[thechat] protests?

[Erik Mattheis]

I'm aware that that the number of total arrests is in the thousands, I 
used "hundreds" in my statement "Hundreds of people in various US 
cities have been arrested for legally assembling and asserting their 
First Amendment rights in an orderly and peaceful manner" because I 
don't know what proportion of those arrested were arrested for breaking 
the law, or for just being there.

Examples are in Chicago, where police trapped groups of hundreds of 
people, some of whom may have been breaking the law, others of whom 
weren't, and arrested them wholesale.

In SF, police beat a protester with a baby on his shoulders (after 
grabbing the baby) after he asked his wife to toss him the baby bottle. 
Apparently there is video of this.

In DC earlier this week, people were arrested for refusing to leave a 
public park because of a new ordinance that says park police can close 
the park if there's more than 25 people in it: in other words, your are 
limited in exercising free speech in as a group is limited in that park 
at the whim of the park authorities.

Regarding the thought that tying up traffic, etc isn't productive: the 
point is to make a disruption. If you don't you're just preaching to 
the converted, which is great, but making a statement to non-converts 
and forcing people generally in the anti-wart court fully into it is 
great.

The Minneapolis police actually helped us do this yesterday: we had a 
permit to assemble outside of the Federal Building, but not to march: 
yet the crowd of 2500 spontaneously marched off into downtown rush hour 
traffic after the someone suggested it on the PA system. What happened 
afterwards was confusing, but later I found out that the police held 
back the people in front until they got five squad cars to lead ... six 
blocks of people walking through rush hour, through the south of 
downtown and back to the Federal Building, at which point an additional 
2500 people had joined the group. I myself saw a few people get out of 
cars that were being held up to join; plus others coming out of office 
buildings ... it was very cool.

On Friday, March 21, 2003, at 03:17 PM, Hugh Blair wrote:

> Counterpoint:
> Maybe not all, but most arrested were violating some law. If they
> weren't, the justice system will free them. Protesting should be
> a right, and a right thing to do. Breaking stuff shouldn't be and
> isn't. Hassling some office worker trying to get to work - to feed
> their children etc. - doesn't help the cause one little bit.
>
> Those "hundreds of people" are really thousands. But that's not the
> point. You characterized them as "legally assembling and asserting
> their First Amendment rights in a orderly and peaceful manner." and
> that's where we differ. Those arrested would not fit that mold.
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