U.S. government protects country from peacemaker

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from Waging Peace
By Linda LeTendre
Friday, May 29, 2009

Homeland Security Immigration (HSI) was hard at work on Friday, May 17, keeping us safe from Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire as she was heading home to Northern Ireland.

HSI detained Maguire on her entry into Houston International Airport. She was returning from a three- day peace and human rights conference in Guatemala, which was hosted by herself and three sister Nobel Peace laureates, Rigoberta Menchu, Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi. One hundred fifty women activists from around the world attended the Nobel Women's Conference, “Redefining Democracy, Human Rights and Peace.”

For two hours, HSI questioned, fingerprinted, photographed and questioned Maguire again, causing her to miss her connecting flight. She was finally released at the insistence of the Nobel Women's Initiatives representatives.

Who knows what evil HSI averted? The countless lives saved, property spared; it just boggles the mind what tragedy we could have been facing at this very moment if our government had not been so vigilant on our behalf. Wow, who knew they cared so much about little old us?

Me, I'm left wondering if we really did change administrations on Jan. 20, or is Dick Cheney still in charge? Maybe there really is more to his recent national public relations tour.


Upon release Maguire said:

“This kind of behavior and treatment is unacceptable. They questioned me about my nonviolent protests in the USA against the Afghanistan invasion and Iraqi war. They insisted I must tick the box in the immigration form admitting to criminal activities . . . more


read: http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/letendre/2009/may/29/peace/

[FiveGoodMen]

1. "is Dick Cheney still in charge?"

Hard to say.

How could we tell the difference?

(NOT sarcasm)

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2. I wouldn't go that far

. . . but it looks like many of the mechanisms of his tyranny are still in operation as he intended.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. What's the difference between being in charge...

...and having the "mechanisms of one's tyranny still in operation as intended"?

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5. we expect to be able to influence the Democratic administration

. . . with our advocacy. In the last administration, there wasn't any prospect at all of changing their behavior. That's why there shouldn't be any let-up in our activism. We've taken the step of changing the administration, now we have to go further to influence them (through our protests and appeals to our senators and representatives) to act to reverse the minefield of policies and practices they had eight years to put in place.

It would be nice to have a discussion of this activist's description of her treatment. I think it's a revealing window into the myriad of constructions which are still in place and which need the attention of the WH and Congress as well to repair and reverse.

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3. .

[ConcernedCanuk]

6. "Welcome to the USA, land of the free . . . blah blah blah "

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ya right . .