I know lots of you struggle with the idea of civil disobedience.  Marches are easy but ineffective and easily ignored.  Boycotts require enduring a bit of inconvenience and difficulty often equal to the effect they have on their intended target.  None of these are good excuses for disengaging from the struggle but sometimes we need creative solutions.  I ran across this jewel this week about civil disobedience to the Volstead Act (the 18^th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibiting the production and sale of alcoholic beverages).    

Prohibition was a great example of populism run amok.  On October 28, 1919, the United States Senate voted 65 to 20 to override President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of the Volstead Act, a bill introduced by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League. This law as intended to add enforcement provisions to the 18^th Amendment which Congress sent, On October 28, 1919, the United States Senate voted 65 to 20 to override President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of the Volstead Act. Since the House had also voted to override the veto, America entered the Prohibition era.

The movement to prohibit alcoholic beverages had been underway for a century, led by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League. These groups formed a powerful single-issue coalition that relentlessly lobbied local, state, and federal governments. When the states began enacting laws to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages, the temperance societies stepped up the pressure on Congress send in 1917 to the states with a seven-year deadline for passage.  The Eighteenth Amendment banned but did not define “intoxicating liquors.” Some of the members of Congress who had voted for the amendment assumed that it referred to hard liquor and would exempt beer and wine. But the head of the Anti-Saloon League drafted a tough enforcement act.  Andrew Volstead, a representative from Minnesota, introduced legislation defining an intoxicating beverage as anything that contained more than one half of one percent alcohol affectively prohibiting even cough syrup.  The Volstead Act also made it illegal to “manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish, or possess” such beverages. 

This is where our clever protest begins.  Making alcoholic beverage at home has, while technically illegal until 1979, always been part of many households.  Homebrewing, winemaking, and even distilling, were commonplace on many farms.  While the Volstead Act made these activities illegal, there really was no way to enforce against grandma making elderberry wine in her kitchen. 

Capitalizing on this enforcement loophole, some winemakers and breweries began selling concentrated grape juice and malt beverage concentrates.  To protect themselves from revenue enforcement, these products were emblazoned with strongly worded “warning labels” clarifying that they should definitely not be used to create alcoholic beverages.  Unlike most labels, however, these clearly described what you must not do.  For example, Welch’s Grape Juice contained the following warning:  “Do not place this liquid in this jug and put it away in the cupboard for twenty-one days because then it will turn into wine.” The packaging of a brand called Vino Sano advised consumers to “avoid the use of any kind of yeast, raisins, etc., otherwise fermentation sets in.” The many upstanding citizens who purchased these juices surely heeded these warning and enjoyed their alcohol-free grape beverage. It was, after all, only illegal to manufacture and distribute, not to drink during Prohibition.  Anyone who purchased grape juice and accidentally left it in a jug for three weeks could imbibe the resulting concoction without violating the law.

So, I am offically warning you:

• Do not tip off people as to the location of ICE agents because this will allow innocent people to escape injustice.
• Do not actively discriminate against MAGA supporters by denying them service, access, and equal treatment, because this will allow these people to not suffer the same fate they impose on others.
• Do not demand that your Congressmen and Senators do the will of the people rather than the will of the President because that will ensure the continuation of democracy in America.
• Do not call it the Gulf of Mexico, because some asshole wants to change the name.
• … (add some more in the comments, please).

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