All Hail Our New Queen: Portland Protester 'Naked Athena'
Source - She emerged as an apparition from clouds of tear gas as federal agents fired pepper balls at angry protesters in the early Saturday darkness.
A woman wearing nothing but a black face mask and a stocking cap strode toward a dozen heavily armed agents attired in camouflage fatigues, lined up across a downtown Portland street. ...
Numerous photos and videos posted on Twitter show the unidentified woman as she halted in the middle of the street at about 1:45 a.m. ...
Before it was over, she struck ballet poses and reclined on the street. She also sat on the asphalt in a yoga-like position, facing officers, before they left.
Portland has long been loved, or mocked, for its streak of earnest but quirky organic earthiness, as portrayed in the “Portlandia” television comedy series. Sometimes the envelope-pushing forms of expression involve nudity.
I'm not here to debate the merits of the Portland protests. Nor their ideology. Nor their effectiveness. Nor the government response. I leave that to others in more appropriate forums.
I'm only here to applaud the methods of the one they call Naked Athena. This is how you get your message heard.
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You want to be heard? You want to get your message out to the world? This is how you do it. Peaceably. Non-violently. And by exercising your 1st Amendment rights to expose your naked genitalia to the people with whom you disagree. This is the way the Framers of the Constitution would've wanted it. A voice of dissent, dropping trou, placing his or her bare ass on the pavement, and spreading wide to show the world that you and your bathing suit area have a point of view that deserves to be listened to.
Who know? If that lone protester who stood in front of the lines of tanks in Tienanmen Square had thought to strip down to nothing but his glasses, maybe the Chinese government would've backed down and reforms would've taken place instead of the wholesale violence that followed.
So let Naked Athena serve as an example to all demonstrators going forward. The way to expose your truths is to expose yourself. Just be sure to wear a mask.