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 This is what happens to protesters who use
a drum at Baywalk (IE req'd. Video: Len
Schmiege)
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Interestingly enough, the police omitted the quasi-arrest procedure part from their flyer. That would be the procedure where anyone spotted with a pair of rhythm sticks would be surrounded by no less than five of St. Pete’s finest, escorted to a cruiser and detained prior to receiving his or her ticket. They also neglected to warn people who drove by and honked their horn in support, about the $75.00 fine they would receive in exchange for their First Amendment rights.
We are not making this up.
There really are motorists who were stopped and fined for honking in support of Saturday night’s anti-war demonstration. There really are at least three people who were stopped, searched and fined for tapping rhythm sticks together. And this really isn’t 1984, or some feudal fiefdom deep in the heart of post-plague Europe. It’s 2005 on a warm summer day in St. Petersburg, Florida where on any given Saturday, your average taxpaying citizen can observe the many ways in which law enforcement can be utilized to defend them against stuff like…oh, say, the Constitution, for example.
Undeterred, protesters used their hands, their bull horns, and their voices to simulate musical instruments. Dancing and chanting punctuated the three incidences of police intimidation. The First Amendment Chorus serenaded Baywalk patrons, cops and media alike with parodies of “Jingle Bells”(How was I to know; Free speech is a crime Everywhere we go; Now I’m doing time; When I’m outta here; I’ll be free to talk Unless I’m somewhere near; St. Pete or Baywalk) and “This Land is Your Land” (We’re fine in this spot; Just not in that spot; Or was it that spot? Uh, no I think not. I’d ask directions, but they won’t tell me; Which space belongs to you and me).
The Radical Cheerleaders kept the crowd energized throughout the night while several errant soap bubbles provided by the mysterious Revolutionary Bubble Brigade, strayed deep onto Baywalk property, apparently ignoring attempts to confine them behind the barricades. At one point, during the third rhythm-stick related detention, the police shut down vehicular access to Baywalk. We are pretty sure the economic impact to small businesses that resulted from this totally capricious action by the authorities won’t be mentioned by the press or acknowledged by Baywalk’s landlord, Sembler Co. Perhaps the police assumed that Baywalk patrons would find the flashing blue lights and metals bars lining the sidewalk more attractive for consumers. Perhaps they thought that the sight of a uniformed authority figure patting down people in the middle of the road would add to the upscale Baywalk ambience.
Then again, perhaps they were just confused by the bubbles.
It is important to understand how completely arbitrary the laws in this country are. Those who live in poverty have always known this. It is hypocritically applied to those who don’t support the existing power structure and blatantly disregarded when it stands in the way of the CEO feeding trough. And it is the little things that we’ve dismissed as “not our problem” that lead to corruption, oppression, war and imperialism.
Every time we have seen the law exercised, instead of justice, and not opposed it, every time we have seen one group of people marginalized at the expense of another and not spoken up, every time we have been tempted to overlook an act of petty tyranny in our own streets, we have allowed the power machine to crank up a notch. And the failure to respond to these issues (issues that affect others, but not us) is what puts us in the position we’re in today…typically that position is spread-eagled against a police cruiser being searched for drumsticks of mass destruction, while meanwhile, on the other side of the world, thousand of innocent civilians are struggling to decide if they should risk being shot to death at a military checkpoint in order to merely feed their family. There are no Baywalks in Baghdad, and shopping in Iraq is now an exercise that may cost you your life.
So the fight for free speech will continue at Baywalk on Saturday nights. And this one stretch of public sidewalk will continue to be utilized to express opposition to U.S. wars and imperialism. We must remain energized, focused and committed to send a clear message to those who would put profits before people, and that message sounds something like the old popular protest chant, “The People, united, will never be defeated.”
Please add your voice to ours next Saturday.
(And unlike the state, we welcome all dissent)