Attacks of Civil Liberties in WWI
Michael S. Morris
I've made the claim before in this group that even
those destructions of civil liberties proposed by
characters in the present White House is mild by
comparison with what actually happened under
Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano
Roosevelt.
When I said that, one of the sources I was thinking of was
Byron Farwell's _Over There: The United States in the Great
War, 1917-1918_. This is a book I had listened to on tape a year
or two ago, and I didn't have a print copy to hand to quote
anything from. Now I do have a print copy, and I think it might
be illuminating to some for me to type in a long passage about
censorship in the US during WWI, governmental and otherwise:
A bellicose national mood was fanned by Creel's
propaganda. In San Antonio, Texas, when an old
Confederate veteran failed to remove his hat "a
sufficient length of time as the color passed" he was
"hustled through the crowd" to the federal building
where he was cautioned "to be careful the next time".
Many feared that the large immigrant population,
the "aliens in our midst," were "the spies within."
Those bearing German names were often molested, and
in places lynched. Mrs. Hugo Heisinger, daughter of
brewer Adolphus Busch, fell under suspicion when it was
learned she had a telegraph in her house. With some
disappointment, it was found to belong to a servant
who was taking a telegraphy course at the Young Men's
Christian Association (YMCA). Some families with
German names anglicized them. A number of towns
bearing German names changed them: Berlin, Maryland,
became Brunswick, the city fathers perhaps unaware
that they had chosen the name of a former German state.
Many schools banned the teaching of German. In many
places the "Hun music" of Bach and Wagner was no longer
played and actors and opera singers with German names
found it difficult to get engagements. Even Vienna-born
Fritz Kreisler was forbidden to give a concert in Jersey
City, New Jersey. Libraries were purged of German literature.
Sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage". Hamburgers became
"Salisbury steak". Most curious of all, German measles
became "Liberty measles". Zwieback lost its popularity.
Hasenpfeffer and Wiener Schnitzel were banned from restaurant
menus. Beer halls and saloons no longer offered pretzels. Owners
of German shepherds were suspect until their breed's name
was changed to "police dog"; in places dachshunds were
stoned. Many admitted to _schadenfreude_ when, during a
Barnum and Bailey Circus performance, a Russian bear attacked
an animal trainer of German extraction.
All aliens considered "dangerous" were ordered interned;
sixty-three were arrested on the day the war was declared.
Patriotic organizations warned people to keep an eye out
for "gloaters", those who smiled or expressed approval of
German victories. Between April and November 1917 thousands
of suspected citizens were arrested, often without a warrant,
and their backgrounds checked by the Alien Enemy Bureau of
the War Emergency Division of the Justice Department. While
most were released, about 1,200 were placed in internment camps.
Among those arrested was Carl Muck, conductor of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, picked up just as he was about to conduct
Bach's "St. Matthew Passion". Among the officials screening
aliens at the Justice Department was twenty-two-year old J.
Edgar Hoover, upon whose recommendation Ernst Kunwald, conductor
of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was arrested. Mr. Kunwald
had on the eve of war turned his back upon an audience demanding
an encore of "The Star Spangled Banner". Hoover also recommended
internment for a Mr. Otto Mueller who was reported to have called
President Wilson "a cocksucker and a thief".
Creel was later blamed for the hysteria. One critic observed
that, "Never have so many behaved so stupidly at the
manipulation of so few." Americans grew suspicious of each
other. Neighbour spied on neighbour and workers spied on
their fellow workers. There developed a kind of national
paranoia. Almost every aspect of American life was touched
upon. The _Literary Digest_ invited readers to send in clippings
of newspaper articles they thought "seditious or treasonable".
Some eight hundred industrial plants organized "Americanization
Committees". Pay packets were stuffed with patriotic literature
supplied by the American Chamber of Commerce.
Some factories established their own FBI. The head of personnel
at the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in New Haven proudly
announced that his company had "a factory Intelligence Bureau
through which are reported disloyal utterances or actions."
U.S. Attorney General Thomas W. Gregory worked with vigilante
groups to uncover "disloyal Americans". The American Protective
League, a Chicago-based business group, enrolled 250,000 members
and supplied the FBI with information about leaders of groups
suspected of disloyalty; these tended to be political and labor
leaders of immigrant organizations.
Gregory boasted that he had "several hundred thousand private
citizens," most of them members of "patriotic bodies" assisting
"heavily overworked Federal authorities in keeping an eye on
disloyal individuals and seeking reports of disloyal utterances."
Boy Spies of Americs, the National Security League, founded
before the war to plead for preparedness, and the American
Defense Society joined the hunt.
The Free Speech clause of the Bill of Rights was trampled
under patriotic feet. In violation of the law and the
Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, federal troops
were used to put down strikes, raid union premises, and
arrest labor leaders. Captain Omar Bradley, sent to Butte,
Montana, deployed his company with loaded rifles and fixed
bayonets to cow strikers at the Anaconda mines.
In September 1917 the national leaders of the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW), and other "Wobblies", were
arrested by the FBI for protesting America's entry into the
war and later attempting to discourage enlistments with
such slogans as "Sherman said 'War is hell' Dont go to
hell in order to give the capitalists a bigger place in
heaven!" Under the Espionage Act, 113 were tried, found
guilty, and sent to prison; the fifteen top leaders were
sentenced to twenty years.
The War Department established a list of seventy-five
books, surmised to be "vicious German propaganda,"
"morbid," or "salacious." They were banned from army
camp libraries, and throughout the nation librarians
removed them from their shelves, sometimes burning
them.
On 6 April 1917 Wilson authorized the seizure of
radio stations. Congress passed the Espionage Act
signed by the president on 15 June 1917, the Trading
with the Enemy Act on 6 October, and the "Sedition
Act," actually an amendment to the Espionage Act,
on 16 May 1918.
The postmaster general was authorized to refuse mail
advocating "treason, insurrection or forcible resistance
to any law of the United States." Postmaster General
Albert Sidney Burleson used this power to cut off
the second-class mailing privileges of assorted foreign
language newspapers and magazines, bankrupting many. More
than four hundred periodical issues were censored. Many
were forced to submit English translations of any articles
they carried concerning the war. Publications such as
the _Internationalist Socialist Review_, _The Masses_,
and the _Milwaukee Leader_ were suppressed.
It was under the provisions of Title XI of the Espionage
Act that a motion picture, "The Spirit of 76", was
seized in Los Angeles. Produced by robert Goldstein,
a respected filmmaker who had been associated with
D.W. Griffith in making "The Birth of a Nation" (1915),
it was begun before the United States entereed the war
and after a year and a half in production it was released
in 1917 just before America's entry into the war. Bad timing.
A patriotic film about the Revolutionary War, it seemed
unobjectionable, but the villains of the piece were
British soldiers who in one scene ran amok, massacring
women and children and carrying off nubile maidens. The
idea of British soldiers---even eighteenth-century British
soldiers---committing atrocities was now declared offensive.
it was whispered that Goldstein had sought funds for his
production from German-American Anglophobes. The film was
seized, the company was bankrupted and Goldstein was tried,
convicted, and sentenced to ten years in federal
penitentiary, a verdict upheld by the United States Circuit
Court of Appeals.
In New York City Jacob Abrams, thirty-one, a Russian-born
American bookbinder, protested American intervention in
Russia and wrote two pamphlets asserting it was a crime
for American workers to fight a workers' republic in Russia.
On 23 August 1918 he and his friends, including Hyman
Rosansky, a hatmaker, and Mollie Steiner, barely twenty
years old, a small, round-faced seamstress, scattered
the pamphlets from a rooftop on Broadway. The Department of
Justice collected some and rounded up the protesters. They
were tried and sentenced to twenty years in jail, a sentence
upheld by seven justices of the Supreme Court in October 1919,
but denounced by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in
whose opinion the defendants "had as much right to publish
[the panphlets] as the government has to publish the
Constitution of the United States now vainly invoked by them."
Never before in American history had the government
attempted such a near total control over freedom
of expression. Curiously, prior to 1917 the Supreme
Court had never applied or interpreted the First
Amendment. There were, therefore, no guidelines
for courts to consider in free speech cases. By the time
of the Armistice the government had the potential
to exercise total control of the American press. The
Creel Committee remained active until 30 June 1919.
by Byron Farwell, pp.124-128 in chapter "Home Front"
of _Over There: The United States in the Great
War, 1917-1918_
That's kind of a lengthy extract, but it illustrates I think
both my point (that assaults on civil liberties in the
wake of 9/11 have been nothing compared to earlier instances---
plus what has been attempted or even proposed is much less
likely to get anywhere because of a higher willingness of
the Supreme Court to shoot down federal laws on Bill-of-Rights
grounds) and the comprehensiveness of Mr. Farwell's book. This
passage quoted was concerned with, well, censorship
for the most part, a sort of negative patriotism, if you
will. Much of the rest of the chapter is concerned with more
positive, proactive expressions of patriotism, and with
industry in America, and the question of war profiteering.
The next chapter "Army Welfare", discusses the CTCA (Commission
on Training Camp Activities) and how it operated to close down
prostitution in the US (I understand that Storyville, the district
of ill repute in New Orleans that was the birthplace of jazz,
was closed down in this manner, which in turn led to the spread of jazz
to Chicago and New York). There is a lovely chapter later on
(number 25) about the two American expeditions sent to Russia and to
Siberia. The US experience of WWI was short, and certainly not as
profound a national experience as that of any of the European major
players (france, Britain, germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey),
or even as deep as Canada's. But it is quite arguable that Germany
would simply have won in 1918 because its exhaustion on the Western Front
was less than that of France and England, and it now had reserves
to bring to bear from the East, with the communists having
taken Russia out of the war. So, the US's entry into the war was
decisive, both in stopping the Germans' offensive of the spring of
1918 and in permitting the Allies to take the offensive which
forced the Armistice in the Fall.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
smw
Michael S. Morris wrote:
> Tuesday, the 18th of February, 2003
>
> I've made the claim before in this group that even
> those destructions of civil liberties proposed by
> characters in the present White House is mild by
> comparison with what actually happened under
> Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano
> Roosevelt.
I wouldn't be surprised. After all, race discrimination isn't what it
used to be under slavery, either.
A boy was sent home from a Detroit or Dearborn school today for wearing a
t-shirt with a portrait of Bush and the text, "International Terrorist."
Apparently, he was all dressed up for giving his contrast-and-compare on
Bush and Hussein.
Francis A. Miniter
smw wrote:
>
>
> Michael S. Morris wrote:
>
>> Tuesday, the 18th of February, 2003
>>
>> I've made the claim before in this group that even
>> those destructions of civil liberties proposed by
>> characters in the present White House is mild by comparison with what
>> actually happened under
>> Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano
>> Roosevelt.
>
But did you hear about the proposed revisions to the Patriots Act?
These proposals are currently being discussed in the Justice Department
and would take the infringement on liberties another significant step.
>
>
> I wouldn't be surprised. After all, race discrimination isn't what it
> used to be under slavery, either.
True, we have (or had) made progress in firming up civil liberties since
WWII. But, at least as to race discrimination, which forms a
substantial part of my law practice, the pain, humiliation and emotional
injury that results from the present manifestations of discrimination is
deep. It hurts the individual who endures the discrimination and it
tears at the smooth workings of society.
>
>
> A boy was sent home from a Detroit or Dearborn school today for
> wearing a t-shirt with a portrait of Bush and the text, "International
> Terrorist." Apparently, he was all dressed up for giving his
> contrast-and-compare on Bush and Hussein.
>
So, the school thought it would be all right to compare and contrast as
long as the opinions came out only one way. What a marvelous way to
teach children to think. Oh, and freedom of speech? I guess they would
get to that in another class. Maybe, next year in archaeology.
Francis A. Miniter
smw
Francis A. Miniter wrote:
>
>
> smw wrote:
>
...
>>
>> I wouldn't be surprised. After all, race discrimination isn't what it
>> used to be under slavery, either.
>
>
> True, we have (or had) made progress in firming up civil liberties since
> WWII. But, at least as to race discrimination, which forms a
> substantial part of my law practice, the pain, humiliation and emotional
> injury that results from the present manifestations of discrimination is
> deep. It hurts the individual who endures the discrimination and it
> tears at the smooth workings of society.
I was being sarcastic. I don't think race discrimination can be excused
by pointing out that it could always and has often been worse. But Mike,
of course, didn't say that, either, and I don't know whether he meant to
imply it.
>> A boy was sent home from a Detroit or Dearborn school today for
>> wearing a t-shirt with a portrait of Bush and the text, "International
>> Terrorist." Apparently, he was all dressed up for giving his
>> contrast-and-compare on Bush and Hussein.
>>
> So, the school thought it would be all right to compare and contrast as
> long as the opinions came out only one way. What a marvelous way to
> teach children to think. Oh, and freedom of speech? I guess they would
> get to that in another class. Maybe, next year in archaeology.
Well, the official explanation was, of course, that the boy might not be
safe, and that fights might break out. Not entirely unreasonable, esp in
an area with a high Arab population, where passions might run high.
Still, rather a clear infringement of the kid's 1st Amendment Rights, I
imagine. On the other hand, fine publicity for his stance.
I remember once writing a rather nasty paper for a professor whose
teachings I detested. Her comment was brilliant: "Splendidly provocative."
R.A. Leonard
smw wrote:
>
> A boy was sent home from a Detroit or Dearborn school today for wearing a
> t-shirt with a portrait of Bush and the text, "International Terrorist."
> Apparently, he was all dressed up for giving his contrast-and-compare on
> Bush and Hussein.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall during the upcoming parents-teacher
meeting.
--
__________________________________________
R.A. Leonard
Ottawa Canada
http://www.raleonard.com/
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 19th of February, 2003
I said:
I've made the claim before in this group that even
those destructions of civil liberties proposed by
characters in the present White House is mild by
comparison with what actually happened under
Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano
Roosevelt.
Silke:
I wouldn't be surprised. After all, race discrimination
isn't what it used to be under slavery, either.
Neither is it what it was under Jim Crow, or
what it was in the Civil Rights Era, either.
Silke:
A boy was sent home from a Detroit or Dearborn
school today for wearing a t-shirt with a portrait
of Bush and the text, "International Terrorist."
Apparently, he was all dressed up for giving
his contrast-and-compare on Bush and Hussein.
But, my point is: Am I supposed to get particularly
worked up about something like that? I mean, getting sent
from school versus El Fadl getting death threats from
Arab-Americans for having written a opinion column claiming
the radicalization of ISlam itself is to blame for 9/11.
Again, in 1917, this boy, his parents, and the maker of
the shirt would've all been sentenced to 20 years in
prison, and an appeal to the Supreme Court wouldn't have
helped. Today, he wore something pretty darn inappropriate
to school, got sent home (which is a *marginal*---debatable---
call on the school's part, if they'd also send home somebody
with a t-shirt that said "Nuke Baghdad", then I'd say they
were probably right to do this), and somebody will probably
sue that school system and win big bucks for it.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 19th of February, 2003
Silke:
A boy was sent home from a Detroit or Dearborn
school today for wearing a t-shirt with a portrait
of Bush and the text, "International Terrorist."
Apparently, he was all dressed up for giving
his contrast-and-compare on Bush and Hussein.
I said:
But, my point is: Am I supposed to get particularly
worked up about something like that? I mean, getting sent
from school versus El Fadl getting death threats from
Arab-Americans for having written a opinion column claiming
the radicalization of ISlam itself is to blame for 9/11.
Again, in 1917, this boy, his parents, and the maker of
the shirt would've all been sentenced to 20 years in
prison, and an appeal to the Supreme Court wouldn't have
helped. Today, he wore something pretty darn inappropriate
to school, got sent home (which is a *marginal*---debatable---
call on the school's part, if they'd also send home somebody
with a t-shirt that said "Nuke Baghdad", then I'd say they
were probably right to do this), and somebody will probably
sue that school system and win big bucks for it.
Yeah, Martha pointed out there simply isn't enough
information in the story as given to decide. Some
schools ban t-shirts with writing on it in school
dress codes. If that were the case here, then it
is probably exactly correct what they did. If not,
and what they were doing is censoring only anti-Bush
speech, well, then the point is that the student
probably has great legal recourse at his disposal.
It is a mistake to imagine that every person or
even most people under a liberal regime are
going to be libertarian-minded. The liberal
provisions in the Constitution---the limitations
that they place upon government---are there precisely
to provide legal restraint upon those who are
always going to want to bring on the censorship.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
smw
Michael S. Morris wrote:
>
...
>
> Silke:
> A boy was sent home from a Detroit or Dearborn
> school today for wearing a t-shirt with a portrait
> of Bush and the text, "International Terrorist."
> Apparently, he was all dressed up for giving
> his contrast-and-compare on Bush and Hussein.
>
> But, my point is: Am I supposed to get particularly
> worked up about something like that?
Hell no. I thought it was funny. I think he was given a choice to wear
the thing outside in or go home. Surprise, surprise, he chose the latter
option.
> Today, he wore something pretty darn inappropriate
> to school
now now -- it was part of his presentation. Wholistic learning and all
that. Homeschooling puts you all out of touch with innovative pedagogy.
I'm thinking of having my students design a class-t-shirt.
Don Tuite
>now now -- it was part of his presentation. Wholistic learning and all
>that. Homeschooling puts you all out of touch with innovative pedagogy.
>I'm thinking of having my students design a class-t-shirt.
I hope they won't limit themselves to mere words and pictures.
something with wraparound sleeves like a straitjacket would be a
hoot. The depressed poet's model could have extra pockets for rocks.
The business-school model would resemble an empty suit. I'm still
working on the Continental philosophy model. Maybe something in Lycra
that would require considerable stretching.
Don
(Currently knitting a rab-special our of dryer lint)
Sayan Bhattacharyya
The Ann Arbor news reported that the official reason given by the
school was that the t-shirt might inflame passions in the school.
Actually, the student was given a choice to change from the t-shirt
into some other shirt, or go home. He chose to go home.
Recently, when I put up announcements about anti-war marches in
Ann Arbor in the student co-op I live in, I was asked by the
co-op president to desist from doing so, on account that it
might create conflict in the house, as "there are both students
who support the war and who oppose the war, living here".
I think "avoiding potential conflict" has become the new euphemism
in shutting down free speech. The irony is that usually the free
speech that is being shut down is precisely one which opposes
conflict, namely the war (which is conflict on a grand scale)!
Rich Clancey
+ Among those arrested was Carl Muck, conductor of the Boston
+ Symphony Orchestra
I don't know if the rest of this post has any merit,
though I do think the guy might have a point, but I'd
love to know more about this conductor with the strange
name. I'd never heard of him. Are we talking about
Karl Munch?
--
rich clancey r...@world.std.com
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 28th of February, 2003
In a post of mine, I was quoting at length from Byron Farwell's
book _Over There_ about the widespread attacks on civil liberties
in America under Woodrow Wilson's presidency when the US
entered WWI:
"Among those arrested was Carl Muck, conductor of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra"
Rich Clancey says:
I don't know if the rest of this post has any merit,
though I do think the guy might have a point,
My point was only that attacks on civil liberties always
are attempted by the executive branch at wartime, that most
people haven't a clue how far these attacks actually went during
the American Civil War, WWI, and WWII, and that what has
been even proposed so far by the Bush administration is milquetoast
by comparison, and unlikely to be passed by Congress, or
to survive court challenge if it is.
Rich Clancey:
but I'd love to know more about this conductor with the strange
name. I'd never heard of him. Are we talking about Karl Munch?
I don't think so. Cf:
<http://www.cd.sc.ehu.es/FileRoom/documents/Cases/73drCarlMuck.html>
And check out the reference to him at:
<http://cpa.feynsinn.de/eng/reineckebio/reineckebio.html>
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
tomca...@yanospamhoo.com
> My point was only that attacks on civil liberties always
> are attempted by the executive branch at wartime, that most
> people haven't a clue how far these attacks actually went during
> the American Civil War, WWI, and WWII, and that what has
> been even proposed so far by the Bush administration is milquetoast
> by comparison, and unlikely to be passed by Congress, or
> to survive court challenge if it is.
Maybe we're finally making some historical progress!
Francis A. Miniter
Justice Department to "enhance" the USA Patriots Act. One would provide
that if you make a contribution to an organization later deemed by the
government to be providing aid to terrorists, you will presumptively
lose your US citizenship.
Francis A. Miniter
Michael S. Morris wrote:
> Friday, the 28th of February, 2003
><snip>
>My point was only that attacks on civil liberties always
>are attempted by the executive branch at wartime, that most
>people haven't a clue how far these attacks actually went during
>the American Civil War, WWI, and WWII, and that what has
>been even proposed so far by the Bush administration is milquetoast
>by comparison, and unlikely to be passed by Congress, or
>to survive court challenge if it is.
><snip>
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
>
>
>
>
>
>
Michael S. Morris
I said:
My point was only that attacks on civil
liberties always are attempted by the
executive branch at wartime, that most
people haven't a clue how far these attacks
actually went during the American Civil War,
WWI, and WWII, and that what has been even
proposed so far by the Bush administration
is milquetoast by comparison, and unlikely
to be passed by Congress, or to survive
court challenge if it is.
Francis A. Miniter:
Have you heard about the latest proposals being
circulated in the Justice Department to "enhance"
the USA Patriots Act.
Yes, I have.
Francis:
One would provide that if you make a
contribution to an organization later deemed
by the government to be providing aid to terrorists,
you will presumptively lose your US citizenship.
Again, I am simply not that alarmed. Yes, that is an
execrable proposal. However, it is only a proposal,
and it is so far as it has been reported in the press,
unclear to me whence it has come (i.e. is it John
Ashcroft's actual shopping list or is it just some
memo of possible ways to "improve" the Patriot Act?).
It has not gotten anywhere that I have seen in Congress,
other than as an embarassment to the administration, and
I am heartened, at least with the first version of the
USA Patriot Act, it was some of the more right-wing
Republicans (and *not*, say, Democrats) who torpedoed
the most liberty-violating proposals. Finally,
we live in an era (unlike WWI) when the courts regularly
*do* trash federal legislation that the courts find
unconstitutional, and that includes legislation that
violates any of the Bill of Rights (which historically,
took the courts a long time to get around to doing). So,
even if something like this got passed (and it is frankly
hard for me to imagine that it would get passed), it seems
to me obviously both an ex post facto law, and in blatant
contradiction to the 14th Amendment (which says you are
a citizen if you were born here or naturalized here,
period), and so it seems to me obviously unconstitutional,
and so obviously it were likely to be a dead letter
within six months of being passed.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Sam Culotta
> Again, I am simply not that alarmed. Yes, that is an
> execrable proposal. However, it is only a proposal,
> and it is so far as it has been reported in the press,
> unclear to me whence it has come (i.e. is it John
> Ashcroft's actual shopping list or is it just some
> memo of possible ways to "improve" the Patriot Act?).
I agree with your measured response to this and other disturbing proposals
by the attorney general. Perhaps the single greatest feature of the
American form of government is it's ability to eventually recognize and
flush excrement.
But what has amazed me from the very beginning of the current situation is
how little the premise of our being "at war" in the traditional sense has
been opposed or even questioned.
We are certainly engaged in intense investigative and prosecutorial activity
both at home and abroad. We are certainly engaged in espionage,
counter-espionage, covert and overt military activity... but War?
Even the Korean conflict was termed a police action.
By accepting the war metaphor too easily we may fail to question the
government's actions.
Rosie the Riveter has not been called out of retirement, food rations are
not in the offing, we are not even being asked to restrict the amount of gas
we guzzle: to the contrary, we are encouraged to spend money and live as we
always have. It seems that the only sacrifices required for this war are
those related to our civil liberties.
--
Sam
"Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote in message
news:952c34e7.03030...@posting.google.com...
Michael S. Morris
Sayan:
The Ann Arbor news reported that the official reason
given by the school was that the t-shirt might inflame
passions in the school. Actually, the student was given a
choice to change from the t-shirt into some other shirt,
or go home. He chose to go home.
Well, with all of my being---and many an argument I
have had on the subject in this news group where I
will swear I was the only one upholding this side of
it---I oppose *that kind of a reason* for censoring
speech. That is, it is *my* assertion of human nature
that passions are never *inflamed*, that human moral
agents may permit passions to burn in response to some
speech, or may choose not to let passions burn, and
that the responsibility for making the right choice is
with the reader of the press or auditor of the speech,
and never with the writer or speaker. Ergo, to me,
the school's "official reason" here is the wrong one---
is the one which undermines the liberal conception of
the human that underlies Liberty of Conscience (First
Amendment ones) in the first place. It is leftist it
is right-wing, it is consonant with every illiberalism
against speech and press that has ever been tried.
That said, I'm still wondering if the school had or had not
the official power to do what it did. A school is not a
public forum---its very format requires the mass processing
of hundreds of students in and out of various classrooms.
Hence rules about no talking, for example, over much of
the school day. Now, I know that in response to the events
at Columbine there were a number of schools that got more
strict about dress codes, so that t-shirts, for instance,
with obscenities, or even just with writing on them, got
banned. My question (and Martha's question) was what was
this school's policy before this incident. I'm not saying
I agree with that policy, just that I would need to know
what it was to know whether this was a singular case of
enforcement in one political direction, or merely something
that is perfectly consistent with what their policy has been
all along.
Sayan:
Recently, when I put up announcements about anti-war marches in
Ann Arbor in the student co-op I live in, I was asked by the
co-op president to desist from doing so, on account that it
might create conflict in the house, as "there are both students
who support the war and who oppose the war, living here".
I think "avoiding potential conflict" has become the new euphemism
in shutting down free speech. The irony is that usually the free
speech that is being shut down is precisely one which opposes
conflict, namely the war (which is conflict on a grand scale)!
I remain totally unconvinced that the free speech in opposition
to war at present has suffered any more of this kind of "being
asked to desist" than the free speech in support of war.
Obviously you would experience only one kind of it, if at all,
but newspaper and magazine articles I have seen (some of which I
have cited earlier in this thread), plus what I have seen in
action at Butler University, convince me that there is plenty
of the spirit of censorship going on on both sides.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
I said:
Again, I am simply not that alarmed. Yes, that is an
execrable proposal. However, it is only a proposal,
and it is so far as it has been reported in the press,
unclear to me whence it has come (i.e. is it John
Ashcroft's actual shopping list or is it just some
memo of possible ways to "improve" the Patriot Act?).
Sam Culotta:
I agree with your measured response to this and other
disturbing proposals by the attorney general. Perhaps
the single greatest feature of the American form of
government is it's ability to eventually recognize and
flush excrement.
Yeah, it's something we forget, that the Constitution was
designed as a liberal instrument of government with the
innate illiberality of many human beings and potential
officeholders in mind. The idea was not so much that attorney
generals will come stamped liberty-loving from the public schools,
but that the inevitable liberty-despising attorney generals
who happen along will find themselves unable to accomplish
much in a liberty-destructive direction.
Sam:
But what has amazed me from the very beginning of the
current situation is how little the premise of our
being "at war" in the traditional sense has been opposed
or even questioned.
I just don't know about that one. I have decried for
a long time this habit (maybe confer Bill Moyers'
TV documentary "The Imperial Presidency") of Congress
granting to the President war powers without having
the balls, as it were, to declare war. The Constitution
clearly places in Congress the sole power to declare
war, and I think it is assumed by the Framers that
war will not be made (other than by a President responding
to an emergency) without a declaration.
I think that it would be a wise thing for us
not to make war without a congressional declaration.
If I try to make an analogy between international
conflicts and conflicts between individuals, then
I think a deliberation and declaration of war by a
leguslature is analogous to a jury trial and
sentencing upon finding of guilt of a crime.
The difference is that execution of punishment
in a criminal case is more or less certain, whereas
execution of defeat and compliance upon an enemy in
war has to be fought for and won. Without that debate
in the legislature, there ends up being no clarification
of war aims, no specification of what victory might mean,
and where the end of it will be.
Indeed, one of the aspects of the "day which shall live in
infamy" which was so infamous was precisely the fact
that our enemy had not played by the rules and declared
war upon us before the attack. So it dismays me to
see every war the US has fought since WWII be an undeclared
war in the sense that Congress has not actually declared
the US to be at war, and thus has not really deliberated
nor defined the strategic aims that we were fighting for.
The thing is, I understand the Realpolitik behind why
this has happened. What it is is the changed nature of
the Presidency---the "Imperial Presidency", or the
Presidency in the age of television and rampant
democratism. Congress, by passing war powers resolutions
can simply pass the buck, so that the political cost
of warmaking sits on the President's shoulders. Instead
of being an executor of Congress's will, the President
alone is perceived by the public as making or not making
this or that war.
I think this dodges the original intent of the Constitution,
but I guess I also think that it is one of those things that
has simply evolved that way, and there is little hope of returning
to original intent. I don't see any way that the courts would
or could stop Congress from declaring war powers to the President.
And, as I see what Congress has done at present, it has granted
to Bush war powers to pursue an indefinite War against Terrorism,
war powers to attack Afghanistan, and now war powers to attack
Iraq.
Sam:
We are certainly engaged in intense investigative and
prosecutorial activity both at home and abroad. We are
certainly engaged in espionage, counter-espionage, covert
and overt military activity... but War? Even the Korean
conflict was termed a police action. By accepting the
war metaphor too easily we may fail to question the
government's actions.
I guess I don't have a problem with saying we are de facto
at war here with the terrorists. 9/11 was an attack on American
soil, outrageous and, well, unacceptable, and demanding a
resolute response, including I would be willing to say a
20-year-long world war if that were what it would take really
to hunt down and eliminate these people, and including
possibly various excurisions into traditional kinds of war upon
those nations that do not cooperate adequately in that hunt.
I guess I don't understand why you need Rosie the Riveter
before you'd call it war. In fact, I'd give Bush credit for
saying clearly to us from the start that this would *not* be
a quick thing or a traditional kind of war, but rather a
series of police investigations in cooperation with authorities
in the civilized world, and coupled with both covert and overt
actions in the noncivilized world. The idea is to get on and
stay on the offensive, to keep these terrorist
groups (Al Qaeda, of course, but there are plenty more where
that one comes from) off-balance and perpetually on the
defensive. It's not the Bill Clinton fire off a couple of
missiles to make it look like you are doing something
thing. Bush, it seems to me, has been very good at laying
long-term, careful plans, and telling us well in advance that
that was what he was going to do.
Sam:
Rosie the Riveter has not been called out of retirement,
food rations are not in the offing, we are not even being
asked to restrict the amount of gas we guzzle: to the contrary,
we are encouraged to spend money and live as we always have.
It seems that the only sacrifices required for this war are
those related to our civil liberties.
I guess I still do not understand why you think a WWII style
sacrifice is what is needed here. I mean, why restrict the
"amount of gas we guzzle"? Surely that amount keeps things
steady (such as many "moderate" regimes in the Middle East)
that we simply *want* to keep steady at the moment (in
order to use them against regimes we very much want to attack).
The reason we rationed gasoline in WWII was German submarine
warfare. There is no such need at present. Our food supplies
are not endangered, Rosie the Riveter is not needed---the kind
of military equipment we outfit ourselves with now simply
doesn't require turning GM and Ford over to making Sherman
tanks or B-17s. What we use now is both higher-tech and
we use it in smaller quantities.
It's also more expensive per unit, so the sacrifice we
*do* face is higher taxes, and the damage that that is
likely to inflict on the economy.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Sam Culotta
--
Sam
"Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote in message
news:952c34e7.03030...@posting.google.com...
Sam Culotta
I'd just like to clarify my intent... (sorry I wasn't clear enough to begin
with).
What I attempted to point out was that the war attitude fostered by the
administration with the joyous help of the media serves to create a mind-set
like that of WWll, and that it causes me some discomfort in that it enables
the government to take certain liberties with our liberties under the
umbrella of "war".
Honestly, I think Americans love to get behind a cry to battle; it's very
much a part of our national character.
I didn't mean to imply that the efforts of our government and citizens to
protect ourselves from terrorism are not worthy and just. I only wonder
why there has been so little public examination of this, dare I say it?
propaganda movement.
--
Sam
"Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote in message
news:952c34e7.03030...@posting.google.com...
Jim Collier
Michael S. Morris wrote:
>
> I just don't know about that one. I have decried for
> a long time this habit (maybe confer Bill Moyers'
> TV documentary "The Imperial Presidency") of Congress
> granting to the President war powers without having
> the balls, as it were, to declare war. The Constitution
> clearly places in Congress the sole power to declare
> war, and I think it is assumed by the Framers that
> war will not be made (other than by a President responding
> to an emergency) without a declaration.
Women have press conferences and sit at conferences with
note pads. I don't recall seeing any Congresswoman knead
objects in her hands, like Queeg with his steel balls,
while she spoke or seeing her draw doodles while she
listened. What is it about girls, and why must they stay
so focused instead of thinking in breadth like Rumsfeld?
(Anyone remember Elliot Richardson's doodles? Some
of his were worthy of consideration at least for the
Gugenheim, if not quite for the Metropolitan.)
Come to think of it, Bush is not a kneader either,
and they don't come more unfocused than he is. So
never mind that I raised the issue.
--
Jim
francis muir
Collier" <j...@jim-collier.com> wrote:
Your mention of Eliot R reminds me that Attorneys General have,
almost always been a rum lot and more interesting than the Prezzies
who appointed them and the Senates that anointed them.
But I am surprised that you, Jim, have not commented on the Grand Jury's
indictments of the Chief and all the Command structure of the San Francisco
Police and, more comic to my mind, the Police commission's allowing them all
to remain at their desks. Never since Boss Tweed &c., &c. Terence Hallinan,
the D.A. in question, himself got off scot-free when he was involved in a
drunken brawl not long ago.
Michael S. Morris
Sam:
Much good stuff in your response, Mike.
No argument from me. I'd just like to clarify
my intent... (sorry I wasn't clear enough to begin
with).
I'm not sure that I was arguing with you at all,
Sam, but I do think this post tells me that we
have a difference in perception of the propaganda
climate at the moment. Maybe I can respond and,
well, at least we'll clarify that difference.
Sam:
What I attempted to point out was that the war
attitude fostered by the administration with the
joyous help of the media serves to create a mind-set
like that of WWll, [...]
Umm, I guess what has *surpised* me is how little
of this "like WWII" fever there has been---either
from the President or from the grassroots. I
mean all that recruiting-poster stuff, and buy
war bonds, and "loose lips sink ships", and
"be vigilant" stuff hasn't happened. Even the
thing I decried during the Gulf War---the
football-game-like "support the troops" rallies
haven't happened like that. The mood is more grim,
I think.
Sam, finishing sentence above:
and that it causes me some
discomfort in that it enables the government to
take certain liberties with our liberties under the
umbrella of "war".
Well, yeah. Anytime when we are at war, there will
be a heightened tension between the democratic
desire for security and the individual desire for liberty,
and there can be expected to be those who come along
and use the situation to lobby for liberty-destroying
legislation or action. Still, I guess when I think of
the Civil War, WWI, WWII, *and* Vietnam, this
administration's actions look mild by comparison. Of
course, the courts have limited what the government may
do in many ways since those earlier wars, so the
power-grabbers may be already more hobbled from their
point of view than they would like. (It looks to me
that Bush isn't gonna get his "Faith Based Initiative"
thing either when the courts get through with it---heh,
heh.)
Sam:
Honestly, I think Americans love to get
behind a cry to battle; it's very
much a part of our national character.
Agreed. I'm not sure that that is absent from any
nation's national character, though. Peace
protesting seems to me part of the same thing.
Sam:
I didn't mean to imply that the efforts of our
government and citizens to protect ourselves
from terrorism are not worthy and just.
And I didn't mean to imply that you had implied
this---I was really aiming at the non-WWII character
of this war (meaning the War on Terrorism, and not
necessarily Iraq), both from what we hear from
the President and from what it feels like in the
street.
Sam:
I only wonder why there has been so little public
examination of this, dare I say it? propaganda movement.
I have no quarrel with your describing the
administration's words with respect to terrorism as
a propaganda movement. But, again, to me this is
nothing like the level of propaganda which happened
after the Pearl Harbor attack. In fact, Bush has been
taking his methodical time, I'd say, and, if anything,
he blunted rhetorically the edge of what war fever there
was immediately after 9/11, making it clear that volunteer
additions to the professional military were not needed or
particularly wanted. Also, to my mind, reading
sort of mainstream publications like _The New Republic_
and listening to NPR, I'd say the public examination of
the attacks on civil liberties, and the use of a condition
of war to justify them, and the opposition to ongoing
liberty-violations, and even the imagined future ones has been
immediate and loud. I mean, the big "sweep" of Arab-Americans
that the FBI did was loudly denounced everywhere
as so much racial profiling, even though all it was was
questioning people voluntarily. I've seen people complaining
about the FBI being permitted to monitor online newsgroups
and websites. As though the police needed a warrant even to
look at the public spaces, or ask questions to pursue an
investigation.
Agreed that there are some real abuses---I think no one should be
detained by the police without habeas corpus and due process
of law---i.e. the police should have to have probable cause of
suspecting someone of having committed a crime in order to
arrest him, and should have to charge him with a crime
in a very short time (72 hours I think was the rule) or let him
go. It is completely unacceptable that we do not know the
exact number and names of people detained outside of
these rules (my understanding at one point last year is
that there were very few---under 20---left in US detention,
but it is outrageous that there could be even 1). I also
think that the battlefield detainees held at Guantanamo Bay
and perhaps elsewhere by the US military should very quickly
have their status clarified as prisoners of war and held or
released accordingly *or* they should be charged with
terrorism under US law, in which case *all* constitutional
limitations on the US government's power to prosecute or
punish them should be given them. There should be no terrorism
exception to the Bill of Rights.
But, I think this stuff has been loudly questioned
in the press, and already some of it has been fought in the
courts.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Don Tuite
parallels.
There's theair of "brinksmanship" a la John Foster Dulles, the
"eyeball-to-eyeball" showdown, as Dean Rusk described the Cuban
missile crisis, and the atmosphere of trial by denunciation and secret
lists exemplified by Hoover, McCarthy, and Nixon. Meanwhile, "duck
and cover" seems to me like a foreshadowing of "Duct Tape and
Viskween."
To an even greater extent than Mike has pointed out in the hot-war
contexts, none of this took place here during the Cold War in the
absence of a balancing opposition. Whether we were just lucky to
avoid a total breakdown similar to the reign or terror or the triumph
of National Socialism, or we were better protected by our institutions
than the French and Germans were by theirs makes interesting
conjecture.
But frankly, it feels just as scary now as it did many times as I was
growing up.
Don
(Curiously enough, I was just reading about the Turkish aspect of the
Cuban missile crisis.)
Mazzolata
>You guys may want to look more at the Cold War, 1948 -63, for
>parallels.
>
>There's the air of "brinksmanship" a la John Foster Dulles, the
>"eyeball-to-eyeball" showdown, as Dean Rusk described the Cuban
>missile crisis ...
>
but it's really with North Korea, not Iraq ...
Don Tuite
wrote:
NK needs oil. Iraq has oil. I'm figuring on a quid pro quo between
those guys with a payoff down the road if Kim creates a sufficiently
effective distraction..
Don
Rich Clancey
+ Rosie the Riveter has not been called out of retirement, food rations are
+ not in the offing, we are not even being asked to restrict the amount of gas
+ we guzzle: to the contrary, we are encouraged to spend money and live as we
+ always have. It seems that the only sacrifices required for this war are
+ those related to our civil liberties.
Well stated. People keep saying "Where are the Democrats?"
but I'd like to know where the Congressional Republicans are.
We're about to embark on a multi-tens-of-billions-of-dollars
project with no financing in place.
--
rich clancey r...@world.std.com
Mazzolata
I think the best solution to this mess is that Bush and Cheny should be
forced to resign, and should be sent to Texas, which would then be
expelled from the Union. All known war criminals in this country
(Kissinger, etc) should also be forcibly relocated to Texas. Texas can
then declare war on Iraq, while the USA remains neutral.