Lookout, Obama! The Peace Train Goes Sailing Around Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineuard is abuzz over a presidential visit for which locals are even sporting caps featuring an image of the presidential pooch.

But according to The Times of London, the presidential vacation comes at a time when Obama is also catching "a cold wave of unrest".

Three of the top five titles on the New York Times nonfiction hard-back bestseller list are currently anti-Obama screeds ...

and of course they are all attacking Obama from the right:

Currently topping the bestseller list is Culture of Corruption, the latest right-wing outpouring from Michelle Malkin, a popular conservative columnist who recently declared of her book: “What I have done is to help shatter completely the myths of hope and change in the new politics in Washington by scouring every inch of this administration, and showing how in a very short span of six months they have betrayed every principle and every promise that they have made.”

That's from Michelle Malkin? Am I the only one who thinks that's funny?

Also selling well is Dick Morris’s new book, Catastrophe, which is summarised as: “Stopping President Obama before he transforms America into a socialist state and destroys the health care system.” Third on the list is Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny, yet another conservative manifesto taking aim at “Barack Nobama”.

Out of the discussion, as always, are much more reality-based criticisms coming from the left, which in my cold opinion are far fewer in number than they ought to be.

I do not expect the corporate media news to mention anti-war protests in conjunction with the presidential family's vacation -- or in any other fashion, for that matter. Nonetheless:

Cindy Sheehan is inviting other proponents of peace to join her for a sail!

It's to be a "shipboard peace summit" and if you read anything about it at all, it'll probably be at some low-traffic blog or another.

Excerpts from Cindy Sheehan:

"I am calling in the Peace Movement to encircle our country with our united demand for an immediate return of all U.S. forces around the globe. Bring every one of our troops home NOW! We need them in our families and towns. We need our troops back to help us fix our broken country. Our ships of state must make their voyage home, with our countrymen out of harm's way."

NOW! Imagine that!!

"This is our time to finally draw an end to America's wars. We must abide by the saying of ancient scriptures: Let peace and peace and peace be everywhere. I declare this to be our new national defense policy."

If only our national defense policy could be so declared.

Want to join Cindy Sheehan aboard a sailing ship of peace?

Sheehan will co-captain daily excursions ... aboard the grand sailing vessel dubbed the SS Camp Casey ... [and invites] peace movement leaders, international news 'anchors' and pro-peace members of the public to sail around Martha's Vineyard [with her] as she holds this seaside peace summit. ...

For information, contact:
Laurie Dobson
lauriegdobson@yahoo.com
207-604-8988

or Bruce Marshall
brmas@yahoo.com
802-767-6079

The full details are here.

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Police Use "Extensive Force" Against Protesters In Tblisi; MP Says "They Called For Violence"

Protests against pro-US policy have encountered violent resistance in Tblisi, Georgia.

Riot police with batons used tear gas and a water cannon on Wednesday to clear thousands of demonstrators from the streets of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, using extensive force in the face of protests against the country's pro-Western government.

People who fled the clouds of tear gas reported that police had rushed through Rustaveli Avenue, the city's main boulevard, and had beaten demonstrators who had not managed to escape. There were no immediate reports of the extent of injuries, but many protesters were seen bleeding.

We're reading C. J. Chivers via the International Herald Tribune:

Georgia protests erupt in violence as police try to clear demonstrators

The police also scuffled with journalists covering the confrontation, and confiscated or shattered some of their equipment, witnesses said. The police sweep cleared Rustaveli Avenue at least temporarily, but the violence marked an intensive challenge to the government and reputation of President Mikheil Saakashvili, who rose to power with peaceful protests in 2003 and has cast himself as the most democratic ruler in the Caucasus.

The opposition has accused him of running centralized government intolerant of dissent and undermined by high-level corruption and abuse by police and prosecutors. Opposition leaders appeared undeterred after the clashes. They labeled the action a political crackdown and mass punishment, and called for Georgians to gather in renewed protests.
...

The protestors, who first gathered in front of Parliament last Friday, had initially demanded early Parliamentary elections and other measures that might relax what they regard as the government's centralized hold on power and allow a degree of political plurality.

But after Saakashvili ignored the demonstrators for nearly three days, and then publicly belittled their leaders on national television and said they were doing the bidding of the Kremlin, the demonstrators roundly demanded that he resign.
...

"The authorities have used weapons against the peaceful demonstrators, and therefore the authorities will get what they deserve from the people," Kakka Kukava, an opposition member of Parliament, told journalists, according to the Interfax news agency.
...

"What happened this morning was very regrettable," Giga Bokeria, a prominent member of Parliament and close ally of President Saakashvili, said by telephone. He accused opposition leaders of urging the protestors to rush the police, which he said triggered the violence and bedlam that ensued.

"They behaved very badly," he said. "They just openly called for violence."

Yeah, sure! They did! They wanted to get hurt! Really!!

There's more here.

Police Battle Lawyers In Protest Against Pakistan's Emergency Rule

Continuing coverage of Pakistan's imposition of emergency rule.

NYT:

Police armed with tear gas and clubs attacked thousands of protesting lawyers in the city of Lahore today, and rounded up lawyers in other cities as the government of the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, faced the first signs of concerted resistance to the imposition of emergency rule on Saturday.

The opposition to emergency rule, which many here are describing as military rule, was led by lawyers, students and journalists. The main opposition political parties, however, mounted no immediate large-scale rallies or protests. The next few days will show whether they can organize in the current highly restrictive atmosphere.
...
Pakistan officials said an estimated 500 opposition figures have been arrested since emergency rule was imposed at the weekend, although lawyers and analysts said the figure could be far higher, probably around 2000.

ABC:

Several thousand protesters, mostly lawyers who have led much of the opposition against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, continue to clash with police in Pakistan today.

In Lahore, police used tear gas and stones in an attempt to quell the protesters. Dozens of them were arrested, but they remained defiant...

NYT:

Today, the Musharraf government deployed police forces and threatened political opponents with more arrests.

An estimated 150 lawyers were arrested in Lahore after a pitched battle between police and lawyers who stood on the roof of the High Court throwing stones at the police below. Some of the lawyers had bleeding heads as they were shoved into police vans, and some fainted in the clouds of tear gas. In Multan, another city in the province of Punjab, two new judges who had taken the oath of office under emergency rule Sunday were forced to leave the courtroom by hundreds of angry lawyers.

"We threatened them, saying: ‘You’ve taken an unconstitutional oath, if you don’t go we will throw eggs at you.’ They left,” said a lawyer from Multan, Riaz Gilani.

Lawyers in the capital, Islamabad, and the nearby garrison town of Rawalpindi said they did not go to the courts because they were warned they would be arrested and possibly beaten.

AP:

Police fired tear gas and battered thousands of lawyers protesting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's decision to impose emergency rule, as Western allies threatened to review aid to the troubled Muslim nation. More than 1,500 people have been arrested in 48 hours, and authorities put a stranglehold on independent media.
...
Though public anger was mounting in the nation of 160 million people, which has been under military rule for much of its 60-year history, demonstrations so far have been limited largely to activists, rights workers and lawyers. All have been quickly and sometimes brutally stamped out.

ABC:

In Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, the scene was much calmer, but lawyers gathered outside the district courthouse to plot their next move. Meanwhile, busloads of Pakistani police were brought in and machine gun positions set up.

"We have decided to struggle and fight until the registration of judges, until the registration of basic and fundamental rights, until the withdrawal of martial law," lawyer Hanuna Rashid told ABC News' Martha Raddatz. "We will fight in the streets, we will fight in the roads."

Outside the court, police appeared to be leading away the head of the country's bar association, but when ABC News arrived with cameras, the police disappeared. The protesters say, however, that arrest could come at any time.

"Every lawyer is expecting to be arrested," Rashid said.

For more background, please see the following posts:

Emergency In Pakistan: Destroying Democracy In Order To Save It

Protecting Democracy : Hundreds Of Pakistani Lawyers And Activists Arrested As Clampdown Continues

And for a look at these developments in a larger context, please see this remarkable post from Chris Floyd:

Loss Leader: Terror War Dividends From Pakistani Breakdown