Posted on 11/21/2004 5:46:50 PM PST by AmericanMade1776
Columbus, Georgia-AP) Nov. 21, 2004 - Susan Sarandon is there, so is Martin Sheen. But this isn't some Hollywood get together. The actors are among those gathering outside Fort Benning, Georgia, to protest a military school there.
The school serves as a military training center for Latin American soldiers. Protesters claim graduates of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation were involved in human rights abuses in the 1980's.
The protesters claim the school also enforces a US foreign policy that they say exploits the people and resources of Latin America.
Protests outside Fort Benning are held annually on the weekend before Thanksgiving
(Excerpt) Read more at wistv.com ...
Sun Nov 21, 5:11 PM ET
To: National Desk
Contact: Christy Pardew of the School of the Americas Watch, 706-507-4860 or 202-234-3440, media@soaw.org
COLUMBUS, Ga., Nov. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Over 16,000 people from across the Americas -- including actors Martin Sheen and Susan Sarandon -- gathered this weekend outside the gates of Ft. Benning, Ga., in the most diverse demonstration yet of opposition to the School of the Americas (SOA), a combat-training school for Latin American soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared," massacred, and forced into refuge by graduates of the SOA, renamed in 2001 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation or WHINSEC.
The gathering culminated today with a solemn "funeral" procession to the gates of Fort Benning led by actor Martin Sheen. As of 4 PM, at least 20 people had been arrested in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, many negotiating a 10-foot-high barbed-wire fence to enter the base. They took this action despite knowing they likely face 3-6 months in federal prison. Since protests against the SOA/WHINSEC began fourteen years ago, 170 people have served prison sentences of up to 2 years for civil disobedience.
"Prison will not deter us," said Elizabeth Nadeau, who was among those arrested today. "We will be here until we close the school and change the foreign policy that it represents." Nadeau, 27, is a student and member of the Steelworkers Union in Minneapolis, Minn.
SOA/ WHINSEC graduates return to their countries to utilize their training domestically and are consistently cited for atrocities against their own people. New research introduced by SOA Watch earlier this year confirms that the school has continued to support known human rights abusers. Despite having been investigated by the United Nations (news - web sites) for ordering the shooting of 16 indigenous peasants in El Salvador (news - web sites), a massacre recorded in the U.S. State Department's Human Rights Record Country Reports, Col. Francisco del Cid Diaz returned to WHINSEC in 2003.
"Like many of its graduates, this school continues to operate with impunity," said Carlos Mauricio, torture survivor, plaintiff in a successful lawsuit against two Salvadoran Generals living in the United States and a featured speaker this weekend. "Shutting down the SOA once and for all would send a strong human rights message to Latin America and the world."
Thousands of college students, labor unions, faith-based communities, torture survivors, immigrant organizations and numerous human rights groups gathered together to make this weekend's demonstration the largest and most diverse yet for SOA Watch, which has held a vigil at the gates of Fort Benning every November since 1990.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
who cares about hollow has been actors
Yeah. who cares. Yada yada yada....
Great, this sets a wonderful legal precedence. I can trespass on Martin Sheen's lawn and protest his movies since he has tortured me with his overinflated melodramatic ego.
George Wendt, who played norm in the TV series, "Cheers," carried a cross during the group's traditional funeral procession to honor alleged victims of SOA graduates. Because of the huge number of protesters this year, the procession lasted more than two hours, about an hour longer than usual. Some carried signs that said, "Drop Bush, not bombs," and "Shut down the SOA." http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=49661
There you go, sounds like fair play.
Yes it is :P
These two and their friends are so obnoxious, it may be better for the conservative cause if they keep on doing what they are doing.
They don't play well at all.
bttt
Somehow, I missed the part where Sheen and Sarandon protested against the terrorists in Fallujah after we discovered the slaughter houses and torture chambers.
Even after such nonsense as this, Sheen and Sarandon will still proclaim " We support the troops". Baloney.
These idiots should ring bin Laden, offer their services, and get it over with.
Two actors (and I use this term loosely) who's careers have long since left them in the dust are trying anything that they can to stay in the spotlight.....it is a sad pitiful thing to watch.
About 15-thousand locals and soldiers also gathered Saturday for a free festival called God Bless Fort Benning, purposely timed to coincide with mass protests by School of Americas Watch, which protests a training center for Latin American soldiers at Fort Benning. http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=2594607&nav=5kZQTNzq
They do not mention, that Lee Greenwood was there, and other Dignataries, and War Heros.
Shooters, with one 30 round magazine, lock and load - then watch your targets...
Merely PR cosmetic surgery
Fourty-four Dubuque (IA) area leftists took the bus to Ft. Benning for this year's Commiepalooza. My wish is that they'd all enjoy the temperature of Georgia in November and decide to stay, but I suppose the Columbus area has its own crosses to bear.
I think they already take their orders from Osama, and he calls them!
Susan who protesting what?
I fear you maybe correct.
Meanwhile at the Columbus Civic Center, in a crowd estimated by organizers at 15,000 and including about 7,000 soldiers, God Bless Fort Benning organizer Miriam Tidwell said, "We are taking our identity back. We want Columbus, Ga., to be known as a place that loves and supports its soldiers."
From modest beginnings three years ago, the God Bless Fort Benning festival has grown into a regional attraction. This year the Harlem Globetrotters played. The festival is paid for with donations from local businesses. "We feel like we're in the middle of this huge protest, so we wanted to have a safe haven for all our soldiers so they don't have to hear the rhetoric," said Jan Pease, another organizer.
The rhetoric was passionate at the School of the Americas Watch protest, which organizers said had attracted
10,000 by late Saturday afternoon. They said the crowd would grow by this morning's vigil for the dead and protest march during which arrests are often made.
One speaker was Laura Slattery, a West Point graduate and a nonviolence trainer who was arrested at Fort Benning in 2002. Gesturing toward the fort and the new fence, she said, "I look out there, and I want to say I'm not the enemy, and you're not the enemy. Apathy is the enemy; hate is the enemy; indifference is the enemy
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1865~2549654,00.html
AMERICA--F YEAH!!!
Martin Sheehan has way too much time on his hands.
Martin Sheen should be sent to Guantanamo Bay as an enemy combatant. I tried to watch West (left)Wing a time or two. I needed a teflon barf bag. He is a freak and Sarandon just wants some attention.
what a bunch of blowhards
Them's right big see-lebritees for Columbus. Dang.
Some old hag protests? Who cares?
Ok. I didn't know about the God Bless Fort Benning festival. Of course. The MuckStreamMireheads (msm) never told me.
It was hilarious when Sheen was arrested at Vandenberg AFB a few years back. The SPs took him away in zip-ties and loaded him on the bus. The base paper had a photo of him on his knees getting "hooked up."
The same crap, year after year, by the same fools.
The institute's remit is "to provide professional education and training" while "promoting democratic values, respect for human rights, and knowledge and understanding of United States customs and traditions".
Tell me , Miss Sarandon, how many mass graves are there at Fort Benning?
Looks like Laura Slattery is a professional protestor.
She's quite the busy little beaver!
http://www.paceebene.org/about/slattery.htm
"Soy el espiritu de La Escuela De Las Americas."
Drop Bush, not bombs? Wasn't this place around when Clinton was Pres? Why didn't he do something about it?
That's an easy thing to say, but it's not true. They both have good, long lasting careers. Sarandon is in so many films, I can't keep track and Sheen's been in one of the most popular TV shows of the last five years. So, you can say alot of things, but saying their careers are faltering just isn't one of them.
George Wendt, who played norm in the TV series, "Cheers," carried a cross during the group's traditional funeral procession to honor alleged victims of SOA graduates
****
LOL
Don't these people have B-Grade movies to make?
I agree with the previous posters who encourage these doofuses to keep it up. Protest all you want. We love it!
Would like to have a picture of that, wouldn't you?
West Wing has been in decline for the last two years and its ratings are down over 30 percent since just last year....not a very popular series if you ask me.
So what if Sarandon has been in a lot of films....that is not the make of a great actress (the number of films she's made). I personally cannot name 2 movies she has been in that I remember....which is another mark of a not so great actress (she didn't leave any impressions that I'd remember her).
They are nothing but actors on the down side of life and heading down hill faster than a fat guy chasing a doughnut.
These useful idiotias are agents for Ted Kennedy and his stupid cousins. They have a long term agenda to close this school. Every four years they launch this dead horse campaign. John Lewis D-GA 5th will speak in to the US Congress next week on this issue. Mark my word.
If the US doesn't provide military assistance and education to our Latin American neighbors, who will?
I thought Wendt was a low-intensity 'rat... he did some campaigning for an Iowa buddy (Paul Scherrman) a few years back, but I hadn't heard much else from him.
(One could say the same about his acting.)
Posted on Sun, Nov. 21, 2004
Post allies have their say
BY BRAD BARNES
Staff Writer
The people behind the mike sounded like protesters. But they were on stage at the God Bless Fort Benning rally Saturday instead of the SOA Watch protest several miles east.
"We are here in harmony and solidarity in standing up for our rights," Jack Tidwell, one of the event's founders, told the crowd of thousands as a Black Hawk helicopter landed nearby. "In some way, we are here staging our own rightful protest, if you will."
One-by-one, community leaders defended Fort Benning and condemned the protesters gathered outside its gate. They included Brig. Gen. Ben Freakley, Fort Benning commander; Phenix City Mayor Pro Tem Ray Bush and Columbus Mayor Bob Poydasheff.
"Let me start off by telling you the greatness of our country," Poydasheff said, "is that we defend the right of those protesters to express themselves, whether or not they agree with them."
Although the mayor supported their right to protest, the SOA Watch was made of people who are "not interested in the facts." he said.
"We are sending the message to our country, that we appreciate what you do," he told some 5,000 Benning soldiers who wandered the festival grounds, outside the Columbus Civic Center. The makeup of the crowd was predominantly soldiers.
Eventually, oration gave way to entertainment.
Nearly 400 bikers simultaneously revved their engines before beginning a parade down Victory Drive to Torch Hill Road -- at the edge of the SOA Watch protest -- and back.
Columbus soldier-turned-songwriter Keni Thomas led his band, Cornbread, through a set of country-fueled rock.
Nearby was a giant patchwork flag made of nearly 700 squares of cloth. Each red or white square had been painted by folks from Fort Benning or children from the Greater Columbus Boys and Girls Club. In all, the "art flag," measured 33 feet wide by 25 feet tall.
The day's biggest draw was undoubtedly country singer Lee Greenwood, who jumped on stage with a T-shirt that read "Fort Benning: Home of the Infantry" pulled over a sweatshirt.
"I've heard it three times since I've been backstage listening to the show," Greenwood told the crowd after ripping through "Touch and Go Crazy."
"But I'll say it again. God bless Fort Benning," he shouted to cheers.
He was the only thing that drew some soldiers from the myriad entertainment on the grounds. Crowds of camouflage surrounded Xbox game consoles, where soldiers were blasting each other in bouts of Halo 2.
Children climbed an inflatable climbing wall and got their faces painted.
Folks crowded around the Black Hawk on display and peeked inside a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and a Stryker infantry carrier on display.
The most unexpected sight was a small wedding stage assembled in the middle of the festival -- flanked by the Civic Center on one side and a guided missile launcher on the other. Organizer Miriam Tidwell's brother and his fiancee were wed by a Columbus biker and minister.
The wedding's location was a surprise for the groom, William Ivie Hagood III. "He wanted to go to the Justice of the Peace," Miriam Tidwell said. "But I said, 'Uh-uh. Let me take care of it.' "
Hagood, a 50-year-old resident of Jacksonville, Fla., took it in stride, though. "I love being here with the troops," he said, as a man dressed as Uncle Sam wandered by.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/10235417.htm
Sheen and Sarrondon should be hung as traitors. I'll personally pull the lever.
George Wendt? I had the impression he was a conservative. Guess not :(
Bull Durham
Thelma & Louise
Dead Man Walking
Atlantic City
The Witches of Eastwick
The Rocky Horror Picture Show!
The clip I saw of sarandon sounded as loopy as anna nicole recently.
Sarandon must of looked dumb, because I have not seen any pictures of the protest yet.
Sorry again, but I don't consider any of those movies listed as "classic."
Classic movies, to me, are ones like
Gone With The Wind
Citizen Kane
Cassablanca
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
To Kill A Mockingbird
These are memorable movies that will showing long after her movies have turned to dust in their containers.
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