Mike Ferner, a Vietnam-era veteran, says he was arrested at the Jesse Brown V.A. Medical Center in Chicago for wearing a Veterans for Peace T-Shirt.

... the V.A. cop came up to me, Officer Adkins, and said, “Okay, your 15 minutes is up. You gotta go.” And I was kind of startled and asked him what he was talking about. And he said, “Well, if you're wearing that shirt in here, you're protesting.” And I said, “Well, I’m sorry. I’m not protesting. I’m having a cup of coffee.” And as the conversation continued, I vainly tried explaining some Supreme Court decisions to him about, you know, people's right to wear what they want to wear on their shirt, and that this should be no problem. And he was adamant and said that, “Well, if you don't leave right now, you're going to get arrested.” So I just looked at him, and I said, “Well, arrest me.”

And he was glad to do that, and then cuffed me and took me over to the security room at the V.A. center there, and they booked me on disorderly conduct...

I could have had a shirt on that said, you know, “Nuke ‘em back to the stone age!” or any one of a number of things, and there would have been nothing said...


http://www.democracynow.org/article..../07/06/1349239

Well, serves him right, really. What did he think he was doing, wearing a peace T-shirt. Didn't he know that El Presidente and the Fatherland should be defended at all times?!

Oh, you're right. Damnit I wish I had thought of that before I put this thread up.

Fucking pig. It's a T-shirt, not one of America's many weapons of mass destruction.

I'm wondering now, is it legal to arrest and beat wowsers and dolts now?

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amazing.

Cops take their control on society too seriously and it goes borderline arrogant. Cops are lame.

Is there any sane reason why someone would be doing a one-man anti-war protest at the VA Medical Centre? I'm not 100% clear on what it actually is, so for all I know it was a really controversial and polemic act.

Otherwise, if the context that makes it an anti-war protest is as vague as "anywhere in America", this is basically an admittance that the entire nation exists solely for military purposes, and I didn't think cops were that smart.

The Hall Monitors of Society, they be.

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I just think it's pretty hilarious that a T-shirt promoting peace is seen as a protest. I mean, okay, you're at war, but aren't we at least supposed to be bullshitting ourselves that it's a war in the name of peace, freedom, democracy etc.?

In Bush's dumbassed words, we're in a "war between good and evil." Because, apparantly, anyone who isn't like us (and doesn't like getting bombed for some abstract reason, which mustn't be uncommon at fucking all) is evil.

I have a hard time trusting someone who calls the Pakistani people "Pakis" in an official speech. I mean, Christ! Just call them sandniggers and steal their oil already, why don't ya?

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Nowhere's much better, to be honest. We currently have a prime minister using terms like "false grievances" to describe the concerns of Muslim extremists. Effectively this is a fancy way of saying that nothing they care about matters and that they're just getting all wound up over nothing.

Well, he was on military grounds. (I guess the medical center counts?) But still, he was a vet. If they don't have a right to wear a peace t shirt wherever he damn well pleases, then there's not much hope for the rest of us.

Maybe they're declaring war on animals next?

What's really sad and hilarious is that back when I was still in diapers, the Supreme Court ruled that you could wear a t-shirt saying 'Fuck the Draft,' during a time when people were being drafted. And I think that arrest was on government grounds, although I'm fuzzy on it now (long time since I studied this in school) and didn't look it up. But it's obviously one of the Supreme Court decisions this guy tried reminding the cops of.

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But you know we live in a post 9-11 world. Those old rulings are outdated and should no longer apply. Wearing a peace t-shirt gives aid and comfort to the enemy.

I really wish someone would explain to "They" that yes, 9/11 was a tragedy, but Jeeeeeeeesus, get over it already. I mean yes, lots of people died who shouldn't have, yes it was a terrible tragedy, but look a-fucking-round you! You can't rewrite your laws every time something bad happens; anyone can obey laws when it's not hard and everything's going just peachy, you have them so that, if in doubt, people have some rough idea of what's right and wrong. If you change what right and wrong are every time you have to do something wrong, you can't really ask anyone else not to.

And the usual crap about how many people they've killed in its name, yadda yadda yadda etc.

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

the quote dosent apply directly to this guy.
just makes me think how the whole censorship battle, the FCC, Clear Channel all that proclaim to mostly edit hot words or explicit content, but the real aim dosent seem to be protecting what kids hear as much as keeping adults away from the things assocated with explicit content*freedom of thought*. Thats whats underlying the censorship battle.

We're taught that freedom of the press is the same somehow as freedom of speech for the public. Maybe back in some golden age the press were acting in the public interest, but certainly now, the media's battle with censorship seems largely irrelevant to anyone who wants more than just to be told how to feel about things. The Internet does away with it, of course, because most people are aware that news covering a range of viewpoints is no real substitute for just reading those viewpoints firsthand.

And we thought the Nazis lost the war....

land of the free?