The duplicity accusation is excusable for people who have never faced trying to voice dissent with urgency. You want to play the game by the rules? Go apply for a permit to march with a message of peace in a pro-war parade. Have the organizer tell you no. Hire a lawyer to write him a letter, threatening to sue if you are not permitted to join the parade. Receive his lawyer’s response. No. It’s a private affair, you are not invited. Have your lawyer write another letter, citing the legal precedence in parades in other cities that were sued successfully for discriminating against minority views. Receive another formal reply calling your bluff.
Okay. File papers with a court and sue the organizer. Six months, a year. Maybe win, maybe with a conservative judge, you lose. Take it all the way to the Supreme Court even. That used to mean that the nation’s best minds would apply themselves to serve justice. These days it can mean that George Bush is declared winner of an election he stole.
Meanwhile the war in Iraq, the cause in dire need of your message, rages on.
The courts do not favor the voice of dissent. Anyone who wants to run the battle for freedom of expression through the court system has money to burn, has a delirious notion of the nobility of our judicial system, and is completely out of touch with what the dissenting voices are raised against: injustice and bloody-murder.
The helpful citizen who wants to tell the eyewitness to a mugging that he must regulate his cries for help according to local noise ordinances is very plainly a jerk, and quite possibly a criminal.
Were we trying on St Patrick’s Day to call attention to the crime of war-making? Absolutely. Were we trying to change anyone’s opinion? Naw. We were crying out to the 70% of Americans who want peace and may be timid about expressing it. If you are among those who don’t think a crime is being committed, get out of the way unless you want to be counted an accessory to mass murder.
To all the bored readers out there….you’re welcome!
“If you are among those who don’t think a crime is being committed, get out of the way” ….
Roughly translated to “If you aren’t for us, you are against us.”
Hmmmm… Sounds like President Bush’s initial statements when he launched this war. Or should I localize this to sounding like Dobson when years ago he declared Colorado Springs as the Gettysberg for Armageddon in the Gazette.
NMT has digressed from open blog to take one side or none. Or was it always that way?!?
Either way – I will follow exactly as this column suggests, Get out of The Way. Please Eric, I have emailed removal of my name as “Official” Contributor. I would like to see this request honored.
Peaceably, and for once, promptly.
Yes, that’s exactly what you do. I would rather stand in a court room in an Ann Taylor suit of my own choosing than sit in a foxhole with my daughters wearing an ugly t-shirt.
Ironically, standing in front of a judge is what you’ll be called to do now. However, you’ll be defending your right to free speech, charges of duplicity and the issue of police brutality. And the little ol’ war in Iraq will go on and on and on….
I say poor planning on your part should not constitute an emergency on mine or anyone else’s.
Ann Taylor suit = courts serve the affluent
ugly t-shirt = peace unfashionable to same
charges of duplicity = not charged actually
the little ol’ war = unfortunate choice of words
not constitute an emergency = [little ol’ war] I guess not
everyone courts the affluent in politics. so why rag you for having attire. everyone is tired – and needs more rest than rampage.
if my matchstick has power it’s only to light another cigarette, and defuse. i thought “lil o war” was sarcasm, like “little old disease” and “little old massacre of the Bill of Rights”.
this incident is serious. a pressure to all. thanks for singing “the ventilator blues”.
if political spartans want better humor they can hire it for sure. kicking volunteers as wit-less will only dry this like a sponge outta water, and yep, it’s always the satirists that get the knife first.
imperialist butter spread can be so easily be called fattening, instead of levity. nice to be back as common-tater, than buttering someone else’s french fry. c’est bon!
i realize we have all bowed our heads even when rowing the boat. i still prefer an either oar than drip anchor. others have right to prefer the hard sail….
emergency is indeed for whom the bell tolls. if they can’t percieve the clapper, perhaps they are Tony-deaf.
(not picking at ya, tony, just an example, ok?)
waving, not drowning. flag. not flog. let freedom ring.