. "But I thought I could try to raise some awareness to the bad policies of the Dubya Gump administration and also possibly raise some money to replace the many things we lost, and so I decided I would auction the videotape my friend shot of the event. I will also grant an interview
to the winner if so desired."

So go to eBay here and place a bid for this important video to help Marble raise some needed funds. I have done so and was at least at one time the high bidder.

Marble also has an Internet site with photographs of some damage in his town at http://www.HurricaneKatrinaSucked.com. A photo of him is at http://www.theharbinger.org/xix/000919/smith.html and you can also email Marble at clone9@yahoo.com.

Dr. Ben Marble, you rock. May we all return the favor.

Jackson Thoreau is a Washington, D.C.-area journalist/writer. The latest book to which he contributed, Big Bush Lies, was published by RiverWood Books of Ashland, Ore. He is working on another book called "Thou Shalt Not Cheat: How Bush and Rove Broke the Rules, From the Sandlot to the White House." He can be contacted at jacksonthor@gmail.com.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/9/153413/7797

edit to add - I changed the word "arrested" to detained because he wasn't actually arrested, just detained.