He’s passing out newspapers and has something to say

If you find me standing in the middle of the street some day yelling, don’t presume that I’ve recently booked a room at the local halfway house. Presume that there’s something terribly wrong going on. Let me explain. This was posted on my Facebook page on Jan. 20 under the title “Idiots at the Gates.”

So this just happened to me on the way to the local Occupy protest in San Pedro. I was walking through the Farmers Market on 6th Street passing out a few copies of the newspaper when the assistant manager of the market comes up to me and says that the vendors don’t want the paper and that “you can’t distribute that here because this is private property.” I said, “What? You’ve got to be kidding. This street is a public street, the farmers market resides in the public domain and as far as I know, you can’t prohibit the First Amendment on a street corner.” He threatened me with arrest if I didn’t comply. Well, I didn’t. I invited him to call the cops. PBID security showed up instead. I told them that if they really wanted to arrest me, they would have to find someone with a real badge.

By this time, I was really angry and speaking loud enough to be heard over the buskers who were playing nearby. Then this guy says he was going to have me arrested for disturbing the peace. Well, hell yes, I’m disturbing your peace because you are trying to cancel my civil rights.

So to all my friends, especially my Occupier friends, I suggest that next Friday we Occupy the San Pedro Farmers Market and express our collective free speech rights. And, if you choose, help me pass out a few copies of your favorite newspaper. Just to make the point that things haven’t gone off the deep end so completely that the average citizen has to give up their rights just to go shopping at the Farmers Market. This is what we are going to do.

Now I’d like to make this perfectly clear, this is not just about my rights as opposed to your rights. It is about guaranteeing that the free exchange of ideas is more protected in the market place than the sale of products. Stopping the distribution of printed materials is the same as censorship. One of the most exquisite forms of censorship in the market place is to censor distribution. You can write anything you want, but if no one has access to read it, then what does it matter? The Chinese government knows this when they block certain websites on the Internet. This is part of the crux of the matter in the battle between Google and Hollywood over the recently defeated Internet Piracy Act in Congress.

During three decades of publishing this newspaper, we have had multiple battles with both public and private entities attempting to censor our distribution. There was a time when Councilman Rudy Svorinich ordered his staff to stop allowing our papers to be delivered at any of the city facilities. That was clearly an attack on the Fourth Estate by an elected official. Rudy and his chief of staff, Barry Glickman, didn’t really appreciate my editorials that challenged his policies and ethics. When Janice Hahn replaced him in office, she wrote a directive to all city offices that are open to the public rescinding Svorinich’s directive. It has stayed in place ever since.

It becomes more difficult when dealing with either the Catholic owned Providence/Little Company of Mary that operates the San Pedro Hospital, or the local YMCA. The hospital still bans Random Lengths from being distributed there, years after the nuns objected to a photo graph of a painting containing a copy of Venus on a Half Shell by the Renaissance painter Botticelli that was published in our pages. The YMCA hasa “corporate policy” that doesn’t allow anything that isn’t “Y” related into their lobby.

The corporate banks like Chase and Wells Fargo aren’t particularly free speech friendly either. Both have policies that prohibit any materials that aren’t approved by their corporate headquarters, where ever that is these days. Local managers have no discretion in the matter. But this includes everything from fliers for a Boy Scout pancake breakfast or community charities to even information about the businesses that bank there. They seem to be saying “We’ll take your money, but leave your free speech at the door.” Everything is “corporate speak” propaganda, and as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, money is speech. Who has more money than the banks?

So it really comes down to this...profit versus the First Amendment. I would argue that you can’t have a vibrant market place if you don’t allow for the free exchange of ideas and that corporations don’t have more rights than citizens just because they control more money. Moreover, once you invite the public into the door of a private business, how is it that you can control what they say as long as it isn’t, “Give me your money, this is a hold-up?”

The local Farmers Market is kind of the classic example for the bigger market place in that Farmers Markets are held on public property at the behest of the local chamber of commerce, which acquires the appropriate permits to block off the streets so that the market can take place. This then holds the chamber accountable for making sure that its policies regarding free speech and the free distribution of information are interpreted in the most legally inclusive way possible. And, the last time I checked, it was against the law to prohibit the free dissemination of speech within the public domain.

The market’s manager Lee Ostendorf apologized for her assistant’s transgression, but it is the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce’s responsibility to issue a clear and inclusive policy that supports the free speech rights of everyone, regardless of their political persuasion in the market place, whether they agree with them or not.

That policy would be consistent with the stated goals and policies of this century old institution. It would embrace the fundamental American creed that their board of directors recites at the start of each board meeting—when they pledge their allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands... with liberty and justice for all. No one should have to be reminded that there is no liberty or justice without the First Amendment.