Right to demonstrate

I don’t participate in street demonstrations now, but I did for 65 years.

About 15 years ago, in a peaceful march down Seattle’s Madison Street — with grandparents pushing baby carriages — a platoon of Seattle police stood threateningly along the route, clubs in their hands. It didn’t matter that it was a peaceful march.

On the other hand, I’ve been in a crowd of misbehaving, drunken fans exiting the ball park, and there was not a club to be seen.

What is clear to me is that the police and the military do not believe in our right to peaceably assemble. At all of the demonstrations I attended which turned violent, the violence was initiated by law enforcement. The authorities always take steps to limit the locations and durations of demonstrations to make them as ineffective as possible. We don’t have a right to demonstrate, we have a “wrong” to demonstrate.

The demonstrations in Los Angeles are nothing less than holy, and it is shameful that the national guardsmen are not throwing down their weapons and going home.

Shelley Simon