------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 13, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
MALL BOSSES WON'T GIVE PEACE A CHANCE You can find a t-shirt that says just about anything in the sprawling shopping shrines known as malls. Designer logos, bumper sticker wisdom, rude suggestions, simplistic gendered statements, team loyalties. But 61-year-old Stephen Downs and his 31-year-old son Roger tried to wear t-shirts with a progressive message--"Peace on Earth" and "Give peace a chance"--in the Crossgates Mall in a suburb of Albany, N.Y., on March 3. They had just bought them from a vendor at the mall. A modest point in print. Amid the hubbub of sales and people browsing, mall security spotted the message and demanded that the two men remove their shirts or leave the premises. Both Downs refused. The guards returned with a cop. But Stephen Downs would not be stripped of his shirt or his beliefs. He was handcuffed, taken away and charged with trespassing. He faces up to one year in prison. Less than three months earlier, the same mall bosses had used their security force and local police to expel 20 peace activists for the crime of wearing similar t-shirts. The captains of capital are putting a hard sell on this war, but more and more people aren't buying it. In fact, about 100 anti-war activists marched through the mall on March 5 to protest Downs' arrest. --Leslie Feinberg - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
