Posts Tagged ‘kokesh’

Peace is Better than War

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

War is horrific, costly and ineffective. The only reason it sticks around in such massive quantities is because businesses are making huge profits. Without this trillion dollar institution enabling and proliferating conflicts on an industrialized scale, wars would not persist as they do today.

Fortunately, the Internet is revealing this truth to us. We are coming together like never before and we’ll soon see how unnecessary and unwanted war has become. Gradually, we will take steps to do away with it, like taxing the shit out of the worst of the war-profiting corporations.

Eventually our emerging global society, with priorities shifting towards healing our planet instead of hurting each other, will see the world’s war budgets dry up as a new era of peace envelops our world.

Freedom Danceparty at TJ’s

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

You may recall reading about a group of demonstrators who were brutally arrested for silently dancing at the Thomas Jefferson memorial last week.

As planned, a follow-up demonstration was held today, this time with hundreds taking part. There were no arrests reported, despite large numbers of law enforcement present. Eventually, officers did forcefully disperse the activists.

So, a good turn out with no arrests. Successful protest, it seems. But what can we learn from this?

Well, for one, it shows the power of groups. When Kokesh and his cohorts were arrested last week, hundreds of angry phone calls to the police department ensured a prompt release. These same complaints probably warranted the light touch used by security forces earlier today.

As well, the protest went on mostly unabated because there were hundreds of dancers. This shows that if you want to take action against unjust laws by breaking them, it’s best to make sure there’s a lot of people are doing it alongside you.

And it doesn’t hurt to get it all on video, either.

Dance for Your Freedom

Monday, May 30th, 2011

Earlier this week, activist Adam Kokesh was brutally slammed to the ground, choked and arrested alongside several cohorts, all for dancing at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The group were protesting a recent court ruling that prohibits expressive dancing at national monuments, activism that would have likely been supported by Jefferson himself, who once wrote “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.”

Perhaps most telling of this story is the power of regular people. The police department was inundated with support for the activists and hostility for the arrests, prompting a quick release. While the individual officers might not care about the public, their bosses are likely to make them use more caution in the future.

And we’ll see soon enough as Kokesh has another dancefest planned for noon this Saturday at the Jefferson Memorial. What would be great to see is the police force standing back and allowing the demonstration to go uninhibited, but this is the capital of the United States of Oppression were talking about.

Either way, if you find yourself near D.C. and you’re free on Saturday, be sure to be at the Memorial for noon. If you’re not interested in dancing for your freedom, at least be there, camera in hand, to record the event in case some power-tripping police people decide to beat some hippie skulls.