News for Bush: This Country is a Free Speech Zone

Giving thanks for freedom
Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate

11.30.03 - AUSTIN, Texas -- This being the season, let us give thanks for
freedom. As President Bush said in London: "Freedom is beautiful. It is a
fantastic thing to come to a country where people are able to express their
views." Indeed, freedom is so beautiful, so precious that one needs to be
zealous, to be watchful, lest this priceless beauty come to harm.

Imagine my surprise to see in the headlines this Thanksgiving week that the
Federal Bureau of Investigation is "targeting peace groups." Operation
Cointelpro is back. Now, of the various menaces faced by our republic, I
must admit peace groups are not high on my list. A motley assortment of
vegetarians, Unitarians, Quakers, miscellaneous pacifists, unclassified
idealists, sweet damn fools, followers of Gandhi and Dr. King, and some
others I suspect are far ahead of the rest of us both morally and
politically.

I have watched peace people sitting in ditches in the Texas Panhandle in
August singing "Kumbayah" in hopes of stopping nuclear war. I have seen them
give blood and get arrested for trespassing on their government's property.
I have seen them keep silent vigils and hold candlelight marches for peace.
I have heard them sing and pray for peace. I have watched them carry funny
and touching signs in demonstrations for peace. One thing I have never seen
them do is anything that calls for investigation by the FBI.

Clearly, being in favor of peace is not sufficient grounds for an FBI
surveillance effort -- right? We don't investigate and start files on people
in this country for their political opinions. Even opinions so extreme, so
extraordinary, so unheard of as believing that war -- on the whole,
really -- is not a good thing.

Ah, but perhaps these peace people -- these lovely, gentle, harmless,
pacific peace people -- perhaps they are being infiltrated by people who are
not real peace people. This has in fact happened in the past -- people with
no real interest in peace join peace groups and try to manipulate them for
their own purposes.

I am pleased to report that peace people are perfectly well of aware of
this, on the qui vive, en garde, ready, prepared to fend off these
interlopers. Their rule is simple: "Anyone Who Suggests That a Peace Group
Do Anything Illegal Is Automatically Assumed to Be an Agent of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation."

This rule stems from years of painful practical experience with FBI efforts
to spoil, stain and blacken the reputation of the peace movement.
Consequently, you can understand the peace people being ill at ease over the
news that their tax dollars are now being used by the FBI to spy on them.

But don't peaceniks get arrested a lot? A few of them do -- the American
Civil Liberties Union is now investigating over 300 cases of peace
protesters who were arrested unfairly and/or violently during the lead-up to
the war in Iraq, using videotape of the arrests -- a tactic that the FBI
memo outlining the new crackdown describes as "intimidation" against the
police.

Some peace people also use civil disobedience as a tactic. For those who
need a refresher course, civil disobedience -- as opposed to just getting
arrested at a demo -- is deliberately breaking a law you consider unjust and
being prepared to pay the legal penalty for doing so. Those engaging in
civil disobedience do not attempt to avoid or evade arrest, they go
willingly, often limply, and stay in jail singing "Kumbayah" as long as the
law prescribes. Not a public menace.

So just whom is the FBI attempting to infiltrate and foil here? Why, it
turns out, anarchists. Anarchists have been associated with demonstrations
against world trade agreements -- it says right in the FBI memo -- and
protests against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Furthermore, these anarchists wear black masks and run around breaking store
windows, a tactic that is not only a breach of the peace but also
considerably less effective against GATT and NAFTA than singing "Kumbayah."

So, I have a question -- really just a suggestion here: If the FBI is
worried about anarchists opposed to free trade agreements, why doesn't the
FBI infiltrate anarchist groups that are opposed to free trade agreements,
instead of the peace movement? Eh? Why should one's freedom be undermined or
should one be a suspect because one is for peace? Are we not allowed to be
for peace? What would Jesus say?

In a repeated pattern -- Phoenix; Evansville, Ind.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; St.
Louis; Trenton, N.J.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Neville Island, Pa.; Columbia,
S.C.; Houston; Richmond, Va.; and Washington, D.C. -- protesters holding
anti-Bush signs or antiwar signs have been either arrested or segregated
further away, often into so-called "free speech zones," while demonstrators
with pro-Bush signs are allowed within hollering distance of the president.

Since when have one's constitutional rights depended on one's political
opinions? I have news for the Bush administration: This country is a free
speech zone. There are no zoning ordinances that apply to our rights.
Freedom is a beautiful thing, and it is fantastic to come to a country where
people are free to express their views. Let us give thanks.

(c) 2003 Creators Syndicate


URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16072





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"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator." - GW Bush 12/18/2000.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of
Iraq."
-- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz,