Now, I don't want to go off on a rant here, but...

[khaosworks]

I understand the concern that people have about the OSU incident and the need to verify its authenticity, particularly the allegations that people were escorted out of the ceremonies. However, on the assumption that the Associated Press article previously referenced is correct, an announcement was indeed made warning students that anyone "demonstrating or heckling" would be subject to arrest and expulsion.

Now, I've heard arguments that this alone isn't enough to be angry about. That of course people are going to be removed if they're disruptive, that there is no evidence linking the Bush administration with the announcement, that at best it's a state matter and calling your local congressperson in South Dakota won't make any difference. All valid points, but they skirt the real issue. This isn't just about OSU.

Even if Bush did not sanction the announcement, even if it was overzealousness on the part of a single OSU official, it is unconscionable that such a threat be uttered to the graduating student body. There has been no evidence of any violent protest. There was no prior evidence of any violent protest in the offing. At worst, the notice was given that some students were going to turn their backs on the President. That is all. The threat was uncalled for, to say the least.

This isn't just about OSU. This latest incident is just one of a series of incidents that are symptoms of a malaise that has stricken the USA. It is a malignancy that has been actively encouraged by the Bush administration, and a sickness that is eating away at the roots of civil liberties. The paranoia since 9/11 has given birth to the USA-Patriot Act, the establishment of military tribunals, increased surveillance by the FBI in mosques, groping body searches at airports, and the military detention of US citizens indefinitely (not to mention non-citizens). And these are just what I can name off the top of my head.

Calling your congressperson or senator may not directly impact OSU, but if you will, ask them to draw attention to it in their next speech, and to all the little bits and pieces that have been eroding civil rights since 9/11. There is a bigger picture here to consider, the climate of fear that has been created by the bombings and encouraged by Bush and company. You may ask, of course, sure - they can affect Congress. They might, if they have the guts to stand up and call for a stop to the madness without being branded as traitors, even manage to introduce a bill to repeal the USA-Patriot Act. But what effect will they have on other groups?

Plenty. As congresspeople and senators, as representatives of the people, their voice counts, and are listened to, much more than your average person. They are people of influence, and that influence extends beyond their legislative function, let's not kid ourselves about this. If enough of your voices get to them, and enough of their voices get to the press, then it will, at the very least, start people thinking - maybe not at first, but sooner or later if they keep it up. And rational thought is the ultimate enemy of unthinking fear.

(As a sudden thought: what has Bush actually done, as an executive, since 9/11 aside from war-related stuff? Shouldn't there be debates on the budget, Medicare, finance reform, gun control? Where have all these issues gone? Not being sarcastic here - has he actually done anything else?)

Anyway, so don't just focus on OSU when you call your representative. Tell them this is only the latest in a long line of disturbing trends. Civil liberties are being cut away like slices of salami. Give up a little? What's the harm? So it's a little more inconvenient, we're at war. Well, since we've given up this much, what's a little more? And on, and on, and where does it stop? Where do you draw the line?

Of course, this is just my opinion. I may be wrong.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

You're trying to use the incident (whatever it was) at OSU to try and pressure people to take action about other things, and then you admit that the action you want them to take doesn't really have anything to do with the tool you're using to pressure them. In advertising, that's called bait-and-switch. You don't need it. Be honest and say what you think people should do because of the specific sources of the specific problem you ask them to address! If the problem you want them to fix is the Patriot Act, then tell them that because the Patriot Act was passed and should not have been, they should contact their legislators and tell them to repeal it. That's fair, and more than a good idea. But it doesn't have squat to do with OSU, and OSU should not be used as a tool to get people to do it. If you want them to go around trying to talk down their friends and neighbors from the paranoia that is generally sweeping the country, then tell them to do that, and if you want to use the act of a single state university on its own turf as an example, that's great. But don't tell them to do so by talking to their congresscritter and getting them to repeal a bill. Paranoia is not caused by legislation, and repealing a bill, or several, won't fix it. Keep your threads separate. OSU is about Ohio, and should be dealt with by Ohioans contacting the Ohio governor and state legislature. The Patriot Act is a matter for Congress, and Ohio has nothing to do with it. Paranoia is a matter for talking to human beings, across the country, and neither the Ohio nor the federal governments have anything to do with it. All three may be good and right things to do, but mixing them all together is sloppy if it is not dishonest.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

I may be baiting, but I'm not switching. I do want people to do something about the OSU thing. The man who made the announcement should be fired from his job. However, I am using it to draw attention to a wider problem - how is that being dishonest? Dishonest is telling people they should be afraid when there is no reason to be that afraid. Dishonest is trying to dismiss this incident as insignificant. Dishonest is trying to characterise my only solution as repealing a frickin' bill, when it is plain I want people to start speaking out, among other things. Sloppy is not recognizing the erosion of your civil liberties when it's right in front of your face. Cowardice is refusing to take action because you think it's not going to affect anything.

Re:

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Dishonest, sloppy *and* cowardly is the implication that I have done any one of the things you mention. I'm probably the only person in this discussion who actually has contacted the Ohio governor's office about this, and I've been bugging congresspeople in two states over the last half-year about the civil rights issues. Because I consider your crowd manipulation tactics reprehensible, you decide I must be lax in my own pursuit of common goals -- or, more likely, you don't know or care what I actually do, you seek only a means to discredit anyone who points out your faulty reasoning and dangerous demagoguery. It reassures me tremendously that you're halfway around the world from the people you seek to influence, since your methods are identical to those of your opponents. We have quite enough people trying to stir up terror in people too credulous to analyze for content, thank you.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

You've known from the outset my own position is outside the US, so that's a cheap shot. Am I incapable of a comment because I'm outside the situation? And since you're advocating doing nothing, how am I to assume you have doing anything to contact the authorities you mention? I note you're not even going on the merits of the claim anymore, but preferring to launch accusations of crowd manipulation, as if there's a crowd for me to speechify before that is hailing me and silencing you. Where's your analysis of my content then? Where's the bait-and-switch you were talking of? Show me specifics.

Bottom line, I think you're being narrow minded in your perspective. You seem to be under the impression that the OSU Incident is trivial, or that I believe it is trivial and using it for my own purposes. Neither is true in my view. I don't believe it is at all trivial, and I have never been less than up front about it in my discussions. I also believe it is part of a pattern, and am trying to draw attention to the pattern, while you seem only interested in dealing with it as an isolated incident. You are welcome to disagree, certainly, as to OSU's place in the pattern, but I still believe that is a blinkered perspective.

Re:

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

You're so far misinterpreting me that it's hard even to know where to start. I have never said nor implied that the OSU incident was trivial. I have said that it is properly handled by speaking to state officials rather than federal officials. I don't think that police brutality or education reform are trivial either, and they are both handled at the state level. Talking to the federal government about it is simply a waste of time; it is not their project.

I have also never advocated doing nothing, either about the OSU incident or about the degradation of civil rights protections recently in general. I do advocate doing *specific* things, in response to specific violations or, proactively, in order to further specific legislation or executive action. Everything you have said amounts to "Go yell at the feds since they're the top of the heirarchy, and tell them to Make Paranoia Stop!!" This is worse than useless. Going to the individual people in each layer of government who have the power and constitutional authority to make a particular change and telling them to make that specific change is useful. Congress can't do a damn thing about OSU, and it can't do a damn thing about general paranoia. It should be approached with the things it *can* fix; the others should be reserved for the people who can fix them.

The law deals in patterns only in the aftersight. It makes them case by case, and they matter on a structural level only for purposes of stare decisis. I see the pattern you describe and agree with you both as to its existence and the need to counteract it, but you will not achieve the purpose by ranting generically at your Senator about the paranoid state of the country. You will achieve the purpose by watching for individual instances, such as the events at OSU; researching the details until you know them better than your opposition could ever hope to learn; and seeking out the specific people capable of dealing with the problem. Do this with enough incidents and you find there is no pattern anymore. Rant at your senator about the pattern and he will tune you out and nothing will change at all.

I don't expect you to realize this. I didn't mean your location as a cheap shot; there are plenty of people in America I wish were with you, because they make the same mistakes you do and I'm tired of dealing with them here. It's a mindset problem, not a location problem; the location mitigates it because it means you're unlikely to be able to do much damage with that political gun you're firing wildly in random directions.

I prefer to aim for my target. How you interpreted this as meaning I refuse to fight, I have no idea, except that you seem in general to be happy to consider that any perspective besides yours doesn't really exist.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

What disturbs me slightly about your above post is the suggestion that you want to deport people who share a specific mindset that you dislike, but that's just by the way.

If I am misinterpreting you, you are equally misinterpreting me. I am not advocating going to yell at your representative. Yelling certainly makes no difference. I am advocating going up to them and communicating your outrage at the OSU incident and connecting it to the myriad other instances - not as some grand conspiracy theory - but as symptoms of this paranoia that is infecting the country and has to stop. Specific instances I pointed out in the first post on the subject, not a generic "paranoia paranoia paranoia" Chicken Little cry,

I'm talking rational debate, not swamping with telegrams. I'm talking drawing attention to the problem and asking your representative to come out and take a stand on it. Yes, if the USA-Patriot Act could be repealed that would be nice, thank you very much, but that's not just what people should be after. People should be more aware of what's going on and the internal threat that is actually there. And hey, did I say stop at your representative? If you want to continue spreading the word elsewhere, go ahead.

What you have said in your reply above I absolutely agree with. Research the topic, get to know it, and present it properly. What I disagree is your proposal that it be a piecemeal, case-by-case approach, because it is obvious that there is no case-by-case approach being done and there is a larger pattern that needs to be addressed. This is not mere rhetoric. This is trying to tackle the problem from the angle of the existing symptoms as well as - not rather than - the underlying disease.

And again, I am well aware that Congress cannot "fix" paranoia through law. But I am also aware, and have stated so, that congresspeople and senators are more public figures and are capable of having a stronger voice to spread views even though they may have little to do with actual legislation. They have a function above their legislative one, so what's wrong with trying to use that?

Finally, despite your believe I do know your perspective exists. If I thought it didn't what have I been arguing with these last few posts? I simply submit that it is still narrow.

Re:

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

*If I thought it didn't what have I been arguing with these last few posts?*

A strawman you invented which purported to advocate doing nothing and saying nothing about a problem it considered trivial. As that has absolutely nothing to do with my actual position, I am still forced to believe that you don't, or at least didn't, really think my genuine position existed.

Speaking of strawman, please, get a grip. I want to deport people whose mindset I dislike in exactly the same way that someone might grouse that they wish everyone in front of them in line would drop dead, when they're in a hurry.

You use lots of fine rhetorical flourishes such as "take a stand" and "speak out," and not one of them means anything at all. When I ask what, PRECISELY, you wish people to do, you say I'm treating a broad subject piecemeal. If it's treating it piecemeal to say I will only tell someone how to do their job if I know exactly what I'm planning to tell them to do and have reason to think it within their power to do it, very well. I maintain that to tell the world at large to do something you can't exactly define, when most of the people you're talking to are in the wrong positions to do it is wasteful to the point of madness.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Have you been actually reading what I've been posting? I have said what I would like people to do quite explicitly, and as specifically as I can without drawing up a road-map for people to follow. I want people to tell their congressmen about OSU, draw their attention to this and say that this is part of several incidents that need looking at and that it is symptomatic of a paranoia in this country formented by the Bush administration for no good reason and they should speak out about it - by which, if you don't know what that phrase means - is to talk about the issue and criticize it without being afraid of being labelled as a traitor to the war on terrorism - among other things, one of which would be to propose a bill to repeal the USA-Patriot Act. How precise do you want me to get without actually telling you which foot to put forward?

This is obviously getting us nowhere, so I suggest we table this.

Re:

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I want you to list what bills you want the congressmen to pass -- a minimum of one bill for each and every incident you want us to mention to them, or I consider the incident improper to mention. Those which are active legislation rather than repeal, I want you to draft, and send or post copies of the draft to be forwarded to said congresspeople. I want you to act like a professional, for crying out loud. You're supposed to know something about the law, even if it's not this law, so leave the touchy-feely stuff out of the legislative process and treat Congress as a staff position, not a godhood. Staff must be given explicit instructions; telling them to make it aww better now is idiotic.

We've been through enough of this; no further posts answered. Have the last word; it's your journal.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but writing a bill for every incident I mention is just insane, since I am not proposing laws to combat OSU's stupidity, but for the representative to bring public attention to that. And your proposal that I draft out the bills I want them to pass is also idiotic because that's not my function - even if I was a citizen. You seem to be suggesting every citizen draft out their own bills and send them along to the congressperson everytime someone suggests there ought to be a law.

You appear to believe that a congressperson has one function and one function only. That's blinkered, and I disagree completely. I have not even suggested they can solve everything. But I have stated that they are in a good position to educate the public and inform the public so people should use that representative authority if at all possible,

Thanks for letting me have the last word.

[binkiegirl.livejournal.com]

In this atmosphere of trumped up fear and irrational thinking, it's precisely something like the incident at OSU that can be used to show people the dangers that lie in this erosion of civil liberties.

Many who have brushed off concerns about the over zealous nature of opportunistic politicians are beginning to string together antidotal stories like these and comr up with a bigger picture of what this might mean for the future of our nation.

Sadly, human history is littered with the results of people cowering away from action. When we look over the ruins of civilizations, or the damage done by shortsighted leaders, we often wave banners that read “Never Forget” and then we promptly do.

For someone to take an example like OSU and use it as evidence of a growing problem is far more productive than simply branding our leaders as opportunistic and evil. (This, unfortunately seems to be the strategy of much of the left leaning community) What happened here (yes, I live in Ohio) this weekend is deplorable.

The right for peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy and the idea that one can pick and choose from the body of our United States Constitution is nothing short of ludicrous. The first amendment has been curtailed, the fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth…. and more have been compromised in the name of safety and the “war” of Terror (we’ve yet to declare war, and my Junior High School Constitution class taught me it’s a right exercised by the United States Congress, not the Executive Branch, but I could be wrong). The second amendment, however, stands completely undisturbed. (Far be it from me to point out the ludicrousness of this….known & suspected terrorists can’t have the records of firearm purchases traced, yet they can be held without charges on secret evidence for an open ended period of time. This makes sense to whom? ) Even John Ashcroft said in his confirmation hearings he couldn’t pick and choose what laws to uphold, that he must uphold all of them…yet actions seem to differ from that ideal.

This is not about partisan politics. This is about the very basis of our nation being dismantled before our eyes. This is a slap in the face of our fathers and grandfathers who fought and died for us. If it takes the highlight of a fiasco like Saturday’s OSU graduation to call people to action, I say BAIT AWAY, Mr. KhaOS. We’ll all be better for it.

Re:

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

In other words, the ends justify any means. It's thinking like that which caused the very problems you (and I) deplore in the first place.

Demagoguery is dangerous no matter what the cause. If you want to see where your thinking leads, pick up a good history of France and look up a gentleman named Robespierre.

[(Anonymous)]

Bait on, Mr. Khaos, bait on. Anyone who would take a shot at you for being halfway around the world isn't worthy of a response in the first place.

Try posting something advocating gun control; you'll get the scariest e-mail in the world for a couple of weeks.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

My position on gun control may surprise people. Briefly, I support the 2nd Amendment and believe it is an individual right to possess arms and not a collective right as argued by most civil libertarians. However, I advocate compulsory training before issuing a firearm for people to use and at least some kind of licensing system (with safeguards built in to protect privacy). But that's a whole other rant.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

No ranting here. I was hoping to find a local tie-in to the Bush thing at OSU, but couldn't. Condi Rice was speaking at Stanford, but they were allowed to protest. OTOH, Stanford is a private university, and its President, John Hennesey (sp?), is a good guy (I remember dealing with him when he was a EE professor and my ex-husband maintained the computer he used).

Anyhow, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (the daughter of former President JFK) has co-authored a couple of books on erosion of civil liberties. I find it interesting coming out of someone who's lived in the White House.

Warren had an interesting take on the Bush censorship. When Chelsea Clinton was living in the Stanford dorms, someone published in the Stanford Daily the name of the dorm in which she was residing. The student who published this was expelled from the college for doing so. Is that any different?