The Criminalization of Protest

The Constitution of the United States guarantees the right of "Peaceable Assembly" but if a group of people does anything ,more then stand around sucking their thumbs, they will run afoul of one or more local statutes and risk arrest.

This afternoon I dedicated myself to speaking out against a system and a paradigm that is not only unsustainable but threatens the very existence of human kind: the exploitation/extraction economic system perpetuated by the global corporate elite. I spent some time with the incredibly courageous young people of "Occupy San Francisco", a group in solidarity with "Occupy Wall Street" in New York City.

For some time now, Occupy SF has been camped in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on Market Street. Last night, the SFPD decided to act. According to the coordinators of the movement,leaflets were passed out by officers informing the protesters that although the SFPD respects their right to peaceably assemble, they listed six local statutes that the protesters had violated. One was the newly instituted "Sit/Lie" law. This law was created to prevent homeless people from camping in front of downtown merchants and frightening away trade. Now this law might be understandable, although dubious on a moral level, in a city that lives and dies by tourism, but now it has been used to stifle political decent.

The other violations cited also were generally laws that have to do with cooking, camping and food distribution, on the sidewalk that also were created to criminalize homelessness. To me this really pointed up the interconnectedness of all things, how harassment of those on the bottom of the social/economic ladder spreads to the rungs above. The biblical quote of Mathew 25:40 (one of my personal favorites) "What ever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me."

What this means on a secular level is that when one segment of society is repressed, society as a whole is at risk of the very same repression. These "Quality of Life" laws are more and more being used by local police agencies to harass and spread a feeling of insecurity among anyone who wants to stand against the injustices perpetrated by the moneyed elite

This is a direct result of "Corporate Person-hood". Since corporations have been declared to have equal rights to individuals, and money has been determined to be the same as free speech, it is a natural progression that corporate money floods the political system making the civil leadership dependent on it for reelection. Since civil laws are enforced by civil leaders through the police, it is not surprising that the law would be slanted in favor of the segments of society that have the most money.

"Peaceable Assembly" may be protected but if you say anything or do anything while you are assembled, you will likely wind up in the slammer.