Tex, Grandmother Sweeps Streets of Wash. as Punishment for Protest

[donsu]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0131-07.htm

Woman arrested last year for crossing police line.


Diane Baker's voice was barely audible above the rumble of the trash can she pushed down the sidewalk. But her actions tended to speak louder, anyway.

Four months ago, Baker was one of 71 people arrested during a protest in Washington for crossing a police line to sit on the steps of a Senate office building.

As punishment, the 60-year-old was sentenced to sweep the streets of the nation's capital for eight cold, blustery hours Tuesday.

"I'm a rather fragile, small woman," said Baker, a hospice chaplain at United Church of Christ in Dallas. "Being a minister, I offered to do counseling, but this is what they gave me."

Baker, a mother of four and grandmother of two, suffers from myoclonic epilepsy, a degenerative muscle condition that causes her voice to quiver and hands to shake. As she signed in to begin her community service, she struggled to write her name.

With morning temperatures in Washington in the high 20s, Baker prepared for the cold as if a protest could start any minute.

She wore 10 multicolored T-shirts with messages ranging from "End the War in Iraq" to "Shut Down Guantanamo" and "Save Darfur." She also wore her clerical stole with a dove carrying an olive branch sewn into the fabric.

-snip-

Her community service came three days after tens of thousands protesters, including Baker, gathered in Washington to demand a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. No arrests were made, according to police.

But as growing skepticism in Congress energizes the anti-war movement, Baker served as a stark reminder Tuesday of the limitations to freedom of speech.
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[jwirr]

1. What a wonderful way of protesting. Go, Grandma

[gratuitous]

2. Doing the words of Jesus proud

When Jesus advised his followers that if a soldier compels you to carry his gear for a mile, you should walk two miles with him. The idea was to change the power dynamic of the relationship. Roman soldiers could compel citizens to carry their gear for a mile, but to avoid abuses of the citizenry, no further than a mile. A citizen inconvenienced by the unavoidable obligation ordinarily didn't have any recourse. But to carry the gear for two miles could cause trouble for the soldier with his commanders, and turn the power dynamic from the soldier to the citizen.

Likewise, Baker turns her punitive community service into an eloquent witness against the war and the government and invites people who see her to question further the wisdom of the alleged leaders who got us into this mess.