Monday, June 11, 2007
A Letter About Community and Free Speech the I-T Didn’t Print
By Bob Edwards
Editor:
Your recent editorial (Community vs. Conspiracy) chides local activists for publicly objecting to police photography of peaceful student demonstrators. You attribute your “passionate exception” to a belief that Sonoma has a “high level of community, a high level of we.” In short, the activists shouldn’t have made a public mountain out of what you consider a molehill.
Disturbing is the implication that in Sonoma “we” don’t make a fuss when “we” see civil rights being coerced. We are told, “What’s missing in all this an understanding of the nature of Sonoma.” In short, these activists are not really one of us but are some menacing band of outside agitators and troublemakers.
The misunderstanding—and it is an insulting, divisive and constitutionally dangerous one—is yours, not that of the students or the adults, both teachers and activists, involved in the incident. Sonoma has minimal tolerance for civil rights abuses. In that regard and contrary to your opinion, we are no different from Berkeley or San Francisco or that place called America. OK... maybe we are different from Texas.
Your own archives hold the evidence that the IT has not covered itself in glory in defending civil rights in Sonoma. Some will recall we are approaching the two-year anniversary of the shameful Fourth of July Parade Incident, when a passionate resident of our community charged into the parade to destroy the sign of antiwar protesters, also members of our community, who were peacefully protesting a government debacle that 75% of the country now recognizes as The Mother of All Blunders. No doubt the attacker felt that sign disturbed the community’s sense of “we,” or at least her vision of who “we” are.
The war wasn’t then widely accepted for the insanity it is, and today some do not see immigration as a happy subject for Happy Valley. Still, the parade incident occurred on the very day our community was celebrating a holiday with some significance for civil rights, and so it is a worthy example of how and why civil rights are considered important in Sonoma. The attacker’s behavior quickly became the butt of public ridicule, letters to the editor and front-page news in your paper. Charitably, the victims did not sue the daylights out of her or the City or the parade sponsors.
As in this latest incident, the IT waffled and equivocated. Recognizing the marchers’ right of free speech, it nonetheless lamented the fact that free speech had to spoil a nice hometown parade. One was left with the impression that the protesters were equally at fault with the sign-ripper for bad judgment. How un-American of them to think that the 4th of July meant something.
Back to the present: I don’t think for a minute that police policy or Chief Sackett OK’d the photographic surveillance of peaceful student protesters, or has a secret plan to do so. Our new Chief is not that kind of guy and no doubt he finds all this fuss a very unwanted distraction for his department. In a time of government-sponsored paranoia, the officer may have mistakenly thought he was doing his job. After all, if police are required to patrol public schools, those students must be a dangerous lot, right? But does that make the officer a Bush-variety thug?
No, but it doesn’t excuse what even your editorial acknowledges should not have been done: “Police surveillance of lawful citizen assembly is contrary to the spirit of democracy and violates the surveillance guidelines for law enforcement” developed by the state attorney general.
The point is that such government surveillance of peaceful citizens is precisely the kind of conduct that chills (in the phrasing of the Supreme Court) free speech and it deserves a very public and very vocal response whether it takes place in Berkeley or Sonoma or Crawford, Texas.
To privately and quietly address suspected public abuses by public officials, as you suggest, is precisely the sweep-it-under-the-rug cover-up that totalitarians everywhere love, because it perpetuates the myth that such abuses can’t and don’t happen or, if they do, they are nothing about which we should get passionately upset.
If you thought about it for more than a reflex, you would see that what you suggest is that the people surrender their constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government—i.e.. in public or in private. Which is exactly what they did when they confronted the officer on the day in question and later protested to city council. And while you have concluded that the officer’s action was not improper, others might disagree. In any event, it may come as a surprise to learn that the exercise of the right to petition the government is NOT pre-conditioned in the least on whether the petitioners are right or wrong in their claims of government wrongdoing. The Constitution contemplates that public discussion will air the facts so the people can decide the truth for themselves; truth which can never reliably come from behind closed government doors. If it turns out the accusations are false, the best place for that humiliation to occur is in public discussion.
Rather than upbraid their public conduct, you should have praised the activists for providing the students a living civics lesson that they do not get in school every day and, regrettably, do not get from the Index Tribune, whose understanding of the First Amendment is fundamentally corrupted by mindless boosterism. Would that someday the IT is as unequivocally passionate about civil rights as it is about its nostalgic, cotton-candy view of a community that exists only in its wildest dreams, and in our worst nightmares.
But the good news is that you may have another chance to get it right. I await your editorial response to the inevitable protests should the city decide to pursue a councilman’s vision of erecting on the Plaza a diorama celebrating his religious beliefs. Yes, another one of those community-dividing First Amendment Constitutional civil rights issues and, potentially, a very expensive legal experiment for the City, too. Adding to the newsworthy excitement will be council’s new agenda-setting policy: Discussing and deciding federal issues like the First Amendment, and that whole separation of church and state thing, may not qualify as “legitimate city business.” I note the Iraq War apparently was not a local concern, even though it spoiled our 4th of July parade and threatens to do it again this year. Bethlehem is in that same troubled neighborhood and, well, I’m told that if it exists at all heaven is supposedly even farther away and that if there is a God/god there or anywhere, He/She/It is probably way outside council’s jurisdiction.
Anyway, before pouring editorial concrete around those topics, I respectfully recommend a little more research, a bit more thought and a lot less “passionate exceptions. “ The Constitution would be a good place to start, as it may contain many shocking surprises.
FYI—If you would like a reference to the source of the I-T’s prior equivocation regarding free speech, it can be found in Mr. Lynch’s editorial of July 15, 2005 in your archives of that date, entitled “Don’t Ruin a Good Thing.”
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1 comment:
To our way of thinking, Bob has it exactly right.
Please read Will Shonbrun's take on the July 4th, 2005, Sonoma Parade events. Was this supportive of the right of redress and the wisdom of public debate, or was it fashioned as a debate killer?
Gary and Janet Evans, formerly of Sonoma Valley
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JULY 4TH INCIDENT IN SONOMA
CHALLENGES NATIONS’ FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
Will Shonbrun
July 4th Incident in Sonoma Challenges Nations’ Founding Principles Fostered by dissent and impelled by calls of rebellion this nation was birthed in a bloody revolution.
At the core of this uprising in 1776 that lasted almost six years were questions of the rights of man. Shamefully, these rights did not apply to women, African Americans, Native Americans or any others save propertied white males.
But the people in political power who designed and wrote the nation’s Declaration of Independence and later its Constitution basically a legal doctrine outlining the fundamental philosophy and rules governing individual rights and government’s responsibilities to its citizens penned a document that opened the way toward a free and just society. And still we struggle to make those ideals a reality.
Even though the Constitution’s framers purposefully disenfranchised the aforementioned and numerically greater groups or ‘others,’ they created a document that provides the legal framework by which society’s injustices can be challenged and overcome. Whether one weighs the value of the Constitution by its primary weakness failing to put an end to slavery, the ultimate stigma, or by its strength founding principles that laid the groundwork for establishing basic rights for all, it still stands as the doctrine that places the rule of law above the ideologies and passions of humankind.
July 4th is celebrated as the birth of this nation and citizens in towns and cities across the land have parades, set off fireworks and generally comport themselves in friendly and respectful ways. But not always and not every one.
Two people I know, a middle-aged couple, he a physician and she a business woman, both sharing a strong dislike for the President’s culpability in creating, lying about and then waging an immoral, illegal and unnecessary war, decided to march in the July 4 parade in the City of Sonoma. The couple, I’ll call them George and Martha to protect their identity, marched with a contingent of the local Peace and Justice group, and wore costumes and carried a sign. The costumes were makeshift black Iraqi burkas and they carried black clothed objects symbolizing dead Iraqi children the sign read, “Bush Lied.”
George and Martha were completing the last block of the Town Square when bolting from the crowd came a woman who began pulling the sign they were both carrying. But the sign was held by a sturdy rope and was tied around one hand of each holding the sign aloft. When the woman, I’ll call her Mary because that’s her name, in her anger and her zeal to wrench the sign from its ropes yanked the couple together and all three bumped around against each other. After assaulting the sign holders, Mary tore it to pieces and retreated back into the crowd.
But that’s not how the story ends. In fact, as of this writing, the story may only be getting going. Because now we have questions about when and what is crossing the line at public events. We have questions about freedom of speech and the right to dissent. We also have questions about what are the most effective or productive ways of going about political expression.
Debating these questions is democracy at work. For what it’s worth here’s my take on it.
Remember our history of Independence born in dissent and unrest and rebellion. Remember Thomas Paine, the extraordinarily eloquent everyman who believed in an egalitarian society ruled by rational, reasoning people trying to create a just world. Paine was true to this vision; most of the other founders were not. How can the 4th of July parade be about anything but politics?
In my view everybody gets to say whatever the hell they want, political or otherwise, within reason of public decency and appropriate discourse (this will get argued to death, of course), and dress up like Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs or Fidel Castro if that’s their bent. A democracy can’t control or regulate how people express themselves nor should it. Questions one might ask oneself though are “what’s the best way to get my point across. What am I trying to say to others and what is the most effective way of making my argument?” These questions will elicit different responses as individuals display all forms of political expression, but I think they should lie at the heart of the matter. I would first ask myself “what is the purpose of what I am doing to make my point, and am I doing it in order to be heard or for some other reason?” Do I want to be heard; do I want to arouse and disturb and get people thinking; or do I want to challenge, confront and push my perspective in the face of others in my righteousness? I think that these questions need to be considered before stepping into the political arena.
The July 4th parade, just like the Farmers Market is a public event in a public place. No entity - government, private or service oriented - can dictate free expression, political or otherwise. One may agree or not with sentiments expressed, and be drawn to or repelled by the means of expression, but this is clearly covered by the basis of our democracy in the Bill of Rights. Any attempt to control or regulate political expression in the parade will surely be met with civil rights challenges.
But there is one line that clearly can never be crossed. You cannot accost anyone; you cannot commandeer someone’s property because you don’t like it, and you don’t ever, ever physically assault someone else because you don’t like their politics. This is NOT acceptable in any civilized society and is I believe, illegal in the case under discussion.
I hope this is made clear to Mary or anyone who thinks that what she did is justified. She crossed an inviolable line and she should be held responsible for her actions. If not, if those who will decide how to proceed in this case the City Attorney and (possibly) the District Attorney’s office do not send a clear message that such actions are unacceptable and illegal, then a terrible and dangerous precedent will have been set, and more violence and disruption of civil liberties will ensue further down the line.
As always I welcome your thoughts and comments.
Will Shonbrun
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