mark (02/16/83)
Good grief. Only at Berkeley. The east side of campus is still in the 60's - free entertainment every noon! The poor woman was brought there to give a speech. Frankly I can't understand not giving her a chance to speak her piece. They could have asked questions or argued with her at the end of the talk. I don't recall seeing any news coverage of this in Columbus at all. What's this about how the last time "they" (apparently foreign oppressed workers) had a forum, the US installed a regime that shut them up? If you're so big on concrete examples, why do you make vague references like this? To what are you referring?
zrm (02/16/83)
Had I been there to hear Mrs. Kirkpatrick, I would have been very annoyed at the cretins shouting her down, but at this distance I am happy for the effect the incident will have in discrediting the knee-jerk and uninformed reaction many college students have to this administration's policies. A few years ago I attended a lecture by the former director of the CIA, William Colby. There he was repeatedly heckled by Iranian students opposing the Shah. Some of these same students are now passing out leaflets calling for the overthrow of the Ayatollah. Some of them are in Iran, fighting the current regime in guerrilla groups. Some of them are dead. It's really too bad that the students who shouted Mrs. Kirkpatrick down will never be able to experience the life of a Nicaraguan peasant. How soon would the more intelligent of them be in the "contras", shooting the same Sandinistas those students romanticize? How soon would the less intelligent among them be in prison for shooting their mouths off? When have you EVER seen a screaming bunch of Young Republicans should anyone down? What is it about leftists that makes them blind to reason? Cheers, Zig That is, makes some of them blind. But most of the calm reasoning I have heard from leftists is on civil libertarian issues, on which I am usually in agreement with them.
gnu (02/17/83)
I, for one, side with the hecklers. It's clear that people in positions of power created by the structure of the government are (1) almost always out of touch with what we peons feel, and (2) even when/if they find out, are usually inclined to go on doing whatever they think is the correct thing to do. This would be well and good if it didn't have such a disproportionate effect on our lives. If it took years of riots and demonstrations and heckling to get Richard Nixon out of power (and one of the most satisfying things was finding out afterward just how worried he was by all of it), a disrupted speech by our current mealymouthed Ambassador to the Ignore Reality in favor of Public Relations Club is strictly minor league. If we don't make life hard for these people, they'll keep on destroying our chance at a good life and a more just world. John Gilmore, Sun Microsystems
trb (02/17/83)
Re: Hecklers Oh, horrors. I dare (DARE!) someone out there to give me one good reason why someone at a talk like Jean Kirkpatrick's UCB talk should heckle. What possible gain is there for the heckler? Attention? Nonsense. Why would a cause want to attract averse attention to itself? Heckling does not demonstrate the victim's guilt. It doesn't demonstrate the heckler's virtue. Heckling just shows that the heckler is inconsiderate, and is probably plagued by feelings of inferiority. There are always ways of expressing yourself in a more effective way than heckling. Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ (201) 386-6491
jfw (02/18/83)
Regarding heckling as "The Right Way To Get Back At The Establishment": If your opinions are correct and provable, prove them with reason and discussion. Heckling someone off a stage is motivated by *exactly* the same ideas that keep the KGB busy shipping people off to "mental hospitals" and kept the SS busy in Nazi Germany shipping people off to Auschwitz. ``Let no dissenting voice be heard!'' A**h***ing out like that only discredits your views (except to others of like kind...).
turner (02/18/83)
#R:rabbit:-113300:ucbesvax:2900004:000:2662
ucbesvax!turner Feb 17 16:20:00 1983
In your flame above, we find the following statement:
I find the behavior of college students (in my day as well)
who "KNOW" the facts in advance, and who KNOW what the speaker
is going to say, so incredibly thoughtless and anti-free speech
that I lack the ability to make a reasoned argument against them.
Without going into the issue of your ability to make a reasoned
argument, I would like first to point out that Jeane Kirkpatrick,
upon re-assuming the podium (which she did, it turns out) went on
in pretty much the same predictable vein. I.e., steering clear of
specifics, and blathering on to the effect "that concern for human
rights forms the core of U.S. foreign policy". During the question-
and-answer session that followed, someone asked bout the abysmal human-
rights record of Guatemala, and whether it merited the recent resumption
of military aid. Jeane Kirkpatrick denied any knowledge of this
resumption, which was announced several days ago. Then someone from
the audience volunteered the figure: a little over $6 million. So much
for who "KNOWS" the facts in advance. Kirkpatrick, having recently
arrived from a tour of Latin America with praise for the Guatemalan
government for their "improvements", could hardly have been ignorant
of this.
The protesters were not judging Kirkpatrick in advance (unless, of
course, they were interrupting her announcement of a recent conversion
to Amnesty International). Nor were they interested in quashing freedom
of expression. What they were attacking was a woman who consistently
HIDES facts, IGNORES them, and, when they happen to be forced upon her
attention, simply DISMISSES them, whenever these facts happen to make
U.S. foreign policy on human rights look at all hypocritical.
You have not addressed my question: Kirkpatricks "freedom of expression"
is moot, in this case, since her position as U.N. ambassador virtually
guarantees her a hearing in the press. The people for whom the protestors
speak cannot afford to do so themselves, in most cases, because they live
in countries which are not free. U.S. foreign policy (which according to
Kirkpatrick, has human rights at its core) has quite consistently
been on the side of shutting them up. So who is defending freedom of
expression here?
Personally, I don't think that booing an arrogant liar off the stage
is "Totalitarian." As for having my "perceptions of the world"
changed by an arrogant liar...well, there are only so many cold days
in hell.
Michael Turnerturner (02/18/83)
#R:mitccc:-33400:ucbesvax:2900005:000:1643
ucbesvax!turner Feb 17 16:38:00 1983
There is plenty of good evidence that the lot of the
Nicaraguan peasant has improved dramatically since the revolution.
Only so much can be expected in terms of economic improvements when
the man who owned 60% of the nation's land takes his life savings
out of the country when he leaves. Somoza was a multi-billionaire,
by some accounts: how honestly he came by this wealth can be judged
the popularity[sic] of the ex-National Guard, his private army. Nobody
in Nicaragua in their right mind (no matter how much they oppose the
current regime) wants the Guardia back. Strong evidence of this comes
from our own State Department, which, while interested in destabilizing
Nicaragua by any means possible, is now withdrawing support for any
organization with strong ties with the ex-Guardia. Even THEY realize
the SOME popular support is necessary for overthrow of the current
regime. Now all they have to do is get Nicaraguans to forget who
ARMED the Guardia...a tough one.
As for the brave and free "contra" militias, I refer you to
the current issue of "Covert Action Information Bulletin". There
is a detailed report on the extent to which the Miskitu Indians
in the Northeast have been manipulated by the C.I.A. and various
right-wing evangelist groups. Of course, you never hear about the
atrocities commited by the "contras" in the U.S. press. The details
(rape and ritual murder) about the activities of these fanatics makes
current reporting on Nicaragua in the U.S. dailies look a trifle
one-sided, to say the least.
Michael Turnerturner (02/18/83)
#R:mitccc:-33400:ucbesvax:2900006:000:3172
ucbesvax!turner Feb 17 17:08:00 1983
In response to this question:
What's this about how the last time "they" (apparently foreign
oppressed workers) had a forum, the US installed a regime that
shut them up? If you're so big on concrete examples, why do you
make vague references like this? To what are you referring?
Pardon me - I sometimes assume that people know something about U.S.
interventions, while at the same time attacking the news media and
educational system which buries such items.
In Indonesia, several MILLION people died in a military take-over
in 1965. The presence of the CIA has been confirmed, but their
precise role is conveniently hazy. Continuing U.S. support for that
regime was seen in 1979 during the Carter administration, when Indonesia
invaded East Timor, a recently-decolonized Portuguese possession.
At that time, the State Department counted the total casualties in
the small thousands. This was contradicted by sources in the
Indonesia government who unapologetically offered figures in the tens
of thousands. The figures of independent relief agencies are in
the HUNDREDS of thousands, including famine deaths resulting from the
withholding of international food aid to war refugees. In all, Indonesia
seems to have wiped out a third of the population of this small country.
The U.S. role was one of being the source of uninterrupted supply of
arms to the Indonesian invading army.
Guatemala has been characterized by Amnesty International as
having the worst human rights record in the western hemisphere.
These rights violations are generally of the most straightforward
kind: decimation (and sometimes outright extermination) of Indian
villages suspected of harboring rebels. The Catholic church
has problems keeping its mission priests alive in this country.
When its current dictator, Rios Montt, had to face the moral ambiguity
of being a Catholic and presiding over a regime that kills priests,
he simply converted to a protestant sect (Maranatha Ministries, which
is also a suspected funnel for CIA arms and personnel.) This govern-
ment is so bad that Congress almost always votes down any military
or police aid. (Some civilian aviation parts are starting to go
through, however.) Reagan likes it, though. He thinks they've been
given a bad rap.
The Phillipines goes back too far to follow under the category
of OBSCURE regions where U.S. foreign policy has translated into
totalitarianism. You can actually read about this in history text-
books. Even now, though, one reads in the papers about how Marcos'
party got 95% of the vote in some election, with no mention of the
fact that voting is mandatory, and that anyone who stands for election
in an opposing party is usually found dead in a ditch outside the
city limits sometime before election day. (Actually, people don't
even try anymore, from what I understand.)
I'll go on, if you like. But it's all been written about,
believe me. Would you like a bibliography? It would save me some
typing.
Michael TurneravsdS:avsdT:roberts (02/18/83)
Bravo to gnu for nailing it down. As a person who during the sixties was quite involved, I'm glad to see that some of the main reasons all that stuff that went down back then still prevails!! One of the sixties bums R.R. .
sam (02/18/83)
References: ucbcad.612 "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Thomas Jefferson Perhaps the concept of netnews is similar to the newspapers of Jeffersons day. Certainly he couldn't have known about the trash tabloids that flourish in this country, or TV "news", which is more entertainment than information. Certainly, in these times, the great struggle is for the minds of men and women. Sadly, many have filled their minds with the dreck produced by the various groups that struggle to gain advantage, or deny a hearing to reason. In this net, this struggle has been be observed. I am glad to see that reason prevails here.
jj (02/18/83)
Well, Mr. Turner, I think you missed the point. The behavior of the crowd that was described in the first article on the subject demonstrates EXACTLY a grevious violation of human rights. I would argue, using your own ideas, that support for the students at the rally should be terminated, due to their bad record on human rights. While I must grant that there is a difference in the severity of the violation, I would question you as to the differences that you perceive between the Cubans and the current Guatamalan regime. The question of severity can be used in exactly the same fashion. I won't argue about what was said, although I do suspect that there exists some misundertanding between the crowd (or at least part of it) and the speaker. Having been a part of such crowds in the past, I can imagine that the misunderstanding could be deliberate, at least for some. (Possibly on both sides) If you ever see the movie (or show) Cabaret, pay close attention to the scene that I mentioned in my original article, the one in the ?bar? where the song "The Future Belongs to Me" is introduced. I equate the described behavior with that scene, and I fear the same sort of results. You should notice that I have not taken a stance on the political issue, since that is NOT the point of the original article. I note that you have taken a stance, at least as far as making the judgement that the Cubans are better able to govern Guatamala than the Guatamalans. While I might (and do) differ with your stance, that is immaterial to this argument. (Notice I do not use the word discussion, since emotional references and sophistry have run rampant throughout.) I intend to let this article be my last word on this subject, as it has been my experience that such arguments tend to degenerate into name-calling and deliberate misinterpretation of the other's argument. I urge readers of the following discussions to bear this fact in mind. rabbit!jj
glaser (02/19/83)
Some important issues have been raised in the net discussion of Jean Kirkpatrick's aborted speech at U.C. Berkeley. My $.02: Andy Tannenbaum: I dare (DARE!) someone out there to give me one good reason why someone at a talk like Jean Kirkpatrick's UCB talk should heckle. What possible gain is there for the heckler? What does Jeane [the right spelling] Kirkpatrick mean to you? To the hecklers (and, to a lesser degree, to me as well) she stands for a stupid and despotic foreign policy that condones butchery, if done in the name of anti-communism, and refuses to see any international problem as anything more than a manifestation of a global east-west struggle. Should such a person be heckled? I would say no, but can understand why some would say yes. The reasons for heckling: (1) In our society, criminals are not accorded full free speech. If you do not believe that this is so, then tell me how someone serving a life sentence for murder has the freedom to come to UCB and speak? (2) Given (1), we are left to determine who the criminals are. Normally, one might accept U.S. criminal proceedings as an appropriate deter- minant, but there are exceptions to this. If a Hitler or a Stalin were to visit my campus, I would do everything in my powers to prevent them from speaking, whether or not my government considered them criminals. Jim Johnson would disagree; he suggests that we Suppose for a minute that the person was trying to set up some perspective for her beliefs and actions. Suppose further that the lecture wouldn't make sense until you heard about her experience, which is, after all, greater than yours. I don't buy it, at least not a priori. There is NOTHING that Hitler could tell me that would convince me that it was right to kill N (N>15) million people, even though his experience is "greater than mine." Given those reasons for heckling, I would still, in this instance, have refrained from heckling. Why? (1) To my mind, Jeane Kirkpatrick is not a criminal of the same proportions as a Hitler or a Stalin. I understand the moral arguments that would equate her with them (e.g. complicity is as bad as action), but I don't agree with them. (2) Even in those cases where heckling is morally defensible, it is tactically inadvisable 98% of the time. Why? consider Johnson's reaction: Frankly, booing someone off the stage (also chanting them off, threatening them off, etc) is repulsive to me, simply because the hecklers are demonstrating that they do NOT want to hear a discussion, they want to be bullies. Zigurd R. Mednieks What is it about leftists that makes them blind to reason?
glaser (02/19/83)
(this is a continuation of previous message. My apologies; our inews
interface flakes out from time to time.)
[reasons for NOT heckling:]
(2) Even in those cases where heckling is morally defensible, it is
tactically inadvisable 98% of the time. Why? consider Johnson's
reaction:
Frankly, booing someone off the stage (also chanting them off,
threatening them off, etc) is repulsive to me, simply because the hecklers
are demonstrating that they do NOT want to hear a discussion, they want
to be bullies.
Any attempt to heckle or prevent "free speech" must be evaluated
pragmatically in light of this kind of probable reaction.
(3) I do have my days when I consider myself something of a civil
libertarian. When in doubt on a free speech issue, I say let
them speak. Note that this is a relativistic view; I would
feel perfectly right, indeed, morally obliged, to shut up a Hitler.
Finally, Zig Mednieks asks,
What is it about leftists that makes them blind to reason?
I consider myself a leftist. Am I blind to reason?
Rob Glaser
Yale University
(decvax!yale-com!glaser)pfps (02/20/83)
I just read Michael Turner's origional article (after getting a lot of follow-ups first) and I have a couple of points I would like to make. First, about forums: It seems to me that it is ridiculously easy to get news coverage for almost anything these days. I have seen protests that had only 15-20 people involved get national (Canadian) news coverage. I think that allegations that the U.S. helps other states violate human rights would pick up similar coverage (as they have in the past). Also, whenever I see news coverage of a speech such as Ambassador Kirkpatrick's any protests related to it are also covered (especially such things a vigil outside the place of the speech). Second, about the futility of heckling: I tend to give all possible benefit of doubt to people who have tried to present their views and were prevented from doing so. Ambassador Krikpatrick may have had a totally useless speach prepared but since she was prevented from delivering it effectively I cannot rule out the fact that she was ready to present a brilliant justification of U.S. foreign policy. (The only reason to doubt this is that she must have other methods of presenting her views, ones not interruptable by hecklers.) So, as far as I am concerned, the hecklers did their viewpoint considerable harm. (Aside from showing everyone that they are total boors.)
mmt (02/21/83)
========================
Finally, Zig Mednieks asks,
What is it about leftists that makes them blind to reason?
I consider myself a leftist. Am I blind to reason?
Rob Glaser
========================
Perhaps Zig thinks that because you consider yourself a leftist,
you have proved that you are blind to reason.
Martin Taylormcewan (02/23/83)
#R:yale-com:-92400:uiucdcs:32400001:000:556 uiucdcs!mcewan Feb 22 23:06:00 1983 "If a Hitler or a Stalin were to visit my campus, I would do everything in my powers to prevent them from speaking, whether or not my government considered them criminals." Why? What awful things would happen if they did speak? Would a large portion of the student body suddenly become nazis? I would be very grateful for the opportunity to hear either of these men speak, to see how they would justify themselves, to try to understand them and how they came to power. I find listening to someone I already completely agree with far less interesting.
turner (03/10/83)
#N:ucbesvax:2900002:000:4551
ucbesvax!turner Feb 15 20:06:00 1983
Today (Tuesday) at 4 PM the University of California at Berkeley
hosted, as part of its Jefferson Lecture Series, the U.S. Ambassador
to the United Nations, Jean Kirkpatrick. The campus chapter of
Students Against Intervention in El Salvador had organized a demon-
stration which started outside an hour before as a silent vigil, and
which was carried into the auditorium, where the silence ended.
Jean Kirkpatrick was heckled from the stage.
She was smoothly introduced by a member of the Law faculty here,
and proceeded to speak on her topic: Human Rights in U.S. Foreign
Policy. Not very long afterward, the M.C. reappeared, almost shouldering
Kirkpatrick aside, to ask for those in the audience "who have made their
point" to quiet down.
Kirkpatrick continued, and was again interrupted, first from the
crowd, then by the M.C. again, who began to talk about how he was
surprised that Berkeley, of all places, would be so intolerant of
"free speech". (He never actually USED the phrase "free speech"; he
built up to it rhetorically, but was never quite able to utter the name
of an early 60's campus uprising of the same name.)
Shortly after this, much of the crowd began to simply to chant
("U.S. Out of El Salvador!"); at some point someone either either shouted,
or hoisted a placard which attempted, a comparison of Kirkpatrick to the
Butcher of Lyon (Barbie?), the M.C. (or someone) ran up an aisle or two
to physically confront some of the hecklers, and the lecture was halted.
Some personal notes:
I was not actually present, but in a nearby building with live
video. Everything I have recounted here is camera's eye and microphone's
ear, subject to the possible weakness of my memory and strength of
my beliefs. In particular, I was unable to compare the strength of
the applause with that of the heckling, for all that it matters.
(Anyone who had a parallax view on this, spatially OR idealogically,
is invited to respond.)
Kirkpatrick spoke (quite interruptedly) for at most 15 minutes.
During this whole time she gave NOT ONE concrete example of what she
was talking about, while occasionally admonishing the demonstrators
to take a course in History, or Philosophy. Perhaps one day, the
Jefferson Lectures will be anthologized, and we can go searching for
whatever concrete examples she may have had in store for the audience.
I submit, however, that her talk was not even tending in that direction.
The demonstrators, on the other hand, were overflowing with concrete
examples. "What about South Africa?!" was a frequent one.
My ideas about freedom of expression were given quite a jolt by this
whole experience. While I do not much like chanting, or shouting slogans,
or disrupting speeches, my sympathies were with the demonstrators, and
not with Kirkpatrick or the sanctimonious M.C.
Kirkpatrick has a WORLD forum: the U.N. She can (and does) hold
press conferences to express her views. By contrast, Campesino farmers
in El Salvador, Indian peasants in Guatemala, and underpaid factory
workers in Thailand and in the Phillipines and in Indonesia do not have
a forum. The last time that they did have a forum, the U.S. intervened
and installed a "friendly, authoritarian" regime, blood flowed in the
gutters (and still does, in some of those places) and everybody shut up
again.
I DO think however, that we could have some healthy discussion about
such things HERE, since heckling is so easy to dispose of. My questions
about this event concern not so much whether it was right or wrong to
disrupt the lecture, but rather the effectiveness and motives of those
who did so.
Did it do any good? Was it a waste of energy? Will any media
exposure that results from it do any good? If this event was reported
in your local paper, or shown on television, how did the journalists
handle it? Do you think that people who organize such demonstrations
are less interested in drawing attention to the real problems than in
drawing attention to themselves?
And from the pro-Kirkpatrick side? Or those who might despise what
she stands for, but who would defend to their deaths her right to U.C.
Berkeley microphone? Let's hear that, too.
And all this over the net, if you please. This is a REAL forum, even
if Wheeler Auditorium wasn't on this particular evening.
Michael Turner