25 QUESTIONS TO ASK AT YOUR LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT
1. If I walk in here with a copy of Alice’s Restaurant on vinyl, does that count as antifascist literature under NSPM-7?
2. Can I still sing “you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant” without being charged as a domestic terrorist — or do I need a permit?
3. When Arlo Guthrie said he was “sittin’ on the Group W bench,” did he mean the one reserved for antifascists in 2025?
4. If I bring in a garbage bag like Arlo, will you arrest me for littering, protesting, or just being insufficiently fascist?
5. Do you file antifascists under “Group W” in your database, or is that column just labeled “usual suspects”?
6. When I ask if it’s legal to oppose fascism, will you tell me to sit right down on the bench next to the mother rapers and father stabbers?
7. Would you prefer I oppose fascism in a cardigan and khakis, or just with a Thanksgiving dinner and a side of garbage disposal?
8. Can I get drafted into the “war on terror” for the crime of not liking fascism, the way Arlo got drafted for littering?
9. If I say I’d rather play guitar at Alice’s Restaurant than goose-step at a rally, does that go in my permanent record?
10. Is listening to a 19-minute anti-war song a radical act in 2025, or just evidence of patience?
11. Would you consider Arlo Guthrie’s chorus an act of sedition if I sang it loudly in the station lobby?
12. Can you explain why Guthrie’s garbage was a crime but fascism is just “free speech”?
13. If 50 people walk into this station singing Alice’s Restaurant, would that be an antifascist conspiracy, or just a Group W choir?
14. Is opposing fascism more dangerous than wielding a guitar with only two working strings?
15. When you type up your report, does it read like the song — all 27 eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one?
16. If I tell you I don’t want to kill people in a war for fascism, are you going to mark me “unfit for service” like Arlo, or “terrorist suspect” like NSPM-7?
17. Which gets you more suspicious: a protest sign that says “End Fascism” or a turkey dinner at Alice’s?
18. Can you legally force me to join a fascist parade if I say I’d rather be “obnoxious and have fun” like Arlo suggested?
19. Do you believe democracy still allows me to eat anything I want at Alice’s Restaurant, or only what’s on the government-approved menu?
20. If Arlo Guthrie showed up here today with his guitar, would you deputize him, detain him, or just livestream the whole thing?
21. What’s worse in your manual: leaving garbage in a ditch or leaving fascism unchecked?
22. Do you see the irony that Alice’s Restaurant was once a Thanksgiving joke — and now it reads like a training manual for surviving 2025?
23. If I oppose fascism in song form, do I still end up in the same file as grandma’s casserole cell?
24. Does humming Alice’s Restaurant while holding a protest sign count as “coordinated political extremism”?
25. When history books write about this year, will your department be remembered for defending democracy — or for telling Arlo Guthrie’s spiritual grandchildren to shut up and stop singing?
If Arlo Guthrie could get arrested for taking out the garbage, imagine what happens when you walk into a police station in 2025 and ask if it’s still legal to oppose fascism. Spoiler: they don’t hand you a guitar, they hand you a file number.
That’s why Closer to the Edge exists — to ask the questions that make power nervous, to laugh in the face of authoritarian nonsense, and to turn absurdity into evidence. We’re writing the Group W Bench for a new generation, only this time it’s livestreamed, annotated, and fact-checked against NSPM-7.
And I just bought half a dozen kazoos in anticipation of the national No Kings Day upcoming. What could be better than an antifascist kazoo band!
Brillant! A perfect movie to revisit this Thanksgiving. I must say, you made me laugh for the first time today. Merci.