Civil Disobedience: A new call to arms.

[lil-petunia]

I had the educational, but dubious, pleasure of dealing face to face with out Homeland Scrutiny Goon squads yesterday.

I came away from the experience with the following thought and growing conviction. Our country is in deep, serious and potentially permanent trouble. The cause? Walking into a public building, Chicago's Union Station Railroad center to meet a traveling friend, I was told that if I took another step, I'd be arrested.

Why? Apparently, some fat-cat politician wanted to use it privately to marry off his daughter. Citizens were not permitted inside. When the handcuffs came out, I asked for his ID. The first Gestapo neonazi SS goon was none too pleased. He immediately called for backup and soon I was surrounded by five black shirted SS Gestapo neonazis.

When I asked to see a court order, permit, or official document permitting the closing of a public building for a private function, their "sarge", a bald, short, smelly, stupid, insecure pile of officious excrement who had placed his body around way too many dozens of donuts in his time stepped into my face.

I was told that this was now a private building. How, I asked nicely, just how did this public building turn into a private one?

“Because," the obese Neonazi Gestapo black-shirted sarge slurred, “I said it was.” Then I asked if it was a private building, what authority does the Gestapo from HomeLand Scrutiny have over it? Another move for the handcuffs, and an order to leave the public sidewalk outside of the building or spend the night in jail. I was sorely tempted to test their authority. I still am.

Protecting private wedding functions on public property has now become a critical purpose for black-clad, Homely Scrutiny troopers. Forget about terrorist threats, open borders, container shipments, or electronic viroids attacking our internets. No, the president has spoken, and you are all far safer without those "rights" thingies that some idiots fought for a couple of hundred years ago.

The Nazis in the 30s lied their way into power, then used violence, threats and more lies to consolidate it, then complete their take over. The "Jewish threat", the France sanctions, the Czech problem, and alleged Polish attacks - these were nothing more than away of energizing, yet scaring their own public.

Today's counterparts? Importing legal drugs from Canada by seniors, (unless it is a flu vaccine); Mexican marijuana smugglers; citizens carrying pocket knives onto airplanes; people wearing t-shirts with the bill of rights to Bush speeches; and much, much more.

Bush and Ashcroft are using slightly more sophisticated tools than Hitler's spinners, with Internet sites, news releases, vague, but serious, warnings of upcoming AQ attacks on our nation, and not so veiled threats from Himmlerites like Dick Cheney, promising that nukes will destroy our cities if Kerry is elected.

For this day forward, I am starting a new political movement, and if those within DU and our democratic party wish to help, please PM me for more info. I am seeking the eradication of the Patriot Act, and the dismantling of HSA. Yes, we need border security, yes, we need to protect ourselves from enemies from without an within, but HSA is neither trained or tasked to do that. If anything, they provide the current administration with "internal" controls, not unlike the black and brown shirts from 70 years ago in Nazi Germany.

Today, we have almost as many internal checks and investigations (Against our own citizens) as the Soviet Union did in its heyday. That is not a comparison that should make anyone proud.

Please join me. We have a lot of work to do. Voting for Kerry is only the first step

[Atman]

1. Good luck

I'm with you, brother. However, I am beginning to wonder whether DU, in the looming shadow of a possible grim reality, is really up to the task. I posted a similar brief essay earlier regarding Corporate Media, and a call to action. The thread died faster than a Democratic sponsored gay-rights bill.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1153665

The rubber is meeting the road. Our rhetoric -- and our resolve -- is about to be tested. Yet, much like the GOP media focused on with whom Mary Cheney shares her poonani, we seem to be focused here on which poll is more fake.

This is serious shit. Be it a general strike, a media boycott, civil disobedience, we need to "wrap our heads around" the idea that one week from Wednesday, we are going to wake up in a very different country, no matter who is elected. I hope we have the collective cajones to follow through.

[Hotler]

4. I think it's going to get worse...

before it gets better. On the way to getting better there will be blood shed in our streets. We are about to enter a darkness this country will not shake for many years.

[lil-petunia]

6. Atman, You and I stand together. If we don't take the first, hard steps

then no one will dare follow us. I plan to take the necessary steps to rid our country of the

Patriot Act,
John Ashcroft
HSA goon squads

and instead work towards safeguarding our country from ALL of our enemies without and within. Those within just happen to be in power at the moment.

[NMDemDist2]

2. good grief n/t

[jdots]

3. question was this encounter witnessed ?

were others subjected to this garbage, was the lawyers guild and a.c.l.u. notified ? It is time for us all to carry some form of recording device to show what is going on.This country was formed in civil disobedience.

[lil-petunia]

7. my honey was with me. She told me she was never as proud as when I

said, "OK, let's see your valid ID and badge number AND show any court order, citation, permit, or other official document that allows you to close a public building for a private function, then threaten citizens with arrest and cavity searches if we question your authority."

I never swore, never raised my voice, but deep inside, this steel bar was being forged anew. I now know who our enemy is.

[Selwynn]

5. Things like this happened long before Homeland Security

and has little of anything to do with that, Bush, Ashcroft of anyone else. How do I know this? Because I've had the similar experience where a local official wanted to use public facilities for his private purpose for a day, and used police to make that happen - in 1995.

If you can explain to me the connection in your story to the patriot act, Homeland security, John Ashcroft or Bush's war in civil liberties that might help me make sense of it a bit more. Otherwise, it seems to me that in this case getting yourself arrested doesn't do anything to create change thought it might make you feel better. Going to the media, local organizations and this officials opposition and making it a political issue would be even more effective. Our mayor went down in flames for that very reason - a couple citizens did not like what he was doing, and took grassroots action to convince a majority in the city that he needed to be recalled, and he was, and later he was indicted thanks to all the attention brought to bear on him by these couple people and their media campaign.

I'm not standing in opposition to civil disobedience, when it is the most effective way to accomplishing a worthy goal. I am however a little against comparing a public official's one day closing of a building to the public so he could have a wedding to Nazi Germany. That kind of ridiculous analogy is half the reason more people don't rally to the right causes. There are *always* - even long before bush and crew took power - people looking to exploit their position. We should resist that in the most effective ways we can whenever that happens - sometimes that will be disobedience, sometimes it won't.

One of the most important things a citizen could do right now today doesn't require a person to go to jail, or go nose to nose with police - that's often the more sexy and exciting scenario, but also often not nearly as important for change as other less sexy things. People who really want to fight the assault on civil liberties, should donate regular sums of money and volunteer their time to the ACLU. Or, if its serious enough to you, find a job working for them or other organizations working to resist these things. The ACLU is having a lot of success in its lawsuits against the USA PATRIOT Act and many other policies of the Ashcroft Justice Department, and yet despite all the talk on the left about how "important" civil rights infringement is to them, so few seem to turn that into a commitment to volunteer their personal time and money to the strong organizations that are really making actual change for the better.

I am a member of the ACLU and a continuing donor, and I volunteer my time locally to work with them and other organizations that are involved in legislative concerns such as Planned Parenthood of Idaho. I would encourage everyone else, in addition to getting yourself arrest because the "evil Nazis" wanted to marry their daughter in a public building, also do the same.

[lil-petunia]

8. I, too, am an ACLU member

The point is not the closing of a public building, but the overwhelming and threatening response from these goons. Do YOU take threats of arrest, body cavity searches and prison as acceptable simply because you asked for ID? With five large, armed men surrounding you and closing in on your space?

I don't.

The problem is it is a symptom of a growing problem. It is NOT an overreaction, but recognition of worse things to come. The changes are subtle, but constant. In our day-to-day lives we accept the sliding scale only because more personal issues take precedence.
As that sliding scale erases, even slightly, more and more of our hard fought freedoms, then we are doomed to failure and tyranny.

[sweetheart]

9. You describe the experience i had before i left the USA

In 1995, in new york city, i was threatened with arrest for using
a public sidewalk against the wishes of a thuggish copper who
"decided" that the sidewalk was closed.

This happened 3 times in a short period, and i was finally arrested
for having my dogs off leash in the enclosed area of battery park
(NYC), where i had been running them off leash for years previously
every day without problem.

I figured it was an omen of things to come, and set about leaving.
Certainly other things influenced the choice to boogie, but
being threatened with arrest for being a private person walking
round public streets.. nazi police state developing.

I'm sorry it has happened to you, in Chicago no less. The police
have crossed the line, and were i dictator, i would radically
dismantle the police state, end the drugs war, and uphold the
absolute civil liberties that once made the country strong.