WEEKEND MAKEOVER

A generation without anarchists
is a dull group indeed.
P. Wilson

Here’s something the Mayor could do to get his mind off his own problems: Free Josh Wolf.

[A young San Francisco video-journalist is in Federal Prison for failing to turn over raw mpg’s of a stupid local demonstration. The way J. Edgar Hoover’s Fascist Bureau of Intimidation weaseled into the case is really back-alley. No journalist in the history of the United States has done a longer Federal stretch for this sort of thing. The facts of the case are piddling. The intrusion on press freedom is monumental. Josh Wolf is a hero for refusing.]

It’s shameful that our “liberal” city hasn’t done more to resist this jackboot attack on one of our youth. We count on our local officials to help shield us from the thuggery of Bush, Cheney, and ilk.

Newsom should do a camp-out and hunger-strike at the gates of the Dublin facility where Josh Wolf is imprisoned. Not forever, but for a full weekend, Friday sundown to Monday sunrise.

Invited celebrities would flock.

There’d be lots of non-scandal press coverage and it’s very low risk, Newsom would be supporting the First Amendment and opposing the least popular administration since Nixon’s. Since his chances for higher office have suddenly become non-existent there’s no harm can be done there.

And, who knows, it might hasten the release of Josh Wolf.

Of course, Mayor Newsom doesn’t give a shit about Josh Wolf. But he needs to do something that isn’t about himself, something to get his head out of his own butt. And it’s entirely symbolic, it’s not like he’d have to do any real work.

Free Josh Wolf.

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