Sarah Olson, a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay area, has became a hero for Americans concerned about the erosion of press freedoms in the Bush era. On May 30, 2006, Olson interviewed Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq, for the Web site truthout.org and Pacifica Radio. For that refusal,… return to article
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Reader Comments (6)Page 1 of 1 pagesThere doesn’t seem to be that great a difference between the USA today and the USSR back then when they jailed or sent to the Gulag any journalist who opposed their ideology. There is probably no difference except in the finer distinctions of how to control dissent between the two countries (even today). The USSR burned the books when it came to the rights of their citizens. Here in America, we cook the books, and then send them to jail.
Posted by davinci on Feb 26, 2007 at 1:22 AM “I, Ehren Watada , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 26, 2007 at 9:57 AM So nice to live in a free society where we can imagine it is as bad as the former USSR out loud with no possibility of retribution. We can even say Bush is a Hitler or that the war in Iraq is a genocide. We do not have any responsibility to be accurate and very very few people are ever persecuted for political speech, regardless of accuracy. We can say what we please with no fear or retribution (military folks cannot disparage their chain of command, however)
Perhaps davinci can enlighten me though? Any Jon Stewarts in the former USSR? How about code pinks or crazy cinda sheehans? How many people are deported to gulags in Alaska (or whatever “our Siberia” might be?)?
Silly silly silly. Sure things are not perfect, things can be improved, but overexaggerating does not help ones case. . .
Posted by wolf on Feb 26, 2007 at 11:58 AM Wolf and TexASS are two of the stupidest neocons to post here. You morons need to read Noam Chomsky and other intellectual giants like Gabriel Kolko and Chalmers Johnson instead of being the utterly stupid ass Bushites you are. Bush IS the primary enemy we have to defend our
Constitution against. The murder in Iraq IS mass murder based on lies, probably not “genocide” but hasn’t happened since ancient Biblical times. If you understate the evil of Bush & Co. that too is an exaggeration
the other way and as wide of the mark the other way.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 26, 2007 at 5:30 PM Yes, perhaps Wolf needs to be enlightened, as he says. His response to my post was simplistic and knee-jerk. Perhaps he’s missed the entire point on the comparison between the USA and the USSR or simply refuses to acknowledge how things really are in the US were politicians publicly quibble over token policy issues so the people think their elected officials are doing something for them.
Sure, Americans are allowed to say anything they want but the political class simply ignores them; that’s the beauty of that system because it’s difficult to fight against. Americans say just about anything they want but nothing is really done about what they say, except, like I said, on token issues that don’t really matter. Mainstream media completes the illusion.
As far as Gulags go, there is another form of “Gulag” that is highly popular in America today and it’s called America’s growing prison population. America has more people in jail than any other country on earth. And more are being built every day and run as private corporations. This form of Gulag will continue to fragment the society and further divide the country into deeper class divisions.
Posted by davinci on Feb 27, 2007 at 2:58 AM davinci - you do make a good point on the US prison system, especially since a very significant fraction (~50%, i think) are there due to minor drug related crimes.
I do not get your point that “Americans are allowed to say anything they want but the political class simply ignores them”. I suppose in the Netherlands (actually one of my favorite places to visit) if you speak your mind your political class listens? If it does, i strongly recommend that you speak out against Muslim extremists in your own land, but be careful, they are deadly on your turf.
One thing that strikes me as obviously true. Europe is tending toward more socialistic forms of governance, while the US is tending more towards capitalism with some socialistic safety nets. Our economy is obviously much stronger, but the least of us do worse here than there. Of course, given how incredibly diverse our population is (and the other markers of our civilization are), our issues and problems are quite different from the much more homogeneous states of Europe.
Posted by wolf on Mar 2, 2007 at 9:26 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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Also by Lisa Sousa
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