But it is indeed a free and unfettered press that is the greatest protection for dissident and left-wing movements! Even when the press "embarasses" the activists and dissidents by exosing their flaws, inadequacies, gaffes, and troubling positions--which is what it is supposed to do. Same as, as I pointed out in my "Letter," the Boston Globe did so admirably when it "violated" the "safe space" of the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston on priest-pedophilia and its deliberate cover-up!
Truth is, even when it exposes that which is "embarassing," the free press does the left a service; most notably, as did John Reed's first-hand account of the unfolding of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days that Shook the World, where he revealed not only that Stalin played no significant role in the Revolution whatsoever, but also exposed the deep divisions within Bolshevik ranks over the policy of Lenin and Trotsky to establish a "go-it-alone" exclusively Bolshevik government, with many leading Bolsheviks openly expressing support for a unity coalition socialist government that would even invite the Mensheviks and right and center Socialist revolutionaries to participate--for which, as Reed noted, close allies of Lenin, Zinoviev and Kamenev, were retaliated against for their temerity! But such "unpleasantries" exposed by a free press could only serve the socialist nature of the social transformation Lenin and Trotsky envisioned, as their later, reluctant, reaching out to the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to join with the Bolsheviks in forming a socialist coalition government demonstrated.
Unfotunately, this new Millennial left of the late 2015-early 2016 campus protests displayed all-too-common totalitarian procilvities when it comes to journalists, expsoed their censorious vent to shape the news they way they wanted it to go. and sadly, such has been part of the left ofr a long time--the desire to stage-manage the reproting on its goals, activities, programs and outreach. But a truly free and independent press is not there either to be a cheerleader, or a constantly sniping critic, but to be an impartial reporter, telling its readers exactly what is happening, and how it is happening. For truth is the best way for the left to reach its goals; not propaganda, not stage-managed selective reporting, not acquiescing to deamnds that certain things be kept secret "for the good of the cause," and not caving in to demands that only the "correct" version be published. Such censoriousness embraced by the left can only hurt the left in the long run, and even in the short run; as well as give ammunition to the left's nemeses on the right and center to demand the same thing. Transparency is the greatest advocate for freedom and self-determination there is, and the left needs to also realize it--GF.
This second "Letter to the Editor" follows below:
To the Editor:
I recently saw Spotlight [later awarded an Oscar for “Best Motion
Picture of the Year,” 2015—GF] , the most engaging movie of how the Boston
Globe violated the "safe space" of Boston Archdiocese's Cardinal
Bernard Law and his coterie of high-up Catholics that had allowed them to cover
up the vicious predation of Catholic priest-pedophiles in the Archdiocese, and
exposed what turned out to be an international scandal within the Catholic
Church, the widespread molestation of children by such priest-pedophiles, who'd
gotten away with it unnoticed for decades. Same as Woodward and Bernstein
of the Washington Post had violated the "safe space" of
Richard Nixon and his political cronies in promulgating the abuses of
Watergate. Same as the muckrakers of the late Nineteenth and early
Twentieth Centuries had violated the "safe spaces" of political
bosses and predatory capitalists in promulgating economic misery and political
corruption on millions of ordinary people. Same as reporters such as the New
York Times' David Halberstam and Seymour Hersh had violated the "safe
space" of the policy wonks, military chiefs and political heads who
promulgated the Vietnam War. And same as iconoclastic 1920s
journalist H.L. Mencken had violated the "safe space" of those he
sneered at as the "booboisie" and other assorted obfuscators and
promoters of political illiteracy and cultural mediocrity back then. But
that's what a serious free pressed is supposed to do—afflict the comfortable,
and expose those "safe spaces" of the rich, the connected, and the
powerful in keeping from public view that which they didn't want known.
Which is why I cannot sympathize with in the
least the whining about the press and its alleged violation of "safe
space" by the young activists of the University of Missouri interviewed in
the January 2016 issue of In These Times, http://inthesetimes.com/article/18667/Campus-Protest_University-of-Missouri_Racism. A proper free
press, even if it is comprised of "mere" student photojournalists who
are fellow students in Missouri, are supposed to do--report on all events and
affairs that the public has the right to know about without "fear or
favor," a duty incumbent on the press to do no matter who is involved--and
which we of the socialist left rightly excoriate when the press does not
fulfill this adversarial duty, but instead reduces itself to being mere
mouthpieces for those it is covering, or else decides, due to hostility on the
part of the newsmakers, to refrain from covering lest it "ruffle
feathers." To oppose a truly free and independent, even adversarial,
press, no matter how supposedly "well-intentioned," as is the case
with these young activists, is to transmogrify the press from a source of
genuine news and opinion into a mere public relations vehicle on behalf of
certain partisans at the expense of the public's right to know--and it's the
same whether the press is represented by journalism school students, or by
organized partisan private media such as Fox News, or by supposedly
"neutral" but corporate-dominated media such as CNN, or favorable
media such as Rachel Maddow, or even "official" media at the beck and
call of the powerful and influential who happen to be the "good
guys," such as Cuba's Granma, China's Renmin Ribao, the
pro-protestor Nation, or house organs for vested interests who report very
selectively, such as Putin-dominated RT, or even often reliable Al-Jazeera,
which leaves out much while selectively publicizing much that needs to be
publicly known. The independent, adversarial press is a mainstay of any
truly free and democratic society, and its' duty is to expose and
properly comment on all the laundry, clean and dirty, regardless of
whether it's the laundry of the "good guys" or the "bad
guys."
The young activists of the University of
Missouri don't seem to understand this, as evinced by what they said when
interviewed; they also don't seem to understand that, just because you're the
"good guys" who are supporting the just and noble cause (and they
are), there is no arbitrary changing of the rules and delimiting of access
simply because the "good guys" wish it to be. An that no group
of appointed leaders automatically speaks for all, has the right to decide
what shall be and not be the rules, what access shall be allowed and what shall
not, and that, even if ruling by "consensus," it does not, and
cannot, speak for all; and also, that even the best-intentioned of "good
guys" do not simply always remain so, and never have to answer to their
adversaries, their opponents, or even their partially-dissident or just
questioning followers. The ideals of transparency
and accountability are at the core of any truly functioning democracy, and
their past "misuse" doe not justify abrogating them--even for the
"best of reasons."
This is what our young activists of today fail
to understand; further, their very addled notion of "safe space" as a
space free from criticism and dissent, that always remains a warm fuzzy haven
for the activists free of "contention," is not only unrealistic
and is at direct variance with the real world, it is fundamentally destructive
of truly democratic give-and-take that is at the core of any really vibrant
social movement for substantive change. It transforms those movements
into mere shells, and silences those who are supportive but somewhat
laden with doubts and questions, making them into enemies of the cause
itself. That has become clear from the student protest movements that
have occurred to date, and is clearly demonstrated by the course of events not
only at the University of Missouri, but also Yale, Princeton, Oberlin and
elsewhere, where young activists have veered from demands that were fully
justifiable at first to becoming ridiculous and untenable later on.
Movements that have far too often pitted students against the faculty an
derided professors' legitimate concerns over academic freedom, but have even
improperly aligned supposedly protesting students with university
administrations in imposing a false harmony of quashing dissent and criticism
over those with legitimate, or just questioning, concerns. Just the
opposite of what we, as young protestors in the 1960s, were about--then, from
the civil rights movement through the Berkeley Free Speech Movement through the
rise of antiwar and New Left movements on, we young protestors then wanted to be
treated as adults, not as children who wanted to be guided by benevolent
administrators acting in loco parentis; and we wanted liberated
spaces where we could engage freely, even in disagreement and
dissent. The last thing we wanted was to be confined in "safe
spaces" where no dissent, disagreement, or mere questioning, was
permitted, and where we were delicately managed and "taken care
of" as children under the tutelage of some "benevolent"
Orwellian Big Brother who "protected" us from
"contentious" forces. Back then, we dealt with students and
others who disagreed with us, sometimes very hostilely, by marshaling our
forces and our arguments, by trying to win over whenever we could; but not
impose our will on others through intimidation or aggression (though,
certainly, sections of the protesting left did that later), with the
always-"helpful" university administrators readily available to
"smooth things over." We were aligned with supportive faculty
to extend the boundaries of speech and constructive action, to confront
positively those who disagreed with us, and opposed, and were opposed by, the
university administrators who saw us as "fomenting contention."
That, as Josh Zeitz's recent article in Politico,
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/12/campus-protests-1960s-213450, and in the
blog post of leftist writer and academic Fredrik de Boer, http://fredrikdeboer.com/2015/12/22/yes-virginia-there-is-a-left-wing-reform-movement/, have
pointed out, is the big difference between the activists of then and the
activists of today. We noisily wanted to be adults; but today's
activists, sad and unfortunate as it is, only want to remain children coddled
in, protected by, "safe spaces."
George Fish,
Indianapolis, Indiana
[Author's note: I am a socialist writer
and a left activist since 1965; my activities in the anti-Vietnam War Movement
at Michigan State University, 1965-1971, are extensively chronicled in Kenneth
Heineman's Campus Wars (NYU Press, 1993), a well-regarded history of the
antiwar movement of then on non-elite state campuses, a book I reviewed as
reviewer-participant in the February 1994 Monthly Review under the
title, "The Vietnam War at Home."
