Opinion> Debra Saunders> Bart Protesters Oppression Envy

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BART Protesters' Oppression Envy

During one of the protests that shut down Bay Area Rapid Transit this month, an anonymous protester — hiding behind a Guy Fawkes mask — stood with a sign that read, "Mubarak Gaddafi BART."

Talk about delusions of oppression. Egyptians risked torture, imprisonment and their very lives to oust the heavy-handed Hosni Mubarak regime. Libyan rebels have been engaged in months of bloody combat to evict Moammar Gadhafi from power.

And BART? On Aug. 11, the transit system shut down cellphone service in downtown stations in order to disrupt protests organized by activists who planned to coordinate actions based on text messages disclosing police locations. In that BART stations are crowded, enclosed spaces with heavy equipment and an electrified third rail, there was a public safety argument behind the decision. And in that BART did not shut off service outside those stations, it's hard to describe the action as government censorship.

The cause for protest stems from two controversial BART shootings. The July 3 shooting of a reportedly armed Charles Hill is still under investigation. The 2009 Oakland shooting of an unarmed Oscar Grant led to the conviction of BART officer Johannes Mehserle for involuntary manslaughter.

Egypt? Libya? Hardly. Under Mubarak and Gadhafi, police had little to fear, while their critics risked prison time.

The list of demands by Anonymous — the secretive organization behind recent BART protests — reveals just how trivial the group's gripes are.

To start, Anonymous demands that BART fire spokesman Linton Johnson. (Johnson, you see, has called the protesters "cyber-thugs.") Anonymous also wants BART to "publicly apologize" for shutting down cell service. Oh, and take away guns from BART police.

Critics could show up at BART board meetings to make their views known, as the public righteously did after Mehserle shot Grant in the back. But Anonymous apparently prefers to shut down BART service and interfere with employed adults on their way home from 9-to-5 jobs.

Seeing as this is happening in San Francisco, the protesters pretty much have gotten away with their little pranks. While many commuters are not amused at activists' disdain for their rights, civil liberties groups have directed their fire at BART's one-night cellphone shutdown. Michael Risher, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, likened BART to "oppressive regimes."

This is the conceit so dear to Bay Area lefties. They so want to see themselves as idealists bravely standing up to "oppressive regimes" that they have convinced themselves that a public transit agency run by elected officials in the most liberal metropolitan area in the United States is analogous to Egypt's or Libya's Mukhabarat.

In order to feed that fantasy, they put on masks, pick on BART police and block other people on their way home from work. Unlike Egyptian and Libyan protesters, they have little to fear — except the day when they grow up and find themselves on the receiving end of such tantrums.

Email Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. To find out more about Debra J. Saunders and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Comments

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Thank you for finally writing about this, Ms. Saunders. I knew you would come through on this one.

This truly is a new low for the left and "liberalism." There is not one shred of wording in the First Amendment that gives rise to the notion that "free speech" has anything to do with deliberately shutting down a public transit system and stranding those who use it to accommodate whatever incoherent message the shutdown is supposed to contain.

What an utter insult to the free and noble speech the First Amendment was designed to protect and the deep thought and bloodshed that went into the drafting and securing of its provisions.

Nobody has a "right" to use their techno-bauble cellphones in a BART station anyway. What they have a right to do is get where they are going. It's a transit system, not a public forum.

Believe it or not, we somehow survived without cellphone service in BART stations just a few short years ago. Imagine that.

I applaud what BART did in this instance, and that doesn't come easily--I have plenty of grievances against BART. It was a creative and effective thing for BART to do. For once.

They should do it every time a bunch of thugs evidences their intention to strand passengers on their way home or on their way to wherever they are going. Moreover, the police should arrest those who commit this kind of crime and the offenders should be prosecuted without the silly "mercy" they are always shown that just invites them to come back and do it again and again and again.

These are not people who care one whit about justice. If they did their first thought would be about the effects of their actions on innocent people. They are just throwing sand in the eyes of those who are besotted with very worn out rhetoric.

What in the world has happened to our common sense?

Comment: #1
Posted by: Masako
Thu Aug 25, 2011 6:23 PM

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P.S. Lest my reference to cellphones as techo-baubles be taken as confusing the issue, let's be clear. In the hands of those attempting to shut down BART service, they are weapons being wielded against the passengers. Nothing more, nothing less.

Legitimate passengers may have been inconvenienced by temporarily not being able to use their phones, but let me ask anyone willing to imagine wanting to get home at the end of the day and being on BART.

Would you prefer:

(A) being stranded somewhere in the system, with an incompetent effort being made by the authorities to GET YOU OUT OF THERE, all the while being able to call your spouse and say, "sorry, I'm going to be late--don't know when I'm going to get home, but honey, you can rest assured we're suffering for some thug's notion of First Amendment rights," or

(B) not being able to make that call but getting home on time or substantially less late than the great purveyors of "free speech" would have you get there, because the authorities nailed those bastards and got them out of your way?

And don't forget, what if someone DID happen to have a heart attack or suffer some medical emergency? Or what if some thugs on your BART train started messing with passengers, and...where are the emergency medical folks, or the cops?

Comment: #2
Posted by: Masako
Thu Aug 25, 2011 7:09 PM

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