Antiwar protests.

Which "policies" do you mean? I know of no "policies" regarding speech which seek any of the things you list above, nor have I seen any discussed here.

????

I think we've discussed the Patriot Act quite a lot (phases 1 and 2, that is).

This is interesting, if off-topic: you mention WW1 and WW2 in the same breath. That makes me wonder - is WW1 in America generally considered a 'just' war, a morally justified war like WW2 so obviously was?

As far as I know, WW1 in Europe is generally considered the single most massive senseless killing in time memorial, and would never be mentioned in the same sentence with WW2. Especially south of here, in Belgium and France where the trenches scarred the landscape, it was the one war to inspire pacifism: such initial popular enthusiasm, such fervour to die for one's flag, in a war that turned out not just to be fundamentally more murderous than any before, but also to lack both just goals and sensible strategies - just masses of footsoldiers dying for so many kilometers of national territory this way or that way. The madness of nationalism embodied.

I'm not saying this is indeed a fair evaluation of the war, but I think it's been the image that stuck, in Europe, explaining much of the pacifism and appeasement of the 30s. Whereas of WW2, of course, the 'image to stick' was that of the gas chambers, symbolising the most just cause imaginable for a war (though we should remember the Allies at the time wer not overly concerned with the fate of the Jews).

How different is the proportion of these two wars seen in American popular perception? If there is indeed a perception of both being in the same category - of 'moral' wars, somehow, that's very intrigueing - is it because WW1 in the US is associated with Woodrow Wilson's idealism?

Sorry to be reading perhaps way too much in your post ... just being suddenly curious!

During their march from the Baton Rouge Beach to LSU's Greek Amphitheater, about 70 peace demonstrators said they support American armed forces, but they oppose the government that sent them into war.

About the same number of people, incited by a local radio station, shouted them down with obscenities, patriotic chants and cries of "Traitor!"

Along with plenty of American flags, several of the signs they carried demeaned the marchers: "Protesting this war while our troops are being killed is equal to treason," read one. "You should all be shot."

"Radio disc jockeys called to inform me they had asked their listeners to come and use profanity, to insult us," said Caitlin Grabarek, a student organizer who said she got harassing phone messages after KOOJ mentioned the peace rally on the air.

[The anti-war protestors] had just begun to gather when a shouting match erupted between the anti-war camp and the crowd that showed up to oppose them.

Richard Condon, a morning show host for rock station KOOJ, said he wanted the hecklers to "put these goofballs in their place."

"This has been going on since World War I, and it's the reason they have the right to feel the way they do," Condon said, pointing at the peace protesters marching down Stanford toward LSU.

Despite that right, he concluded, "I think these son-of-a-buggers deserve a bullet in the head."

This followed his proclamation to the crowd at the beach about American military aims that ended with: "And it's about time we nuked Canada's ass!"

The Baton Rouge Advocate

And it goes on........

Whew, PDiddie -- Sounds like Clear Channel at work again. Nasty stuff. Inevitable, I guess...

PDiddie
No surprise at all. It was almost a foregone conclusion that with about 80% of the public, at least in accordance to the latest polls, in favor of the action in Iraq and our people in harms way a negative reaction to the peace movement was inevitable. Based on several articles I have recently seen many of these organizations {not the radical ones} have seen the light and are toning down their act.

Stay on message and don't offend - it works!

Au - But there is an enormous difference between staying at home and growling to friends about the peace marchers, and using the public airwaves to making threatening sounds about them. Only a bully says "80% of the population find you offensive so that gives me the right to beat you up!"

Tartarin
Sorry I should have been more clear in my response. Was just commenting on the fact that there will be an increased negative reaction to the anti war movement. I did not intend to, which I am sure I must have, give the impression that I condone the action of the morning show host. There are radicals on both sides of the isle.

Whew, Au! During my next march, planned for Brooklyn, stopping all traffic (me alone -- I can do it!), I was hoping you wouldn't toss water bombs out your window!!

This, sadly, is not an April Fools joke:

A Web site that posts the photographs of more than a dozen Tucson anti-war protesters and denounces them as traitors is creating a stir among local peace activists, who say it makes them more committed to using their free speech.

Featuring pictures reportedly taken at protests Thursday and Friday, the site asks: "UNAMERICAN? TRAITORS? CONFUSED or just plain PATHETIC??? YOU DECIDE."

The site, http://traitorsoftucson.tripod.com, also contains potentially offensive images and language, such as the Statue of Liberty with a raised middle finger.

Peace activists are circulating an e-mail sent by a man who said he was going to attend two scheduled protests last week and take "close up digital photos of each individual protester which I plan on posting on a website I've built." The e-mail, sent to at least one local organization, also said the man bought a large ad in the Arizona Daily Star and planned to notify local businesses about his Web site.

"I hope I cause several of your traitors their jobs," the e-mail said.

****

The Web site has a "sort of a violent edge to it" and is filled with inaccuracies and mischaracterizations, she said.

Part of the anger directed at activists seemed based on the idea Iraq has some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - which she called "a product of disinformation or shoddy reporting by broadcast news."

Arizona Daily Star

You anti-demonstration types proud to be associated with this? Does it bother you at all that these tactics, used by anti-abortion wingnuts, led to the murder of Dr. Bernard Slepian?

I eagerly await your impassioned denunciations of this anti-American extremist.

We breed 'em and raise em' that way, PDiddie -- that's my greatest worry.

Alright. Enough, already. I denounce him and his tactics - without subscribing to the beliefs of the demonstrators, of couse.

PD - I am confident that you realize that I am only accountable for my own statements, positions and actions.

Oh, and I find it interesting that you seem to have a problem with this person exercising his right to free speech. Aren't you supposed to accept it and smile in the knowledge that his Web site is just one small square in this beautiful tapestry we call "freedom"? :wink:

Tartarin
Before you come please send me a picture. I wouldn't want to hit the wrong person.

Thanks, rog. Agreement and disagreement noted.

Hmmm...that's NOT a denunciation, tw.

Keeping to the topic, I find myself ( to my amazement) in agreement with Andy Rooney:

War [is] more interesting than peace. Any time death is imminent, life is exciting and we're watching this war as though it was a video game.

We're all asking each other what we think, too. Strangers ask me what I think as if I was smart because I'm on television. I have opinions - no information.

Experts talk about precision bombing but on the ground, where bombs hit, it is not precise. People are killed, history destroyed. We didn't shock them and we didn't awe them in Baghdad. The phrase makes us look like foolish braggarts. The president ought to fire whoever wrote that for him. Just an opinion.

We haven't caught bin Laden so we're transferring the blame for 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. There are soldiers who think that's why they're fighting. Hussein is a bad man who didn't have anything to do with 9/11. Just an opinion.

When I see President Bush with soldiers, I wish he had been one at war himself. He'd know more about where he was sending those soldiers. Just an opinion.

It bothers me that America is hated. I don't like to be hated personally - which happens - and I don't like my country to be hated - which has happened.

I have one opinion I don't like having. We have stores of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in this country. If we were losing this war, would we, as a last resort, use them? I'm afraid we might.

Hussein has chemical and biological weapons. If he is about to lose this war, will he use them? I'm afraid he might.

I wish my America had never gotten into this war, but now that we're in it, I want us to win it.

Andy Rooney's full opinion is here.

I didn't intend it to be. Why do you think I should denounce something with which I am completely uninvolved?

I might understand your request if I had anything to do with this man or his actions. I do not. Check the record here: I have supported free speech without exception or reservation. I do not consider those protesting to be traitors. (Misguided, perhaps, but not traitors.) So why exactly are you asking me anything about this? What exactly motivated you to single me out as someone you think needs to be made to denounce this????

And I am still interested to know why you think I should denounce this man's choice to use of his right to free speech to denounce the choices others have made as to how to use their rights to free speech.

Look at the avatar, Au. I'm the donkey, not the turkey.

tres

Please be more discerning. Two speech acts, quite different in nature are expressed.

1) speech act A - I disagree with the war

2) speech act B - People who commit 1) ought to be shot

Which one suppresses speech?