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TechnoratiA Lesson on Protest From the 1980 Olympics
The hoopla in San Francisco surrounding the forthcoming Olympic torch runner and the promised demonstrations focused on China's human rights abuses reminded me of an earlier Olympic protest against human rights abuses - except those abuses were far closer to home.
In 1980, the Winter Olympics were held in Lake Placid, N.Y. As the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) contemplated housing the large number of athletes, they went to Congress asking for federal money to build temporary quarters. Congress responded that the federal government was not in the business of providing public money for private enterprises, and advised that if the committee could suggest a permanent public after-use, then the money might be forthcoming.
In record time - working closely with the Federal Bureau of Prisons - the USOC came up with their suggested "public" after-use: a new federal prison. Without the congressional oversight that had always been required for such a massive project, Congress appropriated the money, borrowed a blueprint from an existing federal prison complex, clear-cut a large swath of forest between Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, and construction began.
At that time, I coordinated a project from Washington, D.C. ,called the National Moratorium on Prison Construction. Along with affiliate groups, we launched a campaign to focus attention on the inhumanity of using U.S. tax dollars to pay for a temporary "Olympic Village" - complete with discothèque, movie theater, fancy food services and many other amenities - for the 1,100, mostly white, European athletes, which later would become a permanent prison complex of young, mostly black and Latino men from the urban centers of New York City and Philadelphia.
We called our campaign Stop The Olympic Prison (S.T.O.P.), and we designed a poster showing a black arm thrust through the Olympic rings under the slogan, Stop The Olympic Prison ( www.docspopuli.org/articles/STOP/STOP.html ).
Soon, we received a letter from the USOC threatening to sue us for copyright infringement. Instead, we sued the USOC for an "anticipatory breach" of our First Amendment rights. Just before the Games began, a federal judge ruled in our favor, noting that there was little likelihood of anyone confusing our poster with the corporate goals of the Olympic Committee.
But then came the Olympic torch run through the streets of Washington and onto the steps of the U.S. Capitol. On the morning of that Senate-sponsored welcoming ceremony (to which the public had been invited), I arrived with a banner: "Olympic Torch = Freedom, Olympic Prison = Slavery." I stood at the back of the crowd so as not to obstruct anyone's view, and raised the banner.
Soon, a Capitol Hill Police captain approached and inquired if I had a permit to demonstrate. I answered that I did not, but asked if the many others in the crowd with signs welcoming the torch runner had permits. The captain told me they did not, but that my sign was "not in the spirit of the ceremony," and ordered me to put it down.
I replied that I believed the First Amendment protected my speech, and that if he arrested me, I would sue. Again, he ordered me to relinquish the banner. Again, I refused. Two other officers then arrested me. I was released some hours after the ceremony ended, and the charges were dropped. I sued.
While our campaign to Stop The Olympic Prison was unsuccessful (today, more than 1,200 young men are incarcerated there), my lawsuit succeeded. The result may be instructive both for those contemplating how they might express their opposition to the upcoming Olympic Games in China, and for the government that hopes to impose "time, place and manner" restrictions on such demonstrations. In a word, what my case determined is that where there is "no obstruction of pedestrian or vehicular traffic" by a single demonstrator (who does) "not threaten or provoke violence," there is no right to impose the kinds of restrictions allowed on larger, organized gatherings.
San Francisco officials might also want to consider this from the court's decision: "Freedom of expression would not truly exist if the right could be exercised only in an area that a benevolent government has provided as a safe haven for crackpots." (That would be me...) "(W)e do not confine the permissible exercise of First Amendment rights to a telephone booth or the four corners of a pamphlet..."
A word to the wise...
New America Media contributor Michael A. Kroll is the founding director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.
© 2008 Hearst Communications Inc.
18 Comments so far
Show AllTo speak to those who wish to demonise Tibetan monks as a whole:
People are people, in whatever race, class, cultural substrata, you name it. There are good ones and bad ones wherever you go. No different with Tibetan monks. At the same time, Tibet has produced some of the most extraordinary Enlightened spiritual masters of our age in the last thousand years or so--I know this because I've made it my life work to study their life stories, and I've encountered a few of them living today (e.g. http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=EcUqhifbD3o ). And I have many Tibetan monk friends who are the most beautiful of people.
If we choose to have hatred, then hatred is what we'll experience outside and inside ourselves. Whatever faults we perceive in others outside of ourselves are also within us and even more so; by emphasizing them, we only reinforce and enhance the same in ourselves. Much better to have compassion and thus create the capacity for joy. To blame is to sow hatred in ourselves, and in this way we reap all the anger and ugliness and war and human rights abuses in the world, not to mention quite the whirlwind of our own personal suffering. The choice is within all of us to determine what kind of world we wish to live in.
The Chinese (officials) deserve our compassion as much as the Tibetans, if not more so for it is they who will suffer most as a consequence of their acts of cultural genocide in the long view. How we view the olympics in terms of protest can only be in light of this if any action is to be effective. And to demonise Tibetan monks in the context of the above article is about as logically fallacious as it gets, not to mention woefully inaccurate.
Jim Glover - The last 7 years have pulled the curtain all the way open re US Imperialism, so it is VERY hard to protest human rights abuses anywhere. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine takes note that human rights abuse is always a sidebar to economic destruction at play by we Imperialists. Now that we can never again deny how we (I am U.S.) torture, our outcry falls short. Now that our own economic shock doctrine a la Bush wants to privatize everything left, the torture of today makes perfect sense. The athletic part is tarnished. Would have been a great distraction though.
When I question the Olympic boycotters, they never mention the Historical CIA connection of the Monks to USA Imperialism ...they say they are against all human rights abuses.
Well if that is true than I will be waiting for a balanced message on their protest signs that demand ending American Imperialism and Illegal slaughter and spying on Peace protesters also.
I would think they were more honest if their signs were more balanced like: "End all Imperialism, American and Chinese!"
That would be better but I think it is against the spirit of the Olympics to make it an opportunity to argue about anything other than good sportsmanship.
mikepeters,
You should not be surprised (and I am sure you really aren't). The Dalai Lama presided over a Tibetan feudal theocracy before the Chinese invasion. The great majority of Tibetans were serfs who worked for great landowners and elite Buddhist monks. The young boys of the serfs were often forced to join monasteries, where many of them served as sex slaves for the elite monks.
It is strange how US liberals are only too willing to believe the stories about the pedophile priests (which undoubtedly are true) but close their minds to messages of much greater crimes of those they have been brainwashed by the MIC to believe are innocent.
witness,
Useful idiots, aka unwitting tools, are often the last ones to know they have been used.
After reading a review of "Bhudda's Warrior's," which silly me seems kind of contradictory, but is a book about the Tens of Thousands of Tibetan Monks who worked (are working) with the CIA, who "picked up arms and fought," the Chinese....I am confused. I did not know the Dolly llama sanctioned machine gunning people. Or a 50 year running relationship with the CIA. Or Nancy Pelosi.
I smell rotting meat!
Signed, A relativist-Marxist.
You're either with the PRC or you're with the CIA.
You're either with Hillary or you're with the Republicans.
You're either with Obama or you're with the Republicans.
You're either with Nader or you're with the Republicans.
You're either with Bush or you're with the terrorists.
You're either with Hitler or you're with Stalin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Flame
Tibetan Monks? Peaceful? They sure have a long rich history of working with the CIA for a peaceful people.
They have reaped what they have sown.
They are the scum of Bhuddism. Some of their accolytes fleeced my little toWn for $36,000 last month. Snake Oil Salesman W/ their hands out....
But it's that CIA connection, From the 1959 uprising into this millenium, the CIA & the 'monks' have 'worked' together against China......monks? cia? GO PRC!
Kivals, we applaud your effort to demonise protesters against Chinese imperialism.
Today Mr. Kroll would be arrested as an suspected 'enemy combatant' and would not see the light of day again. Just another example of tort reform available to punish those who dare to make unpopular comments.
What this country needs is a few million more Michael Kroll's. Not only for standing up for all our rights decades ago but for bringing this to our attention today.
Thank you Michael Kroll. This information is very applicable to a number of situations and quite useful to have on hand. I am also sending it to my local ACLU office. I'm sure they are aware but you never know what might have been missed or what might come in handy. The "benevolent government" comment ...some things never change I guess. Again, thanks for what you have done and for your continued witness for justice.
Wow! Thank you for this article...somehow all of that escaped my notice in 1980...I had NO IDEA that all happened, and I usually consider myself rather well informed.
I am glad the lawsuit succeeded. I live in SF and love that there is at least an issue this year. I never knew about the prison facility. I need to go back and read some Olympic history. Thanks.
Your article shows how this situation is dealt with in the USA. In China you would not get released after your imprisonment, but rather recycled for useful organs for the aging top dogs.
The greatest power clique, the military industrial complex, of the organization that poses the greatest threat to humanity and which is the perpetrator of innumerable recent and ongoing war crimes, for the most base of purposes, the US government, applauds your efforts to help others to demonize China. With any luck, they will be able to use such efforts to facilitate ramping up military expenditures to over a trillion dollars per year and finally get to developing that next generation of nuclear weapons. Way to go!
What a typically American resolution to the abridgement of the first ammendment rights to freedom of speech:"Sue the bastards!".
Wouldn't it be cool if all along the route the torch takes there was someone to protest, be hassled by law enforcement unconstitutionally, and then to subsequently
"sue the bastards"?
Maybe wuth 5 or 10 similar awards a sufficient body of case law could be developed to put a stop to such nonsense.
nice post padma-thoughtful. mdp.