A sample from around 7:15pm CDT:
Quantico police will really teach 80 yr old @DanielEllsberg a lesson & keep him in jail over night. #CHANGE via web
It is clear the Marines at Quantico are doing what they have been ordered to do. How high up do the orders originate? Who knows... but I'd be willing to make a guess. SHAME on those issuing the orders!
I read somewhere that "80 yr old @DanielEllsberg" has been arrested over 80 times in his activist career. I suppose arrest #81 (or is it #82), for participating in a nonviolent protest, won't make much difference to him. But it certainly makes a difference to me. Totalitarian behavior can never be employed in defense of democracy, and when it rears its ugly head, it can be really, really ugly. Again... SHAME on those issuing the orders!
AFTERTHOUGHT: Whatever you think, don't blame the Virginia State Police who are providing crowd control at the demo. From Humanist on an FDL thread:
The line of Virginia State Police, wearing riot gear for crowd control at the protest rally, held their clear shields in front of them, and each shield had a round, orange sticker saying “Free Bradley Manning” with his profile in black. Wonderful.
Indeed.
Today is the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Baghdad, which means that in a few days, I'll be celebrating the 8th anniversary of the day I went to jail in protest of this shit.
ReplyDeleteI never, never thought it would still be happening 8 years later, no matter how ultimately futile I realized my protest turned out to be (I was one of the 7 million dismissed by Shrub as a 'focus group').
My thoughts and feelings right now -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Manning, Libya (but not Bahrain or Yemen, funny that) -- are so confused. I genuinely don't know how to feel about any of it.
Well, except for royally pissed off and ashamed.
As soon as I have my nurse's license, I may bunk off to England. Or New Zealand.
Constance, I'm amazed that Austin's police arrested you, and Houston's didn't arrest me. We (mostly Amnesty folks) "occupied" Mecom Fountain in the middle of Main Street for many weeks before the start of the Iraq war. We were harassed plenty, but never by the police... Freepers (and I mean quite literally Free Rxpublxc folks) attempted unsuccessfully to provoke us to fisticuffs, but the cops never did more than escort us a couple blocks to our cars when the demo was over, arguably for our own protection.
ReplyDeleteWe should never have gone to Iraq. There was never a basis in fact for any of Shrub's "reasons." Afghanistan was a predictable quagmire, but America seemed determined to follow in the misbegotten path of the Soviets, who learned about that quagmire the hard way. Obama has managed not to invade Iran, but who thinks bombing Libya is going to help the people there? We could bomb northern Africa, the Middle East, etc., all to no avail.
I am exasperated but powerless now that votes do not seem to affect the outcomes of elections.
Ours was a big march through downtown Austin, and we had a permit, so APD closed down the street where we planned our die-in in front of CDC Cyncorp's building on Cesar Chavez (here's irony for you -- they closed down the street but charged US with obstruction of a roadway). Even if they hadn't been inclined to arrest us for that, two events pushed them into it:
ReplyDelete1. The spontaneous, utterly disorganized and chaotic protest on the Congress Avenue Bridge two days before. Neither the impromptu protesters nor the cops who responded to it had any idea what the hell was going on, so it ended in tears (literally -- the protesters got pepper sprayed).
2. About a dozen of our marchers decided at the last minute -- at least, that was their story -- to chain themselves across the entrance to the garage at the Fox News affiliate. They got nailed for trespassing.
"Totalitarian behavior can never be employed in defense of democracy" That's first delusion I shed during the Oakland police riots and Kent State.
ReplyDeleteMandt: except in Wisconsin, Ohio and (insert next domino here).
ReplyDeleteMandT - nonviolent protest without violent response is becoming ever more rare as time goes on. Kent State never really recovered; I have a friend who attended there.
ReplyDeleteConstance - point taken, no doubt about it. FWIW, Kent State is in Ohio. And MandT is not a single individual but a couple who (unlike Stella and me) post under one name. See adgitadiaries in my blogroll; I think you'll appreciate what they bring to the discussion.