Anti-Cheney Protest in Jackson Hole, WY

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-As many as 250 people gathered Saturday afternoon at the corner of Hwy. 22 and the Village Road to protest the war in Iraq and to decry Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in the four-and-a-half-year conflict.

Organized by Jackson Hole residents Jim Stanford, Walt Farmer and Karen Hogan, the event featured speeches by State Rep. Pete Jorgensen (D-Jackson), author Alexandra Fuller, attorney Kent Spence, and veteran war medic Nick Rowley, along with protest music by Phil Round, Derrik Hufsmith, Peter “Chanman” Chandler, Dick Barker and Carolyn Groves. Afterwards, demonstrators marched 1.4 miles down the Village Road pathway to the gates of the Teton Pines Country Club, where the Vice President owns a house and is currently vacationing.

“In this day and age it’s very easy to be jaded about politics,” said Stanford in his opening speech. “We don’t feel we can really trust the people that we send to Washington, D.C., to do the people’s business.”

He noted one local exception – State Rep. Pete Jorgensen. In his speech, Jorgensen told the crowd that, while attending that morning’s dedication of Grand Teton National Park’s new Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center, where Cheney was the keynote speaker, he heard the Vice President used the word “humility.” The name Cheney drew boos from the crowd. Jorgensen then said, “I truly believe that they’re constituents of mine in the state legislature, and I think we need to afford them an opportunity to come back to their home without personalizing the feelings we may have. They are public servants. They have been elected twice – maybe it was a mistake – I don’t know what it was, but we get to get over it next year.” he went on, “Pick a candidate – I don’t care what party – that generally agrees with you and vote next November.”

Alexandra Fuller spoke next: “Our leaders have let us down. I think they genuinely thought they were taking care of us by going over there and scribbling anyone who didn’t look like us. But that’s middle school thinking and I don’t want to live in a middle school world for the rest of my life ... . Creative thinking is to create peace.”
Attorney Kent Spence declared the event an exercise in the fundamental American rights of association and free speech. “When the leaders of your country are out of step with you, when they are no longer representing the people, when they have become tyrannical, when they have become tyrants, you have the right to remove them under the Constitution. That’s not radical, that’s American. It’s our duty.”

Finally, Air Force veteran Nick Rowley spoke. Rowley had served as a medic in Bosnia and his brother recently returned from Iraq. “What you are doing here, is supporting our troops. We need more of that,” he said. “If we found out that we went over to Iraq based on a lie, then why are we still there? We’re there for money. We’re there for oil. We’re there for Halliburton. We’re there for every single reason that isn’t American, that isn’t a reason for freedom.”

After the impassioned speeches, the demonstrators took to the pathway and marched to Teton Pines country club with an effigy of Dick Cheney, which was mounted on top of a wooden box with wheels. The life-sized, papier-mâché statue showed the V.P holding a spouting oil derrick in one arm and a fishing pole in the other. A smaller, horned bust of George Bush was featured blindfolded at Cheney’s feet. When protesters reached their final destination a rope was slung around Cheney’s head and he was then pulled to the ground – echoing the notorious footage of Iraqis pulling down a statue of Saddam Hussein in 2003 in Baghdad.  For the protesters: mission accomplished.