Acts of Civil Disobedience
By Saintless. Filed in Health, Politics of Fear, environment, human rights, politics |
I don’t have time to write out all of my thoughts on this, nor do I have all of the detail in either case. Regardless, my overall opinion will remain the same.
It takes acts like rioting at the G20 and Tim DeChristopher bidding on auctions for our society to get our heads out of our collective asses.
U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman said that, while he recognized people (i.e. DeChristopher) may have deeply held views on government behavior, they should express them lawfully.
Well, see, there’s a problem with that. People like me go to protests and stand around on street corners with signs, and no one gives a shit. We write, or we tell our friends, or we donate to causes, and nothing gets done. And if you look back at the history of the US, it takes people willing to do things that are “wrong” to make things change. And in retrospect, they’re called heroes. So, while breaking windows in Europe isn’t something I can actually condone, I’m glad someone is doing it. And now the press is paying attention, and the world is reacting.
Sadly, it took way too long this morning for me to decide whether the G20 riots and the news of DeChristopher’s indictment were real, or some sad April Fools Day joke. Society needs to wake up, and these people are the only ones who seem to be getting our collective attention.
Tags: G20, Tim DeChristopher
Wednesday, April 1st 2009 at 10:51 pm |
Agree entirely. I wish the best for Tim. When I met him recently, I found him to be an incredible individual – very intelligent and dedicated to the cause. It is a shame that the gov’t comes down hard on these “ballsy” type individuals.
Thursday, April 2nd 2009 at 11:51 am |
Tim DeChristopher, from all evidence, is a person of the highest integrity. The Bush administration was breaking the law, and he did more to expose the crime than all the environmental group lawyers put together. Yet on the rare occasions when someone has to courage and the smarts to pull off a successful direct action, most people can’t see the brilliance of it and just want to lecture about going through channels, being polite, two wrongs don’t make a right, yada yada yada.