Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 20:35:28 -0700
From: tomrvincent@yahoo.com ("Tom Vincent")
Subject: [AZHumanists] The New McCarthyism
To: AZHumanists@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: AZHumanists@yahoogroups.com




> > http://www.progressive.org/0901/roth0102.html

> >

> > The New McCarthyism

> >

> > by Matthew Rothschild

> > The Progressive magazine

> > January 2002

> >

> > Donna Huanca works as a docent at the Art Car Museum, an avant-garde

> > gallery

> > in Houston. Around 10:30 on the morning of November 7, before she opened

> > the

> > museum, two men wearing suits and carrying leather portfolios came to

> > her

> > door.

> >

> > "I told them to wait until we opened at 11:00," she recalls. "Then they

> > pulled their badges out."

> >

> > The two men were Terrence Donahue of the FBI and Steven Smith of the

> > Secret

> > Service.

> >

> > "They said they had several reports of anti-American activity going on

> > here

> > and wanted to see the exhibit," she says. The museum was running a show

> > called "Secret Wars," which contains many anti-war statements that were

> > commissioned before September 11.

> >

> > "They just walked in, so I went through with them and gave them a very

> > detailed tour. I asked them if they were familiar with the artists and

> > what

> > the role of art was at a critical time like this," she says. "They were

> > more

> > interested in where the artists were from. They were taking some notes.

> > They

> > were pointing out things that they thought were negative, like a rcent

> > painting by Lynn Randolph of the Houston skyline burning, and a devil

> > dancing around, and with George Bush Sr. in the belly of the devil."

> >

> > There was a surreal moment when they inspected another element of the

> > exhibit. "We had a piece in the middle of the room, a mock surveillance

> > camera pointed to the door of the museum, and they wondered whether they

> > were being recorded," she says.

> >

> > All in all, they were there for about an hour. "As they were leaving,

> > they

> > asked me where I went to school, and if my parents knew if I worked at a

> > place like this, and who funded us, and how many people came in to see

> > the

> > exhibit," she says. "I was definitely pale. It was scary because I was

> > alone, and they were really big guys."

> >

> > Before the agents left the museum, Huanca called Tex Kerschen, the

> > curator

> > of the exhibit. "I had just put down a book on COINTELPRO," he says,

> > referring to the FBI's program of infiltrating leftwing groups in the

> > 1960s.

> > "Donna's call confirmed some of my worst suspicions. Donna was

> > frightened,

> > and we're all a little bit shocked that they were going to act against a

> > small art space, to bring to bear that kind of menace, an atmosphere of

> > dread. These old moldy charges of 'anti-American,' 'un-American'--they

> > seem

> > laughable at first, like we can't be accused of anything that silly. But

> > they've started coming down with this."

> >

> > The director of the Art Car Museum is James Harithas, who served as the

> > director of the Corcoran Art Museum in Washington, D.C., in the late

> > 1960s.

> > "It's unbelievable," he says of the visit from the G-men. "People should

> > be

> > worried that their freedoms are being taken away right and left."

> >

> > Robert Dogium, a spokesman for the FBI in Houston, says the visit was a

> > routine follow-up on a call "from someone who said there was some

> > material

> > or artwork that was of a threatening nature to the President." He says

> > it

> > was no big thing. "While the work ther was not their cup of tea, it was

> > not

> > considered of a threatening nature to anybody or terrorism or anything."

> >

> > She is a freshman at Durham Tech in North Carolina. Her name is A.J.

> > Brown.

> > She's gotten a scholarship from the ACLU to help her attend college. But

> > that didn't prepare her for the knock on the door that came on October

> > 26.

> > "It was 5:00 on Friday, and I was getting ready for a date," she says.

> > When

> > she heard the knock, she opened the door. Here's her account.

> >

> > "Hi, we're from the Raleigh branch of the Secret Service," two agents

> > said.

> >

> > "And they flip out their little ID cards, and I was like, 'What?'

> >

> > "And they say, 'We're here because we have a report that you have

> > un-American material in your apartment.' And I was like, 'What? No, I

> > don't

> > have anything like that.'

> >

> > " 'Are you sure? Because we got a report that you've got a poster that's

> > anti-American.'

> >

> > "And I said no."

> >

> > They asked if they could come into the apartment. "Do you have a

> > warrant?"

> > Brown asked. "And they said no, they didn't have a warrant, but they

> > wanted

> > to just come in and look around. And I said, 'Sorry, you're not coming

> > in.'

> > "

> >

> > One of the agents told Brown, "We already know what it is. It's a poster

> > of

> > Bush hanging himself," she recalls. "And I said no, and she was like,

> > 'Well,

> > then, it's a poster with a target on Bush's head,' and I was like,

> > nope."

> >

> > The poster they seemed interested in was one that depicted Bush holding

> > a

> > rope, with the words: "We Hang on Your Every Word. George Bush, Wanted:

> > 152

> > Dead." The poster has sketches of people being hanged, and it refers to

> > the

> > number who were put to death in Texas while Bush was governor, she

> > explains.

> >

> > Ultimately, Brown agreed to open her door so that the agents could see

> > the

> > poster on the wall of her apartment, though she did not let them enter.

> > "They just kept looking at the wall," which contained political posters

> > from

> > the Bush counter-inaugural, a "Free Mumia" poster, a picture of Jesse

> > Jackson, and a Pink Floyd poster with the quotation: "Mother, should I

> > trust

> > the government?"

> >

> > At one point in the conversation, one of the agents mentioned Brown's

> > mother, saying, "She's in the armed forces, isn't she?" (Her mother, in

> > fact, is in the Army Reserve.)

> >

> > After they were done inspecting the wall, one of the agents "pulled out

> > his

> > little slip of paper, and he asked me some really stupid questions,

> > like, my

> > name, my Social Security number, my phone number," she says. "Then they

> > asked, 'Do you have any pro-Taliban stuff in your apartment, any

> > posters,

> > any maps?'

> >

> > "I was like, 'No, I don't, and personally, I think the Taliban is just a

> > bunch of assholes.' "

> >

> > With that, they left. They had been at her apartment for forty minutes.

> >

> > "They called me two days later to make sure my information was correct:

> > where I lived, my phone number (hello!), and my nicknames," she says.

> >

> > Brown says she's "really annoyed" about the Secret Service visit.

> > "Obviously, I'm on some list somewhere."

> >

> > Welcome to the New McCarthyism. A chill is descending across the

> > country,

> > and it's frostbiting immigrants, students, journalists, academics, and

> > booksellers.

> >

> > "I'm terrified," says Ellen Schrecker, author of Many Are the Crimes:

> > McCarthyism in America (Prnceton University, 1999). "What concerns me

> > is

> > we're not seeing an enormous outcry against this whole structure of

> > repression that's being rushed into place by the Bush Administration."

> >

> > "I've been talking a lot about the parallels between what we're going

> > through now and McCarthyism," says Nadine Strossen, president of the

> > ACLU.

> > "The term 'terrorism' is taking on the same kind of characteristics as

> > the

> > term 'communism' did in the 1950s. It stops people in their tracks, and

> > they're willing to give up their freedoms. People are too quickly

> > panicked.

> > They are too willing to give up their rights and to scapegoat people,

> > especially immigrants and people who criticize the war."

> >

> > Attorney General John Ashcroft is rounding up or interrogating thousands

> > of

> > immigrants in what will go down in history as the Ashcroft Raids. The

> > FBI

> > and Secret Service are harassing artists and activists. Publishers are

> > firing anti-war columnists and cartoonists. University presidents are

> > scolding dissident faculty members. And rightwing citizen's groups are

> > demanding conformity.

> >

> > In this article, I focus on the threats to free speech, which go well

> > beyond

> > the much-publicized attack on Bill Maher of Politically Incorrect. These

> > threats are real. They are frightening people. They are ruining some

> > livelihoods. And they may be just a taste of sour things to come.

> >

> > Barbara Wien worked as a program officer and a conflict resolution

> > trainer

> > at the United States Institute of Peace for five years. She doesn't work

> > there anymore.

> >

> > On September 11, while at an official function of the Institute, Wien

> > spoke

> > out. "I said that I would hope that the United States would not resort

> > to

> > military retaliation and that we need to do a great deal of

> > soul-searching

> > in this country about how U.S. policies might have contributed to the

> > emergence of terrorist policies," she recalls.

> >

> > Her comments were not well received. "My conservative colleagues became

> > outraged, and said, 'You're the most leftwing person we've ever met, and

> > you

> > should not be leading any trainings here. While the buildings are still

> > smoldering, you're blaming the U.S.' "

> >

> > This wasn't the first time Wien had raised hackles inside the Institute,

> > which is, according to its web site, "an independent, nonpartisan

> > federal

> > institution created and funded by Congress to strengthen the nation's

> > capacity to promote the peaceful resolution of international conflict."

> > She

> > had clashed with her colleagues before over U.S. policy regarding

> > sanctions

> > on Iraq, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Sudan, and

> > the

> > bombing of Belgrade, she says.

> >

> > "There was generally a hostile work environment for my peaceful activism

> > at

> > the Institute," she says. After her colleagues jumped all over her on

> > September 11, Wien objected. "I went to the management and said a

> > pacifist

> > position here is being punished, and they said, 'It's time for you to

> > go,

> > Barbara. You don't fit into

> > the culture,' " she recalls. "Then they basically hounded me for about

> > two

> > weeks for my letter of resignation, so I finally caved under duress."

> >

> > Harriet Hentges is the executive vice president of the United States

> > Institute of Peace. "She submitted a letter of resignation to me October

> > 17,

> > and beyond that I don't have a comment," says Hentges. "But we would

> > never

> > make an individual staff member's personal views a litmus test for

> > employment."

> >

> > You are no longer free to patronize a bookstore without fear of

> > government

> > scrutiny. On November 1, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free

> > Expression (ABFFE) sent a disturbing letter to its members.

> >

> > "Dear Bookseller," it begins. "Last week, President Bush signed into law

> > an

> > antiterrorism bill that gives the federal government expanded authority

> > to

> > search your business records, including the titles of the books

> > purchased by

> > your customers. . . . There is no opportunity for you or your lawyer to

> > object in court. You cannot object publicly, either. The new law

> > includes a

> > gag order that prevents you from disclosing 'to any person' the fact

> > that

> > you have received an order to produce documents."

> >

> > The letter recommends that booksellers who get hit with such an order

> > should

> > call their attorney or the foundation, but "because of the gag order . .

> > .

> > you should not tell ABFFE that you have received a court order. . . .

> > You

> > can simply tell us that you need to contact ABFFE's legal counsel."

> >

> > Marsha Rummel of Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative in Madison, Wisconsin,

> > denounces this new government policy as a "terrifying encroachment on

> > the

> > privacy rights of citizens." Noting that "the danger to booksellers is

> > just

> > one small part of this new landscape," she says, "We must collectively

> > take

> > a stand to defend our democratic rights, including the right to protest

> > our

> > government and oppose the war, and the right to read whatever we like."

> >

> > Katie Sierra is a fifteen-year-old sophomore at Sissonville High School

> > in

> > West Virginia. On October 22, she notified her principal, Forrest Mann,

> > that

> > she wanted to form an anarchist club. He denied her request. It was the

> > only

> > club he has ever disallowed, according to the lawsuit Sierra and her

> > mother

> > filed against the school.

> >

> > Sierra had already made up fliers for the club, which she wasn't able to

> > distribute. The fliers said: "Anarchist club. Anarchism preaches to love

> > all

> > humans, not just of one country. Start a newspaper, a food-not-bombs

> > group,

> > a book discussion group. Speak your point of view, and hear others.

> > Please

> > join."

> >

> > The next day, Sierra came to school with a T-shirt on that said,

> > "Racism,

> > Sexism, Homophobia, I'm So Proud of People in the Land of the So-Called

> > Free." The principal suspended her for three days.

> >

> > "I've never been in trouble before," Sierra says. "I was kind of upset

> > at

> > first: How could he? Then I was crying. How could he suspend me for

> > something so ridiculous as that?"

> >

> > On October 29, she was told that before she could come back to school,

> > she

> > would have to provide the principal with authorization to obtain her

> > medical

> > records, she would have to meet with a school psychologist, and she

> > couldn't

> > wear T-shirts like the one she wore or organize her anarchist club.

> >

> > At a school board meeting on October 29, the school board president,

> > Bill

> > Raglin, said, "What in the hell is wrong with a kid like that?" Another

> > school board member, John Luoni, accused her of treason, according to

> > her

> > court papers.

> >

> > To make matters worse, says Sierra, Principal Mann mischaracterized her

> > T-shirt in the Charleston Gazette, falsely stating it included

> > statements

> > such as "I hope Afghanistan wins" and "America should burn."

> >

> > As a result, students at school ganged up on her. "I got shoved against

> > lockers," she says. "People made pictures of me with bullet holes

> > through my

> > head and posted them on, like, the doors in the school. They said some

> > really harsh things. It was scary."

> >

> > Sierra and her mother sued the school district but lost in the lower

> > courts

> > and in the state supreme court by a 3-to-2 vote. "We sought an

> > injunction to

> > force the principal to allow her to form the anarchy club and wear her

> > peace

> > T-shirts and void her suspension," her attorney, Roger Forman, says.

> > Forman,

> > a former president of the West Virginia ACLU, says her free speech

> > rights

> > have been violated.

> >

> > Sierra plans to appeal. "I'm really disgusted with the courts right now,

> > and

> > with the school," she says. "I'm being punished for being myself."

> >

> > Because she felt unsafe at Sissonville High, Sierra is now being

> > homeschooled.

> >

> > Until recently, Jackie Anderson was a staff reporter for the Sun

> > Advocate in

> > Price, Utah. She had worked there for three years, and she was

> > encouraged to

> > write editorial columns as part of her job. So, on September 18, she

> > wrote a

> > column that said, "War is not the only action available to us. Seeking

> > justice is action. Making peace is action."

> >

> > The column never ran, though several pro-war columns did. Six days after

> > filing her column, Anderson says she asked her editor, Lynnda Johnson,

> > whom

> > she considered a good friend, why it wasn't running, and Johnson told

> > her to

> > talk to the publisher, Kevin Ashby. "This is not the direction I want my

> > newspaper to go in," he told her, as Anderson recalls it.

> >

> > "Well, I don't know if I can continue to work here, and I certainly

> > can't

> > continue this afternoon," she says she told him, adding that she got

> > permission from her editor to take a personal day.

> >

> > "The next day I went in to work, I was called into the publisher's

> > office,

> > and he asked me to clear my desk," she recalls. "I asked him if I was

> > being

> > fired, and he said, 'No, you quit. I'm accepting your resignation.' And

> > I

> > said, 'I didn't quit.' "

> >

> > Johnson explains the paper's side. "Look, this is a personnel issue,"

> > she

> > says. "The bottom line is Jackie Anderson walked out on a production day

> > and

> > said she couldn't work here anymore. Period. She quit."

> >

> > As to not running the column, Johnson says, "She was not told it

> > wouldn't

> > run. She was told there were problems with it. I'm not going to discuss

> > this. This was a personnel issue. She said she quit her job and then

> > decided

> > she could unquit at her convenience."

> >

> > Anderson is now collecting unemployment. "My options are very, very

> > limited," she says. "This is a depressed economy. There aren't many

> > other

> > jobs in journalism. And it's put stress on my husband, who is a coal

> > miner,

> > which is why we are very limited as to where we can go."

> >

> > "This was a job that I loved and believed in. I thought journalists were

> > warriors for freedom in at least as significant a way, if not a greater

> > way,

> > than a soldier in the military. If people can lose their jobs for their

> > opinions this early on, then it does not bode well."

> >

> > At least two other journalists have been fired for their columns. Both

> > received some attention in the media. Dan Guthrie worked at the Grants

> > Pass

> > Daily Courier in Oregon for ten years and was a columnist, on and off,

> > for

> > seven of them. "During that time, I'd won quite a few awards, including

> > best

> > columnist in Oregon," he says. But one recent column cost him his job.

> > It

> > was called, "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tender Turn Tail," and it

> > ran

> > September 15.

> >

> > Guthrie was the columnist who said Bush "skedaddled" on September 11.

> > "The

> > picture of Bush hiding in a Nebraska hole" was "an embarrassment," he

> > wrote.

> > "The President's men are frantically glossing over his cowardice."

> >

> > A week later, the publisher fired him, even though the city editor and

> > the

> > editor had signed off on the piece, Guthrie says. "I told them this was

> > going to be hot, and they approved it as it stood."

> >

> > A few days later, the editor, Dennis Roler, issued a front-page apology,

> > entitled, "This Is No Time to Criticize the Nation's Leader: Apology for

> > Printing Column." The final paragraph reads: "In this critical time, the

> > nation needs to come together behind the President. Politics, and

> > destructive criticism, need to be put aside for the country's good.

> > Unfortunately, my lapse in judgment hurt that positive effort, and I

> > apologize."

> >

> > Today, Guthrie is picking up unemployment, and he's almost philosophical

> > about journalism: "You wish newspapers would be better than they are.

> > You

> > think they have this covenant with the First Amendment. But they don't,

> > especially in times of crisis."

> >

> > Tom Gutting worked for the Texas City Sun, and on September 22, he, like

> > Guthrie, criticized Bush for not returning to Washington on September

> > 11.

> > "There was W. flying around the country like a scared child seeking

> > refuge

> > in his mother's bed after having a nightmare," he wrote, adding: "What

> > we

> > are stuck with is a crippled President who continues to be controlled by

> > his

> > advisers. He's not a leader. He's a puppet."

> >

> > The day the piece ran, says Gutting, "the publisher assured me

> > straightaway

> > that he wouldn't fire me." But a few days later, the publisher, Les

> > Daughtry

> > Jr., changed his mind.

> >

> > Daughtry, too, issued a front-page apology, saying Gutting's column was

> > "not

> > appropriate to publish during this time."

> >

> > Gutting is unemployed. "I'm still looking for a job," he says. "I'm

> > hoping

> > it will end soon. I think I've been pretty much blacklisted from the

> > small

> > papers the company owns."

> >

> > The St. George, Utah, newspaper, The Spectrum, apologized on November 13

> > for

> > a cartoon it ran the previous day from Pulitzer prize-winner Steve

> > Benson.

> > The cartoon depicted President Bush dropping bombs that carried scrawled

> > messages, such as "starving millions of Afghans" and "killing innocent

> > civilians." Many local veterans descended on the paper, threatening to

> > cancel their subscriptions if it didn't issue an apology, according to

> > The

> > Salt Lake Tribune.

> >

> > Aaron McGruder, who draws The Boondocks, has seen his strip taken out of

> > many papers after September 11 for its anti-war content. And lesser

> > known

> > cartoonists may be especially vulnerable.

> >

> > Todd Persche drew a cartoon for the Baraboo News Republic in Wisconsin

> > once

> > a week for the last three years. Not anymore. After September 11, he

> > drew a

> > couple of cartoons that got him canned. One said, "When the media keeps

> > pounding on the war drum . . . it's hard to hear other points of view."

> > Another was about Big Brother "turning our civil rights upside down."

> >

> > Persche says, "In these times, they make you feel like you're not a

> > patriot

> > just because you're dissenting."

> >

> > At the moment, professors who criticize the U.S. government aren't being

> > fired as they were during the McCarthy days. But some are being taken to

> > the

> > woodshed.

> >

> > At the University of New Mexico, history professor Richard Berthold made

> > a

> > comment to his class that he now regrets: "Anyone who can blow up the

> > Pentagon gets my vote," he said. The university president has said "he

> > will

> > 'vigorously pursue' disciplinary action" against Berthold, the Chronicle

> > of

> > Higher Education reported.

> >

> > Robert Jensen, associate professor of journalism at the University of

> > Texas

> > at Austin, wrote a column for the Houston Chronicle on September 14

> > entitled

> > "U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts." In it, he said

> > that

> > the terrorist attacks of September 11 "were reprehensible and

> > indefensible .

> > . . but this act was no more despicable [than] the massive acts of

> > terrorism--the deliberate killing of civilians for political

> > purposes--that

> > the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime."

> >

> > For this, Jensen was publicly ridiculed by the school president, Larry

> > R.

> > Faulkner, who wrote a letter to the Houston Chronicle, which was

> > published

> > on September 19. "Jensen is not only misguided, but has become a

 > fountain of
> > undiluted foolishness on issues of public policy," he said.

> >

> > "I've been marginalized on this campus," Jensen says. But he takes pains

> > not

> > to exaggerate the threat against him. "I'm a tenured white male

> > professor at

> > a major university. I'm so protected I have no fears. But an untenured

> > brown

> > professor is not so protected."

> >

> > Jensen worries that untenured faculty may censor themselves, and he and

> > many

> > others are concerned about Lynne Cheney's group, the American Council of

> > Trustees and Alumni, which she co-founded in 1995 with Senator Joseph

> > Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut.

> >

> > That group issued a report after September 11 called "Defending

> > Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America, and What Can Be

> > Done

> > About It." It said, "When a nation's intellectuals are unwilling to

> > defend

> > its civilization, they give comfort to its adversaries." And it cited

> > more

> > than 100 examples of what it considers unpatriotic acts by specific

> > academics.

> >

> > "What's analogous to McCarthyism is the self-appointed guardians who are

> > engaging in private blacklisting," says Eric Foner, professor of history

> > at

> > Columbia University. "That's why the Lynne Cheney thing is so

> > disturbing:

> > Her group is trying to intimidate individuals who hold different points

> > of

> > view. There aren't loyalty oaths being demanded of teachers yet, but we

> > seem

> > to be at the beginning of a process that could get a lt worse and is

> > already cause for considerable alarm."

> >

> > We've been here before. From the Alien and Sedition Acts to Lincoln's

> > suspension of habeas corpus and his imprisonment of anti-war editors,

> > from

> > the suppression of speech during World War I and the Palmer Raids to the

> > internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the repression

> > of

> > the McCarthy days, the government has seized upon times of peril to

> > scapegoat immigrants and to suppress liberties.

> >

> > "We're talking about exactly the same phenomenon," says the ACLU's

> > Strossen.

> >

> > "No analogy is ever perfect, and history doesn't repeat itself exactly,

> > but

> > there's a pattern of the government restricting freedom of expression

> > and

> > running roughshod over traditional protections for the accused," Foner

> > says.

> > "Anybody concerned with freedom of expression and civil liberties should

> > be

> > very, very concerned."

> >

> >

>

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> --

> > Matthew Rothschild is Editor of The Progressive.

> >

> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------

> >

> >      .FreeExpression.org

> >

> > ==============================================================

>

>



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