In the stir for breathing air

Tad Robinson presents a case study in Humboldt County’s government-by-fear

Vagabond Journalist
By Charles Douglas

“Liberty is the soul's right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight. Without liberty, man is in a syncope.”

-Henry Ward Beecher, Life Thoughts

Sitting in Courtroom 5 this Monday watching homeless agitator Tad Robinson get his thirty-days-for-thirty-seconds violation of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors’ oft-unenforced three minute speaking rule (a dictum which, sadly, is seldom applied against their sycophants), I was reminded of my days in Arcata watching another local government ratcheting up the mania in increasingly desperate attempts to make the poor sit down and shut up.

In Arcata City Hall, just as in Supervisors’ Chambers, the progression of rich man’s inhumanity to poor man eventually involved the armed forces being called in to forcibly remove people who exceed the paltry three-minute rule, a rule these self-same elected officials would find it impossible to obey themselves. Needless to say, the so-called Greens like Harmony Groves left their commitment to “grassroots democracy” at the door and sat silently as a homeless man back in 2006 was drug out by the gendarmeries for violating the inviolable terms of local government -- namely that money talks (and for as long as it likes) and the penniless are right-less when it comes to any of their pathetic attempts to influence public policy away from putative revenge fantasies against the least among us.

When the blatantly ridiculous claims of Arcata’s liberality are voiced in my presence, I only need remind them of how the “Green majority” allowed the press box at Arcata City Council meetings to be removed, without notice, to be replaced by an armed police officer, hand on holster, seated and staring at the public address podium situated two feet away, an obvious display of state authority and local officials’ willingness to resort to violence (or the threat of such) to compel consent.

The press table turned goon squad guard post is still there to this day, a testament to how “progressive” Arcata is ruled by fear, and how the high ideals of the Green Party were absolutely polluted and perverted by the very same officials who still claim to have accomplished something. It’s just the sort of self-aggrandizement still practiced by the aforementioned ex-Mayor, since absconded to San Francisco with another content-free notch in her belt to brag about, regardless of how little her one-term-and-out service actually did to help the working people of her short-lived constituency. As with so many of the self-styled “successful activists” turn out, it’s the window dressing on their resumes that count with them, on-the-ground evidence be damned.

Throughout history as in the present day, the real activists take on the longshot or “impossible” causes, and get fined, jailed, beaten and killed for their efforts. Such is the case with Tad, someone I’ve had no shortage of head-shaking moments in relation to – sometimes even I find him to be strident and doctrinaire in his efforts to humanize the homeless. His past and mine aside, his actions in this case are indisputable: He was interrupted repeatedly by elected officials who didn’t like what he had to say in relation to a child labor camp (an incredibly creepy outfit the county contracts with), he went a half-minute over his time limit trying to finish his interrupted statement, and he had already sat down when the goon squad came to grab him. The idea that the meeting was interrupted shock-and-awe style, complete with Lady Liberty weeping tears of blood and American flags spontaneously combusting, doesn’t stand up to the evidence as witnessed by the non-government shills present, who clearly noted that the next speaker strode up to the podium and proceeded to address the Supervisors normally (and for over five minutes, a blatant example of selective enforcement).

I’ve wanted Tad to shut up myself once or twice (I’m sure he’s thought the same of me), but it’s never crossed my mind that he should be fined and thrown in jail for the offense of annoying me or anybody else. For the stupor-inducing Supervisors to conspire with Humboldt County’s bureaucracy, bailiffs and judiciary to make this sick joke come true -- it's enough to make Kafka blush. I can already envision a “Free Tad” benefit concert with a local John Lennon aspirant or two singing a takeoff of “Ten For Two” to decry the treatment of this John Sinclairesque poster boy for open government.

Any amount of peace poor old Jimmy Smith thinks he will spare for his fellow nest feather collectors will be far exceeded by the echo this will send to local activists of every stripe -- at least the ones who claim to care about free speech. The decent, who I’d add include conservative or libertarian types like Rose Welsh, Tom Frederickson and Jeff Lytle, not to mention others more akin to my sort of radical journalist like John Osborn, are suitably outraged by this government-run abuse of the justice system. The authoritarians among us are mostly clustered amongst the fake left pseudo-liberals, who are uniform in their cowardly use of psudeonyms such as Humbug, Not A Native and so forth. Somehow this doesn’t seem to be a coincidence.

Years ago, when I still thought people in Arcata might care about having a decent local government, I proposed an initiative seeking the usual populist political reforms like term limits, public election of the Mayor and Vice Mayor, and access to time on the City Council agenda by any of its members. There was also a provision which doubled the three-minute limit on speaking time, and applied it to the politicians and bureaucrats equally. If it’s good enough for the rest of us, it’s good enough for them, my thinking was. While there’s enough on my plate to preclude the hatching of ballot initiatives these days, perhaps some other idealist out there might consider a little restorative justice for our power-mad Humboldt County Supervisors.


“It ain't fair, John Sinclair
In the stir for breathing air
Won't you care for John Sinclair?
In the stir for breathing air
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me

They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free

If he'd been a soldier man
Shooting gooks in Vietnam
If he was the CIA
Selling dope and making hay
He'd be free, they'd let him be
Breathing air, like you and me

They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free

They gave him ten for two
They got Ali Otis too.
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free

Was he jailed for what he done?
Or representing everyone
Free John now, if we can
From the clutches of the man
Let him be, lift the lid
Bring him to his wife and kids

They gave him ten for two
What else can the bastards do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free.”

-John Lennon, Ten For Two (John Sinclair)