Dylan picked up for street walking (Aug 2009)

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: frogprince
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 08:32 PM

I've had an annoying experience or two. Years ago I was driving around in a fairly scenic rural area just a few miles south of home. I was just out looking for spots to photograph. The area has quite a few high-end homes, some worth a few million. (None of which I was even hanging around near.). I was driving an aging Subaru that was getting ratty. I was stopped twice within an hour or so by local police and interrogated as to my excuse for being alive there. I gave my license; they asked how long I had lived at my current address, and I told them. We were on Brocker road; they asked me how to pronounce Brocker correctly, the apparent implication being that if I didn't know how to pronounce it, I didn't belong there. I'm white, the area is white, and I don't think there was anything about my physical appearance that would normally push any buttons. They finally got off it and let me go, but I have never had any idea but conjecture as to what that was all about.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: frogprince
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 08:35 PM

When I typed that, it began to the effect that I've never been brutalized, or anything close to if, by the police, but...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: open mike
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 09:06 PM

well, wording is a funny thing:
"street walking" is a totally different thing
than just walking down the street--or sidewalk as it were.

    * Main Entry: street·walk·er
    * Pronunciation: \ˈstrēt-ˌwȯ-kər\
    * Function: noun
    * Date: 1592

: prostitute; especially : one who solicits in the streets
   — compare call girl

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 10:37 PM

You're right, Open Mike. Only the slight distinction of 2 words versus 1 word.   I was going to point that out too.

That article is delightful, Azizi.   It would be somewhat interesting to know how the person who called the police described Dylan:   was that "eccentric old man" a direct quote from the policewoman, the citizen, or both?

Admittedly, Dylan does look, as a former girlfriend with a good turn of phrase liked to say, as if he's been "ridden hard and put away wet".

But I think we've put the "police state" etc. canard to rest, much as some people, especially some who don't live in the US, may want to believe it. It must fit their comfortable preconceptions of the US.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 10:39 PM

"eccentric-looking old man"

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 11:13 PM

" "street walking" is a totally different thing "

It was a joke.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 11:31 PM

I've had several unpleasant experiences with suspicious police officers, and they were unpleasant precisely because those particular officers had immediatly decided that I fit a certain profile (long-haired person who is probably a drug user and up to no good). Their decision was based on my appearance not my behaviour. I've had police go fairly far out of their way to provoke me into doing or saying something stupid so they could take some aggressive actions against me.

I never allowed myself to be provoked. I always remained calm and cooperative. As a result those particular incidents did not spiral into some kind of very bad situation. In every case the officer in question eventually decided that there was no grounds for busting me (sometimes to their fairly obvious frustration). In every case the officer let me go on my way eventually without further harassment...once after wasting my time for at least 25 minutes and attempting to provoke me and a friend of mine into some kind of altercation by calling us "assholes", etc. We did not react in kind.

But.....I have also had an even greater number of pleasant and helpful encounters with police who behaved excellently, and I have had several good friends over the years who ARE cops.

Thus, whatever statements I have made here about the police, it would be a mistake on someone's part here to assume that those statements are intended to cast all police as either bad (one extreme) or good (the other extreme).

It would be a mistake to assume that I am talking in all-or-nothing terms, though it might be convenient for YOU if you wish to put my statements in that light just so you can convince yourself I've said something that you have a big issue with.

Police are like other people. They run the gamut. They come in all flavors, so to speak. They sometimes abuse their powers, they sometimes don't abuse their powers. Some are bullies, some are not. Some are honest, some are corrupt. Their behaviour varies from the extremely good to the extremely bad and everywhere in between, all depending on the individual cop, his department, and what's going on and how he or she deals with it.

So don't misinterpret my statements here by putting them in black and white all-or-nothing terms, and then we'll probably understand each other just fine.

Dylan conducted himself well. So did the police. There is no fuss here as far as I'm concerned.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 08:03 AM

ABC online: The young policewoman's sergeant "opened the car door, looked in, and said: 'That's not Bob Dylan'.   So she wasn't the only one who doubted.

And Dylan has a history of intentionally seeking anonymity.

He's got it down to a fine art.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 08:42 AM

I well remember reports years ago that Maurice Chevalier loved to walk to work in LA. The studio had a limmo follow all the way, because they feared the image was that they couldn't afford to pamper their stars. Or maybe opportunist would try to disrupt the schedule or hold him to ransome.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:14 PM

Now this is interesting.   I was just talking with my wife, formerly of Bradford on Avon, and she says that she used to go walking in her downtown area at night when she could not sleep.   And it appears the vaunted cherishing of eccentrics in the UK has a definite limit. When she was looking into store windows late at night, she was picked up by the police--and they made it clear it was not for her own safety, but that they thought she might do more than window-shopping.

So it appears the UK is a police state--at least as much as the US.   Who knew?

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:17 PM

Window shopping made easy.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:20 PM

. . . and from the master.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:28 PM

But Bruce, I was thinking of one in a very light blue. Will you be getting any of those in stock soon?

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 11:15 PM

LOL

Great to see you posting again, Ron.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 12:48 AM

NO problemo.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 12:13 PM

....Not recognizing Dylan was a small blunder compared to what was happing around the same time when Newark Airport security detained Hindi film actor superstar Shah Rukh Khan for a couple hours when he arrived in the US the other day.   

Talk about "dials set on outrage" and absurd overreaction!! The scorn of Hindi cinema fans is not to be played with!

Terrible, sensationalized "news" report

Shah Ruck speaks and shows his ignorance about visas

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:10 PM

Why in the world was not recognizing Bob Dylan a blunder at all? Why should anyone recognize him? Doris Day? Bon Jovi?

Policewomen should not be expected to recognize celebrities and it is good for the overinflated egos of celebreties sometimes if they don't..and I would hardly count Bob Dylan as a current celebrity..and then to expect they should recognize university professors?

Minor league baseball players? World-reknowned chess players? Child prodigies? Nuts. mg

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 03:11 PM

Yeah, okay, fine, mg. But if they don't recognize Chongo Chimp when they stop him, there will be hell to pay!

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:45 PM

I'm listening to and learning a bunch of great Sam Cooke songs. In the liner notes to the CD it says Sam wrote "Another Saturday Night" while on tour in England (only one, as it turned out).   He was staying in a posh hotel in London and "they would not let us have any female guests".    That inspired the song.

So, of course since the hotel would not Sam and his group have female guests, that proves the UK is a racist society.   Right?   Since there could not possibly be any other explanation.

So just in the last day, we've proven the UK is both a police state and a racist society. I'm surprised anybody ever wants to visit.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:08 AM

Just an observation....I'm a Brit -- have lived in the US for years. Here, I don';t leave home with out my ID because that is what the socio/political norm is -- CARRY ID. In the UK I wouldn't think of carrying my passport around unless   ] knew I wanted to cash a cheque - or whatever = because that is the norm over there.....what's the big deal - or am I missing something--when in Rome. The Queen doesn't carry ID but her minders don't let her out alone......

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.

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 - 12:49 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 21 Aug 09 - 07:02 AM

Just be sure to make the violins soupy strings.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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
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 - 11:52 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.