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Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side, needs our help. Since he was the one who told Dick Cheney to "go fuck yourself" on Sept 8, that's the least we can do.

Marble is a complex guy, to say the least. Some of the lyrics he writes can be considered harsh by some - personally what I've heard is very much on target - but he has a softer side as an organizer of breast cancer fund-raisers, not to mention an ER doctor.

When he, like thousands of others, lost his home due to Hurricane Katrina last week, it was the single most traumatic week of his life. That led to his Sept 8 confrontation with the man who best represents the worst of the most callous, heartless, shittiest administration in U.S. history.

As Marble explains, he was driving to his destroyed house Sept 8 in Gulfport, Mississippi, when military police refused to allow him to cross a barricade that was about 200 feet from his home. They forced him to drive an extra 20 minutes and spend even more on gasoline.

"Thanks to Dubya Gump and Mr. Cheney, gas is really expensive and extremely hard to get anywhere Katrina has destroyed," Marble wrote. "So needless to say, I was extremely aggravated that they wouldn't let me pass."

"I waved a middle finger
at the caravan."
- Dr. Ben Marble

Suddenly a long line of dark cars pulled up, and they honked at Marble to back up to let them through the barricade that supposedly no one could drive through. That only made Marble madder so he did what most of us would do - or at least consider doing.

"I waved a middle finger at the caravan," Marble wrote.

After driving the extra 20 minutes and filming video of destruction along the way, he made it to his home. Marble overheard a neighbor say that Cheney was down the street talking to people. That's when he got the idea to go meet Dr. Evil himself.

"I am no fan of Mr. Cheney because of several reasons," Marble wrote. "For those who don't know, Mr. Cheney is infamous for telling Senator [Pat] Leahy 'go fu** yourself' on the Senate floor. Also, I am not happy about the fact that thousands have died due to the slow action of FEMA, not to even mention the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, ie Iraq."

So Marble, who was wearing an old Mr. T "I Pity Da Fool" T-shirt since he was sifting through the wreckage, asked a couple of police officers if he and a friend could walk down to Cheney. They told him Cheney was "looking forward" to talking to "the locals."

"So we grabbed my Canon digital rebel and my Sony videocamera and started walking down the street," Marble wrote. "And then right in front of the destroyed tennis court I used to play on, Dick Cheney was giving a pep rally, talking to the press. The Secret Service guys patted us down and waved the wands over us, and then let us pass."

"For those who don't know,
Mr. Cheney is infamous for telling
Senator [Pat] Leahy 'go fu** yourself'
on the Senate floor. Also, I am not
happy about the fact that thousands
have died due to the slow action of
FEMA, not to even mention the
wrong war in the wrong place
at the wrong time, ie Iraq."
- Dr. Ben Marble

As he stood about 10 feet away from Cheney and his friend and some camera operators from CNN and other media filmed the scene, Marble suddenly yelled, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney! Go fuck yourself, you asshole!"

Hey, at least Marble was polite. After all, he referred to Cheney as "Mr. Cheney."

"I had no intention of harming anyone but merely wanted to echo Mr. Cheney's infamous words back at him," Marble wrote. "At that moment, I noticed the Secret Service guys with a panic-stricken look on their faces, like they were about to tackle me, so I calmly walked away back to my former house."

His friend videotaped a little bit longer and then came back to Marble’s house. As they were salvaging a few things from Marble's home, two military police waving M-16's showed up and said they were looking for someone who fit Marble's description who had cursed at Cheney.

"I told them I was probably the person they were looking for, and so they put me in handcuffs and 'detained' me for about 20 minutes or so," Marble wrote. "My right thumb went numb because the cuffs were on so tight, but they were fairly courteous and eventually released me after getting all my contact info. They said I had NOT broken any laws so I was free to go."

So let’s get this straight: A physician with a newborn baby loses most everything he owns in the hurricane, does what most of us WANT to do and "echoes" Cheney’s words he spoke on the Senate floor last year, walks away harmlessly, mission accomplished, and then once the media cameras leave, he is treated like a foreign terrorist as Cheney’s goons waving M-16s handcuff him in front of his destroyed home? Had it not been for the media cameras filming the initial scene, I doubt Cheney’s goons would have just let Marble go after 20 minutes.

America, land of the free?

As he stood about 10 feet away
from Cheney and his friend and
some camera operators from CNN
and other media filmed the scene,
Marble suddenly yelled,
"Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney!
Go fuck yourself, you asshole!"

Marble and his family have been in the media spotlight before, including his wife, Lisa, and baby, Sofia Grace, who was born shortly after the storm, on CNN. Marble has also been interviewed in art magazines and the Biloxi Sun Herald about his concert fund-raisers and musical success - one of his bands, dR. O, has had at least 20 No. 1 songs on the MP3.com charts.

"The truth is even with all our losses, we are still luckier than many people down here because at least we didn't die," Marble wrote. "But I thought I could try to raise some awareness to the bad policies of the Dubya Gump administration and also possibly raise some money to replace the many things we lost, and so I decided I would auction the videotape my friend shot of the event. I will also grant an interview to the winner if so desired."

So go to eBay here and place a bid for this important video to help Marble raise some needed funds. I have done so and was at least at one time the high bidder.

Marble also has an Internet site with photographs of some damage in his town at www.HurricaneKatrinaSucked.com. A photo of him is here, and you can also email Marble at clone9@yahoo.com.

Dr. Ben Marble, you rock. May we all return the favor.

UPDATE: Late Friday, Sept 8, eBay, which is owned by strong Bush-Cheney supporters, took down Marble's site. In an email to me, the company said it was taken down due to violating one of the rules. The email did not say which rule, and I suspect it was related to profanity, even though Marble bleeped it out.

I have contacted Marble again and hope to hear back on his plans. I suspect he will put it up again without the profanity at all or put it on another site. I suspect we haven't heard the last of this story.

Dr Marble's new ebay site is now at:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/
eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=771220273

HELP DR MARBLE

We'd like to do more to help Marble, who lost his Gulfport, Miss., home and most of his possessions in Hurricane Katrina. So 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.

Thanks,
Jackson Thoreau

Note: Jackson Thoreau is a Washington, D.C.-area journalist/ writer. The latest book to which he contributed, Big Bush Lies, was published by RiverWood Books of Ashland, Ore. He is working on another book called "Thou Shalt Not Cheat: How Bush and Rove Broke the Rules, From the Sandlot to the White House." He can be contacted at jacksonthor@gmail.com.

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WHY HE'S A DICK

Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast. One is Shaw Group and the other is Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Experts say it has been common practice in both Republican and Democratic administrations for policy makers to take lobbying jobs once they leave office, and many of the same companies seeking contracts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have already received billions of dollars for work in Iraq. Halliburton alone has earned more than US$9 billion. Pentagon audits released by Democrats in June showed US$1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and US$422 million in "unsupported" costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq. (Wired News)