League of Bill of Rights Voters | Keeping the Bill of Rights as the law of the land

Occupiers In Union Square

And Thoughts On Cop-Fishing

For the past few nights, Occupiers in New York City have successfully held on to Union Square, a new encampment without tents or tables. The NYPD has responded in its usual heavy-handed fashion, and the Occupiers have also escalated, taunting the police in various ways. Some Occupiers have even been “fishing for cops” by dangling donuts in front of their faces from home-made fishing poles. This isn't a kind or respectful thing to do, and I personally wouldn't do it. But these Occupiers have seen the NYPD savagely beating their friends and comrades again and again, and under those circumstances their lack of respect for the police should surprise no one.

Criticism of Occupiers for engaging in this type of psychological escalation is hypocritical. The NYPD has inflicted violence, intimidation and repression on Occupiers for months. It might be regrettable that not all Occupiers can respond to this with saintly patience and a sweet demeanor, but it is certainly understandable. On the first few nights of the new encampment, the police stayed away and there were no problems at all. Now that the police have started coming by every night to harass the Occupiers, the Occupiers have responded with chants and drumming, leading some to complain of the noise.

If you want Union Square to quiet down again, call the NYPD and tell them to stop interfering with freedom of assembly. The bill of rights says nothing about permits, nothing about “free speech zones.” What it says is “shall not abridge”- a phrase that remains completely unambiguous no matter how many authorities say otherwise.

Spirit of '76

It's Not American to Revere Authority

Back when this nation was started, the principle of revolution was understood and accepted. Thomas Jefferson and other revolutionary leaders stated quite clearly that the people had the right to overthrow an unjust government. More importantly than the opinions of a few elite “Founding Fathers,” the American people in general understood this principle. The American Revolution didn't start when the Continental Congress put George Washington in charge of its army.

It started two years before that, when ordinary people in organizations like the Sons of Liberty and Committees of Public Safety literally drove every single representative of British government out of the New England colonies through direct action.

That is the legacy of the American Revolution, and that is the historical origin of the constitutional right to freedom of assembly. The framers of the Bill of Rights wanted to provide Americans with an ironclad guarantee that they would always be able to peaceably assemble for a redress of grievances. The alternative, as they were well aware, was that the people would reject and overthrow the government.

Now we're hearing that Occupiers are being arrested, intimidated and threatened just for exercising that constitutional right. But instead of banding together like their revolutionary forefathers would have done, many Americans are either apathetic about the repression or openly supportive of it. The rebels of 1776 would not be proud to see this kind of slavish respect for authority. Nonviolent direct action is not criminal- it's patriotic. The founders of our nation would unquestionably have agreed.

Oakland PD- A Not-So-Shining Example

If You Want Respect... Try Respecting The Laws You're Enforcing

It looks like a judge is on the verge of taking over the Oakland Police Department, after the Oakland PD's brutally incompetent approach to the Occupy Oakland protests demonstrated just how out of control this Department really is. Oakland PD is so contemptuous of law and order it seems to have actually made a point of promoting officers found to have committed acts of brutality. In the Oakland PD, committing a crime doesn't get you arrested. It doesn't even get you fired. What it gets you is a nice new job and a pat on the back.

Of course it isn't smart to antagonize a police officer, but then again it isn't exactly smart to antagonize a Blood or a Crip either. Occupy Oakland has not behaved with conspicuous “respect for authority,” that's true... but what legitimate authority can the Oakland PD claim, when it conducts itself without any respect for the law or even common decency?

No city can expect its residents to respect the police when the police are not expected to behave any better than common street thugs. A police force like that isn't even a police force- it's just a street gang, the largest and most dangerous street gang in the city. This particular street gang seems to exist primarily to do the bidding of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, but that does nothing to increase its moral authority. When the Oakland PD begins to enforce the law rather than trying to just throw its weight around at every opportunity, then and only then will its officers be in a position to expect respect. Under current circumstances, an Oakland Police officer might well inspire caution, but it's the type of caution you would show toward any dangerous and unpredictable person, not the respect you might show toward a “peace officer.”

HR 347

Yes, It Really Does Criminalize Protest

It has become the standard practice of Democratic legislators to pass sweeping new pieces of authoritarian legislation, and then to breezily deny they have done anything of the sort. So if your Democratic Senator or Congressman tells you that HR 347 doesn't criminalize protest, seek out some other source of information. The wording of the law is perfectly clear:

Quote: “Whoever knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so;”

Interpretation: If you enter any area the government doesn't want you to enter, which can be as large an area as they please.

Quote: “knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;”

Interpretation: If you conduct a “mike check,” chant, or do any form of civil disobedience.

Quote: “knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds;”

Interpretation: If you participate in a human chain or do a sit-in in front of the doors.

Quote: “or knowingly engages in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds;”

Interpretation: If you brick a window. I don't think bricking windows is or ought to be a protected form of protest, but that doesn't mean you should get ten years for it either (see below).

Quote: “or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).”

Interpretation: If you attend a Direct Action meeting where a protest is planned, you can be punished even if you don't attend the actual protest.

Quote: “(b) The punishment for a violation of subsection (a) is a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if ‘(A) any person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or ‘(B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section 2118(e)(3);”

Interpretation: if you do a mike check while carrying a pocket knife, they can throw the book at you. If the cops beat you up, they will nearly always try to say you assaulted them, so if they do that you could potentially get ten years for the crime of getting beaten up by cops. (Although, to be fair, that's not the intent here. It's just what they will end up doing with it!)

Quote: “and ‘(2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case...”

Interpretation: Mike check? Go to jail for a whole year. Chant in front of the wrong building? Go to jail for a whole year.

Quote: “the term ‘restricted buildings or grounds’ means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds; of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance...”

Interpretation: This law will criminalize mike checks, chanting, sit-ins or other forms of protest at Presidential speeches, speeches by major Presidential candidates, and at any large event such as the G8 in Chicago this May, in any area the Secret Service chooses to designate as forbidden. Since they can easily choose to declare entire sections of the city to be within the forbidden “no free speech” zone, the law will allow the criminalization of all but the most toothless forms of protest. It is clearly specifically targeted at Occupy, and any legislator who says otherwise is lying.

Corporate Prisons

The "Land of the Imprisoned"

Crime in the United States has been dropping for years, but the percentage of incarcerated Americans just keeps going up. In fact, despite our slogan of being the “land of the free,” we actually imprison a higher percentage of our own population than just about any other country on Earth. Sometimes North Korea beats us for that dubious distinction, sometimes not.

So why do we lock up so many of our own people? Conservatives are sure to argue that violent predators belong in prison, but most of these people don't fit that description. The real reason we imprison so many people is not that America is teeming with violent criminals, but that the prison industry is just that- an industry.

Many of our prisons are privatized, and the companies running those prisons openly advocate for new laws and new crimes to send more prisoners their way. One company even had the gall to tell the state of Florida it would only build a new prison there if Florida promised to keep it ninety percent full at all times. Even where the prisons are not privatized, communities still see them as sources of employment and revenue. Many prisons require prisoners to work for virtually nothing, allowing the prisons to profit from slave labor.

Privatized prisons should be outlawed immediately, prison labor for profit should be stopped, and we should stop locking people up unless they represent a threat to others. Until these things happen, we will never be the “land of the free.”

March Against the Suppression of Occupy

February 28

On Tuesday, February 28, Occupiers all over the United States will march to demand an end to the campaign of suppression against the Occupy Movement. This national action will be centered on New York City, but Occupiers in many other cities will march in solidarity.

Our leaders and politicians have loudly proclaimed their support for democracy in other countries, while suppressing democracy here at home. They have chided and lectured other countries for their record on human rights, while using massive displays of force to deprive us of our human rights. This hypocrisy must stop.

The corporate media runs ridiculous propaganda pieces posing as insightful commentary, asking if Occupy is “all washed up.” They always neglect to mention that our camps were broken up by armies of riot police, armored from head to toe, shooting people with rubber bullets and bean-bag rounds, filling the streets with clouds of tear-gas, throwing flash-bang grenades into crowds of unarmed people.

They also neglect to mention that we're all still very active, and that the only reason it might seem otherwise is that they no longer cover our actions unless they have no choice. By remaining silent these two points they make one thing clear: they are active participants in the attempted suppression of our movement, acting in the interest of their corporate owners.

On February 28, let's give them a story too big to ignore, by gathering in massive numbers across the nation and demanding our rights. Let's refuse to be silenced!

Occupy Oakland At City Council

Speaking Truth To Power

If you want to be inspired, check out this video. Oakland City Council just tried to make it illegal to protest anywhere in the city without getting a permit in advance, a foolish action that would only have guaranteed repeated clashes between the police and Occupy Oakland. Members of Occupy Oakland came out to speak truth to power- and did they ever!

The first speaker is not only an Occupy Oakland activist, but the former chairman of the Black Panthers. What's that you say? You were told that Occupiers were all privileged white kids with time on their hands? Well, I'm sure that's not the first time you've been lied to. We're expected to bow and scrape and speak very softly when addressing anyone in authority, but this Occupier isn't playing ball. She tells the Oakland City Council what they don't want to hear, and all they can do is sit and take it.

The second speaker is an Occupy Oakland medic, and she speaks very forcefully about police violence- “I won't say you've got blood on your hands, because I do- I'm the one mopping it up!”

The City Council ended up backing down on this, but plenty of cities have laws about protest that are even stricter.

Judges and constitutional law scholars might want you to believe that permits are consistent with the First Amendment, but the wording of the Constitution is perfectly clear- they aren't allowed to “abridge” our right to peaceably assemble. What does “abridge” mean? It means to change something. I don't see anything in the First Amendment about needing a permit to assemble, so that's a clear abridgment and carries no legitimate force of law. Occupy Oakland needs no permit- the First Amendment is the permit!

To Know Is To Act

If You Aren't Fighting Back... You Must Not Get It

It is my sincere opinion that “to know is to act.” What that means in the United States right now is this. Either you understand that our most basic liberties are under attack and in danger of disappearing, and you are fighting against it with everything you've got, or you don't understand it, or you actually support it. If you accept the premise that the military detention provisions in the NDAA represent an immediate threat to American freedom, there is no excuse for not being involved.

Of course, the media has done everything within its power to obscure that fact, using the method of “false objectivity.” False objectivity is when they report a fact in such a way as to make it sound like a mere opinion, thus weakening or discrediting it while maintaining the illusion of neutral and objective reporting. Here's an example: “protesters claim that the NDAA will allow for the military detention of American citizens.”

That's not a mere “claim” by a handful of overheated protesters. It's a simple fact. Reporting it as a “claim” is just a form of propaganda. When you buy into that propaganda, you are being fooled- but at least if you're being fooled, you have that much of an excuse for not fighting back.

If you aren't fooled, though, no excuse is possible. You're busy, you have other obligations, you're worried about the potential consequences- all those things are true for most of the people who are involved right now. If you sit back and just watch them take our freedoms away, you will regret it bitterly when it is already too late.

The Land of the More Free Than North Korea

Hey, That's Something... Right?

“The Land of the Free”... that's what they call it. Only we're not quite as free as the forty-six other countries ahead of us on the annual list put out by Reporters Without Borders. We're not quite as free as Taiwan or Botswana, South Africa, Ghana or Hungary. We're not as free as El Salvador or Slovenia. Are we as free as Tanzania or Portugal or Uruguay? No, sorry, we're not. Lithuania, Niger or Slovakia? Unfortunately, no. Mali, Poland, Surinam or Namibia? You guessed it.

We're a little bit more free than Haiti (they're at 52, we're at 47) but a lot less free than the Czech Republic (14), Estonia (3) or Finland (#1!). We are considerably more free than North Korea (178) but that's cold comfort, especially when you've always been told you live in “The Land of the Free.”

So why do we rate so low on this scale of journalistic freedom? According to Reporters Without Borders:

“The United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.”

We were at 20 on the list just last year. Not good enough to merit the name “The Land of the Free” (that title should obviously go to Finland) but maybe good enough for “a land of the free” status. Except for one little thing.

Until Occupy Wall Street started in the fall of 2011, American liberties were going largely untested. They were basically just hypothetical. As soon as we actually tried to use those freedoms, our government reacted with violent fury, revealing our previous spot at number 20 to be what it always was: a terrible lie. Even our spot at number 47 is more of the same. If OWS had responded to police violence the way Egyptians have done in Tahrir Square, the police would have murdered hundreds of us- and the corporate media would have said it was justified.

Freedom, in the “Land of the Free,” is increasingly defined as the freedom to sit down and shut up.

“Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011. Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous. The equation is simple: the absence or suppression of civil liberties leads necessarily to the suppression of media freedom. Dictatorships fear and ban information, especially when it may undermine them...” (Reporters Without Borders)

Riot Police Try To Intimidate Student Protesters

"Protect And Serve"- Well, Who Do You Serve?

Take a good look at the picture attached to this blog. That's the University of California Riverside's response to a non-violent protest of its own students, each of whom is going to go into debt for many years for the privilege of going to school there. The sight of all those protesters expressing their opinions must have just terrified these big burly riot police, because they kept saying “stop advancing on the officers” even though nobody was advancing on anybody.

That's what the Bill of Rights has come to in this country. Instead of real cops who protect and serve, we have cowardly mercenaries armored from head to toe, quivering in fear and preparing to unleash unrestrained violence on an unarmed and unthreatening crowd of innocent people. I'm not using such harsh language because I have contempt for police. Putting yourself in harm's way in order to protect your community is an honorable profession, and that's why society gives police officers extra respect.

But not for this. America prides itself on being “the Land of the Free,” and those words either mean something or they don't. We have the right to free speech here. We have the right to free assembly. When a police officer chooses to participate in an attempt to crush these freedoms through violence or intimidation, he stops being a police officer. He becomes a simple thug, hired by corporate power to protect its interests. That kind of behavior is worthy of nothing but disdain. You might think you just have to follow orders, but you don't. If your superiors tell you to go out there and beat up protesters, or even just to threaten them, you are being given a moral choice: refuse the order and retain the honor of a police officer- or else accept it and become a thug.

Pages