John Gilmore, like many other Americans, is dismayed by the Bushinations of the GWB posse over the last couple of years but unlike many of us, he’s actually trying to do something about their farcical-if-it-wasn’t-serious crap. Yesterday, Gillmore and his “sweetheart” Annie were attempting to fly from SFO to London on British Airways but were prevented from doing so because of a button John wore on his lapel which said “Suspected Terrorist.”
He was let all the way on to the plane before this became an issue. The ticket counter where he checked in, the security checkpoint he passed through, the gate where he turned in his boarding pass, not a single person at any of those points objected to his button. Note: Not having been there, I cannot say for certain that this assumption is actually true, but it does make sense.
Finally, all seated, belted in, and taxiing for takeoff, with no complaints from any of the 300 other passengers on the plane with him, a flight steward came up and insisted he remove the pin. Gillmore refused, asserting his free speech rights. The steward called the captain. The captain insisted and Gillmore once again refused. The captain went back to the flight cabin and turned the plane around, returning to the terminal where Gillmore was escorted off the plane. BA refused to allow him to fly on their other London flight of the day unless he put the button in his checked luggage and allowed them to search his carry-on, which had already cleared security, for other egregious materials.
There was a discussion of this letter on MeFi and I was amazed at some of the foolish responses. Yes, a few people were inconvenienced, the flight having been delayed when it returned to the gate. One quote was so seriously bad that I saw it in my head with Old South keywords in certain places. I personally would have been truly inconvenienced by the extended takeoff due to my stomach issues–in fact I probably would have been going out of my mind wanting to go to the toilet–but if people don’t stand up to stupidity like this, we deserve to live in the craptocracy GWB and co-conspirators are creating!
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BillSaysThis 