The more things change, the more they stay the same. Brother Bob, please lead the chorus:
Last Thursday was National Day of Action for Public Education, an event that saw dozens of instances of sixties-style actions at college campuses around the country. It was as if America had learned nothing from Kent State. From HuffPo:
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee police arrested at least 15 people protesting tuition hikes after protesters tried to enter an administrative building to deliver petitions to the school chancellor. When police turned them away, some protesters threw punches and ice chunks, university spokesman Tom Luljak said.
No serious injuries were reported in the melee that followed.
“We have no problem with a protest,” university spokesman Tom Luljak said. “We do have a serious problem when individuals decide to become violent.”
Kas Schwerdtfeger, a national organizer for Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society, said demonstrators were peaceful but persistent in approaching the hall.
“What we did was try to assert ourselves peacefully and nonviolently,” he said. (Emphasis mine)
Get that? Citizens of the United States of America assert their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances on a college campus. Authority figures react not by meeting the petitioners to hear their concerns, but with a wall of uniformed law enforcement officers. Then the authority figures have the UNMITIGATED GALL to complain about thrown ice chunks and punches.
The proper response to an act of free speech is more speech. This simple idea STILL has not penetrated the world of American administration. The reason we have means of pushing peaceful change is to keep change peaceful.
But I see another lesson in this story because the anger being expressed on campus very much mirrors the general angst that has led to popular dissatisfaction with the pace of reform and slow economic recovery. Like health care costs, tuition increases have badly outpaced inflation. Students are increasingly stuck with tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt before their adult careers even begin. Worse, college degrees are no longer guaranteed tickets to the middle class.
Just as the tea parties reflect an incoherent response to the economic and fiscal debacle that came with the collapse of American conservatism, college protests are somewhat mis-aimed; colleges and universities face escalating costs, the foremost among these being health care. Yet these administrators are the people in charge. Their job description includes the provision of the democratic safety-valve.
If I could arrange one for the president to do one thing this year, it would be for him to invite tea party representatives to the White House for an open-minded conversation — on camera. There is nonviolence as action, and also nonviolence as counter-action. If they want to question his birth, let them do it to his face — on camera. If they want to present their concerns about bank reform, etc., and hear his answers in a conversation, so much the better.
The way to defeat the projectile memery of right wing media is to demonstrate its falsehood, over and over, and ensure the world can see it. Lies thrive in the absence of speech; it has the disinfecting powers of sunlight.
Now I know you’re all eager to get to that delicious Sunday potluck, so I won’t mince words: speech is its own best answer. We forget this at our peril. To deny speech is to assert an authority our society does not recognize. Speech can be limited, channeled, even deferred, but never stopped. If you try, you will fail and almost certainly wind up making things worse.
Indeed, the greatest weapon the left has found against teabaggery is simply a camera that is turned on. Speech is its own best answer.
Take us out, brother Bob!
