Where The Hell Are You, Uncle Tom?
July 19th, 2008
When authority becomes despotic, citizens have an absolute right to resistance. It was exactly this situation that faced the original American rebels, and it is exactly this situation that faces dissenters today. We are in a condition in which the First Amendment freedoms do not work effectively. Citizens have the right to speak, assemble, and protest freely until their actions begin to have a subversive effect on unresponsive authorities. It can be expressed as an axiom: at the point at which protest becomes effective, the state becomes repressive.
. . .
Where this issue arose most sharply in 1968 was in our attempt to obtain permits for marching, rallying, and sleeping in the parks. Nothing should be more routine under the First Amendment than the issuing of permits. This is a normal city function conducted under vague municipal statutes that are rarely tested in the courts. Permits are supposed to be used to arrange and facilitate the expression of citizens’ views, and city officials are supposed to limit such requests only to protect public safety, transportation, and so forth.
. . .
Our case demonstrated the arbitrary political use of permits. It was a casebook example of the difference between real and empty constitutional rights . . . So officials proposed meaningless rights of assembly. They rejected the proposed assembly at the Ampitheater on the grounds of “security” and “traffic congestion.” They rejected the Festival of Life by declaring that during the week of the Convention they would enforce an 11 P.M. curfew as well as local ordinances. In return, they offered a march through the Loop and a bandshell rally during the daylight hours of nomination day. Rennie’s reply was that such a rally, instead of promoting protest, would have underscored people’s helplessness in the face of a great national emergency.
. . .
The government made the familiar argument that we had framed our demands in such a way that they were “nonnegotiable,” that we were not willing to compromise. We replied, in Rennie’s words, that “we would negotiate anything but the Constitution,” and, if that document was suspended in our case, we had what the Reverend Jesse Jackson testified was a “moral permit” to march anyway. We did not want or need a permit to be surrounded helplessly in a bandshell by troops. Instead, we would issue ourselves a permit based on rights that the government could not legitimately suspend under any circumstances.
Tom Hayden – Trial
July 20th, 2008 at 10:11 am
He’s been busy founding the group “Progressives for Obama”.
Considering Obama’s warmonger cred, it strikes me as if Hayden had abandoned the anti-war movement to found Progressives for Humphrey.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Still, you have to admit that he used to be correct about a few things. Like the fact that all the “permits” necessary for exercising rights were issued by the framers, in the constitution.
That’s the law, boys and girls.
Enforcement? By people exercising their rights whether or not they have further “permission” from the police, the SS, Barack Obama, or some lunkhead in the Denver city council.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Mao NOW!!!
July 20th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Blow it out your ass, Mao.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Is it true that Tom Hayden once sucked Bernardine Dohrn’s dick?
July 20th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Spoken like the true Spartacist pig you are, Mr. Fa.
July 20th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Stop trying to drag down the discourse Mao. You’re artless at it.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Ben, would you kindly eject “Mao Now Sez” from your blog? No one gives a damn what it has to “sez.”
July 20th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Is the Trilateral commission or Council of Foreign relations more important in the ranking of the power elite who scoff at the democratic process? The first one is smaller, but maybe the CFR has larger influence by having a larger list of members such as Fareed Zakaria spread out across academia, government, banking etc.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:35 am
Dear Tyndale:
MAO
R
T
And Ben, would you kindly eject “Daisy” from your blog? No one gives a damn what this brainless little twit has to say.
Mao NOW!!!
July 21st, 2008 at 9:04 am
I wouldn’t make it much of it, Hubris. We all sucked Dohrn’s dick at least once. Really. Didn’t you?
And Mr./Ms. “Now,” did you mean the following?
……………………………………………MAO……………………………………………………………………………………………R………………………………………………………………………………………………T………………………………………………
Just curious. But it looks to me like you lifted the chop from Jean-Luc Goddard’s “Sympathy for the Devil.” If so, you’ve got decent taste in films, even if your political iconography is a little stale.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:05 am
LOL! Maybe not, but at least I say it not sez it.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Didn’t work for you either, did it, chez artiste?
This blog must be utilizing what we of the ever-sharpening line once referred to as reverse technology.
Oh well, Maosie-Wowsie to one and all.
And, Daisy-dear, you’re correct for once. Which, of course, entitles you to bite my anti-imperialist crank…
Or Dohrn’s (as you prefer).
July 21st, 2008 at 9:21 am
Maybe we should all just call you Lucifer, ’cause you’re in need of some restraint. Right, Mr. Now?
July 21st, 2008 at 9:28 am
Well, I did ride a tank and hold a general’s rank, when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
Having called me a SPART—of all fucking things—you really ought to work on “Gimme Shelter,” you insufferable little prick. You’re gonna need some if I ever figure out who you really are.
Mark my words, chump, I’ll chain you to Bob Avakian and force you to read passages from The Little Red Book until even he pukes.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:03 am
You can’t always get what you want, Mr. Fa.
But, as we of the Red Guard always say, if you try sometime, you might just find you get what you need.
In your case, I suggest a good, close reading of Mao’s Collected Works.
Or try Zappa’s “No Commercial Potential.”
July 21st, 2008 at 11:33 am
How very patronizing of MNS to refer to me as “Daisy-dear.”
I’m use to it, though. There are a lot of sexist assholes in the world.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Okey-dokey, Daisy, I retract the “dear” part.
Now, how about biting my crank?
July 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
It’s time to bring out the dunce caps.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I don’t want to bite anything of yours MNS, let alone your dope. I am not a doper, but your being one explains the idiocy of your posts.
Ben ought to evict you to the Land of Snapple.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Just stop engaging him. It’s obviously not productive.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I mean… come on… Rolling Stones references? Seriously?
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
That was really arrogant, Daisy. What makes you think this Mao person would be welcome the “Land of Snapple”? Who are you to decide such things? You don’t live here, and wouldn’t be allowed to if you tried.
I bet you helped Ward Churchill kill JonBenet Ramsey and defame to FBI.
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I’m no more sympathetic to this “Mao” character than you are, Tyndale—probably less so since s/he has yet to call you a fucking “Spartacist”—but I’ve really got to ask:
Who the fuck would you prefer we reference? Em-n-Em? Cheryl Crow? Donnie and the Dimwits?
I mean… come on…
Seriously.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
LOL! Blow it out your straw, Snapple.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I just noticed that a wingnut ‘C.S.’ local to California where I currently am just moved to Denver. He’s sure to pop up at Food not Bombs or similar, because unpaid activism is his profession, but his brain is wired so differently that he keeps getting banned from houses and meetings that already have fairly difficult people- he’s listing DNCdisrupt08 as his top thing online right now
July 24th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Hey. “Mao Now” is, obviously, misrepresenting himself to cause trouble with the real Maoists.
July 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Anyone with balls Rama, preferably not in the arena rock super star scene. There’s lots of choices.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Okay, you’ve got my attention, Tyndale. Name six. Hell—who knows?—we might even agree on a couple.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Millions of Dead Cops, Dead Prez, Rage Against the Machine, Leftover Crack, AOTP, Peter Tosh. Shit man, I dunno, the list goes on and on.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Shit. Didn’t I just answer this on another string?
July 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Uh-huh. Thought so. Yours and my responses are also on the string following the Obamanator graphic, Tyndale.
Whatever. What I said there was:
“Right you are, Tyndale. We’re down for the whole list, especially Rage and Dead Prez. How about adding Propagandi?”