The state prosecutor recommended that Wight’s bail be set at $50,000 because he apparently chose to see Doug Wight as a madman—the way that state prosecutors typically exaggerate the risks of those who appear before the court. The judge set bail at $2500 cash, but the public defender defended and Doug Wight emptied his savings account and posted $500 bail. Considering him a flight risk—rather than a civil disobedience case who willingly sought to face the consequences of his actions—the court confiscated his drivers’ license.
Homeless and without transport—his truck’s camper and mattress also served as his makeshift home at times—Wight then faced the sub-zero January temperatures of a snowy New England winter with no funds. Much to his surprise, even some of his friends did not support his cause. He spent three nights with no place to sleep.
“I feel that my entire life has been defined by wars,” Doug Wight told me. “I was born in 1942 and lost my name-sake uncle in that war. Then the Korea War came in the 1950’s and then the Vietnam War in which I lost three very close friends—two of these from neighborhood streets where I grew up in Westfield, New Jersey. Then there was the first Persian Gulf war in the 1990s and now our two wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.”
DESTROYING PRIVATE PROPERTY
“The fact that Doug Wight was both jobless and homeless at the time makes a significant difference to many people who would be weighing the merits of his protest,” says local carpenter and civic activist Stephen Goodale, an acquaintance of Doug Wight. Goodale, who is part of a growing movement of citizens who challenge the U.S. government’s explanation of the September 11 attacks, disagrees with Doug Wight’s protest.
“Doug chose to burn a flag that was private property, instead of burning one that belonged to him, or to the federal government,” says Goodale, listing his strongest objection. “This was a catastrophic mistake, in my opinion.”
The point about private property is well taken, and one that seems to have turned many people off to Doug Wight’s cause. I am one who believes that burning the flags at or taking them from people’s homes is questionable. I believe it contributes to fear and violence and I have a lot of sympathy for the family who woke up to find their flag burned or stolen by some sneaky bandit under the cover of darkness.
I love the country where I grew up—I was born a redneck farmer in rural Massachusetts—and I love traveling across this land, and meeting people, and seeing how they live. I love my friends and my family and my neighbors and even some of the stupid things that only Americans would do. I also love the people and land of Afghanistan, Congo and Nicaragua, where I have worked. But in the months after September 11, 2001, I posted a sign on my family’s property in Williamsburg, a few miles west of Northampton, and when my sign was vandalized I was angry. It was my sign, it was my families’ property, and I felt completely violated.
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