There is a long and honored tradition of non-violent civil disobedience in this country. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the civil rights movement in this tradition, and before that Alice Paul and others led the first wave of feminism in the U.S. for women’s suffrage.
NVCD is a Constitutionally protected way to protest the actions of your government. Generally it’s a planned activity. Everyone, including the police, knows it’s going to happen. When I first moved to DC there was an understanding between activists and the Park Police. We would break the law by doing something like protesting in front of the White House, or inside the Capital, without a permit. The police would give you three warnings to leave, and then they would arrest you. You went to Anacostia, where your attorney was waiting for you, you were processed, paid your fine and you were usually on your way within about two hours or so.
Since 9/11 all that has changed. The Park Police will now give you one warning, and will often then begin arresting people within a few minutes. There have even been cases where the police actually surrounded protesters, making it impossible for them to leave, and then arresting them.
Peaceful protest in Washington, DC, almost doesn’t exist any longer.
When you do get a permit, you are often not given one for a well traveled public street with maximum visibility. The last protest I attended where a permit was pulled the protesters were relegated to a parking lot behind one of the Senate office buildings.
I think this is an outrage.
It’s similar to what is happening around the country when the president travels and the Secret Service sets up "free speech zones". Protesters are told they must stage their demonstration blocks away from where the president is scheduled to speak – rendering the protest for all intent and purpose meaningless.
I think Americans would be upset if they truly understood how their right to assemble and to protest is being compromised – even in their nation’s capitol.
Benjamin Franklin once said: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." They are words to live by today.
7 comments:
Hi, BAC. It isn't often I find myself defending this wretched administration (if defending them is indeed what I'm doing.) I was just going to say that this erosion of free speech rights began before Bush stole the presidency and blew up the WTC. I had a friend who went to a Gore rally wearing a Nader button and was told he had to take it off before entering the cordoned off area. "What about my free speech rights?" he asked, to which the officer of the law replied, "Your rights stop here."
I also mentioned on Blue Gal's site, that my nephew was beaten up and threatened by federal marshals while in their custody during the IMF protests in DC. He was 17 years old. That was in the nineties.
It IS an outrage. Not enough people seem to care. You get self-proclaimed conservatives who think the ACLU is a flaming liberal organization, never stopping to think that EVERYONE'S rights are under attack, EVERYONE suffers.
Nonviolent civil disobedience of course goes back even further than Alice Paul. There was Thoreau, and in fact I picked up a John Woolman biography today that had a quote from a dean of Harvard Divinity School: "If I were asked to date the birth of social conscience in its present-day form, I think I should put it on the twenty-sixth day of the eighth month of the year 1758 - the day John Woolman ina public meeting verbally denounced Negro slavery."
NVCD does go back a long way, I was simply using these as examples in the United States that people might easily recognize.
And yes, there have been other free speech issues over the years, but in the nearly 18 years that I have lived in Washington, DC the crackdown over the past five years is staggering.
My point is that I don't think many people in this country know just how bad it is, and how much of their "freedom" they have lost.
They are not going to hear about it from the mainstream media, so it's important to use blogs to talk about it.
BAC
When I was in high school Nixon came to speak and any man's hair that was considered too long was denied entrance -- no hippies allowed.
The idea of the free speech zones comes from the protest over the Masters Gold Tournament a number of years ago when a feminist oraganization wanted to protest over the fact that a Private club could still exclude women from its membership. The police chief claimed that moving the demonstrators away from the entrance of the golf course was for public safety issues and the Supreme Court (pre-Bush appointments) bought it.
It's always some silly incident like this that sets the precedent for abuse later.
Excellent post. I'm applauding you now.
Hey, BAC -- I apologize if I sounded like I was correcting you. I completely agree with your post. This corralling of free speech is a trend that is very disturbing and if it's happening in traditional "hotbeds of liberalism" like my city, I can only imagine it's worse elsewhere.
My spouse's band has a song entitled "Free Speech Zone"; the chorus goes, "This is my country, every inch is a free speech zone, this is my country, we will not be silent."
PM the woman who organized those protests is a good friend of mine, Martha Burk. It's amazing the lengths some will go to to protect their right to discriminate.
Not a problem Suzy. It was late, and what started out as a comment soon seemed to long for a comment, so I just posted it here. I'm sure I would love the song!
I think we need to raise a stink about this every time we hear of an incident where someone is being told, "yes you can protest, on the OTHER SIDE OF TOWN!". And we need to demand to know from the media why they seem to think it's okay.
BAC
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