Granny knows best, (and she's been acquitted too.)

Last Thursday Erdla wrote about this brave old lady: "This old lady's name is Betty Brassell. Look at her. She needs a walking frame and the court officer is helping her into the court building. She is one of 18 grandmothers who blocked access to the U.S. military recruiting station in Times Square and was arrested for it." Today I learn that she and the other 17 grandmothers on trial been acquitted: "NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Granny Peace Brigade waved canes in triumph and sang "God Help America" on Thursday after a New York judge found 18 grandmothers innocent of disorderly conduct for protesting the war in Iraq. The defendants, aged 59 to 91, had been arrested in a Times Square protest in October and each faced a $250 fine and 15 days in jail if convicted. "I find the defendants not guilty and they are all discharged," state court Judge Neil Ross ruled following a six-day trial ... ... ... Reuters source here. [my emphasis] Then there's thisfrom a far fuller report from the New York Times. "The women — from 59 to 91, many gray-haired, some carrying canes, one legally blind, one with a walker — listened gravely and in obvious suspense as Judge Neil E. Ross delivered a carefully worded 15-minute speech in which he said his verdict was not a referendum on the Police Department, the defendants' antiwar message or, indeed, their very grandmotherhood. But, he said, there was credible evidence that the grandmothers had left room for people to enter the recruitment center, and that therefore they had been wrongly arrested." As you read the NYT report it becomes very clear that the New york City authorities have a policy of trying to suppress dissent and protest by Americans disgusted by the Bush Administration's war against Iraq, the brutality with which the occupation of that country is being run by the Bush adminsitration and the rising toll of maimed or killed American troops. Contrary to what prosecutor Artie McConnell said in court this case was all about the First Amendment. It was all about the right of the citizen to say to those in power "what you are doing is wrong and we are going to hold you accountable." That these old ladies aged from 59 to 91, one of whom needs a walking frame and one of whom is legally blind were arrested, cuffed, jailed for some hours, and then prosecuted in a six day trial shows that the American authorities are becoming increasingly heavy handed not only abroad but at home too. That their hamfisted efforts failed in this particular case is a cause for celebration. But it is also a warning - militarism and authoritarianism be it at home or abroad are symptoms of a disease within the body politic and must always be striven against. This case attracted reporters from the US, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, to name but a few and the American authorities are shown before the world to have yet again disgraced themselves. These eighteen old ladies are living proof that the American dream and the American spirit is not yet wholly dead the man who said this before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society on January 28, 1852: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The hand entrusted with power becomes the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity." Has worthy successors of whom he would be proud. As for the granny's themselve like Wendell Phillips before them they have no intention of being silent in the face of an evil corrupting America. According to a press from peaceaction.org: "The grannies plan to march together this Saturday, April 29, in the march for peace justice and democracy in New York City. Those who can walk will; the others will march in wheelchairs." As we say back home in Ireland "proper order." markfromireland Update: Meet Bush's latest enemy in the war on Iraq: the Raging Grannies of Tucson, Arizona 'Peace grannies' part of growing anti-war network Elderly women tried to enlist in place of young Oliver Burkeman Emma Brockes New York Saturday April 29, 2006 The Guardian