Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, was arrested at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial for…..dancing. The video below shows footage from this weekend of peace activists being violently arrested by police for dancing. A small group of them were given warning that they would be arrested if they danced, but when asked what law they would be breaking, the officer would not say. At one point, the officers told a handcuffed activist to “shut up,” and he replied, “you can’t shut me up.”
The level of brutality is shocking considering they knew they were being video taped. One man was tackled, another body slammed, and it looks like they were searching Benjamin’s pockets while she was sitting down handcuffed. Judging by the incessant shouting and righteousness of the police officers, it’s apparent that they felt they were doing nothing wrong. Check out the appalling video below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8jUU3yCy3uI&w=560&h=349]
As a free people we need more of this kind of oppression and suppression of our Constitutional rights …. once we get pushed hard enuf against the wall , we’re sure to fight back and win decisive victories in a new struggle to create a true democracy. But it wont happen easy or come without a price.
May 30, 2011 at 3:49 pmRania:
I found this:
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2011/05/appeals-court-no-dancing-allowed-at-jefferson-memorial.html
Thanks to Jason Leopold’s Twitter feed. As you might know, Jason is deputy managing editor of Truthout
May 30, 2011 at 4:01 pmThere has been more suppression and arrest of demonstrators, activists and whistle-blowers under this administration than any prior.
Figure that one out.
May 30, 2011 at 5:32 pm@Mark: Totally agree, in order to wake up a sleepy, drugged and dumbed down population, you need a huge wake up call! Lets hope it happens before its too late!
Naomi Wolff talked about the 10 steps America has to take in order to turn into a fascist state!
May 30, 2011 at 6:15 pmMustafa:
Do you know who Sinclair Lewis is? He was way ahead of Naomi Wolf.
May 30, 2011 at 10:36 pm. Qo Ekamutn Internetum internet bisnuess dproc@ iskapes bacarik hnaravorutun er boloris hamar . Ays mi qani shabatva @ntacqum mez aynqan proffesional ev kazmakerpvac kerpov matucvec nor informacian ,vor Internet bisnuess ashxarh@ darcav miangamamayn harazat vayr indz hamar ev es patrastvum em hastatvel ev sharunakel aystex. Bolor nranq ovqer derevs tarakusum en masnakcel nor sksvox daserin te voch ,es mecaguin patasxanatvutiamb ev vstahutiamb erashxavorum em ,masnakceq ev dzer arjev kbacven nor drner ,hnaravorutunner ev iharke amboxjovin nor giteliqner Da dzezanic shat ban chi xli,ev ardunqum inch kunennaq anhamemateli e linelu !!! Mi hapaxeq !!!
May 22, 2012 at 7:16 amI watched this video… and if your going to speak out or protest.. make sure you know the basic ordinances… especially those observed for Federal Holidays and in Federal Facilities. As someone who has family members who have fought and died in every war/conflict in this nation.. going all the way back to the Revolutionary War, I’m offended that they chose to do this on Memorial Day.. which is a day set aside to remember and thank those that gave us the rights we have. I’m all for free speech, but I’m not for stepping on the feelings of others so I can be heard over everyone else. What they did on this day, is rude and thoughtless. But then, I guess it’s not “their” father, mother, brother, sister… or husband that didn’t make it home. I guess they don’t know about that knock on their door. I guess they don’t know what it feels like to have someone you love leave and you have the very real knowledge that they might not come back. Yes, those who died chose that.. but if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have our freedoms.
May 30, 2011 at 9:39 pmI’m not sure I agree with you there Elizabeth. Dancing was done because it was absurd that it would be an arrestable offense no matter when it happens. Furthermore, there is NO better way to exercise your freedom than to dance on a Holiday. Also, they asked what ordinance was being broken by dancing and got no reply – that’s total crap. Additionally, what they did was in no way disrespectful of the holiday. Wouldn’t you agree that the absolute worst way to honor a veteran is to allow the freedoms they fought and died for to get taken away anyhow? To let them die totally in vain? And this does not mention that fact that wars are arbitrary in the first place – those veterans died for profit first and freedom second.
You need to check that self-righteousness and understand what it is that you just saw.
May 30, 2011 at 10:15 pmAs a Veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq, I could not agree with Ned more…
May 31, 2011 at 9:54 amAs a Veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq, I could not agree with Ned and Gregg H. more…
May 31, 2011 at 9:55 amI am a veteran and I disagree. Protesting wars that are based on lies and really should not have happened is remembering our veterans. Protest is one of the rights that many of served our country for. My uncle died in the Bataan death march in the Philippines in WW II and I am sure he would not be upset if I had taken to the streets in protest of war in Afghanistan/Iraq on Memorial Day. The Iraq war was planned by Bush long before 9/11 and was based totally on lies and had nothing to do with defending our freedom. Bush was so busy planning the Iraq war he failed to act on the intelligence reports warning of 9/11. He also failed to pursue the war in Afghanistan and Bin Laden. We have committed war crimes in Iraq and now it is happening in Afghanistan. Lybia and Syria may be next and the folks that lose in all of these wars is the soldier because soldiers NEVER win. So protesting war is honoring the soldiers if it stops their lives from being wasted in wars that have nothing to do with defending our lives.
May 31, 2011 at 1:00 amThe step of this process involves violent reaction to the police, enforcing laws we never supported and were thrust upon us by the farce of the “War on Terror.”
May 30, 2011 at 10:10 pmI find it interesting, that because I was offended.. you call me self-righteous. If you don’t agree with laws, then fight them with the law, change them.. it happens EVERY day. No, I don’t agree, and I’ll tell you.. they wouldn’t agree either. These dead who sacrificed have ONE day a year for people to come together and mourn them. It’s about respecting them.. a day of silence/prayer/etc. We promise to remember them. Do you even know how Memorial Day started? Who started it? Why they started it? If you want me to get self-rightious.. you have “no” idea just how self-righteous some of you people sound. You expect everyone else to sit and listen to/read your opinion and put them down when they dis-agree. Yet, when someone simply states that they are offended, you jump down their throat. Pot/Kettle much? How about: Disturbing the Peace, Public Nusance? Just for starters. Soldiers/Marines don’t fight for profit… most of them can’t even support their families. They don’t choose wars/conflicts. THEY do it for “us”, for their families and friends. You don’t like the wars, then take it up with the politicians and leave the Soldiers/Marines out of it. They take an oath and they mean it. They keep their word.. and once in.. they don’t “get” to have an opinion. And by the way… a “peacefull” demonstration.. also means being peacefully arrested and not yelling and screaming at the officer, or jumping them… you defeat your purpose and loose sympathy. Just so you know.. I clicked on this link because the headline shocked me, I was prepared to be pizzed at the officers.. but the behavior of those protesting/demonstrating.. ruined it. They made fools of themselves and accomplished nothing. If your going to do something, make it count.
May 30, 2011 at 10:33 pmWe really can’t can’t change laws anymore. Nor can we can’t fight the politicians. Ever since “Citizen’s United” got a SCOTUS approval, we’re totally irrelevant. And that wasn’t passed because they wanted to screw us over, it passed because we actually don’t matter anymore. The biggest money-maker there is, is money itself. Since corporations have the real money these days, they will survive just fine without having to hear any one of us out – we both need need one another but they have a huge, huge edge on us, starting with being our employers! Money buys influence in marketing and campaign power – it’s simple math. As for profit, come on now: War is the most profitable industry ever – I’m not talking about the vets themselves. Is it not a little weird that now we’re basically in perpetual, endless, un-winnable wars? It’s not crazy to consider – control through chaos – especially if you can press enough people down into poverty and manipulate their prejudices. So, I can’t agree that respect for our veterans shouldn’t come with a degree of public scrutiny over why we’re going to war, since it seems painfully clear that the system is being played from the inside. This concern doesn’t reflect the veteran or his worth, but the reasons for sending that veteran to war in the first place.
Though I missed what you make as a fair point in your first post – and agree that it’s best to pick your battles. This incident might only add to police pressure and okay, memorial day might not be the best time to protest, but it seems like it’s part of an evolution – the patriot act was just renewed and that’s sketchy stuff. Once under scrutiny, I expect that a logical representation of the public mindset will sort itself out.
May 30, 2011 at 11:56 pmI don’t expect anyone here to agree with my opinions. Not one of you. I “DO” agree that our 1st Amendment rights as well as others are being stripped at an alarming rate. However, I think we should be smart about what we do, and make everything count and work in our favor. I also, don’t think that other people who have given so much, deserve to be dis-respected and used for this purpose, doesn’t look good. It looks selfish, self-serving, and the people who “need” to pay attention… won’t.. it will only fuel their fires to make things more restrictive. You have to “give” respect to earn it.. it’s not a given, or a right. Work smarter.. not harder… and sensationalizing things.. doesn’t make them important. Just my opinion of course.. and we all have them. I “do” respect yours.
May 30, 2011 at 10:38 pmNo one will agree with you cause you are wrong. There are Vets on here that you are trying to talk for, telling you that they were in wars and say you are wrong. Memorial Day is not for Mourning, if you want to sit in a hole and cry because someone you cared about was killed in a war then go head, but the people you are crying for would defiantly not like what you are doing in their name. Memorial Day isint for mourning, it is for celebration. Celebrating the lives that were givin up for this country and for our freedoms that our governments are now taking away from us. So if you wanna be pissed at anyone, be pissed at your governments, because they are the ones that are taking away freedoms that your loved ones fought and died for in the mud and blood of battle have no meaning and in turn died for no purpose.
May 31, 2011 at 1:21 pmElizabeth,
myself and all Veterans know what it means to miss our fallen brothers and sisters. We do so EVERY single day and in many cases night; however, as soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, we are all given orders that we must follow whether we agree with them or not and unfortunately, many of those orders now days are illegal. Why else has our government not joined with most of the rest of the world in being ratified under the Rome Statute and the ICC for true oversight and transparency? Because our government will have to be accountable to the rest of the world for their actions, but they can’t do that as they’d not be able to continue to commit war crimes and have to be accountable. That is THE only reason they are not ratified in such a capacity with the rest of the world under the ICC. Bush and many others would go to jail, as a result, and, you can bet, the capitalists aren’t going to let that happen if they can help it. Furthermore, throw in the removal of Habius Corpus, which untold numbers of our brethren fell fighting for so that American citizens had such a right, in addition to all of our rights that the capitalists are trying to remove on a daily basis under the pretext of the war on terror. If we lose our rights, every single person who has died fighting for such rights death will have been in vain. As a Veteran who has sworn to protect my country and its citizens against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC, such will not be the case on my and others like me watch. That is how I pay tribute to my fallen brothers and sisters who have died as a result of illegal, non-sanctioned by congress crimes against not only America, but humanity as a whole.
May 31, 2011 at 3:45 pmNo I dont but will check him out, I know that there are many people who are way ahead of Naomi Wolff, but was just giving an example, she gives a simple outlook to how a police state is formed, though we know things get a lot more complex! But thanks for the reference!
May 30, 2011 at 10:43 pmThere are people like Noam Chomsky,
Then you have other people like Stephen Lendman , Paul Craig Roberts, Webstar Tarpley and these other intellectuals, you may disagree with some of thier views but they have a great insight on what America is going through and how its turning into a fascist police state. You also have radio show hosts like Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura explain these things as well. You can find these people all over the net. And most of what they say makes sense.
May 30, 2011 at 10:49 pmCannot wait to see those cops faces when THEY get busted! And also the cliams for damages against those innocent ppl.
And I thought the UK was becoming a police state, you guys across the pond got thet shit down to a fine art. God Bless America.
May 31, 2011 at 9:32 amWow, I didn’t know that police officers can arrest you for no reason at all apparently. I’d hate to be epileptic or have a sensory issue which prohibits me from standing still. Remind me to never go there and have Michael Jackson in my ipod because I can’t help myself. GEESH This is rediculous!!!!! All I can say is this country is so screwed up right now.
May 31, 2011 at 10:03 amNon vi e8 alcun beneficiario della gurrea, ma gli ebreiAtold gurrea, ma le perdite finanziarie e fisicheAd esempio, la gurrea in Iraq ha prodotto enormi perdite e ha lasciato migliaia di mortiNo alla gurrea, sec alla paceGrazie Yasser
May 21, 2012 at 8:25 pmI’m not at all surprised what the racist police do here is no different to what the USA does to country’s all around the world … Bully’s them.
Disgraceful conduct
May 31, 2011 at 2:33 pmI am really surprized by what alot of people have expressed. I guess my claim to family fame as to what wars my family have fought in would date clear back to when the 1st boat ever hit the shores of this country we now call America, family who fought on both sides. Now with that said I feel as if people have lost sight of the point of what was happening on that clip. There was no loud protesting shouts etc…. they we’re simply talking and a young couple showing affection to one another? And the fact also being that the officers would not provide a “Code” that was being broken. And than to be so brutal with the people? So I do not know about you but I do know that NONE of my family shed blood to allow me freedoms so that I could be made to feel as if I lived in some distant land far from here like say China where free thinking etc… is not allowed. So I ask Our we truely of the home of the FREE and Brave??
My god people wake up, because when they come for you because you we’re lets say holding hands in public or maybe bowing your head in prayer you might see it differently.
May 31, 2011 at 5:37 pmDidn’t this same thing happen a couple of years ago, during the Bush administration?
[googlegooglegoogle…]
Yes: http://dcist.com/2008/04/14/woman_arrested.php
June 1, 2011 at 3:11 amOK, actually reading more about last weekend’s arrests I learned that the protest this year was in response to the court ruling w.r.t. the arrest I linked to above.
Also interesting how different the meaning of “libertarian” was in 2008…
June 1, 2011 at 4:03 am