rudeafrican
Petty Officer 1st Class
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2002
- Messages
- 225
It really burns me to hear citizen of a country bashing their leader while they are abroad. This is a c&p from one of our news channels.<br /><br />Unabashed Bush-bashing<br />20/01/2005 15:00 - (SA) <br /><br /> <br />Vienna - In Geneva, they'll read patriotic poetry. In Vienna, they'll drown their sorrows and plot their revenge. In London, they'll stage a candlelight protest outside the United States Embassy. <br /><br />Across Europe, a place none too friendly to George W Bush, locals and American expatriates united in their opposition to the US president were marking his inauguration on Thursday with some unabashed Bush-bashing. <br /><br />Austria's Democrats Abroad, which scrapped plans for a black-tie "un-augural ball" because of the tsunami in southern Asia, said its members instead would gather at a traditional Vienna wine bar "to scheme, plot and plan the retaking of our country." <br /><br />In Britain, anti-Bush demonstrators planned a candlelight protest outside the American embassy in central London, staged by the Stop the War Coalition, which organised mass rallies opposing the Iraq conflict in 2003. <br /><br />Rather than watch the Washington inauguration on television, the United Kingdom contingent of Democrats Abroad organised a talk by liberal author Ron Suskind, whose book The Price of Loyalty - an insider account of Paul O'Neill's time as US treasury secretary - paints an unflattering portrait of Bush. <br /><br />Bush's re-election was widely seen as negative for global peace and security in 16 of 21 countries polled in a BBC World Service survey released on the eve of the inauguration. On average across all the countries, 58% called his re-election a negative development; only 26%t described it as positive. <br /><br />Protesters in Germany got an early start with a candlelight vigil on Wednesday evening in front of Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate, where they held a dozen American flags upside down to symbolise an SOS distress call. <br /><br />"We're Americans who vote, and who have a voice in US policy," said Elsa Rassbach of American Voices Abroad, which organised the event in the country that had overwhelmingly backed Democrat John Kerry for president. <br /><br />"I think there's alarm here, so I think many Germans would be happy that many US citizens don't agree with Bush," she said. <br /><br />Another group, Vote 44, which formed in Europe to promote a 44th president to replace Bush, planned a protest rally at the Brandenburg Gate for Thursday under the slogan: "You've Got a Voice." <br /><br />"We call on all people worldwide who are against the policies of the Bush government to take part in the demonstration or organise one in their own cities," the organisation said in a statement. <br /><br />In southwestern France, Democrats Abroad screened a film called "Bush's Brain" and called on its supporters in Paris to dress in Kerry blue and gather at a trendy bar for "a dialogue of truth about the Bush agenda and its global effect on all of us." <br /><br />Associated Press writers Michael McDonough in London, Bradley S Klapper in Geneva, Matt Surman in Berlin and Kate Brumback in Paris contributed to this story.
