So, you thought that Freedom of Speech, of Assembly, to Petition, to Protest War, … were all guaranteed under the First Amendment, … April Fools!
Back in March 2003 – five years ago! – I remember feeling outraged when I heard that a man had been arrested at a Mall in Albany, NY for wearing a T-shirt that said “Give Peace A Chance.” What’s more, he actually had just bought the shirt at that very Mall! [didn’t our fearless leader urge us to go shopping in order to better cope with 9/11 PTSD?] It was then that I realized that I needed to be, in the words of Norman Lear, a “born-again American,” a born-again political activist.
“Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.” -Howard Zinn, Election Madness
Over and over again, I am stunned when I hear about other similar instances, like when Cindy Sheehan was forcibly removed and arrested from the PSOTU in January 2006, again for wearing a T-shirt with the number of Iraq war dead (then, over two thousand) and the words “How Many More?” and how even the Democrats, taking a page from the Bush administration, condoned the use of “free Speech Zones” at the 2004 Democratic Convention and other places. I had thought that the atmosphere might be changing, the proverbial pendulum swinging back to equilibrium.
And then last night I read an article from Newsday about an 8o year old church deacon who was arrested for wearing a shirt with the words “4,ooo and 1 million Dead” and “Enough,” again in a Mall in Smith Haven, NY (half an hour from where I grew up, this hits so close to home). He was with a small group of people all wearing the shirts and all but he complied with Mall security by turning their shirts inside out.
Back when I was in Junior and Senior High School, during the height of the Vietnam War protests, I was part of a group who made a black moratorium flag with a peace symbol and dove on it and we were allowed to fly it at the school, on the school flagpole. I can’t even begin to imagine that being allowed today. Back then, I organized several special moratorium programs with guest speakers from VVAW and other anti-war groups that took place in the school library. Students had permission to skip their classes in order to attend the programs! Can you imagine this happening today?!
I was surprised again, last year, when I tried to post information at my alma mater, Brandeis, a school with a long pedigree of radical politics, about my media organizing to bring back Progressive Talk Radio, and I was told that everything needs to be authorized and nothing can go up unless it originates from a current student. Again, so different an atmosphere from my own college days where someone was protesting, striking, sitting-in or taking over a building every other day it seemed!
Free speech and protest can be messy and inconvenient, it’s true, but are necessary for survival of democracy. It is the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War, and yet, the Winter Soldier Hearings were relegated only to Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now and a few other small independent media outlets, but never made it onto the MSM (The Progressive Magazine just ran a great article about Goodman in their February issue). According to Alternet, there were only two major newspapers in the entire country who gave front page coverage to the 4000 dead soldiers!
When are we going to allow real debate of the issues again in this country rather than the sanitized and controlled versions that pass for debate? When are we going to free up the media to address these issues, and allow ALL sides the microphone? Getting active is our only hope choice!
Talk by Naomi Wolf, The End of America
Sammy Cam Clip from 9/9/07
Sam Seder talks with Naomi Wolf about her book “The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”.
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