Back in the 1980s, as a young activist in Houston, I pretty much knew every other peace and social justice activist in town. Because, well, in a city of four million, there weren't all that many of us, and there were a whole lot of other folks who would be happy to see us handcuffed and dropped in the bayou (a common Houston Police Dept. practice in those days). So we kinda had to stick together.

Even though I agreed with them on virtually nothing, I had a particularly peculiar relationship with the handful of activists in the local outpost of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Some of them were actually nice people, though they were all hopelessly misinformed. I happened to know this because I spoke Mandarin Chinese, had a graduate degree in Political Science and East Asian Studies specializing in China under Mao, and I knew a hell of a lot more about the life and crimes of their hero and political inspiration than they did. They'd spout some half-baked dogma mistranslated from a taken-out-of-context quote by the Great Helmsman, I'd give them the original Chinese, the proper context, and the crimes against humanity that resulted. And they'd try to recruit me. In a macabre sort of way, it was great sport.

So that's how I came to know an obnoxious young transplanted New Yorker of about my age named Joey Johnson. Joey was best known in Houston peace, anti-nuclear, and Central American solidarity circles as the RCPer who'd show up at every local demonstration with a bloody, severed pig's head (tendrils still trailing along) that he'd drag along on a leash and collar while shouting anti-imperialist slogans; the pig, of course, was the United States. History does not record how many onlookers were moved to revolutionary action as a result, but it didn't impress very many of his fellow activists. Acute embarrassment was more like it.

Well, in 1987 I moved on to political organizing in Washington, D.C. And two years later, in March 1989, I got a call asking if I'd be willing to host an "old friend" for a few days. D.C. being what it is--the prime national destination for every activist with a beef against the guv'mint--our apartment was something of an activist way station. (Not to mention a staging ground for demonstrations, since we lived in Arlington, a quarter mile up the hill from the Pentagon.) So, sure. Why not?

So who should show up for a few days, but Joey and two of his New York buddies. And, well, they trashed the place. My long-suffering then-wife, Kiyoko, met a lot of folks during our D.C. years. Joey and friends were the only guests she banned from ever coming back. She got no argument from me. They destroyed our microwave, trashed the kitchen, they were loud at any hour, obnoxious, and so on. In other words, their behavior as house guests was about the same as Joey's was on the streets. Oh, well. Lesson learned.

Except that Joey's trip to D.C. turned out to be rather important. Among many other things, it was why the US Senate last week was wasting its time and insulting the intelligence of any American with more than three brain cells.

Beyond his glorious days with a pig's head (I don't want to think about where he stored it), Joey, you see--given name Gregory Lee Johnson--had also burned a flag at the 1984 Republican National Convention up I-45 in Dallas. A local court convicted him, but, remarkably, the extremely conservative Texas Supreme Court reversed his conviction. So Joey was in town to hear famed attorney William Kunstler argue his case before the US Supreme Court. And that became Texas v. Johnson, the case that legalized flag-burning in America.

Legally, even though it was a narrow and instantly controversial decision, Texas v. Johnson is something of a no-brainer, enough so that even the top court in Texas had protected Joey's free speech rights. And there was already ample Supreme Court precedent for protecting non-speech communication under the First Amendment. The only real question was whether Joey's act hurt anybody. And it didn't, of course--it just pissed some people off. Which, God knows why, was exactly the intent of much of Joey's street theater stunts.

Pissing people off, however, is not and should not be a crime. If it were, our current President would be serving several million consecutive life terms. But tell that to the four Supreme Court justices (today, with Alito and Roberts, it would be a majority) who dissented in the Texas v. Roberts decision essentially because flag-burning pissed them off. Or tell it to today's Republican demagogues who want to amend the United States Constitution because of the prospect of an occasional Joey Johnson pissing them off. Heaven forbid--an amendment that, frighteningly, failed to pass the Senate last week by only one vote.

Of course, that's not their main motivation. The Republicans' main motivation is to pander to all the voters who also get pissed off by zealots like Joey, and to dare Democrats to stand up for, um, free speech and the US Constitution. Given Democrats' recent record on standing up, it doesn't seem probable they'll draw the line here. Which is sort of sad, considering that the top judges in Texas somehow found more courage to defy reactionary patriotism than the Democrats have.

(Side note: Where were Senate Democrats yesterday? Well, Minority Leader Harry Reid was taking a firm stand, of course, at a Capitol Hill press conference: "We're going to do anything it takes to stop the congressional pay raise this year, and we're not going to settle for this year alone.... [Senate Republicans] can play all the games they want. They can deal with gay marriage, estate tax, flag burning, all these issues and avoid issues like the prices of gasoline, sending your kid to college. But we're going to do everything to stop the congressional pay raise.")

Well, it's a pity Iraq wasn't on the list of issues Democrats think really need to be dealt with. But it's good to know the Democrats are above something as offensive as pandering to voters by holding firm on the critical national issue of Congressional pay raises. Pity, also, they didn't feel the same way about, say, stopping the nominations of Roberts and Alito.)

After the decision, Joey Johnson, of course, became an instant and enduring icon among that small subsection of anti-imperialist activists who think flag-burning is both cool and politically effective. Life can take strange turns.

Wonder if he still has the pig's head.

Maybe we need another amendment.