Rock-shock ukulele player Amanda Palmer, known for her role in the local Boston group The Dresden Dolls, wrote a heartfelt letter to Mayor Thomas Menino explaining how disappointed she was in his use of words in a recent interview about Occupy Boston.
Palmer wrote on her blog today, Sunday, October 23, that Menino should be ashamed of himself for saying “civil disobedience” will not be tolerated, during an interview on NECN.
Palmer quoted writer Henry David Thoreau and pointed out that while a student in Massachusetts public schools, an essay written by Thoreau was used as a teaching tool.
The essay was titled “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.”
“In our state, we have a national holiday on April 19 to celebrate Patriots’ Day,” said Palmer, a Boston resident, in her letter to the mayor.
“We picnic and prance and set off fireworks rejoicing the fact that a bunch of Minutemen…in Lexington and Concord boldly engaged in life-or-death acts of civil disobedience that led to the independence of this country,” she said.
Palmer expressed her discontent with Menino’s choice in words, saying citizens of Boston would be living in a “very different city” had it not been for some “brazen acts of civil disobedience.”
Palmer played an impromptu show at Occupy Boston several weeks ago, fully supporting the group’s movement.
