Doublespeak at the University of Wyoming

Doublespeak at the University of Wyoming
William Ayers, University of Illinois at Chicago

April 5, 2010 10:13 AM MDT

On March 30, 2010, officials at the University of Wyoming, citing “security threats” and “controversy,” canceled two talks I was invited to give in early April, one a public lecture entitled “Trudge Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action,” and the other, a talk to faculty and graduate students called “Teaching and Research in the Public Interest: Solidarity and Identity.” I’d been invited in August, 2009, but one week before I was to travel to Laramie, I was told I had been “disinvited.”

In February, as the University began to publicize my scheduled visit, a campaign to rescind the invitation was initiated on right-wing blogs, accelerating quickly to a wider space where a demonizing and dishonest narrative dominated all discussion. A wave of hateful messages and death threats hit the University, and was joined soon enough by a few political leaders and wealthy donors instructing officials in ominous tones to cancel my visit to the campus. On March 28 an administrator wrote to tell me that the University was receiving vicious e-mails and threatening letters, as well as promises of physical disruption were I to show up. This is becoming drearily familiar to me, as I’ll explain.

A particularly despicable note from Frank Smith who lives in Cheyenne and is active in the Wyoming Patriot Alliance, said, “Maybe someone could take him out and show him the Matthew Sheppard (sic) Commerative (sic) Fence and he could bless it or something.” He was referring to Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was tortured and murdered in 1998, left to die tied to a storm fence outside Laramie.

Republican candidate for Governor Ron Micheli released a letter he’d sent to all members of the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees asking them to rescind the invitation. Matt Mead, another gubernatorial candidate, said through a press release that while he is a self-described “fervent believer in free speech and the free exchange of ideas,” that still allowing me to speak would be “reprehensible.” He concluded that I should have “no place lecturing our students.”

I sympathized with the University, and told the folks I was in touch with how sorry I was that all of this was happening to them. I also said that I thought it was a bit of a tempest in a tea pot, and that it would surely pass. Certainly no matter what a couple of thugs threatened to do, I said, I thought that Wyoming law enforcement could get me to the podium, and I would handle myself from there, as I do elsewhere. I said I thought we should stand together and refuse to accede to these kinds of pressures to demonize someone and suppress students’ right to freely engage in open dialogue. After all a public university is not the personal fiefdom or the political clubhouse of the governor, and donors are not permitted to call the shots when it comes to the content or conduct of academic matters. We should not allow ourselves to collapse in fear if a small mob gathers with torches at the gates. I wouldn’t force myself on the University, of course, but I felt that canceling would be terribly unfair to the faculty and students who had invited me, and would send a big message that bullying works. It would be another step down the slippery slope of giving up on the precious ideal of a free university in a free society.

No good. On March 30, 2010 the University posted an announcement of the cancellation of my visit with a long and rambling comment from President Tom Buchanan. He begins with the obligatory assertion that academic freedom is a core principle of the University, but quickly adds that “freedom requires a commensurate dose of responsibility.” We are charged to enact free speech and thought “in concert with mutual respect.”

Nothing that I did or said in this matter was disrespectful or irresponsible, and yet, in the absence of specific references, readers are led to imagine all kinds of offenses.
The announcement is punctuated with a deep defensiveness: anyone who thinks the University “caved in to external pressure,” Buchanan writes, would be “incorrect.” Anticipating what any casual observer would conclude, he builds a strained and somewhat desperate counter-narrative. Buchanan pleads that UW is “one of the few institutions remaining in today’s environment that garners the confidence of the public,” and that a speech by me would somehow undermine that confidence.

He concludes that “this episode illustrated an opportunity to hear and critically evaluate a variety of ideas thoughtfully, through open, reasoned, and civil debate, it also demonstrates that we must be mindful of the real consequences our actions and decisions have on others.” That’s some sentence, and while it’s impossible to know definitively what he’s referring to as the “episode” (it might be the public lecture itself, but then it could be the cancellation of the lecture, or even the barbarians at the gates threatening to burn the place down, or withhold funds, that would provide the opportunity to critically evaluate matters). It has an unmistakable Orwellian ring: we cancelled that lecture as an expression of our support for lectures! And it’s eerily similar to the classics: We destroyed that village in order to save it! Work will make you free! War is peace!

One of the truly weird qualities of the Buchanan statement is a hole in its center, the deafening silence concerning why the campaign against me was organized in the first place. The reason is familiar to me as noted: in the 1960’s I was a leader of the militant anti-war group, Students for a Democratic Society, and then a founder of the Weather Underground, an organization that carried out dramatic symbolic attacks against several monuments to war and racism, crossed lines of legality, of propriety, and perhaps even of common sense. And then during the 2008 presidential I was unwittingly and unwillingly thrust upon the stage because I had known—like thousands of others—Barack Obama in Chicago. The infamous charge that the candidate was “pallin' around with terrorists,” designed to injure Obama, also demonized me. I’ve been an educator and professor for decades, but the hard right has accelerated the lunacy against thousands of folks— activists and artists, academics and theorists, outspoken radical thinkers—and wherever possible mounted campaigns exactly like the one in Wyoming. Often university officials stand up on principle and resist the howling mob, as they did recently at St. Mary’s in California; sometimes—as at a student-run conference at the University of Pittsburgh in March—they compromise, restricting access to talks and surrounding a speaker with unwanted and unnecessary police protection; sometimes, as in this case, the university turns and runs. It’s a sad sight.

Of course I wasn’t invited to speak about any of this, and it’s unlikely any of it would have come up without the active campaigning and noisy thunder from the relatively tiny group that is the ultra-right.

I would have focused my talk on the unique characteristics of education in a democracy, an enterprise that rests on the twin pillars of enlightenment and liberation, knowledge and human freedom. Education engages dynamic questions of morality and ethics, identity and location, agency and action. We want to know more, to see more, to experience more in order to do more—to be more competent and powerful and capable in our projects and our pursuits, to be more astute and aware and wide-awake, more fully engaged in the world that we inherit, the world we are simultaneously destined to change.

To deny students the right to question the circumstances of their lives, and to wonder how they might be otherwise, is to deny democracy itself.

It’s reasonable to assume that education in a democracy is distinct from education under a dictatorship or a monarchy; surely school leaders in fascist Germany or Albania or Saudi Arabia or apartheid South Africa all agreed, for example, that students should behave well, stay away from drugs and crime, do their homework, study hard, and master the subject matters; they also graduated fine scientists and musicians and athletes, so none of those things differentiate a democratic education from any other.

What makes education in a democracy, at least theoretically, distinct is a commitment to a particularly precious and fragile ideal: every human being is of infinite and incalculable value, each a unique intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual, and creative force. Every human being is born free and equal in dignity and rights; each is endowed with reason and conscience, and deserves, then, a sense of solidarity, brotherhood and sisterhood, recognition and respect. Democracy is geared toward participation and engagement, and that points to an educational system in which the fullest development of all is seen as the necessary condition for the full development of each, and conversely, that the fullest development of each is necessary for the full development of all.

In a vibrant and participatory democracy, we might conclude that whatever the wisest and most privileged parents want for their children is precisely the baseline and standard for what the wider community wants for all of its children. If children of privilege get to have small classes, abundant resources, and a curriculum based on opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the furthest limit, if the Obama kids, for example, attend such a school, one where they also find a respected and unionized teacher corps, shouldn’t that be good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere? Any other ideal for our schools, in John Dewey’s words, “is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”

We want our students to be able to think for themselves, to make judgments based on evidence and argument, to develop minds of their own. We want them to ask fundamental questions—who in the world am I? How did I get here and where am I going? What in the world are my choices? How in the world shall I proceed?—and to pursue answers wherever they might take them. Our efforts focus not on the production of things so much as on the production of fully developed human beings who are capable of controlling and transforming their own lives, citizens who can participate fully in civic life.

Teaching in a democracy encourages students to develop initiative and imagination, the capacity to name the world, to identify the obstacles to their full humanity, and the courage to act upon whatever the known demands. Education in a democracy is always about opening doors and opening minds as students forge their own pathways into a wider world.

How do our schools at every level—K-16—measure up to the democratic ideal?

Much of what we call schooling forecloses or shuts down or walls off meaningful choice-making. Much of it is based on obedience and conformity, the hallmarks of every authoritarian regime. Much of it banishes the unpopular, squirms in the presence of the unorthodox, hides the unpleasant. There’s no space for skepticism, irreverence, or even doubt. While many long for an education that is transcendent and powerful, we find ourselves too-often locked in situations that reduce schooling to a kind of glorified clerking that passes along a curriculum of received wisdom and predigested and often false bits of information. This is a recipe for disaster in the long run.

Educators, students, and citizens must press for an education worthy of a democracy, including an end to sorting people into winners and losers through expensive standardized tests which act as pseudo-scientific forms of surveillance; an end to starving public schools—including public higher education—of needed resources and then blaming teachers for dismal outcomes; and an end to the rapidly accumulating “educational debt,” the resources due to communities historically segregated, under-funded and under-served. All children and youth in a democracy, regardless of economic circumstance, deserve full access to richly-resourced classrooms led by caring, qualified and generously compensated teachers.

We might try now to create open spaces in our schools and our various communities where we expect fresh and startling winds to blow, unaccustomed winds that are sure to electrify and confound and fascinate us. We begin by throwing open the windows. We declare that in this corner of this place—in this open space we are constructing together—people will begin to experience themselves as powerful authors of their own narratives, actors in their own dramas, the essential architects and creators of their own lives, participants in a dynamic and inter-connected community-in-the-making. Here they will discover a zillion ways to articulate their own desires and demands and questions. Here everyone will live in search of rather than in accordance with or in accommodation to. Here we will join one another and our democratic futures can be born.

A primary job of teachers and scholars and journalists, and a responsibility of all engaged citizens, is to challenge orthodoxy, dogma, and mindless complacency, to be skeptical of all authoritative claims, to interrogate and trouble the given and the taken-for-granted. The growth of knowledge, insight, and understanding depends on that kind of effort, and the inevitable clash of ideas that follows must be nourished and not crushed.

As campuses contract and constrain, the main victims becomes truth, honesty, integrity, curiosity, imagination, freedom itself. When college campuses fall silent, other victims include the high school history teacher on the west side of Chicago or in Laramie or Cheyenne, the English literature teacher in Detroit, or the math teacher in an Oakland middle school. They and countless others immediately get the message: be careful what you say; stay close to the official story; stick to the authorized text; keep quiet with your head covered.

In Brecht’s play Galileo the great astronomer set forth into a world dominated by a mighty church and an authoritarian power: “The cities are narrow and so are the brains,” he declared recklessly. Intoxicated with his own insights, Galileo found himself propelled toward revolution. Not only did his radical discoveries about the movement of the stars free them from the “crystal vault” that received truth insistently claimed fastened them to the sky, but his insights suggested something even more dangerous: that we, too, are embarked on a great voyage, that we are free and without the easy support that dogma provides. Here Galileo raised the stakes and risked taking on the establishment in the realm of its own authority, and it struck back fiercely. Forced to renounce his life’s work under the exquisite pressure of the Inquisition, he denounced what he knew to be true, and was welcomed back into the church and the ranks of the faithful, but exiled from humanity—by his own word. A former student confronted him in the street then: “Many on all sides followed you…believing that you stood, not only for a particular view of the movement of the stars, but even more for the liberty of teaching— in all fields. Not then for any particular thoughts, but for the right to think at all. Which is in dispute.”

This is surely in play today: the right to talk to whomever you please, the right to read and wonder, the right to pursue an argument into uncharted spaces, the right to challenge the state or the church and its orthodoxy in the public square. The right to think at all.

This is some of what I would have discussed in Wyoming, but that will not happen, at least not this week. Canceling this talk underlines the urgency of having multiple and far-ranging speeches, dialogue, and discussions at every level and throughout the public square.

(Article reprinted at the request of the author)

Presenting the last decade in media and film: Part two

Photo: A movie stub from the film "Inglourious Basterds"/Paul Heaberlin, used under Creative Commons license

The Underground is proud to present a review of film and media trends of the last decade by local film critic Robert Roten. This is the first part of a four part series. Part two details the movie that best represents the decade.

The film that best sums up the decade

Robert Roten
Saturday, March 6, 2010 2:13 PM MDT

Quentin Tarantino's much-ballyhooed film Inglourious Basterds is a film which reflects the decade of 2000-2010 better than any other. That is one of the reasons I didn't like this film as much as many critics did. It reminded me too much of a decade I would just as soon forget.

It was a decade in which the horrible 9/11 attacks happened, and that was one of the worst days of my life. It was a decade in which it was revealed the United States government condoned practices which resulted in kidnapping, murder and torture. The decade in which America screwed up its best chance to catch Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in a misbegotten war in Iraq. It was a decade in which the housing bubble burst and the entire world's economy nearly toppled because strange financial dealings in things called credit default swaps and derivatives, allowed by recent banking deregulation, overturning rules put in place after the great depression 60 years earlier. It was decade in which the U.S. government went from a budget surplus into deep debt. A near depression was caused by deficit spending, financial deregulation, wars and tax cuts. Naturally, some politicians now propose more war, more tax cuts and more deregulation to get us out of the mess they got us into in the first place.

“Inglourious Basterds” fits right into this decade. It shows us that murdering and torturing prisoners of war is not only fun, but it is an effective way to get information and win wars. Either that, or it is a clever satire on what U.S. forces did to prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also re-writes history, showing us a version of World War II in which the Allies win the war years before they really did by the clever tactic of murdering prisoners of war, civilians, and torture. They also win with the help of a high-ranking German officer who betrays his own leaders.

This is not the only time history has been re-written. There are those who say the U.S. would have won the war in Vietnam, if not for the American news media. This has led to increasingly strict military control over the media in subsequent wars. There are also those who say that the depression of the 1930s and the current recession would (or will) go away on their own without any government intervention. They say that deregulation and tax cuts did not cause the collapse of our financial system, or the huge deficits we face and it would all just fix itself, because that is the way capitalism works. It fixes everything by itself in its own magical mysterious ways, including, presumably, health care. It's like Stevie Wonder once sang, “When you believe in things you don't understand ... ” that's just superstition.

History is continually being re-written. If history is, in fact, merely an “agreed-upon fiction,” then Mr. Tarantino's account of World War II is as good as any other, and some do view history that way. However, that isn't what happened. The war went on for years after the time in which the movie was set. The United States did not sanction the death and torture of prisoners of war. They had rules against that, and those rules stayed in effect until the administration of George W. Bush re-wrote the rules in an attempt to legalize torture. This was done despite the fact that torture is known to produce unreliable, sometimes disastrously wrong, information. So why was it done? More on that in the subsequent feature on the representative drama of the decade.

“Inglourious Basterds” not only celebrates American torture and murder, it is a nightmare for the Anti-Defamation League and other organizations trying to hold down the rising tide of anti-Semitism in America and elsewhere. In re-writing history, “Inglourious Basterds” casts Jews in the role of aggressors, as well as victims. This depiction of Jewish aggression aids the rising tide of anti-Semitism both here and abroad. The film reflects the view of Jews held by many in the Muslim world. The film has also been seized upon by anti-Semitic factions on both extremes of the political spectrum to further stir up more hatred against the Jews. When I remarked to a friend that I didn't like the fact that “Inglourious Basterds” makes Americans look worse than the Nazis, my friend replied, “Those weren't Americans, those were Jews.”

The anti-Semitic interpretation of the film fits right in with certain Neo-Nazi views about Jews, fueled by the so-called “Christian Identity” theology (more on that in this essay about the Christian Identity movement and how it has been adopted by elements of the violent radical far right). It also fits in with views of Jews among some elements of the far left wing, the so-called “9/11 Truthers” who hold that the attacks of 9/11 were an “inside job” by the U.S. Government, aided or orchestrated by Israel. Like the film itself, this is a re-imagining of history, which is becoming increasingly popular. Abraham H. Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, said 2009 was the worst year for global anti-Semitism he's ever seen in his 40+ years in the organization. Here is further deconstruction of the film along anti-Semitic lines. This is not how I viewed the film when I saw it, but it seems to be a film which lends itself to this interpretation for those who are anti-Semitic.

When America was attacked on 9/11, Americans wanted revenge, and the nation lashed out. People who looked like Muslims (including a Sikh) were murdered by revenge seekers. “Inglourious Basterds” is a movie all about hatred and revenge. One woman in the movie locks an entire crowd of moviegoers into a theater and then sets fire to the theater in revenge for the Nazis killing her family. The squad of soldiers in the film, composed mostly of American Jews, with one anti-Nazi German soldier added, celebrate revenge by killing Germans, scalping the corpses and bashing German soldiers' heads in with a baseball bat and carving swastikas into their foreheads.

Revenge movies are nothing new. There is the “Death Wish” series of films, the “Dirty Harry” series, and more recently, there was “Taken.” People are angry in this country. When President Obama was elected, there was a huge increase in gun sales. The membership in hate groups increased greatly as well. The “Tea Party” movement is brimming with hatred. There are lots of angry people who want revenge and “Inglourious Basterds” dishes it out. The aught years, 2000 through 2009, were dark years in America and this film reflects that darkness.

Robert Roten is a journalist with over 25 years of newspaper experience, including 20 years as a reporter, editor, photographer, columnist and editorialist at the Laramie Daily Boomerang. Since retiring from the Boomerang in 2000, Roten has been president of the Laramie Film Society and the Laramie Astronomical Society and Space Observers (LASSO). He has operated his own movie journalism web site, Laramie Movie Scope, for the past 13 years. He also has a weekly movie show, Laramie Movie Scope News, on KOCA radio in Laramie. He is also a member of the Online Film Critics Society and contributes frequent movie reviews to rottentomatoes.com. He is a former member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Roten is a resident of Laramie, Wyo.

Wheatland schools remove anti-hate banners

More on this issue in the next few days. For now, please visit this site and sign the petition. Let the school board know that Wheatland is no place for hate.

- Meg Lanker, Editor

Health care panels scheduled for tonight

Health care panels scheduled for tonight
Wyoming health care professionals and students will debate reform
Meg Lanker
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:21 PM MDT

Southeast Wyoming residents will get two chances today to find out how health care reform could affect them.

According to a news release from the Wyoming Democratic Party, local health care professionals will discuss health care reform at a panel at Laramie County Community College Center for Conferences and Institutes.

The panel is scheduled for 7 p.m. and will include Wyoming Department of Health Director Dr. Brent Sherard; Lorraine Saulino-Klein, RN; and Mary Forrester, FNP. Other healthcare professionals will also attend and discuss what reform will mean for Wyoming residents and how it can impact Wyoming.

“No one knows more about the urgent need for health insurance reform than those who work within the health care system every day,” said Wyoming Democratic Party Executive Director Bill Luckett in the release. “It is important that we have the opportunity to hear their perspective.”

Wyoming Democratic Party Vice Chair Mike Bell will moderate the discussion and a short question and answer period following the panel’s comments.

Elsewhere in the state, the University of Wyoming College Democrats and College Republicans will hold a debate regarding health care reform and the issues surrounding various proposed bills.

The debate is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Wyoming Union West Ballroom and will also feature a question and answer session afterwards. The College Democrats invited the College Republicans to debate in the interest of having a bipartisan view on health care presented.

Both clubs are aiming to educate Wyoming residents and UW students about the concerns surrounding health care reform. In pre-debate meetings, College Republicans president Caitlin Wallace and College Democrats president Dana Walton both said they wished to see a civil, enlightening debate.

Laramie resident and activist Matt Stannard will blog live during the debate at theunderview.blogspot.com and will follow with commentary on the debate during his nightly “Shared Sacrifice” podcast from 8-9 p.m., accessible to the public at blogtalkradio.com/shared_sacrifice.

Stannard is looking forward to liveblogging the debate. “The liveblogging serves two purposes: In addition to the important global exposure it provides for UW and the health care debate, it also serves as an opportunity for anyone and everyone to fact-check the debate,” he said. “I hope people will look over the notes I post during the debate, research the facts, and post their findings on the blog.”

According to Shared Sacrifice’s website, the daily podcast is also co-hosted by Iraq veteran Gary Barkley. The website describes the show as “progressive in nature” but emphasizes “all Americans have the right to be heard.”

Listeners are invited to call in during the podcast with their questions and comments. Stannard said the entire hour will be used to discuss the debate and health care reform. "We'll continue the conversation on tomorrow night's podcast too, if there's interest," said Stannard.

Photo slideshow: Cheney International Center dedication

The University of Wyoming dedicated the brand-new Cheney International Center on Sept. 10. The center houses the programs for International Studies and a lounge for international students.

Around 120-200 people gathered to protest the dedication, which generated nationwide recognition and controversy.

Photos: Meg Lanker

All photos remain copyright The Underground and Meg Lanker

Letter to the Editor: Parents angry over Obama speech set bad example

Editor:

I'm disheartened by the devolution and polarization of American politics we've seen in recent years--particularly as seen in the public outcry over a message from President Obama to our school children about the importance of their education that was both harmless and important. I challenge those parents who feared that his message would transfer a message of socialism to their children to watch the President's speech online or read the transcript. Incidentally, I find it quite telling that when Ronald Reagan did the same in 1986 or George H.W. Bush did the same in 1991, there was no such public outcry.

As both a parent and an educator, I'm truly disappointed at the lack of courage shown by school officials in caving to a vocal minority of parents. Sometimes, choosing the right and doing what is right means doing what is unpopular without respect toward the political consequences and being a vocal advocate for our democracy. Part of the duties of citizenship mean that we pass a healthy respect for the outcomes of elections and our democratic institutions to our children, especially when we don't agree with those outcomes. It's what distinguishes us as a democracy and makes this nation great.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall, Voltaire's biographer, said in 1906 in a quote widely misattributed to Voltaire, "I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Isn't the freedom we have to engage in difficult and controversial dialogue over political issues precisely what distinguishes our republic from other countries where citizens are denied this basic civil liberty? How far we've come from a point where we could vigorously disagree with each other and engage in snappy emotional repartee but still retain respect for our fellow citizens with whom we've disagreed. We could yet share a mutual pride, love, and respect in that great nation that gave us the freedom to do so...

Shame on you parents! Shame on you school officials for caving to them! How do your actions teach our children healthy respect for our democratic process and elections? How soon might our children within generations take up arms instead of the ballot or the pen or speak their minds when they disagree with each other?

Respectfully,
A Wyoming teacher
Green River, Wyo.

Letter to the Editor: An open letter to President Tom Buchanan

Editor:

An open letter to President Thomas Buchanan-

I am very disturbed about the fact that the University has chosen to name the new International Center after former Vice President Richard Cheney. I find this decision to be so inappropriate. I understand that money talks, but putting his name on such a place smacks of hypocrisy. He was not born here and he rarely lives here. I believe that he took up residency again only so that he could run with George Bush in that ill-fated election. A presidential and vice presidential candidate cannot be from the same state.

Doesn’t he already have enough places named after him? Why are so many people in Wyoming so proud of a person who has lied to us, has encouraged us to live in fear and has condoned the use of torture? He certainly has helped to bring down the reputation of the United States in the eyes of the world. He just doesn’t seem like a good role model for students.

I believe this to be one more smudge on the reputation of Wyoming; a reputation that is already quite sullied by past events. I am tired of defending Wyoming when I encounter people from “out there in the world.” Cheney, Matthew Shepard's death, the disparity in women and men’s income, to name but a few.

I am all for tolerance and diversity. But I don’t think that naming the building after him really speaks to tolerance and diversity. He appears to value neither.

I graduated from the University of Wyoming in the 1960s. There were certainly a lot of issues at that time. I thought we had come quite a way since. But when a situation such as this arises, I really have to wonder.

I hope that this decision will be rethought and that the Center will be named for someone really deserving of the honor; someone who has been successful in dealing in international matters and has enhanced our position in the world. We don’t have to be first or best but we do have to be principled. We haven’t been that for some time now. Dick Cheney certainly does not merit that honor.

Thank you for your attention to this letter.

Joan S. Borst
Sheridan, Wyo.

Tea Parties and unity: Where were they?

Photo: Protesters at the 9/12 Rally in Washington D.C., organized by FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. Credit - www.huffingtonpost.com and the AP

Tea Parties and unity: Where were they?
Robert Roten
Sunday, September 13, 2009 12:46 PM MDT

Where were they?

The Wyoming 912 Coalition rally at Conwell Park in Casper yesterday was supposed to be about uniting the country and remembering the way it was united on 9/12/01, but it was really about divisiveness and about forgetting what happened on 9/12/01.

The rally was supposed to be about freedom, but it really wasn't about freedom at all. It was about giving up freedom and power, including the right to choose our health care, and giving that power instead to soulless corporations.

People carried signs that read, “Who gave unelected czars authority over us?” and “Freedom did not need change,” according to an article in the Casper Star-Tribune. The article quoted Casper resident Nancy Rinn as saying: “I think the people in Washington are stomping on the Constitution; they're trying to pass laws that are unconstitutional.”

Where were they, these tea party protesters, when George Bush and Dick Cheney were tearing up the constitution? Where were they when the government was listening in to their phone conversations with illegal wiretaps? Where were they when the government was reading their emails? Where were they when the government suspended habeas corpus and threw people into prison, “disappearing” them in the same way Josef Stalin used to make people vanish without a trace? Where were they when the United States government illegally tortured and killed prisoners of war?

Dave Kellett of Powell, president of the Wyoming 912 Coalition, reportedly said at the rally, “We were all Americans.” Kellett added, “There were no Republicans or Democrats, whites, blacks, Hispanics or Arabs,” on that day. The Arabs disagree with that, like the poor guy who was mistaken for an Arab (he was actually an Indian Sikh) and murdered by Americans in that spirit of unity that prevailed after 9/11. The Arabs were immediate suspects in the 9/11 attacks and anyone of Arab descent, or anybody with dark skin who looked like an Arab, was in for a tough time after the attacks. Arabs in America are still not above suspicion.

Just ask Cat Stevens about that supposed post-9/11 unity of Americans. They wouldn't even let the “Peace Train” singer back in the country. Judging by what I saw on TV of the crowd in Casper yesterday, there weren't a lot of blacks, Hispanics or Arabs among the tea-party people there, or at the big march in Washington, either. It is pretty much a pure white, far right, Fox News-watching bunch. Dave Kellet's idea of national unity is not what I'd call “fair and balanced.”

That's not the only thing about the post-9/11 climate the tea party people seem to have forgotten. They forgot the nation was united behind their president, George Bush, despite the fact that 9/11 happened on his watch. They must have been watching Fox News back then when wingnuts like Bill O'Reilly were saying that anybody who criticized President Bush was a traitor, or words to that effect. Fox News and the rest of the right-leaning news establishment bullied anyone who dared criticize our beloved President George Bush, and they said he did nothing wrong. They still claim he was damned near perfect to this very day.

Where were these Tea Party people when the Bush Administration let the country down and failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks? After all, it was pretty spectacular failure that would seem impossible to top, but Bush managed to do just that, with Katrina and the Iraq War. Through all those disasters, all those deficits, all those illegal acts, all the loss of all those personal freedoms, the Tea Party people kept silent. Where were they?

So why all those anti-Obama signs at the Wyoming 912 Coalition rally? Where is that old spirit of unity? What happened to that unity where everybody stood behind the president and you were a called a traitor if you did not? Obama has only been in power a few months and has yet to initiate any disasters like the ones that Bush did on an almost monthly basis. On the basis of protecting the country alone, he's already 100 percent better than Bush was. How could they forget the unity of 912 on this occasion? How could they keep quiet when this nation was literally falling apart and only now, when the country is starting to get back on track, they suddenly want to protest their very own president?

Why? What has gotten them stirred up? Health care reform? They actually like the fact that their insurance company can drop them from coverage when they get sick? They like the fact that they have to stick with a job they don't like, or face losing their coverage or paying sky-high COBRA payments? Do they enjoy being jerked around by insurance companies that are not held accountable by anyone, including their own government? They ought to be protesting outside insurance companies, not protesting the guy who is trying to fix this mess. The Tea Party people act as if they are being directly paid by the health insurance industry to put a stop to health care reform.

The Wyoming 912 Coalition people are also very concerned about the federal budget deficit. They are afraid they will have to pay for health care reform with higher taxes, and that might be true, but where were they when the Reagan Administration and two Bush Administrations ran up deficits in the trillions? Where were they when the Bush Administration cut trillions of dollars of taxes on the wealthy, and started two wars at the same time? Where were they when the Bush Administration started a war in Iraq that would end up costing trillions of dollars, and paid for it with deficit spending?

The Tea Party people cheered when Rep. Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at President Obama, and they put that proudly on their signs, even though Wilson, not Obama, is the liar here. Where were they when President Bush lied about the reasons for going to war with Iraq? None of them had the courage to stand up and call President Bush a liar, even though he was. Fox News, the rest of the media and most of the American people just went along for the ride. Now they stand up, but what do they really stand for?

Now, after more than 4,000 soldiers were killed and trillions of dollars have been wasted in the Iraq war, now, they finally stand up for principles they completely abandoned for the past 20 years. Now, they stand up to avoid paying for the health care of poor people. That's not what you'd call noble, or Christian, or Muslim. They are willing to finance the death of hundreds of thousands of people and spend trillions of dollars for war without complaint, but they don't want to spend a nickel to pay for the health care of needy citizens of the United States of America, including those wounded fighting for this nation. Shame on them.

The tea party people weren't concerned when our soldiers died for nothing. They weren't concerned about a war that made this nation less secure, rather than more secure. They weren't concerned with the mounting deficits caused by deeply irresponsible government fiscal policies. They weren't concerned when the government did little to avert the Hurricane Katrina disaster and did less to alleviate the suffering of Americans afterward. The tea party people were silent then.

Now that the nation has been brought back from the brink of another Great Depression, thanks to government fiscal intervention, now that the United States is once again gaining some respect in the world for more rational foreign policies, after being a laughing stock and a pariah for the past eight years, now, the tea party people are protesting. They want to get rid of Obama and all he stands for. They want to return to the good old days of George W. Bush, the good old days of letting insurance companies decide who will live and who will die.

God help us all if they get what they are wishing for.

Robert Roten is a journalist with over 25 years of newspaper experience, including 20 years as a reporter, editor, photographer, columnist and editorialist at the Laramie Daily Boomerang. Since retiring from the Boomerang in 2000, Roten has been president of the Laramie Film Society and the Laramie Astronomical Society and Space Observers (LASSO). He has operated his own movie journalism web site, Laramie Movie Scope, for the past 13 years. He also has a weekly movie show, Laramie Movie Scope News, on KOCA radio in Laramie. He is also a member of the Online Film Critics Society and contributes frequent movie reviews to rottentomatoes.com. He is a former member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Roten is a resident of Laramie, Wyo.

Letter to the Editor: In defense of UW protest

Editor:

At the dedication of the Cheney International Center, former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson seemed to casually dismiss the 100 or so protesters present by saying, “It is easy to second-guess. It is easy to protest, takes no brains.”

I would like to remind Simpson that protest is what this great country is founded upon. Would he have said the same about those old white men who believed it was their “inalienable right” to speak their mind (with no brains) and oppose a tyrannical government? Was it easy for Martin Luther King to march on Washington or students at Kent State in Ohio to protest the Vietnam War?

I respectfully disagree with Simpson’s assessment. Every time someone stands up for what they believe in to those in power, they take a risk. Many of us who protested the Cheney International Center ceremony felt protesting was worth the possible risk of arrest or expulsion from UW.

It was incredible that someone who opposed Dick Cheney and his policies could stand next to someone who supported him without any violence or bloodshed. Sure, maybe today it is easier to protest in the United States, but in so many other countries this right is denied and severely suppressed by the government - we have only to look at recent events in China and Iran as examples.

What is “easy,” Senator Simpson, is for those in power to start unilateral wars, circumvent the Geneva Conventions, subvert the constitution, and authorize torture tactics that violate human rights treaties without any consequences. This is what takes “no brains.”

Dan DePeyer
University of Wyoming
Laramie, Wyo.

Editor's note: DePeyer is a University of Wyoming graduate student in the international studies program. He began the "UW Students Against the Cheney International Center" Facebook group and was instrumental in organizing the protest against the dedication Sept. 10.

Letter to the Editor: No ethics lesson in Buchanan's words

Dear Editor:

UW President Tom Buchanan’s perspective in the Laramie Boomerang (9/5) and the Casper Star-Tribune (9/6) about the naming of the Cheney International Center sought to provide a lesson in ethics. Quite the contrary. By defending the privileges of the wealthy and powerful while admonishing those who question the fairness and legitimacy of naming an international center after former Vice-president Dick Cheney, Buchanan’s perspective conveyed much more about his own political savvy than about ethics.

So that in the future the university's position on such matters will be clear, would it be possible to set the bar high enough so a prospective donor couldn't slither over it to have his or her name honored? Or are we left with the message that there is no lower limit – that UW would institutionalize the name of the devil if the donation and political payoff were sufficient?

Fred Vanden Heede
Laramie, Wyo.

States hold the solution to healthcare reform

Let the states run healthcare
Andrew Simons

As the healthcare debate evolves, one thing is becoming clear: Debate in this country is not what it used to be. With people caring guns and shouting down their elected officials, something needs to be done to elevate the debate beyond the yelling matches that are currently standard fare. A marketplace of ideas needs to be fair market – if it exists at all.

Some people have labeled demonstrators as “un-American.” I don’t share this thought. Anyone who is willing to carry a strong opinion is obviously a great patriot and a walking, talking advertisement for the First Amendment. The problem comes in when these people are more interested in making their opinion heard at the expense of drowning out any opposition. A debate requires both sides and a moment to rebut the arguments of the opposition. Though it’s not the law, I would argue that your right to free speech ends when it infringes on mine.

On top of all of this is the way that these town halls have headed south in terms of respect. The idea that any president, congressman or senator would allow for “death panels” in the home of the free and land of the brave is insulting, wrong and takes away from a real debate. Painting swastikas and hanging members of Congress in effigy adds nothing and intimidates the level-headed silent majority of people in this country who have probably been scared out of the debate. Their voices are now lost to us. Wyoming’s own congressman Cynthia Lummis recently said bringing arguments peaceably is a key part of the solution. In reality, the real solution has as much to do with bringing an intelligent argument as anything.

This also brings to mind recent incidents of people bringing guns to these town hall meetings and forums as a statement about the Second Amendment. I honestly don’t understand how this pertains to healthcare or contributes to support for Second Amendment rights, especially when held with signs proclaiming, “It’s time to water the tree of liberty.” This statement comes from Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

If organizers of these protests knew the Founding Fathers at all, they would know that politically motivated executions were most likely not what they were intending. A personal meeting or town hall event is never something that requires a gun. Intimidating people into doing your will through violence calls elections and prospective legislation into further doubt, adding possible instability to what should always be a civil debate.

In general, the solution to the increasingly unruly town hall meetings and the healthcare reform problem is to leave much of the process up to the states. If these protests are in fact being organized by outside interests, it would make the job much more complicated. Organizing protests at town halls for thousands of state representatives would be infinitely harder than focusing on forums for 535 members of Congress.

Healthcare, is a regional and, yes, personal issue. Any solution is going to have incredible resistance. If the federal government and the Obama administration would settle for an absolute minimum of federal reform and provide federal dollars to the states to implement their own healthcare plans, solutions could be found that would serve the people of Wyoming as efficiently and confidently as Californians. As it stands, the federal government seems to believe both states have exactly the same concerns, but common sense says otherwise.

This chaos has led to a multitude of healthcare bills, plans and solutions posted on the websites of senators and representatives, proposed in their respective committees, and discussed in their respective town halls – each tailored to the wants and needs of each politician’s respective district. Wouldn’t it be grand if we could actually implement these plans? Wouldn’t that solution be easier than making liars of our congressmen after the plans that won voters’ support are then cut and pasted together into a bill that no one likes? This idea should lead to a state’s rights-based solution for healthcare.

Just think about it – a state’s rights argument that incredibly doesn’t involve guns, gay marriage or wolves in Wyoming. Wyoming could accomplish a suitable healthcare solution based on all the passionate support these previous issues have raised. A few level-headed organizers are a must – those who know to fact-check their statements and press releases would be crucial to running a campaign for Wyoming-centered healthcare, thereby avoiding the mistake one Wyoming advocacy group made by calling Governor Dave Freudenthal’s support of the Real ID Act “tyranny” for superseding state authority two weeks after he announced a state sovereignty resolution.

It’s people with good intentions and a lack of knowledge and restraint that will demolish this movement. A state-run healthcare system has the potential to streamline our government and create real solutions to the problems and concerns of people more accurately than anything put forth by politicians in Washington D.C.

Andrew Simons hosts Checks and Balances, a political talk show that airs Saturdays from 10-11 p.m. on 93.5 KOCA community radio in Laramie. Simons' political experience includes managing the special election of Wyoming State Rep. Jim Roscoe D-Pinedale in 2008, along with working on two presidential campaigns and the campaign of a U.S. House candidate.

Letter to the Editor: When the TV is on, freedom of speech stops

TV has destroyed conversation everywhere, and yet it is only through talk that people learn much of anything. Talk, reading, writing, and thinking produce mature individuals capable of comparing and contrasting tastes and ideas. (Talking is most important). Common sense comes from common conversation about things like, "Is the govt. conning us again?", "Is Israel using us to fight its wars?" "Is Capitalism just a matter of making money?" etc. Folk wisdom comes from cliches like: "Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts." "Oh, they must be chatting us up to be suckered again." "All that glitters is not gold" etc. Walk in any room where a TV is on and see how quickly everyone sits down and stares at it, regardless of what is on.

TV is the filthy fish tank that we all have to swim in, whether we watch it or not. Political advertising has been abolished from television in countries that understand how inherently bogus it is. If we did that here, we could shorten our campaigns down to one or two months. If we made our media non-profit, we could kill the profit motive completely and deliver a fatal blow to the idiotic ratings popularity system. Instead of producing programs that appeal to the most ignorant, we should get more programming that meets its own standards of integrity.

Media is not an industry or a public service. It is a racket in which crooks make a fortune from pandering and feeding on human weakness. It is pollution, so why should we ever give it a tip. The more lies the creeps broadcast, the more bribes and rackets they produce. Now American ignorance and weakness is despised all over the world because Americans have allowed themselves to be suckered by idiotic TV.

John Hanks
Laramie, Wyo.