Because my cartoons in the union’s monthly newspaper leading up to a teacher walk-out, my teaching profession had been threatened as the word was passed on to the Union President that if I did not stop my cartoons that made them look as foolish as they were acting, the Los Angeles school board would begin the process of having me terminated.
I refused to censor myself. The Board backed down as I had called their bluff. The union won the strike that year.
While some may have the luxury to read long explanations of purpose and take the time to weigh pros and cons on any issue once they have grasped them, everyone, even the illiterate can understand even the most complicated topic if it can be reduced to a cartoon that can be quickly taken in and just as quickly inform the viewer.
Brevity being the soul of wit, the shorter the verbiage on a sign or T-shirt, the better when showing up for any type of protest or rally as onlookers are not there to read long explanations but do want to know what it is all about. Carrying a sign with some paragraph long statement on it is less effective than a one sighting, one shot, almost instantaneous understanding of the basics of the issue.
Most dedicated sign makers make their signs eye-catchingly clever and brief, generally tending toward humor as the event they are attending is serious enough and, as people are capable of repeating a joke after hearing it once, a clever picture or a witty bon mot stays on the viewer’s’ mind and easy to repeat.
The downside is that if the sign is powerful enough, the bearer faces the backlash from those who disagree and, in my experience, this backlash can be either loud, angry verbal expressions of opposition or physical attacks that end with the sign destroyed and the bearer physically hurt.
Such an assault as this is illegal, and the victim, at least, has some degree of assurance that the fear of the law might limit physical attacks.
Did you ever get beaten by the standard Southern Baptist Convention’s leatherbound Bible in Jesus’s name, and I mean physically not quotationally attacked?
We already have Republican led states making it legal for a motorist to run down protesters without any consequence, and this doesn’t just mean they were in drivers way when traveling that route, but allows a person to go out of their way to drive to a protest to run some protesters down.
Last summer BLM acted on and demonstrated against another one-too-many killing of unarmed Black person by the police, demanding what policing has become be re-evaluated and revamped as needed to become what it should be.
In spite of over 93% of its demonstrations and marches being extremely peaceful with the remainder being a mixture of mild pushing and shoving to, apparently, throwing cans of soup and burning property like they think they are at some post athletic championship game celebration, Republicans, having nothing positive to offer to make us a better country, a country the purpose of whose constitution exists in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” paints BLM as some terrorist organization with a sinister agenda, equal rights and equitable treatment for all residents, and ANTIFA, more of a philosophy with no structured organization, as the homeland’s version of Al-Qaeda.
During the Trump years when the present leaders of the “Movement” came of age, any objections to laws, proposed and passed, that moved the country away from being a rich cultural salad, had to contend with an administration with a bend toward white nationalism and a stacked justice department that would toe the company line with all manner of verbal gymnastics to get the task done.
Things have changed, and fearing loss of power and the loss of a Me-maw’s apron to hide behind, the GQP is working as fast as it can to encode their odd views into law.
Ignoring the statistics where in a race to be the most violent and destructive, the America First, MAGA crowd wins hands down, among other reactionary laws to deal with nonexistent problems while ignoring real ones, Republican led states, most recently Florida, are enacting “anti-riot” laws that grant civil immunity to anyone who decides to drive a car into protesters who are blocking a road, and makes the destruction of a plaque, memorial, painting, flag, or other structure commemorating historical people or events a second-degree felony.
Iowa and Oklahoma passed similar bills granting legal protections in certain situations for drivers who hit protesters supposedly blocking the street.
- Indiana Republicans have proposed banning anyone convicted of unlawful assembly from holding state employment.
- A bill in Minnesota bill would bar people convicted of unlawful protesting from receiving unemployment benefits, housing assistance, and student loans.
- Kentucky’s State Senate passed a bill that died in the other chamber that would have made it a crime to use derogatory and angry words directed at a police officer if they cause the officer to react violently and that the perpetrator must be held in jail for a minimum of 48 hours. its lead sponsor has said he will refile the bill next session.
This last will be interesting If there are any organized protests on the day of the vote if it does come up again and shows the possibility of passage.
Clearly the threat of being killed with no consequences to the murderer is a not too subtle warning not to gather and exercise a First Amendment right.
The same fear of free speech, but in a new guise.
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