Nicole Sandler Recounts Her Arrest at Allen West's Town Hall Meeting

[HolyCity2012]

Run time: 14:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tHJmQwIzUo   Posted on YouTube: April 28, 2011 By YouTube Member: SamSeder Views on YouTube: 633   Posted on DU: April 29, 2011 By DU Member: HolyCity2012 Views on DU: 1660

 
Nicole Sandler was arrested at an Allen West town hall meeting and was then maced at the prison. She recounts her ordeal with Sam on the Majority Report.

http://majority.fm/2011/04/28/thursday-april-28-2011/

[HereSince1628]

1. Getting tossed for posing a question off the cue cards was cool

for the cause,

but

continuing her protest while in solitary confinement didn't provide the cause much compared to her discomfort.


The complaint is with politicians in rigged townhall meetings, losing focus and starting to tangle with the jailer was unfortunate imo.

[HankyDubs]

3. yes we really should remember

how culpable Ms. Sandler is. Wearing that short skirt she was begging to be maced.

[HereSince1628]

4. There were no points to be made arguing with the

jailer. It just reinforces the notion that she was a trouble maker. The politically important part of her disobediance got washed out.

[HolyCity2012]

5. I totally get your point.

But don't expect the majority of DUers to understand.

[HankyDubs]

6. yes, only the elite few

can really get into the victim-blaming with gusto.

[HolyCity2012]

7. This is America, which means

You are free to spin it how ever you want.

[HankyDubs]

8. yes, I'm free to spin

...free to spin the macing of a middle-aged mom, jailed for trespassing at a town hall, suggesting that it's her fault she was maced.

[HolyCity2012]

9. ...

[HankyDubs]

10. so you've got nothing

Gotcha.

She deserved to be jailed. She deserved to be maced. She was asking for it.

[HolyCity2012]

11. I never made those statements, no one has implied any such thing

You are spinning or deceiving or lying or you are some sort of fantasist...

Regardless of the the title you deserve. It is all beneath me and a waste of my time.

Big red X for you, ADIOS!

[HankyDubs]

12. implied right here

"losing focus and starting to tangle with the jailer was unfortunate imo."

How does this poster know that she "lost focus?" What does that even mean?

How does this poster know that she "tangled with the jailer?"

The clear implication is that Sandler did something that warranted macing while she was in jail. Blaming the victim.

continuing her protest while in solitary confinement

What evidence is there that she "continued a protest?" Why the hell was she even in solitary? This is a woman who went to a town hall meeting and asked a question that had not been vetted by Herr West's staff. That's her crime.

Snuggle up to the police state!

[HereSince1628]

15. It means...I feel she muddied up the important message of her protest

I listened to her interview on Cenks show on MSNBC and it's the basis of my comment.

It's surprising that as a protester/journalist/blogger she clearly misunderstood the notion of choosing one's battles and not including things that aren't part of one's thesis in a storyline.

Granting that the jailers behavior was harsh beyond need and purposefully punitive it wasn't anything that the congressman did. The focus went OFF the congress critter. Her story got muddled into one about a person who that night who had multiple confrontations.

The important story was that she was expelled for insisting on asking an honest question while attempting to get around the filter of her Congressman's staff. _That_ story IS politically important at a national level. Her treatment in jail isn't important outside of Broward County.

[HankyDubs]

16. I disrespectfully disagree

with this whole argument that she is to be faulted in any way for being maced or placed in solitary confinement.

but I especially disrespectfully disagree with this statement:

Her treatment in jail isn't important outside of Broward County.

It sure as hell is important when any person is treated that way.

[HereSince1628]

20. You certainly have that right, and I respect it.

It certainly is important to the person mistreated by the police. And strict treatment is unfortunately common, but it isn't news, and mistreatment is an issue to the jurisdiction in which it occurrs. It isn't a part of the national political issue which is republican congress critters dodging accountability in fake/rigged Q&A sessions.

[midnight]

2. K&R To disrupt a meeting is ok if only you are sponsored by the Koch heads..

[Skip_In_Boulder]

13. Unfortunatly Nichole is having to learn the hard way

how our jails and prisons really work. This notion about what's fair and right never comes into play here. No one in the larger society really cares as it is rationalized that if you had not done something wrong you wouldn't have had these problems. The fact is that most people think that if you are in jail you are there because you are a criminal, end of discussion.

[HolyCity2012]

14. +1

EXACTLY!

[bobbolink]

17. That is precisely my thought. I understand her discomfort, but nowhere does she seem to grasp that

*she* is not any different from the other women. That is how they would be treated, if they were to object to those conditions. She has the opportunity to also make this about the issue of how women are treated in jail, but it becomes all about her.

It begins to sound like what I recently heard a speaker talking about... the sense of entitlement and exceptionalism that middleclass people have going into a situation like this. Many women, sadly, have experienced a lot worse, and THAT hasn't been an issue discussed on "progressive" radio, and from this, I don't see it becoming a point of discussion now, either. :(

When I first heard her talking about this, I thought back many years ago, when I was listening to a conference of people who had been incarcerated for "mental illness". I was horrified at what they went through, and the fact that when anyone is incarcerated under those conditions, there is absolutely NO rights whatsoever. Nicole may have felt like her rights were being trampled, and they were, of course, but it is NOTHING compared to what I heard from those who have experienced being locked up in a mental "hospital". All in the name of "help", of course.

Nicole now has the experience and the "progressive" microphone to take this experience and use it to enlighten other "progressives" about the ugly realities that some in this society go through.

Sadly, from what she is saying now, I'm guessing she will not seize that opporunity. :(

[Skip_In_Boulder]

18. Yep, you got it

I love Nichole and listen to her every chance I get but clearly there are realities here that she does not grasp. Prison is not a place where you spend your time trying to figure out how to launch a philosophical or moral position, it is a place you try to figure out how to survive.

[bobbolink]

19. OR.... you have a higher consciousness, and use jail as an opportunity to

not only enlighten your own self, but to reach out to the other people there, as Dorothy Day did. As Martin Luther King did. As other enlightened people have done.

I suppose that is asking too much.... sigh......

[Skip_In_Boulder]

21. Well, there can be that aspect as well

But the first order of business is still to survive so that you have an opportunity to be helpful too others.