Trampling Free Speech
By Nigel French
The next day, the War Resisters’ League planned to march from Ground Zero to Madison Square Garden, where they would conduct a die-in. Two hundred of their number were arrested before they could begin their action; those left pressed on regardless. At 28th & Broadway, their path blocked by the cops, they lay down in the street. One bystander, a Republican perhaps, chose to mock their civil disobedience. Ice cream in hand she lay down next to them, reclining luxuriously on the tarmac, a big grin on her face. When she decided she’d derided them enough, she got up to leave. The cops, who by this time had formed a tight net around the protesters, pushed her back behind their cordon and she too was arrested. I wonder how she’ll be voting in November.