http://www.populist.com/00.8.jensen.html
or
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/bushdemo.htm

by Robert Jensen

Here in the United States, a democracy with legal guarantees of freedom
of
speech, I was arrested for asking a question about public policy of a
former public official in public. More than a year later, I’m still
waiting
to find out if I will be punished for that basic act of citizenship.

Here’s how it all started: During a break in a book reading by former
President George Bush in the Texas House of Representatives chambers in
November 1998, I stood up in the gallery and loudly asked a question
about
his support for the economic sanctions on Iraq that have killed more
than 1
million civilians.

It was not an “authorized” question-and-answer period, but there was no
stated ban on asking a question at that moment. I had waited until Bush
had
finished and did not interrupt his speech. I was loud in order to be
heard,
but I posed no threat and was not carrying anything that could have
been
misidentified as a weapon. I left without hesitation when a state
trooper
asked. The only person at risk was me; the woman next to me was so
angry
that I thought she was going to impale me with her umbrella.

I got out alive, with a serious scolding from the woman for being
impolite.
I also was charged with a class B misdemeanor for “disrupting a public
meeting.” A county judge has thrown out the charge on a technicality,
and
now I’m waiting to find out if the prosecutor will file amended charges
and
start the process all over.

In one sense, there’s not much at stake in this case. I’m a tenured
professor with lots of status and privilege. If convicted, I would face
a
fine and some community service. But there are two reasons I didn’t
want my
lawyer to plea bargain.

My first concern has to do with freedom of speech and a meaningful
political process.

Certainly, no one individual should expect the right to walk into a
meeting
and take control of the discussion. But arresting me for simply asking
a
question that did not disrupt the meeting was clearly a political
decision.
If I had stood up and told George Bush that I thought he was the
greatest
president in history, I may well have been asked to sit down and be
quiet,
but I wouldn’t have been arrested. They hauled me out of the room
because
of the content of my speech, which goes directly against what in First
Amendment law is called content-neutrality -- the doctrine that the
government can’t discriminate based on the content of the speech.

My question came during the opening of the annual Texas Book Festival,
which is usually fairly apolitical. But that year, the presence of Bush
and
former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft turned that opening
event
into a Republican Party party, with the usual political cronies in
attendance. It was one more scripted political event so typical of
public
life in the television age.

Rather than seeing my intervention as a disruption, folks should have
been
grateful. Along with the other member of our political group who stood
up
after me and also was arrested, I tried to force some real politics --
public discussion of important policy questions -- into the event. If
we
are to recover a sense of politics and democracy that goes beyond TV
commercials and pseudo-events, such interactions are crucial.

But my concern is not limited to the state of the political process. I
stood up because the ongoing U.S. war against Iraq -- a war being
carried
out through sporadic bombings and the most brutal economic embargo in
history -- was, and remains, a crime against humanity.

I live in a country that pursues policies which each month, according
to
UNICEF figures, kill 5,000 children under the age of 5 in Iraq --
deaths
that are a direct result of the deliberate destruction of the civilian
infrastructure during the Gulf War (one of several U.S. war crimes in
that
attack) and the sanctions still in place almost 10 years later. In the
hour
that Bush and Scowcroft entertained the crowd and basked in their
standing
ovations at the Texas Capitol, six more children in Iraq died from the
effects of malnutrition, lack of medicine and contaminated water.
Although
Bush is no longer directing U.S. foreign policy, his appearance was an
appropriate place to protest because of his role in creating this
crisis.

Why does the Clinton administration refuse to follow the rest of the
world,
which wants to end the suffering of the Iraqi people and lift the
economic
embargo? We’re told the sanctions must stay in place to force Iraq to
comply with weapons inspections, with perhaps the added goal of forcing
the
Iraqi people to overthrow the Hussein regime. But the sanctions’ main
mission is simply to break the Iraqi people until we get a compliant
government that will follow U.S. orders. The attack on Iraq also serves
as
a warning to the world: If you defy the United States, this is what
happens
-- we will destroy you, we will kill your children.

In 1996 when interviewed on “60 Minutes,” Madeline Albright -- then
U.S..
ambassador to the United Nations and now secretary of state -- was
asked if
the deaths of a half-million children in Iraq were an acceptable price
to
pay for a policy. She didn’t contest the figure. “I think this is a
very
hard choice,” Albright acknowledged. “But the price -- we think the
price
is worth it.”

When a high-ranking official believes the deaths of a half-million
children
are worth it to shore up U.S. power, it is the job of U.S. citizens to
stand up and say: “Not in my name will you commit these crimes. Not in
my
name will more people die.”

There is a truism about silence: All it takes for evil to flourish is
for
good people to remain silent. When we stood up in the Texas Capitol
gallery, we were loud. The critical question is not why were we loud,
but
why are so many so silent?

Robert Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism at the
University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. To read other articles, go to
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/freelance.htm.