Dear RN list,
As we see our fundamental rights eroded, it is good to know that this has
happened before and that people overcame it; we need to do that again!
The collection of messages below speaks to this topic... I only regret that
I don't have more info on arrests of people with Arabic names. I would not
be surprised if many of these arrests are directed against people who are
not terrorists.
all the best, Jan
*********************************************************
Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 11:17:44 -0400
From: "Charles D. Johnson" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Green Party Activist Dreprived of Civil Rights
Dear Friends,Green and otherwise -
Please read carefully the message below.
This is not an urban legend. I have talked with Nancy Oden on the
telephone within this hour, and she has confirmed all the details of
this message.
My main thought is that the federal government is using the newly passed
PATRIOT law to try to squelch opposition to the war against Afghanistan.
Nancy Oden is not a terrorist. She is a Green activist who frequently
and vocally disagrees with US foreign and domestic policies.
If you have any thoughts re all this,please put them out - or any
suggestions on what steps to take to defend our civil liberties - please
let me know. And help to get the word out about this terrible attack on
OUR civil rights and liberties. An attack perpetrated by our own
government !!!! We might start by calling our senators and
representatives to let them know what their latest legislation is doing
to the lives of ordinary citizens.
Yours for peace with justice,
Charles & Joyce
----- Original Message -----
From: <•••@••.•••>
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2001 6:18 PM
Subject: GPUSA-TALK GREEN PARTY USA COORDINATOR DETAINED AT AIRPORT
PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL MEDIA & LISTSERVES (Mitchel Cohen)
The Greens / Green Party USA
226 South Wabash, 6th floor
Chicago, IL 60604
Toll-free Phone: 1-866-GREENS-2
<snip>
GREEN PARTY USA COORDINATOR DETAINED AT AIRPORT
PREVENTED BY ARMED MILITARY FROM FLYING TO GREENS MEETING IN CHICAGO
<snip>
-------------------
Charles D. Johnson
Joyce A. Johnson
82 Lakeview Avenue
Falmouth, MA 02540
508-540-2238
•••@••.•••
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Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 12:20:22 -0800
From: CyberBrook <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Zinn speaks at high school; Parents: "It's horrifying"!
Here's the first few paragraphs from an article about Howard Zinn speaking
in a high school. Aside from the serious issues involved, it cracks me up.
Such a monumental disrespect for dissenting views and high school students...
Tuesday, November 20, 2001 in the Boston Herald
High School Speech by Peace Prof Raises Ire
by Ed Hayward
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1120-05.htm
School officials are being asked to justify a recent speech given by peace
activist Howard
Zinn at Newton North High School in which he equated the U.S. military
strikes in
Afghanistan with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The controversial historian and former Boston University professor stressed
that the U.S.
bombing raids aimed at toppling the Taliban and hunting down fugitive
terror boss Osama
bin Laden were killing children and innocent civilians.
``The terrorists of Sept. 11 did a horrible thing to us, so we do terrible
things to the people
of Afghanistan. That is immoral and puts us on the same level as a
terrorist,'' Zinn was
quoted as saying in a report in the school newspaper.
Parents questioned exposing young teens to Zinn's opinions.
``It's unbelievable what this guy did,'' said Tom Mountain, a parent of
three Newton
students who are not yet in high school. ``It's horrifying. He told these
things to an entire
school audience of kids 13 to 17 who don't know any better.'' ...
******************************************************
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 16:47:17 -0800
From: William Mandel <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: Residents Express Outrage Over Howard Zinn (fwd)
John Johnson wrote:
>
> This sounds about right for 1964
> From: radtimes <•••@••.•••>
> Subject: Residents Express Outrage Over Howard Zinn
>
> Newton Residents Express Outrage Over Leftist Speaker at High School
>
> Howard Zinn Is Leftover from Radical '60s
>
> By Ed Oliver
> November 27, 2001
>
<snip>
This post arrived as I was trying to think of how best to call to
people's attention the parallels between the Ashcroft-Bush time and that
of Joe McCarthy and Harry Truman. [John] Johnson is mistaken in thinking of the
event as "about right for 1964." My identical experience was at the turn
of 1946-7 when McCarthy wasn't yet on the scene, but Truman's Loyalty
Oath and prosecution of a hero, Leon Josephson, who had entered Nazi
Germany before World War II to make contact with the underground, led to
an atmosphere in which my expression of dissent against the brand-new
Cold War resulted in my being barred from lecture platforms outside the
Left:
"Hazleton, Pennsylvania, cooked my goose. There, I had been booked into
the Presbyterian Church and the Kiwanis Club, with radio broadcast. The
response was splendid, and the superintendent of schools asked me to
speak to the junior and senior classes of the high school. A few days
later the Hazleton Sunday Times carried a very lengthy letter by a Naval
SeeBee. He wrote of my 'active participation and campaign last November
for the only Communist now seated in the U.S. Congress, Vito
Marcantonio.' Marcantonio, who I later knew personally, was never a
Communist. He was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. entry
into the Korean War.
"The Hazleton newspaper ran an editorial, which said, 'A front page
story in today's Times tells how one William Mandel...after delivering
TWO addresses in Hazleton [their emphasis here and below],...was
permitted to lecture to the students at Hazleton High School, without
even the pretense of proper rebuttal made available....WE call on the
Hazleton city school board...to investigate the conditions which permit
an ostensibly tainted propagandist to be foisted on the faculty and
student body of our school system, and to inform the public why the
incident was at all possible and what will be done to preclude any
recurrence.'
"The news story was a classic example of the technique we wrongly call
McCarthyite--wrongly because it antedated his use of it by several
years. I quote: 'It has been learned through the offices of Plain Talk,
a magazine for the purpose of disseminating information on
Totalitarianism, that Mr. William Mandel, from 1945 to 1946 was an
instructor at the Jefferson School of Social Sciences...New York City.'
The article then specified that my two books were used in classes of the
Jefferson School and were sold currently in Communist book stores. That
was quite true. They were also sold in every serious bookstore in the
country. The later one was in use as a text at Yale, Stanford, and
elsewhere. The earlier one had actually found its way into use at a
university in South Africa....I had been mentioned twice in the past
five months in the Daily Worker. One was for a local speech I had given
at a Communist-sponsored summer camp, the other for a statement I made
on a national radio broadcast. In the latter case, I quote the Hazleton
Times, I 'very vehemently and emphatically demanded that United States
troops be recalled from China and other outposts of the world. Everyone
immediately recognized this kind of chatter as regular Communist Party
talk.' But it was also the view of the then Secretary of Commerce, Henry
Wallace, who had been vice-president under Roosevelt and, earlier, his
Secretary of Agriculture, and whose thirteen years in the U.S. cabinet
amounted to more time spent there than any other non-president in
American history before or since." -- from my autobiography, SAYING NO
TO POWER,
pp.139-141.
So my lecture contract with the country's top management, which later
managed Roosevelt's widow, was cancelled. A period of about 15 years
began during which Americans could hear only proponents of the Cold War
(regrettably, Eleanor Roosevelt, a loyal Democrat, did not combat it). I
did play a part in slowing and then reversing that situation by my
testimonies as an "unfriendly witness" when subpoenaed by the Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee, next by Sen. McCarthy, and finally, in
1960, by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
William Mandel
========================================================
My autobiography, SAYING NO TO POWER (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999),
is designed for the general reader. However, if you teach in the social
sciences, consider it for course use. It was written as a social
history
of the U.S. for the past three-quarters of a century through the eyes
of
a participant observer in most progressive social movements (I'm 84),
and of the USSR from the standpoint of a Sovietologist (five earlier
books) knowing that country longer than any other in the profession.
Therefore it is also a history of the Cold War. Positive reviews
in The Black Scholar, American Studies in Scandinavia, San Francisco
Chronicle, etc. Introduction by Howard Zinn. Chapters are up at
http://www.billmandel.net where you may also hear/see my defiant
testimonies before Sen. Joe McCarthy in 1953 and
the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1960. Available via Amazon
and Barnes&Noble. Bookstores that don't have it will get it for you
virtually
overnite from wholesalers. For autographed copies, postpaid, send me $23
at
4500 Gilbert St., Apt. 426, Oakland, CA., 94611.
William Mandel
========================================================
