Protesters Counter Sacramento Appearance by Rudy Giuliani, Bill O’Reilly

Protesters Counter Sacramento Appearance by Rudy Giuliani, Bill O'Reilly
By Dan Bacher

Over 500 protesters "welcomed" Rudy Giuliani, former New
York City mayor and stalwart Bushite, and Bill O'Reilly, the notoriously
offensive right wing host of FOX TV's O'Reilly Factor, to the Sacramento
Convention Center on the morning of Friday, September 24.

The event,
sponsored by the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce, featured one token
liberal, Molly Ivins. Over its 10 years, Perspectives has featured some of
the most vile representatives of the corporate and political power elite in
the country, including Henry Kissinger, the world's number one living war
criminal.

Christine Craft, host of the "Power Hour" on 1240 AM, the local
Air America Affiliate, organized the demonstration. "It was the first
demonstration I've participated in since college," said Craft. "I decided to
organize it after Rudy Giuliani compared George W. Bush to Winston Churchill
and Abraham Lincoln. I felt the message that Giuliani was putting out needed
to be countered."

Craft was even more outraged when a reporter uncovered
how Giuliani, in a corrupt deal that he profited from, forced the New York
Fire Department to buy defective Motorola radios. The deal ultimately
resulted in the needless deaths of 125 firemen in the Twin Towers on 9-11
because they were unable to communicate with headquarters and one another.


"And of course, O'Reilly is an easy target," Craft added. "I really
thought Perspectives provided us with an opportunity to counter the message
of O'Reilly and Giuliani."

The event featured many veteran local
activists, including Jeanie Keltner of Sacramento Soapbox, JoAnn Fuller of
Common Cause, local peace activist Phyllis Campanello, and Bill Camp,
executive secretary of the Central Labor Council of Sacramento County.
However, a large percentage of the demonstrators had never or only rarely
protested before.

"This is a huge outpouring of people," said Camp, who
encouraged many union members to come. "Many of these folks have never
carried signs before. What we have done here is to engage people in the
process of taking back their government from George W. Bush. Christine has
demonstrated real leadership by inspiring people here to come and challenge
the institutional structure."

Although Christine had some signs made up
for the event, most participants brought their own signs and T-shirts. The
T-shirt that I liked best was "3 Reasons for Abortion, George W. Bush, Rudy
Giuliani, Bill O'Reilly," held by Joe Manzella of Fair Oaks.

"That shirt
is in-your-face and tasteless - like something I would do," I told him. "Do
you have any more?"

"No," he told me, since he had just designed the two
shirts for himself, and his son, Joey, who had protested right beside him.
His young daughter, Novalee, attended the demo also.

Joe and his son,
loyal listeners of Christine Craft's show, came up with the idea for the
shirts when they were in a sports bar watching Monday night football.
"Friends told me that it was a terrible idea for a t-shirt, so that
convinced me right away to get the shirts made," he quipped.

Irene Smith,
a volunteer for Common Cause from Loomis, said she was there to protest how
the media is manipulated by a very few corporations who greatly influence
who and what Americans vote for. "I want to make people aware of the bias
and imbalance in the corporate media," she stated.

Irene held a great sign
that summed up her message, " A True Democracy Requires Media Balance Not
Bias."

While the city's business elite entered the convention center,
Phyllis Campanello and me sang them an impromptu song, based on a tune we
have sung many times during anti-war protests against the Bush regime.
Phyllis came up with the great idea of washing a U.S. flag with a washboard
in a tub - to get the blood and oil out of it - as we sang a "touching"
ditty. Here are the verses we sang on Friday, to the tune of "Row Your Boat"


Wash, wash O'Reilly's lies out of the U.S. flag
O'Reilly lied, O'Reilly
lied, many thousands died

Wash, wash Giuliani out of the U.S. flag

Motorola radios, killed New York firemen

Wash, wash the oil out of the
U.S. flag
Blood for oil, oil for blood, war's a bloody drag

Most of the
demonstrators left around noon after Bill Camp gathered people together and
said, "You can leave now if you wish. You succeeded in getting your message
to the Metro Chamber and the media."

Perspectives, according to the
Chamber, "is a trademark event of the Sacramento Metro Chamber and annually
draws a sell-out crowd of more than 3,000." Besides Giuliani, O'Reilly and
Ivins, J.C. Watts, former Oklahoma football hero and Republican member of
Congress, Jehan Sadat, widow of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and
John Powers, best-selling novelist and inspirational speaker, also spoke.

The crowd was definitely the corporate elite of the Sacramento region,
since they were the only ones that could pay the steep ticket price. Tickets
were $195 for chamber members and $245 for nonmembers.

I applaud Christine
Craft and the hundreds of folks who showed up on the morning of a workday to
protest the Perspectives farce that the Metro Chamber sponsors. I'd like to
see this protest become an annual event - as long as the Metro Chamber
continues to invite war criminals, right wing disinformation specialists and
corrupt corporate politicians to headline Perspectives.