Paying the Tab for Peaceful Protest
Emily Gil, who is 18, was inspired to hold a rally in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, this summer after watching thousands of Americans show support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Nothing the government does is free, even allowing you to protest. So learned a 18 year old in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
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“It’s an issue we care about. And we notice these issues in our own town, so we can do something about it,” Gil said.
She also wanted to highlight a lack of affordable housing.
Gil said she notified local officials in June about the protest and even met with the police chief to iron out logistics. The protest went off without a hitch on July 25 and lasted about 90 minutes.
A few days later, Gil said she received a letter from Mayor Mario Kranjac, billing her for about $2,500 worth of police overtime used during the protest.
“I was shocked when I read that I had to pay to exercise my First Amendment right,” said Gil. She thinks she was targeted for her take on affordable housing in the community.
The mayor said he is the first in decades to combat the housing issue and had no problem with the protest.
“And we made sure that we fulfilled and satisfied our obligation to make sure that they can exercise their freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble,” said Mayor Kranjac.
Kranjac said the borough has an ordinance in place that allows it to bill for any expenses incurred for police services at private events. The bill sent to Gil was standard protocol, he said.
“We always bill… the bicycle race or running race or any other event, where our police are used, including utility work, people pay for the overtime,” said the mayor.
He later said, however, that he is rescinding the bill, which he said was issued pursuant to advice he received from the Borough Administrator who he understands consulted the Borough Attorney.
“I was told that all private events requiring police overtime should be paid for by the organizers. It was never intended as a fine, but rather as a fee,” he said in a statement to Gil that was sent to CBS News.
“I have researched the issue further with my own counsel and I am hereby rescinding the bill, subject to our Council’s ratification of my action,” said Kranjac. “I always want to make certain that everyone’s Constitutional Rights are fully respected. We will have to adjust the Borough’s ordinances accordingly.”
He said he was glad Gil was able to express her rights to freedom of speech and assembly and wished her success in her college career.
Hot take: none of the Cancel Culture is coming for us peeps will see this kind of thing as an attempt to silence public dissent.Report
Giving them the bill up front would be an attempt to silence public dissent.
After the fact is a way to buy beer.Report
Well that was fast. Only took one response.Report
Lighting a car dealership on fire, by comparison, is free.Report
Hmmm. You’ve admitted that in your view BLM people aren’t engaging in looting and arson, yet here you are perpetuating the misperception. None of us want nice things anymore.Report
If we admit that the mostly peaceful protests happen in response to police shootings, then, like it or not, the mostly peaceful protests are BLM.Report
Except by your own lights, that’s not true….Report
“Suppose the looting and arson is perpetrated by right wingers to serve partisan interests. Still BLM?”
Jaybird: “Yes, still BLM.”Report
You’re not allowed into the protest until you show your BLM membership card.
Everyone knows that.Report
I concede that if the violence is done by, for example, Russian spies, then the violence is not BLM but Russian interference.
That said, there does seem to be a narrative out there that ties the Mostly Peaceful to the Protesting rather than to outside agitators.
Now, is there a Platonic Black Lives Matter Protestor? Yes, there is.
Does this Platonic Protestor damage property? No, she does not.
There has been a lot of smearing of concepts by not only those opposed to the protests but the “well, you have to understand” crowd and I think that the Mostly Peaceful is now married, like it or not, to the Protesting itself.Report
There has been a lot of smearing of concepts by not only those opposed to the protests but the “well, you have to understand” crowd …
Don’t be shy. Include yourself in those groups, too.
As for the riots being married to the protests, I disagree. I, for example, have no difficulty separating the two. Nor did you in the now long-distant past that was yesterday.Report
It feels like a No True Scotsman.
The Good Protestors don’t vandalize. The Bad Protestors do. The Bad Protestors are not affiliated with Black Lives Matter. The Good Protestors are.
Sadly, both groups show up to the same protests.
Along with agents provocateur, of course.Report
But notice where we started. Andrew writes a post about a BLM activist receiving a bill from the city for security detail costs, and your response is to *link* the girl receiving a bill from the city to express her constitutionally protected speech with burning up a car dealership. You equated the protestors with the rioters.
Now you’re doing a “well you gotta understand, I don’t actually think that but other people do” dance.Report
I was more making the wry observation that it costs money to be one of The Good Protestors.
Being one of The Bad Protestors is free.Report
Ahhh. Of course.Report
Concepts are smeared, narratives are married, all passively, by unknown and invisible actors.
Where would one go to witness the smearing of concepts and wedding ceremony of Narrative and Protest?
Strangely, it is never said. These activities just somehow happen, you know they happen, and if you can’t see the evidence of their happening it is because sensible people don’t bother to ask.Report
Correct. Intentionally collapsing the distinction between the protestors with the rioters would seemingly block the person doing so from claiming they had nothing to do with that distinction being collapsed.Report
Concepts are smeared, narratives are married, all passively, by unknown and invisible actors.
Chip, I gave an example of CNN doing it. Like, you can watch the video. See it happen.Report
You tell us a narrative exists that says the protests are connected to rioting. Your evidence for this is a CNN screengrab that juxtaposes “Mostly Peaceful” over video of flames.
Are you reporting that CNN is affirmatively declaring that the riots and protests are the same?
No, you didn’t actually say that.
Are you reporting that this has caused the public to discredit the protests?
No, you didn’t say that either.
Because you didn’t really make any sort of statement in your own voice.
Who is writing this narrative?
You.
You are creating a story, (that the public now views the riots negatively) while pretending you are merely reporting on its existence.Report
Are you reporting that CNN is affirmatively declaring that the riots and protests are the same?
No. I’m saying that CNN is on record as calling the protests “Mostly Peaceful”. In front of burning buildings. Want to see another time they did this?
Turn the sound on. It’s vaguely funny.
Are you reporting that this has caused the public to discredit the protests?
I’m not arguing that this has caused the public to discredit the protests.
But if you want video of someone on CNN saying that, here you go.
You want a narrative? I give you CNN.Report
Exactly, you aren’t saying anything in your own voice or even making any kind of an argument of your own.
Except to assure us that some sort of narrative exists, which you can’t define, but it is definitely married to something, but to be clear you aren’t the one saying that.
But people are saying that. And if we don’t believe you, we should watch tv.Report
My argument is that the rioters, looters, and people protesting the shooting of yet another suspect are being conflated.
Smooshed together.
Your response was to point out that I was saying that this was happening and using the passive voice and not naming names on who was saying it despite the fact that I posted clips.
Then I posted more clips.
I assure you, this smooshing is happening and, if you want evidence, I have provided it.
If you were just asking for evidence as a stalling tactic, well. There it is anyway.Report
My argument is that the rioters, looters, and people protesting the shooting of yet another suspect are being conflated.
Re-read your first two comments in this subthread. You weren’t making an argument that the distinction has collapsed in those comments. In the fist, you collapsed it. In the second you were arguing that it’s already collapsed. When people point out that it isn’t collapsed, that collapsing it is either lazy or cynical, you retreat to saying “well, you gotta understand, CNN collapsed it too, so…”Report
My first comment in this subthread was making a joke about the incentives for “good” protesting versus “bad” protesting and how the cops are incentivizing the bad.
Everything after that is some weird denial that the violence has anything to do with the protesting happening.
Maybe George Soros is funding it!Report
Jaybird, remember when you posted that the “riots” over George Floyds death had reached Berlin when in fact they were only peacefully protesting?
Good times.Report
Yeah, and when called on it, I pointed out that I was mistaken and the protests were, in fact, peaceful.
Rather than merely mostly.Report
Part of the reason I’m always so alert to the passive voice is that I see it often used in conjunction with the ventriloquist voice.
As in “Boy, this development [that I don’t like] is creating the narrative that Blah Blah, and the Average Voter really is turned off by this, so this will turn out like X”.
Its all passive construction and projection camouflaged as detached analysis.Report
Chip, I posted video.Report
I am opening myself to a BSDI accusation but I think what we’re witnessing is a problem of competing distortions. The distortions of the administration and its backers are obvious. But there’s a second problem, one that the media has been falling into over and over again with Trump, that being cutting corners on (striving for) objectivity.
I mean, I agree with the basic goals of police reform but this ‘mostly peaceful protest’ thing is getting farcical. It feeds the post truth world in which Trump and his ilk thrive.Report
What would a correct reporting be?Report
Off the top of my head:
-Report on what you’re seeing. Where it’s peaceful say so. Where it isn’t, say so.
-Where there is overlap and lack of clarity on who is doing what say so forthrightly, no need to reiterate a particular narrative.
-For God’s sake have the perspective to avoid the embarrassing episodes like the one Jay posted above.Report
I personally have no problem with the term “mostly peaceful protests” since I know the distinction they’re trying to capture. Other people mock it because it implies that the very same people are only “mostly” peaceful. But in the context of looting and arson, that understanding of the term is pure cynicism, in my view, since anyone with common-sense and the desire to use it realizes that the rioters and looters and the peaceful protestors are different individuals, different groups of people.
But I also think the term “mostly peaceful protestors” as a general descriptor is lazy in a quintessentially media-ish way in that going way back to George Floyd’s death, the term “mostly peaceful” *did* make sense: the protestors were peaceful until the cops started pepper-spraying and wacking them with batons.
Right now, the better phrasing would probably be to say “Arsonists burn building in aftermath of Blake’s shooting.”
I read a report about the demographics of people arrested for violence in Seattle, and the cast majority were young white males. I think that demo is a very pissed off group, whether they’re far right wingers or far left wingers, and that the violence isn’t an expression of protest so much as an attempt to create enough havoc that all the institutions they dislike burn to the ground.Report
Protests are like those mumurations of birds you see, where they change shape and configuration constantly; Here they swoop down, then up, then spread out, then bunch together, then scatter to reform.
Except protests are even more diverse than that.
The people who march at 6PM are different people than the ones shattering windows at 9PM.
I’ve witnessed this with my own eyes, that the composition of the crowd changes drastically as time wears on.
Describing a “protest” as a single event with a single motive and single character is impossible.
Maybe we would understand it better if there was a chyron saying “White People are Mostly Peaceful” overlaid on video of neo-Nazis stomping some guy.Report
There was a great piece by an Italian economist when Trump was president elect here. Unfortunately it’s paywalled but I think it was prescient in both the type of president Trump is and the key to defeating him, based on the Italian experience with Silvio Berlusconi. Obviously our establishment media has completely disregarded the approach but it’s illustrative of this problem. Their discrediting of themselves with unforced errors feeds these reactionary movements with little kernels of truth.Report
Linky no work for me.Report
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/opinion/the-right-way-to-resist-trump.amp.htmlReport
Thanks. That’s a good article.Report
You do have a point. Part of the problem is the “if it bleeds it leads” issue. The media is drawn to the riots and have ignored completely peaceful protests for months. So everybody just sees the riots ( which are bad to be clear) and doesn’t see anything peaceful. There have been plenty of peaceful protests but they are invisible. It is akin to the claims of conservatives for years that blacks don’t protest or speak out against violence in their own communities. Then someone, well me, points out all the protests and movements that people don’t hear about. That never matters for some reason. If it wasn’t on CNN or Fox it didn’t exist.
The mostly peaceful etc is silly but there is truth there. Burt talked about Portland a few week ago. 99.9% peaceful. During the day quiet protests downtown. Late at night morons show up, violence starts. What does everybody see and report and believe “Gah Portland is on fire!!!”Report
Nothing is more important to the media than maintaining a critical mass of credibility. There are voices out there that will always challenge it which is fine. But where they’re demonstrably lazy or sycophantic they’re doing the work of bad actors and other defectors.Report
Agreed. Everybody knows much of the press sucks and blows. That is obviously a problem. Secondary to that people who hate the media gobble up distorted narratives like stoners with chips and will still tell you how bad the chips(media) are threw crumb filled mouths.Report
I think it depends…
Are they saying “Mostly peaceful protestors”? Because that is almost certainly true from a numbers perspective: most of the PEOPLE there are peaceful.
“Mostly peaceful protests”? I don’t even know how to begin to measure the peacefulness of a protest.
Related: Is setting fire to a building “violence”? Or does violence assume human targets/victims?Report
-Andrew Sullivan
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-trap-the-democrats-walked-right
Don’t worry, there is plenty of TDS in the post, but he does nail the current situation.Report
Jaybird, here is an example of the passive ventriloquist voice, similar to the Pundit Fallacy.
Sullivan uses a ventriloquist dummy to mouth his personal description of the liberals, then writes passively of how “Democrats are realizing” and how by golly this is going to lead to a Trump victory.
Sullivan isn’t actually saying in his own voice “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have refused to criticize violent rioting and therefore I am voting for Trump”;
Instead he “noticed the silence”;
And Sullivan himself isn’t realizing that Democrats hate America;
Instead “Democrats are realizing”;
And so therefore, Sullivan predicts that “most ordinary people who love America will balk”.
Sullivan is just a passive observer, a fly on the wall who perfectly records the thoughts and feelings of Democrats and “ordinary Americans” whose feelings strangely mirror his own.Report
Do you see the difference between that and saying “Don Lemon is saying that the rioting needs to stop because it’s hurting polling” and then posting Don Lemon saying just that?Report
Well, maybe the protester was still pissed off about the way Vietnamese treated downed black fighter pilot Major Fred Cherry, holding him for seven years because he wouldn’t say anything remotely like what BLM chants constantly about white racism and American imperialism.
Then again, maybe they protesters are a pretty close approximation to the folks in a Mad Max movie, except with a propensity to loot flat screen TV’s and the lack of an actual nuclear apocalypse.Report
I grew up a few towns over from Englewood Cliffs. It is an exceedingly wealthy town in an otherwise wealthy part of the country. I’m sure they could have afforded this without sending a bill.Report
Right. So why did they send the bill then?Report
It’s almost like maybe they wanted to dissuade people from speaking up and speaking out.
Almost.Report
She shouldn’t have been billed.
Free speech, yo. It’s baked into the cake.Report
It does appear the bill was rescinded. Thankfully.Report