Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves...
Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
            —Henry David Thoreau

1.  Open Letters to Henry David Thoreau
2.  Letter from a Public Official Prohibiting Criticism of Public Officials
     on Public Property
3.  Letters to and from Thoreau adulterators
4.  Battle at Walden Pond: Essay accounts
5.  Ed Cantarella's Negative Critique of Battle at Walden Pond

Would Thoreau have been offended to learn that I, a common citizen, was arrested and incarcerated (9/1/99) for criticizing the STATE on the grounds of his beloved Walden Pond… STATE reservation and in front of a state cop?

I spent four hours in a Concord jail for a non-violent dispute with a state park ranger, whereas Senator Teddy Kennedy spent no hours in jail after driving drunk, crashing a car, causing involuntary  homicide, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and not reporting it until 12 hours later. But this is Massachusetts where the millionaire politicians call themselves public servants and demand unequal treatment before the law.

After three months and many hours spent in the Concord District Courthouse, I was finally given the choice between a jury trial and all charges dismissed, despite the STATE prosecutor’s fervent desire to prosecute and put me behind bars. Because I lacked faith in juries, could not interest the ACLU (“Where the hell is the ACLU?” had wondered Lenny Bruce), and could not find a lawyer with ideals, I chose to have the charges dismissed. Judge Sanders accorded me that choice, but refused to answer my questions as to why my automobile had been impounded and why I’d been arrested and incarcerated in the first place. Silence was all I’d gotten from State authorities, including those at Walden Pond, with the exception of a letter informing that it is against the law to post ones opinion at Walden Pond (see letter).  Nevertheless, I was not arrested and incarcerated for that. 

Would Thoreau have been offended to learn a State trooper sent by State Reservation authorities accosted me on those grounds nine months later (5/17/00) to inform he would arrest and fine me if I continued leaving my flyers in the replica shack at Walden Pond… State Reservation? Would Thoreau have been offended to learn a State trooper on horseback half a year later (9/7/00) literally pushed me off the pond grounds with his horse because I’d simply asked a park attendant why he did not believe in the First Amendment? The attendant simply argued my wish to exercise free speech was harassment.

Would Thoreau have been offended to see a Shop at Walden Pond souvenir boutique operated by Thoreau Society selling tee-shirts and trinkets in his memory, not to mention a censored C-Span tape of Gandhi’s grandson speaking about “Civil Disobedience”? As for the latter, I protested at that speech.  C-Span blotted out my image from the tape.  Did Thoreau Society authorize the censoring of my protest at that event, or simply demand it? All I’d done was hold up a placard for several seconds: THOREAU WAS NOT A SOCIETY, NOR SHOP! THOREAU WAS A DISSIDENT! Could Thoreau Society members really be that insecure as to feel compelled to crush all criticism of its activities?

Equally offensive is the Police Barracks set up next door to the boutique. How many officers believe in “Civil Disobedience”? As for the bronze statue, cite Thoreau himself:

“We shall lose one advantage of a man’s dying if we are to have a statue of him forthwith… at this rate they will crowd the streets with them. A man will have to add a clause to his will, ‘No statue to be made for me.’ It is very offensive to me to see the dying stiffen into statues at this rate.”

One must wonder if Thoreau Society members have ever read Thoreau, that is, in between the lines of nature descriptions. Statues, trinket shops, censorship, and suppression of free speech were not Thoreau ideals, gentlemen and women society members! And what does Thoreau say about gentlemen and civility?

“Men are so generally spoiled by being so civil and well-disposed. You can have no profitable conversation with them… It is possible for a man to wholly disappear and be merged in his manners. The thousand and one gentlemen with whom I meet, I meet despairingly and but to depart from them, for I am not cheered by the hope of any rudeness from them. A cross man, a coarse man, an eccentric man, a silent, a man who does not drill well,-of him there is some hope. Your gentlemen, they are all alike. They utter their opinions as if it was not a man that uttered them.”

Criticism spoken or hollered in public is not a crime in the State of Massachusetts… but you can still be incarcerated for it... at the mere whim of an uneducated cop!  
The U.S. Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that individuals have a right to question police officers, even if police officers find the speech that they use to be offensive. Police officers don't have the right to be censors.
            —Attorney Jason Huber

For your information, citizens of Concord, the law clearly stipulates the police must not be permitted to arrest and incarcerate citizens for harsh criticism spoken in public. Judges must not only throw out such cases, as they did mine, but must also castigate police and prosecutors who bring such cases to court, which was not done.  Moreover, police must not be permitted to impound the automobiles of those charged with harsh criticism spoken in public. Yet free speech in the Commonwealth cost me not only much time and anxiety, but also $95 to retrieve my car, which was not at all illegally parked.  The cop knew damn well what he was doing:  acting as judge, fining me $95. 

When behind bars in Concord, I was refused the right to a phone call, toilet paper, and blanket. What kind of town has Concord become? The ordeal was a Gestapo-Kafkan nightmare propagated by a faceless Walden Pond park ranger and policeman with nothing better to do than to lock up a non-violent citizen. Had that Ranger even read Thoreau, that is, in between the nature descriptions? Or did he simply not give a damn about the DISSIDENT THOREAU? And if he didn’t, why the hell was he employed at Walden Pond? Why does he wish to remain ignorant of the following jurisprudence?

1. Commonwealth vs. Smith (1850): “It is no offense against the law to utter loud cries and exclamations in the public streets...”

2. Commonwealth vs. Le Pore (1996): “Conduct must disturb through acts other than speech; neither a provocative nor a foul mouth transgresses statute.” Nothing in the officer’s report indicated that I was doing anything but speaking. Also, a person is deemed disorderly if, “with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance and alarm, or recklessly creating risk thereof... by act which serves no legitimate purpose of actor.” Any language I used was used with purpose and in the name of POLITICAL free expression.

3. Commonwealth vs. Johnson (1994): “Mere use of obscenities in public does not make out crime of disorderly conduct.” I expressed my anger at the state, at the corruption I’d witnessed at Fitchburg State College, at the inaccessibility of public documents to the public, at the legalization of nepotism in 1986, rampant cronyism, patronage and corruption in other aspects of public business. That was my argument, not really even with the Park Attendant, but rather with the rules, the corruption of the rules.

4. Commonwealth vs. Jarrett (1971): “Mere making of statements or expression of views or opinions, no matter how unpopular, or views with which persons present do not agree is not punishable as disturbance of the peace.”

Business as Usual in the Connected-wealth of Massachusetts
As the State continues unabashedly in its century’s’ old tradition of nepotism, cronyism, and patronage, Big Dig and lesser dig scandals, intellectual corruption in the public colleges and schools, secret payoffs to public cronies, secret personnel files, secret archives of public arbitration and grievance hearings, oligarch hogs of public office (e.g. Teddy Kennedy), absence of freedom of information and whistleblower legislation, apathetic pathetic community newspapers (e.g. The Concord Journal), and suppression of free speech, it has become more important than ever for citizens of conscience to muster the courage to speak out against, and otherwise fight and challenge the corrupt State and all those who seek to perpetuate its status quo… for personal profit. The State wants you, citizens, to be ignorant, indifferent, and good team players in its pitiful state of affairs. Its public schools, indeed, have been doing a fine job educating you in that direction!

The purpose of this Public Notice is to inform the public and encourage the public to think critically, question and challenge State authority, and otherwise, in the words of Emerson, “stand upright and speak the rude truth in all its ways.” The Concord Free Public Library has refused to post it.  What is in the minds of those librarians?  What is in the minds of the citizens of Concord who are up in arms over the US Patriot Act, yet don't give a damn about what happened to one of their fellow citizens?  For one thing, it is safe to protest what is distant... and, yes for them, the US Patriot Act is quite distant.  For another, they are no doubt orthodox Democrat-party members.   I brought this matter to the attention of Robert Plotkin who was organizing Concordians against the Act.  He refused to respond.  Silence rather than debate! 

Subj:  The Patriot Act and other acts...
Date:  12/21/03
From:  Enmarge 
To: robert.plotkin@verizon.net
Dear Mr. Plotkin:  It is interesting (or revealing?) that you have chosen not to comment on my letter at all.  BTW, I had an interesting thought regarding you… a conclusion in effect.  Your real fight is not for the First Amendment but rather against Bush.  In reality, you don't really care about the First Amendment.  You simply want to nail Ashcroft and Bush.  Why were you not up in arms—and I'm damn sure you weren't—when Clinton signed a bill drastically limiting habeas corpus?   Most likely you are one of those sad liberal ideologues that Bernard Goldberg hammers in his two books, Bias and Arrogance.  Read those books.  You might learn something.  [No response]

For some interesting articles about speech concerns, try the First Amendment Center.  Or simply browse the free-speech articles copied to this website. 
 

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