by digby
Dday made an astute observation about our newly militant First Amendment warriors on the right today in Salon:
But there’s a giant gap in this newfound war on censorship. It neglects the most prominent recent example of this country shutting down free speech. I’m talking about the repression of public protest movements, most notably the violent dismantling of Occupy Wall Street encampments, a censorship directed by the state.
The right to peaceable assembly is as much a part of the First Amendment as the right to free speech, and in fact they intersect. In 2011 the tens of thousands of Occupiers across the country had no access to a printing press or real estate in a newsweekly. So they used their collective voice, basically all they had to use, to call attention to an economic system that doesn’t work for the 99 percent. In their view, the best way to maximize the reach of that opinion was through an ongoing protest, using public spaces to register dissent.
This was not welcomed as a new addition to the public debate, or an example of boldly exercising the sacred, inalienable right to speak out. In fact it was immediately seen as a problem to be solved. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security gathered intelligence on Occupy protests from even before it began, coordinating this surveillance with local police nationwide and even the New York Stock Exchange and private businesses. City councils subsequently passed a host of new laws, presented as protections for health and safety, to criminalize assemblies and justify evictions from encampments.
A 2012 report into law enforcement responses to Occupy Wall Street documented violent late-night evictions, illegal arrests and arbitrary detentions. Police across the country used pepper spray to disperse peaceful protesters and beat them with clubs and barricades. The report also cited 85 arrests of journalists in 12 cities reporting on the protests, among other obstructions of the press, another one of those First Amendment clauses. New York City just settled lawsuits with three protesters for $142,500 over police misconduct.
At no time did the army of free speech warriors on the right speak up against this state-sponsored repression of peaceful assembly and protest. They did suggest that the protesters should leave the country if they opposed the economic system, and they did whip up fear by equating outlier criminal conduct with the entire movement. Traditional media and government, particularly on the right, worked hand-in-hand to discredit the protests and ensure no backlash when they were inevitably and brutally repressed.
You would think that conservatives, theoretically wary of state power and allegedly steadfast in their readings of the Constitution, would have something to say about police crackdowns of First Amendment guarantees. But some opinions should be shoved in the face of detractors like an upright middle finger, and others should be subject to a paramilitary-style assault and removal from the public square.
I’m sure conservatives found the Occupy message uncomfortable, and they had every right to oppose it and offer rebuttals. But they’ve spent the last week arguing that it’s wrong to extinguish that uncomfortable speech, to narrow the zones where that expression can take place. In fact they’ve called anyone who tries to shut down speech the moral equivalent of a terrorist. Does that also count for the nation’s law enforcement apparatus knocking out those who question the effectiveness of unregulated crony capitalism and soaring inequality?
What an excellent question. And I think we know the answer, don't we?
I suppose we are all guilty of situational ethics in these cases. It's very hard to maintain an absolute consistency in these matters. That's what the ACLU is for. But the breast beating and sanctimony on the right of the past week does stand out for its sheer hypocrisy. Indeed, we don't even have to go all the way back to the Occupy protests to see this contrast illustrated. These comments came just a couple of weeks ago:
There's blood on many hands tonight," Patrolman's Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said late Saturday. "Those that incited violence on this street under the guise of protest, that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did everyday.
"We tried to warn it must not go on, it cannot be tolerated," Lynch continued. "That blood on the hands starts on the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor."
That's right. When he said "it cannot be tolerated" he was talking about peaceful protests, which he claimed "incited violence." Nobody on the right was saying "Je Suis deBlasio" in response to that.
The only time these conservatives oppose a police agency is when it's the federal government trying to collect taxes or enforce gun laws. Other than that they are always with the boys in blue.
Let's just say that I tend to doubt the sincerity of authoritarian right wingers when they start shouting "Je Suis Charlie" and lugubriously defending free speech. These were the same guys who changed the menu in the House cafeteria to "freedom fries" when the French refused to go along with the daft Iraq invasion. I wouldn't count on them to be there at the barricades defending your right to say things they don't like.
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