First Amendment Blues
You may or may not have heard of the trial of Cecily McMillan in the New York City courts. She was arrested for assaulting a police officer and after a skewed trial that suppressed video of her treatment by the police and suppressed evidence of the “assaulted” officer’s history of violence, was found guilty on May fifth. She and several hundred Occupy Wall Street protesters were at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan enjoying St. Patrick’s Day 2012, voicing their first amendment right to peacefully express discontent with Corporate and Wall Street’s ownership of the country. The NYPD descended on the park and arrested seventy people, including McMillan. When a plain clothes police officer grabbed McMillan from behind grasping her right breast she instinctively elbowed him in the face, not knowing who was grabbing her. She was then taken down and beaten by several police officers. She lost consciousness and went into seizure. Her next sensation was the feel of rubber tread on her face from the floor of the city bus commandeered by the NYPD to transport the arrested, then an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, finally regaining full consciousness in a hospital where she was handcuffed to a bed.
I can’t help but see the law arbitrarily administered in a pattern of selective processing of crimes against the state. Cliven Bundy can spit in the eye of the federal government, encourage threat of violence by “patriots” that point high powered rifles at federal officers and be considered a hero of the FOX proletariat and the darling of the libertarians, but simply voice displeasure with the oligarchy and Wall Street and there is hell to pay. This disproportionate treatment of citizens pointing out the real injustice of the system is more of a threat to the power elite than clowns like Cliven Bundy.
Our Military/Corporate/Financial/Legislative/Judicial fixed system knows full well it can put down any NRA-worshipping-white-supremist-crackpot-patriot-militia-revolution in a heartbeat with its vastly superior fire power and a well trained army of a million and a half, but a revolution of thought is much more dangerous to the status quo.
Think about it. When a twenty five year old un-armed woman is considered enemy number one, but Cliven Bundy gets away with what he got away with, we should be alarmed. There is a general distrust of government on both the right and left. Well deserved, I say, but that distrust has different origins for different reasons. The right/libertarian is concerned with government intrusion on their rights to own guns, their freedom to exercise bigotry and poison the planet. They resent laws that restrict those pursuits, yet, for example, feel laws that restrict women’s rights are just fine and dandy. So, government bad. The left/progressive doesn’t like the government because the government no longer represents the people. It is owned and operated by Corporate and Corporate’s lobbyists write our laws. The Corporate death-grip on our lawmakers creates an environment that perpetuates that very death-grip. So, government bad.
The difference in these two divergent rivers both ending up in the same ocean of discontent is that one is the direct result of corporate influence and the other is not. One plays into the desires of corporate domination and destruction of our planet’s limited natural resources and the other does not. One is fear based and intellectually stifling and the other encourages the use of imagination and exploration of possibilities to pursue that happiness touched on in our Declaration of Independence.
The arrest, prosecution and conviction of Cecily McMillan is just one more example of the mockery of due process in our brave new world of corporate rule. Journalist, Chris Hedges, interviewed Cecily McMillan at Riker’s Island prison in the Bronx. In his article he states a thought provoking statistic that 8,000 non-violent Occupy protesters have been arrested but not one banker or investor has gone to jail for causing the 2008 financial meltdown, not to mention the armed Bundians walking around scot-free, with not so much as a slap on the wrist! Where is Eric Holder in all this? As Mr. Hedges states, “The disparity of justice mirrors the disparity in incomes and the disparity in power.”
What is going on in this country would have been impossible only a few decades ago. The headlines today read like a cross between Pravda and The Onion. “Designated first amendment areas”, it is a crime to protest on federal land, the militarization of civilian police, corporations are people, money is speech, and completely counter to the United States constitution the NDAA provision that the military can arrest civilians and hold them indefinitely without habeas corpus or due process, etc. etc. Orwellian doesn’t begin to cover it.
There is a concerted effort to muzzle any serious dissent by groups like Occupy Wall Street. A very effective means of neutralizing dissent, shy of lining people up and shooting them, is to turn dissention into a crime as the state has done with Cecily McMillan. Being an intelligent and focused activist and advocate for social change and economic fair play she is just the kind of person viewed as a threat to the current pathocratic paradigm. To silence her, all that is required is a trumped up charge, a conviction, a bit of time in jail and probation. If she steps out of line, aka exercises her first amendment right to protest guaranteed to us all in our bill of rights, bingo-bango-Bob’s-your-uncle, it’s off to jail she goes. Mission Accomplished.
Well, that is exactly what happened May 19, two weeks after her May fifth conviction. She was sentenced to three months in jail, five years probation and in a surprise surreal judgment right out of the old Soviet Bloc playbook, ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Not only has she been silenced, the state has put a special personal stigma on her to further devalue her potential effectiveness as an “enemy of the state”. Welcome to Pathocracy.
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Alex Symington
Alex lives with his wife, Anna in Key West, Florida. He enjoys writing poetry and prose and making the complacent uncomfortable.
More from other sources:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/they_cant_outlaw_the_revolution_20140518
Thanks for covering this depressing outrage. I sent $50 to her legal team, which was about $2,000 towards its goal of $5,000–trivial sums when up against the power of a demented state.
Alex, your article is succinct and very well-written. It’s magnificently put together. I’m in agreement with many of your ideas.
Of concern, are the generalizations and characterizations that you make within your column. It doesn’t bode well for an individual with your brilliance and intellect. The name-calling is beneath you.
When you go off on a tangent denigrating individuals that you are in disagreement with, your accuracy and credibility are diminished. Some of the descriptions attributed to the people that you dislike, are simply not true.
Alex, your thoughtful and valuable contributions are appreciated. My awareness of the issues have been advanced and enhanced because of your diligent submissions. Thank you.
mr symington i fully agree that cecily mcmillan’s treatment is an absolute abomination.
however suffice it to say you have not an inkling when it comes to the makeup of a libertarian….and it takes 12 inklings to make 1 clue. you have a very long way to go sir.
🙂
I really have been trying hard to refrain from commenting since our communication has not been exactly free-flowing in the past but I do have a couple questions I hope you can answer Alex… Why would a jury of 12 find Cecily guilty of assaulting the police officer and secondly, what sort of punishment would you propose for the “Bundians”?
And I truly wonder if you were a juror on the Eimer’s trial what your decision would be. Scary thought.
Sister, are you aware of the violations of the First Amendment against peaceful demonstrators and other instances of police behaving badly in this country since the creation of Homeland Security and its militarized police?
Re juries: are you aware of the number of false convictions that have been overturned since the advent of DNA testing? While DNA has nothing to do with the issue at hand, it does point to the frequency of juries being WRONG.
There is also the issue of the police officer grabbing her breast, which is, unfortunately, he said/she said.
And then there is the matter of the outrageousness of the charges and the sentencing. If I were a more awake version of you, I’d be concerned about the erosion of civil rights since W. Bush.
WANKAJM: From what I see in this country Libertarian is a far right movement that is perfectly delighted to cooperate with the current corporate takeover, or haven’t you noticed who’s funding you?
duggo: libertarian is a philosophy of being as tea party is also and both are staunch constitutionalists. ron paul and his following as an example surely are not funded by the banker/corporate machine.
if believing in our constitutional republic and liberty and justice is ‘far right’ then i’ll be the first to confess us ‘libertarians’ are guilty!
however i know better then to play the right/left game of smoke and mirrors.
but i do suggest you dig a bit deeper into libertarianism and i’m sure you will find it has nothing to do with the fascism of todays ‘corporate takeover’ since it is diametrically opposed to the corporate/government combo.
Duggo, my concern is that no one seems to be holding the JURORS responsible for Cecily being sentenced to prison. She was obviously defending herself against violence initiated against her and has bruises to show as evidence. The JURORS or “we the people” are the ones who found her guilty. That’s what I would like to discuss. And I would also like to know what crime Mr. Symington and those who “think” like him believe Clive Bundy is guilty of. Why the hell does he or anyone else need to pay the federal gov. for cows to eat grass?
And by the way, an armed society is a polite society. Check Switzerland.
Here’s a quote I heard the other day concerning “progressives”…”Bombs and drones will break people’s bones but only racist remarks will hurt me”…William Grigg interview on Boilingfrogspost
Sister, if someone you admired on the right told you the sky was brown, you would go outside and see it as brown in spite of its obvious blueness. You have, as they say, drunk the kool aid. What remains to happen to you is for you to actually risk something in the world and find out the system doesn’t work for you. Quoting William Grigg is proof enough for me that you are clueless.
Duggo, I won’t bother to be offended by your remarks. You’ve addressed none of my concerns which only emphasizes the lack of responsibility “we the people” have chosen to assume.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23865-cecily-mcmillans-law-of-love-suffers-us-injustice
So, according to this article “All in the courtroom knew the jury’s verdict was in doubt because the trial was a manipulation of the jury, not a true opportunity to find the facts that occurred on the night Cecily was arrested.” So, the jury was in the courtroom too, right? And Cecily was in the courtroom too, right? But, no one except me apparently, puts the fault of the verdict on the jury even though everyone knew the the facts were being manipulated. What ever happened to reasonable doubt? Yeah, I guess I am clueless.
Oh that’s right, I forgot. Reasonable doubt only works when people like Casey Anthony and the cops who stood trial in the Kelly Thomas case are obviously responsible for murder. Oh but it’s not the jury’s fault these murderers are walking the street. They did the best they could, poor things.
One hopefully last comment on this issue…Both people referred to in Mr. Symington’s original article were defending their rights. Cecily was defending her right to gather peacefully in a park. Clive was defending his right to not have his property (cows) stolen. Clive and his “Bundians” were armed, also a human right which is reiterated in the US constitution. Cecily was not. Clive is sitting comfortably in his home. Cecily is in a jail cell. Where would you rather be?