[Peace-discuss] Protesting on Private Property

[Ricky Baldwin]

I agree with John, and would add that...

We should recall that there is a big-big difference
between your front yard and Walmart or the mall:
Walmart, malls, etc. are not a real persons, but
corporate "artificial persons".  They do not have
mothers, driver licenses, obligations to serve on
juries, or feelings that anyone can hurt.  (But they
do have guards, tax breaks, and publicly-funded
construction you or I would never get for our front
lawn.) Nor should we be concerned about their rights -
they are quite powerful enough without our help, thank
you very much, and can well take care of themselves.

Chuck is right, however, that the First Amendment only
says the Government can't interfere with our free
speech and not that businesses can't (though that
right to free speech- originally intended for
individuals- has, by some amazing logical twisting and
turning, been extended to corporations), which is part
and parcel of the problem with "privatization".

Ricky


--- John Fettig <jfettig at students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> * Chuck Minne <mincam2 at yahoo.com>: 
> > This is just my opinion, but I think it is very
> counter-productive to
> > “invade” private property to protest against the
> war. If the point
> > is simply to piss everybody off, then it works
> fine; but if the point
> > is to work for peace by trying to convince
> “undecideds” to our way
> > of thinking, it is a real loser. A mall just
> happens to be private
> > property. 
> 
> While I do agree that most of our efforts should be
> focused on appealing
> to people rather than doing things that cause them
> to hate us, I do
> think that the recent mall arrests and protests have
> been given
> extremely large amounts of press coverage, something
> we could only dream
> about up on north prospect.  For this reason, it
> does have it's utility.
> 
> It has also brought into question the rationale of
> the pro-war crowd,
> when a man can be asked to leave a mall for no other
> reason than wearing
> a shirt that says "give peace a chance".  This is
> good, people on the
> fence will look at this very critically.
> 
> Also, I do think that there are some people you
> cannot convert.  These
> are the ones that will most likely be pissed off by
> a mall protest.
> 
> John
> 
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