Dylan picked up for street walking (Aug 2009)

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking (Aug 2009)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jul 13 - 10:53 PM

Chongo's had problems like this once or twice...probably because of "species" profiling.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Jul 13 - 05:05 PM

Zimmerman on Zimmerman violence...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 18 Jul 13 - 04:38 PM

Lucky he wasn't in Sanford, FL.

Subject: BS: Strolling breaks law in USA?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 18 Jul 13 - 10:30 AM

Don't walk!!

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 07:36 AM

Don, what is national policy in a nation which has certain amounts of state autonomy? Certainly when state's police forces get to violent, the federal government steps in and riegns them back, however, violence alone is not what a police state is all about, it is about control of a society by internal force. As you say 2.3 million in jail is a simptom of a sick nation, but, it is not that there are that many people who need to be in jail, it means abstract force is being used to deal with probles which sould be solved by school and work opportunites... and police are the state arm who to the intitial intake on this problem... but if you are White and Bob Dylan, the chances are that the vehical of this initial intake will not wind you up in jail, if you are part of the race and class the the 2.3 million represent, most likely you will.
Cheers, lor

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Aug 09 - 11:43 PM

2.3 million American's in prison is one of the major symptoms of how sick the United States is. Largely a result of really stupid policies. The "War of Drugs" is about as successful as the "War on Booze" back in the days of Prohibition. You have a cold beer on a hot afternoon and suddenly you're a criminal. And it made a lot of profit for real criminals, just as the "War on Drugs" is doing. You'd think the Powers That Be would learn, but that seems to be a rare thing indeed. Lots of European countries handle this sort of thing far better than we do, but obviously these same Powers seem incapable of learning from the success of others as well as from both the successes and mistakes of our own history.

I never said the United States is perfect, and I'm not making excuses for the many things that are wrong with it. What I am saying is that even though cops can—and do—get nasty much too frequently (give some guys a gun and a badge and they think they're omnipotent), I don't see this as a national policy as it is in some countries.

One should suspicious and stay alert to signs that it may be turning into a police state and be ready to take whatever political action is necessary to pull the plug on it, but the idea of pointing at every instance of a rogue cop—or in the instance of Dylan's encounter, which was merely a case of the police doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing—and yelling "Police state! Police state!" can turn out to be counter-productive in the extreme.

E.g., the story of the boy who cried "Wolf!"

Stay alert. But keep a sense of proportion. And stay cool.

Cheers!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 23 Aug 09 - 09:11 PM

Hi Don:
Seattle has a lot going for it, I am told... however, here on the other coast we do not have civilian police review boards, we campained for them and got, civilian complaint police review boards, a lot of difference, the police looking into complaints about the police... you can imagine.
Racism by state actors is what makes a police state for Black Americans...
Filbertos case is very complicated. He was aquited for shooting at the FBI, as it was proven they had come to kill him the first time. For over 20 years EVERYONE knew where he was, but no attempt to arrest him was made, as there was no evidence against him - he had been held awaiting trial for almost a decade, when a court ruled the government needed SOME evidence, or should try him, but could not hold him awaiting trial forever.
He was exicuted a week or so after the loss of New Orleans, a city lost because of wasted resourses on the "war on terror" and because there was little evidence of progress finding real terrorists in the US, other than arresting lawyers for doing their job... they shot Filberto, to show they were making progress in their war on terror. They shot him because a trial would have not gone anywhere, as they had no new evidence against him. But, it backfired because they did a terrible job of shooting him, it would have blown up in their faces, if it were not for the remarkable apathy of the American people, which is the reason most people don't know how bad it is here. It is much eaier to point at Amadeenajad (eaiser to point at him then spell his name, I can tell you that!) than do the hard work of ending our adiction to prison as the solution to the death of the American dreem.
Don, dear fellow (and I mean that) you still have not addressed the 2.3 million in jail as evidence of a police state
All the best
lor

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Aug 09 - 07:33 PM

Much of what you are describing, InOBU, is racism, and as bad as this is, it does not make the U. S. a "police state."

A police state is when you happen to criticize the government to a friend, in confidence, and that night there is a heavy knock on your door and a bunch of blackshirts haul you off to jail, perhaps never to be heard from again.

I know scads of people who are highly critical of the government, both national and local, have been for years—I'm one of them myself—and they're still walking the streets and sleeping at night with no sudden knocks on the door. Some are average citizens and some of them are pretty high profile. And a couple of them are politicians themselves—scathingly critical of the government and who entered politics so they could attempt to do something.

Without going into detail, I did have some dealings with a couple of FBI agents back in the mid-1950s. They asked me for information about some people I knew (re: possible communist connections—after all, the people they wanted to know about were folk singer friends of mine). I gave them none, other than to tell them that I was sure they were barking up the wrong tree. They thanked me for my time and that was the last I saw of them. Quite polite and businesslike. Considering the spirit of the time, I was neither shocked nor horrified, nor did I conclude that this meant I was living in a police state.

By the way, there's a fellow currently living in the building in which I live who is not being hassled or shadowed at all, even if his name is Mustafa.

And I'm sorry about your friend Rios. I don't know what all was involved there;   I'd need to know the whole story. But it looks to me as if he was in a bit deeper than merely walking through a strange neighborhood at night. Some reports have it that the FBI was trying to serve an arrest warrant for his having been involved in a Wells Fargo depot robbery years before (to finance a Puerto Rican independence movement), jumping bail after his arrest on that occasion—and that when the FBI tried to serve the warrant, he started shooting first, wounding one of the agents before they opened fire. Rios followers, of course, maintain that that isn't true and that it was simply an assassination.

No matter what anyone claims, without an independent, disinterested witness, the truth may never be known.

People tend to believe what they feel serves their interests the best.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Aug 09 - 02:33 PM

I don't think America works. It limps along, badly in need of repair on a lot of fronts.

But just as a point, I get damned sick and tired of people who don't know me making all sorts of unfounded assumptions about what I don't know and haven't experienced when it may very well be that I know more and have experience one helluva lot more than they have.

There are, indeed, instances of police brutality, and uncalled for intimidation by police, and some folks seem to take a fierce joy in zeroing in such instances. But this sort of thing doesn't hold a patch to some things I've heard from people I know who have lived in real police states.

I'm talking about a Hungarian Jew I know who got out of Europe about two minutes before he and his family were about to be picked up and hauled off to a concentration camp. His offense? He was Jewish. Or an Estonian who, not wanting to trade one police state for another, walked across half of Europe with his family when Germany was losing the war and the Russians were moving in. Or Simon, who lived under apartheid in South Africa. Or Ann Nguyen ("Ann" is her anglicized name) who escaped from Vietnam after the Americans left. Or—a long list of people I know personally and have talked to me about their experiences. Including Rolf Holtzman, who was in the Hitler Youth, not a matter of his choice, like, say, an American kid joining the Boy Scouts. He and the other boys (14, 15, 16 years old) were made into soldiers toward the end of the WWII. At their first opportunity, he and a group of other boys surrendered to the Americans. Great life for a kid!!

I could list a lot more. True, I didn't share these experiences, but on the fairly rare occasion when someone in the U. S. gets pushed around, or worse, by a cop, there are such things as civilian police review boards. At least there are in Seattle, and complaints about such incidents can be taken to them, and I know of several situations where individual police officers were either disciplined or discharged as a result of charges brought (such as a nonparticipating bystander getting gratuitously maced by a policeman during the WTO riots). A fair number of "overenthusiastic" policemen were fined and discharged in the wake of the WTO donnybrook. And Seattle's police chief took the occasion to do a fair amount of "housecleaning" in the Seattle Police Department.

Don't make assumptions about what I know or don't know. Because you don't know!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: bobad
Date: 23 Aug 09 - 07:00 AM

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 23 Aug 09 - 05:37 AM

Don, the only difference is, it is thee or me who would be picked up. If we have the largest population in jail, either we are such a corrupt awful place we have to lock everyone up, and we need to take stock, or... well, we... just might be... a... police state.
Just because you don't feel likily to get jailed...

I don't think you are naive, more the shame. You might re-read Gunnar Mydal on White American reaction to racism... the desire to hope it away, accept that these things happen, but they are really not important... see the injustice of other nations as being much worse, and yet, the staggering number of your brothers and sisters in prision seems to be just so much print on a paper.

While we are on the subject of travel, and I have done a bit in my day, I would ask if you ever have been inside an American jail like Rykers, the pit of dispare. The shear size alone is awsome, add to it meeting extended families who recomend you speak to their sister, brother, brother in law, all in this town behind bars. I've been places in America you might visit. But, I assure you, visiting those places without the expectation of possibly winding up there does not do much for the soul.

Living in a racially integrated part of the city wont do it for you Don, live in the part of an American city where there are few middle class whites, live in a project building where basic American rights are set aside... live in the communities described in the times artical above about the criminalisation of poverty... Hell, here in the happy hippy dippy East Village we are as economically and racially diverce as we can get, and as a result, you can think America works. Come with me to do a school concert in Bed Styvestaunt or worse. Do it the way I do, take the subway there, walk, get to know the place, the bars on the school windows with no airconditioning in the summer where it gets over 90 in class and the only airconditioner is in the principle's office... that is race in America, not some well ajusted community where middle class Black Americans are your neighbors, but I would suspect some of them might be able to show you the American police state in their lives all the same.

Knowing about something, and understanding it are very different things, Don. And yes, the American people need to be lectured until we begin to understand the security state, the police state, the loss of basic rights in this country of potential due to the use and abuse of fear, of apathy, in the end as you see in the cost to jail all these people, we all pay the price...

Freedom is not free, it does not take foriegn wars, it takes vigilence and care, and a people willing to speak up in the face of state evil.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 23 Aug 09 - 05:23 AM

Don, I wouldn't argue the US is a police state (which places would you recommend by the way, it seems a sort of rhetorical trick used in this thread a few times without ever coming to concrete suggestions, a bit too nudge nudge wink wink say no more sort of thing. At the end of the day even in pre war Iraq most people, especially the middle classes, are now reported to have lived mostly happy and safe lives much like our own, as long as they stayed away from politics.).

Anyhow, from a distance there are a few things that are notable:

A few years ago a man on a different forum (Chiff & Fipple)told how he was driving through LA, on holiday from the UK, when he was pulled over by police. He got out of the car asking 'can I help you sir?' next thing he was kicked to the ground and had two policemen pointing guns at his head. The universal reaction of US member of C&F was 'you were lucky they didn't shoot you. You never get out of your car when stopped.'

Now, I hear that same undertone in reactions here: 'you do as you're told and don't talk back, otherwise you're in deep trouble', stories have been related here of policemen hassling people into a reaction so they could arrest them (or give them a severe walloping). Anyhow, the general attitude is that of doing as you're told otherwise they'll make things difficult for you.

To be honest, stopping well short of invoking 'police state' this is all very disconcerting to those used to a different state of things.

Mind you, before anyone starts, recent police brutality and treatment of protesters in the UK is equally disconcerting.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 11:55 PM

I'm not naive, OBU, and you don't need to lecture me. I've orbited the sun a number of times, and there's damned little I haven't seen, or at the very least, know about. And I live in a racially integrated district in the city.

Police state? I could recommend a couple of places you might visit if you want to really learn what a police state is.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 10:58 PM

By the way, Don, in point of fact, I covered the war in Belfast in the seventies, one of the most extreem police states on this planet. But, more than that, those victims of this police state hardly make the news, and what is told about them in the press is simply spin and lies. My wife and I sat the other day, totally up how many of our friends died during the Bush years, or were jailed, let me tell you about one...
Filberto Ojeda Ríos was a friend of mine. I miss him. The FBI shot him, through a window, after shutting all the lights in the neighborhood. They did not hit him in the head, as they planned, so they cordoned off the house as he bled to death over a day and a night.
Ask me, ask his wife, ask his friends, those of us who loved him. It is an America, you just are not confronted by, it is an America under the radar of the comfort of your skin and your life. You can even fall out of the comfort of your expectations, get caught with pot, become adicted to pain killers or alcohol, and chances are you will go to what ever level of Betty Ford befits your color and class, but the America I walk within, it is a different story... fall out of the socail contract and you go to jail, or get shot by a state actor or some kid with no expectation of hope.
There are two Americas Don, until you spend time in the other one, don't be so confident it is not a police state.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 10:42 PM

Oh, for those who say race is not an issue in this, the piece goes on to say...
'STATES SPENDING TOO MUCH'

The numbers are also concentrated among groups, with a little more than 9 percent of black adults in prisons or jails or on probation or parole, as opposed to some 4 percent of Hispanics and 2 percent of whites.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 10:39 PM

Hi Don, Methinks those who feel safe in this nation are White. Check out the percentage of Black Americans in jail today. If you would like, I'll post them.

---

The guest above is me again... so here is a bit from the Observer, for you, Don, of the 2%, it is easy not to see America as a police state, but all those "police states" you mention, have a lower rate of incarceration. But, it just is not you, so it is no problem, eh?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One in every 31 U.S. adults is in the corrections system, which includes jail, prison, probation and supervision, more than double the rate of a quarter century ago, according to a report released on Monday by the Pew Center on the States.

The study, which said the current rate compares to one in 77 in 1982, concluded that with declining resources, more emphasis should be put on community supervision, not jail or prison.

"Violent and career criminals need to be locked up, and for a long time. But our research shows that prisons are housing too many people who can be managed safely and held accountable in the community at far lower cost," said Adam Gelb, director of the Center's Public Safety Performance Project, which produced the report.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate and the biggest prison population of any country in the world, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Most of those in the U.S. corrections system -- one in 45 -- are already on probation or parole, with one in 100 in prison or jail, the Pew study found.

Those numbers are higher in certain areas of the country, and Georgia tops all states with one in 13 adults in the justice system. The other leading states are Idaho, where one in 18 are in corrections and Texas, where the rate is one in 22. In the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., nearly 5 percent of adults are in the city's penal system.

This was the first criminal justice study that took into account those on probation and parole as well as federal convicts, Pew said.

'STATES SPENDING TOO MUCH'

The numbers are also concentrated among groups, with a little more than 9 percent of black adults in prisons or jails or on probation or parole, as opposed to some 4 percent of Hispanics and 2 percent of whites.

Pew compiled the report as states consider cutting corrections spending during the recession. The research group said that by changing sentencing laws and probation programs states can lower incarceration rates and save money.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 04:23 PM

Methinks that those here who are howling about living in a "police state" have never, in fact, experienced living in a police state.

Reminds me of the 1960s, when some guy parks his VW bus ("Daisywagon") illegally, gets a parking ticket, then rages and storms for weeks about living in a "police state."

Downright silly!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 04:15 PM

All these examples and opinions people are sharing are describing a system with severe flaws that needs fixed.

You are not describing a "police state" by any stretch of the imagination.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 03:18 PM

Howard - Further to our exchange on here this morning, I would draw your attention as a 'for·instance' to the main report on p23 of this morning's Times, "Students held in anti-terror raid give up fight against deportation". As I say, such reports are now of practically daily occurrence. 'Twas not ever thus!
                              Regards   Michael
                               {Haddenham, Cambs}

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 09:53 AM

Don't feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned (click the magic clicky) even Fred Flintstone gets picked up for walking the streets...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 09:50 AM

See, I am not anti-police, have a look... there are some small advantages to living in a police state, as pictured here... but all in all... the rights you lose you only miss when you need them.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 09:48 AM

Well let's take stock, the first name on the list of religious organisations which are a credible threat to national security, days after 9\11 was the religious society of Friends... should tell you something, the real fear were those who speak truth to power.
The fact that we did not get all these special powers given to government over the decades of right wing terror from Christian Patriots, who are the armed wing of the KKK, should also tell you alot about the theater of security, that is all it is, theater to get you to support a government stripping you of rights.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 09:42 AM

"State of emergency" -- I wouldn't want to overstate it, Howard. It doesn't, I admit, too much [or really at all] effect my day-to-day life. But the police are on a constant state of watchfulness, fortunately for us all. They have special dedicated departments now, to monitor potential terrorist activity: as we gather from the never-out-of-our-papers series of reports of the latest trial of the young man in the back room they have had reports of and found assembling explosive vests, working on toxic recipes, &c — you must admit that such reports have increased exponentionally of late, so that hardly a day passes without some such report hitting the news pages.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 08:48 AM

"I stand by my statement that I have not heard anyone else here express the opinion that we are living in a state of emergency."

Ageed.

As a relatively young nation, and one used to feeling very powerful, 9/11 seemed something of an 'initiatory' experience for America.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Inobu Lorcan Otway
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 07:21 AM

ll this nonsense about threats... "WASHINGTON (Aug. 21) -- Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says pressure from fellow Cabinet members to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election helped convince him it was time to quit working for President George W. Bush."
I live in downtown New York, was present when the events of 9\11 happened, lived through it, and I assure you the greater danger is the theater of fear brought to us by the terrorists who govern this nation. They took a criminal act and used it to terrify a nation into a crime of greater mass murder. We are not living during the time of the Blitz, we are living through the time of the burning of the riechstag.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Howard Jones
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 06:53 AM

MtheGM, I admit I had assumed you were writing from America. Nevertheless, I stand by my statement that I have not heard anyone else here express the opinion that we are living in a state of emergency. Obviously there is a very real threat, and constant vigilance is required, but no one I know believes it justifies the sort of measures which were necessary during the War when there was a real threat of invasion.

I was born in 1954 but I do remember my parents talking about the Blitz. At the height of the Irish Troubles I worked in an office on Old Bailey, London, right opposite the Central Criminal Court. It had blast curtains on the windows, and there were frequent alerts. Bag searches and metal detectors were commonplace all around London.

The present threat is real, and in some ways more dangerous. We shouldn't be complacent, but neither should we allow the government to use it as an excuse to take away our freedoms. If we allow the terrorists to disrupt our way of life, they have won.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 12:01 AM

It is a police state...at times...if you happen to be someone who falls through its cracks or who runs afoul of its abusive power structures. And if you are a prisoner in Guantanamo or any number of other paramilitary CIA-sponsored hellholes overseas (most of which we never hear about), you have no doubt that it's a police state.

If, on the other hand, you are comfy and happy in your little life and nobody's oppressing YOU at the moment, well...then you can just be complacent about it and say, "We're not Nazi Germany, you know!"

No. Not yet. And maybe never. But this isn't a contest which you win by proving that you're not as bad as the absolute worst possible historical example you can possibly come up with. It doesn't work that way. As usual, it isn't a question of all or nothing. It's a question of looking at what's actually happening that shouldn't be and discussing whether it could be improved upon in some way. It can be.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 11:52 PM

WHoops, the guest above is me again, Lorcan, Inobu, as you will see by the links... As you flip through my photos, use the search term NYPD and ask yourself, how many being arrested there look like you, not just color, but degree of marginalisation, the nation does not look as safe on the frontier, espscially when you are wearing feathers...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 11:50 PM

As the Lt. prods him in the privates with his radio... don't you think he questions if it might not be a police state? Or maybe he just wishes he was the same color and fame as Bob.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 11:47 PM

One more time and 2.3 million more...

Funny thing, late at night, meant to go on about Victor Hara also being killed, and it is sight, not sight, but, well, hit the blue clickie, most of the Black folks I meet in my work would quickly describe this as a police state - unless they are in blue and wearing a badge, then it is just one more day of not questioning where their own comfort comes from, and why

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Inobu Lorcan Otway
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 11:34 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/21/iraq-inquiry-tony-blair-bush Everything is relitive... unless you are the poor guy in the cell in some hell hole, we still maintain, under a president I like.... We all say, so what Bob Dylan didn't have his fingers broke like Victor Hara... this time, because it is Bob Dylan, in America, Not the Victor Hara's of today, being tortured by our proxies in cells far from site, because it was not Joe or Bill or Yusef X picked up for the crime of being poor in America... there are times when I wonder at the blindness a little comfort brings.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 10:25 PM

Sorry, inOBU--If you don't think living in current Iran or North Korea is vastly different--for people not in the power structure--than in the West, you need to do more reading.   Certainly there are abuses in the West, but the scale of abuse is vastly higher elsewhere. If you don't believe this, exactly why not?

Compare for instance, the response to criticism of the government here, as opposed to Iran. Or are you one who believes that President Obama is equivalent to Hitler, as that woman at the "town meeting" seemed to feel?

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 10:06 PM

None of this would have happened if Dylan had had a dog with him. Guy walking alone in the rain - suspicious. Guy out walking his dog - ordinary.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: InOBU
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 07:38 PM

Hi Ron, why don't you poll the 2.3 million of your fellow contry men living in prison, not counting all those in civil confinement, such as those in prison for years awaiting political assylum hearings, and ask them if they are living in a police state. Frankly, I find it an embarassment, when working on an asylum case, where the respondant has been held in confinement which would not pass minimum needs for criminal confinement, wants to go home to oppression and death after the treatment in prison here.
When you live in a nice apartment, drive to work, and all is rosey, it is easy to overlook the aspect of injustice in your nation.

As to the times we are living in, the present wars have nothing to do with the percieved dangers of the world today, they are the result of plans by neo-con Americans to use any excuse to invade soverign nations to control the worlds ecconomy through control of the flow of oil.
The real terrorist criminals walk amongs us and are called statesmen. THey don't have to worry about being picked up, more the shame. Where is the Nueremburg prosicutor when you need him or her.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 03:29 PM

Howard - I am writing this from my home in Haddenham, Cambtdgeshire, in the Fens between Ely and Cambridge. I don't know where you imagined I lived, but I am here with you in the UK too — and, since 0707, I think we are living in emergency times. I am, like everyone, fatalistic about it — but then I lived in London right through the Blitz of 1940, and the flying bombs and V2s of 44-45. But that doesn't mean that I think everything is the same as it was before the present militant threat developed. I take your point that we have had longer to get used to this sort of threat than the Americans — tho there were earlier WTC attacks in the 90s, remember, + that loony in Alabama. But a new dimension has appeared in the present century, here as well as there. We don't necessarily need ID; but we do need vigilance.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Howard Jones
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 12:56 PM

MtheGM said "these are emergency times likewise, since 9/11"

I think that's another cultural gap between the US and the UK. I don't know any Brits who think we are living in "emergency times". I've lived most of my adult life under the threat of terrorism (some of it, incidentally, financially supported by US citizens and given political support by US public figures) so the current situation is nothing new. We just live our lives as normal and adopt normal levels of vigilance. Most of us don't feel that justifies being expected to carry ID (and even the politicians who want to introduce it have now dropped the anti-terrorism angle and are now trying to sell it as an anti-identity fraud measure)

9/11 was a horrific event, both in its scale and the nature of the attack, and I can well understand the traumatic effect it has had on the American people. However for most of the rest of the world the reality of terrorism has existed for much longer as part of the fabric of daily life.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Amos
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 10:25 AM

THe cops said, Kid, your story keeps on gettion' slimmer
We've got information you're a guy named Zimmer
Or RJ or Zimmie, or some other claim
That's an awful lot of handles to insist on fame!
And then some teeny boppers started pounding on the door,
Just like last night, and the night before
YEllin' "We wanna throw our underwear at HIM!"
That's BOB DYLAN that yer callin' Zim!"
And at one time he
Was the CHAMPION of the WOorrrrrrlllllld!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 07:04 AM

And I should have said "Zimmermanesque" poetry.   After all, "Dylan" has appropriated the name of a real poet.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 07:02 AM

Just be sure to make the violins soupy strings.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Declan
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 04:31 AM

This is a story of a man of fame,
But it seems the cops didn't even know his name,
So they treated him like he's a bum,
Put him in a black and white but at one time
He was one of the best known people in the world...

Cue the violins.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 10:16 PM

Interesting Dylanesque poetry--perhaps actual Dylan, tweaked a bit?

But, as usual with Dylanesque creations, only a fleeting connection with reality.   And a great illustration of just why folkies have such a stellar reputation in the outside world in their comments on politics.

Just as the most recent "police state" citation is.   As my fellow Ron says, anybody who doesn't recognize that labeling the US, UK or any Western nation a "police state" is rather absurd hyperbole should try something a bit closer to the mark. Try, for instance, living in current Iran or North Korea. And please be sure to keep in touch, so you can tell us the truth about life there.

And sure there is racism in the US--and possibly the UK. Sure there is abuse by police in the US and possibly the UK. But neither in the case of Prof Gates nor in the case of Dylan did the broad-brush posturers prove their point:   in the case of Prof Gates," racial profiling", and in the Dylan case, "police state".

Though that certainly is not meant to curtail any of the purple prose we've come to know and love on Mudcat--like "police state" or "Do you need a license to breathe in the States?

For some posters, it seems Mudcat's alias should be "Fuzzy Thinking R Us".

I happen to think that in the case of Prof Gates, the arrest was in fact police abuse of power--since it was clearly not justified.   But racial profiling in that case is not proven by a long shot--except by a poster who is a classic "Nowhere Man" (or woman)--just sees what he wants to see.

And Dylan himself--if he were ever honest--would admit that he was treated fine by the police. Though, don't worry, that won't be reflected in the song which comes out of this incident.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Declan
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:43 PM

So someone called up the cops and they arrived on the scene with their red lights flashing the hot new Jersey night.

One person walking the cops they did see and a man called Dylan moving around mysteriously. I've no Id he says and he throws up his hands, I was only looking at property, I hope you'll understand. And so theu took him to the jailhouse, where they try to turn a man into a mouse...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:08 PM

"Loving all here, but tired as hell of living in a police state"

Sorry, but I still feel that is an overstatement. We certainly have issues, but try living in a real police state and you will see the difference. Keep working for the better, but don't denigrate the progress that has been made.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 01:42 PM

I haven't looked back here for quite a while. I'm amazed at the vitriol.

If I was the one who "introduced race" in to this discussion by relating my interpretation of what "low income housing area" usually means, I apologize. As it turns out, the neighborhood was Hispanic, not African American. A visible non-white minority group, albeit not the one that I had assumed. But still a place where a white guy "wandering" alone ~ on foot ~ might well be a drug buyer, and might well be reported as "suspicious" by the local folk.

Ron is right ~ this story is just a laugh, no big deal. Nobody got hurt, or even insulted (not deliberately, anyway ~ who knows how Bob felt about both cops not recognizing him, or even his NAME?)

Mudcatters are not the only ones gulty of blowing this incident out of proportion. One New Jersey newspaper's headline for this story stated that Dylan was "frogwalked" into custody by the police. I've never heard of frogwalking before, but it certainly sounds not-nice!

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:05 AM

If you can stand another ID story:

I lost my parking ticket @ the airport, and figured I'd suck up the 'all-day' rate. But no.

Had to wait while the cashier re-directed all the traffic behind me at the one open booth, then back out, and park at the main parking authority building. And wait for the 'someone' I needed to talk to. He explained that the 'paid' reciept I had wasn't good enough, because I might have just "picked it up off the ground!".

Weirdly, he did offer to go back the terminal and find the ticket he seemed not to believe I dropped somewhere. I wish I'd had time to let him, swear I woulda done it.

He moseys to the cashier booth, presumably to tell the man I am STILL willing to pay the full rate, and then waves me to the booth. Where the cashier proceeds to ask me for my driver's license. Stupidly, I handed it to him. He starts typing things into his computer!

"I JUST WANT TO GIVE YOU THE $12!!!"

Hands the license back. "Your phone number? I have to fill out the form"

No. NO! Here's my @12 and I JUST WANT TO PAY YOU AND LEAVE!

Finally he took my money, and the more I think of this, the madder I am at myself for not having the time to take a stand.

Dani (who is not at all sure that Bruce Springsteen would be recognized on the street in most of NC!)

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Inobu Lorcan Otway
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 05:20 AM

there are many situations as a Quaker in the US, I refuse to show ID, because much of the asking for it is the theater of contol around the US belief that we have the right to kill in any nation on earth which cannot stop us. Our assasins have killed in a number of nations with whom the US is not at war, and then, of course there is the killing at war.
This is a violent and agressive nation and the US does not believe, any more, in the right to be left alone.
Frankly, if I were a Black American, I know from the experience of friends, I would not get away with not showing ID, and am protected by my "plain clothes" - folks thing that "Amish" fellows don't have ID, and would not know the difference between a plain dressing Quaker and an Amish person if one bit them on the ass, which we do not do anyway.
There was a book, "Black like me" written when I was a kid, about a white fellow who got Melonin injections to experience what it was to walk around America as a Black man... reading this thread makes me believe it not only should be read more often, but a year of being Black would be a good part of every American's education espcially if it included being poor.
By the way, when he was younger Woody Guthery WAS asked for ID, and showed his guitar callouses to keep from being arrested for vagerency.
Loving all here, but tired as hell of living in a police state
Lor

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 01:03 AM

Perhaps I wasn't clear -- I am in total agreement that in the US one should carry ID -- it is the norm. And if one is Dylan and not used to carrying ID, one's handlers should point this out to one.........!

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:49 AM

Indeed — but to spell out my point re this thread — these are emergency times likewise, since 9/11 &c; so even Dylan might have been expected to have sense to carry his ID, even if he The King as George VI was during that previous emergency...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:28 AM

Ah well - appropriate for the times........who would expect less?

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:20 AM

During World War II, however, as a symbolic "we are all in this together", the Queen's father King George VI was known always to carry his wartime identity card and produce it whenever he made a visit. I remember when my N London school was bombed out in 1940, he and Queen Elizabeth came to inspect the damage, producing their ID cards to the Mayor of Hendon who was in charge of the occasion.