OpEd News.com broke the story of Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side and told off Dick Cheney before the media on Sept. 8, being detained and hand-cuffed by Cheney’s goons in front of his destroyed home after the media cameras left.
Our story helped the eBay auction of Marble’s video of his Cheney confrontation climb above $1,900 at one point, although that site has had some problems staying up with the Republican-leaning owners of eBay objecting to even bleeped-out profanity.
I think it’s a bunch of BS – I did some searches on eBay of profanity they allow that is not even partially bleeped out and found more than 1,250 items on there with the word "bitch,” more than 400 items on there with the word "bastard,” more than 60 “go to hell” phrases and even two “goddamned son of a bitch” items.
Yet, they say they won't even allow "f***.” That’s fu****. If you want to complain to an eBay bigwig, email meg@ebay.com.
So we’d like to do more to help Marble, who lost his Gulfport, Miss., home and most of his possessions in Hurricane Katrina. We’re raising funds at OpEd News to go towards helping replace some of the items he lost. With eBaby being such unamerican censors, perhaps this is a better route to take.
Those who want to donate through paypal to Marble can do so at https:/www.paypal.com. If you don't have a paypal account, you can sign up for a free account there and then hit the "send money" button. Fill out the form with Marble's email address - clone9@yahoo.com - and the amount you want to donate, and send it on.
Then let us know how much you donated by emailing OpEd News Publisher Rob Kall at rob@futurehealth.org so we can keep a tally.
If you don't want to open a paypal account and would rather send funds through the mail, you can write the check to Ben Marble, and send it to: OpEdNews.com, 211 N. Sycamore St., Newtown, PA 18940. Rob will forward the money to Marble.
In an email to me, Marble said he appreciated all the emails and donations he has received so far. He is also considering auctioning off some of his paintings.
In his time of great need, after what Marble did to “echo” Cheney’s “go fuck yourself” words back to him and raise awareness about the harmful policies and slow response of the Bush administration towards Katrina, we need to do all we can to help people like Marble.
Jackson Thoreau is a Washington, D.C.-area journalist/writer. His latest book, "Born to Cheat: How Bush, Cheney, Rove & Co. Broke the Rules, From the Sandlot to the White House," debuted at the Take Back America conference in June 2007. More info on the book is at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/cheat.html
Others, not only ebay, may also be involved in playing the censorship game. After reading Jackson Thoreau's article, I sent an email to Dr Marble at clone9@yahoo.com, but was notified at once that delivery had failed permanently (SMTP Error (state 10): 550 relaying denied for ). I have not received such notification with regard to a copy of a letter to ebay (as a Skype user, I am concerned if the firm intends to extend its censorship policies to my phone calls as well) which I shortly thereafter attempted to forward to Dr Marble, so perhaps the failure was just an example of the usual internet snafu, but perhaps someone else should check this out ?...
by
mhenriday (0 articles, 11 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 149 comments)
on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 at 11:28:37 AM
One word that describes Dr. Marble is GUTS!! That's what the doc has, more guts than most people, knowing full well that Cheney's Secret Service Agents were standing right there, ready to pull their Glocks or Colts. If the press hadn't been there rolling tape.............who knows??? From one professional (engineering) to another..........ATTA BOY DOC!!!!! You speak for millions, wish I was there to add my two cents worth. Hope you, your wife and new baby are doing better.
Steve Whitby
(That's my REAL name)
by
Steve Whitby (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 at 5:33:54 PM
2 comments
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