Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
I wasn't at Crawford, so I don't know exactly what went down. But I have a lot of background of watching "Peaceful Protest", from the Free Speech movement at Berkeley on through the whole Vietnam era. I'll just say that many of those peaceful protests were designed from the git-go to provoke whatever authority was present. The 1968 Democrat Convention in Chicago was the greatest success insofar as wilful and deliberate provocation.*
Given the comments about the makeup of the Crawford LEOs, they may well be easy targets for provocateurs. Generally, in any protest group, you'll find a few who happily provoke, and a good many who are too ignorant of reality and will mouth off at the wrong time.
Now, Austin has had a generally-liberal city council since back in the 1970s. Still, in order to express your ideas, whether in support or in protest, there are procedures to follow to stay out of conflict with law or ordinance. It doesn't require a conservative backwater to find trouble.
To me, it's not an issue of First Amendment rights. It's an issue of following established procedures before expressing one's views. It's not an issue of what those folks at Crawford wanted to do; it's all about how they went about their doings. When you mix ignorance with arrogance, you find trouble, just real quick.
Art
*Just as example of how bad it was in Chicago, the peaceful protestors just happened to have golf balls and tennis balls with nails driven through them, and balloons filled with urine and excrement--all of which were thrown at police. Or I should believe these sorts of items are commonly just lying around a city park?
Given the comments about the makeup of the Crawford LEOs, they may well be easy targets for provocateurs. Generally, in any protest group, you'll find a few who happily provoke, and a good many who are too ignorant of reality and will mouth off at the wrong time.
Now, Austin has had a generally-liberal city council since back in the 1970s. Still, in order to express your ideas, whether in support or in protest, there are procedures to follow to stay out of conflict with law or ordinance. It doesn't require a conservative backwater to find trouble.
To me, it's not an issue of First Amendment rights. It's an issue of following established procedures before expressing one's views. It's not an issue of what those folks at Crawford wanted to do; it's all about how they went about their doings. When you mix ignorance with arrogance, you find trouble, just real quick.
Art
*Just as example of how bad it was in Chicago, the peaceful protestors just happened to have golf balls and tennis balls with nails driven through them, and balloons filled with urine and excrement--all of which were thrown at police. Or I should believe these sorts of items are commonly just lying around a city park?