I found a scrap of yellowed paper from a paperback book among the various keepsakes I have carried with me from year to year. Though it is torn and crumpled, I will keep it with me always.
In light of all the news regarding leaks and espionage, the dubious terrorist warnings designed to make all Americans feel universally hated and constantly fearful, the lack of truly free and honest reporting and investigation in main stream media, this reminder of the purpose of the Free Press is timely.
Because this scrap has surfaced now, I believe it is my responsibility to offer these words from a past Supreme Court decision since, in this century, it is unlikely that such remarks would be made.
“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the Government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the founders hoped and trusted they would do.”
–From Justice Hugo L. Black’s concurring opinion in the Supreme Court’s historic decision in favor of The New York Times & Washington Post the right to publish the Pentagon Papers. 1971
Daniel Ellsberg spoke this weekend in the Bay Area about this continual assault on freedom of the press and of speech. Since the 1960s, the deterioration of our freedom to express our thoughts, ideas and beliefs has been constant. The attacks on these freedoms have been devious and perpetual.
In my opinion, the happier we are to give up our liberties in the name of ‘security’ the closer we come to a Marxist-dominated totalitarian government. If not for the actions of Daniel Ellsberg, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, we would not know what our government is planning for us. If we give up even one freedom in the name of security, we will be signing our own warrant for destruction.
The latest terror warnings are desperate attempts to keep us fearful of the rest of the world, so that we accept being herded like cattle through stock pens. So that we accept the continual assaults on our Constitutional Rights. So that we fear speaking our minds. So that we remain silent in the face of tyranny just as so many people before us have been silenced because we fear reprisals from our own government.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, 1932
I am not brave or courageous but I love this country and my fellow Americans. I hate to see this great nation and its people cowering behind fences that are being built to divide us. Ask any person you meet what concerns them, cheers them, frightens them and you will find we all have much more in common than anything that divides us.
Our greatest enemy is ignorance. Know that enemy. Main stream media do not answer to us; they are not responsible to us. They are paid to drive fear and distrust into our souls, to confiscate our history and our freedom.
2 Comments
Large parts of the government and the “private” sector participate in the production and distribution of fear. (Beware: many of the people in the ostensibly private sector are in reality some sort of mercenary living ultimately at taxpayer expense. True government employment is much greater than officially reported [Light 1999; Higgs 2005a] .) Defense contractors, of course, have long devoted themselves to stoking fears of enemies big and small around the globe who allegedly seek to crush our way of life at the earliest opportunity. Boeing’s often-shown TV spots, for example, assure us that the company is contributing mightily to protecting “our freedom.” If you believe that, I have a shiny hunk of useless Cold War hardware to sell you. The news and entertainment media enthusiastically jump on the bandwagon of foreign-menace alarmism—anything to get the public’s attention.
Your comment doesn’t surprise me. It does sadden me. As Paul Craig Roberts says, our government thinks we’re stupid. We’ll have to work hard to prove the government is wrong.