It’s in times of war that freedom of speech is most endangered, and is most repressed. And we’ve seen this: the sedition act was passed in the period of near-war with France in 1798. People were sent to jail for criticizing the government during The Civil War, or were sent to jail for criticizing the entrance into World War One. And, so on, down to the present day.
I want to talk about another kind of reality: suppose the government did not interfere with your freedom of speech – there were no restrictions on your freedom of speech. And you could say whatever you wanted to say, without fear of reprisal, without fear of going to jail. But suppose you have that freedom but you have nothing to say?
And, if you think about it, that’s the situation that applies to most people in the country. They have freedom of speech which they don’t exercise, and sometimes it’s because they don’t choose to exercise it – but very often it’s because they really do have nothing to say. In other words, your freedom of speech depends, really, on how much information you have. If you don’t know what is going on, if you don’t know what the government is doing, if you don’t know what policies are being followed, if you don’t know the consequences of these policies on human beings – then all you can do is repeat what is being told to you by the leaders of the government, or what comes to you from the media.
In order for freedom of speech to be real, that is: in order for you to have an opportunity to be a critical citizen of whatever’s going on in the society – you need information which does not simply come to you through the government, or through the controls of the major media. And that’s a serious problem because the government and the major media have, in general, in collaboration with one another (and by this I don’t mean four people on each side getting together and planning this) – you might say the “collaboration of the free market.” In what is called the “free market” people can do whatever they want. If they have the money to do it.
The government and the media withhold information from the public. The most recent example was the gulf war. The gulf war was a very vivid illustration, coming in the year of the bicentennial, of what happens to free speech in time of war or when the public is deprived of information. Because of not just government censorship but media collaboration, during the gulf war there were important facts which people were not told. Which then helped create, I think, the overwhelming public support for the war, and which distinguished it from the case of Vietnam, where the war lasted long enough and where assiduous reporters and investigators and inspectors began to get out to the public what was happening in Vietnam, which affronted the American people. Because the American people are not naturally desirous of inflicting brutality on other people – the American people are as humane and kind-hearted as anybody else – they do not want massacres to take place, they do not want atrocities to take place – when they started happening in Vietnam they created a great national movement that helped to stop the war. This did not happen in the gulf war.
– Howard Zinn, from a speech entitled “Virtual Optimism” given in 1992. Some places, Zinn cuts himself off in mid-thought, which makes sentence structure difficult to assemble. Where that happens, I tried to reflect the tone and rhythm of Zinn’s words. Any transcription errors are mine.
There was never any question that the US-led coalition would easily destroy the Iraqi army. Iraq only invaded Kuwait because Saddam Hussein mistakenly thought that he had permission from the US. The US State Department, incompetent as usual, did not get a sufficiently strong “no” to him in time, so he launched his catastrophic invasion. I remember when the US media pretended that it was a big question whether the war would be winnable, but that was bullshit: the Iraqi army never had a chance. Some of my military historian buddies still think that Saddam was set up: they tacitly encouraged him to lose his entire army. And that’s what happened – the Iraqi army was basically a rabble of thugs, and the US Air Force caught them retreating from Kuwait city, then dropped mines at the head and the tail of the column, then A-10 ground attack aircraft flew back and forth all day, machine-gunning and cluster-bombing like kids playing a video game. No quarter was given; Iraqi soldiers tried to flee on foot and were herded into minefields and cluster-bombed. It was an act of terror warfare that would have been familiar to Julius Caesar: demolish the enemy so thoroughly that their fate serves as an example and a warning to anyone else.
I think Zinn is a bit optimistic about the character of the American people. Accounts I’ve read of the carnage on the “road of death” have air force pilots whooping and cheering and practically flying into each other in the crowded airspace over the slaughtering ground. The Iraqis had nothing that could touch the US aircraft, and most of them discarded their weapons and tried to run.
The US media still has vapid war-monger talking-heads who will cheerfully repeat every lie they are told. Even when those lies are in the service of aggressive nuclear war. [stderr]
No anti-war movement has materialized. The US Government has learned how to control the media and control the ability of soldiers to convey back information about what is going on. Most Americans probably have no idea that we are, presently, fighting 7 wars that are all wars of aggression in contravention of international law. All we are doing is building up a reservoir of justified anti-American hatred – basically, we’re busy proving the Osama Bin Laden was right.
And now Trump’s bringing in John frickin’ Bolton as National Security Advisor…
Dunc@#1:
And now Trump’s bringing in John frickin’ Bolton as National Security Advisor…
There is a point in some recording I have of Zinn, where he makes a very powerful point to the effect that once government realizes that they can just ignore the people, they’ll simply do whatever they want. The transition from republic to pseudo-republic to autocracy is gradual but unstoppable once it starts. When the people push back, the government will repress them…
Marcus:
So do I. I imagine if Zinn were still alive, he’d adjust that attitude, if he managed to get over being appalled by the current state of regime and Trumpholes.
Caine@#3:
I imagine if Zinn were still alive, he’d adjust that attitude
I imagine he’d be protesting every day, and possibly standing with antifa. For someone like Zinn, who was basically an optimist (in spite of a huge historical load of pessimism) these would be dark days, indeed. I know that the lurch toward nuclear domination that the US is doing, would terrify him – as it terrifies anyone who is aware of the situation.
I ought to transcribe some of his comments on nuclear weapons. He was … not a fan. His experience dropping bombs on German and French civilians left a profound mark on his psyche.
… Saddam Hussein mistakenly thought that he had permission from the US. The US State Department, incompetent as usual, did not get a sufficiently strong “no” to him in time, so he launched his catastrophic invasion.
The notorious meeting between SH and US Ambassador April Glaspie, according to numerous reports never contradicted by either side, had her telling him that the US did not and would not take sides in conflicts between Arab nations: kinda hard to blame Baghdad for taking that as a green light. I later heard Glaspie’s aide Joseph Wilson give a talk in which he very plausibly asserted that Glaspie could and did speak her mind very clearly, so I doubt the problem involved unintended ambiguity.
Pls recall that the original grievance had to do with Iraq accusing Kuwait of taking oil from Iraq’s side of the border: “slant drilling”, they call it in the oilpatch. US President Dubya Daddy, after a couple of decades as a Texas oilman, would surely have considered that as lowdown thievery, and – my surmise, based on no explicit reports at all – quite possibly expected Iraq planned nothing more than seizing the border area wells and drilling projects: an arguably fair reaction.
But then Saddam Hussein got greedy, and snapped up the whole country, putting our beloved ally Saudi Arabia on red alert and providing Washington with an irresistible opportunity to test out/show off military prowess and gain regional influence … and the rest turned into the history whose consequences we still endure today.
I’m perfectly willing to accept that “the American people are as humane and kind-hearted as anybody else” and “are not naturally desirous of inflicting brutality on other people” (at least, not noticeably more so than the people of any other nation) – because “the American people” (in this sense) haven’t existed long enough to be “naturally” different from anybody else. What you’re objecting to on this point (“air force pilots whooping and cheering and practically flying into each other in the crowded airspace over the slaughtering ground”) is the result of several generations of the continuous, uninterrupted application of exactly the sort of propaganda he’s talking about.
It’s also worth noting that “air force pilots” are obviously a self-selecting sample: nobody joins the air force and becomes a pilot because they want to spread peace through non-violence. But they’re also then moulded by their training, which is very deliberately intended to eliminate any residual humanity and kind-heartedness, at least in as much as it might be directed toward their potential targets.
Pierce R. Butler@#5:
The notorious meeting between SH and US Ambassador April Glaspie, according to numerous reports never contradicted by either side, had her telling him that the US did not and would not take sides in conflicts between Arab nations: kinda hard to blame Baghdad for taking that as a green light.
I do wish to know if it was a deliberate bit of “foreign policy” or stupidity. We probably won’t know until after the bodies are all buried (i.e.: I won’t ever get to know).
Dunc@#6:
It’s also worth noting that “air force pilots” are obviously a self-selecting sample: nobody joins the air force and becomes a pilot because they want to spread peace through non-violence.
Well, yes. They’re cowards who think it’s fun to rain munitions on helpless 3rd worlders.
It’s no surprise that the US imperial military tend to break republican, though Trump is trying his damnedest to alienate and kill a lot of them.
The first time I saw Ken Jarecke’s photo of the incinerated man was about five years ago. Back then I saw that photo, because several people were having an online discussion about whether mass media should be publishing such photos or not. The argument was that such images are too disturbing for the viewers; therefore, mass media should abstain from publishing images like that one. Obviously, I didn’t like that argument—your country is participating in a war approved by your elected representatives and supported by at least part of the population, yet you don’t want that same population to get disturbed by the ugliness of the war they are supporting. WTF? If all the unpleasant facts about a war get censored, how can voters make an informed decision about whether they support that war or not?
Ieva Skrebele@#9:
The argument was that such images are too disturbing for the viewers
They ought to be.
Back during the Vietnam war, pictures profoundly changed popular attitudes toward the war. The My Lai massacre was just another massacre – except for the photos of the tumbled dead. Napalm was just another weapon – until the photos of the girl running with her clothes burned off.
If you want some very sad and upsetting and thought-provoking ruminations on this topic, I recommend the documentary War Photographer. It’s about James Nachtwey and his PTSD.
[A good article about the burning man picture: atlantic]
Marcus:
We just passed the 50th anniversary of those photos and the My Lai massacre, March 16th. I will never forget the day I saw those photos, I will never be able to express the horror and fear I felt. I was 10 years old, and I could not stop staring at that girl, who was about the same age as me. I was already staunchly against the Vietnam war, but holy shit, did my feelings ever change and deepen that day.
And of course such photos should be published and seen! War should never be perceived as clean or distant. If we’re going to engage in it, then we should see what we bring about.