"These fascists want to silence citizens," shout the protesters in Madrid.

"Their anti-government chants were centred on the newly passed Citizen Security Law, a bill which will impose hefty fines on everything from unauthorized protests outside the Parliament to disrupting traffic with street football."

"This is a case about the right to peacefully protest on a fully open public road, in a designated protest zone..."

Erwin Chemerinsky — the UC-Irvine law school dean — argued in the Supreme Court yesterday. His client, John D. Apel had been banned from protesting within Vandenberg Air Force Base (in an area set aside for protests) after convictions for vandalism and trespass.

But Justice Antonin Scalia said the question before the court did not involve the First Amendment.

“You can raise it,” he said, “but we don’t have to listen to it.”..

Later, Justice Kennedy said: "You have a First Amendment argument... I understand that. But let’s just concentrate on the property ownership.” And Scalia said: “You keep sliding into the First Amendment issue... We’re only interested in whether the statute applies."
 
The Court is reviewing a 9th Circuit opinion that said that the federal statute under which Apel was convicted didn't apply to the situation in which the feds had given some public access to the military base (which they'd done to give access for protests).

ADDED: The wording of the first sentence of the linked report (at the NYT) made me think Apel was not actual on the base but only near it: "John D. Apel... was convicted of breaking federal law by entering an area set aside for protests near the main entrance to Vandenberg Air Force Base." Near the main entrance — you'll see if you keep reading — was on the grounds of the base, but it was "an area open to the public on the other side of a painted green line that separates the closed part of the base from the Pacific Coast Highway."

"Scott Walker's new book 'Unintimidated' is getting destroyed in the reviews on Amazon right now. The average reviewer gives it only 2.5 stars!"

Says a AFSCME page at Facebook:

Don't waste a second reading it though - let us save you some time by sending you right to the parts where he mocks public employees as lazy, overpaid, and corrupt here...

Linking to the Uppity Wisconsin post that I explained in my post about the Amazon reviews.

and here....

Linking to a Cap Times article attacking the book.

Now, here's your chance to tell Scott Walker how you feel about him -- and his latest attacks on public employees. Submit your own review here on Amazon and then copy it into the comments below as well.

That last "here" goes to Walker's book — I'll substitute an Althouse portal to it — where the top "most helpful" comment says:

I haven't read it, but think you should know that most of these reviews are written by people who have not yet read the book (negative and positive reviews). A union Facebook page is calling on its members to negatively review the book in hopes of lowering the overall rating - even cheering that it went from 2.5 stars to 2 stars (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151792216468061&set=np.420257149.603840067&type=1&theater¬if_t=notify_me). That's pretty sickening. Review the book on its content, not your political affiliation.

Look for reviews that cite page numbers or specifics, not the content that has been taken out of context and linked on the union's Facebook page.

That's what took me to the first link, above. Sample comments at the Facebook page:

You'd think the Kochs could afford to pay for a few more positive reviews. They're slipping.

Maybe I will buy one and make a youtube video burning it! Walker= Bad for Wisconsin!

I'm betting this will be on the remainder tables by next week -- along with Caribou Barbie's opus. Week after next they'll both be headed for the landfill.

Sample 1-star review at Amazon:

My pet varren refuses to relieve himself on this. His bowels seem to be like the contents of the book, unintimidated. No matter how much fiber I feed my varren, or how many facts you present Mr Walker, they both seem to be unable to digest them.

I picked that one because I had to look up "varren."



That union Facebook page is revealing. Herding people over to fake-review a book on Amazon is reminiscent of busing people in from Chicago and elsewhere to take over the protest here in Wisconsin, which is something Walker writes about in his book:

When the protests began, the folks in the capitol were teachers and public employees who were scared and concerned about the changes we had proposed. They brought their families out, and behaved civilly. These were decent citizens, respected in their communities.

But as the protests went on, the ranks of those marching against our reform became more and more radical with each passing day. Instead of regular citizens camping out waiting to testify against our bill, people from outside Wisconsin began to take over. Soon, national union organizers were bringing in groups with insignia from Chicago, Washington, New York, and plenty of other locations across the country.

The signs at the capitol became more radical too, comparing us to Nazis, rapists, and terrorists. Some of the protesters wore Che Guevara T-shirts, bearing the visage of the murderous communist revolutionary (an odd choice of clothing when you’re chanting “This is what democracy looks like!”).

I recommend reading Chapter 24 of "Unintimidated" ("We're Still Here") in which Walker analyzes how the protests backfired. He cites nasty tactics, which were not responded to in kind. ("Over time, I think people in our state saw the difference in the way we conducted ourselves and the way the union bosses conducted themselves.") And now we see the 1-star reviews mounting up, and no one is drumming up 4-star reviews to fight back (even with the taunting, see above, about how the Kochs could be paying for good reviews).

I predict more backfiring: the union is making itself look dishonest and bullying. The book is called "Unintimidated" because they tried to intimidate Walker. Further dishonesty and bullying reinforces Walker's message, making the title more apt.

As one against-the-grain comment over at the AFSCME Facebook page says, from one Lectric Boogaloo:

Go ahead and break the rules of Amazon. You cant write a review without having read the book, its right in the Amazon Terms of Service. Go ahead and get banned, I'm flagging all of these responses and already forwarded this post to Amazon for investigation. Go for it, douchebags.

At UCLA: Protesting microaggression, microaggressively.

"Rest assured I take this extremely seriously. I humbly dedicate myself to listening and to learning from this experience. Together, as a community, we will work towards just, equitable, and lasting solutions. Together, we shall heal."

Wrote Val Rust, the UCLA professor whose class was chosen as the site for a sit-in to protest "microaggression." One of various charges against Rust was that he overdid the marking up of their papers with spelling and grammar corrections. There were other offenses as well, such as failing to intervene in a classroom dialogue between 2 students in which a black male was telling a white female that she's not entitled to use "Standpoint Theory," because she's not a member of an oppressed group. Rust underdid that part of his role, in the view of the protesting students, who seem to have wanted more "support" from him.

I can understand a teacher feeling confident about correcting specific errors, but hanging back when students are arguing with each other about a matter for which there is no right answer. But I wasn't there, and Rust now says he let that "discussion" go on "for quite a while." I can't say what that classroom felt like. Teachers often think that things are going well when the students go back and forth with each other, but there are times when it's uncomfortable and the teacher should feel moved to restore harmony.

But there's something awful about exploring these issues by targeting one teacher for a sit-in. I suspect the students have learned this. "Microaggression" could have been a valuable concept for understanding racial dynamics, but by their actions, they've made it seem — to many people who haven't previously heard or thought much about the term — like a device for making weird, unfair charges against a decent person.

Ironically, the students' words and actions are what feel micro and aggressive.

"On Sunday the protest artist Petr Pavlensky sat naked on Red Square and drove a nail through his scrotum and into the pavement."

"Pavlensky had staged disturbing protests before."

In July of last year, he sewed his mouth shut and stood outside a cathedral in St. Petersburg in a show of solidarity with the jailed art collective Pussy Riot. In May he had himself wrapped, naked, in a cocoon of barbed wire and placed on the steps of the St. Petersburg legislature. He lay immobile while the police hunted for a pair of garden shears, severed the wire and then struggled to avoid being cut themselves. That time Pavlensky was protesting a series of restrictions on freedom of speech and of assembly....

Each of these actions required the police to deal with Pavlensky’s body — something Russian law enforcement officials almost never have to do, even though they routinely mangle, maim and kill protesters, convicts and perceived violators of rules and laws.

"Veterans Remove Barricades From Memorials And Take Them To White House."

Are you surprised to learn that I do not approve of this?

Those who visit veterans monuments — even if they too are vets — ought to show respect for the monument, not perform political theater, especially when it's about another topic entirely (like the budget or healthcare policy). An antiwar protest at a veterans monument would make more sense, but even then, it should honor those who have served.

Quite aside from respect for war monuments, I don't accept protesters screwing with government property. These barricades are not theirs to move around for the purpose of making statements. Use your own signs, your own words and gestures if you've got something to say.

Obviously, these people think they're pretty cute, and they're getting egged on by anti-Obama media (like Breitbart and Instapundit). But all protesters who actually care about their objectives need to think really hard about how their hijinks look to people who are not already on their side. I saw the same problem with the Wisconsin protesters in 2011. They were so inside their own enterprise that they couldn't perceive how it would look to those standing away at some distance.

I'm on neither side in the current shutdown. I'm sick of all of them. That's the distance from which I am observing this. And I do not like the moving of the barricades.

"The lack of titles for the posts is strange. You should try doing that for a day or two now and see if it upsets anyone. You know, like the old studies of people walking around with blamk protest signs."

"Ladies and gents, I invite you all to Turing Test this thing until it explodes in a cloud of hubris."

Deliberately screwing with the HealthCare.gov live chats.

How long before that becomes a crime?

"I think the hunger strike ended because the men achieved their objectives."

"As far as I know, Korans are not being searched. Guantánamo has returned to the national agenda. And President Obama has renewed efforts to close it. And, frankly, six months is a long time to be on a hunger strike."

All right then. All is well in detaineeworld. 

Another job well done by leading-from-behind Obama.

The paucity of anti-war protest on Syria.

A candlelight vigil in Berkeley drew "[a]round 100 people."

An elderly crowd, based on the photos.

More photos here.

Protesters heckle Tammy Baldwin on Syria by singing “Which side are you on?” at the Fighting Bob Fest.

Internal divisions on the left.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., ... who opposed strikes in Kosovo, Iraq and Libya -- said she would continue asking President Barack Obama’s administration “tough questions” to further the debate. 

She wouldn't say how she would vote.

ADDED: It looked like this:

Scenes from the drive from Lincoln, Nebraska to Madison, Wisconsin.

1. On 2 overpasses to I-80, there were groups of protesters with signs calling attention to the Obama scandals: Benghazi, IRS, Fast & Furious. I saw at least one Gadsden flag.

2. "The corn and soybean crops looked really good. I didn't see any poor crops at all." So says Meade when I ask him about the highlights of the drive. Some people driving from Nebraska to Madison might say "Ugh, corn. Too much corn. When will we get past all this corn?" But Meade is not one of those people. His father was in the popcorn seed business.

3. Mostly looking for coffee, we got off the interstate in Williamsburg, Iowa, where there's a big outlet store shopping center. Meade wanted to go into Lids to get some baseball hats, so I went into the Coach store and was checking out with a book bag and at the next cash register, there was a woman who was quickly replaced by a man who said she didn't speak English. The older woman behind the counter plied him with cheerful questions including "Where are you from?" He said "Iraq," but he said it in his Iraqi accent, which is nothing like eye-RACK or even eee-ROCK. It was more eee-RAHqqq. The woman said she wasn't familiar with that country, and the man repeated the name, perhaps wondering whether this woman had not heard of the events of the last 10 years. I didn't want to intrude. I cast a glance at her and then at him, as they kept going back and forth, and it was obvious she was never going to hear the word he was saying as "Iraq." Finally, I said to her, "He's saying  eee-ROCK," and of course, she knew Iraq. To him, I said, sympathetically, "It was the way you said it."

4. Meade's team the Cincinnati Reds were playing the Milwaukee Brewers, so Meade listened to the whole game on the satellite radio as he drove, and Meade didn't see that I'd put in the earbuds and was listening to an audiobook (which happened to be "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim"). I laughed and he said "I wonder if they cooked up sushi?" because he thought I'd laughed at the baseball announcer who'd just said that the people coming to the Miller Park were tailgating and "cooking up every kind of food imaginable." Apparently, my laugh was perfectly synchronized. Meade's reference to sushi harkened back to lunch, wherein I ate this:

"'Standing man' inspires Turkish protesters in Istanbul."

"Performance artist Erdem Gunduz stood silently for eight hours, facing a portrait of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey."

"I'm nothing... The idea is important: why people resist the government. The government doesn't want to understand, didn't try to understand why people are on the streets. This is really silent resistance. I hope people stop and think 'what happened there?'"

Threatening "a Gandhian fast unto death"...

... over the end of the telegram.

"Police Clash with Protesters in Istanbul."

Dramatic photography here.

"I'm still not entirely sure what to make of 'You Can Touch My Hair,' an interactive public art exhibit put together by Un'ruly..."

"... which actually encouraged people to touch the hair of black women and ask questions about it."

Basically, three black women with fabulous hair —a poofy 'fro, long locks and what appeared to be a lengthy straight weave — stood in New York City's Union Square Park over the weekend and held signs that announced, "You Can Touch My Hair" to perfect strangers....

Though I'm sure the exhibition's organizers were annoyed, I actually have a greater appreciation for the three women who showed up to the park and staged a silent protest.... One carried a sign that read...  "You cannot touch my hair"....

"BENGHAZI, Libya — At least a dozen people were killed here Saturday and dozens wounded after members of a powerful militia fired on protesters surrounding the group’s headquarters..."

"... in an outpouring of public anger at the armed bands that have been blamed for fueling political violence and undermining a fledgling state."

It was not the first time that Benghazi’s residents have lashed out against the militias: in September, after the killing of the United States ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, citizens stormed the headquarters of several militias, including one suspected in the killing. But the spontaneity of the protest on Saturday, and the violence that followed, marked a dangerous escalation of one of Libya’s central struggles, the fight between armed Islamists and other militiamen who rose to power during the revolution, and Libyans demanding that authority rest with the state.

The lack of security has been acute in Benghazi, where mysterious assassinations have been a hallmark of Libya’s transition since the overthrow of its longtime ruler, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Police stations and other symbols of the government have repeatedly been attacked, at least partly in reaction to the government’s attempts to rein in the armed groups....

"The heckler wrote: 'After years of these lonely, isolating and dehumanizing experiences...'"

"'... I’ve only recently been able to find the strength to advocate for myself and millions of others.'"

So basically she waited until laws were changed, the political battles were fought, and even TV commercials and marketing ads contain openly gay themes in people presented as normal Americans. Then, when gay marriage and family life is normalizing legally and socially, she comes out of the closet as an aggressive, rude activist.

Sounds like she waited until it was safe, and now she is jumping on the wagon after it's left the barn, trying to be loud and attract attention to her false pretense of bravery.

Top-rated comment on the WaPo column "Why I confronted the first lady."

Ellen Sturtz, the 56-year-old lesbian activist, who heckled Michelle Obama and says she was "taken aback" when Michelle "came right down in my face."

As discussed in this earlier post today, Michelle Obama said "Listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving," and now Sturtz would like us to know that "she told Obama she was happy to take the microphone to plead her case," which — she claims — "appeared to fluster the first lady."

“I said I want your husband to sign the executive order,” Sturtz said. “Her husband could sign this order tonight and protect 22 percent of the work force in this country.”

Sturtz said she paid $500 to attend the fundraiser, part of a protest cooked up by the gay rights group GetEqual, which gained notice in Obama’s first term for hectoring him during speeches and demanding more action on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

I get a whiff of sexism from the use of the word "fluster." That's a word that people have traditionally used — this is my observation — to portray a woman as incapable of standing her ground and dealing with emotional turmoil.

The (unlinkable) OED defines the transitive verb "to fluster" to mean "To flurry, confuse":

1785   A. Murphy Way to keep Him (new ed.) i. 26   Ma'am, if I was as you, I would not fluster myself about it.
1816   Scott Antiquary III. v. 112   The aged housekeeper was no less flustered and hurried in obeying the numerous..commands of her mistress.

I find it arrogant and annoying for this protester to claim to have flustered the First Lady. The First Lady was angered (and justifiably).

Michelle Obama — unlike Barack — will not be interrupted.

Everyone's paying attention to the way Michelle Obama insisted that everyone pay attention to her or she's leaving. When some lady yelled about gay rights during a fundraising speech, the First Lady said "One of the things I don’t do well is this" and that the heckler could "listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving" and "You all decide. You have one choice."

The "you" is the heckler when she says "you can take the mic." But the "you" in "You all decide" and "You have one choice" is probably the whole audience. "You all" is a way to indicate the larger group, and she says that after the crowd, we're told, applauds loudly. She doesn't order the throng to throttle the heckler, but she's essentially saying you need to shut this woman up, because obviously, no one there wants Michelle Obama to walk out.

10 days earlier, Barack Obama was famously interrupted, also by a female heckler. He was talking about his military policies, and she was anti-war. Obama — amazing many people — went off script, engaged with her criticism, and even said she — or at least her "voice" — was "worth paying attention to"

Obama departed from his prepared script by responding: "Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are being held on a hunger strike. I'm willing to cut the young lady who interrupted me some slack because it's worth being passionate about. Is this who we are? Is that something our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that."...

After she was led out of the auditorium, Obama was applauded when he said: "The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.... Obviously, I do not agree with much of what she said, and obviously she wasn't listening to me in much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong."

Obama had his reasons for engaging with his protester. In fact, it could have been planned political theater. It might have made him look good, though it's also easy to mock him for it (or, more aptly, to mock the entire speech for going this way and that, evasively). There's no way the heckler made Michelle Obama look good, especially in contrast to her husband's recent performance. It's all too easy to portray her as arrogant and unconcerned about the interests of everyone who came to the event.

But let's be a little sympathetic. She began with self-deprecation: "One of the things I don’t do well is this." And I hear in that a reference to Barack: He does do these things well. You just saw him make vivid political theater out of engaging with a woman who yelled at him. I can't do that. I can't risk that. 

Even the statements she did make are getting critiqued! She attends these events, gives a dramatic reading of the lines in a competent, actorly fashion, and that's her public role. She can't ad lib policy on the topic of some random person's choice. (In this case, it was some executive order about federal contractors discriminating against gay people.) She only wanted to say: The planners of this event are responsible for keeping perfect decorum, and my appearance is conditional on their meeting this responsibility. They've already failed me, and they need to step up and get it right immediately.

On the spot, she found a way to say that in simple language that did not involve smacking down the heckler or ordering any minions around. She used the language of choice when addressing others and spoke of her own choice as if she were a simple and powerless person who could either continue to speak or stop.

Considering the alternatives, she did pretty well.