Editorial 13.2, February/March 2011. by Deirdre Helfferich They Aren't Gonna Take It Anymore—Are We? Sometimes, there are so many astounding things happening in the world that I suffer writer’s block not from a dearth of ideas, but from too many of them rattling around in my head to make it out onto the paper. This is one of those months. The Republic’s Index of the Absurd would make a book-length list this time around. So I think I’ll just list two of the more mind-boggling bits of news out there, and keep my editorializing short and sweet on each one. Bear in mind, dear reader, that each could make a full editorial in and of itself. The Flash Revolution The cascade of (mostly) peaceful protests-cum-revolutions in the Middle East and the Maghreb triggered by Wikileaks revelations and facilitated by Twitter and Facebook has done more for democracy in three months than all the post-Cold-War posturing and tyrant-supporting that the US could do in the last seventy years. Ten countries are experiencing tremendous upheavals and public demands for democratic governance and freedom of speech: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen are all According to Al-Jazeera, the same thing is happening elsewhere in Africa, in Cartoum, Djibouti, Eastern Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Zimbabwe. These countries are not getting the media attention that their northern neighbors are, yet they also have access to social media, and well-connected networks of mobile phones. Regular people can now rapidly demand change, arrange to meet or to protest, quickly inform each other of developments or change plans—and scare the bejeesus out of those who prefer the stability of control, centralization of authority, and really don’t like the messiness of actual functioning democracy. Revolutions can now happen so fast that the top-down command structure of totalitarianism can’t keep up. The people in the street can demand accountability, and get it. Let’s just hope they can keep it. The Wrong T-Shirt Meanwhile, back in the US, seventy-one-year-old retired CIA analyst and army officer Ray McGovern was assaulted and beaten by (as it turned out) a plainclothes security man during a speech by Hillary Clinton. After she came on the stage, and the applause died down, McGovern, instead of sitting down like the rest of the audience, turned away from the stage and remained standing where he was. He was wearing a t-shirt that said “Veterans for Peace” on it. McGovern, after his retirement, has become a peace activist. (See his article, “Standing up to War and Hillary Clinton,” for his view on the incident, the Iraq war’s buildup, and Clinton.) CBS described him as a “heckler,” but all he did was stand there silently. That is not heckling. (He did shout when he was attacked, and again as he was dragged, handcuffed, bruised, and bleeding, through the auditorium doors, though.) Ironically, Clinton was praising the protestors in Egypt and Iran, condemning the reprisals against them, speaking about the internet as a public space. She said,
Clinton did not object to the brutal treatment of McGovern, or even appear to notice, although it happened right in front of her. Apparently, the right to express one’s views freely are universal—except in the United States in front of Hillary Clinton. Veterans for Peace has demanded an apology. | ||
 | | |
