Thursday, August 22, 2002

Reply from John Eckberg
First my Mia Culpa: I addressed John as Jack. I saw his email address and saw Jack when it was Jeckberg. I am sorry about that John, if you are reading. This will also explain why I was addressed as such in the email.

Subj: RE: 08/22/2002 Article: City melees got national air play
Date: 08/22/2002 8:33:35 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: jeckberg@ENQUIRER.COM
To: CincyBlog@aol.com



hello jack

i meant civil disobendience in the sense of violent civil disobedience as opposed to nonviolent civil disobedience. if i had to do it over again, which i don't, i'd probably use the term civil distress or civil discord or civil anythingbutdisobedience. i'm not convinced, however, that civil disobedience can only be used to describe nonviolent acts.

clearly the story laid out the violence as i was the first and probably only reporter in the whole town to actually find and interview a 15 year old. you should have read beyond the first sentence.
thanks for your comments and time.

john eckberg


Ok, first the definition of civil disobedience from dictionary.com: "Refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means." The events this weekend were in no way civil disobedience. John reply is way off there. He is right that the word could be used to describe violent activities, but the word in usage is rarely used with violence. In this case why it was really wrong were the kids' motivate for breaking the laws, which was not to induce a changed in governmental policy or legislation. They were out to act tough, flex their teenage muscles, and attract attention, some of the lowest emotions humans are prone to express. Note: I did not mistype the letter above. It is as it came to me.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Don't be an idiot or your comment will be deleted.