Posters

[from Patrick Scott]

I came home from vacation and saw every single light post's base in Grant Circle covered in anti-war posters. I'm curious as to the law about doing that to public property. When I called the organization to complain, she told me that it was public property, it belonged to all of us and that they could do whatever they wanted. I just wasn't so sure about that and thought I'd toss it out there to someone who might know.

Any thoughts?

Comments

[mjbrox]

What is the status of the signs? They are all still up

[mjbrox]

and a quote from DC1974's blog

"And I meant it. The longer I’m in DC, the closer I come to overthrowing the government. Are you with me?"

[Patrick]

I am not upset that my comfort isn't coming first. The kicker is that we live in a democracy with rules. Rules that should be followed, by the ANSWER Coalition kids as well. It isn't that hard to follow rules, such as 3 posters per block, dating the posters when they went up, etc.

[DC1974]

Perhaps you're life should be messed up a little bit because the world right now is totally f*cked and your comfort shouldn't come first. After living in San Francisco for 8 years, I find that all protests in DC are so restricted as to be completely meaningless. That city was regularly brought to a hault because of protests blocking all the major streets and intersections. Critical Mass alone brings the city to a hault every last Friday of the month -- add anti-war protests and general protests and you get the picture. People would come from all over -- Portland, LA, wherever -- and they were welcomed with open arms. I always thought that it was preaching to the choir and didn't make much sense in that venue. I feel the same way about DC. The streets should be overflowing with people angry at their government and we should welcome them. And whether you get to work and continue to grease the wheels of the machine (implicitly or otherwise) or not is immaterial. Frankly, your work should let you off to protest.

[Cliff]

A judge has ordered the signs removed:
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_anti_war_group_ordered_to_take_d_08152007.html

[Beth]

There is an article in today's Post about these posters. DC has fined ANSWER $10,000, saying that they violate city regulations.

[Erin]

Not cool, but not surprising.

I believe these posters are courtesy of the same organization that runs the annual anti worldbank IMF protests. The PR for these has included a statement that they want to: "Shut down Washington DC!"

Regardless of how I feel about the issue, or whether I would chose to participate in the protest, I'm not too keen on a bunch of non-residents messing up my ability to live my normal life because they have decided to protest something.

Fortunately there are never enough of them to cause too much of a headache, but since the police respond disproportionately we do end up with a mess in the end.