Facing two years in jail for standing in front of police cars when they were attempting to kidnap a peaceful woman, Meg McLain bravely goes to jury trial, where despite her suggestion they set her free, she is found guilty and sentenced to 180 days in jail, all “suspended”. The jurors were snuck out the back door and all that were approached refused to be interviewed, even for $50 cash for five minutes. Here’s the video of the trial including Meg’s excellent opening and closing statements as well as the state playing videos for the jury that were featured on this blog:
Sometimes people who are stuck within the politics-is-the-only-answer paradigm, look at civil disobedience and noncooperation and ask, “Where are the successes?” Many of these folks only judge success when there is an official policy change. Each instance of civil disobedience and noncooperation is a personal success at the very least. It’s empowering to say, “No” to those who wish to control you. Beyond that, we have seen plenty of civil disobedience / noncooperation wins including the cops giving up on enforcing cannabis laws around the historic 420 celebrations in Keene, Manchester, and Concord. Parking tickets have been dropped due to activists’ noncooperation. The court lobby video ban has been violated multiple times without incident. Plus, the events have frequently garnered thousands of dollars in free publicity for Free Keene and the Free State Project, only insuring more movers and more future successes. All that stemming from just the activism here in Keene.
However, Keene is not the only place where civil disobedience is happening. Orlando, FL has recently become a hotspot thanks to the efforts of John Kurtz and other liberty activists (many of whom will be at Porcfest next month). John has used civil disobedience to successfully violate the city’s ban on feeding the homeless near city hall as well as to prove that the panhandling law is selectively enforced against the homeless. Now he’s teamed up with Julian Heicklen, the jury nullification outreach superactivist, to purposefully violate a ban on jury outreach. (more…)
As you may recall, Rich Paul, the creator of the historic 420 celebrations in Keene was arrested for smoking pot at Pumpkin Fest 2009. He is now serving a sentence of twelve days for refusing to pay the fines the court imposed.
You can write him at:
Rich Paul
#N101291
Cheshire County D.O.C.
825 Marlboro Road
Keene, NH 03431
Jason Talley of Talley.TV and the Civil Disobedience Evolution Fund and I follow an undercover officer from Nashua PD with our cameras as he leaves his hiding spot in the police-friendly “Courthouse Pizza” (across the street from the court building). We pepper him with questions before he can escape in his buddy’s police cruiser. This is an excellent example of how more activists with cameras can make a huge difference – we were able to chase after this cop and others stayed behind at the pizza place to keep an eye on the rest of the cops:
She traveled the world as the daughter of diplomats and went on to practice law in South Africa and California, but Carla Gericke’s life changed when she heard the call of the Free State Movement for like-minded people to flock to N.H. and promote greater liberty and less government. She helped organize two recent Porcupine Festivals – the Free State equivalent of an Old Home Day – even earning the title “The Quill Queen” (note quill crown, left), and was just chosen as the movement’s new leader. In this exclusive interview, we found her not to be at all prickly. (more…)
Thanks to NHMagazine.com’s Rick Broussard for 
