‘The First Amendment Is Our Permit’

‘The First Amendment Is Our Permit’

‘The First Amendment Is Our Permit’

Sign on to RootsAction’s petition to the nation’s mayors and police chiefs affirming your support for the right to unfettered peaceful protest.

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Occupy Wall Street demonstrators won a major victory on Friday when Mayor Bloomberg and Brookfield Properties, the owners of New York City’s Zuccotti Park, backed down on their demand that the activists temporarily vacate the park for a cleaning and subsequently abide by new rules banning sleeping bags, much gear and even lying down on the premises.

Demonstrators in numerous other cities weren’t nearly as fortunate. The same morning that New York City activists were cheering their win, dozens of state troopers in riot gear cleared out Occupy Denver protests, and in cities across the country like Phoenix, Boston and Des Moines, Occupy protesters faced police violence, arrests and forcible removal.

At the same time, some legal scholars and activists are arguing that as long as the actions stay peaceful and law-abiding there is no constitutional grounds for removing protesters from public spaces. As a new public letter circulated by RootsAction notes, the only “permit” Occupy protesters need is the First Amendment, which affirms “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In the past year, when people across the Middle East occupied public squares, leaders in Washington cheered them on and warned other governments against using force. (See the video below.) Those other societies didn’t even have a First Amendment to cite. Yet official Washington affirmed the universal right to assembly and protest.

Now, it’s time for the pols to stick up for democracy here in the US. Sign on to RootsAction’s petition to the nation’s mayors and police chiefs affirming your support for the right to unfettered peaceful protest. It’s what made America great.

 

‘I Am Not Moving’

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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