Six Thugs in Uniform

The problem?

There’s nothing new about it, no new angle or twist that I can spin. And I’ve written about it before—about the absurdity of the Wisconsin State Capitol police telling tourists who are watching the lunch sing-along in the capitol rotunda that they are subject to arrest. Or how about the 80-year old lady who gets handcuffed and led away, still singing away? Or the Vietnam vet who falls on the marble staircase onto his back and his handcuffed wrists? That’s an ouch.

And I questioned before—why are they using metal cuff, or even cuffs at all? When we were all protesting in Vieques, the cops used plastic “cuffs”—really just high-quality plastic bands. Why? They didn’t want any martyrs.

The protests have been going on for a couple of years, ever since Walker and his fellow Republicans stripped government workers of their right to bargain collectively and turned back the clock a couple of centuries on social issues. So every weekday the protesters gather and sing in the capitol rotunda. Here’s a photo taken a couple of days ago.

And you will remember that Walker—via the Department of Administration—changed the permit process from a two-page form to a 25-page document, and declared that any group of four or more people needed to have a permit to meet in the state capitol.

Warning to any family of mom, dad, and two kids—you could be arrested for walking through the state capitol.

OK—a judge, in a preliminary injunction—upped the number to 20, and will rule on the constitutionality of the whole business later. Remember, please, that both the First Amendment of the US Constitution and a similar section in the state’s Constitution allows for the right of people “peaceably to assemble and to petition their Government for a redress of grievances.” So in addition to the regular singers, tourists and interested others can see the group below—wonderfully called “Raging Grannies.”

The Raging Grannies of Madison, Wisconsin, by the way, have a wonderful little website about their group, which is ten years old. Here’s a quote from the site:

We are a "dis-organization" without formal leadership. Each Granny does what she can and we make decisions by consensus. As it says on the Raging Grannies International website at http://raginggrannies.org/, "We are totally non-violent, believe in only peaceful protest (with lots of laughter), work for the 'many not the few' … and see our work as the spreading green branches of a great tree, rising up to provide shelter and nourishment for those who will come after us." That's true -- but we Grannies also want to have fun, refuse to be silenced, and will sing out against those things that harm the planet we will leave to our grandkids.

One wonders—might the Grannies be talked into starting a gentlemen’s auxiliary? Rather the way the Rotarians have Rotary Anns?

There is, I say, nothing new, nothing I haven’t written about; I’m wasting your time here, Dear Reader. Well, wait—the Huffington Post came out with a story, entitled “Wisconsin Capitol Arrest Turn Violent as Police Take Down Protester.”

I suppose this attempt at journalist restraint and “objectivity” should be lauded. Watch the video below, and then tell me—how would you write that headline?

Damon Terrell was not only attacked by the cops, but spent three days in the jug while the capitol police fiddled with the paperwork. And now, he’s been released; here’s the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the subject:

Charges are still possible against Damon Terrell, who was jailed Monday after a violent arrest interrupted a streak of normally peaceful anti-Scott Walker singalong protests in the Capitol rotunda.

The charges recommended by the Department of Administration were felony battery and resisting arrest in an incident widely caught on camera. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said more time was needed at an initial court appearance to decide on charges. 

Don’t know Ozanne, though his grandmother drank coffee with my mother every Friday morning for about thirty years. And reports are that he’s not gonna be too interested in spending his limited resource in prosecuting a guy who was retreating with his hands up before he was tackled.

Though there was a felony committed in the rotunda that day.

Ozanne—you wanna go after 6 thugs in uniform?

Terrell arrest from multiple angles.