Do You Think You Will Be Be Arrested For Protesting In The Second Term?

[DistressedAmerican]

Poll question: Do You Think You Will Be Be Arrested For Protesting In The Second Term?

With growing resistance to Bush, there are more and more protests taking place. Frequently they are broken up and dispersed by the police, as we saw in this video of the Westfield NJ protest one week ago:
http://www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/main.htm

I have suggested that people be prepared to resist these tactics by sitting right down and refusing to leave until arrested. Mass arrests and abuse by the police were the dynamic that changed public opinion during Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement.

I full expect to be arrested for civil disobedience during the next 4 years (maybe more than once).

What about you? Do you see yourself being cuffed and hauled off to make your point?


:spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank:

[kedrys]

1. Other: they have to catch me first! n/t

I'm thinking forms of protest other than sit-ins.

[DistressedAmerican]

2. I'm All For The Sneaky! Flying Under The Radar Can Be Fun!

I'll add your suggestion!

[annabanana]

3. You mean like this:?

http://www.freewayblogger.com

[kedrys]

4. Oh yeah. :)

I love that!

P.S. Hi Agent Mike! I'm NOT planning on blowing s**t up. Go back to bed.

[DistressedAmerican]

5. I LOVE FREEWAY BLOGGER!!!!!!!!!!

Great plan of attack. I have yet to go post over my local highway but, thanks for the reminder!

Hi Agent Mike, also NOT going to blow anything up! Nothing to see here. Move Along! :hi:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. *

[DistressedAmerican]

7. That One Had Me Rolling! (n/t)

[katinmn]

11. ROTFLMAO!!!!!

That is sooooo funny.

Thank you.:)

[katinmn]

10. you have to read FWBlogger's conversation with Santorum's office

It's hilarious. Promise.

http://www.freewayblogger.com/funwithsantorumoffice.htm

[DistressedAmerican]

13. That is one of the funniest things I have ever seen on the internet!

Pure genius!

[DistressedAmerican]

8. Midday Kick Up!

:kick:

[applegrove]

9. If the demonstration is well organized there is no reason to be arrested.

It is a safety issue. And many people who otherwise would participate (people with kids for example) stay away when the protests are organized to include arrests. You just do not cross that line or allow any in your group to cross that line (you do not cross a barricade or touch a policeman). Up to the organizers to set the tone and work out the details with the police. Goons will gravitate towards the potential for violence and you have to expect that and spread the world that it is not acceptable. Then you can have massive demonstration with nobody getting hurt.

I say brink flowers to your next demonstration and place them at the feet of police and all around the barriers. Demonstrate to the public at large that you are not marginal - but serious and sober.

No point in someone getting killed (as will happen if you dial it up).

[DistressedAmerican]

14. Arrest Of Peaceful Protesters Is Taking Place.

We're not taking about people crossing lines of causing trouble. I'm talking about passive resistance, Sit-down, or locked arm style. I'm taking about a situation like we saw last week when the Chimp visited NJ. Getting arrested does not immediately imply some sort of violence on the part of protesters. I am taking about a large peaceful sit-in type of protest.

Please take a look at the video posted at this site and tell me that the protesters were responsible for those arrests.

http://www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/main.htm

You seem to have it in your mind that I am advocating violence. Not True.

Civil Disobedience is not violent. It is passive resistance but. usually met with arrests and police intimidation. The same happened to Martin Luther King. Should he never have been arrested? Was he just disorganized? Didn't he coordinate well with the local police? No, he intended to break the law, get arrested, and generate publicity. On top of that, the police were not benevolent shepherds that just want things to go smoothly for him and his followers. They were the enforcement wing of a corrupt system.

I'm not sure why you think the police at these events want to coordinate actions with the protesters. These jackboots see us as a threat to be stopped not as citizens expressing our constitutionally protected free speech.

If someone gets killed out there it will most likely not have anything to do with the protesters actions. Their not the ones with the guns.

[applegrove]

15. That is it. You mean to be arrested if you do not negotiate with the

police about the rules. The police have to give you a great place to demonstrate if you ask in advance. If you break the agreed to rules then you get arrested.

What you are talking about... sit ins and the like.. those are situations where you are meaning to be arrested so you cannot really say that the police 'react with force' because you never asked them to help you set up a time and a place for a sit it. You broke the law to begin with so as to get attention and you rely on the police stepping in when you break property law to garner publicity.

The police are entirely predictable. They have to follow the laws. You do not have to have any trouble with the police. Totally about how you organize and prepare and 'self-police' your own demonstrations.

[distressedsister]

16. The Police Did Not Give Us A "Great Place To Demonstrate"

and don't you remember the lockdown of Central Park during the RNC? The right to assemble and right to free speech are not being upheld in America.

[applegrove]

20. Well the police sure do not want to have to deal with rogue protesters.

So you build a relationship with them and city hall. And when you negotiate and they say your first choice is not possible...then you ask them to suggest something comparable.

[DistressedAmerican]

19. What Mythical Land Of Police Benevolence Towards Demonstrators

Do You Live In?

Call me when you get back. :freak:

[applegrove]

21. If the demonstration is lead & organized & self-policed properly..

there should not be so much problem. But it is a relationship. So if things go great at the next demonstration (and anti-social personalities who want to start mob violence are shut up by moral suation... then you have built up some trust).

[ultraist]

22. People do get arrested even when it's organized properly

People in DC got maced and arrested for no reason during the inaug protest.

Sorry, but our police here in the US are not 100% trustworthy. Police brutality happens, arrests are made when they shouldn't be, and they do bully protestors. NOT ALL police, but some of them, some of the time.

I've never heard of a police dept that didn't have any corruption whatsoever in the US.

[applegrove]

23. Bad apples exist. What I am saying is you can organize a protest so

that the aim is to not have conflict with the police. You actually do have control over "what is in the air" during those demonstrations. I say buy a whole bunch of flowers.

[DistressedAmerican]

27. A bunch of flowers would not have done a thing for young Emily Colvin

or the other 8 peaceful protesters that were arrested in Westfield NJ last Friday. She was arrested to intimidate the rest of the TOTALLY PEACEFUL protesters into leaving the area because the Bush rally was letting out and the police simply decided to clear out the protesters. No legal reason. All of the sudden, "That's all folks! Move along!" After which the protesters were herded by police threatening them with arrest for up to six blocks. What are flowers going to do against that.

Real intimidation and harassment does occur. None of the protesters were in any way out there to have a conflict with the police. The police basically rushed the crowd and drove them off. Period.

I say if they try to drive you off, make them arrest ALL of you. Stick together. Sit down on the spot, lock arms and do not move until arrested.

Here's that Washington Event. The Cops Say they sprayed the crowd of protesters because they had pushed a fence over and were trying to rush the line! Where? I see intact fence myself. It was intimidation pure and simple.


Here's is Friday's arrest of Emily Colvin who along with a second kid were standing right next to my sister. Neither ever tried to cross the police line or acted out in any way. The cops reached in and grabbed her, pulled her over the barricade, slammed her up against a cop car, charged her with disorderly conduct and left her locked in her handcuffs for roughly 4 hours while at the police department. They did the exact same to the second youth.



Flowers? What are they going to do?

Far better to bring a video camera. I encourage you to view some of the video from Westfield here:

http://www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/main.htm

[proud patriot]

12. bush doesn't get to the Bay Area often

so I say not likely to be arrested .

[jdots]

17. 4 dead in Ohio

ask yourself if that would make the news in 2005.

[Nikepallas]

18. Hell, If they get their way Even thinking BUSHCO is wrong will get you

arrested.

[Nigel_Tufnel]

24. Gosh, naivete is alive and well.

i don't think it matters how you organize the protest. you can get all the permits and permissions you want. all permits can be revoked and all permissions ignored. it doesn't matter whether you "behave yourself" or not. bowing and scraping to the police probably gratifies them, but it won't help. i know because i was in westfield, and recognized the playbook.

there is no doubt in my mind that the police have instructions to silence protesters. they have it down to a science, they honed it in new york for the last couple of years. it's effective on new york hard-cases, how could it miss on these soft suburbanites? now they're taking it on the road, to a town near you!

they've thought of everything. social security=old folks. make 'em walk a few blocks -- hopefully most of them can't hobble that far. let them see an arrest or two. that's even more effective if the arrestee hasn't DONE anything. talk about a mass exodus. gee wilma, this is SERIOUS. didn't you leave the iron on? trot out the black helmeted stormtroopers for the grand finale and there won't be enough voices left to make any difference at all.

i will admit that there were a few police there who treated us like human beings. it's amazing how much that meant in such threatening surroundings. i wonder how long it'll be until those police are reassigned to meter reader duty.

i am not sure about sit ins. if enough people did it, it would be a real challenge to the police, but it's hard to find folks who would be "inconvenienced" like that. i think the only hope we have is to bring video cameras and film everything from all directions. at least, until they start to destroy the video cameras.

karen

[LoganW]

25. Hmmm probably not

too many people are apathetic to matter.

[Is It Fascism Yet]

26. I dunno if sit-in protests can change the dynamics this time...during

the Vietnam era, the media actually reported police brutality, but you know, now, they won't, and that's why we haven't see any of these film clips of the nazi's in action on CNN of FAUX.

[DistressedAmerican]

28. We Can Report It Ourselves! Why Must We Be Shackled To

The Media. We have the Blogosphere people!

Again, Please check out the video:
http://www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/main.htm

If we record it. We can get it out to the public ourselves AND (as we are currently doing) use it to fight bogus charges.

It was a total fluke that my sister was where she was to record the arrests I discuss above. We need to be organized about it because this fluke has taught me that the rules are different today. CNN can freaking bite me. If we get cameras, the infrastructure exists to get the info out. Stop sucking at CNN's tit for coverage. They aren't going to give it to us easily.

I have had thousands of downloads from my server directly and tons of folks telling me they are sending it out to Senators, folks working on documentaries, etc, It is embarrassing the hell out of the local police who are now scrambling to cover their overly exposed asses.

I do think it would be pretty hard not to cover the arrest of 500 protesters at one of these traveling road show events. Especially when all of the amateur video of inappropriate police action is made public, civil suits filed, etc.

On edit: CNN can easily ignore 9 arrests. But, let them try to ignore 500!

[DistressedAmerican]

29. More "reporters" and "outlets" showing up everyday.

Hell if Gannon can do we certainly can.

This easily loaded version was just posted by an anonymous source who sent me the link:

http://www.showvoice.com/WestfieldPoliceState.rm

I loaded the whole 7 plus minutes in about 10 seconds while the video was playing. Should greatly enhance playability for folks having trouble. The audio is a bit clearer than the version I had posted previously as well.

Thanks Deep Post!
DA

Have those cameras ready at upcoming SS events and of course March 19/20!

[mvd]

30. Locking by request of author

DU Moderator