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Richard Perle, Ann Coulter and America's Savage Regression
BUZZFLASH
READER COMMENTARY
by Maureen
Farrell
Thirty-five years ago, Walter Cronkite returned from a visit to Vietnam and challenged President Lyndon Johnson's promises about American victories. "We've been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington," he said, "to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate."
'If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country,' Johnson later remarked.
These days, we won't be sending our Walter Cronkites to Iraq, as the Pentagon is warning it will shoot down satellite uplink positions of independent journalists stationed there. According to the BBC's Kate Adie, news coverage will be grossly censored and the U.S. government is "threatening freedom of information" even before the war starts. "[W]hat actually appalls me is the difference between twelve years ago and now," she said in an interview with Irish radio. "I've seen a complete erosion of any kind of acknowledgment that reporters should be able to report as they witness. The Americans, and I've been talking to the Pentagon, take the attitude which is entirely hostile to the free spread of information. . . On top of everything else, there is now a blackout. . . ordered by one Mr. Dick Cheney, who is in charge of this." http://www.gulufuture.com/news/kate_adie030310.htm
To make matters worse, we're not only unable to learn what's happening over there, but our airways are becoming poisoned over here. Michael Savage, for example, is using his MSNBC platform to ask if it's "time to arrest the leaders of the anti-war movement, once we go to war" and call for the reinstatement of the 1918 Sedition Act.
The Sedition Act, for those who thought we had transcended such nonsense, would make speaking out against government a punishable offense. "Whoever, when the United States is at war," the document reads, "shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall willfully make or convey false reports, or false statements, . . . or incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct . . . the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, or . . . shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States . . . or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully . . . urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production . . . or advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both."
In such a world, would folks be clamoring for Walter Cronkite's imprisonment after his Vietnam War "disloyalty"? Maybe so. Because a day after Savage's televised appeal to criminalize activism, Richard Perle called journalist Seymour Hersh a terrorist. Appearing on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Perle said, "Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly," leading Blitzer to ask, "But I don't understand. Why do you accuse him of being a terrorist? Using language that could easily apply to the Sedition Act, Perle replied, "Because he sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can . . ." http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0303/09/le.00.html
What has happened to America? How has it regressed beyond recognition? More and more, it looks as if our nation is taking a giant leap backwards in terms of leadership, the media and the quality of our national debate. Since the Federal Communications Commission eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in the mid 1980s, many broadcasters haven't even attempted to present balanced coverage of controversial issues. And though the Chicago Sun Times recently announced that talk radio was "the key to GOP victory," (showing how effective this shilling can be), media personalities and government spokesman are becoming increasingly hostile as they propel us towards war -- especially in their attempts to squelch dissent.
Though Bill O'Reilly recently retracted his statements that dissidents would be "spotlighted" and considered "enemies of the state," Ann Coulter is poised to follow her best-selling Slander with the June publication of Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. Like a rancid batch of Windsong, her February 2002 observation on leftist treason stays on one's mind. "We need to execute people like John Walker, in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too," she said. "Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors." Chances are, her book will contain more of the same. Is this simply mindless hyperbole or is it something worse?
In an October 2001 article entitled "Liberties Lost: Unintended Consequences of the Anti-Terror Law," former White House counsel John Dean lamented that the "right to dissent" was in jeopardy. Charging that the USA PATRIOT Act twisted the definition of domestic terrorism to include "home-grown political activists," his concern was that any act "that appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population," is considered terrorism. When viewed in this context, Savage, Perle and Coulter could incite followers to target dissidents, journalists and liberals in more ways than one.
Given this, and the fact that leaked draft legislation, the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has been deemed by Center for Public Integrity Executive Director Chuck Lewis, to be "five to ten times" worse than the original US PATRIOT Act (especially, as the ACLU reports, in resuscitating John Ashcroft's Alice Kravitzian TIPS plan, and providing "an incentive for neighbor to spy on neighbor" while "granting blanket immunity" to those filing dishonest claims), perhaps we should stop imagining that all this mean-spirited banter is mere entertainment and start asking where it might lead.
Considering that Michael Savage's critics accuse him of advocating herding those who exhibit "seditious behavior" into labor camps, it might also be wise to take another gander at the memo leaked from the Director of Resource Management for the Department of the Army in 1994, discussing plans to "establish civilian prison camps on [military] installations." Or reconsider Rep. Henry Gonzalez's claim that there are "standby provisions" and "statutory emergency plans. . . whereby you could, in the name of stopping terrorism, apprehend, invoke the military, and arrest Americans and hold them in detention camps," especially since Ashcroft's "desire for camps for U.S. citizens" has been publicized. http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.15B.ashcr.camps.htm
It's a Conspiracy!
Another example of how far we've fallen is amplified in the ways talk shows cover and react to controversial issues. In January, 1968, for, example Jim Garrison appeared on The Tonight Show to discuss his theories on the JFK assassination and the Warren Commission report. Debating ideas considered ludicrous and nearly blasphemous at the time, Garrison presented his controversial point of view -- despite the tension that naturally arose. The following snippets highlight the nature of the conversation between Garrison and Johnny Carson:
Garrison: "The function of the Warren Commission was to make the American people feel that the [JFK assassination] had been looked into so that there would be no further inquiries, so that the American people would not find out the involvement of elements of the Central Intelligence Agency so that they would think the matter was closed."
Carson: "I find your statement that. . . high government officials are trying to hide knowledge of the conspiracy in the death of the president.. I don't see for what possible reason, secrets in this country have not been notoriously well kept; things have a way of getting out anytime more that two or three people know it… I just can't understand how you think that these men think they can get away with it or for what reason they would do it." http://www.astridmm.com/prouty/audio2.html
By 9:00 the next morning, Garrison had received more than 2000 telegrams from District Attorneys across America, who felt that Carson's "nervous antagonism," was a sign that Garrison was onto something. Feeling the need to apologize for Carson's demeanor (which was polite and jovial by today's standards), NBC sent out thousands of form letters saying, "The Johnny seen on TV that night was not the Johnny we all know and love. He had to play the devil's advocate, because that makes for a better program."
In contrast, Gore Vidal's recent Crossfire appearance is indicative of the ways that sniping, and not thoughtful consideration, forges much of today's debate. Promoting his new book, Dreaming War: Blood For Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, Vidal relayed information many Americans remain unaware of. "[The war in] Afghanistan was necessary to have a pipeline that would take that oil from the Caspian Sea down to Afghanistan, through Pakistan, to the Port of Karachi in the Indian Ocean," he explained, before the atmosphere turned antagonistic. "So one thing, if I may make a suggestion to Tucker," he interjected. "Don't personalize everything. One of the reasons that television is so dreadful and unwatchable by anybody with an IQ slightly above room temperature, except as a sport like this in which you get a lot of people shouting, everything is personalities."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/26/cf.opinion.gore.vidal/index.html
A Tale of Two Presidents
What, you might wonder, does any of this have to do with the average American citizen? Everything. Because the most concrete symbol of our mean-spirited regression can be found at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Personal peccadilloes (like blowing up frogs and mocking death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker's plea for clemency) aside, Bush's squandering of America's global goodwill and his disastrous handling of Iraq is indicative of how far our nation has fallen. Though Rupert Murdoch's band of neo-conservative writers employ WWII analogies (much to quality historians' chagrin), if one were to give the president the benefit of the doubt, and buy into disarmament as Bush' casus belli, perhaps a more apt comparison might be found in the link between the Cuban missile crisis and disarming Iraq.
Though there have been many versions of "the missiles of October," White House tapes reveal what really happened during those 13 days. On October 26, 1962, after receiving word that Khrushchev had offered to trade Russia's Cuban missiles for US missiles in Turkey, JFK argued that, "It's going to look to any man at the United Nations or any other rational man like a very fair trade."
In addition to showing concern for the United Nations, Kennedy's commitment to our allies is also evident in these tapes. Worrying about the United States' relationships with England, Germany and the rest of Europe if America ignored Khrushchev's reasonable proposal, Kennedy's global concern is especially evident. "We can't very well invade Cuba with all its toil," he said, "when we could have gotten them out by making a deal on the same missiles in Turkey. If that's part of the record then I fear we won't have a very good war." http://www.hpol.org/jfk/cuban/
When contrasted with the Bush administration's lack of concern for "just war" criteria and its disastrous diplomacy over Iraq and desire to bully and/or dismantle the U.N., memories of the Cuban missile crisis punctuate what we've lost. Not only has Bush ignored the advice of our allies and clergymen worldwide, but he's repeatedly made it clear that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. His warning that "there will be a certain sense of discipline" if Mexico or other nations didn't vote for America's Iraq resolution and the Economist's stunning report on the U.S. diplomat who warned that failure to support a U.S. resolution might "stir up feelings" against Mexicans in America comparable to those faced by Japanese-Americans interned after 1941 are the sentiments of Neanderthals, not leaders.
"An illegitimate war, a country in defiance of the UN. That was supposed to be Iraq's role in this drama. Instead, it seems to be the U.S. part," asserts Canada's Globe and Mail, before describing "just how far the United States has drifted from the global mood." And according to former National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, America "has never been so isolated globally, literally never, since 1945."
Perhaps that is what happens when America regresses -- and our allies forge ahead.
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