Where did the meme come from that civil disobedience requires you to sit in jail afterwards?

[antigone382]

210. I disagree with the dismissive wording of the post you are responding to.

I have extraordinary respect for civil rights activists--my home town originally housed the Highlander Folk School, a civil rights training school where Rosa Parks, MLK Jr., and many other civil rights activists gathered to learn and share strategies for combating the injustice they were facing; I am proud of that connection. In addition, I have not yet formed an opinion about Snowden or the merits of his decision to leave the country. However, I do want to clarify that "sitting in a jail cell" in this era is not a trivial thing. The justice system has become a horror show; ranging from the Supermax prisons of Appalachian Virginia to the detainment facilities in Arpaio's Arizona, swaths of people--many of them of color, almost all of them poor--are being subject to vicious, inhumane treatment that any decent nation would recognize as torture. We have dehumanized prisoners to a horrific extent.

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article documenting some of these abuses:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Onion_State_Prison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Onion_State_Prison]

Here is a quote from the article on the lives of these prisoners:

"More than two-thirds of prisoners at Red Onion are held in solitary confinement, or "segregation". They are alone 23 hours per day in 7' x 12' cells with slats for light. They shower three times per week. Length of confinement ranges from two weeks to fourteen years.[16][17] Food and medicine are served through trays in the cell door.[18]"

Here is another:

"Mac Gaskins, a prisoner at Red Onion for fourteen years, reported: “having your fingers broken inside of these places, being bitten by dogs, being strapped to beds for days, as we’ve talked about many times, being forced to defecate on yourself – I mean all of this has led to these men demanding to be treated as human beings. It’s like if you are put inside prison, you forfeit that right to be treated as a human being." Gaskins also reported that prisoners were denied access to soap, toothpaste, and books.[23]"

This is one prison. There are many more.

I understand where your anger is coming from; but please do not minimize the horror of being incarcerated in this day and age.