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November 2, 2001
Alexander Cockburn
FBI Eyes
Torture
November 1, 2001
Dean Baker
Dying
for Patents
Sami Amarah
US Attempts
to Recruit
Russian Vets of Afghan War
Molly Secours
Where
Are the Voices of Reason? Let the Women
Be Heard
William Blum
Unleashing the
CIA
October 31, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
Terrorize
the Poor,
Subsidize the Rich
Chris Clarke
Thank God
for Berkeley
Steve
Perry
The
Silent Genocide
October 30, 2001
Rep. Ron Paul
War on Terror
Bad as War on Drugs
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flying
Blind:
The Predator's Problem
Ali Abunimah
Dear Colin
Powell
St. Clair/Cockburn
Atomic
Trains Grounded
Maud Hurd
We Need a Real
Stimulus Package
Dr. Susan
Block
We're
All Afghans Now
Tariq Ali
Busted in Munich
Francis
Beer
Toward
the Terrorist
Anti-World
October 29, 2001
Alexander Cockburn
The Left
and the Just War
John Pilger
Hidden
Agenda
of the War on Terror
David Krieger
Nukes on
the Loose
Jack McCarthy
Neo-Nazis
and 9/11
Marina Kalashnikova
The Brzezinski
Interview
Richard
Manning
Terrorism:
a definitive history
October 27, 2001
Edward
Said
A
Vision to Lift the Spririt
October 26, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Genocide
Scholar Gagged
Over Comments on the
Bombing of Afghanistan
Rahul
Mahajan
Poisoning
the Well
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why I Opposed
the
Anti-Terrorism Bill
John Troyer
Put
the War to a Vote
Norman Madarasz
What It
Means to be
Against the War
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance Attacks
US Bombing Strategy
Richard Lloyd Parry
Terrible Images
of a "Just" War
October 25, 2001
Ghassan
Andoni
Raid
on Bethlehem
N.D. Jayaprakash
From
Hiroshima to NYC
Evan Schultz
Memo
to Ashcroft:
Read Marbury
The Sunshine
Project
Assault
on the BioWeapons
Convention
Sarah
Turner
Cashing
In on Patriotism
Latin American Colloquium
on Systemology
The Meridia Manifesto
Noam Chomsky
The
New War on Terror
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bin Laden
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November 2,
2001
Against Dissent:
Why free
speech is important as
the U.S. drops cluster bombs
By Robert Jensen
[A talk to University of Texas teach-in
on war and civil liberties, November 1, 2001]
It might seem strange, given my involvement in
antiwar work at a time when most people support the war, that
I would title a talk "Against Dissent." How could I
be against something in which I seem to be engaged quite actively?
I am not going to argue against political
activity that challenges the dominant view, but instead will
suggest a different way to understand that political activity.
The point is not simply semantic, but goes to the heart of what
it means to be a citizen in a democracy. More on that later.
Let me say up front that I believe that
in light of what is happening in Afghanistan at the moment, the
topic of free speech seems, in some sense, trivial. I do not
mean that speech does not matter. I believe free speech is a
good thing in and of itself. But my main concern at the moment
is not the intrinsic value of free speech, the way it fosters
the growth and development of individuals, which is one powerful
argument for protecting free speech. Right now, free speech is
on my mind because I live in the nation that has the most destructive
military capacity in the history of the world. I live in a nation
that has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to use that
capacity to kill, and kill civilians. And I live in the nation
that at this moment is using that capacity again to kill civilians
in a conflict that is being sold to us as a war on terrorism
that will keep us safe, but is, I believe, primarily a war to
extend the power of a particular segment of U.S. society.
In other words, free speech matters so
much right now not primarily because it is good for us, which
it is, but because without it citizens of this country will have
fewer chances to stop our government from destroying human life
abroad. Tonight I want to talk about why free speech and democracy
are in some sense more important than ever. In this sense, free
speech is not a trivial matter. How we defend and use our free
speech is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
It is a matter of life and death for
the Afghan child who sees the bright yellow cylinder on the ground
and bends over to pick it up; the child who picks up the bright
yellow unexploded bomblet from a cluster bomb dropped from a
U.S. plane; unexploded because 7 percent of the bomblets released
by a cluster bomb do not detonate at first; a bomblet that will
explode when picked up and send steel shards ripping into the
child's body. And then the child will die. And then U.S. officials
explain that we must keep using cluster bombs because they are
effective antipersonnel and antiarmor weapons.
Our freedom to speak is not trivial to
that child. So let us speak of free speech.
Let us begin with a little history.
On June 16, 1918, labor leader Eugene
Debs made a speech in Canton, Ohio, in which he dared to question
U.S. involvement in World War I. In this speech, he said, "Wars
throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder.
...the working class who fight all the battles, the working class
who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely
shed their blood and furnish their corpses, have never yet had
a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling
class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they
alone make peace."
He continued: "They are continually
talking about their patriotic duty. It is not their but your
patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided
difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing
line or chucks them into the trenches."
For this, Debs was charged and convicted
under the Espionage Act for trying to discourage enlistment and
promote insubordination in the armed forces. Debs gave that speech
knowing that it could land him in prison, and he was sentenced
to 10 years. During his two years in prison, he ran his fifth
and final campaign for president and won 913,664 votes. He was
pardoned, not by Wilson -- the allegedly liberal Democratic president
who took the country into that disastrous war -- but by Harding,
the conservative Republican.
If Debs were alive today, I believe he
would be part of this antiwar movement, speaking about the hypocrisy
of U.S. policy and the immorality of killing civilians. The big
difference would be that if Debs were speaking today, he would
not be thrown in jail. We are not being thrown in jail for making
antiwar speeches this time around. At least not yet.
That's progress. That's a good thing.
The space for free speech in the United States has expanded dramatically
since 1918. That space is not guaranteed forever, but we have
it right now.
But that's not where our analysis should
end. We must think not only about the scope of formal freedoms,
of legal guarantees, but of the context in which that speech
happens. We must look not only at the actions of government,
but also how wealth and power in the private sector affects these
questions. We must ask about how free we are to gain access to
the mass media channels through which most people get their news.
While celebrating the expansion of formal freedom of speech,
we must ask questions about how effectively citizens can exercise
those freedoms in the world in which we live.
If we ponder these questions, we come
to a paradox: How is it that in the United States we have arguably
the most expansive free speech rights in the industrial world
and an incredibly degraded political culture? How did political
freedom produce such a depoliticized culture?
Let's examine that in the context of
what I have been writing since September 11 and the reaction
to it.
An op/ed piece that ran on September
14 in the Houston Chronicle, in which I talked about the history
of terrorist activities by the U.S. government and its importance
to understanding 9-11, sparked many angry letters to me and university
officials. Let's start with University of Texas President Larry
Faulkner's public response.
His letter in response to my op/ed made
three points. First, he said he supported my First Amendment
right to speak, which is fine with me. Second, he pointed out
that I do not speak for the university in any official capacity,
which also is fine with me; I don't want to speak for the university.
Finally, Faulkner said, "Jensen is not only misguided, but
has become a fountain of undiluted foolishness on issues of public
policy. Students must learn that there is a good deal of foolish
opinion in the popular media and they must become skilled at
recognizing and discounting it. I, too, was disgusted by Jensen's
article, but I also must defend his freedom to state his opinion.
The First Amendment is the bedrock of American liberty."
Many people, including a surprising number
of faculty colleagues, have told me they saw nothing wrong with
Faulkner's statement because he defended my rights and then exercised
his own right to speak. A slightly more sophisticated analysis
is called for.
First, let me be clear: None of this
is personal for me. I don't care what Larry Faulkner says about
me. I do care, however, how a person in power on a campus misuses
that power.
Larry Faulkner does have a right to speak.
But that does not mean he is free from criticism for his speech,
any more than I should escape criticism. As president of the
university, Faulkner has considerable power -- the power to hire
and fire, to dictate policy, and to set the intellectual tone
on campus. It should be a truism that with power comes responsibility.
For example, in the classroom I have considerable power. If a
student were to make a comment that I felt was foolish, it would
be irresponsible for me -- the person in the room with the ability
to determine grades and set the intellectual tone of the class
-- to respond to the student by saying, "You are foolish
and no one should listen to you." Even if I believed that,
I shouldn't say it, for the obvious reason that it would inhibit
other students from speaking. Even if the student in question
had the strength to challenge me, the incident might lead other
students to silence themselves.
The analogy holds for the president and
the campus.
The first and most obvious point to make
is that the president offered a bad model of intellectual engagement.
I wrote an essay that made a political argument. Faulkner responded
with an ad hominem attack. I used to teach a course called Critical
Thinking for Journalists, and I used a textbook called Attacking
Faulty Reasoning, which defines ad hominem as a fallacy that
"consists in attacking one's opponent in a personal and
abusive way as a means of ignoring or discrediting his or her
criticism or argument." If I were to grade Faulkner based
on the standards from my introductory journalism class -- well,
perhaps it is best not to be obsessed with grades.
But rather than simply criticize Faulkner,
let's think about what he could have done. He could have issued
a statement that said something like this:
"Many people have been upset by
the public comments of a faculty member, and I understand their
concerns. But at the University of Texas we take seriously the
mission of creating the most open, engaged intellectual atmosphere
possible in which people can explore ideas. As a public institution,
we also hope that our faculty, staff, and students will be part
of a broader public dialogue, taking their knowledge beyond the
campus as active and engaged citizens. Inevitably in a pluralist
democracy, that will produce clashes between people over deeply
held beliefs. We should celebrate that engagement, not try to
shut it down. Given the importance of the events of September
11, I encourage members of the UT community to seek all possible
venues for discussion of the political and moral questions, on
campus and in public. Now, more than ever, let us make good on
the promise of democracy."
Now, if he wanted to go on to disagree
with my essay, he could have said something like this:
"In the spirit of that democratic
engagement, I would like to offer my critique of Jensen's argument."
What would come after that, I do not
know, because President Faulkner chose not to make public the
reasons for his critical assessment.
So, we might can look around UT and ask
whether, at the largest campus in the United States, we see the
maximal realization of freedom of expression. No formal suppression
of speech rights has occurred, but has the institution supported
free speech in a meaningful way? Has it done its job of creating
the space for that speech? In light of those questions, we might
ask what has been the role a statement from the president that
endorses the formal guarantee of freedom that also offers an
ad hominem attack?
I also want to discuss the public reaction
to my essay. Here I want to highlight the difference between
the messages I received from people in the United States, which
ran about 70-30 against my views, and the messages I received
from abroad, which were overwhelmingly either supportive of my
view or interested in a rational discussion of them. These are
not adequate samples for making definitive claims, but the difference
hints at a simple fact: The things I said about U.S. history
and politics that were so controversial in the United States
are well understood in the rest of the world. We come back to
the paradox: Why is it that people in the United States, with
such expansive formal political freedoms, know less about their
own history and politics than people abroad?
Which leads to another question: Why
did so many Americans not only disagree with me, but become enraged
with me? What is it about this political culture that leads people
to see a different political analysis not as something to be
argued with, but something to eliminate?
Again, we are left to ponder how the
freedoms enjoyed in our version of democracy have produced a
culture that is so hostile to intellectual engagement and democratic
participation.
But that question obscures a point that
is perhaps even more important. More distressing than the relatively
small number of people who wanted me fired or deported (I got
a lot of offers of one-way tickets to Afghanistan), is the much
larger number of people who simply do not care enough to react
at all -- not just to react to me, but to react to the entire
issue, beyond a few patriotic platitudes. What does it mean to
live in a society in which the president can declare an unlimited
war against unspecified enemies, then begin to fight that war
with extreme brutality and disregard for the lives of innocent
civilians, and a significant segment of the population simply
does not care? When I ask such questions, people often say, "You
have a right to your opinion; I support your right to speak."
I think that indicates a fundamental
moral, political, and intellectual crisis. Free speech has come
to mean not a process of engagement, but a right to shout into
the wind. People see no reason or obligation to engage. This
tells me that we live in a political system that has democratic
features but is not a meaningful democracy. I say that because
I believe a meaningful democracy requires an active citizenry.
That is why I titled this talk "Against Dissent." Finally,
I'll explain what I mean by that.
In a meaningful democracy, citizens would
be part of the process by which pubic policy is formulated. That
is, citizens would discuss issues and problems, with access to
the broadest range of information, leading to an exploration
of the widest possible range of solutions and responses. The
views of people would not only be relevant to the decisions politicians
end up implementing, but would structure the choices politicians
could make.
Instead, we live in a system in which
many people think they are participating fully if they vote.
Some will participate a bit further by working in the electoral
process. Others will work at educating themselves about the policy
options that politicians and other powerful people have laid
out, so that they can better choose among those options. But
very few people understand democracy to mean direct engagement
in the process by which policy options are formulated.
That is why, for example, so many Americans
do not know what to think of the movement to resist corporate
domination of the global economy. Those people, such as the folks
in the streets of Seattle, were asserting their right to be involved
in the formulation of policy options, and it seemed strange to
many Americans.
If that is what democracy could be --
an active role for engaged citizens -- then we can see why the
term dissent doesn't quite fit. If we all are part of the process
of formulating policy options -- if we do not give up the right
to be involved in that process -- then we begin with the idea
that all policy options are open, and that the people will decide
which option they want the government to pursue.
If that were the case, then I, and others
who offer an antiwar perspective, wouldn't be dissenting from
some already-agreed-upon position. We would be contributing a
policy option to the discussion. That wouldn't be dissent; it
would be participation in a conversation about which option or
options might be most desirable.
Now, after the political process has
concluded and a policy is chosen, then it makes sense to say
that one dissents from that. But literally from September 12
on, my public speech has been labeled dissent. But it wasn't
dissent. It was my contribution to the policy discussion. It
was labeled dissent only because this culture assumes that the
pronouncements of the president and other "important"
people are the policy, and we the people then have a right to
either agree with it or dissent from it.
I have a different view of democracy.
The antiwar movement has a different view of democracy. The movement
for a fair and just global economy has a different view of democracy.
In that sense, these kinds of movements are not simply about
changing policies; they are about changing the system. They attempt
to turn a system that now is democratic in its formal structure
into a meaningful democracy in practice.
They are, quite literally, movements
engaged in -- to borrow a phrase from my colleague Rahul Mahajan
-- the struggle for the soul of a nation.
Ironically, when we engage in that struggle
these days we are called anti-American, unpatriotic, or traitors.
Let me respond to that, and close, by returning to Eugene Debs.
In Canton, Ohio, in 1918, under the threat of a jail term, Debs
said:
"Do not worry over the charge of
treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that
involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a
traitor to any good cause on earth."
Debs was one of many Americans who fought
for free speech. At the same time these Americans were fighting
for that right, they were not afraid to raise their voices against
illegitimate authority and for justice, sometimes in the face
of harsh repression.
We are lucky; we don't have to fight
those same battles to speak, at least not at the moment. We may
face the scorn of some of our fellow citizens, or risk the condemnation
of our bosses. Some may lose their jobs. But compared to facing
down the barrel of a gun or risking jail time, well, let's keep
our hardships in perspective. Again, these freedoms we have won
are not necessarily permanent; we have to work to hold them.
But we do have them.
That means that more than ever, the question
for us is whether we will use our voices, our energy -- perhaps
before too long our bodies in civil disobedience -- to fight
against illegitimate authority and for justice.
That child in Afghanistan reaching for
a bomblet from an American cluster bomb, the parents in Afghanistan
who in the coming weeks will watch their children starve because
U.S. bombing has disrupted food distribution -- they have a right
to an answer. They are waiting for our answer.
What will our answer be? CP
Robert Jensen
is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin,
a member of the Nowar
Collective and author of the forthcoming book Writing Dissent:
Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream. He can
be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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