Colext/Macondo
Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
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>From PANG: Re: Point and Counterpoint Round Table.
PANG====
P.S. Got this from JoeMc. For internal consumption (GUAYABO & ColExt) until
8 October.
=================================
> From: Joe McCormick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: National Conference of Political Science Distribution List
> Subject: Article from The Nation
> Colleagues: I suspect that history will show that the
> events of 11 Sept. generated a wave of literature that runs the gamut of
> ideological opinion. Those of us in the academy will be asked by our
> students to make some sense out of events that can obviously been
> interpreted in a variety of ways. Let me suggest that in the coming weeks
> and months, we share with each other interesting prespectives on this
> turning point in the history of the Republic.
>
> Thoughtfully: Joe McCormick
>
> =====================================
> October 8, 2001
>
>
>
> The Most Patriotic Act
> by Eric Foner
>
>
> The drumbeat now begins, as it always does in time of war: We must accept
> limitations on our liberties. The FBI and CIA should be "unleashed" in the
> name of national security. Patriotism means uncritical support of whatever
> actions the President deems appropriate. Arab-Americans, followers of
Islam,
> people with Middle Eastern names or ancestors, should be subject to
special
> scrutiny by the government and their fellow citizens. With liberal members
> of Congress silent and the Administration promising a war on terrorism
> lasting "years, not days," such sentiments are likely to be with us for
some
> time to come.
>
> Of the many lessons of American history, this is among the most basic. Our
> civil rights and civil liberties--freedom of expression, the right to
> criticize the government, equality before the law, restraints on the
> exercise of police powers--are not gifts from the state that can be
> rescinded when it desires. They are the inheritance of a long history of
> struggles: by abolitionists for the ability to hold meetings and publish
> their views in the face of mob violence; by labor leaders for the power to
> organize unions, picket and distribute literature without fear of arrest;
by
> feminists for the right to disseminate birth-control information without
> being charged with violating the obscenity laws; and by all those who
braved
> jail and worse to challenge entrenched systems of racial inequality.
>
> The history of freedom in this country is not, as is often thought, the
> logical working out of ideas immanent in our founding documents or a
> straight-line trajectory of continual progress. It is a story of countless
> disagreements and battles in which victories sometimes prove temporary and
> retrogression often follows progress.
>
> When critics of the original Constitution complained about the absence of
a
> Bill of Rights, the Constitution's "father," James Madison, replied that
no
> list of liberties could ever anticipate the ways government might act in
the
> future. "Parchment barriers" to the abuse of authority, he wrote, would be
> least effective when most needed. Thankfully, the Bill of Rights was
> eventually adopted. But Madison's observation was amply borne out at
moments
> of popular hysteria when freedom of expression was trampled in the name of
> patriotism and national unity.
>
> Americans have notoriously short historical memories. But it is worth
> recalling some of those moments to understand how liberty has been
> endangered in the past. During the "quasi war" with France in 1798, the
> Alien and Sedition Acts allowed deportation of immigrants deemed dangerous
> by federal authorities and made it illegal to criticize the federal
> government. During the Civil War, both sides jailed critics and suppressed
> opposition newspapers.
>
> In World War I German-Americans, socialists, labor leaders and critics of
US
> involvement were subjected to severe government repression and assault by
> private vigilante groups. Publications critical of the war were banned
from
> the mails, individuals were jailed for antiwar statements and in the Red
> Scare that followed the war thousands of radicals were arrested and
numerous
> aliens deported. During World War II, tens of thousands of
> Japanese-Americans, most of them US citizens, were removed to internment
> camps. Sanctioned by the Supreme Court, this was the greatest violation of
> Americans' civil liberties, apart from slavery, in our history.
>
> No one objects to more stringent security at airports. But current
> restrictions on the FBI and CIA limiting surveillance, wiretapping,
> infiltration of political groups at home and assassinations abroad do not
> arise from an irrational desire for liberty at the expense of security.
They
> are the response to real abuses of authority, which should not be
forgotten
> in the zeal to sweep them aside as "handcuffs" on law enforcement.
>
> Before unleashing these agencies, let us recall the FBI's persistent
> harassment of individuals like Martin Luther King Jr. and its efforts to
> disrupt the civil rights and antiwar movements, and the CIA's history of
> cooperation with some of the world's most egregious violators of human
> rights. The principle that no group of Americans should be stigmatized as
> disloyal or criminal because of race or national origin is too recent and
> too fragile an achievement to be abandoned now.
>
> Every war in American history, from the Revolution to the Gulf War, with
the
> exception of World War II, inspired vigorous internal dissent.
Self-imposed
> silence is as debilitating to a democracy as censorship. If questioning an
> ill-defined, open-ended "war on terrorism" is to be deemed unpatriotic,
the
> same label will have to be applied to Abraham Lincoln at the time of the
> Mexican War, Jane Addams and Eugene V. Debs during World War I, and Wayne
> Morse and Ernest Gruening, who had the courage and foresight to vote
against
> the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964.
>
> All of us today share a feeling of grief and outrage over the events of
> September 11 and a desire that those responsible for mass murder be
brought
> to justice. But at times of crisis the most patriotic act of all is the
> unyielding defense of civil liberties, the right to dissent and equality
> before the law for all Americans.
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