Disobedience is not a right. It's not a privilege either. So just don't do it, because it messes with the no-alternative logic of our 2-party system.
When State Troopers finally arrested peaceful protestors for their symbolically violent use of the 1st amendment to speak out for redress of grievances against the government as if that were a right more important than the official closing time of a public building, some of the protestors chose to “go limp”.
Too bad for them that in the halls of the State Capitol, going limp doesn’t resonate with the practice of civil disobedience in historic struggles for justice.
In Olympia, “going limp” isn’t a way to express resistance. Quite the opposite: it’s the posture of reasonable legislative leaders as they acquiesce to whatever the business lobbyists are asking for.
It’s not going limp. It’s going Democrat.
Otherwise, here’s the way Day 1 of the Special Session stacked up.
For the humans:
- A few thousand bodies angrily speaking out against cuts in the crudest anti-blood terms. We don’t want to get all politically correct, but “They cut, we bleed” is an offensive slogan — it sucks, no matter how you slice it.
- Wall to wall news coverage of the issues raised by the budget cuts.
- The clear implication that many so-called leaders of so-called human so-called communities don’t think all is well with the state budget.
For the beasts:
- A few tasings that should leave some delicious grill marks
- A handful of arrests and a smattering of no-trespass orders.
- A curiously timed mic check that delayed the testimony of advocates for human services at a Ways & Means hearing. (The fewer of them legislators have to hear from, the better)
And to top it all off: Ed Murray, the State Senator “representing” the Occupy Seattle encampment at Seattle Central, has already been on TV making excuses for why the Senate won’t do anything! Way to represent Ed!