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Thought Crime in Washington: No Free Speech at Mr. Jefferson’s Library
George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, and Ray Bradbury Would Have Recognized Morris Davis's Problem
Here’s the First Amendment, in full: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Those beautiful words, almost haiku-like, are the sparse poetry of the American democratic experiment. The Founders purposely wrote the First Amendment to read broadly, and not like a snippet of tax code, in order to emphasize that it should encompass everything from shouted religious rantings to eloquent political criticism. Go ahead, reread it aloud at this moment when the government seems to be carving out an exception to it large enough to drive a tank through.
As the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, like those pepper-sprayed at UC Davis or the Marine veteran shot in Oakland, recently found out, the government’s ability to limit free speech, to stopper the First Amendment, to undercut the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, is perhaps the most critical issue our republic can face. If you were to write the history of the last decade in Washington, it might well be a story of how, issue by issue, the government freed itself from legal and constitutional bounds when it came to torture, the assassination of U.S. citizens, the holding of prisoners without trial or access to a court of law, the illegal surveillance of American citizens, and so on. In the process, it has entrenched itself in a comfortable shadowland of ever more impenetrable secrecy, while going after any whistleblower who might shine a light in.
Now, it also seems to be chipping away at the most basic American right of all, the right of free speech, starting with that of its own employees. As is often said, the easiest book to stop is the one that is never written; the easiest voice to staunch is the one that is never raised.
It’s true that, over the years, government in its many forms has tried to claim that you lose your free speech rights when you, for example, work for a public school, or join the military. In dealing with school administrators who sought to silence a teacher for complaining publicly that not enough money was being spent on academics versus athletics, or generals who wanted to stop enlisted men and women from blogging, the courts have found that any loss of rights must be limited and specific. As Jim Webb wrote when still Secretary of the Navy, “A citizen does not give up his First Amendment right to free speech when he puts on a military uniform, with small exceptions.”
Free speech is considered so basic that the courts have been wary of imposing any limits at all. The famous warning by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes about not falsely shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater shows just how extreme a situation must be for the Supreme Court to limit speech. As Holmes put it in his definition: “The question in every case is whether the words used… are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” That’s a high bar indeed.
The Government v. Morris Davis
Does a newspaper article from November 2009, a few hundred well-reasoned words that appeared in the conservative Wall Street Journal, concluding with these mild sentences, meet Justice Holmes’s high mark?
“Double standards don't play well in Peoria. They won't play well in Peshawar or Palembang either. We need to work to change the negative perceptions that exist about Guantanamo and our commitment to the law. Formally establishing a legal double standard will only reinforce them.”
Morris Davis got fired from his research job at the Library of Congress for writing that article and a similar letter to the editor of the Washington Post. (The irony of being fired for exercising free speech while employed at Thomas Jefferson’s library evidently escaped his bosses.) With the help of the ACLU, Davis demanded his job back. On January 8, 2010, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Library of Congress on his behalf. In March 2011 a federal court ruled that the suit could go forward.
The case is being heard this month. Someday, it will likely define the free speech rights of federal employees and so determine the quality of people who will make up our government. We citizens vote for the big names, but it’s the millions of lower-ranked, unelected federal employees who decide by their actions how the laws are carried out (or ignored) and the Constitution upheld (or disregarded).
Morris Davis is not some dour civil servant. Prior to joining the Library of Congress, he spent more than 25 years as an Air Force colonel. He was, in fact, the chief military prosecutor at Guantánamo and showed enormous courage in October 2007 when he resigned from that position and left the Air Force. Davis had stated he would not use evidence obtained through torture back in 2005. When a torture advocate was named his boss in 2007, Davis quit rather than face the inevitable order to reverse his position.
In December 2008, Davis went to work as a researcher at the Library of Congress in the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division. None of his work was related to Guantanamo. He was not a spokesperson for, or a public face of, the library. He was respected at work. Even the people who fired him do not contest that he did his “day job” as a researcher well.
On November 12, 2009, the day after his op-ed and letter appeared, Davis was told by his boss that the pieces had caused the library concern over his “poor judgment and suitability to serve… not consistent with 'acceptable service'" -- as the letter of admonishment he received put the matter. It referred only to his op-ed and Washington Post letter, and said nothing about his work performance as a researcher. One week later, Davis was fired.
But Shouldn’t He Have Known Better Than to Write Something Political?
The courts have consistently supported the rights of the Ku Klux Klan to use extreme and hateful words, of the burners of books, and of those who desecrate the American flag. All of that is considered “protected speech.” A commitment to real free speech means accepting the toughest cases, the most offensive things people can conceive of, as the price of a free society.
The Library of Congress does not restrict its employees from writing or speaking, so Davis broke no rules. Nor, theoretically at least, do other government agencies like the CIA and the State Department restrict employees from writing or speaking, even on matters of official concern, although they do demand prior review for such things as the possible misuse of classified material.
Clearly, such agency review processes have sometimes been used as a de facto method of prior restraint. The CIA, for example, has been accused of using indefinite security reviews to effectively prevent a book from being published. The Department of Defense has also wielded exaggerated claims of classified material to block books.
Since at least 1968, there has, however, been no broad prohibition against government employees writing about political matters or matters of public concern. In 1968, the Supreme Court decided a seminal public employee First Amendment case, Pickering v. Board of Education. It ruled that school officials had violated the First Amendment rights of teacher Marvin Pickering when they fired him for writing a letter to his local paper criticizing the allocation of money between academics and athletics.
A Thought Crime
Morris Davis was fired by the Library of Congress not because of his work performance, but because he wrote that Wall Street Journal op-ed on his own time, using his own computer, as a private citizen, never mentioning his (unrelated) federal job. The government just did not like what he wrote. Perhaps his bosses were embarrassed by his words, or felt offended by them. Certainly, in the present atmosphere in Washington, they felt they had an open path to stopping their own employee from saying what he did, or at least for punishing him for doing so.
It’s not, of course, that federal employees don’t write and speak publicly. As long as they don’t step on toes, they do, in startling numbers, on matters of official concern, on hobbies, on subjects of all sorts, through what must be an untold number of blogs, Facebook pages, Tweets, op-eds, and letters to the editor. The government picked Davis out for selective, vindictive prosecution.
More significantly, Davis was fired prospectively -- not for poor attendance, or too much time idling at the water cooler, but because his boss believed Davis’s writing showed that the quality of his judgment might make him an unsuitable employee at some future moment. The simple act of speaking out on a subject at odds with an official government position was the real grounds for his firing. That, and that alone, was enough for termination.
As any devoted fan of George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, or Philip K. Dick would know, Davis committed a thought crime.
As some readers may also know, I evidently did the same thing. Because of my book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, about my experiences as a State Department official in Iraq, and the articles, op-eds, and blog posts I have written, I first had my security clearance suspended by the Department of State and then was suspended from my job there. That job had nothing to do with Iraq or any of the subjects I have written about. My performance reviews were good, and no one at State criticized me for my day-job work. Because we have been working under different human resources systems, Davis, as a civil servant on new-hire probation, could be fired directly. As a tenured Foreign Service Officer, I can’t, and so State has placed me on indefinite administrative leave status; that is, I’m without a job, pending action to terminate me formally through a more laborious process.
However, in removing me from my position, the document the State Department delivered to me darkly echoed what Davis’ boss at the Library of Congress said to him:
“The manner in which you have expressed yourself in some of your published material is inconsistent with the standards of behavior expected of the Foreign Service. Some of your actions also raise questions about your overall judgment. Both good judgment and the ability to represent the Foreign Service in a way that will make the Foreign Service attractive to candidates are key requirements.”
There follows a pattern of punishing federal employees for speaking out or whistle-blowing: look at Davis, or me, or Franz Gayl, or Thomas Drake. In this way, a precedent is being set for an even deeper cloud of secrecy to surround the workings of government. From Washington, in other words, no news, other than good or officially approved news, is to emerge.
The government’s statements at Davis’s trial, now underway in Washington D.C., do indeed indicate that he was fired for the act of speaking out itself, as much as the content of what he said. The Justice Department lawyer representing the government said that Davis’s writings cast doubt on his discretion, judgment and ability to serve as a high-level official. (She also added that Davis’s language in the op-ed was “intemperate.” One judge on the three-member bench seemed to support the point, saying, “It’s one thing to speak at a law school or association, but it’s quite a different thing to be in The Washington Post.” The case will likely end up at the Supreme Court.
Free Speech is for Iranians, not Government Employees
If Morris Davis loses his case, then a federal employee’s judgment and suitability may be termed insufficient for employment if he or she writes publicly in a way that offends or embarrasses the government. In other words, the very definition of good judgment, when it comes to freedom of speech, will then rest with the individual employer -- that is, the U.S. government.
Simply put, even if you as a federal employee follow your agency’s rules on publication, you can still be fired for what you write if your bosses don’t like it. If your speech offends them, then that’s bad judgment on your part and the First Amendment goes down the drain. Free speech is increasingly coming at a price in Washington: for federal employees, conscience could cost them their jobs.
In this sense, Morris Davis represents a chilling precedent. He raised his voice. If we’re not careful, the next Morris Davis may not. Federal employees are, at best, a skittish bunch, not known for their innovative, out-of-the-box thinking. Actions like those in the Davis case will only further deter any thoughts of speaking out, and will likely deter some good people from seeking federal employment.
More broadly, the Davis case threatens to give the government free rein in selecting speech by its employees it does not like and punishing it. It’s okay to blog about your fascination with knitting or to support official positions. If you happen to be Iranian or Chinese or Syrian, and not terribly fond of your government, and express yourself on the subject, the U.S. government will support your right to do it 110% of the way. However, as a federal employee, blog about your negative opinions on U.S. policies and you’ve got a problem. In fact, we have a problem as a country if freedom of speech only holds as long as it does not offend the U.S. government.
Morris Davis’s problem is neither unique nor isolated. Clothilde Le Coz, Washington director of Reporters without Borders, told me earlier this month, "Secrecy is taking over from free speech in the United States. While we naively thought the Obama administration would be more transparent than the previous one, it is actually the first to sue five people for being sources and speaking publicly." Scary, especially since this is no longer an issue of one rogue administration.
Government is different than private business. If you don’t like McDonald’s because of its policies, go to Burger King, or a soup kitchen, or eat at home. You don’t get the choice of federal governments, and so the critical need for its employees to be able to speak informs the republic. We are the only ones who can tell you what is happening inside your government. It really is that important. Ask Morris Davis.
Comments
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41 Comments so far
Show AllFederal employees are citizens too. Unlike corporations. Let's rally for Morris.
My wife the librarian will get a rueful chuckle from this article after I show this to her later tonight. Peter Van Buren hit the nail squarely on the head when he accurately brings out the hypocrisy of the United States by noting this:
"If you happen to be Iranian or Chinese or Syrian, and not terribly fond of your government, and express yourself on the subject, the U.S. government will support your right to do it 110% of the way. However, as a federal employee, blog about your negative opinions on U.S. policies and you’ve got a problem. In fact, we have a problem as a country if freedom of speech only holds as long as it does not offend the U.S. government."
Unfortunately it will not be all that surprising if the mainstream media in this country chooses to ignore this vitally important story.
As nearly as I understand the founders' reasons for establishing
free speech, it was primarily for the purpose of protecting speech
that is exercised for POLITICAL ends, that is directed toward those
who will vote on some issue. For similar reasons, the founders also
protected freedom of the press, so that the people who would vote
would not do so in ignorance of the issues. Thomas Jefferson
said that expecting a nation to be both free and ignorant is expecting
something that never has been and never will be. If the Supreme
Court would protect the Ku Klux Klan's freedom to speak hate, and
it will then not protect a federal employee's well-meaning speech
to question the government's policy, then the Court will have gotten
the priorities just exactly upside-down. Seeing the Court's recent
prioritization of Big Power Structures over little people, we should
not be surprised to see the "disemployment" of Morris Davis be
upheld by the Court. The Court's manner of handling the case will
be further revealing of the Court's orientation.
aequum -
"If the Supreme Court would protect the Klu Klux Klan's freedom to speak hate, and it will then not protect a federal employee's well-meaning speech to question the government's policy, then the Court will have gotten the priorities just exactly upside down."
Sincerely hoping no one takes offense at my lapse into law school Socratic method devil's advocacy, let me pose this nasty hypothetical:
If Col. Davis had resigned from the Air Force because he was a white supremecist who hated life in a racially integrated military establishment, and during his civil service probationary period as a Library of Congress researcher on his own time he dressed up in Klan regalia and gave a "well meaning" bigoted, hate-mongering speech in front of a blazing cross at a KKK rally damning affirmative action and openly calling for a return to Jim Crow segregation or outright skin color slavery, would the federal government be powerless to discharge him from his new job because this behavior reflected adversely on his judgment, objectivity, and qualifications to remain on the public payroll?
I am a long time ACLU member and I support Morris Davis's enormously important, timely test case 110%. But let's not lose sight of the fact that Holmes's famous hypo about falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre gave birth to the clear and present danger doctrine in the context of criminal law. Davis's civil rights lawsuit is not about direct censorship of his newspaper op-ed, nor is it retaliatory criminal prosecution of a whistleblower. It is about the employment rights of an at-will, probationary federal civil servant.
Like it or loathe it, in the private sector Wal-Mart and other big nonunionized corporations are free to pink slip any of their at-will employees anytime, for good reason, bad reason, or no stated reason at all. You don't have to shout recklessly in a crowded theatre (or even patronize the theatre) in order to get summarily sacked at the employer's whim.
In my opinion, what's really at stake in the Morris Davis case is whether that wink-and-a-nod corporate management mentality can be uncritically applied throughout the federal bureaucracy in order to punish a pristine exercise of free speech.
The District Court and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals have got the First Amendment right so far. We should all be leery over what the Citizens' United Five might do to the Pickering case precedent when it eventually goes to the Supreme Court. The Obama/Holder Justice Department and the Solicitor General could and should avoid the risk of a unnecessary Bill of Rights train wreck by settling this case tomorrow.
Bill from Saginaw
Reply to Bill from Saginaw:
"If Col. Davis had resigned from the Air Force because was
a white supremacist ... etc.".
But, he didn't do those things. Your hypothetical is fantastic.
If a hypothetical "Davis" HAD done all you said, not only should
he have been fired; he SHOULD have had his but kicked all the
way down the front steps of the Thomas Jefferson building.
Think like the Supreme Court is SUPPOSED to think. Take the
case under consideration AS IT IS, and decide upon the legality
or constitutionality of what was actually said and done. To do
otherwise appears to me like "setting up a straw man," just so
one would provide himself something to strike down. [I don't
fail to consider that the Supreme Court does, apparently when
it wishes to do so, set up context(s) for pleadings just so it will
have an opportunity to decide the questions it wants to decide.
Call to mind the history of the Citizens' United case.]
My point in my post was that [I say] we are burdened by a Court
that far too often decides just as it is pre-disposed to decide
-- favoring Big Power Structures and disfavoring little people.
Such carryings-on are, to my mind, "extra-constitutional" at least.
I am not a friend of the presently comprised Supreme Court.
You said that Davis was employed only on probation. That is
an unfortunate circumstance. If the present Court does uphold
Davis' "dis-employment", does that then mean that any federal
employees (probationary or not probationary) can be fired for
their comments to a newspaper/network/blog? What about
comments made via cell phone and intercepted (even illegally)
by government surveilance? Or by papparatzi? Will the present
Court do as I claim it has done previously, and expand the case
so as to make it's decision apply to ALL federal employees?
I am disappointed by the arguments made by federal lawers in
Davis' case thus far, as you report. I would have expected better
from president Obama. Is he under pressure to subvert free
speech? If that were so, what possible kind of pressure might
that be? The arguments seem just the opposite of transparancy.
In a paraphrase of the proverbial curse: We may live in interesting
times.
" I would have expected better from President Obama. Is he under pressure to subvert free speech?"
He had an American citizen in Yemen executed by an anti-tank missile fired from a Predator Drone operated from an air-conditioned room in Nevada. Said American citizen just happened to be a Muslim cleric who was very passionate in his views about holding the US accountable for it's many crimes around the world. Obama is not under pressure to subvert free speech. He's freely following orders to ==>end<== free speech.
"If that were so, what possible kind of pressure might that be?"
Obama once was employed by a CIA front company, and had extensive operational travel in Afghanistan while the Russians were having their trouble with the US backed and supplied Mujahadin. No-one, NO-ONE, retires from The Company. Ever.
"No-one, NO-ONE, retires from The Company. Ever."
This is the mafia on steroids.
Where's JFK when you need him?
The Company took care of JFK (and RFK) a long time ago.
" If you are not doing anything wrong , you have nothing to worry about "
The George Bush mantra , along with " If you are not with us you are against us"
All this bunk while he was taking away the 4th amendment rights of privacy, and implemented warrant less surveillance using the stasi doctrines of the Patriot Acts..
And now that there are 72 fusion centers, a nation wide network of community watch stasi,county by county, and there are no protections from witch hunts because of Patriot Act immunity for the stasi, the government with the willing help of nation wide poorly trained stasi, are listening to every word we say, and putting us on watch lists, or worse yet, 24/7 gang stalking community watch surveillance. NO REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. i AM STILL WAITING FOR WHISTLE BLOWERS WHO HAVE SERVED THE STASI TO STEP UP AND TELL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE JUST HOW LARGE THE CANCEROUS STASI HAVE GROWN IN NUMBERS.
This out of control DHS and TSA using military industrial contracts with numerous private company's are going to turn us into a communist country, under fascist control.
They took the 4th amendment so they could take the 1st amendment. Shame on all Christian ministers that took money from the government to recruit and prepare their flock s for stasi work and martial law. Repent , and change sides to protect the constitution before they close your churches down, and they will.
You can wait all you want for the news to break about Stasi servants outing their means of livelihood. Little dribs and drabs might show up, here and there. But really, where do you think you are?
"While we naively thought the Obama administration would be more transparent than the previous one, it is actually the first to sue five people for being sources and speaking publicly." Scary, especially since this is no longer an issue of one rogue administration."
Extremely scary considering the alternatives.
I don't see this as a first amendment case. Mr. Van Buren demeans our great country with his specious assertion. Mr. Davis has not been imprisoned. He is free to say what he pleases, just without the support of the federal government for his livelihood. If he was a new hire, on a probation period at his employment and lacking contract protections, then that's how our economic system works - one has no right to work in the USA. That's what has made our country great, right? Now, without the inconvenience of employment, Mr. Davis has even more freedom to write what he likes (which wasn't particularly radical anyway, just a plea for the return of the rule of law)! Let freedom ring! (down the street, around the corner, quietly, out of sight)
Dear deva0019,
The manner in which you have expressed yourself in some of your comments is inconsistent with the standards of behavior expected by your employer. The intemperate tone of your remarks also raises questions about your overall judgment. Therefore, we find it necessary to terminate your employment.
But judging by your remarks, you are OK with that, right?
sigovesos9
Excellent rebuttal.
I think deva0019's remarks were ironic.
Wonderful essay. Illustrates very clearly just how enfeebled the Bill of Rights has become for 'we the people'.
The First Amendment is now reserved for corporations, Wall Street, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers & their political factotums.
It is used to buy and sell toilet paper and politicians. It is not available to people who annoy the ruling class.
Most Amerikans don't know it is gone:
"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them." Mark Twain
Bornfreeman is absolutely correct in charting how close the U.S. is veering towards a functional 'Panopticon' surveillance state.
http://cartome.org/panopticon1.htm
However, his worries that our rulers are going to convert us into a 'communist' state are misplaced.
No worry there because there is not enough profit in it. You might have lacked the right to criticize the government in the Soviet Union but you had the right to an education (often excellent), a job (usually not so good), free medical care, and an apartment. (And yes I have traveled in the former Soviet Union and spoken to people who actually lived under communism. I am not depending on Rush Limbaugh or Thomas Friedman, etc. for an understanding of the Soviet version of communism. Ironically, the Amerikans most certain about the rest of the world are generally those who have traveled the least and not bothered to speak to the people who actually live there.)
Our ruling class is not interested in providing us with free housing, medical care, etc. They are motivated to charge us the maximum possible for these services because, of course, they are getting ever richer on these "free enterprise" operations.
As to closing down the churches, Freebornman needn't worry about that either. Christianity is viewed as an asset for implementing social control and reactionary policies in the U.S.
How many Christian leaders are taking principled stands against Amerika's illegal wars, the torture, the death squads & drone wars, the rapacious system of predatory capitalism, the looming police state?
Well, there was Martin Luther King. The Berrigan Brothers. There are these two brave priests protesting torture:
http://www.soaw.org/news/news-alerts/3277-two-priests-arrested-at-ft-huachuca-torture-protes
Chris Hedges, a brilliant (and also very ecumenical) Christian is putting his body on the line and publishing his acerbic criticisms of the corporate states of Amerika.
Christian leaders are noteworthy by their absence from any challenge to Amerikan wars, invasions, & occupations. They are far more comfortable with Sean Hannity than with OWS.
In the 19th century there was a widespread populist Christian movement that was opposed to Wall Street, big business, and usurious finance. William Jennings Bryan was one of the most interesting leaders of this form of Christian populism:
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h805.html
However, the ruling class has nothing to worry about these days from most Christian leaders. It is ironic that many of the neo-cons who engineered the invasion of Iraq (and our unending support for the Jewish colonial state), are great believers in religion as a means of social control:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=drury_24_4
Christian leaders, generally, are in bed with the bankers. The plutocracy has no reason to close the Churches.
RANDY G: Excellent post, and this line stood out to me, as it's something I think about quite often:
"How many Christian leaders are taking principled stands against Amerika's illegal wars, the torture, the death squads & drone wars, the rapacious system of predatory capitalism, the looming police state?"
It's not just the rule of law that's been inverted... its spiritual epi-center has been largely contaminated by the insidious allure of Mammon.
"Now, it also seems to be chipping away at the most basic American right of all, the right of free speech"
~~thank you so much, mr. van buren, for speaking out and sharing your experience with us. you know, i think the chipping away of "freedom of speech" has been an ongoing event for many, many decades. the young artist, whose name eludes me, who on impulse sang, "we are the many" to the gathering of pomposity in hawaii said he felt frightened at first. he mentioned that we have been conditioned to avoid discourse that might offend certain people. neighbors gather together often agree that in order to maintain a jovial spirit two subjects remain taboo, religion and politics. oh, it's okay to confess deep faith as long as no particulars are mentioned. of course, when ones nation sends its youth off to the next war to end all war, to speak against the errant policy means you abet "the enemy". those who buy and sell the airwaves, the murdochs, kochs, disney, general electric (to name a few), are no strangers to methods meant to control information and public conversation. for example, years ago popular t.v. talk host, phil donahue, received his pretty pink slip for his pacifist views. the empire "a band of men pledged to nothing but their own power and greatness at the expense of others" * no longer chip, chips away. panic at the top brings us into an era of wholesale assault.~~
"The government just did not like what he wrote--"
~~i snipped out that phrase, because i'd like us to abandon treating "the government" as a person speaking with one voice. the government is an institution. only people have vocal chords to form the words. you, brooksley born, bill moyers, bradley manning, valery plame-wilson along with others whose name we may never learn exemplify those who choose to speak from the heart. those who take government jobs often feel compelled not to rock the boat by pointing to flaws in the system in order to protect the public image of perfection which does not and cannot exist.~~
"--misuse of classified material."
~~peter, i remember that during the "cold war" when we heard about russian spies and american counter spies, i thought members of both governments knew about the other's secrets. we the peoples were the ones kept in the dark. the empire relies on lies both about what goes on within our borders as well as distortions of what happens outside. those who protect their positions in the establishment may convince themselves that "classified information" furthers the cause of democracy when actually we sacrifice "freedom of the press." thomas jefferson said, "information is the true currency of democracy."~~
"we naively thought the Obama administration would be more transparent than the previous one--"
~~yep, i confess i had high hopes that this most eloquent orator, a white man, a black man, a christian, a jew an islam, might begin the healing of a fractured world, but alas, all we see is "politics as usual."
i guess democracy, after all, is not a gift bestowed by our betters. democracy recognizes each individual's responsibility and authority to develop according to Nature's innate plan. we often hold back to "fit in" but eventually each must realize, "no matter where i go, i have to live with myself!"
thanks again for inspiring each of us to listen to his inner moral compass!
* raymond e. feist
"Those beautiful words, almost haiku-like, are the sparse poetry of the American democratic experiment."
Too bad those in Congress only understand ribald limericks like: "There once was a harlot at Yale, with her prices tattooed on her tail. And on her behind, for the sake of the blind, she had them embroidered in Braille."
Morris Davis has probably been under surveillance since his less than enthusiastic feelings about torture became known. This is why what would have been an obscure letter to editor to WSJ and WaPo was noticed and acted upon. I would like to know who ordered his bosses at Library of Congress to fire him. All of this has happened under Obama's Presidency. Is anyone else alarmed to what is another infringement of our civil liberties by an Administration elected to reverse the slide to dictatorship begun under Bush/Cheney?
IndyG -
There is nothing obscure about successfully getting an op-ed published in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. That is a quintesstential exercise of First Amendment-protected free speech and freedom of the press, a core value of citizenship in action, right up there with preaching or orating from atop a soapbox in the public square to everybody within earshot. Speakers cannot be censored, silenced, prosecuted, jailed, or fined by the government for openly engaging in such communication efforts, even if the substance of their letter to the editor or podium diatribe is barely coherent, mean spirited babble.
Abuse of free speech rights can have noncriminal civil consequences, however. Private libel and defamation damage lawsuits can be threatened or filed, and that sort of litigation does have a chilling effect on freedom of expression. Morris Davis's current test case involves a variation on this recognized exception to unfettered free speech rights: can the government fire public employees (at will employees who lack civil service or collective bargaining protections) in retaliation for their openly-published criticisms of government policy?
The Pickering case held no, public employees may not be financially punished for advocacy by taking away their paychecks in reprisal. Mr. Pickering was a non-tenured high school teacher who was fired for criticizing the local Board of Education's expenditures of tax money on the schools' athletic programs rather than on basic academics in a letter written to the community newspaper. The Supreme Court eventually held this retaliatory discharge was an unlawful violation of his First Amendment rights.
The Obama administration apparently is seeking to revisit and overturn, or distinguish away the Pickering precedent for federal workers, in Morris Davis's case. Yes indeed, we should all be alarmed.
When Col. Davis quit as a career military man for refusing to justify the Bush/Cheney policies on torture and military tribunal trials towards Gitmo detainees, Davis was lauded for being a courageous man of high civic principle. Yet when, five years later, he points out in his op-ed that the Obama administration was hypocritically continuing Bush's unconscionable war on terror approach towards detainees' due process rights and human rights under international law, he gets sacked for voicing his consistently expressed, long held views.
Yep, that's alarming. Another change it's hard to believe in.
Bill from Saginaw
"Those beautiful words, almost haiku-like, are the sparse poetry of the American democratic experiment." Here they are, in two stunning performances:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyYUcmkgEYw&feature=related
The First Amendment Kareoke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsipbfV8emU
Reverend BIlly and Laura Newman, The First Amendment
If there is anything on the list below that is not an apparent policy of the government of the "United" States of America, please let me know.
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Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
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“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
And:
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
Joseph Goebbels, MiniProp for Hitler’s Third Reich
1897-1945
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"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same for any country."
Herman Goering to Gustave Gilbert at Nuremberg, 18 April, 1946
Thanks for publishing this. I don't really remember if you are the one doing it on a daily basis, but I will post it if you don't.
*Comment deleted by site administrators as spam: identical, repetitive comments posted on multiple articles*
see: http://www.commondreams.org/comment-policy
Yup, it's a good post alright. I may just work this up for our Occupy group's Education link I'm writing. I've seen you post it a number of times, too, but the intermittent way you've chosen to do it makes it a community service. We get new folks in here pretty regularly, and when the topic is "fascism," this is just about as succinct and hard-hitting as I've seen. (The follow up quotes, and their authors, were real smart picks, too.)
Van Buren uses this term to describe who is behind the many actions to curtail freedoms: "The Government." Note, it isn't one particular member of government, but the Whole 9 Yards. And while I liked this article, his inability or refusal to out the INDIVIDUAL driving the attacks being made by "the government" make this a relatively useless article. Now, if Glenn Greenwald had written this, he would have no problem naming the culprit--Obama--but can he name the Puppet Masters ultimately behind Obama and Bush's attacks on our freedoms? For as I discussed on the climate denial thread, it is the Puppet Masters who are our biggest enemies.
I will be picking up Philip K. Dick's very relevant The Minority Report this Wednesday.
You just added to your Government mandated/Corporate collected personal pre-crime dossier?
This reminds me of the venerable principle of bureaucratic law: "It is always possible for a clever bureaucrat to do indirectly what he is prohibited from doing directly."
The US government will only back those in Iran or Syria or China writing against their government if they are also pro-capitalist, pro-ameri-NATO imperialism.
Not that I'm a fan of Obama (since he's done little, if anything to put the brakes on the slide of the United States toward fascism), but, when one looks at the whole history of the United States (from the Salem Witchhunts to the McCarthy period to the excessive cracking down of police departments all across the country on anti-war demonstrators and, more recently, on Occupy Movement demonstrators), the trappings of a fascist state have been there since day one, if everybody gets the drift.
Yes, my training as an historian leads me to ask if things are worse now than when I was born in 1955, or even 100 years earlier, 1855, and so forth. Much depends on your place within society. Terrorism reigned supreme as any advantage for poor whites cost the blood of someone Native or Black.
Liberalism tries to convince us that things are not so simple, that the more you look into things, the more complex they get. But that's just a huge lie. The fact is things are very simple. Free speech benefits the people because free information benefits the people. Any and all secrets are damaging to the people's better interests. All information should be freely accessible to all. When all information is available to all, trust and solidarity are elevated above zero-sum predatory/parasitic interests. I guess the liberals have a hard time appreciating trust and solidarity. Too bad for them.
The liberals waste some great majority of their mental energy pretending that there are benefits to individualism, but all it amounts to is predation, and is like friction, energy wasted as heat. You can investigate for yourself and see the truth in this, how these analogies hold, or you can continue to believe the predator's mythology. Which will it be for you? You like the predator's game?
This is very important.
So much of what the founders said was complete bullshit that I can't understand why people worship their words. They believed that women and slaves had no rights at all and when they talked about freedim of speech I'm sure they intended this right to be limited to the political elite only. The United States has always lagged behind the rest of the western world when it comes to the rights of blacks and women and has imprisoned entire ethnic groups whenever its paranoia gets overstimulated as it is once again today. They are becoming more like the old Soviet Union everyday.
Thal...
Very well said. Of course that revered document also made absolutely no provision, as far as I am aware, of providing for the restoration of the lands of those native inhabitants which it slaughtered over the years with such great proficiency.
Tech generated duplication of posts deleted for economy of explanation-- thanks to all.
The aritlcle is a good one and the US Consititution couldn't make amends in its preamble for lands taken from indigenous people as most of that heppened after this document. The founding fathers didn't set down an absolute path on this. Thomas Jefferson put a provision in the Declaration of Indenpedence attacking slavery which Georgia and South Carolina objected to and which Jefferson likely objected to their objection. That was a fight whch had Jefferson preveiled on slavery could have ended once the USA became an independent country. Unfortunately he didn't.
But all the founders should have rejected the revenge of the victors exacted on tory sympathizers at the end of the war for independence which forced all of them to leave the country. That was completley wrong.
Even Jefferson state reference to indigenous people is known to be other than his actual opinion, as he later said he greatly admired a particular chief of an inidigenous tribe or band who would visit with his father. This comes out in a book on Jefferson in his own words.
Excellent post AD,
We commonly encounter unfair rage against the founding fathers on slavery and Indian rights and rightly so. But they did not invent these institutions. These unspeakable sins had been going on in the colonies before these men had been born. According to some historians I have read, even their personal notes and papers revealed that the founding fathers knew this was their biggest failure and they worried what future generations would think of their inability to free the slaves and to treat the foreign Indian Nation fairly.
Washington thought he had resolved the Georgian settler encroachments on the Indians by signing into law the first US treaty, which was the highest law in the land. Unfortunately, from his point of view, he discovered that he was powerless to fund troops to enforce the treaty, which is why in 1787 after being tricked into the secret Constitution Convention, which he later regretted, he favored a strong authoritarian central government which could also put down a Shay's rebellion since the new proposed Constitution featured, to the horror of almost everyone in America, a large standing army (Which is exactly why the sneaky Madison made everyone sign a oath of silence, since much of the Constitution was a radical departure from long published Civil Liberties enjoyed by all Citizens of North America for over a hundred years.)
Lucky for us, the "Anti-Federalists" like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams broke the Oath of Silence and published the fact that this coup was being snuck under the radar by Control Freaks and bankers and that most of the Articles of Confederation that guaranteed Citizen Liberty were absent. The Anti-Federalists demanded and got a Bill of Rights. No, it didn't apply to property (slaves) nor Foreign Nationals (Indians), but for citizens of the new country, the Bill of Rights, which Madison later reversed himself on and said it was the most important part of the Constitution, provided great protections to the main body of the public. Women weren't mentioned, as was the peculiar custom of the age, however, some women like Abigail Adams were very influential in politics and vocal abolitionists. So the Bill of Rights is all we have folks. Unfortunately now, the highest law in the land is now being violated again by the unelected Monopolies of Wall Street who have subverted the intention of representational democracy with their open and secret bribery schemes.
The founding fathers were just men. They were not perfect. But they gave us the keys to demand peaceful assemblies to petition the Wall Street Government for a redress of grievances.
That's what I think.
TJ
wonder what justice holmes would say...
regarding creative danger’s foul carnage...
or how much of a difference lies between...
shouting “fire” among a theatre’s patronage...
and declaring “weapons of mass destruction”...
amid government’s congressional assemblage?...