Bush Holds White House Rally for His Brownshirts

On Tuesday, just as Republicans were launching their full-scale attack on Moveon for running a newspaper ad, George Bush hosted a White House rally for rightwing groups that issue death threats against Americans, viciously insult generals, and physically assault Gold Star fathers.

Here's the report from rightwing hate central, FreeRepublic.com (h/t Aravosis and Hamsher)

Members of the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com were invited to the White House today for an event for troop support organizations with President Bush. Other groups included Vets for Freedom (in the beige polo shirts), Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission (in the red polos shirts), Move America Forward, Gathering of Eagles, the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Just three days earlier, members of the Gathering of Eagles attacked Carlos Arredondo, the father of a fallen soldier, (wearing camouflage below), because he was carrying his son's photo.

Account of what happened from Arredondo's wife By Mélida Arredondo:

Carlos Arredondo, 47 year old father of two sons, arrived in the nation's capitol on Monday, 09/10/07 to share a memorial he has made to honor for his eldest son, Alex. Carlos has visited thirty of the United States with the traveling memorial to his son Alexander. Lcpl. Alexander S. Arredondo, USMC was killed on 08/25/04. He was 20 years and 20 days old. The memorial consists of a casket, poster- size photographs of Alex when he graduated from boot camp, before his second tour in Iraq, lying in state at his wake, and a photo of Alex with his younger brother Brian.

Saturday, September 15, 2007 consisted of first a rally, a march towards the capitol and then a die-in. Carlos pulled the memorial along the march route approaching the rotunda near the capitol building. Several of the marchers requested for him to speak about the memorial where a crowd gathered around him. After finishing, several people walked with Carlos as he pulled the memorial. Several pictures of Alex dressed in his blues were attached to the display.

As Carlos passed counter protesters, one man ripped a picture of Alex from the memorial. Carlos leaped on the man to retrieve the picture. It was at that point that approximately five others all began to attack Carlos by kicking him in the head, legs, stomach and back.

The Capitol police bicycle patrol then appeared to break up the fight. Several officers including a female officer were engaged in breaking up the fight and were able to stop any further injuries from occurring. Hannah Jones who was walking with Carlos was also assaulted.

A bystander named Ramesh witnessed the whole encounter and also retrieved the picture of Alex for Carlos. He was quite distressed at how he watched the men follow Carlos as he pulled the memorial, purposefully yelling epiphets and eventually taking Alex's photograph. Soon, an ambulance showed up as well as many concerned activists. The paramedics provided first aid to Carlos but he did not seek further medical attention. Carlos sustained bloody cuts on his shins. He also reported bruises all over his torso and head where he was kicked.

(Did the police arrest the people who attacked Carlos? If not, why the hell not - when they arrest progressive veterans like Rev. Lenox Yearwood merely for standing in line outside a Congressional hearing?)

So these are the brownshirts George Bush honors with a White House reception? And not just Bush - Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, V.A. Secretary Jim Nicholson (who betrayed all the troops by denying them adequate medical care when they returned), Secretary of the Army Pete Geren, Secretary of the Navy Don Winter, and General "Hoss" Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Bush's White House reception for these thugs is beyond outrageous. But where are the condemnations by the Corporate Media? Where are the censure resolutions by the Senate?

This is why Democratic activists are incandescent with anger at Bush, Cheney, the media, and Congress. We have every right to be incandescent, and our anger will got hotter - and produce more focused activism - until we get every one of these neo-fascists out of office and into jail.

Update 1: Here are some spot-on comments from Aravosis's readers:

This is stunning! While the media and the Republifreaks focus on MoveOn.org and call them traitors, FreeRepublic is far far more extreme. My God, I have been following their website for 6 years. Where is the media? They need to pull some of the Freeper quotes and then demand that Bush and the GOP immediately disassociate themselves. There have been literally murderous anti-gay stuff overflowing at FreeRepublic. They use the terms 'fag', 'homo', and 'fudge-packer' in a derogatory manner all the time. That Bush is getting away with this endorsement is unbelievable.

If the media focused on this as much as they did MoveOn.org, there would be about 17 hours of 'BREAKING NEWS' right now. FreeRepublic is right up there with groups like the KKK. I am not kidding. They regularly publish the most hideous stuff on their site - comments calling for the murder of gays, and constantly using epithets against gay people. Where is the outrage?

If not for last Nov's win, these 'guests', - thugs, kooks and world class haters who are analogous to Hitler's brownshirts - would be more empowered and probably more visible, like Ann Coulter cloned a 1000 x and let loose upon the world.

Previous war-presidents have gathered opponents into their cabinets, reached out to estranged former allies, engaged in aggressive diplomacy to maximize effectiveness and rallied the whole country for the fight. What does this one do? Gets a bunch of right-wing "journalists" into the White House to spread some partisan talking points. What a fucking disgrace this man and his journalistic lackeys are. Excuse my language. But I can't take this any longer. We're at war; and he's still playing Rove's game.

Should we start calling the White House...the Freeper House? Sounds good! That's pretty much what has inhabited it for the past seven years, so why not!?!

I call for the Democrats to introduce a resolution full of these hateful quotes from freerepublic.com condemning the group and resident Bush for meeting with them. Of course they would never dare, and the Republicans would filibuster it.