When you think of the reason America’s founding fathers left merry old England, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
Most people will state that it was because the pilgrims consisted of a religiously repressed minority. That they wished to cede from the King’s rules and regulations that expressly 
impinged on the right to practice religion as they saw fit. This, by and large, is correct. But, if one were forced to choose an overall theme of the exodus, it would be that the defectors were protesting the unjust rule over their lives by King George. There’s been a lot of talk recently about what America’s founding fathers intended when they wrote the articles that effectively created our country. Moreover, how relevant that intent is in the modern world and how we should adapt what they have set forth for us to follow. But we should never forget that the initial reason our nation came to be was as a form of protest against an unjust government and direct oppression of the people’s will.
Perhaps that is why I find it so disturbing how many of us have been brainwashed to believe protest is a ‘whiny’ action, initiated by the derelicts of our society who have nutty ideas about how things should work. Here’s an example of the kind of backwards thinking you might come up against in this regard:
Tens of thousands of people would rather turn up at a variety of worldwide concerts about phony global warming put on by that fat hypocrite Al Gore than risk getting arrested in opposition to the Iraq War. What have you got there in Cedar Rapids? 19 people getting arrested in July? Back in February, 11 were arrested.
I can’t wait to hear this kind of media spin on the matter: war protest arrests are up 72% in Cedar Rapids over February!
Like 19 people getting arrested is a big deal. I’m sure a State Trooper could pull over any low-riding minivan on I-35 heading north or I-80 heading west and nab just as many illegal Mexicans in a single stop. [Source].
This is, unfortunately, the stock opinion of persons who wish to smite all possible alternative views with their one-sided world ideal.
First of all, getting arrested for exercising your rights as a citizen IS a big deal. By design, the situation is un-Constitutional at best. It’s one of the many signs that something is very, very wrong in our country. For example, the use of an overtly racist stereotype to justify local police officers willfully violating the civil rights of citizens. Personal ideologies and politics should not excuse the breach of a citizen’s right to protest the actions of their elected representation.
Again, note the perpetuation of the ancient protester meme. What has been successfully sown amongst the public for the past four decades is this: the only people who could possibly be unhappy enough to vocally protest the issues of the day are shiftless, ignorant idealists with no grounding in reality.
Thankfully, this historically popular, elite-class perpetuated fiction is losing ground, thanks to the efforts of groups like the Iraq Vetrans Against the War, or IVAW. Much like the 40,000 strong Vietnam Veterans Against the War before them, the IVAW are a voice that’s hard to silence with standard party-line rhetoric and ‘dirty hippie’ slurs. This is not for lack of trying, as attempts to lump the members of IVAW in with the rest of the dissenting public are taking shape. Take, for example, the incident in which Adam Kokesh was involved, along with Code Pink, in Washington, D.C.:
The Reverend said his prayer, and all the while the police were warning us that, “what you are doing constitutes a political protest and you are subject to arrest.” I had been under the impression that political protest was constitutionally protected, but then we are talking about a Senate building here. Kevin Zeese of Voters for Peace yelled, “Respect the funeral!”
and was arrested immediately. I stood up. The Reverend did an about-face, took three steps, and did another about-face. At that point, I had done what I had come to do, and would have done an about-face and walked away, but we were still inside this perimeter of cops. Then we both stood at the Position of Attention facing each other, and he was arrested. Then one of the cops asked me if there was someone there that I wanted to give the flag to, because I was being arrested. I ignored him and just stood still. Then someone (I kept my eyes locked forward) pulled the flag out of my hands and I dropped them to my sides in the standard Position of Attention. Then I was flex-cuffed and led out the front door to a waiting paddy wagon van. [Source]
Until recently, it’s been safe to assume as Kokesh did that day in the Capitol: that peaceful protest is constitutionally protected. This is no longer the America you grew up in. Assembly to protest, as stated by executive decree, is now illegal. It will earn you at least a misdemeanor, and results in a fine and/or jail time. A constitutional right provided to you as a citizen of the United States, when exercised, results in being processed into the penal system. Welcome to 1930’s Germany.
When you state this simply in public, that this is fact, you will still come up against naysayers. “There has to be a good reason for them to arrest you. They can’t just haul you off.” Nothing refutes this argument better than the story of protesters who, during a sit-in protesting the expansion of a local gas station by planting flowers in the lot, were tasered numerous times:
The two, Jonathan “Slug” Crowell and Samantha Kilmurray, of Dummerston, were part of a small group of people who “occupied” a vacant lot on Putney Road where King’s Bowling Center used to stand, planting shrubs, flowers and even a tree.
The property is owned by Jim Robertson and his family, who also own Cheshire Oil and the Citgo gas station near the roundabout on Putney Road.
Though Robertson has not submitted a formal application to the Development Review Board, he has said he would like to expand the gas station to allow for more diesel pumps and truck parking. He said he also has plans to eventually develop the 13 acres his family owns along the west side of Putney Road from the roundabout to Black Mountain Road.
[...]
Kilmurray was shocked twice before agreeing to remove her arm from the barrel. Crowell was shocked at least five times before he made the same decision. [Source] [Link to video]
No? How about the 74 year old removed from a farmer’s market for selling anti-Bush buttons?
Alan McConnell, who had been selling his “Impeach Him” buttons at the Howard Avenue market for about a half-hour without a permit, lay down on the pavement after Montgomery County police asked him to come with them. After McConnell failed to respond to a request that he “please stand up,” four officers each grabbed one of his limbs and carried him to the front seat of a squad car.
Kensington Mayor Peter Fosselman said previously that he would order McConnell’s arrest if he showed up yesterday at the market. Fosselman could not be reached for comment yesterday. Montgomery County police Lt. Frank Stone said he didn’t know who tipped off police that McConnell was at the market. Stone said McConnell could face a maximum 90 days in jail and a $500 fine if convicted. [Source]
It would seem that as the expression of the populist unrest with our representatives increases, there is equal push from the civil servants put in place to help us. But instead of helping the public speak truth to power, they stifle the movement; squelching the rising tide of discord. And it’s not just the local police we are up against. There’s a very real media blackout on protests that cannot be twisted to serve the agenda of their handlers. Examples are plentiful: the March ‘06 blackouts of the Immigration Protests while the vigilante Minutemen patrolling the border were all but canonized, the complete and willful ignorance of Isreal’s slaughter of the Lebanese, and the consistently biased (if initially existent) coverage of the many protests that happen under our noses all the time.
There is a growing sense that Joe Sixpack just might embrace a class revolution in America, especially when forced to consider the more ’sane’ alternatives. There is a general weariness of all the corruption and abuse of elite privilege in the upper echelons. But without a spark, a solid leader to rally behind, the second American revolution faces a fatal case of scope creep even in it’s infancy. There are so many issues to protest that fragmentation of the movement is not only inevitable, it’s engendered into the very fabric of the revolt.
The people cannot unite unless there is a common banner to unite underneath. This is understood by the forces that wish to keep We the People, the true force of power in America, silent. It makes our jobs as citizens more difficult and potentially more dangerous to our individual well being. But if we good people choose to do nothing, then we fail our forefathers, and disgrace their original impetus, their revolt against tyranny in all it’s forms.
The citizen’s role in democracy is, more days than not, a relatively safe and privileged one. But when the time comes to defend all which makes us the land of the free, we must not allow the threats of the unlawful and the unjust to deter us from our birthright.
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