April 15, 2003
Protesters Sentenced to Write Essays
Ah, the infantilization of criminal defendants by the court system. It seems that two of the first crop of antiwar protesters to receive their sentencing have been instructed to write essays on how to better go about voicing their dissent:
Two of nine people arraigned Monday on violations stemming from Portland's March 20 antiwar protest pleaded guilty and were ordered to write an essay and complete three days of community service.
Community Court Judge Steven A. Todd asked each of the accused, Tina Schneider, a Reed College junior, and William E. Lopez, to explain what they did wrong as he accepted their pleas for one count of disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and improper position upon a highway.
...
The judge told both defendants that they certainly have a right to express their opinions and protest the U.S. war against Iraq. But he asked them to think about how they could get their views heard without breaking the law.
"You certainly have a right to protest, but how could you do it differently so you wouldn't get in trouble again?" the judge asked, requesting that each put their answers in a two-page essay.
Now, community service I understand. I don't have the slightest problem with there being some sort of penality for protest actions which broke the law. On the whole, many people who engage in that sort of protest also understand this as well.
But assigning an essay? What sort of grade school bullshit is that?
It is my sincerest hope that each of these protesters, in the course of technically fulfilling the requirements set forth by the presiding judge, take some of their two-pages to explain to the judge the history of civil disobedience and direct action.
Don't get me wrong. Out of all the various recent protest actions, I personally find riding one's bike into the middle of a highway where there is traffic to be rather resoundingly...silly. Nonetheless, I do understand the spirit of it, and the intent of it, and I hope both Schneider and Lopez attempt to instruct the judge in the long tradition of people willing to break the law in order to make a point.
We can, of course, argue for days as to whether or not either of them actually made their intended point, or whether their choice of action made sense at the time. But that, to me, isn't the crucial issue right now.
More important by far is to educate the court as to the reality -- namely, that one cannot merely be dismissed as an impudent child for knowingly engaging in acts of civil disobedience.
I invite Schneider and Lopez to share with the Communique their essays, once submitted to the court, so readers here can see for themselves how each of them responded to the judge's sentencing.
Comments (2)
Michael Heggen on 16 Apr 2003
Personally, I think that effective CD means ordinary people breaking unjust laws to demonstrate the injustice to other ordinary people, but I realize that others feel that they need to risk arrest--without regard to the justness or unjustness of the law being broken--just to get their point across. But, as b!X wrote, that difference of approach isn't the crucial issue right now.
Perhaps more important than educating the court is the need to educate the PUBLIC that civil disobedience means intentionally breaking the law in order to make a point.
All the same, educating the court can't hurt....
Have the last couple of generations (including my own) slept through high school social studies, or is our nation's long history of civil disobedience (from the Boston tea party to the civil rights movement to the present) simply not being taught?
Oh, but I forgot: history is unimportant. Nobody reads that stuff, right??
David B. on 16 Apr 2003
I think that the biggest problem with the March 20 demonstrations was that there were not nearly enough of them, and with the exception of San Francisco's, they were not very well thought out.
Second point first: blocking a city at the end of a business day and into the evening seems to me to be counterproductive. It disrupts people from being able to get home to their families. Far better to disrupt people from getting in to work.
On the first point, San Francisco was really the only city whose core was actually shut down. Portland and Chicago had some pretty extensive disruption. As far as I know, there was pretty much business as usual everywhere else. If every major city had been shut down as thoroughly as SF was, then there might have been a powerful message sent. But disrupting a few places that are known anyhow as hotbets of left-of-center politics doesn't accomplish much.
I'm just as glad I didn't get busted at 2nd and Burnside (was fighting off the flu, decided to call it a night at ab out 8pm as my throat was getting increasingly scratchy and it started to rain); something tells me that "next time, better planned and more effective disruption" would not be an appreciated conclusion to the assigned essay :-) .