Army Experience Center Protesters Experience Jail

I got a message from Rob Kall that Cheryl Biren and Debra Sweet were among those arrested protesting today at the Army Experience Center at a Philadelphia area shopping mall, and Biren for taking photographs. Recent news put out by the Army just prior to this long-planned protest was that the center may shut down and others not be built, supposedly because of the cost of them and the lack of need for more recruitment. Think about that for a moment. As if they didn't always know the cost, as if such a thing is more than pocket change for the U.S. military, and as if they have all the recruits they want. Make no mistake: the people winning this one are the people going to jail.  If the Army Experience Center is not boosting recruitment, that is in large part because of the protests. 

Update: Seven were arrested, six of whom were risking arrest: Debra Sweet, Elaine Brower, Sarah Wellington, Joan Pleune, Beverly Rice, and a young man whose permission I haven't obtained to use his name.  The seventh, Cheryl Biren, was covering the event as a journalist for OpEdNews.  The police came away from those risking arrest, and picked Biren out of a crowd of onlookers to arrest her, possibly because she had a professional camera.  She did not have a shirt or sign or anything associated with the activists.  She made clear that she was a journalist.  Now she and the other five women are in the Roundhouse, central jail in Philadelphia.

The Army spreads a false story about why it is closing this center that does not credit the protests.  The police preemptively arrest a journalist who might report on the protests.  Tell me again about how someone hates us for our freedoms.

UPDATE 9/13/09: All 7 are out.